Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.
Chapter 2
"You've been avoiding me, haven't you?"
"Who said that?" She mumbled. She looked around wildly, regretting how she'd chosen to come to this side of the harbor and dismissed her bodyguards during the meeting break. Why was he here now? How had he come here? Hadn't he already left?
His eyes were trained on her, and she felt discomfort at his proximity. It seemed strange that he wore the same uniform that she was wearing; but then he must have blended in with the other officials this way. She felt panic at seeing him this way—how he seemed to belong here. She had never meant for him to come back here. He should have never come back.
"I don't need to explain the certain. There was an official override of my application of a citizenship in Orb. But you couldn't deny my qualifications in the military, could you? I came anyway."
"No—, it's not that, I—," All the same, she backed away, like a beaten dog.
"You didn't know that I was amongst the military officers here today, did you? And then there was a confidential move to transfer the Admiral Zala to a foreign camp. But it went up in smoke because the camp returned back to the capital. " His voice was harsh. "All these moves— yours?"
"I- no." And foolishly, she added, "I don't have an obligation to say anything."
He looked at her without any hint of emotion showing, although the air was already fraught with raw desire and impatience. "You're not a child anymore, Cagalli."
She chose not to look at him but mumbled, "I've never been one."
A pause—
"I came back to find you." His voice was even and revealed nothing. He held out something to her that glinted in its circular cast.
Scornfully, she flicked her eyes upward so that they would meet his. Inwardly, she was partially afraid of the emerald depths. "I won't fall for that. You aren't supposed to be here; not in this office, and not Orb either. You should be moving back to the Plants. You belong there, with your old money and status and all that inheritance of social standing. In Orb, you'd suffer with the mishmash of Coordinators and Naturals."
He took a stride forward, and she stumbled backward. In the next instant, his hands were palm-pressed against the wall, his arms forming an enclosure around her so she could not move. Her breathing was ragged. And yet, she found nothing in his face she could read. Why?
"Don't do this," He said softly, "I want you with me."
He might as well have slapped her. She looked at him with biting hatred and immeasurable fear in her face. There was little but a mute shriek of pain stabbing in her eyes.
"It's been over since the day I betrayed you, remember?" Cagalli said angrily, "I apologized and you forgave me, so it's over. Even."
"I won't unless you take this."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Cagalli exploded. "There's no headway with threatening me like that, not when you maintained some sort of harem while I got engaged. Don't you get it? We were both unfaithful, so there's no point denying it!"
His expression darkened. "I don't care who you almost got married to, it was nothing but political will of those before us. And those other things are untrue—you know it as well as I do."
"Whatever the case," She said abruptly, knowing fully well that what he had said was true. "I don't have to watch while history repeats itself and we leave each other with a little less happiness than we had before. You understand, don't you?"
She watched as his lips thinned in a frown.
"Is that why you refused to grant an audience with me even when I came back to Orb?" His anger was undeniable. "Was my decision to hide my presence here today the only reason why you showed up?"
"None of your business." She said automatically. "Stay away."
It was then that she saw something changing in his face. Desperation, anger, pain, pride, lust, misery, desire and hopelessness. The emerald of his eyes was nearly black.
"Why are you looking at me like th-,"
She gasped as her air was stolen.
He had dipped his head down forcefully and seized her mouth. He had taken the breath of air that she'd only just had, kissing her and exploring expertly and reminding her who he was and who he had been to her.. He hadn't kissed her like that before—not even when he'd once put a ring on her and asked her to wait for him. It frightened her—this kiss. She knew what he was doing. He was daring her to respond to his ravenous hunt, but she fought free from him, throwing off the headiness of her own desire and the possessiveness of his kiss to push him away.
She knew what he was doing. He was daring her to respond to his ravenous hunt, but she fought free from him, throwing off the headiness of her own desire and the possessiveness of his kiss to push him away
"I don't want you near me ever again." She panted. She took a step back. "Get lost."
He stood, frozen. But then a strange anger entered his face, and his eyes mocked her.
Deep inside, she was mocking herself. She had received his kiss— panted into it, in fact. She would never admit it, but they both knew. And now she regretted having shown her own desires.
"Go." Cagalli said bitterly. "I'll ask you for the last time to disappear from here. Don't ever come back to Orb."
He looked at her, his mask in place once more, and his eyes emptied of anything humane. "Goodbye."
She turned away, her fist clapped over her mouth, rain streaming from her eyes. This ways, he would not see or hear her cry, and she would not see his back as he turned and walked away, the white and navy of the Orb uniform regal on his silhouette.
It rained very heavily that day, and the event had to be held indoors. She excused herself an hour after that, unable to go on with anything. The perfume of dew had sweetened and humidified the air, but when the day was over, she returned home, drew a hot bath, and remained there for quite some time.
The colors were switching and the scene was evaporating. There were violets everywhere in the room and Lacus was holding a bouquet of them. They resembled someone's eyes with the intense aubergine shades and their dewy textures.
The flowers were sewn in bouquets and their scents were flirtatious and coy. The bride looked like a swan of a woman, which was accurate for more than her appearance— Plant's princess was a radiant draft of sunlight in the cellar of the war-stricken lands.
Cagalli looked at her friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law's reflection from where they were standing in front of the mirror. Lacus was murmuring compliments under her breath, and her voice was like a ceaseless song. The order was never fixed or determined from the beginning and the only certainty to a listener's ear was that there couldn't possibly be an end.
Today was a sacred day.
However, irritation was marring Cagalli's beautiful features, features she did not quite know the power of when it came to men. Her hands were tight on a stool that they had placed in front of her.
"Why a corset?" She exclaimed in frustration.
Lacus giggled. "I thought you might enjoy it."
"Enjoy the absence of breathing air? Enjoy the pain-inducing pulling? You sadist, Lacus."
Her friend straightened her veil. "All the same, I'm glad that you're at my wedding. Kira was overjoyed to meet you here in Plant. I promise we'll all go out and catch up properly once this is all over."
