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. .

22. Chapter 21

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

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A/N: Dear readers and reviewers, thanks for the support so far! The Isle's definitely coming to a close, but we've got some way to go. But then, many of you already know that. When I got back from my exams and a trip overseas, I was really touched to see so many well wishes. Exam results are satisfactory, thank you, and the holiday trip was awesome. :) Let's hope this chapter will be the same for you. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Chapter 21

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He strode past her, but not before depositing his shoes next to hers in a careless, almost flippant manner. There was calmness in his mannerism and the composure he diverted his eyes away from the things around her.

But his eyes told another story- those lingered darkly on the files and letters that were strewn across the carpet, some having fallen while in her trail from the storeroom to this central part of the basement. With horror, she realised she'd instinctively gathered things in her arms and rushed out from the storeroom into this main room there was only one entrance or exit to. Her eyes flew to the trapdoor she'd entered from. There wasn't a square of light.

Realising he must have locked the door in the wooden ground and came to find her, Cagalli panicked. She ran, even if it wasn't a great distance at all, back into the storeroom, but stumbled and as if by sheer irony, landed back in the circle of things she'd pulled out from before. He took another step closer, having followed her into this storeroom, and Cagalli knew she was trapped. There was only one exit from this storeroom into the main room, and the main room had only one exit into his study. He was blocking the entrance of this storeroom.

Cagalli stared up at Athrun, unconsciously clutching a file to her. The proof of his betrayal lay around her, things strewn everywhere and the path of what she'd pried very clear. She took a look at his face and fled, even if it was a matter of only a few meters.

Surely, Cagalli thought wildly, she was in grave danger now. Athrun was not a person who forgave easily, because he was not a person who took offence easily. But surely, she'd done something he would not tolerate.

Nervously, she looked around, trying to think of what she could use as a weapon.

"When Epstein came back, he couldn't find you anywhere." He said flatly, without a single emotion reminiscent of anything remotely positive. There was a simmering temper in him that she sensed he was trying to restrain. "But you left the trapdoor open, so it was quite easy to guess where you'd vanished to."

When had he returned? Athrun looked impeccable even when he was casually dressed in dark pants and a black, long-sleeved turtleneck. In the semi-darkness, he cut an imposing figure while hidden in the shadows. She thought of the night he'd appeared on the SS Rafael and shuddered.

At the same time, it occurred to her that he had not possibly known she was here in the basement. He was obviously here to rest, since he was not dressed formally, and she realised he had often stayed here for long hours to plan. She, on the other hand, was dressed only in a thin white cotton dress and his borrowed cardigan. Naturally, Cagalli was already shivering in the unheated rooms.

"You know," Athrun said contemplatively but very coldly, "I didn't think it was so easy to get in here. Or did you manage to worm that information out of someone? Were you on such good terms with Epstein that he'd even betray me?"

Cagalli stared into the face of someone she did not know what to feel for. In return, Athrun looked at her with some contempt that she'd never seen.

"You don't have the right to judge what I did to make you tell me things." Cagalli said defiantly. "Not when you accepted and knew I would try doing more. And don't you dare look at me like I would-," She found herself unable to continue, shaking her head once and casting her eyes down.

Athrun smiled easily without any real joy, and there was an uneasiness in the way he cast his eye around that she could no longer ignore. As she swallowed Too much evidence was staring at her in the face. Hadn't that been the expression Marlin used when he'd recounted his days of being a solicitor?

As Athrun moved gracefully in the room, weaving his way around the things she'd strewn, Cagalli could see a deep aggression building in him. It frightened her, but she continue kneeling there, not willing to be pushed out until she had said her piece.

"On a strictly normal basis if I saw you in the doorway," Athrun said with a touch of displeasure that she heard right away, "I would tell you to get out of there, seeing that you would have had absolutely no right to be there."

He cast a dark eye over the place, "But seeing that you've made yourself cosy in my study, basement and the storeroom, there's no point, is there?"

His voice dipped low, and the air around them felt tighter with his tension. "Now get out of here."

Cagalli began to tremble violently, for he had never showed her so much aggressiveness and such clear anger. She knew she was in danger- she knew she should obey first, while watching her back. Confronting a man who had made such detailed plans to neutralise her and had even used coercion and persuasion all at once was certainly suicidal.

Surely then, this room had been filled with all his innermost secrets- the secrets she would have never been aware of even when he had managed to kill her. She should not have stayed there. But she could not ignore all this.

"Get out of your room, you say?" Her voice was dull. "Then what about the room you've been bringing me to? The one you make me sleep in? Does that mean that each time, you brought me to a place you didn't use for anything else?"

As Athrun's eyes travelled from her eyes to her feet and back again, Cagalli felt a tremble move through her. If he had done that before, Athrun had caused her to feel frissons of desire and hope that he would try to understand her one day. But now, she knew all that was impossible.

Yet when he answered, Cagalli knew he had never thought of all that she had. "Did you think I would have given you a special room just so I could touch you?"

She stood up slowly, her body like lead from kneeling in that circle. Then Cagalli turned fully around to face him. As she did this, she threw her file straight at him with a cry that ripped itself from her throat. The fury of her expression matched his silent anger, and the file would have hit him except that Athrun caught it in his hands and lobbed it aside with equal violence.

"How dare you!" Her voice grew in its volume and loathing tone. "How dare- You kept this- all this from me! And how could you-,"

He stepped towards her. The flintiness of his expression made her shrink inwardly, but Cagalli stood her ground as he spoke

"You used me!" Cagalli burst out. She stepped out of the circumference of material she had surrounded herself by. While it seemed that the circle of protection and proof had been left behind, she felt herself grow stronger in her conviction.

The proof had always been there- she'd been blinded, and he'd blinded her. Maybe, she thought with agony, she'd always wanted to be blinded to the truth in so many ways.

Athrun took a step forward, surveying the materials that lay on the floor. The steadiness of his voice made it ring through the room."Is this all you went through? Because if it is, you can get your explanations later."

"Wait," Cagalli interjected. "I-,"

"Don't make me repeat myself again," He interrupted, "Get out."

No!" The hurt in her voice made it a scream even though it was soft and controlled. "I'm your pawn, aren't I? You made me lie next to you- you made me wonder if I was wrong about what I'd always thought- you made me think you were opening up to me so I would open myself to you-,"

"I will explain. But not now." Athrun said this brusquely, reaching her and dragging her a little to the side, where the door to the main basement was.

"I don't believe you." Cagalli snarled, shoving his hands away and standing firmly rooted there. "Don't you throw me out so you can lie later! I'm not stupid enough for that when everything's here!"

"What's here?" Athrun said in an unreadable manner.

Cagalli thought of how he'd known what her room looked like and how he'd fashioned her cage to be similar to it. She thought of the clothes he'd been aware she was wearing and what she was likely to accept. She thought of the trinkets he'd given her and how he must have known what she was wearing under her clothes, what she thought of each day, what she was likely to do and how he could eliminate her easily.

"What's here? This!" Cagalli said firmly, pointing to the letters. "This!" Her eyes fell on the files.

"And that!" Her voice grew loudly in the air as she jabbed a finger in the direction of the storeroom. "And that!"

"I deserve to know why I had to die, don't I? Are you going to ignore me? Or tell me that I need to trade something else for me to understand?"

Athrun's eyes turned cold, so cold and hollow that she trembled. "What else do you have left?"

And that was when something in her broke. It wasn't so much his words as much as that derision, that indifference and that lack of any clear emotion she thought he would at least show to her.

She reached out and slapped him.

"Don't you dare use that against me!" Cagalli spat. Her voice hung in the air, twined with poison and the shuddering gasps of withheld tears. "I trusted you, but you lied about so many things and used me!"

Athrun stared at her blankly, and slowly, reached up to her cheek, fingering the area gingerly. Cagalli had hit him hard, and the spot her fingers had made contact with was red on his pale skin.

"You're a hypocrite." He said softly, hissing slightly in pain. "A hypocrite and a liar, just like me. We're the same."

His eyes had darkened to the state that their clear emerald tones had become almost jet. There was a moment where his mouth showed a tender smile, but next to his eyes, there was a menacing quality to his expression.

Tears were stinging her eyes, hot and angry. She reached down, scooping up the letters, shaking them roughly. "You never told me all this time that you were already in contact with Kira right from the start! So when I wanted to send a letter, you made me trade something for it, despite you knowing that you could easily do it!"

He did not bother fighting off her accusations. He did not bother telling her that those were untruths and that he hadn't written to Kira after he'd come to the Isle. Athrun was still reeling from the shock of having Cagalli in the innermost chambers of the place, where he kept all his secrets.

"And this!" Cagalli's voice rang out. "Why do you have all these things of your father's? All the annotations you made on his plans if the Genesis project failed- and this-," Cagalli shook the diary. "Didn't you tell me that you wanted never to be like him? Didn't you mean it then? But you used all the information you took from his diary to create your own plans, didn't you? I was your pawn from the start, wasn't I?"

For some strange reason, she thought that Athrun hadn't heard her, for he had pushed past her and bent down to look at the things. Even while bending, his posture perfect as usual, but there was something broken about him. She began to repeat herself, in hopes of eliciting a response from him. Any response would have done, but he gave her none.

