The Isle

by puzzlepuzzle

In the aftermath of the Second War, Athrun Zala vanished without a trace for seven years - Cagalli never thought to find him. But fate deviates when he comes to find her himself and a web of desire and deceit lies before them. Original Cover Art SEQUEL OUT. .

13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.

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Chapter 12

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The figures, Patrick Zala used to claim, told stories.

Perhaps it had been to hone his three-year old son's clear talent for numbers and patterns. Perhaps it had been an initial and one of the few attempts to connect with his child. Perhaps Patrick Zala truly believed that all things, even lives, could be valued with numbers.

Whatever the case, Athrun now thought that Patrick Zala would have been a visionary if he had lived on The Isle.

For Athrun could see those stories now. The reports before him belied massive sums. Those massive numbers told of massive production lines and massive profits that were driving everything else forward. They were all cogs they functioned together.

The new director of the recently-acquired Mithall Steel was a petite, sophisticated woman with a slight Japanese accent. She had also become the head investor through a rather questionable process that nobody had dared to question. In essence, she owned Mithall Steel now.

Of course, she reported to Rune Estragon, so technically, he owned the steel empire now.

There was an arrangement between them. Rune Estragon did not appear personally to oversee his business at all. Instead, the heir of the infamous Kitani legacy would work for him despite her status as one of the most powerful people in the world and even the underworld.

But nothing was without a price, especially not here.

In return for the risks she was taking for Rune Estragon, her child would be safe on The Isle, under his tutelage and protection.

Just two weeks ago, Kitani Harumi had announced an increase in steel production. The figures he looked at now were proof of this. Of course, the thousands of business partners of the steel empire had no problems with this.

After all, most of them benefited from the massive production, and those who did not were not brave enough to speak up against Kitani Harumi.

Kitani Harumi certainly wasn't the average business woman either. She was cold-blooded beyond understanding, brutal and unpredictable. She was undoubtedly useful each time Athrun's patience was tested, and he trusted her to crush the people who resisted. There had been quite a few over the years, but she had never failed him. Or rather, she could not fail him when her son's safety was at stake.

The newest empire that they had acquired together was the Marubeni Oil Corporation.

The whole plan was actually very brilliant in its simplicity- only someone like Lent Mortimer could have come up with it. Because weapons and explosives were made of steel and oil, all that was required was a control of the supply chain.

For the Eyes to crush the weapon-source entirely, they would simply have to crush the raw material sources. The fastest way was to go straight to the suppliers and acquire those. Because the weapons relied on companies that were nearly monopolies of their own markets, it was even simpler to affect the weapon production.

Over the years, Marubeni Oil Corporations had come to own eighty-three percent of the global oil market. Its oil wells were estimated to be in every oil-producing country, and it actually ran the cartel, thanks to Tetsuya Marubeni's connections with mafia from every part of the world. His own niece, of course, had even more connections with the underworld- she had used those against him.

On the other hand, Mithall Steel was the leader of the steel producing corporations, with its market share at ninety percent. It was the closest thing to a monopoly, with consumers being overcharged and the executives getting as many perks as humanely possible.

Of course, Athrun thought, it did not overcharge one key customer.

The Blue Cosmos rolled out model after model of mobile weapons, crate after crate of explosives, and all sorts of stainless-steel gun-cum-bayonets that neither rusted nor weakened even in deep waters.

The Eyes had drawn out a wrecked mobile suit just three years ago from the depths of a particular ocean- it had suffered its fate at the hands of a pilot Athrun knew personally. In fact, he had fought in that very battle himself and seen the sky-blue weapon plunge into its watery grave, its pilot, Auel Neider in it.

Like Atlantis, the wreckage had been drawn out. Unlike Atlantis however, the weapon was mostly intact in the state it had been sent to the ocean in. In the cockpit, Leopold Wasser and Barnett Romia's team had found the remains of the pilot. And under the seat, they'd found Don Mithall's personal logo that normal customers were not aware of.

The supply of the steel was limitless, thanks to the special prices that Mithall Steel pledged to the Blue Cosmos. At one point, Mithall Steel had even supplying steel as a personal favour to Lord Djibril.

All this was possible because Don Mithall, the heir of the Mithall Family, had come from a long line of Blue Cosmos supporters, although he had covered up those roots rather nicely. He was publicly supportive of peace efforts between Coordinators and Naturals, a philanthropist of disabled Natural-children foundations, young, and very dashing. In any case, the Eyes could not risk the secrecy that protected so many things just to haul Don Mithall out. That man was too sly- he knew how to garner support with a global audience and would have turned the world against Plant and The Eyes.

Still, Don Mithall had been rather unimpressive in the end. Tom Edgeworth had been in charge of sending in an informant, and Lucretzia, his first aide, had been assigned the job. She did not take kindly to having Mithall's hands all over her. Nevertheless, she completed her job, and then seen personally to Mithall's torture and death.

Athrun thought of the chamber that Lucretzia had put Mithall in. Forty-eight hours after his capture, Athrun had visited Tom and glimpsed the state of the chamber. The man had bitten his tongue to prevent himself from giving up the password for the key safe. But Lucretzia had gotten it from him anyway- that and his severed tongue.

She had also taken his manhood while coercing Mithall to speak. But as Athrun had observed, she had sewn his eyes open first- punishment for touching her, she had said.

Now, he stared at the figures of Mithall Steel again. They stared back at him, like little ants crawling all over the sugar-white papers.

And Athrun stretched, trying to relieve the crick in his neck, accepting that his productivity had decreased beyond salvage. He gazed at the report again, not really seeing.

All these years, the Eyes had identified and went straight for the raw material suppliers of the Blue Cosmos' weapons. It didn't matter that the Blue Cosmos had been a doomed organisation when the Second War had ended. It didn't matter that the Blue Cosmos was nearly extinct as an organisation, thanks to the international peace efforts.

For as long as this world would exist, there would always be sentiments of hatred that formed other versions of the Blue Cosmos.

He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. His eyes hurt.

And Athrun wondered if the reading-glasses he had in a small case were necessary at this point. Miles Summon had recommended that he use those sparingly, however.

Athrun knew that his eyesight had deteriorated somewhat, from the constant squinting and overwork. But he had never suspected that there would be a day when his slight headaches would lead to a kind of myopia- a Natural's disease, not a Coordinator's. Still, the day had arrived a few years ago, when he had been prescribed reading glasses.

So for the past hour, Athrun had been sitting in his cabin, reading reports that were beyond him at this point, for nothing made sense in his muddled, distracted head. He closed his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose, leaning back in his chair and sighing.

Inevitably, he began to think about Cagalli.

She had been living alone in that big house for all of seven years, a socialite if necessary, a recluse by default.

Cagalli had probably been going to work early in the morning, returning late at night, both by her choice and not by her choice. The circumstances demanded much from her, and she was willing to give all to her work too. She would stretch her weekends into weekdays, meeting people she did not like, and smiling across banquets at people she could not bring herself love.

He understood because he saw himself in her.

And perhaps, she had been repulsed by the party at Rochester's because she saw herself in him too- the way he behaved diplomatically, correctly, politely but coldly.

But he had long accepted this as a means of survival. Cagalli on the other hand, had come to The Isle to realise that she could not quite play this part. And so she had suffered that night.

She seemed so lost, so miserable, at times when she thought that nobody was observing her. Even if he confronted her, she would not admit it, of course. That would have been unthinkable for someone as headstrong as Cagalli. But she was lonely- he could see it in the way she paused before she spoke, the way she had been awkward with talking about herself- all the little things.

But as the chair swung slowly in a rotation, he caught sight of himself in a small mirror at the other end of the cabin.

Rune Estragon was no different from the Orb Princess.

Rune Estragon worked long hours, plotting, scheming like a deceptive spider, smiling at people he wanted for allies, smiling at people he wanted for company, removing himself from those he loved.

If he was attracted to a woman, he studiously ignored the woman, until need overcame him and he found a way to take her and use her until he was ready to discard her.

And even while he fulfilled his needs out of a clear desperation, he dismissed the potential of the relationship by insisting that it was one that was borne out of convenience. For Rune Estragon, relationships were built on only the benefits that he would gain.

His aides had been mere children when he had taken them in. Not by Coordinator standards, obviously.

But to Athrun, Erlich Hoffman had become something of a son to him. And yet, Epstein had become who he was because of Rune Estragon and The Isle- and Athrun could not shake off the strange regret that he had become something of a Patrick Zala figure to Erlich. Even the twins- the twins he had tried so hard to be distant to, had ended up as his children. He couldn't help but love them. But for his aides' sakes, he distanced himself from them.

He had taught them what they needed to survive, but he had made sure that they did not depend on him for emotional support. After all, Rune Estragon could give none.

If a child began to laugh a way into his heart, he made sure that he did not grow too close to the child. No wonder then, that Laplacia was so hungry for love and Cartesia so cold to touch and to look at! No wonder then, that Epstein had become their surrogate father while looking for one in Rune Estragon!

He stared at the mirror- at his mother's eyes. Those disconcerted him. He had never liked his eyes. People always told him that they were his mother's- but Athrun knew better. He knew which line of his parentage he tended towards.

And that was why; Athrun thought soberly, those he loved had left him one by one. He was too much like his father- too caught up in the world to notice that he had left those he loved.

Perhaps Rune Estragon was even more alone than Cagalli had been in that house, that office, that Orb of hers. She had people who understood what she was working for- she believed in the greater cause of what she was working towards.

But he didn't. On this Isle, he didn't.

And that was why he needed her. That was why he wanted her, even at all costs, he suspected.

Here, alone with Cagalli, he was Athrun Zala again- someone who was capable of feeling, and therefore without the ability to be immune to being hurt. Even now, she was making him feel again, but she was hurting him at the same time by denying their feelings for each other. Her half-hearted rejection of him was aggravating, to say the least, since he sensed that she was insincere and even uncertain about her own actions.

But he wanted her all the more.

He needed something to believe in, something that could make him love and live again. The more she evaded him with that childish cowardice she was using as a defence, the more he wanted her. It was that simple.