Cagalli chuckled. "We have been keeping in contact, haven't we Lacus? I understand that you think the phone isn't good enough, but I do read the newspapers and catch sight of my brother and his fiancée enough for me to know what's going on."
Lacus looked bashful. "Sorry. Somebody leaked the information to the press before I could tell you the good news."
Shrugging, Cagalli turned back to the mirror. "I came, didn't I?"
"Yes," Lacus said pensively, "But Athrun—,"
Cagalli looked away from her reflection, afraid to see anything in her face. "Don't. Don't talk about him. He isn't around anymore."
He had been as good as his word— he had disappeared so rapidly and so effectively that the last of him that anyone had seen was that Athrun Zala had been at the shuttle grounds with a simple suitcase. That was all.
It had been three years since then, and nobody had seen anything of him. Speculations had been raging for the first year when he had vanished. Some conspiracy-theorists said that Yzak Joule, Mirallia Haww, Dearka Elseman, Shinn Asuka and of course, Kira Yamato, had hidden him somewhere and bought him a new identity. But who and exactly why?
Yzak Joule had not issued an official statement about the great war hero, Athrun Zala's disappearance. He was the Generalissimo of Zaft by then, and no reporter dared to hound him or his fiancée; not after the incident where he had personally issued the removal of a certain someone who had certainly offended him.
Mirallia Haww was the least suspected of all Athrun Zala'a companions. She was a nomad, touring everywhere with a camera and issuing groundbreaking footage of the aftermath of war to the masses everywhere. She would not have hidden him successfully.
Dearka Elseman was in the same position. He was always abroad and drifting here and there with no fixed location that he returned to.
Shinn Asuka was lying low. There were dozens who wanted his throat slit. He would have given his blood gladly, only that he knew his redemption was to live with the scars that he carried in his heart. He'd caused the same kind of scars to others.
Meyrin Hawke was working as one of Plant's key secretariats, and it was unlikely that Athrun Zala would have returned to Plant anyway.
Kira Yamato was the biggest suspect. But he simply had not hidden Athrun Zala. The newspapers had sworn it was him, but Cagalli knew better.
Nobody could pinpoint why. And that rendered all the conspiracies as good as useless.
Some said that he had been assassinated, some wondered if he had grown bored with the attention he received from being a war hero and his aristocratic background in the Plants. Of course, by the second year, the media had grown bored and just written him off as being dead but undiscovered. Cagalli had given up reading the newspapers.
A few months after he had left, she had become desperate, trying every human and possible means to reach him, mind you, not find him, but at minimum, reach him. Kisaka never knew— Cagalli could be cunning when she wanted to be. Aaron had been the closest to realizing what had happened, but he hadn't quite known the past that Athrun Zala had shared with his employer, and so he had no reason to really suspect anything.
But there hadn't been a way to find him even then. Athrun Zala had simply vanished into thin air. And sometimes, she thought it was better that way. If both of them had existed at the same time and in the same place, they would have met again and the events would have spun out of her control.
Cagalli was adamant about avoiding at least that much. Sometimes, she wondered if he was dead or alive and she would be filled with guilt. But in the second year after that incident, she had realized that he had already died where she was concerned. She had been too proud to say how much she needed him, and he had left. Wasn't that the same as killing his presence from her life?
All that she had were memories, and memories faded anyway. Sometimes, it was difficult for her to remember what he had been like, and whether he'd ever really lost his temper with her when he'd once lived in her house as a bodyguard. It was difficult for her to remember or identify what her feelings towards him had once been.
She was not seeing anybody, however. Kisaka had suggested it and she had shot down suggestion after suggestion. But for his sake, and for the peaceful smile that blossomed when she finally agreed, Cagalli obliged time and again.
Thereby began the social debutante role Cagalli was made to play.
She had seen the entire spectrum— descendants of royal blood, young captains, politicians with insidiously skilled words that fell flat on her disinterested ears, and the general humdrum of the male specimen. They were far from ordinary. However, Cagalli was simply not interested in anything more than their political power where Orb was concerned. Some of them engaged in deep discussions with her and ended up becoming rooted as friends and political allies. Some of them tried to extend the relationship to waters deeper than the river of platonic friendship, and most of them left in a fit of deep frustration at how far she was from their grasp.
There had been a hushed up scandal whereby a top-notch politician from some hushed-up country had visited, gotten drunk, and tried to kiss her. She had responded with a tight slap across his face, and the media had gotten a picture of her hand flying right at his cheek and shots of her outrage. Apparently, they had wanted to insinuate that she was 'of the other sort'. She wouldn't have minded actually— perhaps the clause in the book would have to go unfulfilled, the clause Aaron threatened her with. Funnily enough, he was so protective of her when other men threatened her with the same clause.
"The last and immediate member of the last Royal House of Orb will do good to be betrothed and wed once the being in authority by the twenty-seventh year of birth. The House of Commons and specifically, the Council of Elders, will be the judge of suitability and compatibility for a harmonious union to be formed. Should the being in authority not follow this clause, the House of Commons and the Council of Elders will dictate the choice. Should the being in authority refuse to display obedience, the being in authority will then abdicate in favour of the next leading Emir of the next leading House."
There was sense to this clause, actually. It ensured that no royal family would monopolize the power in Orb. By being forced to marry, the power would eventually be dispersed to the next generation. No single being would hold all the power in Orb for eternity.
Aaron could recite this backwards, and by extension, so could she. For that matter, so could the entire spectrum of suitors. Cagalli didn't bother recognizing them- they were just faces in the crowd. The last that had tried to use this to threaten her had revived a swift kick in the nether regions. He had left sobbing, and so had she.
First with laughter, and then-,
And then the sobs, in the private of her chambers, had become more than gleeful peals of laughter at the revenge she had served. Those were sobs that wrenched themselves out of her as grief poured down her cheeks and her voice filled itself and consumed its sensibility with regret and misery. But time healed everything.