"You sent letters to Kira to assure him that you would be pursuing a new life somewhere else. Did he reply? Did he know what had happened that made you leave Orb even before I admitted it to him a few years later? What were you doing, all this time?"

"Why do I need to report to you?" Athrun retorted, striding forward and knocking the letters from her hands. "If I wrote letters to Kira even after I left Orb, that is his due. But who are you to me that I must tell you of this place and share these secrets with you?"

She stared, aghast at his sudden aggression, not understanding that it was in fact she, who had pushed him beyond his threshold. Instead, Cagalli began to grow more agitated, and her voice grew firmer in her suspicion and demands.

"You're right," Cagalli choked. "You're goddamn right. Nobody tells the person he wants to kill the truth. You didn't want me to suspect you were out there, planning God-knows-what to start another war!"

His voice was even, and he was growing eerily still. If anything, Athrun had snapped to attention, and there was a calm that radiate from him. "And what makes you think that I want another war?"

"This!" She said sharply, raising the diary and shaking it thoughtlessly. His eyes narrowed, but she was past the point of caring. "Everything is in here!"

Athrun looked at the single one she'd picked up. One in the series of three, and she'd somehow picked the one he'd poured over the most.

"Don't tell me you were unaware of Patrick Zala's original plans," She breathed, "Those were to be carried through his son. In his diary, he wrote that he would take all precautions to ensure your survival in the First War. You must have known from reading the diaries! He always ensured that even when you were dispatched, you were never in the front lines. He had great plans for you, didn't he? He'd made arrangements for you to be the pilot of the Freedom and to have a glorious future, in his own words. Even when the Freedom was stolen, he immediately made you to pilot of the Justice!"

Cagalli hissed. "I was a fool for underestimating both of you! Patrick Zala- spending his life building a weapon that could be destroyed so easily? You, spending your time here, pretending to run from your past?" She laughed bitterly. "Not likely!"

"What more did you read from those diaries?" His posture was tense.

"If the Genesis project failed, his son would start the war again in the seat of power that Patrick Zala would arrange for!"

Her eyes flashed. "That's what you're here doing right? You were to be the vessel- the harbinger, in his words! He had great hopes for you, didn't he? Bastard that you said he was, he loved you! You told me you'd always felt guilty because you knew you'd betrayed him when you'd refused to pull the trigger. You knew he expected and wanted so much for you to understand him. It's all over in the diary, even if he never managed to act that way to you. And you were acting on his last wishes, didn't you?"

Athrun thought of the way he'd once sat here, looking at a portrait of his father when Cagalli had first come to the Isle. He'd muttered then, that if his father had met Cagalli, he would have been sorry to have her broken.

Athrun was not unobservant or unaware of the situation when he'd taken Cagalli here. He'd known that despite who he was working for and the purpose of his ultimate mission, what he was doing was strangely and eerily akin to what his father had always wanted if the Genesis weapon was never triggered. But he'd never expected to have Cagalli think all this of him.

As he looked down at the opened diary, Athrun felt his fists tighten.

"How could you go through that-,"

His voice had lost every ounce of calm, and he was trembling quite visibly. Yet, Cagalli felt a strange sense of triumph rear in her, and through it all, she knew he could not longer remain silent.

She turned away, tossing it aside. It made a strange sound against the lower, framed portraits. At the same time, he made a small sound of grief as his father's diary was flung away, but in her anger, Cagalli did not see it.

"I made mistake by agreeing to stay on. I thought you wanted me here with you because you felt something for me. I was a fool." Cagalli told him forcibly. "And at this point, I don't care that you want another war. But I'm not going to stay any longer- I'm not going to be a pawn you can use and force to stay here for the six months. I'm going back to Orb the second I finish saying this. I don't care if you try to kill me here and now." Her voice shook for a second. "But I care that you lied to me, that you used me in those plans!"

"What proof do you have?" Athrun said defiantly. While he did not bother going and picking the diary up, there was poison in his stare.

"You have files with the plans you developed with your father's brainchild as its basis." She said in a low voice.

The diary had been enough proof, but she had wanted to prove her doubts were wrong. Surely, it was a matter of a past threat to her father's life and a matter of coincidence that Athrun Zala seemed to be carrying out those plans with her as the pawn now. It was her imagination. There was no such thing as Patrick Zala's plans to get Athrun Zala in an influential position within Plant's Supreme Council.

But then she'd found the surveillance records and all that he'd collated. The information and the specific things he'd been keeping tabs on in ways that she wasn't even clear of had matched too neatly with the diary.

"Your father was planning to have my father assassinated even if Genesis failed. Even if Patrick Zala died, he'd leave behind his son to complete the job." She said savagely. "You were to use the Orb Head to turn the Orb against the Earth Alliance. That would start a war where Orb and the Earth Alliance Naturals would wipe each other out."

"Your father started writing that what Orb's always believed in a matter of impossible ideals. He didn't believe that Coordinators and Naturals can live together after your mother was killed."

She shook her head, trying to go on, trying to lay out the facts that were still causing her so much grief. "He wanted these tainted Coordinators in Orb, as he called them, to die along with the Naturals. You were supposed to be his vessel if the Genesis failed- and you were! That's why you brought me here and tried to make me stay."

Athrun was frozen where he was. He said nothing and Cagalli lost the last of her control.

"If I don't get back to Orb by the time six months are up, Orb will go to war with Scandinavia and the Earth Alliance! That's what you really wanted because your father put you up to it! If my father had been alive, you'd have used him but as it turns out," Cagalli laughed brokenly. "I made a better pawn than my father because I sympathised and even thought I might have still loved you."

Throughout this, Athrun's eyes had not left her face. He had stood, frozen, silent, with that monstrous calm fuelling her hurt.

And then Cagalli was taunting him because she didn't know how else to hurt him- to make him feel how she did. Her voice turned derisive. "I always knew both of you were brilliant- but this! If I stay here, the adapted plans can be carried out, as your father wished. I think he's proud of you, Athrun. Very, very proud. Even when the pawn he needed had died a long time ago, you found another." Her voice broke. "A better pawn, in fact. One that let you do almost anything you liked, one that learnt not to question, one that couldn't resist you when you asked to be trusted- trusted to the point that I would have given you anything you wanted. Did I serve your purposes well enough?"

"I didn't have any plans!" Athrun roared, lividly slamming his fist on the table next to him. All the books reported by leaping into the air, but he didn't seem to take notice. "I don't have any!"

So Cagalli did what she had always done when threatened. She rose to the threat with her own and with a little to spare. If she had been in her office, twenty people would have been quivering. But here, she was not trying to settle a deal- she had long gone past that. Still, she lashed out.

Squaring her shoulders, Cagalli bit back her tears and yelled in her fury, "We've never meant anything to each other, so don't lie to me anymore, Athrun!"

Storming over to the drawer, she yanked open the last drawer and took a step back as all the things flew from there. It wasn't difficult to see what she had been referring to. Amidst all of the paraphernalia, there was a well-made, fine fountain pen.

"This pen." Cagalli said quietly, picking up and holding it in the light. "Has my name engraved on it. You made a spare, didn't you?"

He stared at it, not saying anything. This was a spare that he had thought of finding a way to present to her again, right after she'd damaged the first one. But the thought of the last thing he'd watched and how affected he'd been for the subsequent days and weeks had made him abandon the idea. He'd even gone as far as to convince Greyfriars that there had been no point observing a person who was far too well-guarded when really, that had been far from the truth.

"I had one those years ago, until I dropped it accidentally. But you know the rest- I told you of the rest." Cagalli began to laugh wistfully in her heartache. "What a fool I was! Here you were- the person orchestrating those events that I never even realised were attempts on my life."

She pointed at the file with her name on it, her voice entirely changed in its hostility. "And you even confirmed with Greyfriars that I was carrying the pen around! Who is Greyfriars?"

He had gone entirely motionless, his face inscrutable. That crack, that show of temper had long faded away, and what she witnessed now was even more disconcerting. He was steeling himself, and she recognised the person before her as the one who had killed Decant Corriolis all those months ago.

Still, Cagalli confronted him, unable to shake off the betrayal.

"And the car incident- I was locked in there alone. If Aaron hadn't smashed the window, I'd have been dead meat! Were you disappointed that I survived while you noted down how things were going on that Wednesday afternoon, Athrun?"

Spitefully and only because she did not know not to express the bitter disappointment of realising that he had long been out to hurt her, Cagalli caught another file in her hands and threw it forcefully at him. She wanted to hit him, wanted to hurt him for hurting her.

He made no effort to duck; only stood there as the file hit him squarely in the chest and fell to the ground this time. All the photographs they had taken- whoever the people who had been trailing her were- over the years were now spilling everywhere.

Watching those innocuous, almost totally harmless shots of her falling in coloured pieces over the carpet made Cagalli smile. It was a broken, cynical smile that she didn't even realise she was capable of giving in that situation.

"When you laid next to me and told me all about you, I thought- I honestly did- that you were beginning to open yourself to me." Cagalli whispered. "I thought then, that all that mattered was that you trusted me. But I was wrong."

"It didn't matter that I had to trade something in for you to say how you felt about your past, about your father and how you had admired him all this time while hating him. I really did think that I knew you then, Athrun, I really did."

He closed his eyes, shaking his head once and very slightly, but she was hardly aware that he was growing white with dismay.