She was stretching Athrun's patience, and because he had a great deal of it, he was a man who could not tolerate being pushed beyond his limit. Away from the Fifth Isle, he failed to be Rune Estragon. With her, both of them here like this; he did not have it in him to scheme, to trick or force her into loving him. He could not deceive her, because she was different from everyone else.

Suddenly upset and ill at ease, he grabbed a towel, a new set of clothes and headed to the bathroom.

So perhaps Athrun had been too preoccupied to notice the path of light peeking from under the door.

Or perhaps he had long forgotten that Cagalli had the habit of falling asleep in the bathtub.

And while those were probable cases, perhaps he had been too irate to knock to check.

Whatever the case was, he opened the wooden door and came face to face with a very startled Cagalli. She had been in something of a daze, her eyes half-lidded and her expression very sleepy, gold hair long and garlanded with bubbles and foam while it hung over her shoulders.

But all this changed immediately.

"Bloody hell!" She said in terror, something between a squeal and a gasp, and he jumped at the same time.

Thankfully, she submerged herself within two seconds, sliding in deeper, her face frightened and eyes like ochre saucers.

So Athrun had walked in on a very naked Cagalli.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry," He said, mortified. It seemed as though he were a cat trying to clear a mothball from its throat.

She gazed towards the door with something like horror, realising that she had left it unlocked. Mistake after mistake- it was a complete malady of them.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror aligning the wall behind her- his eyes looked like giant peas, perfectly round, green and his eye sockets were wrinkled in dismay. It struck him that he was behaving rather out of character. Hadn't he seen her in a partial state of undress before? Hadn't he seen a woman before?

This wasn't really any different, he tried to tell himself- all he had to do was to get out of the grave he had somehow stepped into.

He wracked his brain for a charming, intelligent response.

But nothing came.

Thankfully, Cagalli offered it for them both.

"Look away," She whispered, her voice rusted with shock and embarrassment.

He did not need her telling him that twice.

Slowly, she rose; a Venus from the porcelain oyster of the bathtub, golden hair long and slightly wavy from the water. Fortuitously, her hair had gone untrimmed for so long that it covered most of her chest.

Clumsily, she began reaching for a fluffy Turkish towel, wrapping it securely about herself while his eyes remained intently fascinated on the tiles that depiction of a mosaic fruit bowl on the ground.

The vibrant colours and the thought of what she looked like yanked his memory to the painting that he had seen a long time ago.

But Athrun couldn't help but think that Cagalli could be immortalised by a painting.

Her beauty was best immortalised by being bestowed as a gift to another living, breathing, if equally flawed human.

"Excuse me," She said quietly, shyly even, but with great dignity.

He muttered another apology awkwardly, eyes still cast down as if he had committed a mortal sin.

So she stepped past him, ignoring him. He thought he saw something like scorn in her eyes, although he suspected that this was his own self-directed scorn rather than any from her towards him.

But in that moment, he thought he saw her eyes flickering contemptuously to him, daring him to move, daring him to act. Her golden eyes seemed to be asking if he lacked the guts or propensity to react appropriately to her.

Cagalli might have left without emitting the trail of heady, deliriously sensual rose fragrances that clung onto her hair and skin. She might have avoided him completely and he might have avoided her even more so.

Yet, Cagalli was a little clumsy, and brushed past him a little.

It was probably not on purpose, or a significant contact, but it was more than enough for Athrun to become painfully aware of the compact, ripe body. She wrapped in a barely sufficient, white, gauzy towel. It was as if she was asking him if he dared to respond.

For a brief, almost harrowing moment, he wondered what she would feel like if he pinned her to the ground and demonstrated what a man's dominance over a woman he wanted could be like.

He was beyond the point of reason- beyond the ability to see that she had neither the contempt nor an overt come-hither expression he had imagined on her face.

He only saw every bit of bared skin, even her damp, curling golden hair, as an insult to his manhood, a challenge to him.

Her fingers were tight around the confluence of the towel, the fluffy cloth protective of everything that did not need defending. But he did not see the defences, nor was he aware of her clear reluctance.

All he could see was the tender, white arms folding around her body like wings.

Her golden eyes looked at him, questioning.

She was like a cat that wanted to be stroked and held. But she was also a cat that did not want to let a human near it at the same time. So contrary was his Cagalli.

And in that moment, he understood that she could not help but test his patience. She did not know that she was leading him on, but she did know how to consciously thwart him before she unconsciously led him on again.

So he cracked the code in that second- she did all this because she did not know how to respond to him or herself.

It was then that he knew that he had to be decisive enough for both of them. He could not wait for her to decide any more- she would never be able to.

With a deft, almost curt movement, Athrun blocked her path, and he watched her eyes dart nervously to the navy of the sky behind him, where the open door was. The breeze blew in, making her shiver, and he wondered how sensitive her skin was. He wanted to shred her from the shell of her towel, to touch her and see her tremble for himself.

The salt air was crisp and the ceiling glimmered with the gold lights and jewel colours of enamel paints. He was quite aware of their surroundings, but it would suffice. Anything would suffice as long as it could fulfil the rush of heat and urgency to his loins.

He would pull her to him, pull her into the bath if need be; to possess her and allow himself to be possessed by her. He would make her understand the impact she had on him, once and for all.

He looked at her intently, and he knew that she sensed the change in them, and her eyes glazed over in a mistrustful shade of amber.

He could see that she had reverted completely into an unresponsive, sullen shell then, purposefully unaware of his intentions. She had probably acted this way with other men.

Naturally, if she acted this way, most men would have left her alone. Nobody would touch the Orb Princess when she made it clear that heads would roll if anyone tried any funny business. More discouraging to men's advances was the fact that she appeared different from other women. Other women were vulnerable to the notion of love- most of them were in love with love itself, but not Cagalli Yula Atha.

But he couldn't resist pursuing her- not when he knew that her reluctance was only a pretence and the default of her defences. It whetted his appetite like vinegar- if he could unlock her; find her, he would be fulfilled for a very long time.

Her voice broke the tension.

"Athrun," Cagalli said in a very small voice, "What are you doing?"

They stared at each other, tense with mistrust, uncertainty and even sexual frustration. They knew what they both wanted; what they both needed to be completed for once.

Yet, she steadfastly refused to admit it, even to herself, and she now looked at him with a numb mutiny that angered him.

"Isn't it obvious?" He said bitingly. "Isn't it clear what I'm going to do for both our sakes?"

Cagalli took a step back and then another, suddenly a cowering, cornered cat, no longer indifferent to him.

Athrun felt a shock of lust cloud his mind as he watched her. That small sign of cracking hinted of her ability, willingness even, to be dominated.

She would be a passionate lover, he suspected, alternating between someone who demanded and gave as generously, a lover as unpredictable as the tides. And he would enjoy taking his turn to react accordingly to her. This submissiveness she displayed now was enough of a signal for him to be demanding, to make decisions for both of them.

Reaching a hand out and watching her flinch, however, made him slightly more aware of her vulnerability.

A piercing jolt of despair ebbed into him as he watched her move as if he had threatened to hit her. He could not force her into this. At least, he could not bear to; not when she had a single doubt left about him, no matter how small it was.

"Look at me." He said intently, his body still blocking the doorway. "I won't hurt you."

She gave a forced little laugh, drawing the towel tighter around herself, her eyes wary. "Do I look like I'm afraid of you? I may not trust you, but am I to be afraid of you as well?"

Her limbs were fair from not seeing the sun, although their previously peachy tone had taken on a milkier texture for it. Her cheeks and lips were pink from her embarrassment and shyness, and she looked lovely with her golden hair long and cascading.

The towel was rather insufficient for her, he thought distractedly. Although Cagalli had wrapped it around herself and had secured it with her hands, she was immobilised thus, and technically even more vulnerable to what he could do with his unoccupied hands.

But now, Athrun had lost all desire to take her, and he was suddenly immune to her.

Her breasts swelled beneath the towel, just slightly as she tried to swat the bubbles out of her hair. There was only a hint of the promise her body held, the rest covered by her towel, but her body's lushness was increasingly obvious.

He would have liked to undo the towel, let it fall away, and run his hands over her damp, moist flesh, feel her tremble under his palms and mouth.

But it was no good. Nothing was any good now.

Athrun forced his eyes to focus on her face. Thankfully she did not notice what he had been distracted by.

Cagalli began to sneak past him even thought they were inches apart and nothing about his posture suggested that he was going to let her leave.

"Are you done fooling around?" Cagalli said haltingly, in a show of bravado with a weak smile.

Athrun steadfastly ignored her question.

His eyes were serious, and his mouth in a tight line. "Don't test my patience, Cagalli. We've been playing cat and mouse for far too long."

She turned very red, and then, forced out her words. Those came in a rapid gunfire of feeling, more than she had expected to hear from herself. Cagalli was always unpredictable when she was forced into a corner- and he had done this in more ways than one.

"For Pete's sake, Athrun, I can't discuss issues like that when I'm not half decent while you stand barring my way!"

He looked at her candidly. "It's precisely because you're like this now that we can discuss these issues."

Rattled, she drew in a deep breath. "For the last time, Athrun, I don't want to be a link in your mile-long chain. I don't know who or how many women you took on this yacht as part of your trophy cupboard, but that cupboard won't include me. Even if I might be attracted to you, I don't have the time to be fooling around with you."

"I'm not fooling around," Athrun said mildly, without any clear sign of emotion.

She understood, with a pang, that he had retreated into his own brand of defence- he had always chosen to cut off any sign of human emotion when he felt vulnerable. Some things didn't change.

"I didn't bring you on this yacht for a one-night stand." He said soberly. "I have never done anything like that. Also, I wouldn't have brought you away from The Isle if you hadn't asked me to."

"But you did!" Cagalli spat.

"Do you know why?" He asked abruptly.

How many rules had he broken, how many dangers had he put himself in by acceding to her request?

"Only because I agreed to be your puppet for a night at Rochester's circus?" She said hatefully.

"Only because I wanted you to trust me." He said cuttingly.

He had done all this because he wanted her to trust him, to understand him. He had hoped that she would open up to him, that she would grow to accept him.