Cagalli didn't mind the Prime Minister of Britannia, James Marlin, she quite liked him in fact; he was strikingly good-looking, vaguely suave and about seven years older at twenty-eight. Factually, Marlin was a brilliant, driven man. His dark hair, almost black but not quite deviant from brown was a tribute to his Irish descent, and he had deep emerald eyes, eyes that pierced anybody who looked into them for too long.
"Why don't we get married?" He suggested causally after about three month's worth of meetings. She called them 'meetings' he called them 'rendezvous', although he wasn't stupid enough to tell the newspapers that. He had her trust completely, and with good reason.
She choked on her coffee and promptly burst out laughing. "Happy April's Fool, right?"
"No," He insisted, "I'm besotted by you. I don't know what you've done to my tea; you're neither tall nor dark like those I go for. Worse, you are fueled by coffee, but good Lord, I'm going to get you."
"Yeah." She grinned. "And I'm a fan of the Blue Cosmos."
"Hear me seriously!"
She sobered a bit. "It's only been about three months you know."
"It's enough."
"You're not exactly poor, and Britannia's secure by itself without Orb. No gain there."
"Precisely! I don't want Orb's power or money, I want you."
She shook her head, in less turmoil than she imagined she would have been in. "Hopeless. We'd hate each other within months of marriage. I'm too immature, and you're in the prime of your life. There's hardly common ground there."
He exhaled with frustration. "But we've been through everything a normal couple can go through!"
"Hey!" She exclaimed sharply, "All we did was attempt some badly-executed kissing!"
"Not my fault. Those demonic gardeners keep butting in. And the other time was a fiasco, the butler just had to pop in to see how we were doing. But anyway," He added hurriedly, "I meant going through the wars and building the countries from there and all that!"
He clarified this with impatience and a plea he had never heard before, at least, not in his own voice. Cagalli, in a military jacket and uniform, looked beautiful today. There wasn't any difference in her appearance, not to the effect when she accompanied him to balls in gowns that made his head spin and his imagination go wild, but there was a sort of simple pleasure he derived from being with her.
Then Marlin looked slightly bashful which was a rare sight to see for the articulate, determined leader, "I'm a good old Catholic altar-boy, somewhere under the amassed sin and grime of this life. I'm pretty sure you'd hate me for even thinking this, since I'm a-, "He shrugged, "Healthy man, but I want someone of my own."
There was a terrible, awkward clap of silence.
"You wouldn't know," She said hastily, "And besides, we aren't suited to be married. You'll find some other girl, get hitched, and live happily ever after as long as there isn't too much inflation in the long run and the Britannians don't want your head off your shoulders."
He laughed soberly. "You really think so? That we aren't suited? I'm not very much older than you, you know. Seven years is hardly close to a decade when it's less than seventy-five percent of it."
"Oh, Marlin," She sighed, "I'd always love you to be like this."
A pity, he thought, that she had ended the words with an additional four words. She got up gracefully and he watched with some dullness, as the first woman he'd ever loved, if she qualified as a woman in spite of twenty-one years of living, came by his side and for once, boldly brought her face to his, her hands warm against his cheeks. "Goodbye, Marlin. Call me in the morning."
"I won't commit suicide, you know," He said wryly, kissing her on her soft, ready mouth with a sincerity he never dreamed he was capable of. "Although your rejection is going to make me a roaring drunkard for a while."
She laughed a bright, happy sound and embraced him. She was warm and inviting in his arms but she was not his. She was her own person and her whole person belonged to Orb.
He never called in the morning, but they continued to see each other over the years- at meetings.
The newspapers never picked up on anything serious, but then, Cagalli never deemed anything serious in the first place. Those were favours to Kisaka, and when he retired, she stopped. The newspapers pounded on it like hounds for a hunt, and the scent of her going anywhere attracted cameras and mad reporters hungry for a story.
Aaron had been disgusted and had promptly stormed on the warpath. 'Rigid and Frigid', the original tabloids had wanted to publish. But of course, Aaron quietly brought up their mortgages and they ceased to exist. A small amount of censure was necessary in every place. Too many men were claiming that Cagalli Yula Atha favoured them when she had not even allowed them near with a ten foot pole in her hand. And the deceit unsettled Aaron, who was extremely protective of her. Cagalli, however, did not bother. They were formless colors in a mesh of a palette her world was made up of. The clause would be put to the back of her mind until it was time.
And now this. What had happened?
There was the rain, the blood, and Athrun's voice, telling her to stay still and to hold onto him. The sound of the sea roaring in her ears, the sound of an engine and something else, and someone brushing the ragged, wet hair off her face and stroking her cheek with feather light finger tips. Someone was whispering comforting things; things that she didn't understand in her pain, but comforting things nonetheless.
Her eyes flew open, but thankfully, the room was so dim that no light could blind her eyes more than the pain rippling through her body, particularly her chest.
She cursed and began to cough, making terrible wheezing sounds that echoed in the room.
'Shit, Aaron,' She thought dumbly, wincing until she actually saw white lights even when her eyes were closed, "It hurts."
The flowers next to her were daffodils, flowers of a spring that she had only just witnessed in Sweden.
Someone at the door said emotionlessly. "I told them that you were allergic to those and yet in an hour—,"
Her eyes widened, and she sat up clumsily, momentarily forgetting the pain that had exploded upon her conscious self, and stared at him.
Athrun Zala was standing at the doorway, looking straight at her.
His mouth pursed in that strangely attractive manner that she had always been fascinated with. "Don't sit up. Lie back down so you don't do yourself a disfavor."
She was too stunned to use a few choice words.
His eyebrows lifted in fine arches over his forehead. "What's the matter? It's not like you've never seen me before, have you?"