Athrun looked stonily at her, but remained resolute in his muteness. Her temper flared even more, and her voice began to shake because of her partial fear and partial pain.

"From his diary, it's obvious, isn't it?" Cagalli rasped. "And my god, I was a fool for not seeing the truth when you told me so many times that your father was your ghost! And the other time, when I told you of all the failed attempts of assassination, you remarked that I was surprisingly difficult to kill. I laughed then, didn't I? What a fool I was!"

Cagalli threw her head back and laughed in her pain. "You must have come here to look at everything and laugh at me right after that!"

And Athrun took a step back, making as if to leave. She had never seen him run from her before, but now, she knew she never wanted to again. Not even when she was going to suffer and die for it if he turned back.

"Tell me!" Her voice broke, and she realised that tears were beginning to stream from her face. Why was she so useless? Why couldn't she control her feelings and bite back those little drops that showed how weak she was? "Damn you Athrun- how could you let me feel for you again and do this to me?"

He shook his head, walking away from her. She should have rejoiced at her chance to escape or even taken the chance to put him out of consciousness and find a way back to Orb. She could have turned and refused to watch him leave, just as she had all those years ago. But she chose not to now.

"Did you agree to those contracts with me because you wanted to prolong my stay here?" Cagalli questioned, not able to shake off her disappointment. "You knew how desperate I was to return- and you supposed that if you had refused, I would have tried to escape even if it cost me my life. So you took the chance and tried to stall me. And you got benefits from that too, didn't you?"

He paused, although he didn't turn around.

"Why did it have to be you using me?" Cagalli said in her anguish. "Each time you chose to use me, as your father would have used mine, did you think of what you were doing to me?"

"I'm not my father," He interrupted forcefully. "I'm not like those you don't trust and let near you for good reasons." His eyes met hers as he whirled around, finally showing her his expression. The vehemence he suddenly broke his composure with was so startling that she dropped everything she had been confronting him with.

And Athrun advanced towards her. Flustered, she took a step back. But he came closer still, pressing his hands against the sides of the wall, trapping her against it swiftly. His voice was a hiss, and she cowered, knowing how powerless she was against him now.

"Don't you dare not trust me." Athrun said bitingly. "Don't you dare."

His voice was controlled, but she sensed a tremor go through his body, as if someone had punched him or taken a knife through each palm and shredded it into his shoulders like butter.

"You have no right to make those suppositions, as if you are blind to all I've done for you. You have no right to think that the only thing I care about is a father who died along with my mother."

Defensively, Cagalli put her hands up, trying to cover her eyes, as if he had threatened to hit her. But he did not, for his words were enough to produce the same effect.

"Those letters should have been burnt a long time ago." Athrun told her grimly. "Those diaries would have been held in Plant until today, if I hadn't earned them and hidden them here."

"And it's a good thing you didn't," Cagalli turbulently, mocking him. "Imagine how hard it would be to have no reference while trying to kill me!"

"I never tried to!" He bellowed, punching his fist against the wall, right next to her head. She glanced at his fist and thought of the fine scars on those that she'd noticed before. But no gloves would cover those scars even if he'd worn those.

Athrun did not seem to feel the pain anymore. He stared at her, as if his fist was not raw and bruised and required no attention at all. "You think you have proof that I was planning to kill you? And even you have those, you think I wanted to? You think I did it willingly even now, despite all we've been through?"

And suddenly, without warning although she should have suspected that he had been driven up a wall as well, Athrun grabbed her by the cardigan she'd borrowed, pulling at the collar and ignoring her yelp of surprise and fear. The wall was cold against her back, and she felt him pressing her even more, pushing her to put her in a defenseless state.

He ripped the material off her, immune to how she jolted and began to fight him, trying to scratch or at least push away as he rid her of it. His mouth sought hers and even when Cagalli screamed as best as she could and bit down into his lip, he retaliated. Athrun did more than retaliate- he trailed his lips down her neck again in a manner that seemed both familiar and not.

The hatred that burnt in him and the way he bit at her made her cry out, and Cagalli was horrified to feel lust in her body even when her life was being threatened. All the same, she was struggling and she knew she was unlikely to escape now. His hands were scrabbling against her flailing ones, her bare arms weaker against his.

Athrun was simply furious, she thought in a strange, frozen kind of awe, her cries muffled by his mouth and his hands still fighting with hers and crushing her fingers in his grip. He was a man who had finally snapped- a man who had never really lost his temper with anyone except those he abhorred. Had they both sunk to that level so quickly when she had loved him so much? She didn't know.

Suddenly, he stopped kissing her, and breathlessly, Cagalli looked up at him, panting. He was doing the same, his eyes stormy and his lower lip raw and bleeding slightly from where she'd bitten. He sported a small but painful looking scratch on his cheek where she'd managed to get at him, and he was breathing heavily with the exertion of trying to rein in his anger.

Now, his words were twisted by his gritted teeth. Again, he locked her there by placing his hands on either side of her head as her back was pressed against the wall.

"They can doubt me as a heretic's son, but not you." He hissed.

"How do you want me to trust you with everything here?" Cagalli challenged him, her hands still shielding her. Her breaths were small puffs of white in this chilly storeroom. "It makes sense doesn't it? You left, and you set up some kind of base here-,"

Her hand shot into the air as she gestured, "And over these few years, you made plans to kill me, until you realised I could be used as a pawn, whether dead or alive! When did you realise I was better off alive, Athrun? What made you kill the lackey who tried to shoot me in the bedroom you let him into? He said you had no more use for me, and before he could kill me, you stabbed him yourself. Was it some elaborate play to make me trust you? Did you sacrifice some lackey for that?"

"No," Athrun said shakily. "That wasn't me he was talking about- he wasn't working for me. I needed you- Iwanted to save you! I couldn't let you die-," His voice broke as he watched her expression harden.

Her eyes flashed and her voice grew malevolent. "Was it when you realized I could give you that Orb citizenship you wanted to further your businesses? Or was it later, when I offered you part of me? Or when I was on my knees for you? Was it when you were using me? You were using Lyra Delphius as well, weren't you?"

If anything, her question made him even more incensed and he grabbed her face and pulled her closer, saying softly, in that terrible voice, "Do you think I killed her because I merely got tired of her?"

"You told me she died of illness-,"

"Yes." Athrun said sharply. "Foolishness."

She gasped, and he let go of her as if he had touched burning coals, shoving her aside. And stumbling away now, as if someone had taken a cudgel and set work breaking his body and will, he turned his face from hers, leaving her to realise how cruel she had been.

"Don't go off and leave it at that!" Cagalli snarled, hitting back at him. She grabbed him by his shoulder and whirled him around to face her. "You're going to kill me like her anyway, so I might as well get it off my chest!"

Athrun's eyes narrowed until they were slits, but she was past the point of caution. If he killed her here and now, she would have still found a way to say all she proceeded to. And when she did, she knew the pain she was trying to cause was only equal to the hurt he had given her.

"Would it help if I told you I wanted you to hate me when I made the contract to trade half of my body?" Cagalli taunted. "And that I had purposely played with you because I didn't have any feelings towards you? Did you hate me for that? Would that be the explanation you owe me for why you tried to kill me? Doesn't that explain why you did all this to me? Should I take it that you hated me and for that simple reason, played with me?"

He looked at her, seeing the sorrow in her eyes and the fire she attacked him with. The words she said pained him, but instinctively, Athrun knew it was in her nature to lash out when she was hurt. He'd hurt her with what she thought were lies, but he knew that it ran deeper than that.

If he told her the truth, his chances of gaining his freedom would be dashed, and Cagalli would hate him for all he had done. But if he didn't, she'd hate him anyway.

And when he spoke, Athrun found that he could not help himself anymore than he could help everything that had occurred.

Athrun's voice was a groan of despair, his hands falling by his sides, tight in fists. "I can't tell you- I can't! I would be betraying so many if I did-,"

She stared, biting her lips for a second, as was her habit when she did not know what to do anymore.

"Then don't." Cagalli said wearily, turning her head away. She moved away from the wall she'd backed up against. "I can't force you anymore. Even if I knelt here, put a knife in your hands and offered you my life, it wouldn't change anything now."

Her hands were shaking. "But I will apologize for having gone through these things. I had no right to, and I didn't mean to come down here. I wouldn't have if I hadn't even stepped into your study."

Cagalli's voice dropped, so much that it was a rustle of a page, a caress of a finger that melted too soon into the air. "I only came into the study to learn what you'd like when I gave it to you. That was a mistake. Maybe it would have been better for me to live in my ignorance."

"Give?" His voice was as shaky as hers.

"To celebrate your birthday." Cagalli whispered. "When Epstein offered to take me into your study so I would know if what I wanted to give was suitable, I agreed to. But I intruded even in here. I shouldn't have done that."

She stood there, unable to continue, unable to hold her tears back anymore. Those blurred her vision and fell to the floor, and she didn't dare to look up for fear that she would break down completely.

"Your intruding doesn't matter." Athrun said harshly. "All that's said and done. But I cannot have you doubt me, do you understand? I've told you, over and over again, that I don't have a choice when it comes to you. Believe me."

"Please," He added, and something of her resolve was fragmented by how aged him seemed, how tired he looked.