"Trust?" Her voice was a whiny of incredulity and purposeful disdain. "What's the use of trust- my trust in you leads to nothing while I am a captive here and-,"

"Because I wanted to love me in return." Athrun said, cutting her off swiftly. He took a step forward, not caring who they were anymore, not caring about their states.

And in that moment, he had enclosed her to him, holding her tight, one hand buried in that mass of gold, pressing her head towards his shoulder, as if he had suffered an injury, as if she was the salve.

She stared, stunned. But then she closed her eyes tightly, as if he had struck her, and she shook her head mutely against him, unable to loose herself in the warmth of his arms. For their sakes, she could not.

Suddenly more hurt than he had felt in his life, he let go of her, stepping back.

His eyes lingered on her legs, moving upwards to her tightened hands, and her white face. "That's what I thought. You're a coward, aren't you, Cagalli? You say that you're unable to trust me, that you're afraid of me. But you aren't. You're only afraid of yourself, and you can't trust yourself either. You keep avoiding what we've always been running from. And that's why I won't waste my time with you any longer."

Cagalli tried to laugh, wanting to spurn him completely, to reject him completely before she was lost in his gaze. "That's not true, I-,"

"Just get out." He concluded, with such superb calm and control that she became intensely aware of how childishly she had behaved.

His eyes lingered on her face with disdain, and like Eve, she was suddenly ashamed of everything about herself. She was being cast out of the room and his presence, his concern and his life.

But why did it matter anyway?

The mosaic fruits and flowers seemed to mock her now, and she cast her eyes on the left wall and saw white blossoms and an enamel motif of apples.

What was the greater sin? To love him and ruin them both with a passion they were capable of giving but not controlling, or to deny her feelings for him and save him from suffering with her?

She felt something tighten in her, and not daring to look back, she ran from the bathroom, locking herself in her room, and gasping great sobs, fighting back her tears.

---

Some hundred miles away, Sheba Velasco was applying lipstick, poised like a panther, against her mirror. Her room was not very grand, although her stronghold on the Sixth Isle was as large as the Fifth's.

She had a few luxuries, however. A portrait of two people gleamed at her, their smiles bright and very happy. She had been very young then. There was a spray of lily of the valley in crystal glasses, framing the vanity. Those had been meant as her wedding flowers, although they were only good as room decorations now.

Behind her, Tom was whining and wheedling. "Tell me! Tell me!"

The tea she'd brought out for him was ignored in the living room. He had trailed her all the way here, and now, she thoroughly regretted letting him into her house. What if someone saw them together? What if someone realised that they were somehow connected?

She lined her lips carefully, accentuating their shapes, and then turned around, her eyes narrowing. Her hair was dyed black, tied into a severe knot, with shades she would wear later. Her eyebrows and eyelashes had been dyed the same jet color, and she looked like a gypsy with her colouring now.

Sheba knew she was unrecognisable- but that was the point.

She was wearing a man's suit. There was a badge and tie that came with it, although those lay on the dresser for now. The palace had its uniform and it provided her a rather good disguise.

Tom was begging like a child, and her lip curled viciously.

"So when you called me and told me you wanted to do some research, this was it? You barging in here, whining like a spoilt brat, asking me what the Fifth Eye's past is all about?"

From where he sat, Tom looked like a teenager, not an adult. His legs were crossed on her bed, his shoes lying haphazardly on the floor, the laces of his boots like listless worms. His one eye looked at her, an electric blue that seemed to whiz everywhere, a petulant expression formed by his mouth.

She frowned. "I'm not your mother who's supposed to tell you bedtime stories. Why don't you hurry along outside to play so I can get to my job?"

"But you're almost done," Tom grumbled, hopping off the bed and bounding behind her, pointing at her reflection. "Nobody suspects that you're not the Swedish palace's top security official. Tell me what you know about the Fifth Eye."

She looked even more severe. "I don't know anything."

"I know you do!" He said sulkily, although there was something frightening about the way his face whitened and his one good eye looked fiercely at her. "Tell me, Sheba. Tell me about what happened five years ago when Rune wanted to leave The Fifth Isle. Tell me why Rune's been so obsessed with everything that's been happening lately- why he's giving the Orb Princess so much berth."

She surveyed him for a minute, her arms crossed, her nails perfectly polished and her heel tapping rhythmically against the floor of her bedroom.

He had followed her all the way in here, like a puppy begging for a snack, for some response, any response, and she had ignored him this whole while. He wasn't worth her time- not when she needed to get to work, anyway.

Sheba was in a decidedly bad mood. She did not like leaving this place, her one sanctuary. But she had no choice as the Sixth Eye. And perhaps, she thought wearily, it was better to be always on the move. Staying here evoked memories she wanted to lay to rest.

"If I tell you what you want to know, will you bugger off?" She said finally.

His expression changed to one of boyish happiness, and eagerly, he nodded.

"Okay," She relented. "What do you want to know?"

He didn't bother skirting around the issue. "First, I want to know why Athrun Zala agreed to become an Eye!"

She paused.

"I can't help you there." She said evenly.

"What?" He cried. "But you said you'd tell me! I'm not going to leave until I hear it."

She lost her patience with him and snapped, more than a head taller than him, a towering, disdainful presence. "Use your common sense, Tom! I can't tell you because I don't even know why myself!"

"Okay," He said embarrassedly.

His excitement was making him act like a child, she decided. If he acted like this on a daily basis, then Plant was mistaken in bringing him here to be an Eye. The Eyes were people who had to be responsible for more than their own lives. Surely, the Plant High Council wouldn't have made the mistake of bringing a brat to be in charge of an Isle- not when so many lives were at stake.

"Then," Tom suggested, "Can you tell me what connection the Fifth Eye has to the Orb Princess?"

She frowned. Then she began to walk out of her bedroom, Tom at her heels once more. She settled down in a couch, and he stood before her, visibly excited.

"He was her bodyguard once." Sheba told him. She looked disdainfully at him.

"I didn't know that!" He said in amazement.

She rolled her eyes. "Obviously, he used a different name, a name that only Orb registered. You've probably searched for the name 'Athrun Zala' before and found nothing written there."

He slumped down into a chair, rubbing his temple with his hand. "I didn't think of that- you're good, Sheba, real good."

"Will you leave now?" She said snappishly. She wasn't in a mood to converse with Tom, not when she was due to leave her Isle and be on her guard for a whole three weeks in that damned place. She wasn't even sure she could guarantee her life, and her he was, bothering her to death on things he didn't have to know about.

"Just a bit more." Tom looked slyly at her. Do you think he developed feelings for her while he was her bodyguard?"

She bit back a swear word, still holding her compact and the eyeliner. And she reached for the tissue, working to change the shape of her eyes again.

Concentrating and stalling for time, she cleaned off the stray stroke on her eyelid.

The contacts she wore made her eyes an ordinary brown shade, and she had altered her eye-shape with a very specialised cosmetic. Once she applied the final layer that cemented everything, nobody would recognise her.

When she had finished, she stared at Tom, wondering who had planted that notion into his head.

It was then that she saw a solemnity in Tom's good-looking, rather unreliable face, something that she had never noticed. It surprised her, because Sheba was very good at remembering faces and replicating them after the first encounter.

She saw that his face had changed- the expression on it made him seem less piquant, more determined.

"I don't know whether he developed feelings for her at that point." Sheba said vaguely. "Maybe. It's quite possible. But Tom-,"

"Yes?" He bent forward eagerly.

She made up her mind there and then. It was best to throw the Seventh Eye off the track- it was for Tom's own good. He had no right barging into things that could hurt others and himself.

"It wasn't that he gained feelings for her." Sheba told him. "It was the other way around. The Orb Princess gained feelings for him that are still there up until now. Perhaps you've already noticed that he has made use of her a few times- such as the recent mission with Mullin's suitcase. The Fifth Eye has been using her as a pawn all this while- he is incapable of emotional attachment, you know that yourself. All of us are incapable of that. That's why we were brought here. So back off and let him do his job- he needs to concentrate on his tasks, just as we all need to do for ours."

"Oh." Tom said slowly. "So I was mistaken?"

There was doubt in his expression. He trusted his instincts too much, this boy. She would have to convince him.

"Yes." Sheba said firmly, wondering how many lies she had made in the last few minutes. "And you keep all this to yourself. I don't want anyone knowing about this."

"I bet Lent knows about this."

She frowned. "I don't know about the Second Eye."

There, another lie.

"But the point is, you keep your jabber shut."

"Yes, ma'am." He said dutifully, with a trace of mocking in his smile.

"Seriously," She said coldly. "I don't know why you want to go sniffing around into all this. I know people tend to hero-worship Athrun Zala, and you're one of them, but you don't have to know everything about him. I'm sure he'd respect some privacy."

"But I'm his friend," Tom insisted, "I want to know. Then maybe I'll know why-,"

His expression turned very wistful, "Why he acts the way he does."

Sheba felt something in her soften. This boy was really something. He was petulant and he irritated her, but he was innocent and he liked people genuinely.

"I know you know something, Sheba." He said firmly. "You don't say very much. You've never been the same either, since five years ago. But I know you and Lent care about him too. I do. I want to know. I want to help him too."

She turned away, fetching her blazer and tie. She adjusted those on, looking at him from his reflection in the mirror.

Another person looked back at her. This woman had a dusky complexion, a slim, dark-haired woman with very ordinary features. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses made her look entirely different from her usual self. The Eyes were all actors at the end of the day, she thought soberly. Nothing less, nothing more.

"Sometimes, Tom," She said gently. "If you want to help him, you must pretend that he is the person he is pretending to be."

---

That night, she stole out to the deck to bathe in the pool and silver light.

She assumed that it would do her some good.

Immersing herself into some kind of activity always took her mind off the grieving pain she suffered from.

Of course, the suffering had been there for a long time- the difference was that the Isle and Athrun Zala was making her aware of it.

To distract herself, she would have to find something to occupy herself. If Cagalli had been in Orb, in her house, she would have hauled herself to the room where she kept the work files in. But here, she didn't have that option.

She found the night to be slightly humid and peeled off her pyjamas. But her previous swimsuit was hanging, still wet over the chair outside the other side of the deck.