"No," Cagalli spluttered pathetically, "But you— the yacht, that—,"
He smiled lazily and strode in. With a few deft movements, Athrun plucked the yellow and saffron flowers from their vase, and in the next minute, had throw them into a bin somewhere and shoved it out of the door. His hands were gloved, she noticed. The room was large, and the fan hung over her head like a white, giant four-leaf clover, spinning lazily, providing a little breeze, but not enough for her to catch a cold.
Unsettled, Cagalli glanced at herself and laid a trembling hand near her chest. Underneath the thin, pale cotton of the shirt, there were tight bandages and a throb near her collarbone. What had happened?
He was moving with his natural grace, but there was an urgency she could somehow sense as he began pulling a chair next to her bed and forcing her to lie back on the pillows he deftly arranged. And he looked at her, his face impassive, but there was concern etched in his features and he was gentle as he adjusted her body for the best support.
An unbearable silence passed, where he stared at her, not saying anything. But his eyes were questioning her, while she focused on the area between his nose and mouth, unwilling to look into his eyes.
Yet her eyes could not focus on one spot, they were checking his features everywhere, seeing if this was another extension of a dream or a reality that wasn't quite real either.
"What happened?" Cagalli said finally, her voice delirious, "What's going on?"
He looked frustrated for a split-second, but then a moment later, his face was cold and his intonation free of emotion. "You lost control and attempted to fire into the sky. Of course you didn't trust me when I told you that the gun wasn't loaded correctly. And you ended up shooting yourself in the collarbone. The fortunate thing was that you were wearing this."
He pointed lightly to the table side, where the sneeze-inducing flowers had been beautifully arranged in a blue porcelain stand only minutes ago. Next to it were fragments of the pigeon egg sapphire. They looked like little pieces of a frozen sea, chipped and cold, so delicate they would have cut her fingers if she had gathered them in her palms like the shards of broken glass.
She cried out in dismay, and Athrun looked slightly surprised at her cry. But then, his face lost even the traces of how startled he was, and he became an impenetrable fortress where emotion was lost in translation.
She of course, had no way to hide her exasperation.
"I am going to be in such a quagmire when I get back," She moaned distractedly, gripping her hair, "They made me wear this and I've ruined the damn thing. How the heck am I going to show them shards instead of the original Rupertian piece? My entire salary would need three months to cover this comfortably— damn it!"
He looked at her soberly; his expression neutral, but his mouth curved a little, just a little. "But it saved your life, or at very least, from further injury. You are accident-prone, I think."
Cagalli considered his words, strangely prioritizing the present over the past, even when she had so much questions and information she wanted to demand from him in an explanation.
Was she accident prone? She had hurt herself on the island that they'd been stranded on ten years ago. When he had piloted them both to safety in the Zaku of Armory One, she had hit her head on the ceiling on the weapon. Perhaps he was right.
"I would have noticed it normally," She said weakly, trying to justify her lack of trust in him, "But I was afraid that you would do something funny in the time that I was checking."
He looked at her in a manner that made her think she was being looked through, and not being looked at.
"I would have," He told her intently, "Catching you off guard is difficult."
Ire rose in Cagalli, and it was all she could do to resist pushing herself further away from the man sitting next to the bed that she lay on. "Stop playing mind games with me, Athrun!"
"Calling me by name now, are we?" He said wryly, "But here, my name is Rune Estragon."
"Rune Estragon," She tested it on her lips, afraid of the unknown, "I don't feel familiar with it."
He smiled thinly, a rather cruel smile, she noticed, something that was not unsuited for him, but something rather uncharacteristic. Puzzled, she looked at him, considering how little he had changed physically in terms of his pale skin, midnight hair and deep emerald eyes. It was almost as if she had seen him just yesterday, almost as if the past had never gone anywhere and he was still hurting her as badly as he could. His voice was still politely clipped as she could recall it being with strangers and his face revealed very little. How much had Athrun Zala changed, really?
"It's not familiar." She murmured, strangely upset.
"Naturally," Athrun murmured subtly, a pale hand straying across her legs to pull the blanket higher to keep her warm, "I only just told you that I don't go by the old name anymore."
She was stunned at both his words and the action he had just displayed, possibly because of the gentleness she had missed for so long, "Will you explain this to me?"
He looked at her and something broke in him, although he did not show it outwardly. Time had passed, and there were so many things that had changed. Had she? Probably not.
Her face was innocent still, her golden eyes wide and sable, and her lips were full and pink from her biting. Her hands were pulling anxiously at the edges of the blanket, and her gold hair tousled and tempting. He would have liked to run his hands through that mass of gold and bring her face to his, but then he shook the thoughts away and focused on the present.
In the hours when she had been unconscious, he had sat alone, angry and irritable. Nobody had been foolish enough to disturb him, although they assumed that it was for reasons outside his personal ones. The doctors had been ordered to keep her alive, and the foolishness of his order had stemmed mostly from helplessness and his own pain. Nobody had the power to keep anyone alive. Besides, she simply would not have died and would recuperate in a month at most, because she was still young and strong.
The bullet had missed her heart narrowly, because of the sheltered impact that the hard sapphire had provided, and also because her heart was located more towards the left than an average person. The inches had saved her.
She probably didn't know how close he had been to losing her just like that, for she lay there, waiting for him to speak, so innocent and unfamiliar with what he would tell her. He stared hard at her, and she gazed back, not very trustingly, but unflinchingly this time. There was too much that she was aching to know.
"Do you know where you are?" Athrun said eventually.
She peered around, taking account of her surroundings properly for the first time since she had awoken. "Um— the general hospital?"
"Looks like it," Athrun said offhandedly but with a touch of acridity, "And you should assume so for now."
"Assume?" Her eyes widened, and Cagalli gaped. "Where is this place, exactly?"
He smiled genuinely, taking note of her surprise. Had Cagalli really assumed his death, like the rest of the world had?
"This," Athrun said quietly, "This is the Isle."
He had said it simply, but there was a certain kind of magnificence in the title, and a degree of mysticism to it that she could not help but sense as she repeated the words under her breath. "The Isle."
