Chapter 2
A pair of blue eyes stared at the paper scattered across her desk in defeat. It looked like trying to finish them today would be pointless—not to mention downright impossible, considering she only had two hours until midnight. She let out a low sigh. There was just way too much to do, and not nearly enough time to do it all.
Her eyes trailed toward the window, lingering a moment longer than she intended to on the scenery below. Aprilius One… she thought to herself. Lately, she had been spending more time here than her own home in Junius Two. The Council was in session so frequently lately that she had to move into her mother's Aprilius One house instead of staying at the hotel as she usually done.
Her fingers drifted toward the thinner chain around her neck, feeling for the metallic loop at its end—her engagement ring. The marriage wasn't decided out of her own free will, but was planned for her when she was still an infant. Political marriages aren't supposed to be filled with love; she knew that well enough. Her parents were that way. They married each other out of obligation, and lived out separate and unhappy lives.
At that thought, she felt fortunate that she wasn't going to marry a complete stranger, but she actually carried feelings for the man who gave her the ring. He's stubborn, strong-willed, and maybe even crude at times, but without a doubt, a good person. But the real problem lied with the fact that she couldn't even remember the last time she had seen him. Was it five or six months ago? In any case, it couldn't be helped. He's in the military after all.
She shook her head to clear away her thoughts.
It didn't look like she was going to get any more work done tonight. There was no point in staying in her office any longer than she already had.
She quickly dialed the number of her bodyguards, who were waiting patiently for her outside. "Yes, Hiro, I'm ready to go home now. Can you bring the car out to the front?"
"About that, Miss. There's someone out here to see you," the deep voice said uneasily.
The light blue haired girl was alarmed. Who would visit her two hours before midnight? In fact, who knew she was still even here? Attempted assassinations of Council Members were common, especially during the current state the world was in.
"That's fine, why don't you bring our guest to the waiting room. I'll be there as soon as I can." If someone bothered to visit her this late at night, that person must have urgent business with her. Knowing that, she still couldn't be careless. She didn't want to risk being shot to death in her own office. She quickly unlocked the top drawer of her desk and took out a silver handgun. She hid it behind her jacket just in case her late night guest was a hired killer. After all, it didn't hurt to be extra careful.
She organized her papers into a rough pile and left them on her desk, before leaving the room. She met two of her bodyguards outside her office door. "Ms.Leitner, he's in the waiting room as you have instructed." He told her in a hushed voice.
"Do you know him?" she carefully questioned. If they didn't lunge at him the first chance they got, that meant he wasn't particularly suspicious or outwardly dangerous.
"I didn't recognize his face, but I recognized his name. Do you want to know it?"
She sighed. Words alone meant nothing. Anybody could have barged into her office and called himself a name of someone she knew. "No, that's fine. I'll find out in a few seconds."
She quickly opened the wooden door, and made her way inside. "I'm sorry to have made you wait this long–" she froze in her tracks, as the unmistakable silver hair and sharp blue eyes caught her attention. Her heart skipped a beat. "Yzak—"
"Emera," he said politely.
She opened her mouth, and then closed it without making a sound. She was speechless. How could he just show up in the dead of the night, out of the blue?
"You guys can go. I'll take her home tonight." he told her bodyguards, who stood behind her in the dim room, safeguarding her as if she was a fragile flower. Yzak smirked at the thought of that. Their "flower" could probably beat them up with her hands tied up behind her back.
When they opened their mouths to protest, the silver haired man told them in irritation, "I'm the captain of Voltaire, Yzak Youle. If I survived two wars against the Earth Alliance, I can protect your Representative."
However they refused to budge. "You're an elite figure in the ZAFT military, Mr.Joule. However despite the truth in your words, we're only allowed to follow the orders of—"
The light blue haired girl raised her hand to silence him. "It's fine. You guys can leave us."
Her three bodyguards turned to each other in suspicion. Hiro, the head of her defense squad, nodded at the other two. They left the room without saying another word. They had long known the arrangement between the Joule and the Leitner family. However, they never met the infamous Yzak Joule until tonight. Neither did they really understand the nature of their relationship. Was it just another one of those political marriages with no feelings behind them? Or was it something more than that?