So Cagalli was forced to settle for a tank top and a bikini bottom, ignoring the top piece of the latter. It wasn't purely for modesty- she did not favour clothes that she felt she did not do justice to. But Cagalli did not realise that any person with a less than a complete sense of sight would have looked at the swimsuit top, looked at her, and disagreed with her general insecurity.

Even now, she wrapped a towel around herself, covering her midriff and her thighs, shy even though there was technically nothing to be afraid of.

It didn't matter; she told herself firmly, that she was wearing a mismatched bottom and a tank top to the pool, for lack of better options.

After all, nobody was actually going to see her, except the moon and a few fish. Or maybe one of the curious porpoises who didn't need their sleep, and-

Fuck.

Athrun was already there, swimming and cutting though the water cleanly with his arms white and shining as mercury did, like an albino fish.

He was swimming fast, a machine, but there was a fury about the way he was slashing into the water, a mad energy that seemed to want to spend itself out.

She stood behind the pillar, peeking at him.

From that little hiding corner, Cagalli saw that Athrun Zala had a beauty that surpassed the parameters of gender and the equality of distribution.

Of course, Cagalli had always been aware of how nonsensical, how almost errant it was to look at a man like Patrick Zala's son in a manner Hades would have done with Persephone- that mixture of awe, wonder and desire. But now, she was even more aware of the foible of being attracted to Athrun Zala.

For one, Athrun was unpredictable and she knew very little of him after he had vanished seven years ago. Watching him like this gave her very little understanding of the facts, even if her instincts and senses were now attuned to Athrun.

Besides, an already complicated relationship didn't need the addition of Stockholm's Syndrome. Cagalli reassured herself firmly that she would be back in Orb very soon if she played her cards correctly.

It wouldn't do to become dependent on somebody she would leave behind.

Moreover, Athrun Zala was beyond her.

She could choose to hold him. She could do as he said he wanted to and let him learn her, know her. But she could not. She didn't dare to.

Nevertheless, she had taken a gamble the other time. But he hadn't let her. He had seen through her at the very last minute and had pushed her away, aware that she was not going to let him hold her as Cagalli Yula Atha.

She thought about Rune Estragon. He was harsh, even cruel as her captor. But he was beautiful too, and he could be astonishingly gentle- those glimpses of Athrun Zala made her even more attracted to him.

It was tempting to go along with his promises that she would be returned, safely and unharmed, to Orb once the six months were over.

Cagalli knew she had to refuse him and ignore his promises to let her go eventually. He was only lying to her- he was not to be trusted, no matter how he appeared at times, or how attracted she was to him.

Yet, she wanted to know who he was, what he was doing here, why he was doing all this. She couldn't leave without knowing everything about him first. And similarly, she had to know all this in order to leave.

Cagalli bit her lips, realising suddenly, that the night at Rochester's had been proof of her dilemma, except that she had neither realised nor recognised it.

Now, she understood why she had felt so troubled about Athrun.

Returning to Orb would mean that in time to come, she would be as Orb wanted, setting aside time, finding a suitable mate and consummating an entire marriage regardless of her own plans. But frustratingly, she did not have other plans beyond doing what she could for Orb. She wanted to govern Orb for as long as she could- but she did not want anyone else involved with her task, certainly not a political pawn of a husband.

She studied him as he made a sharp turn at the end of the pool. He wouldn't be a political pawn, this man. He could never be one.

She put a hand to her own lips, thinking of his face. His mouth fascinated her. It was thin and softly fluted, beautiful and expressive if he allowed, but slightly wry and cruel. Had his father put that in him? His mouth was always slightly sad even when it was smiling, but it could be passionate, demanding and gentle all the same when he kissed her.

His eyes were something stranger.

They were unreadable because there was either everything or nothing at all.

He had looked that way that night when he had pushed her away- rejected her.

Perhaps, Athrun had understood more than she would ever of herself.

That night at Rochester's, Cagalli had actually tried to destroy herself without fully understanding what she was doing. She had chosen him to stage her own unconscious self-destruction, although neither of them were entirely aware of this.

In the depths of her, she had locked away the consciousness of her freedomless existence. But she had not been able to ignore that reality for that night. The women around her at the party were free to love and live without consequence, living as they wanted to even if a general society frowned on them. She however, could not.

Orb was placing a high price on her with the non-verbalised expectations that Cagalli Yula Atha would be untouched until her wedding night, a vestal virgin to be sold, bound to a man who would probably make Orb a lot richer and more powerful.

If she lost her virginity in some careless fling, like the thousands of women who were not as privileged as her, but free to live as they wanted, if she lost it all without Orb and her future husband actually knowing-

If she lost the virginity that Orb was counting on in a temporary, solely physical relationship, if she lost it to Athrun Zala- it would be the most potent form of revenge on everything around her.

After all, self-destruction had seemed to be a small price when she wasn't even sober and not self-aware enough to know what she was doing.

But now, she was sober enough to realise that it would be fitting, ironically apt if she gave Athrun her virginity before she left for Orb. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would put an end to the past, once and for all.

Of course, it helped that she was probably still physically and emotionally attracted to him as well.

Alone here like this, behind a pillar, watching him, she had to admit it to herself. A fling with any other man would have served her fantasies of living without fear of any consequence. But it had still been unthinkable to throw herself at any male who walked by just for the sake of quenching the anger and spirit that she had denied for so long.

A fling with Athrun Zala, however, would be something different. It would be more than the fantasy of living selfishly, for herself and for nobody else.

She was both repulsed and attracted to someone with so clear an affinity for bloodshed. He provided her with a thrilling kind of danger, someone who would be a threat to her way of living, someone who she had been prepared to forgo and forget.

Maybe she wanted that. She wanted him.

But he had rejected her- he had been the first man who had ever rejected her because he was the only man she had ever wanted.

Cagalli shook her head, trying to clear it to no avail.

Well, that was that.

A sense of self-disgust filled her. How childish it was, she reflected, trying to take revenge on something that was more powerful than she would ever be. If anyone in Orb ever found out that she had thrown herself at a man, they would see her as selfish.

How selfish it was to want to self-destruct in such a wanton, careless manner when she had yet to die for Orb!

Cagalli rubbed her face with her hand tiredly. She had to fight against her circumstances even if there was that temptation to give in and use this time to learn more about him. If she stopped fighting against him and The Isle, if she let him near her, she would end up falling for him even more deeply than she ever had. And if

In any case, she had to get back to Orb. She would decide what to do after she got back to Orb. With any luck, the country would be so busy dealing with the aftermath of her kidnapping and the blow to the international relations that they would forget about her twenty-sixth birthday.

And Cagalli turned to leave. Discreetly, she moved out into the moonlight. This was not by choice, but only because the moon had risen even higher.

She pattered from behind the pillars, trying to get back to the rooms below the deck. But suddenly and for no reason at all, she realised that the sound of his body moving through the water had paused for quite some time, and she turned around and saw that he was looking right at her.

Startled, she dropped the towel she had draped around her shoulders, and took a step back, stubbing her heel against a pool chair, cursing loudly and colourfully.

Her voice seemed to break the silence and periodic lapses of the waves. Even the crickets seemed to pause.

He said nothing, half-submerged in the water.

"Uh," She said meekly and evasively, picking up her towel and holding it around her shoulders. She wiggled her toes, trying to dissipate the pain. Inwardly, she was cursing again.

How undignified to have stubbed her heel- and how unfetching it was for her to be like this, a deer caught in the headlights, in front of someone like him!

He swam to the end she was at and looked at her unsmilingly.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. He had a kind of anger in his face that was controlled, contemplative and very cold.

Cagalli fought back a defensive retort, not wiggling her toes anymore. "I was thinking of swimming."

He said nothing.

"Obviously," She said, finally using the defensive tone she had intended. The moon illuminated her bare arms, neck and midriff.

His eyes regarded her cynically, although he knew he had felt an unmistakeable flush of heat to his head and loins at the sight of her. "Go ahead."

He began to pull himself out of the pool, eager to get away from someone who he could not trust himself to behave around.

It wasn't fair, he thought in agony. It wasn't fair that if he had wanted another woman, he would have taken her without any consideration of anything but their physical needs.

It wasn't fair that he wanted only her, and that she was the only one he would never be able to have.

With Cagalli, he was thwarted by her and his own reservations, made impotent by the very feelings for the woman before him. So it was better this way. If she would stay away, if he could stay away, it would be easier.

But she had to ruin it all.

For Cagalli knelt and caught hold of his arm with her two shaking hands as he sat on the ledge, his legs still in the water. His arm was wet and cold, but waxy like a lily's petals, dotted with water and very pure under the white light.

She saw then, that Athrun had never lost a kind of purity even if his innocence had been tarnished. Under the darkness and cover of enigma was still a core that was a liquid, shining-white silver. Everything he wore, that mantle of cruelty and hardness, did not change his nature as something that was pure and good.

Cagalli looked into his eyes and felt her resolve crumble.

Good god. She wanted him to love her even though she could not afford to love him. The extent of her hypocrisy made her flinch.

"Don't go." Cagalli said uncomfortably. "There's no need to avoid me. Just because we shouldn't get any closer doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

Athrun looked at her. He felt something jagged warming and become softer and more accepting. He felt his resolution to let her go melt into the indigo sky as her hair blew in the wind.

Why did she have to do this? Why did she have to draw him to her, push him away, and just before he could swear off her, take him close to her side and lead him on again?

He should have pushed her away, gone away, and done anything but become even more besotted with her. And yet, how could he forgo the chance of being near her?

She seemed to be incandescent, glowing and luminous in the chilly blue darkness and small orange lights around the deck.

The tantalising glimpse of her breasts was now maddeningly clear in that cerulean coloured tank top of hers. Her bottom was mismatched, but it revealed her thighs, and he could see how slender and soft her midriff was. Despite the loping, boyishness she had unconsciously cultivated, the natural buoyancy and lushness of her body was undeniable.

He had noticed this the first time he had met her- how she seemed to be a walking contradiction. She had fascinated him even then; this child-woman who had the ways of a boy, the heart and strength of a man, but a creature that was feminine, soft and lovely.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Cagalli said, rather awkwardly. And she added lamely, "We can still be friends. Even if we can't be as we used to-,"

She found no strength to continue, blushing furiously at her lies. She knew that she was lying to them both. She was still trying to deny everything, and he felt something stir despite his resolve to ignore her.