The Isle. Almost like a secret, its name, she thought distractedly. He hadn't said it in an atypical manner, but it had achieved the same effect as him bringing her face near his for her to feel flush and heated, and then having him tickle her earlobe with its whispered name. Premonition rose in her, as well as the warning bells in her head. There was something strange about the secrecy, and the unfamiliarity of this made her feel unnerved.
"I will show you around once you are well enough to move outside," He said, with the air of someone who was used to getting his way and expected the same from her. So he had understood what she had wanted to say once she parted her lips. "But for now, I want you to rest."
She frowned. "Don't give me that. I'm twenty-five. I'm not a child anymore."
The familiarity of the words struck at them, and pale-faced she turned away.
In contrast, Athrun showed nothing except impassivity, although there was an obvious strain of something simmering under that paper mask with two tunnels in it for eyes. Those eyes were endless tunnels that looked at you and calculated your worth and never revealed their owner's worth. At that point, she was forcefully reminded of the daffodils, fresh but discarded, waiting for someone to take them away in with the waste, all the unused vitality.
Was he like that now and had she done that to him?
"In any case," Cagalli said hastily, "Tell me everything."
"I'm afraid not," Athrun responded, maddeningly calm, "Information is power here. I will hold everything unless I choose to give it up. You'll remain here until it is time."
The reaction was immediate.
"Bastard," She spat, her voice very cutting, "That's going against my rights!"
He had no right, she fumed, no right to take her back to wherever this was and make her stay as a captive of sorts here. What would those back in Orb be thinking now? What would Kira or Lacus think of her disappearance? Surely a day of being missing when she had been last sighted on that ship would be enough for Orb to declare a souring of relations with Sweden?
Cagalli was so busy with her thoughts that she hardly noticed Athrun's stony face and the hint of bitterness in his features.
But he pulled her face roughly to his, the palms pressing into her cheeks so that she stared right up into his face. Their breathing was badly constructed, like pieces of rags sewn back together with little depth or a suitable depiction, and she could sense the fury behind the mask he wore.
"Rights?" He breathed, eyes like slits in his face. "There aren't such things to speak of here. You'll learn this in time. And I will teach you."
She found that she was hypnotized, lulled and yet shaken by his eyes. Their color was darkened and soft, and she found something glistening in her own eyes but refused to cry. He had never been someone to be afraid of in a threatening sense, but things had changed. He was capable of killing her if he wanted to. She could sense that instinctively.
He gripped her, and she looked away angrily, focusing on the base of the wall a few meters away, half-closing her eyes, trying to force the tears from overflowing from the unknown grief that was piercing her and the dull throb of her temples.
He bent nearer, slowly, and fluidly, and before his lips touched hers, he suddenly released his hold, as if he had lost all desire to even be near her.
Her eyes opened wide, and the tears came, although she turned around so he would not see.
That was the second familiar aspect of the day. She had turned so she would not see him leave and so that he would not see her cry.
The next few days were traumatic in her prolonged experience of boredom. She lay in bed, unable to move because the instructions were clear and almost orders: She was not allowed out of bed. She slipped into hazy sleep for most of the time, tired by the medication and weak from her experience.
But she got to recognize some people during this time. There was a nurse who came to help her with her dressings each day, and there was a main doctor who was in his early-thirties, bright-eyed, bushy tailed, and incessantly cheerful.
She made friends with them quickly, but somehow expected that Miles Summon and June Requiem were merely aliases like Athrun Zala's new name. There was something sinister here. But for now, she enjoyed the little company that they could afford with their time. June was attractive, and most probably in her early thirties like Miles as well. She had dark hair of a vital raven shade, and had a heart-shaped face with the sort of prim mouth that looked like it was withholding many secrets. Cagalli suspected that this was so.
Often, June would hurry in, interrupting an ongoing conversation about little things that Miles like to converse with Cagalli about. And she would press files into his hands, her eyes worried and tired. And he would immediately smile apologetically at Cagalli and rush off, leaving her to wave and then drift into a new dimension of ennui.
From this, however, she gathered that if they were all so busy, there had to be other patients in this hospital. And that was natural for only a sizable population of people. So the Isle was home to others other than Athrun, no, Rune Estragon, June Requiem, and Miles Summon. But how many others? And what was the Isle in the first place?
There wasn't even a window in the room.
Undoubtedly, this room was clearly but not overtly and significantly bigger than her bedroom, with handsome mahogany wardrobes that contained things she did not care for. The vases never contained daffodils again, to which she had developed a slight intolerance for its pollen long ago; instead, it contained fragrant tea-roses in shades of yellow rimmed with delicate pink.
Three weeks passed, and she never saw Athrun again. Sometimes, she dreamed of him in the way that she used. But those dreams had gone when the numbness had settled in her after he'd left— a numbness that took over her whenever Aaron sometimes wondered where the famous war hero had landed up, or if he had even washed ashore as something alive.
She would see Athrun in her mind's eye, talking and smiling at her, saying things she couldn't hear or understand properly. And sometimes, she dreamed that his back was turned to her and that she would reach out and see him vanish. She dreamed of Kira and Lacus here and there, the way Lacus looked fidgety and flustered in her second trimester, the way that Kira calmed her with everything he did, from one look to a single across of his hand across her cheek, and how completed they were with each other.
Cagalli sometimes hallucinated about Aaron whining about how lazy and inactive Cagalli had been recently, to which she responded vehemently. And in her dreams of course, she would say that she was injured and had been forced to lie down. Mostly, she dreamed of Athrun and how much she had him to accept her and how much they'd hurt each other. But she would wake with a pain in her chest and a cry, her own cry that she had been roused by.
If two weeks had already passed with her here, without anyone knowing she was here, without her knowing where she was, then Cagalli could not doubt that there was something brewing below and something going on back in the world from which she had come from.