As soon as the door was firmly closed behind them, the girl lunged herself at the man in front of her. "What are you doing here? When did you get off the ship?" She had millions of questions to ask him, but for now, she was willing to settle for those two.
"Just today. I had to go through so much trouble to get out of Martius Five. My idiot of a superior was called into Aprilius One, so I was stuck with a numbskull replacement. He was too terrified to dismiss my ship, so I had to go through the trouble of calling my mother—"
"Wait…" A small grin formed on her lips. "Did you say you called your mother to get off your ship?" She turned to examine at his face, as a small blush crept up his cheeks.
"It's not like I had a choice! If I didn't do something about it, I probably would've been stuck there until the Council was dismissed. But by then I would be sent out on another mission." He said stubbornly, pulling her back into a hug. She melted against his touch. This felt strangely peaceful, as if it erased the chaotic months that they've had to endure apart. Their responsibilities quickly became a second priority to them.
She lowered her head to rest her cheek against his shoulder. "How long are you staying this time?" she asked hesitantly—her voice coarse. Just how many more days did she have with him before he's ordered back into the battlefield? And then what? Wait another 6 months to see him again?
"I don't know." He answered truthfully. "I'll probably be here as long as the Council's still in session. But it'll only be a matter of time once it's over."
"So basically what you're saying is, you're going to be in town as long as I'm in my conference…" she said grimly, tightening her grip on his shirt.
He sighed. Life was full of irony, wasn't it? "I know what you're going to say next. I can't leave ZAFT, you know that. With these current attacks, they need me—"
"I know, I know." She told him gently. They've had this conversation plenty of times before, but its outcome was always the same. The man in front of her simply refused to budge. "I don't want to have another argument with you. When you're out there, I worry about you."
"I would be worried if you didn't." He said haughtily. It wasn't as if he was being arrogant, but the way he talked always had that air to it—that sense of superiority. No one else could achieve that effect. "By the way, is hiding a gun under your shirt really necessary? You weren't actually planning on shooting me with it, were you?"
She smiled sheepishly, as she quickly removed the gun from her belt. "I had no idea who it was this late at night. So I thought I might as well be careful"
"If you're going to carry a gun with you, what's the point in having those goofballs you call bodyguards?" he asked curiously. "You can probably beat up all of them without much of a problem."
She cracked a smile. "Maybe so, but mother says it doesn't look nice for a Representative to walk around without them."
"Even if they are completely useless and can't defend a thing to save their life." the silver haired teen added.
"They are good people. They try their best to look after me…even though I don't really need it."
"It's not a bad idea to have bodyguards. You just need to be more careful in who you choose. The whole idea is completely pointless if you have someone that can't even do anything for you. Instead of having your swarm of them, you really just need a dependable one, like Kira for Lacus-san."
She raised a brow in question. "Everybody knows Kira and Lacus-san are an item. How else are you going to get the famous pilot of the Freedom as your bodyguard?"
Yzak narrowed his eyes as a sudden thought stuck him. "It's not like I have anything better to do in the next couple of days anyways." He started awkwardly, completely failing to suggest it in the casual manner that he intended on doing. "Until I have to get back to the base, I'll be your bodyguard."
Her jaw fell open in surprise. She definitely didn't expect him to say that. Yzak Joule, of all people, was actually willing to settle on being her bodyguard. Even if it was only for a few days, for him to agree on such a lowly job was surprising, considering how haughty the man was.
A small blush stained her cheeks. "Are you sure you don't mind doing a job like that? Your mother and your acquaintances are on the council with me. I don't think it's possible to avoid being seen by them."
"Do you honestly think I give a damn about what they think?" He said seriously, his voice filled with irritation.
"No, I guess not. But I just thought that—"
"Stop worrying about it already! If I was the one to suggest it in the first place, you have no right to fret over it! All you need to do is accept my offer, and that's the end of that." He told her impatiently. If he didn't want to do it in the first place, he wouldn't have offered. She was being a worry-wart.
"If that's the case, I'll gladly accept your offer, Yzak." She said in gratitude. "This way I get to spend a lot more time with you, since you'll be with me during the council meetings. Although… ideally going to the park or beach would be better… but knowing how busy the two of us are, I guess we don't really have much of a choice."