All he could think of was the pounding of the blood into his head and the last time he had had a woman.

Three, no, nearly four years, without having a woman, becoming more and more disconnected with what it meant to be human. How could he stay still now and remain unmoved by her?

Slowly, knowing that he did not have to rush her, that she could not refuse him anymore, Athrun took her two hands away from his arm and placed them on his shoulders. And gently, he eased them both into the water once more, pulling her in with him, unravelling the towel around her body as she sank in.

Still holding her, he moved the soaked cloth aside, shifting it away from the pool's edge.

"That's not enough now, being friends," Athrun said steadily. "It was never enough."

She shivered at how dangerous his voice was, quiet and not to be disobeyed. It was strange to hear this from him, though he had never hid this aspect of him from her since she had been brought to The Isle.

In fact, Cagalli had never thought of him sexually in the past. He seemed incapable of flirting or being jealous, passionate or possessive because he was too mature, too incorruptible and too gentlemanly. He was always proper, if a little stiff.

It had never occurred to her that those qualities were not mutually exclusive from what he was- a man.

She had seen him as little more than a child all this while. In her eyes, Athrun was a child that was innocent and untouchable, almost immortal in his purity and his ability to change her, and she had loved him.

She had fallen in love with him quite quickly and quite fatally in the way that mothers often experienced with their newborn children. She'd seen him weep for Kira, broken and wounded by the world. And Cagalli had awoken to those new feelings, although she had interpreted them as the protectiveness of friendship, comradeship even. She'd wanted to protect him then, in the same way she had felt for Kira.

The first time they had kissed, they'd blushed furiously. They had done little more than that even after she had become engaged to him. But that was only because he had never made a clear move- he was too proper to want to flirt and become overtly physical in their relationship, and she had never quite thought of him as a man.

No wonder she had been so uncomfortable with him when she had been brought to The Isle. Granted, it was a shock seeing him again and coming to terms with her captivity.

But Athrun as a man, a man that could not be refused or coerced, a man who wanted her and was direct about it, was a very new and uncomfortable notion to Cagalli.

There was something possessive and primitive, jealous even, in the way he looked at her, the way he spoke and held her. The only hint of this had been the moment when he had slipped a ring onto her finger, looking away, blushing, unable to verbalise what it was that he wanted of her.

Had this primacy, this need for possession always been there? Or had she denied it in the past, ignored it until she had become a captive here and had been forced to acknowledge it?

And had Athrun become aware of her lack of preparedness before she had been aware of it herself? Had Athrun realised during these seven years, that she had never been fully prepared to have him as a husband, and that she had seen him as little more than a boy? And was it fair that she judged what they both felt now by the standards of what she had felt for him then?

Cagalli had no time to consider this.

For Athrun began to press her against the wall of the swimming pool, trailing his mouth roughly, hard against hers, bruising her lips in his eagerness. And his mouth was tracing a route down her jaw as he began kissing and biting her neck demandingly.

A strange, piercing pleasure erupted in her, and she felt him bite her earlobe a little, still touching her. And the sensation of his touch multiplied into an agonising, addictive need.

He wasn't content with conquering her mouth- he stroked her shoulders, wrapping his arms around those with a careful gentleness that hinted of a passion, a passion with intensities he would be eventually unable to control.

She murmured something he could not decode, not quite responding with his fervour. But he was inflamed by the sensation of her small body and her soft, abundant chest pressed against his harder one.

Unable to resist, he reached to her and caressed a soft, full breast, feeling her heart beat under it. She blushed adorably, breaking the kiss and lowering her head until he lifted it to resume the possession of her mouth, his hand still defiant on her, not being rough or teasing but insistent and searching. There was something powerful, evocative even, about his action. He was not asking for approval and trying to elicit a response.

He had done that such a long time ago- when he had asked her to kiss him like she meant it. Only now did she understand how he had forced them on this path from such a long time ago.

Now, he was proving his ownership of her.

And that was all he needed to do.

Abruptly, he separated them and her eyes flew to his. He saw that they were frightened and flecked with brown.

Athrun gazed at her, his expression unreadable. "Why are you afraid of me?"

Cagalli's eyes remained fixed on the orange light at the far end of the pool. "I'm not afraid! I'm just-, I- I don't know. Things have changed. I can't quite remember what I felt for you then."

His voice was quiet, filled with intent. "But I don't need you to remember what our relationship was like in the past. What I need is the present."

Her voice, in contrast, was troubled. "We're both different people, Athrun. I can't trust you any more than I can trust myself. You know we're physically attracted to one another, more than we've ever been in the past. We can't help that, and I can't deny it anymore. But I can't let myself trust you."

"I can't tell you everything." He in a low voice, thinking that she was referring to the secrets he kept from her. "But you should know this. I brought you here without planning to be anything except Rune Estragon. I didn't bring you here by my own choice- I never wanted to bring you here. But I did. And I have long given up on wanting to be a mere captor."

She shook her head miserably, silencing him with a finger she pressed to his lips. It wasn't that she deserved his secrets. It was that she could not give her secrets to him even when he deserved it. She drew in a deep breath.

"I'm afraid of what I'm about to do." Cagalli said sombrely. "But if I don't tell you this now, we'll go on like this, neither here nor there. I can't do that."

He looked at her and saw that she was trembling. Gently, he took her hand from his lips and held it to him, near his heart.

"I'm the Princess of Orb, not just an Emir now, and I wield more power than any other person on the earth itself. By myself, I'm as powerful as the entire Earth Alliance council." Cagalli said shakily. "And my people can know this. Things have changed since you were gone. The map's been redrawn in Orb's favour, because of everything I've done for it. There have been Earth Alliance territories ceded to Orb while you were gone. Under me, Orb's seen more economic growth than any other country or territory in the last twenty years. Under me, Orb's become more of a superpower than the Earth Alliance itself!"

He stared at her. He knew all this- but he sensed that she was admitting this to herself, not him.

"Do you understand? I'm more accountable for all the people in Orb and its colonies than ever. They are counting on me to lead them, and I have to. I'd go mad if I didn't try and find redemption for my father's death. And that's why I need that power, that respectability and trust from my people."

"I didn't love you for that power and the name you inherited from your father," Athrun said firmly. "I loved you for anything but that. Don't you see, Cagalli? That's the beauty of it all. On The Isle, you're not the Orb Princess any more. Orb loves you as worshippers of an idol, a kind of goddess. But you're a human- you were made fallible, and I loved you for that!"

"Don't say anymore." She said desperately. "The only thing that matters is that I live and die for Orb. If my people look up to me that way, then so be it. If they need me that way, it's good enough for me. It's better than what I expected."

"I'm not going to argue over the fact that you have obligations to people beyond yourself. "Athrun told her. "But you don't while you're here- not for the remainder of the six months anyway. And even after that, you don't have obligations to your father. You didn't cause his death directly- he chose to die for Orb himself."

Cagalli shivered. "I'm expected to do the same, no; I want to do the same. And that's why I need to leave- I have to return to a place I know the rules to, a game that I can win. I need to return and forget everything to function properly again."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. She had never said this to him before. Granted, he had suspected it all along, but she was actually confessing this to him. When he spoke, his voice was cold, frustrated, and his eyes had become a dark-coloured sea.

"Here on The Isle, there's little to prevent us from falling in love again, even more deeply than before." Athrun looked guardedly at her. "Isn't that true? Away from everything, you'll begin to think for yourself. Here, you'll make decisions that might cost you everything you thought correct. You believe that you are only of use where Orb is concerned. That's why Orb became so important to you. It was your own cage."

"But I know how to live in that cage." Cagalli said brokenly. "I'll be safe there."

Athrun pressed her hand closer to his heart. "But you used that cage to alienate yourself from the past and anyone who you might have had feelings for. That cage doesn't keep the world from hurting you. It's hurting you by keeping the world out. That's why I want you here with me- my cage isn't keeping the world out for you. It's giving you the world."

"This is all a mistake," She said wearily, bringing her hand away. The more she felt his heart beat, the more torn she was becoming between staying and insisting on leaving. "Nothing makes sense here. I need to return to Orb. Even if Orb is a cage, I won't be able to live anywhere outside it. Please. Let me go."

"I won't let you go." Athrun said curtly. "At first, I thought your desperation to leave The Isle came from the implications of the Orb Princess being kidnapped while in Scandinavia. I wondered if your extreme attempts to escape came from trying to prevent a political catastrophe and the instinct to preserve your life. But then, I suspected that you were so desperate to leave because you were afraid to leave everything you knew and had become used to."

Cagalli felt his hands cupping her waist as he looked directly at her. He took her hand to his heart once more, and she realised that she had no say in any matter.

"I can't let you go until it is time to." He said in a very soft voice, so quiet that she almost couldn't hear him. "I don't even have a say in this- there are people beyond me who will not let you leave The Isle. But even if the decision rested solely with me, I wouldn't let you go. Even if you were allowed to leave tomorrow, I would need you here with me. If you're with me, if you let me love you, I can find myself again."

"No," Cagalli begged, afraid to hear anymore, afraid that she would want to stay, to be needed by him.

"I can't stay here any longer. Not even for the remainder of the six months. Orb needs me. It's dangerous here."

"Not if you stay in the manor." He said tightly.

"But I want to be free," Cagalli cried in frustration.

He shook his head. "You're lying to both of us again. You haven't been free all this time. You've been working for a person who doesn't even exist anymore. Orb isn't your father, Cagalli. You've been locked in your office and your house, your mind all this while. Is there any difference with the room in my manor?"

She tried to say something, but found that he was correct.

"Stay with me," Athrun said softly, persuasively, "If you don't want to stay in that room, you won't have to from now on. I'll find a way- I'll let you roam the manor if you want. We'll be together from now on. We'll discover what we left behind all over again."

"It's madness." Cagalli said intently, afraid of how her heart had beat against her for that moment. "It was all in the past. If we repeat the past now, it would be even more insane."

"But there isn't any other way." He said, just as strongly. Their eyes met and they engaged in a silent battle of wills.