But each time she requested that either Miles or June tell her about what was happening beyond the Isle, or if she could have a newspaper, they would shake their heads and smile the same vacant smiles that made her think of anything but humans. Was this what they had been ordered to do?
She never once requested openly, for Athrun.
Once though, she had asked glibly, "I don't see much of Ath- I mean, Mr. Estragon. Do you know where he might be?"
They shook their heads and looked secretively at each other.
But his presence continued to plague her, and she never got used to it. How could she, when she was held captive here in this gilded cage, like a sort of forgotten pet? At various points, she was near to breaking point and came close to screaming at Miles and June for lack of any reason but sheer frustration.
Day by day, new things were added, until she looked around and realized that everything was a replica of the style of bedroom she had used a long time ago. Of course, it had changed since then. Seven years was not too short a time for a bedroom-revamp.
But Athrun hadn't known that.
And now, there was a rather disconcerting imitation of a fine table and chair that she had owned once. But she could not use it because she was confined into a bed. Nor could she use the couch with its long, slender legs perched near in a corner, despite the fact that it was long enough for one to recline and be fanned by servants with waxy green palm leaves for the rest of the day.
If one followed the line of vision from her day-drip to the length of the room, the finery was resplendent in its glory and the things impeccably arranged. If that was all to it, Cagalli would have accepted it as his way of trying to make her feel less foreign in this large room or small palace.
Here was where Athrun took a little liberty with the memories he had sustained of the interior of the bedroom that had been changed since then.
A vanity mirror, luxuriant with burnished metal and clear glass, was brought in one day, its drawers filled with things that rattled about temptingly. A few roses were put on it, soon to wither, soon to be replaced. A box awaited her, ornately shaped with a tiny cat poised to pounce on its lid, and the sparkling green stones set for its eyes made Cagalli think of the person who had supplied everything but was holding her captive at that very moment. The trinket cat, no bigger than her thumb, smirked at her, daring her to open whatever Athrun had left for her.
She looked away, swallowing. Would he expect anything in return, just like Hades in the way poor Persephone had taken the six pomegranate seeds and innocently swallowed them?
"You can open it when you get better," June had promised. "But only if you get better. Those are his orders."
Cagalli cursed inwardly. Damn that man for piquing her curiosity!
"June," Cagalli said inquisitively, "Can you tell me if the other patients have this sort of treatment?"
June look marginally dismayed for a second, but did not answer the question directly. "Are you displeased?"
"No," Cagalli responded hurriedly, "I'm delighted, really. But it seems rather—," She searched for a word, afraid of hurting the woman's feelings, "—extravagant, doesn't it?"
June Requiem shrugged. "The master is not an extravagant man, but he is generous enough."
"Say," Cagalli mused, "What does he do here?"
June Requiem shrugged in a show of not-caring, although her eyes were sharp.
Cagalli tried again. "Does he come often?'
The woman shrugged again.
"I suppose not?"
Shrug.
"Are there many in this place, such as yourself?"
Shrug.
"Are you kept busy like this all the time?"
Shrug.
The questions became increasingly disjointed, although the answer was still the same maddening one.
"Is the weather fine outside?"
Shrug.
Bitch.
But Cagalli instantly regretted thinking that about her once June left the room. Because June Requiem was obviously following orders and acting vague when it came to information outside this room, and even if Cagalli didn't like it, she had no choice but to accept the limited things she could know.
Two more weeks went by, and yet, Cagalli was not allowed out of the room.
"But why?" She protested vehemently, upset by the vague smiles that the duo were giving her as they did their daily checks.
"You are not well enough yet, Ms. Atha," Miles said smilingly, unbuttoning her shirt for the stethoscope to slip in, watching as she winced as the cold metal came in contact, "Not well enough to step outside of this room."
"I am!" She said violently, struggling to sit upright. She had healed remarkably well, and the tubes from her hand were being decreased faster than she would have imagined. In this room, the drip was something so foreign that Cagalli didn't even know why it was there. A close examination of her chest and collarbone revealed a fine red line that ran from the center of her collar bone downwards to the vale of her chest, but it was neither long nor conspicuous enough to warrant immediate worry.
June shook her head and smiled angelically. "Do not fret, Miss Atha. Mr. Estragon says you will be given solid food again once you are well enough. And we will spend more time with you, since you do not seem to like the books and things we have given you to entertain yourself with."
Cagalli threw a dark glance at the things lying near the bed, and scowled at both of them. Their vague smiles continued, but Miles' forehead gradually sported a wrinkle of a pained frown. While his frown was not quite discernable, it was growing, and June's smile was a few watts less bright.
Guilt struck at Cagalli. She was behaving like a spoilt child.
"It's not that I don't like the books or the things that you've so kindly brought," Cagalli said apologetically, "It's just that— I've finished those a long time ago and—,"
"We'll bring in more of a different variety then!" Miles cut in excitedly, his youthful face lighting up once more. June nodded enthusiastically by his side.
And Cagalli nearly tore her hair out with the flood of anger that swept in her very bones.
Damn Athrun! What was he trying to do?
The night was spent in turmoil, and she re-read every single book, or more accurately, flipped through each one. She did this until she got so irritated that they landed in a heap at the base of the large bed.
She tore papers from the notebooks that they had given her to jot her thoughts down, and folded paper planes, throwing them into the air. And then she wrote down her true thoughts that she had refused to put down in words for all these weeks, and then crumpled them and hid them under the bed as well.
She could have wept with anger and despair.
"I'm absolutely overjoyed! He will be a beautiful baby, perhaps with your eyes, Lacus, or perhaps with your smile."
They beamed at each other, and Kira gently placed a hand on Lacus' shoulder. "Time to go."
"Take me with you!" She cried, remembering something strange.
"But," they said in perfect unison, "You belong here."
"What?" said she in bewilderment, "This isn't my room, it isn't my private chambers!'
They looked at her with mute questions on their faces.