Cagalli recalled how he had looked at her each time they'd told each other about their pasts in the bath or the bed. There had been that burning need, that strange sadness that never left his eyes, no matter how she had made him laugh and smile. He had sacrificed so much precisely because he hadn't been able to say no to her.

"I never thought I'd be moved by you again- or by anyone for that matter." His voice was filled with that nameless, deep agony. He stood there, rooted in that spot.

"And yet, you look at me now and ask me why I became my father. I don't know why either. I tried to fight it- I really did. And maybe I do have a choice when it comes to you this time." Athrun looked at her, aged by his suffering, wounded so deeply that she knew he would never be the same.

His eyes flickered to her face for a brief instant, and then dropped down. He looked away, turning in the direction of the steps. "There's no meaning in keeping you here when you're not safe anyway- it's pointless now."

Athrun's voice was hollow- the voice of a man who had lost everything in an instant."I'll arrange for you to be sent back to Orb immediately. If you leave, you'll be able to forget, as you wanted to. Now leave this place."

She stared at him, the complete devastation in his eyes and the pain in his face. Another transformation had taken place in him- he was shielding himself, guarding his own emotions now, and suddenly, he was that cold, completely controlled figure of stone and steel.

In those seconds, the last of Athrun Zala had vanished. In his bid to sever the ties that had made them fall in love but become so hurt by each other, he had become a stranger again.

Cagalli stood there, still frozen, sensing the rage he had managed to control by killing all his faculties of human feeling.

And slowly, as she walked past him, her hands limp by her sides, she knew she could not see his expression his fringe covered. Even if she had seen his face completely, he would have probably and already worn his mask.

But perhaps, he was wearing no mask at all. He had already and truly lost all the capacity to feel when she had looked at him and accused him of making use of her. Why was the prospect of returning to Orb after finally cracking through Athrun not appealing anymore? Why was he even hurt when she had been wounded by him- and why did it hurt her all the more to sense that?

As she walked past him, something broke in her too, and the portraits of all those he had loved smiled in a row of unknowing, senseless happiness. Those bore witness to the pain of those living.

Then abruptly, Cagalli turned back and in a few strides, had reached him and flung her arms around his neck, pressing herself to him, her hands warm against his cold, unfeeling body.

She could not see his face, for he had turned away, but she could not let go of him now. Not then, Cagalli told herself breathlessly, not for those seven years, and not now, not when it mattered so much.

His voice was a whiplash, more unfeeling than she had ever thought possible, and the unhappiness beneath its veneer made the same pain blossom in her chest.

"Let go!"

"No!" Her cry matched his in equal volume and the same intensity of emotion.

Athrun shoved her away, and the force made her stumble slightly. But she returned, and her hands were strong, and she clutched at him, relinquishing all her pride, forgoing her stubbornness, praying that he would listen to her.

"Don't do this." He rasped, suddenly weak with overwhelming heartache and the pain of every year he had lived mounting and weighing him down. "Don't touch me."

She clung to him desperately, willing him to forgive her, willing him to accept her. He pushed her away quite immediately, but she pulled him to her at the same time, trying to make him understand, trying to tell him that she had hurt him for no good reason, and that she had hurt herself by hurting him.

"I can't understand you," Cagalli said painfully. "Because you won't let me. But I want to, Athrun. Please- tell me."

Then slowly, his hands, frozen in mid air, found their away around the small of her back. His voice was a mumble, and he was breathing as if he had been running for a long time.

"I didn't try to kill you. Believe me. I would never have. I could never have willingly tried to hurt you."

And Cagalli buried her face into his chest. Why was she allowing herself to be fooled again? Why try and believe him all over again? The proof was here, and if he had been playing games with her, she would have been a fool to fall for the same thing over and over again.

But she couldn't- even if he proceeded to take a gun and shoot her in her head, she would still have believed, even to the last minute, that her murderer was not Athrun, or that Athrun had loaded only blanks into the gun.

She was a fool, Cagalli thought to herself. She didn't mind being a fool for him.

"You don't believe me yet." Athrun whispered, still hugging her close to him, as if she would bolt suddenly. "But it's true- it really is. I can't say how- but it's true."

Her voice was ragged with her unsteady breathing and soft with her indescribable pain.

"I want to believe you. Tell me." Cagalli began to stammer, her voice shaking and her hands trembling, as she looked into his unseeing eyes and pale, almost unrecognisable face. "I'm sorry. I have no right to ask for your forgiveness- but I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I-"

Athrun lifted her chin and shook his head, unable to speak, and tenderly, she brought his face to hers, tiptoeing a little, so she could kiss him. He did not respond, but her kiss was searching, demanding, and he allowed her to cup his face with both her palm.

Then she broke away, although her hands were still on his cheeks, and her eyes were golden and half-lidded.

"I'll believe you," She said pleadingly. "Please. Tell me so I can be with you."

"Impossible." Athrun said softly, holding her for a second more, and then beginning to let go of her. "I can't tell you. I owe a duty to keep my silence."

"But I need to know." She said with a mute suffering. "At all costs."

He looked at her, and saw only honesty and trust. There was no more derision, no more of that infuriating scorn and doubt in Cagalli's eyes. And he thought of what she had said, what she had meant to do by even being here.

Because of that, Athrun found himself softening, despite his desire to remain firm in his decision that she had to be sent away. Of the two choices, both would still have her hating him. The ignorance made her mistrust him, but the knowledge would make her despise him. At least though, he thought brokenly, she'd have what she deserved to know with the second option. That was better than having her believe what she thought was the truth.

In that instant, he made up his mind. He had always known that one day, he'd have to tell her everything. He couldn't run away and hope for more time to be with her, but at least, Athrun would try to make her understand.

"Cagalli," He said hesitantly, "If I tell you, you must listen to everything. If you despise me for it, it will be just as well. But you must listen to everything."

"I won't despise you." She said softly. "How could I not feel anything for you when I ended up loving you again after all this time? I was a fool for trying to hate you, to make myself numb to you. So tell me everything- explain it to me properly. I want to know everything about you, all over again."

Cagalli shook her head, stroking his face. "We were so young and foolish then, going on in our own happiness without learning anything. I won't have that now. I'm not going to leave or watch you leave without hearing you out."

He looked at her sadly. "I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but there are others I must protect too."

She studied him and knew that it was not cowardice but the fear of risking things he was supposed to protect. Athrun had never wanted to endanger something, Cagalli realized, and she was about to find out what that was.

"I won't tell anyone outside the Isle," She assured him. "I swear on my own life that I won't. If you must destroy me after this, I would willingly put a gun to my head, as long as I understood why you did everything that you did."

Assured now, Athrun took her hand gently, leading her out of the storeroom, bringing her to the main basement where the sofa was. He felt drained and even more insecure, but Cagalli's hand was warm in his and he knew she wanted to believe him once more.

As he sank into a seat, she sat with him too. Athrun was a little hunched, his hands clasped in her lap, and he began to speak. His breaths were unsteady, and she knew he was trying to come to terms with everything, just as she was.

"I'm not sure you can tolerate all I've done for such a long time." He said quietly, with some wryness that she realized she'd missed quite suddenly. His eyes were dull but he made an effort to smile a little, and heart heavy, she whispered, "I've got the rest of six months to try."

He tried to smile again to return the one she managed, and comfortingly, Cagalli moved closer to him.

"After the war," Athrun told her morosely, "I never thought of returning to the Plants. There was only one place I wanted to be in. When I found myself being asked to leave Orb in a situation I couldn't even explain myself out of, there was no choice for me except to go back to Plant and try to move on from there."

"Eventually, I came to the Isle," Athrun said slowly, "After I left Orb, that is. Before I did that, I went back to Plant to settle my personal affairs. I left almost everything to my estate, as if I'd died, and made preparations to leave Plant. But I took certain things with me, including my father's old letters and diaries." He shook his head, laughing without any real job. "While I didn't want to have anything to do with my father, I couldn't just forget him, could I?"

Cagalli studied him, understanding the turmoil his mind was in.

"I wanted to claim the things that belonged to me at very least, and that's why I came back to the Plants first, even though I wasn't planning to stay there. I didn't even make it past the immigration counter." He shook his head. "I was detained, and I was made an offer by Zaft."

"An offer," Cagalli said hesitantly. "That involved you going to the Isle?"

He nodded. "The Secret Intelligence Council arranged for it. The Isle was supposed to be an asylum or refuge for me, while being a place I was supposed to carry out my new duties in. The deal was that if I agreed to serve for three more years, I'd be allowed to leave the Plants with the diaries my father had left for me."

She looked at him, seeing him close his eyes briefly as if to try and shut away the pain.

"These diaries are dangerous- you know that. Those are perfectly workable plans, even though I never thought of using those or even seeing how similar the significance of my future actions were to what my father planned for me." Athrun told her. "At that time, I was only concerned with obtaining what I wanted to keep. I couldn't just give everything away to Plant's Supreme Council, who wanted to have everything of his destroyed. I didn't want to work for Zaft or anything like that, but I found myself in it again, because I wanted to keep what my father had left for me."

He sighed quietly, a tiny exhaling that seemed to put years into his body. "That's the stupid thing, really. Even until today, I'm afraid to remember my father and unwilling to let his actions cast a shadow over my life, but I couldn't let go of his things either. Still, I did know that I wanted to go somewhere where my father's name would never plague me again."