"You're assuming that I still love you as I once did." She said tensely. "And that you love me the way you once did."

"Don't you?" Athrun said gently, insistently. There was no bravado that other men might have asserted this with. There was only a quiet pain and inevitability in his eyes. "Didn't you know that I've loved you ever since I saw you?"

He looked at with a sad, wry smile. "Do you know how obsessed I became with the girl I'd met on the island? And we'd only met once. I watched you fire a gun and lose your resolve at the same time. I began to question the beliefs that I had been raised to believe in. All because I met you."

She saw, quite suddenly, that his shoulders had white scars on them, like claws had raked themselves into the flesh. It was only that his skin was so white that those were difficult to see. Her hand over his heart curled inwards, into a fist, unable to accept that she had left some kind of scar on him as well.

"I read what my father wanted me to read as a child," Athrun said morosely. "I read 'Franny and Zooey' until I could recite the book backwards. I read books where the only thing that mattered was contributing to society even at the person's expense. And I grew up believing that dysfunctional families were a normal state of affairs- the book and my own family were almost the same, filled with brilliant people who didn't know how to love even when they did."

The Glass family had been his family. His father was a strange embodiment of overachievements, Athrun a product of those achievements by himself. A brilliant man with a brilliant, possibly more brilliant son. A wife who was a model of a learned and intelligent woman, someone who obeyed her husband and produced a suitable heir. A house filled with pictures of family and an absent father.

Were they capable of love? Were they capable of showing love to each other?

"The Zalas were one of the most powerful families in Plant," Athrun told her heavily. "And that's why I was brought up to live for others and not for myself. How do you think the Elsmans, the Joules, the Zalas and the Amalfis ended up ceding their beloved sons to the First War? These families were some of the most powerful in Plant and the world to begin with, even before the history of Coordinators started. Their debt to society was to make sure their heirs grew up with all the privileges of education and fine upbringing to contribute back, be it in politics, businesses, in every aspect of society. That's why all our parents had to watch us being sacrificed in a war for humanity if necessary."

Cagalli stared at him, suddenly thinking back to the dinner they'd had when he'd revealed something of the most powerful Coordinator families' history. The Joule House – filled with political giants. The Elsmans were masters of commerce. The Amalfis boasted a long bloodline of musicians, artists and philosophers.

Athrun hadn't spoken much about the Zalas. But had he been hinting of her role in all of this- how she'd made him go against his own heritage, his place in history and what his society expected of a scion of the Zala House?

He had been expected to die for the Plants. But he had defected- the son of the Plant Chairman, running away from the Plants, defying his orders, going against his own captain, using a mobile weapon he'd stolen - all because he'd met someone who'd suggested that everything he'd known wasn't always correct.

"So many people looked up to the Zalas, the way they lived and contributed to society with their cleverness and wealth. Do you know how I met Lacus? Our parents were already associates. But even before that, we were both on so many shows. Shows that featured wunderkinds. She was being asked to sing."

He took a deep breath, and she suddenly saw that telling her all this was hurting him.

"I was given all sorts of puzzles to solve with a new record to break. I was made to break so many that my talent became the breaking of records." Athrun laughed painfully. "I was brought up thinking that being clever and well-behaved was the only way for me to gain my father's attention. The more admiration I earned, the closer I was to my father. But nobody knew this. So many people admired the Zalas. They wanted to be the Zalas."

Cagalli saw that his face had become very pale. She thought of the Glass children, and suddenly saw that Athrun had been shaped by more than his father- he had been moulded by his own surroundings in ways he couldn't fight against.

"And I thought I had to do what my society expected of me." Athrun said wearily. "To go to war, obey my father, obey the chairman of the Plants, fight another war and give up all that I really wanted to do. Even going back to the Plants after the Second War to continue the political legacy of the Zalas was something expected of me. When I realised that I couldn't live just for the sake of everyone else, I came here to The Isle. I can't keep living for the people who are watching me, can I? I need to live for myself."

His voice was filled with a grieving that was so human, as was the warmth of his body and the pulse under her palm. She realised suddenly, that the rhythm under her palm was that of his heart.

"I never realised it. But it was during the first time I saw you that I began to see that."

She stared at him, surprised. "What?"

"You were so different from everything I knew." He said earnestly. "You acted because you believed in something, in its totality. I wanted to feel as passionately as you did. I wanted to believe in something completely and totally again- you made me question what I'd grown up believing. Wasn't it fair that you gave me something else that I could trust in replacement for what I questioned?"

Cagalli's heart leapt. "Did I even?"

"I thought you knew," Athrun said simply. "All this while, I thought you'd known exactly what you'd done. When you'd made me question my beliefs, you made me renounce those. And in return, I began to believe that the only way to end the war was to stop the fighting first."

"We all believed that," Cagalli tried to argue. "It wasn't me that really made you believe it- you knew it all along, deep inside yourself. Maybe, I just happened to be there and-"

He looked at her directly. "Maybe that's true. But by consciously making me question everything, you were responsible for my subsequent beliefs."

There was no accusatory tone, merely a stating, a matter of fact, and it made her feel uneasy. She had never thought of that event of meeting him in this way, but the more she thought about it, the more he seemed correct.

"I couldn't go for a few days without thinking about you then. Did you think it was pure nobleness that made me want to use the Justice to stop the Genesis, and die for all my father's sins?" Athrun said with a mirthless laugh.

"Wasn't it so?" Cagalli said, bewildered.

He laughed again, and this time, she knew it was a broken sound. "You never knew because I never told you, did you? That's why you're selfish- you never realise what you can do to others around you. When I attempted self-destruction, it wasn't merely to absolve my father and myself from his crimes."

She stared, wide-eyed. "Then what else was there?"

He looked at her with open, honest eyes, and something began to hurt in her chest. In that moment, Cagalli had looked into his true face for a moment, and it was one that would last an eternity.

"When we were on the Archangel, when you said that you'd protect me, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop my loving you. But I wanted to stop. I was afraid of how you would eventually grow up as I had and begin to lose your innocence and your love for the world after the war ended. Then you would see that I wasn't worth very much and that I certainly wasn't worth your loving."

He was trembling, but he did not break the eye-contact. "I thought that if I could sacrifice myself and die honourably, you would remember the best of me. If I could die, you would love me forever, even after the war ended and when my father and my sins would be dragged out for the rest of the world to judge. The last memory of me would blot out any subsequent proof of how unworthy I was."

"God- I," Cagalli's face was white. He had given her a love that had the nature of a child's unselfish totality, but she had failed to understand that he had given it to her as a man. And yet, she had banished him from Orb, forced him to leave, he had gone to The Isle.

"But out of all those reasons, I wanted to make you cry- at least once!- for me." Athrun said heavily. "I wanted you to ask me not to go anywhere else, to live with you, by your side. And you did."

Her voice was strained. "I asked you to live-,"

She was panting, as if she had wept until she had collapsed.

"And that was why I left the debris of my father's killing machine. I lived and tried to atone for sins beyond me," Athrun said jerkily. "Because you asked me to live. I wanted to live for you. But I made so many mistakes. I left you for the Second War because I didn't want to accept that my father's sins had nothing to do with me. And when I wanted to undo those mistakes, I had to watch you leave me to try and atone for your own father's sins."

"There wasn't a choice then," Cagalli argued. "The Second War hadn't quite ended and I needed to be in Orb. And even after that, even after you came back to Orb when the war had ended, Orb needed me more than anyone else did."

"What about now?" Athrun said abruptly. "What if I say that I need you more than Orb ever will?"

She forced a little laugh out, trying to take her hand away from his heart, but he gripped it and held it there. "Don't Athrun-, it was impossible from the start. Even now, it's impossible."

His eyes narrowed, and his voice was harsh.

"You asked me to live and to forget about my father's mistakes, but now you don't want to do the same even though I'm asking you to for my sake."

"I know it isn't fair to you!" Cagalli cried, losing her cool completely. "But we'd drifted apart by the time the Second War ended, and it didn't make sense to drag that relationship on when I had full responsibility for Orb! Even now! I have no other choice, I-,"

"But you do." He interrupted. "You can choose to stay and to love me."

"I can't," She said, white-faced. She watched his mouth harden.

"You love Orb for your father's sake." Athrun said bitterly. "But you refuse to love and live for me, when it's for both our sakes. It isn't fair to both of us. I know I haven't the least right to ask you to love me. But there isn't any other way for me. I've spent seven years understanding that."

She stared at him, painfully aware that she had no right asking him to love her either. For that matter, she had no right asking him to live in the past. But she had. And he had done so for her.

In doing so, he had conferred his life into her hands. His heartbeat was hers to crush, that heart that beat under her palm.

And in a single moment, she realised that she had even less right to tell him to go on living without her.

She could not hide anymore from him.

It had been during the Second War that Athrun realised that he couldn't live for others. But for her, it was during the Second War that Cagalli realised that she had to live for others.

She had become the Orb Princess for her father, for Kisaka, for the thousands depending on her. She had become the Orb Princess in order to live with the guilt of being an indirect cause of the Second War despite her father's wishes. The guilt was unbearable- but as the Orb Princess, she could find redemption.

That was her place in the world- as the Orb Princess. As Cagalli Yula Atha, she was worth very little.

She felt something stir within her, an emotion so great it made her eyes sting, as if he'd forced her head underwater while her eyes were still open.

Athrun's heart was beating steadily, and she wondered if it was better to crush it and then her own to stop their suffering.

The relationship they'd once had had been a slow, achingly torturous descent to hell without either of them knowing it. They had been so young, so deeply in love, with hope coursing through their veins. Love gave them hope, and so they'd believed that love was all that mattered.

But in reality, the hopes and ideals she'd had had never existed.

It seemed ludicrous that she had once spoken to him of love and peace and the will to live in the First War. For Cagalli had lost a great deal of that idealism and noble rhetoric by the time the Second War was truly over. Slowly, surely, she had known that that idealism and her innocence had been eroded a little by little all these years.

Those hopes she'd carried through the First War and most of the Second War had been proof of her inexperience and ignorant naivety. She had actually believed in the political rhetoric of fair play and honourable governance because of her inexperience.