Her words tumbled out in an effort to explain herself. "I was taken here by Athrun. He's alive, he's Rune Estragon now, and this place looks like my bedroom but it isn't, it's where he's put me. I'm not sure why but if I ask him, perhaps he'll tell me. This isn't my bedroom, don't you see?"
"No," Lacus murmured with a hint of secrecy, "This isn't."
She laid a hand on her swollen body, as if it held the mysteries of the world. Dazed, Cagalli stared at the milk white hand on the circumference of the pink globe of Lacus' body. And Kira pointed to the vanity behind, and Cagalli spun where she was sitting, and she was staring at her reflection, and there was a fine red scar running from her collarbone southwards. Her eyes fell on the tiny ornamental cat on the edge of the box.
"That's pretty," He said in a distant, blurred voice. The ambiguity of the subject's beauty lay in the unfocused look he had in his eyes. She could not tell if he was looking at the reflection in the mirror or the cat. She settled for the latter, however. She would prove to them that they had to help her escape.
"I never had that!" Cagalli exclaimed in a misplaced triumph, "See? He put it there himself, this isn't a place I belong to."
"But it suits you," Lacus interrupted laughingly, "And you're a captive here. You remember him, don't you? Athrun. He was never dead even in your memory."
Kira smiled warmly, but it curdled Cagalli's blood. "You were sick with worry when he vanished, weren't you? Although you didn't show it to anyone."
"How did you know?" Cagalli cried in delirious fear. "Nobody knew, not even you! Lacus as well, that-,"
Together, they uttered plainly, "He's come back for you.."
"No," Cagalli said desperately, reaching out to them as they looked blankly at her," Hear me. I can't stay here- I need to return to the world outside this chamber. Please I- I can't stay here. He'll never forgive me if he knows what I did to make him what he is today, I didn't mean to and I can't stay here, I can't-,"
"But my dearest," Lacus said absently to her unborn child, her eyes loving and very deep a blue, "He wants her to."
Horrified, she looked back at them, but they were gone.
When morning came, Miles Summon pattered in, his horn-rimmed glasses neat on his aquiline nose, and his eyes twinkling not cheerfully, but with a sort of false joviality, as per normal. He stopped by her bed, a clipboard in his hand. But before he could instruct her to remove her shirt, she sat upright, her eyes flashing beneath their darkened circles of sleep-deprived sockets, and her golden hair crackling with fury. Her gaze was very stubborn and she said sharply, "Send me Athrun Zala or Rune Estragon—whatever he goes by in this damned place."
Miles Summon looked surprised, but she could not care less that she was swallowing her pride to request for his presence. Desperation had driven her over the edge a long time ago. Now, this was its manifestation.
"Send for him!" She half-shouted.
Her throat was like sandpaper.
"Now!"
Her fists were clenched. Her nails, uncut for so many weeks, were digging into her palms, cutting them and drawing blood without her feeling pain or actual realization.
Miles looked deeply dismayed. "I can't. He told us specifically that he would come as and when he deemed it necessary. He instructed us to keep you occupied. After all, he said, you probably wouldn't ask for his presence until you were near the point of insanity or death."
"Mr. Summon!" She said stormily, her teeth gritted, and the blood rubbing into her white palms, "I am near the brink of insanity and at the crossroads of taking my own life. Now do as good as your name and get him!"
She glowered at him.
"I'm afraid I can't," Miles responded turbulently, thoroughly alarmed at what he saw, "There is no official way to reach him. And he will not come unless he deems it necessary, just as I have said. These are Mr. Estragon's exact words."
Cagalli looked as if she was about to scream, then suddenly, flopped back to the bed like a fish that had gone without the water's oxygen for far too long. And she pulled the blanket over her head. Her words were muffled but sufficiently clear.
"Then be gone."
What was happening in the world outside? Were Kira and Lacus worried about her? How would Aaron cope? If he had been the last to see her in Orb, he would surely be under inquiry— the system was not kind to suspects. As for those on the yacht, would they be brought under inquiry? What about those amongst the politicians and the leaders of Scandinavia? Were they coming under fire as well? And the bodyguards— what if they were put into questioning and wrongly accused of treason?
Her thoughts drifted to the way Lacus had looked in her third trimester, glorious and heavenly, full and with moonlight radiance. Cagalli had wanted to see her again before going to Sweden, but there hadn't been time. And Kira had warned her before she had gone to Scandinavia, in the same words as Aaron, that ultimately, Orb was seen as a shield for whoever could befriend it. And Sweden then, was surely in need of military might. She had responded blithely by promising her utter indifference to the issues pertaining to another country's domestic issues, and Kira nonetheless, had told her that he would not quite rest until she returned.
"I'm sorry." Miles said uncomfortably, and she detected a certain degree of empathy in his voice that nevertheless, did not comfort her. The footsteps grew further and fainter, and the door clicked- she knew how tightly it was locked at this stage. It always took them two or three minutes to get in at each time.
"No," She said quietly to herself, muffled by the blanket and her desperation. "You will be."
By nightfall, her will was resolute.
June stood by after discovering her, and attempted all sorts of measures, but those were to no avail. It was all in vain. And Cagalli cheered herself silently, although her temples were throbbing. She closed her eyes tightly as if she were sleeping for eternity, praying something would happen soon.
June soon fetched Miles. Once again, they tried to talk to her, and they tried to convince her that everything would be alright, and that things would sort themselves out soon enough. They changed her covers but had to leave the bed sheet because she remained immobile, and she sensed that Miles could not quite bring himself to touch her for an unknown reason, while June had no strength to lift her.
They tried to brighten the room with new flowers, and the next morning, the flowers were found withered and lifeless, as if somebody had trampled them and threw them back into a corner.
Then Miles came in with breakfast and tried to convince her to eat. Bacon, some eggs and toast, lightly done with some luscious strawberry jam.
When she refused, he left the tray there. Afternoon came and went, and there was no difference.