"That was virtually impossible in Plant." Cagalli realised. "So that's why you were willing to come here!"

"Yes." Athrun forced a small smile, although it ended as something strangely sorrowful. "Nor could I return to Orb because of the reasons you know of. At that time, there was also an existing Zaft promotion before I'd left for Orb, and there was the order from Plant's High Council which I could not disobey. Before I even left for Orb, the order had been that I was to serve in the Plant Supreme Council for as long as I lived."

She stared, wondering why Kira or Lacus had never told her of this. Had they known of this when Athrun had left Plant to try and reach her in Orb again? And if they had, had they kept it from her knowledge in hopes that she would receive Athrun with open arms again? Surely, they must have known that Cagalli would be even more reluctant to let Athrun stay if she knew he'd had such an opportunity he was giving up to be with her in Orb.

"But why didn't you take that earlier offer after the Second War?" Cagalli voice was despondent. "If you'd wanted to forget about Orb and me and move on, why couldn't you agree to work and try and leave everything to the past? Why did you have to go back to Orb after the Second War and try to recover what was already lost?"

He smiled ruefully and she saw herself reflected in his eyes. "You know the reason why."

"But the opportunity that was given to you back in Plant!" Her eyes widened. "Surely, that was a stab at a new life?"

She looked at him and saw a brief flicker of unhappiness in his eyes.

"Did you actually think that they wanted me there?" Athrun said coolly. "They issued a long statement justifying how my qualifications and background would serve them well, but that's all bollocks. The real reason they offered me a promotion after the Second War was to keep an eye on me."

"What for?" Cagalli asked.

"I had been under my father's influence in the First War, and I had served under Dullindal in the second. I had defected twice, and they came to the conclusion that anybody who was persuasive enough would have made use of me." He laughed. "As if other soldiers don't defect! As if my defections had prolonged the war or had made things catastrophic for Plant! As if Dullindal hadn't been persuasive to all of them too! But I was Patrick Zala's son and dangerous by nature- even worse that I would be easily persuaded, as it appeared to them."

Athrun shook his head, looking at Cagalli. "You know the real reason why I agreed to do as Dullindal wanted now, don't you? He offered support for our relationship back then. He knew, by the time you left Armory One, that I was more than your bodyguard. Besides, he had promised peace for a lifetime, and so many others believed them as well."

He rubbed his face in his hands. "Why did I have to be the only one punished for hoping and believing, if somewhat foolishly? Hadn't I already been punished enough by throwing away the person I wanted to be with the most?"

Cagalli held his hand in hers quietly, shaking her head, unable to formulate the words to respond to him.

"Whatever it was," Athrun said slowly, "I didn't want to be chained to Plant's High council. It reminded me of my father's sins and my duty to correct them. Why do I have to? Why should I be expected to? In the past, before the Second War, I did feel I had a duty. But that has changed." He looked at her firmly. "When I finally made head and tail of why you'd rejected me and given your hand to a person who you didn't even like, I knew I'd made the same mistake even before you. I'd assumed my father's mistakes were things I had to solve for him- the way you assumed your father's past responsibilities were your own."

"I don't owe a duty to my father, who chose his own life and how his own death eventually was." Athrun's voice was decisive now, and Cagalli felt a tremor go through her. "Nor do you. And even if I am responsible to solve some problems my father created, I don't want to have some bunch of hypocrites impose that duty on me. Nor should you."

His expression darkened. "As if they had the right to judge me when they had fawned over my father in his day! Under them, a single mistake I made would have stained my father's record even more."

She nodded, understanding. Even now, as Cagalli Yula Atha, a single mistake of hers would have reflected badly on her father and not so much her.

"The suspicion and discrimination isn't overt, but they think I have the potential and therefore will be the second Patrick Zala." Athrun said quietly. "But they don't realise that while I am my father's son, I am not my father. Even until today, I find my superiors keeping checks on me as if I would be planning another war. But I didn't expect you to do that too-," He looked down, smiling ruefully.

Guiltily, she cast her eyes down, for she had looked at him in the same way just minutes ago. But gently, he took her hand and held it to his heart and said softly, "I swear to you that I am not my father."

"I know." She mumbled, feeling guiltier than ever. "But I still think you should have used the opportunity they gave you to prove that you weren't your father."

"But that's exactly why I came to the Isle. When I realized that they wanted to keep an eye on me at all costs, that's when I decided that I'd go along with their plans. And once those three years were up, I'd be my own person and if I could, I'd find a way to go back to Orb again. I wanted you to understand me- not to doubt me and think I'd murdered for my father as I think you made yourself believe." Athrun said. He lifted her chin, looking at her directly.

"At the time when I had left Orb after you'd told me to, I had been too weighed down by the trial, too carefully watched. I decided to bide my time and find a way to return somehow, to explain when you were finally able to accept my innocence. Yet, there was no where else left where I would be free of the actions my father had committed."

Cagalli gazed at him, stricken with sorrow and the guilt of her own involvement.

"Being offered a way to get them off my back even if they breathed down my neck for three more years, and being given a way to forget Orb for a while was attractive. So when the Plant Supreme Council decided they could not control me, they gave me a new identity and let me stay where I would perform duties for a given number of years."

"So that's why I could never track you again. You were here on the Isle by that time." She breathed. "That's how you were able to disappear for so long and be known by another identity. But-," She faltered. "Who are the people here?"

He shook his head, choosing to throw away the lies he'd told her a long time ago. If Athrun had been able to force a smile onto his face and pretend that he was at peace on the Isle when she'd first asked, now he was unable to.

Athrun drew in a deep breath. "The Isle-dwellers are Coordinators who were brought here before the First War broke out. They were people who appealed to Plant in hopes that they would be able to leave their Earth countries to get to space. Many of them had committed all kinds of crime. It didn't help that they were Coordinators and that the Naturals around them were already against them."

"What wrongdoings did these Coordinators on earth do?" Cagalli asked nervously.

"Most of them were driven out from where they were originally, because they were getting too corrupted or too wealthy from some underhanded means. Drug-production, having palms greasier than the food they favour, cyber-hacking, grand schemes-," He trailed off wearily. "The whole works. I suppose I don't have a right to judge these Coordinators, but if I did, I think there's no way to describe them except calling them scum."

She recalled what he'd told her during her first dinner with him on the Isle. He'd spoken about how Coordinators were in and of themselves more privileged than the average person, which had allowed them to be Coordinators in the first place. It didn't matter that there were criminals amongst Coordinators- it only mattered that they were Coordinators and therefore to be hated.

"They were sent here before the First War broke out. I was sent here as an intelligencer to keep them in check on Plant's orders. A rule enforcer of sorts- I track down the Isle-dwellers who try to step out of the Isle, although I never really have to exercise that power. Most are very happy here and don't want to leave. You've seen them at their parties," Athrun said derisively, looking directly at Cagalli.

"Why would Plant agree to look after all these Coordinators who caused problems on Earth in the first place?" Cagalli wondered. "I know Siegel Clyne has always favoured peace and diplomacy, but it seems- seems wrong."

Athrun looked intently at her. "I've wondered about the same thing too. But I suppose that if I were the Plant Chairman and I received appeals from these Coordinators who were going to be persecuted by angry Naturals, I wouldn't have allowed them to die either. Even if bringing them and hiding them away within Scandinavia didn't seem like justice for those they had caused trouble for, letting them die would be wrong too."

"Does Lacus know about this?" She questioned, thinking of her friend and sister-in-law. "Her father headed this operation in the past- an operation that's been continuing even until now."

"She does not." Athrun replied. "Few do. My own father didn't even know of this operation when he was the chairman after Siegel Clyne. It's been one of Plant and Zaft's most well-guarded secrets for a long time. The people who give me instructions are from a council within the Secret Intelligence Division of Zaft, and not all those people are from the Supreme Council."

He shook his head. "Few within the Supreme Council even know about this, probably because of the history of the Isle anyway. Siegel Clyne was the person who arranged for a few trusted people to handle this operation, and he kept it from the public or even his council because there would be too much debate and controversy over it. It's stayed that way, even until today."

"And you became one of the Isle-dwellers while secretly being there to ensure everyone kept within the rules?" Cagalli questioned, her eyes studying him. From the way Athrun was looking at his hands, she knew their crimes had been heinous. She thought of the way he'd looked at those at the party with such great dislike. Cagalli understood now, that he'd hated himself for protecting people who had to face their crimes but were enjoying themselves by being provided an escape route. It didn't seem fair.

Athrun nodded. "Elite soldiers have been arranged to come here and protect them for all this while. I've been guarding this hiding hole for criminals as part of the three-year contract I made."

"If this place is an asylum for them, they won't ever feel the need to leave and answer to their crimes." Cagalli echoed, trying to understand everything in the context of the massive, orgiastic party she had attended with Athrun.

"Most of them treat this place like a holiday resort, since they were allowed to bring their wealth here." He shrugged. "They must pay taxes as ordinary Plant citizens would, but they can afford that and the protection they are given. But not that everyone deserves the asylum, of course."

No wonder then, Cagalli thought, that he had seemed to despise them so much then, but had that rueful countenance about him that night at Rochester's. Had he wondered what he was doing there, whether he had sunk as low as the people he despised around him?