In retrospect, Cagalli was now sure that Athrun had been as thoroughly tricked by the notion of hope as she had been.

But for him to have been so enamoured with hope, for him to have been so enamoured with her!

For all his sophistication and that seed of bitterness his father had planted in him, Athrun had been just as idealistic and as foolish as her.

Perhaps, it had been his aching, grieving young heart and scarred body which had wanted a respite after the First War. Everyone needed hope to survive. Even for Athrun, who had seen so many ideals exposed as flimsy rhetoric, hope was necessary for survival. Or perhaps, it was because he'd seen so much that hope was an imperative.

Unwittingly, Cagalli realised, she'd given him some kind of hope when she'd asked him to live. Consequently, he'd chosen to believe that some ideals still existed, and that those existed in her.

His hope had come in the form of love and acceptance, something he sought from her. She had been so deeply in love with him, with life itself; that she'd scarcely realised that she was leaving an imprint on him that he would never be free of.

For her, hope had come in the notion of a better world and that she could contribute to it without betraying her values and personal beliefs.

But by the time the Second War was truly over, she was convinced that they'd been fools.

She'd become wiser since then.

She stared at him, seeing how his face had changed since then, how cold his eyes had become, how tense and cruel his mouth seemed.

Perhaps, he'd learnt since then. But now, Cagalli finally understood why she was so afraid of looking at him, into him, seeing how he'd changed to survive.

In Rune Estragon's face, Cagalli saw herself. She was the Orb Princess who had survived by relinquishing her identity and ideals. She wrenched her hand away from him again, and he stared at her, understanding that she was saying something that she had never wanted to tell him.

"There." Cagalli said roughly. "Do you see? You didn't really love me- you loved the thought of hope and renewal, redemption even. But you were wrong about me. I'm no different from the people around you- I can't show you another way of living. Maybe I was different in the past. But that was only because I believed in those ideals, those dreams, because I was enough of a fool to."

She looked at him, her eyes molten with tears.

"I'm living the way you've had to for survival- the way everyone lives to survive. Don't fight it anymore, Athrun. People have to live in the places assigned to them because that's what's expected of them. That's the only way they're of use to anything. That's why I had to banish you when you came back to me after the Second War. I needed you to leave Orb and go back to the Plants where you were needed, so I could stay where I was needed."

Her voice was filled with grief. "I couldn't let you see that I had betrayed myself either. I used to believe that I could achieve things without betraying myself- but that's not possible. That was an ideal which I shouldn't have allowed myself to believe in. That's why we need to stop fighting against the things we can't change. Ourselves- we've both changed too much since then."

"Perhaps you're right." Athrun said steadily. "Perhaps I loved you for what I thought you could give to me and how you could make me forget who I was. And we have changed much, there's no denying it. I've become Rune Estragon- you've become the Orb Princess. But my feelings haven't changed."

"But mine have!" She cried, in a sudden lapse of self-control, revealing the depth of her frustration. "I've been thinking about it, and the reason why I probably feel attracted to you is because I'm attracted to a life where I don't have to answer to anyone!"

He took one look at her and understood. But he had- that night when they'd returned from Rochester's, when she had been so close but so far from him.

"In any case," Cagalli said wearily, "I've changed so much that it doesn't make sense to love you when I shouldn't. I can't give you whatever you saw and loved in me- not anymore. You don't know anything, do you? You think you have feelings for Cagalli Yula Atha, when I'm not even the same person you loved!"

He watched her, his eyes like glass shards in the moonlight.

His next words surprised her and struck a kind of dread into her heart. "I'm not entirely ignorant, Cagalli. I don't know the exact details, but I can guess what you did to regain power in Orb after the Second War. By the time I came back to Orb, trying to win you again, you'd already started breaking down the Seirans and other political threats. That's why you were so resistant to letting me enter Orb during that time. You didn't want me to see what you were doing to gain a foothold in Orb. That's why you allowed me to be accused of being involved with the Seirans and their crime of poisoning Orb's then-prime minister. But you didn't want me to be executed either. So you got me out of there fast, before anyone could really clarify what happened."

He watched her quietly. Those eyes were gazing through her, staring into her, through the window of her resolve, and she felt herself becoming cold. He knew.

So all this time, she thought resentfully, he had been playing around with her, mocking her and her efforts to distance herself from him.

For all this time, he had stayed around her, reminding her of how deep the wounds were, how deeply and madly they had been in love. He'd even allowed her to throw herself at him, watched her make a fool out of herself, hiding things that he already knew about.

He was seeking some kind of twisted revenge on her, she thought desperately, exposing her when she was finally sure that she had feelings for him.

His voice was calm, cutting. "The Seirans were desperate to make peace and regain their footing in politics after their only son had died. They even pledged their allegiance to you."

"They did," She mumbled, "They asked me to forgive them and their greed and insensitivity they'd showed. They asked me to let them off on the account that they were distant relatives of my father."

"But you had them crushed." Athrun said intently.

His voice was soft, and she thought it was almost cruel because of how devoid it was of feeling. "You all had their assets frozen by accusing them of embezzling from public funds. It was a ridiculous accusation, don't you think? The Seirans were so filthy- rich that they didn't have to embezzle anything at all. You even let your advisors draw up figures to suggest that they were going bankrupt to strengthen the accusation."

"The Seirans funded weapon production lines for the Blue Cosmos in the Second War!" Cagalli said through gritted teeth. "If I didn't do that, they might have helped the Blue Cosmos regain power even when the world was still trying to recover from Second War!"

"But you stripped the Seirans of their political standing in Orb as well." Athrun reminded her. "You took away everything that they had. Even their last dignity- their political power."

"I had to!" She cried. "They were a threat to Orb's security. If they continued to have the former influence they had in Orb, the people would be misguided. They'd undermine the government I'd set up with my own hands! If I hadn't done that, they'd have been a threat to Orb!"

"They'd have been a threat to you." Athrun interrupted.

She looked at him, white-faced.

"You had them defeated so entirely. And you pushed them so far, that they had to do what they did." Athrun said relentlessly, ignoring the way she was beginning to tremble.

He knew what he was doing. He was breaking her. But if he didn't, she would never be free.

Cagalli spoke bitterly. "They tried to assassinate me with poison. The prime minister died for it."

"So you gave the Seirans no chance of turning back." He said, looking at her impassively. "Because you felt that the prime minister's death was your fault. You revoked their Orb citizenships and to prevent them from leaving the country until the case was entirely closed. In the meantime, I was forced to leave Orb, effectually taking the blame with me because the case was never entirely resolved. But when you closed their family bank shortly after, the Seirans committed suicide once they lost their last source of income. You drove them to it. Their followers pledged their allegiance to you and the new government after that."

She began to stammer what she had rehearsed for so long, what she thought she knew to say. Hadn't her advisors drilled her on this, hadn't she been prepared for this day?

But in truth, he was the only person who questioned her about this- no one ever had, not even her subordinates. It had been her Cabinet, her new government, in fact, who had advised and convinced her to act as she had. But she had willingly done what they'd advised in any case, convinced that being ruthless was the only way.

Athrun looked mildly at her. "Am I looking at the great, noble Orb Princess and what's left of her ideals?"

How had she reacted to Dullindal's justification for letting weapon factories function? He'd justified those by saying, "Some things can't be helped."

Nine years ago, Cagalli had retorted, "But they've got to be helped!"

Now, Athrun looked at her, and she was afraid to look at him. His voice was callous.

"Did you finally learn that establishing the kind of power you needed to rebuild Orb was at the expense of your ideals? Did you finally realise that sacrificing others like the Seirans and their followers was acceptable for the greater good?"

"They weren't worth much." She whispered. There was nervousness, desperation in her voice. "They weren't worth much."

"I suppose the Birthday assasins weren't worth much either." Athrun said unexpectedly.

Her eyes widened and she began to clutch at her hair, shaking her head. A cry ripped itself from her throat and there was madness in her face.

But he grabbed her hands, locking them in his, preventing her from wrenching fistfuls of her golden hair out from her scalp. Athrun had not told her of what he had found out- he thought he had been protecting her by pretending to be ignorant of the last seven years. But now, he knew what he had to do to save her.

When he had stabbed and shot Decant Corriolis in front of her, she had lost her ability to speak. Athrun had been surprised that she had reacted so adversely, so extremely to this. Granted, seeing a man die like that was horrific, especially since he had been certain that Cagalli had never killed a person with her bare hands before.

To make her regain her speech, he had needed to know the cause of her extreme reaction.

Thus, Athrun had asked Epstein to gather information. When Athrun had learnt of the past events, he had understood how fragile Cagalli was and why she had retreated into a shell upon seeing Corriolis' death.

On her twenty-second birthday, a group of radical Orb Naturals had charged into the ballroom the celebrations had been held at. She had been sitting amongst the most important royals, smiling, making conversation, trying to hide her boredom at an event she could not choose to not attend.

She had screamed as a guard had fallen on the table, food and blood everywhere, sixty men and even women in masks opening fire at everything they saw.

Her bodyguards were rushing everywhere, trying to shoot the assassins down, and she had seen one turning to her, shouting his instructions for her to run before his head had been blown, clean off his shoulders.

She had tried to get up and run with the rest, hauling herself to her feet, weighed down by her elaborate gown with a long train.

She had tripped, stumbling across a step in the mad rush, and had gone down in a hail of bullets.

Athrun had been silent as Epstein had recounted all this to him.

"A witness claimed he saw the Princess being attacked by one assassin who fell on top of her." Epstein had reported gravely. "She was surrounded by a circle of other assailants and the witness said he couldn't quite see anything because the circle was so dense and so tight. But the witness claimed that he saw the Orb Princess' personal aide rush against that circle, striking out at everything he could see until one of them grabbed him and put a gun to his head. But there was a stray bullet and the assassin holding Aaron Biliensky fell into the circle of his own comrades and died shortly. He was shot through his eye and brain."

Athrun had folded his hands, thinking. "And what about the Orb Princess?"