"This is the negative aspect of having the influence we do over PLANT." He said solemnly. "Our lives don't seem like our own anymore. It feels like we're living it for someone else."
She flashed him a weak smile. She knew the feeling all too well. Whatever they did in the waking moments of their lives were for the welfare of PLANT and its citizens. Their own personal lives were forced to be put on the backburner. For instance, their marriage, which was arranged 14 years ago, progressed no more than it did on that day. What was the point in getting married if the two of them spent less than three months home all together?
"No matter how I look at it, it seems like we've sold our souls to the devil by joining ZAFT and the Supreme Council." She said humorlessly. "Yet despite everything we've sacrificed, nothing seems to have changed. Wars and conflicts still occur. People still die."
"There's no point in thinking 'I should have' or 'if only I could have'. All we can do is try our best, that's all there is to it." After watching countless of faceless soldiers die on the battlefield, his way of thing gradually changed. He could only do what he can. Agonizing over his loses, and wishing for more power would only bring additional problems to his life. Sometimes it's better to accept things for what they are, and settle for what he could get.
"Sometimes I'm afraid our lives will end up like my parents'." Her gaze unconsciously drifted toward the window. The city was still brightly illuminated by the countless lights scattered throughout the vicinity. "My parents rarely saw each other when my father was still alive. He was always away in the battlefield, and my mother was always busy with her council duties. The job of raising my brother and I fell onto the shoulders of nannies and distant relatives. When the two of us get married—no," she quickly corrected herself. "What I mean is I don't want us to be married until our lives are our own again. Living for the sake of PLANT might seem glorious, but it's an empty existence. I want to live for us, Yzak, not the world."
His sharp blue eyes widened in surprise. He never knew she felt that strongly toward the subject. Actually, he never knew she thought about their future marriage at all.
"After the conflicts are resolved, I'll retire from the council, and take on a normal job. I know I can't make you quit ZAFT, but I want you to at least think about it. Spending a week with you every three months is not the way I want our marriage to work."
His mouth felt dry. Throughout his entire early adulthood and late adolescence, he had been Yzak of ZAFT. If he wasn't a soldier, who would he be? He didn't know, and he certainly didn't want to think about it. The life of the average didn't appeal to him. Yet being in the military wasn't a long term solution either. "I'll think about what you said, but that's all I can promise you at the moment." He didn't know what else to say. He wasn't about to make a promise to her than he couldn't keep. He was going to be honest with her if it was the last thing he did.
Noticing the slight frown imprinted on his face, she quickly changed the subject.
"Yzak, have you had dinner yet?" she asked him suddenly.
"What?" He gave her a look that suggested that she was out of her mind. If she wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction, she could have done a better job. Saying that out of nowhere was stupid—especially coming from a politician. "It's almost 11 at night. Of course I've had dinner! You mean…" Realization suddenly dawned on him, "you… haven't?"
She flashed him a sheepish smile. "I've been in my office doing paperwork all afternoon. I haven't really eaten anything since breakfast."
"You are so irresponsible!" He told her in irritation, gently pushing her toward the direction of the door. "You should have asked your secretary to order you dinner hours ago."
"I wasn't really hungry before." She shrugged, "Although, I started to realize that after she left… but by then it was too late, and I was too lazy to order something myself."
"Come on; let's find you a restaurant that's still open." He turned off the light, and closed the door behind him. "Geeze, couldn't you have said something about earlier?"
"What did you want me to say? 'Yzak! I haven't seen you in so long! Now, let's get out of here and have dinner. I'm starving'?"
"You idiot." He hit her in the back of her head. "This is serious. You know your body is below the level of a normal coordinator. If you don't take care of yourself, your heart condition is going to get worse."
"My heart is fine." She quickly reassured him, "As long as I take my medication, I won't have my attacks."
"Just because you don't have your attacks doesn't mean you're fine."
"That's funny. I remember making you my bodyguard, but I don't remember making you my mother." The blue haired girl teased as she ran ahead and dodged out of the room. The ex-pilot of duel followed, throwing threats and insults in her way.