"They've been here for a long time." Cagalli realised. "They didn't seem to recognise me or you."

"These people had to change their identities when the tensions rose even before the First War. You were hidden away from public eyes for so long that they wouldn't have recognized you even if they'd been able to move out from the Isle. In fact," Athrun considered, "Nobody recognizes me as Athrun Zala because I was less than five when they were all sent here."

He smiled thinly. "Not that I'm missing out on being recognised, of course."

"What about the rules of not leaving?" She inquired. "How do they maintain their businesses and wealth?"

"They don't have to. They can fritter away their inheritances and existing fortunes if they wish, and most do. Most can afford the way they live for another hundred years, which is more than enough time for them to gorge themselves to death. As for the rules, there aren't any that prevent them from living like pigs. Those that exist though," He said tightly, "Are to ensure that nobody here gets a way of becoming the most powerful person here. In this place, knowledge would be power, and leaving the Isle and selling information to radical Naturals would be quite a profitable business. It's a protection-scheme in many ways. It's my job to prevent anyone from leaving to sell the identities of these Coordinators to people out for their blood."

"Then why were you able to send the letter and to get information?" Cagalli knitted her hands together anxiously.

"Unlike the other asylum-seekers," Athrun answered tentatively, "I'm serving Plant under Zaft. It isn't an open secret or anything. I do live as Rune Estragon when it is time to make a public appearance for the Isle-dwellers' sake, but I answer to Zaft. In essence though, I have certain privileges on this Isle that the others do not know of. I can leave by using specific yachts- one of which can travel as a submarine. But you knew that, of course." He added.

She nodded, thinking of how she'd been brought here when she'd been injured.

Athrun looked down dully. "I didn't really think about what I was doing when I agreed to come here. I tried not to think, not to understand or to ask questions. The only thing I wanted to know was that I'd only spend three years and then I'd be free to live my own life." He smiled bitterly. "I should have known. The three years sapped a few lifetimes' worth of my spirit. But living with and protecting these people wasn't the most damning thing I did in the three years."

"What do you mean?" Cagalli said, dry-mouthed. She watched him repress a shudder and look at her, his eyes afraid and his mouth tight.

"Right before I left the Isle, I met Epstein Cleamont, who had been Erlich Hoffman then. I was asked to train him."

She furrowed her brow, trying to understand. "But that's normal for soldiers and you're an elite so-,"

"Not that." Athrun cut her off. "I was to teach him to pilot. I taught him to use a mobile suit weapon and to teach him how to kill if Zaft ordered it. He was brought up, under me, to be a soldier. And he became one. He really did. When he was sixteen, I knew that he was ready and that he'd molded into what Zaft had always planned- their perfect soldier."

Cagalli bit her lips. "But-,"

"That's not the worse." Athrun's gaze was distracted and there was a violence in the way he twisted his hands in his lap. "Do you really know who Epstein is? Do you know what circumstances he was brought to Zaft in?"

Cagalli stared at him, not understanding.

He laughed once, a wry laugh that shook his entire frame. "When I returned to the Plants after leaving Orb, the council was still investigating Gilbert Dullindal and Talia Gladys' death. But they had long established knowledge of a child the two had had together and had even acquired the boy."

"Wait-," Her eyes widened and her face was drained of its blood. "Epstein is-,"

Athrun nodded, looking soberly at her. "After the war, Kira actually began searching for Epstein and spoke to the Plant Supreme Council about this child that existed. But Kira didn't know I'd already met the boy and had become the legal guardian. He didn't even know that the Supreme Council had been aware of this child's existence for longer than he had. He didn't known that they'd already found and taken the boy into Zaft. So when Kira informed the Supreme Council that he wanted to take custody of the child, as was the wishes of Talia Gladys, he didn't know it was impossible."

"But even if I hadn't become the legal parent of Erlich Hoffman," Athrun told her, "The Supreme Council would have refused to allow Kira custody. They stated reasons such as that the child could not be traced, and Kira had to accept that. But in fact, they had long located the boy and put him into Zaft, afraid that he would somehow learn of his real father and want to follow in those footsteps."

Athrun smiled ironically. "Perhaps that's why Epstein and I have that strange affinity. Of course, there was also the fact that, the High Council also did not want Kira Yamato to get hold of the time-bomb they viewed Epstein as. "

"Why?" Cagalli asked incredulously. "What's wrong with Kira?"

"The Supreme Council and the Zaft heads do not and still do not trust Kira Yamato." Athrun told her directly. "He fought against Coordinators in the Earth Alliance's uniform in the First War, didn't he? And the reasons he joined Zaft are really only because of his desire to be with Lacus Clyne. If he got hold of an impressionable young boy and taught him those wish-washy defector-style ways, as I remember one council member describing it, then the boy could well become a monster." He laughed wryly. "Dullindal, that is."

"But that's unfair!" Cagalli cried. "Even if Kira made some mistakes in the past, how could they say he'd naturally pass them on to a boy he was asked to look after? Or Epstein's father's mistakes?"

"I know." Athrun said aggressively. "But that's the way it is. They judged Kira without understanding the context, judged Epstein on only his parentage, and naturally, concluded that both would not be safe together. I was chosen instead. I ended up taking custody of the boy, thinking that I would have to only train him and teach him piloting skills, since he apparently had the gift for it."

"Funny how I never realised it-," He said with a queer smile. "But I was such a fool. If they had refused to let a potentially dangerous Kira Yamato meet the boy, then why me, Patrick Zala's son?"

"Yes. I don't understand either." Cagalli said softly. She laid her hand softly on his clenched one.

Athrun took it in his, holding it tightly. "I'll tell you why. Because Kira Yamato could never teach the boy to pilot even if a gun had been placed at the back of Kira's head. But I would teach the boy, if ordered to. And I would teach the boy to fire and kill when ordered to, just as I had been ordered to fire and kill and teach others to do the same. I was a perfect fit."

"Why not other pilots?" She said brokenly. "Why did they have to make you do it?"

Athrun gazed at her stricken expression. "How many pilots do you know? Only the elite in Zaft learn how to pilot. And even then, only a few make it as the more sophisticated mobile-weapon pilots because of the sheer limited supply of these weapons. Lunamaria Hawke and even Heine Westenfluss were above-average pilots and they were assigned average units. "

"But surely there were other pilots?" Cagalli questioned. "Surely there were others, no matter how few there were?"

"It's true." He said steadily. "But Shinn Asuka was out of the question as an instructor- he was too emotional and too shaken by the war. Kira Yamato was out of the question too- his loyalties to Zaft were too questionable. There was only myself, who had involuntarily but nevertheless, been pushed out of knew I was the best fit because I had nowhere else to go."

"Besides," Athrun said wistfully, almost to himself, "Kira could not have known how to teach piloting because he is a natural at it. My expression of natural is ironic, but there is no other explanation of his gifts and abilities in the context of Kira's piloting. It is entirely instinctive to him, and he has never needed to go through the theory or the practice. He can't teach what is already in his blood. Trust me- the Supreme Council had already discovered this when they tried making him instruct the redcoats when he first joined."

"No wonder." Cagalli mused. "I thought he had become the General for Defense and Military Technology only because he refused to teach piloting."

"There was that." Athrun admitted. "But other than his unwillingness, there was his inability, as strange as it seems when it concerns Kira. And Lacus, of course, didn't know about all of this, not even my being sent to the Isle with Erlich Hoffman. There was, and always is, politicking even within the council. Whatever the case, there were limited numbers of mobile-suit pilots, an even more limited number of potential instructors, and Kira Yamato and Shinn Asuka were out of the question."

She listened, understanding how it had been a matter of inevitability of Athrun becoming Epstein's instructor now.

"That's how limited the numbers of pilots are. Even Meyrin Hawke, who graduated in the second-upper class of recruits with her talent for technology and shooting, was only a bridge officer because of a slightly and only marginally weak constitution. The rest of the lesser performers who didn't even make it as engineers and grunts were sent off in the front-lines. They were viewed as spare parts that ships didn't need." Athrun closed his eyes.

What irony that the child of Gilbert Dullindal and Talia Gladys had turned out to be one of those potential few! By the time Epstein had been sent into Zaft, his talent was hard to ignore, and Zaft believed it could use him as an ace pilot.

"The top brass didn't want to reveal his identity to anyone. Not even to him, because it would cause much backlash from the people who had been rejected as pilots."

"Backlash?"

"Here you have the son of a madman and a Zaft captain who chickened out, as they still speak of Talia Gladys." Athrun pursed his lips. "Their son gets chosen to be a pilot even when others kill themselves to get that job. I can see how the superiors thought that all hell would break loose if they revealed his identity even to him."

"If you knew you would be asked to kill while on the Isle," Cagalli asked desperately, "Why did you go with Epstein when you knew you'd eventually grow attached to him?"

"At first, I thought that Epstein was also being sent to the Isle as an asylum seeker," He said quietly, "I thought my sole job concerning him was to be his instructor for three years, although not his parent. I was wary of getting too close to him, or anyone on the Isle."

He paused, looking straight at her. "My agreement with the council seemed simple. I would have the space and time I needed to make Epstein Cleamont a first-class pilot here. For those three years, we used the ocean space for his training, because the unit he'd been assigned was similar to Auel Scheider's. The amphibious model. I thought that by the end of the intended duration, I would have finished my service to Plant and Zaft."