"The witness claimed," Epstein had answered hesitantly, "That he saw the Princess lying on the floor with a ripped train and a slashed bodice with the sleeves torn apart. There were bloodstains all over her, and she was holding a gun and pressing the trigger without stopping, not even when all the bullets had been used. The witness claimed that she was screaming but there was no sound coming from her mouth- and the assailant who had been about to kill her aide was lying on her with half his waist blown to bits with holes in the back. He fell on her- she probably shot through him even though he was already dead from the first bullet. She probably didn't even know what she was doing."

Athrun had been very silent for a long time. Even when he asked his next question, he had already guessed the answer.

"What was the colour of her dress?"

Cagalli had felt the weight of a corpse falling on her, she had seen Corriolis' blood seeping into the white sheets- and she had remembered.

"White."

In fact, Cagalli had suffered no more than a stray bullet whizzing past her cheek, for a bullet-proof vest was part of the pre-cautions.

The Birthday assassins, as they soon came to be called, were taken away once reinforcements had been sent in. The whole ordeal had lasted slightly less than an hour, but something of Cagalli had been destroyed on her twenty-second birthday.

To be wished dead, on her birthday.

Now, he caught her in his arms, locking her hands in his, stopping her from hurting herself. She was thrashing about wildly in the water, sobbing, and he felt a surge of hatred for those who had tried to harm her. That hatred was so strong he didn't know if he was capable of even healing her.

Her voice was shaking badly. "I had to shoot- I couldn't let that man hurt Aaron- if I hadn't shot him in the eye he'd have killed Aaron- and there were nine of them- they wanted to kill me- One was laughing when he struck me and tried to take off the vest I was wearing under the gown- I thought he would shoot me in the head straightaway but he said he wanted to wait-I couldn't let Aaron kill them- he'd have to live with his hands stained-,"

Athrun grabbed her face, seeing the tears stream down her eyes for a brief second- for in the next, he had silenced her by kissing her, closing his eyes while knowing that she would close hers.

Neither of them knew how long they kissed, how they clung to each other as if parting would shatter one or both of them. The water was cold, it washed against them, against their shoulders as they sank deeper into the pool, too busy to find the proper footing, too desperate trying to heal each other, too much in need to keep from sinking.

When they had to break the kiss, he only brought her closer to him, preventing her from distancing herself from him. It struck him that there were tears running down both their faces.

Her voice was small, and she was trembling still, but he let her speak. She needed to tell him all of this- he needed to hear it. It would be the only way she could find a way to recover.

"I had to allow the Orb radicals to be executed when they were rounded up and proved guilty of high treason," Cagalli said shakily. Her arms came tighter around him and he knew that she was afraid that he would let her go.

But he didn't. He would never. He tightened his hands around her waist, and only then did she continue.

"They would have harmed me again if they had been allowed to keep their lives. They would have manipulated and used Orb the way the Blue Cosmos wanted, against Plant and the Earth Alliance's efforts at establishing peace amongst the Coordinators and Naturals. I had to approve of their removal. Diplomacy wouldn't have gone anywhere with radicals."

Her lips were ashen with her biting. "But that's not all I allowed. I-, I can't say it-,"

"Tell me." Athrun whispered. "You need to say it. To me. I won't let you go even if you want me to."

She didn't dare to look at him, even though there was the comfort of being wrapped in his embrace. Her body limp with her fear, her hands cold although they were on his warm, breathing body. "The radicals admitted to the charges after a week's worth of torture by the Orb Bureaucracy of Intelligence. It was advised- I wouldn't have thought of it- I couldn't even speak properly at that point- I was still speaking in stammers- but when it was suggested, I allowed the Bureaucracy to torture the radicals. Most of them died before they admitted it. Those who survived the torture were executed thereafter."

She closed her eyes, tears spilling out of them even though she did everything in her power to keep them inside her. "That's not all. I allowed the dissidents who spoke out against the newly unified government of Orb to be banished. Each time the advisors put forward a proposal to remove potential threats, I allowed the proposal to be implemented. Those who spoke out against the new government lost their citizenships and were forced into areas outside Orb and its territories. Those people lost almost everything in their lives because of me. When some tried to return for revenge, I allowed their elimination, I allowed their public execution as a warning for the others. All that during these seven years."

"You had to." Athrun said sombrely. "It would have been ridiculous for the new leader of Orb to support those opposing her government. Ideals have no place in politics."

"When I privately questioned the justification for Orb's extended control of the former Earth Alliance colonies, I was criticised by my own parliament. It didn't make sense for me to refuse taking the colonies that Earth Alliance was offering. There was Europe, some parts of Africa, and some South-east Asian territories- all those would benefit Orb, whether politically or economically. They told me that as the Orb Princess, I would be a fool to reject the Earth Alliance's offer. It made sense. At that point, America was the most powerful independent region that had broken away from the Earth Alliance. America was trying to take control of other former colonies and build its own power. Orb had to step in."

"I know." Athrun said quietly. "If America gained enough power from these key colonies, and failed to remove anti-coordinator sentiments from its states, another war would start. So Orb took control of those Earth Alliance colonies before they could fall into the hands of America and possibly, anti-Coordinator radicals."

"Power comes from the barrel of a gun." Cagalli said softly. "It took me so long to understand that."

She placed her head on his shoulder, a swan concealing its head under its wing. He knew she was blinking hard to keep the tears away.

"My father thought this way, and I could never agree with him. But I've become my father. I made so many speeches after the war, begging the people to trust in the government I was to build, to trust in peace and the renewal of life. I used to believe in what I was saying- but for the first time, I knew that those speeches were built on rhetoric. The means of accomplishing what I was promising to the people-"

She gave a desperate, tiny little laugh of misery. "Gilbert Dullindal, mad or not, unethical or not, was a genius. How self-righteous I was when I told him that things had to be helped- as if I could help those things! Everything I've done all these years was necessary- those were a means to an end. He was correct- the means don't matter when the end is all that counts."

"Everyone called Orb the economic miracle- the fastest to recover from the Second War's aftermath. Unemployment was reduced by seventy percent within two years after the war ended, and growth was increasing by three percent a year. Imagine that! But nobody really knew that the massive job-creation came from the government buying up wasted land and restarting factories and massive production lines. Producing weapons!"

"Those weapons were used to stamp out the minor, post-war conflicts within Orb colonies. My people were making weapons to restart the economy- I couldn't refuse the most effective option of job creation. Those weapons were loaned to Earth Alliance to wipe out the coups, since the Alliance couldn't even afford their own army after that. There was a demand for those weapons, so we supplied those. That's why the Earth Alliance gave us so many territories to Orb. The world understood it as being a transfer of areas that needed more attention from a more stable superpower. But those were actually payments for the weapon-loans. It was written off as a structural change of the EA and Orb territories, but I know better! Orb earned so much from the production and loaning of weapons- I couldn't refuse or deny that."

"Each time, I wondered if there was another way. But if there was, it was not nearly as efficient. There's a tainting of hands everywhere- and if there must be one, then my hands should be the ones to be tainted. It's what my father went through, and I'll do the same for Orb."

Athrun brought a hand to her neck, letting it move upwards, rooting itself in her hair, hugging her. He wanted to hurt whoever it was who had hurt her- but now, it seemed that he was powerless against those forces too. Everything that hurt her weren't people- people could be killed and punished. Systems, memories, traumatic experiences- those couldn't be killed or punished.

"I had so many politicians bought- bribed over." Cagalli said brokenly. "They became my political figureheads- then when they'd served their purpose, I allowed them to become redundant, which made them removable."

Dullindal had bought Mia with the offer of a dream. But he had allowed the dream to collapse, and he'd allowed her to die as a broken piece of something that could never be. Cagalli had done the same, in different ways, with people who might have become threats to her hold on Orb.

"It's been so effective, I wonder if I was right for judging him as a heretic." She said in a strange voice. "Perhaps his plans for the world were the best futures for all of us. We wouldn't have to dream- we wouldn't have to be fooled by ideals and be disappointed each time. Maybe he was just ahead of his time, that's all."

"Nobody knows." Athrun said softly. "But I can't accept what he wanted for the world because I had my own dreams."

"Look what they became!" She cried. "I betrayed you in the end, didn't I? People let each other down because they have different dreams and they want to fulfil their own dreams! That's why it's better not to dream at all!"

She pulled herself away slightly to look at him. Her eyes were fearful. "Do you dare to hold me still?"

"I've known what you did for a long time," Athrun said flatly, "But I want you all the more for that."

Her voice was a whisper. "What?"

He grabbed her by her shoulders, gripping her to him, forcing her into his embrace again. His voice was wracked with pain and need. "It's time we stopped thinking of the things that have changed, and see the things that haven't. I don't care if you've killed someone, if you've done things that have gone against your nature and what you believe in. Those were sacrifices, sins, whatever you make of them- but you did those knowing what you were doing and that you had to do it. I don't care if you think you aren't worth anything if you aren't the Orb Princes. Do you hear me? I've lived and seen enough to recognise that the sins I've committed doesn't change what I want. And I want you."

She looked at him curtly. "What do you propose then? With what I know, with what I've seen, what I can do, what I'm expected to do, I will always remain the Head of Orb. And nothing can really remove me except death. And even then, I will die as my father did- for Orb. There isn't an alternative. This is what my father meant, this is what he wanted when he entrusted Orb to me. Even if I have to continue staining my hands, doing things that go against what I believe in, I will."

"Your father's dead." He said brusquely, and it was a whiplash. He did not know where the bitterness had come from, the tone of anger, jealousy and hatred in his words.

He did not know why he had said that- why he had chosen to draw out her fears and her insecurities and used those to bring her into his arms when he didn't deserve to hold her either.

But he knew he had hurt her in the end without meaning to- perhaps, that was all he was capable of- this destruction of everything he had ever loved.

She watched him, stunned, as if he'd hit her.

Then something in his face crumbled. A twitch of the mouth and his eyes were not emerald chips. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, I-"

She pulled herself from the pool and stood up, mumbling. "My father's dead. I know. That's the only reason why Orb needs me. That's the only reason why I choose to be my father. That's exactly why I need to be the one who stains my hands for Orb. And that's why I can't allow myself to love you- you deserve more than someone like me. And that's why I need to leave The Isle."

He did not answer, but then she had already left him in so many ways.

---

3 months. 30 days.