Her body was weakening rapidly, but the streak of stubbornness was becoming so apparent that there was really no other logical explanation as to what to do if they did not want her to die. They brought in more things, an easel to sketch and new books, and Miles promised to leave all his patients for a day and converse with her for as long as she wanted. And she sat up and said weakly, "Will you tell me what I want to know?"
Miles fell silent, and Cagalli scorned him with her eyes for one brief, bitter moment before she lay back down, listless and crumpled, her back facing him with her face turned to the wall.
Evening came, and June tried to convince her that she was doing herself harm. Cagalli refused to respond. She shut her eyes, covered herself with a blanket, and as childish as it was, remained silent, no talking, not eating anything, and withering away.
She could hear Miles and June arguing outside the door, although their voices were muffled. But they were upset, clearly, by what she was doing. And she grinned to herself, not quite sane anymore, but morbidly triumphant with her plans. Soon it would come to pass.
Morning came again, and the same cycle repeated. Then afternoon, according to the clock. This time, Miles tried to literally lift her out of bed, and he was rewarded with a punch to his jaw, and a scream of shock from June. He apologized, seemingly more afraid of what he had done than what she had one as revenge, and for a minute, Cagalli was scared that she had gone too far. But there was no turning back if she needed to escape.
And evening arrived, although her cell showed no difference except the meal that was brought in.
She ignored it and continued to face the wall, putting her forehead to its cool surface to give her some respite. In side, her entrails were begging for nourishment, her mouth dry and her bones aching, but she persevered.
Miles sighed, June sounded tearful when she begged Cagalli to eat. But it was all in vain.
And then the door was closed, and Cagalli closed her eyes briefly, waiting for the series of mechanical locks to sound, signaling another day had passed. But it did not come.
Slowly, because she was so weak, she opened her eyes, cracking and forcing them open, pushing the eyelids up, and then she was aware of somebody who was in the room.
Athrun Zala had arrived.
"Cagalli," She heard him say curtly, "Get up and face me."
She wanted to say that she would do as she pleased and would not get up and turn around until he let her go, or at least, get out of the room she was imprisoned in. But all that came out was a soft, rasp that was muffled by the blanket anyway, and she was too weak to even reply.
And he made an impatient noise, his shoes clicking hard and unforgiving on the marble floor, and in one movement, had knelt on the unoccupied side of her bed.
His breathing was hard and angry, and then he yanked her upright, forcing her to roll over so violently that she was facing the ceiling, belly up. She stared at the fan near his ear, observing the way it rotated dutifully near some strands of his midnight hair.
He was positioned over her, his face harsh and no longer that impassive mask.
"What are you trying to do, Cagalli?"
His voice was a lash, and she would have flinched, except that white lights were dancing in front of her eyes. She felt almost feverish, but yet, not quite.
"I'm trying to teach you that you won't get away with doing this to me," Cagalli tried to say, but a soft, mewling sound, somehow helpless but simultaneously stubborn, emerged instead.
In the awkward, somehow tender manner of their contact, he stared down at her. Her eyes were crescents, half-closed, a vague look in them as if she couldn't remember what had happened. Her mouth was slightly parted to reveal a soft panting.
Her arms were by her head where he had thrown them, and her shirt was still unbuttoned to reveal a fresh bandage, one that was significantly less heavy than the initial ones. She had recovered, he assumed, but she was intentionally slowing her recovery just as it was almost completed to provoke him.
A bead of sweat, along with his eyes, trickled from her forehead and crept down to the hollow of her throat and the valley of the soft white breasts. He looked away. Her pants were faint and painfully delicate, and she gave a tiny cough.
Then slowly, as if he had emerged form a reverie, he left off and came to stand by the side. She remained immobile where he had left her, eyes still fixated at the ceiling, head lolling hopelessly by her shoulder.
"What have you done to yourself?" He asked stormily. "Why are you doing this?"
And then her voice forced itself painfully, through the cracks of disuse and a dry throat. "So that you would come."
The bitterness was apparent.
Athrun looked frustrated. "Did you have to resort to starving yourself for four whole days?"
"Yes," She whispered, drained of most of her strength although her will was still solid and unshakable. "Because you wouldn't tell me what was happening otherwise."
"I could have let you die," He said briefly, looking at her with an indiscernible expression on his face, "And it would have all been in vain."
"But you came," Cagalli reminded him, her breath constricted and shallow.
He remained silent, his eyes shaded and his mouth twisted. And then he sighed, an empty breath of air, and he nodded.
"Let's have an arrangement then. A deal, if you like," Athrun said finally, looking at her from where he stood, "You'll get up, allow Nurse Requiem to bathe and dress you, and you'll have dinner with me."
Her eyes opened a little wider, although she looked like a poor replica of a living thing, a languishing being or a soon to be extinguished fire at best. Her spirit had been broken, and something in his chest felt like a sharp, sour pain was spreading.
"What will you offer?" She rasped. He noticed her palms- caked with dried blood, and bit back a snarl of anger. They had allowed his spitfire to do this to herself. A dark ire rose in his face, but he concentrated on Cagalli.
He cleared his throat lightly, concentrating on her face. Then he stripped his hands of the thin, white gloves that he had been wearing when he had entered.
Without knowing exactly why, her eyes flew to the slender columns of flesh that were his fingers. Those were slender and graceful, like pianists' hands, except that these hands could caress a rose's petals or strangle a fully-grown human according to what the situation called for.
"What do you want?"
"What do you think I want?"
They spoke in whispers, almost as if they were lovers. But this was not so. Her eyes were dead and his were emotionless. She was languishing and he had a strange possessiveness in his body, and yet, they were both filled with a violence that they understood about each other.
The fingers trailed temptingly across her face, tracing one eye-socket, the other, the tips of her cheeks and then her lips before those came to rest. His fingers rested in one fluttering movement so that his palm framed her chin in his cupped hand, and now, she was unable to look away from him.
"I'll offer you information."
5 months. 23 days.