Cagalli stared at him in disbelief. She took Athrun's face in her hands, looking at him, seeing how tormented he was by how he'd rationalised and made himself go through with what he'd done to Epstein.

"That was the sugar coating that I chose to believe. The real deal was that I would be set free if I could trap a person good enough to replace me within three years." Athrun closed his eyes, and she touched his cheeks gently, wanting to comfort him. He seemed to want to continue though, and Cagalli understood that it was the only way to move forward now.

"I was foolish enough to make myself believe that at the end of the three years, I would be free. I even tried to get rid of the guilt by convincing myself that they weren't planning to use the boy I'd trained either. So I taught Epstein everything I knew."

"Why did you believe them?" Cagalli choked. "Why did you do that?"

"You see," Athrun said heavily. "I was promised that I would never be bothered by Plant or Zaft after those three years."

"Then all that you've been doing," She said tentatively. "Your father's diaries, the notes you've made based on them- the collapse of the peace between Orb and the Earth Alliance as long as the Orb Head is held captive for long enough or even killed if necessary-,"

"I wouldn't harm you." He said somberly. "I wanted to have you- I wanted to keep you alive. How could I make plans to harm you?"

Cagalli felt him taking her hands and warming those with his. She looked away, knowing that he was pleading with her, even if silently, to believe him.

"That's why I was even there on the SS Rafael that night." Athrun revealed. "I had learnt that your life was threatened by the Danish terrorists. I knew that they were making plans to harm you."

She shrank back, feeling the grip of his hands on hers tighten.

"Believe me when I say I never wanted to bring you here to the Isle." Athrun begged. "I had my duties from Zaft even then, and I was to protect you and bring you to the Isle according to orders. I was supposed to obtain your consent and hide you on the Isle to prevent the terrorists from harming you. But that was not even part of my plans."

"Then what were your plans?" Cagalli asked in consternation. "Aren't I here on the Isle anyway? When you appeared that night, I was so bewildered and I panicked- I- I didn't know what was going on and by the time I woke up, I was here."

"My plans were the opposite of my orders from the Intelligence Council." Athrun admitted. "I wanted to take you away with me; away from the place I was to bring you to. The vehicle was under my control at that time, and I'd readied Epstein and myself to bring you to Lyon."

"Why Lyon?" She questioned.

"There is a small house in the countryside of France that I was bequeathed." Athrun answered. "I thought it would take some time before the Intelligence Council realized what I'd done and it would take an even longer time for the terrorists to guess where you'd disappeared to."

"Were they trying to kill me that night?" Cagalli asked fearfully. "There was something going on below the deck, and I wanted to go and you wouldn't let me see. And you brought me here to the Isle anyway, so-"

"That's because you ended up shooting yourself and I had no choice because you needed medical attention. Lyon was too far away- reaching France would mean risking your life more than it already was. There was no choice for me except to follow my orders," Athrun looked at her directly. "But know this. It doesn't matter where we are. Even if we had made it to Lyon, I would have still kept you with me. I would not have let you return to Orb immediately."

She stood up, backing away, pushing his hands from hers. "That's insane! If I stay here with you and you keep me from returning to Orb, a war will arise! And if the Earth Alliance fights against Orb, Plant will be forced to intervene! That is surely not part of your orders, is it? To make Plant get mixed up in all of this?"

"I know," Athrun said evenly, looking at her quietly. "It's selfish, but I want to be. Why shouldn't I be? Orb's taken you away. They've forced you to be their pillar and given you nothing but sorrow in return. At least, you'll be safe on the Isle, and I'll let you return, just in time, by the end of the six months."

She shook her head, trying to remain calm. "Why didn't you tell me from the start? I'm the cause of this, aren't I? You weren't thinking of your duties when you took me here."

"No." He admitted. Athrun looked away. "I just wanted to speak to you once more and to make you trust me again."

"But if you weren't trying to start a war and you were on board to meet me again, then why couldn't you say so?" Cagalli demanded. "Why couldn't you just tell me there and then?"

"I couldn't." He said gently, rising and moving towards her, leading her back to where they had sat. "Think about it. There was clearly something dangerous happening below deck. If I told you what was going on, you'd have rushed below, without any doubt. And that's what the terrorists would have planned, and that's when you'd have been captured or even killed."

"They've made attempts on my life before." She whispered. "You knew. You recorded those down and even aided them. How can you say I'm safe here? Each time I leave this place, you prevent me from seeing where we are going until we get there. And for those weeks when I was trapped in a room-,"

With some effort, Athrun calmed her down, hushing her by nodding and indicating that he would tell her what his intentions had been.

"How did you know they would try to kill me that night? Or those attempts on my life?" Cagalli asked doubtfully.

"For about a year, I had been making use of a spy to hear of their plans." Athrun informed her. "All I could hear was rough, almost estimated hearsay. That was why the incidents you survived were such close shaves- they were always a matter of luck and coincidence. If I had somehow arranged for security to be ten times tighter, they would have realised something was amiss and killed the spy."

"And who was the spy?" Cagalli asked in trepidation.

He looked at her straight in the eye. "Lyra Delphius."

Cagalli stared at him in shock, but he continued, knowing that the difficulty of continuing was not as painful as letting any doubt linger.

"I met her some time during my second year on the Isle. She operated a small flower stall while keeping in contact with some other girls from the brothel she'd grown up in." Athrun seemed to become more withdrawn. "Lyra convinced the brothel owner that she could earn more money doing a legitimate business. When I met her, I paid and redeemed her. She was indebted to me and I was lonely, and we started a relationship. She reminded me of you, a little at times. But she was very different, very strong-minded, of course, but more quiet and haunted by the world."

"Lyra Delphius."Cagalli said, entranced by the name.

"She was the only one who called me Athrun here." He said quietly, regretfully. "I asked her to."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want her to love a person I hated."

"Rune Estragon." Cagalli said, understanding finally.

He gazed at her. "And also because I couldn't stop myself from wanting to remember you."

He stood up, pacing. She reached out, pulling him back, trying to steady him. "All I could think of when I first met her was you."

Cagalli said slowly, fighting the twinge of pain and jealousy, "I knew you must have been with someone who looked similar by the end of the night at Rochester's."

"Yes." Athrun admitted. "I'm not sure if I was attracted to her by how similar she looked at certain angles and in that light, but I eventually accepted her for who she was. When I met her, she was running a small orchard and flower shop, but she was also having trouble with some thugs at that time."

"Through helping her, I found out that she had been brought up by the local whorehouse and she had narrowly escaped her fate there. At the same time, I realised that she had information about Greyfriars through a friend of hers, who she often met up with. Greyfriars was more than a Coordinator running from radical Naturals- he was also a Danish terrorists who'd rounded up many who wanted independence for Denmark and were willing to do drastic things to earn it. That's when I knew Lyra was of more use to me than I'd ever realised."

He paused, looking at how she was taking it, but her eyes, while wide-open, were guarded. He knew what she was thinking, and he could not help agreeing. He had never deserved Lyra. Athurn had used her in so many ways, never loving her properly even after he had left her. But in a certain way, Athrun reflected, that had been the best thing he had given Lyra- her freedom and his honesty, as she'd demanded of it.

"Was that why you married her?" Cagalli asked quietly.

"I didn't marry her because I wanted more information from her. All that information was coincidence anyway, and she didn't even know the significance of those recounts even at the end." Athrun said tightly. "But my reasons for marrying her were probably worse. As the third year drew to a close, I thought that starting a new life with her would be the final thing to my forgetting the past."

"What was she like as your wife?" Cagalli asked softly. Not really seeing what lay beneath her question, Athrun answered straightforwardly and truthfully.

"I couldn't ask for more. I was never around much, even though I'd given her a small house in a neighbourhood of some other Isle-dwellers with their own bungalows. When I came to her, she never asked where I'd been or why I'd left her for two months. But of course, when we really quarreled over anything, it was over the things I could not reveal to her. My past, the people I worked with-,"

"And that took a toll on the marriage?" She said softly. Cagalli recalled all she'd done to Athrun and knew with a sinking heart, that she could not compare to Lyra, who'd given unconditionally.

"Yes, if you could call it one at all." Athrun answered, not sensing Cagalli's sadness. "At times, I couldn't bear to bring harm to her by being near her, and I kept away from that house- from that life I still wanted. If the wrong people realised that she was my wife and that she was actually a spy for me, she would have gotten into a lot of harm. That was the same reason for why I chose to leave her by the end of the fourth year on the Isle. If we hadn't separated, they would have used her against me. But there was also the fact that I had never really loved her for who she was."

"She would have helped you forget the past." Cagalli whispered, more to herself than him. She still could not reconcile with the fact that he had been married. It made her wonder what it might have been like, if she was still back in Orb, and he hadn't come to the Isle but went back to Plant and married someone else there. "You should have left with her after your third year had passed."

"Impossible. I used her while hating myself, aware that I was treating her kindly without even really meaning it. When I bought a small house and set her up somewhere, she was thrilled." Athrun told her reluctantly. "I should have realised then that I was doing something so cruel and so pointless for both of us."

His voice broke a little. "There was also the issue of Zaft planning to use Epstein as a replacement for me. And when the third year ended, I knew I couldn't leave the Isle just yet, because I was also worried about Epstein. With his abilities, he would be more susceptible to Plant's political plans. And while they didn't seem to be planning a war or anything, I didn't want him to do what I'd done on the Isle."

"When they realised that I didn't want Epstein to be my replacement, Plant persuaded me to stay for a while more- indefinitely, in fact. And I agreed, hoping that I would teach Epstein to think for himself and warn him of the dangers of being sucked into ideology that didn't correspond with his own beliefs."

"Did that confuse him?" Cagalli asked quietly. "First you teach him to pilot, to hurt and to kill, and then you tell him not to. Weren't those the same struggles you had to go through?"

"It wasn't easy." Athrun admitted. "Especially since he was set on following my footsteps, as he understood it vaguely, and joining the redcoats as soon as possible. In the second year I was on the Isle, Zaft suddenly promoted him by giving him a FAITH membership and redcoat status all at once." He shook his head. "It was an obvious plot to make me less willing to leave by making Epstein even more fervent about serving the Plants. And when Epstein finally promised me he would not sacrifice his life for Zaft unless he believed he had a good reason for doing so, I planned to leave the Isle with Lyra."

"Then why didn't you?" Cagalli questioned. "That was when your contract had just ended, right? Why did you stay for nearly another four years?"

"Because I learnt of what the terrorists were finally going to try and do as a last resort when the fourth year ended." Athrun said despondently. "I did all I could from where I was-," He cast an eye over the files, "Gathering information and trying to prevent the attacks from working. Of course, it wasn't just through Lyra."

He laughed once. "Of course, the Intelligence Council did the smart thing and told me too. They laid out the facts- that your life was being threatened, that I had a choice of extending my contract and preventing harm from being caused to you, and that an indefinite stay on the Isle was better than leaving and knowing that they'd be risking your life. And they even threw in more pay."

Cagalli saw him smile bitterly and he shook his head. "Because I couldn't watch and let you be brought to be a sacrifice in starting another war, I pledged allegiance to Zaft again. Because I couldn't bear the thought of you dying when I could at least try to save you, I decided to stay on. And because I could not look at Lyra and give her more false hope, I left her."

Cagalli felt tears build in her eyes. "But how could you? She gave you everything, didn't she-?"

"I know." Athrun said heavily. "But I still couldn't love her as more than a friend. I felt guilty for having made use of her. For those reasons, I was determined to not look at you and be moved ever again. That failed too."

No wonder he had been so cold, so removed! Cagalli had automatically assumed it had been because of her betrayal and how she'd ejected him from Orb against his will and his right to stay. But it had run deeper than that.

"Some time after you arrived here," Athrun revealed, "I met her again. All this time, she wasn't even aware of who you were. She was probably some illegitimate child two Isle-dwellers had here and abandoned, as quite a few of them are. Some grow up here as natives, not knowing anything outside it- she's one of them. Even when she died, Lyra never even knew who you were or why I would call out to someone else in my sleep."

"How did she die?" Cagalli ventured to ask. Her fingers were trembling in his.

Athrun looked at her weakly. "Poisoned- the terrorists found out that she had given me information about them and didn't want a weak link. And when I found her, I had to do the same thing I did to Corriolis to put her out of her pain."

She could see it then, the way Athrun must have held Lyra tenderly and then shot her in her heart, looking away because he did not want to see her die by his own hands. That had been the night he had returned to the Manor and held his breath under water, trying to remind himself that he was still human.

While there was only a slight grief in his expression, it was enough indication of his inconsolable state. Athrun would never forgive himself for that.

Now, Athrun stood up, pulling her over to him and pressing her body to his as they moved against the sofa. He gently arranged her against him, holding her in his arms, beginning to speak again.

"I left her because I didn't want to put her in anymore risk. But in doing so, I actually destroyed her. I left her unguarded when they must have found her and poisoned her." Athrun told Cagalli.

Her voice was muffled against him, and Athrun knew Cagalli was holding back her tears. "What did you do after you left her?"

"I became the spy myself." Athrun answered steadily. "That's how I knew what they were really doing even in the most minute detail. That's how I knew when to be on the SS Rafael. I did things to ensure their trust, gain their leader's support, and basically became one of them. Eventually, that included shooting Lyra, although they didn't realize that I did it out of mercy and not malice. I couldn't even shed a tear for her, because they would have connected everything almost too quickly."

He sensed her fear and gripped her shoulders, his eyes earnest and his face pale.

"I joined them so I could see you again." Athrun said, his voice tense. "I know you will push me away for telling you this. To have met you that night, I went through years of helping them. I needed to convince the Danish terrorists that I was on their side, and that I believed in their cause. It would have been very difficult convincing them that I supported their cause in terms of the ideology, since I'm obviously not a Danish nationalist. Instead, I offered them a business proposal."

He smiled, and it was filled with loathing and misery. His eyes could not look into hers.

"I agreed to fund their research into explosives and chemical weapons as long as the shared the information with me and the companies I had acquired to make these weapons." Athrun told her.

She did recoil from him, and he fought back the guilt and hurt even. Her voice was shaking. "I haven't heard much that I can trust completely about what's going on in Scandinavia. But I know they've killed schoolchildren with their explosions and protests. How could you work with people who'd kill innocent ones?"

"At that time, I realised that if I could learn what they were doing, I could mitigate those while pretending to be collecting information for them about you." He said wearily."It was more effective than refusing to work with them. And they accepted me into their circle, not so much as one of them, but a sponsor, if you like. But I knew that they wanted to kidnap you, kill you for their cause, even."

Athrun breathed deeply, and she knew how difficult his years had been, filled with secrets that were being spilled to her now, in a single hour.

"I told them that I knew how to bring you back to the Isle." He said softly, brushing his lips against her ear. "And how to make you go without much of a struggle. They liked this offer, because they knew they had roughly two hundred other bodyguards to deal with that night. There were about fifty very important, high-profile guests on the SS Maverick and fending off the bodyguards required nearly all their efforts. It made more sense to assign one person to find the Orb Princess and tranquilize her."

"You were that person." Cagalli said, realising how the events had transpired that night. "But surely, they must have known that you had other motivations for volunteering for such a job."

"I also convinced them that they needed me, and not vice versa. It was set up as a business proposal. Given that I had once been your bodyguard and knew your combat weaknesses, it would be simple to disarm you and hand you over to them. That's why I was allowed to go along with them to the SS Rafael that night."

"That's insane!" Cagalli cried, thinking of the sacrifices he must have made. "You would have had to wait here, living here alone, waiting for an opportunity to present itself, working with people you hate, those terrorists who wanted to capture me. You worked with them and then betrayed them just so I would be by your side! What were you thinking, Athrun?"

"That I'd be damned if I let you die without me meeting you again." He said patiently. "They would have killed you if I didn't convince them that using you as a live captive would capture more fear. I persuaded them that if you died rightaway, a thousand other terrorist groups would claim they'd done it."

He looked at her wanly. "I toyed with the idea of bringing you to me before they could lay their hands on you. To do that, I flouted the rules of the Isle. Long before I met you on the SS Rafael, I switched a pen you got for a present to watch out for possible threats to you."

"But that means that you betrayed the terrorists." Cagalli said in surprise. "For one, you did bring me back to the Isle, but I wasn't handed over to them. You kept me in your manor for all that time."

"I've told you already." Athrun said firmly. "I wanted you with me. My original plan was to abandon the game I was playing with Greyfriars. I was also prepared to flee from the Isle and Zaft's duties. Basically, I was going to be a double-crosser that night, except that you shot yourself first."

She paused, tensing a little. "So you did bring me here for your own reasons then."

"Perhaps." Athrun conceded. "That night, when you were on the royal yacht, I came to you. During that time, they hijacked the yacht. I was there, pretending to aid them in capturing you. But I wanted to ensure your safety from them. By sheer luck, you went to the deck and I followed."

"No wonder you tried to convince me from returning to the halls, where they must have been looking for me." Cagalli muttered. "You knew what was happening all along. Letting me go below deck would have been me rushing into the crossfire."

"You actually wanted to," He said dryly. "Good god. You're lucky in so many ways, Cagalli. You've escaped death so many times."

Cagalli shivered. "What about the locked car and the records you kept of the years before I went to the Isle? What happened that day?"

"You were meant to die on that day." He said heavily. "You never even realised that someone was looking out for you through Shinn. You thought it was a coincidence, didn't you? The person who sent Aaron there was Shinn because he asked to speak to you, remember? You never realised Shinn was there for a reason."

She stared, her eyes growing wider.

"But that's not all." He said slowly. "If I told you of every attempt they made, you would never sleep well again. After I understood that they were tired of trying to get you in Orb, but wanted to kidnap you and sacrifice you for their curse, I knew I had to save you first."

She shook her head, trying to take in everything. "So you've been fending off people away from the Manor, the same terrorists who have been trying to capture me again?"

"Yes." Athrun said directly. "And that was why I couldn't let you out of the Manor. If they had caught sight of you, it would have been all for nothing."

"And why did you forbid me from knowing anything about the Isle?" Cagalli demanded. "If you had explained it to me-,"

"True. You would have trusted me more," Athrun admitted. "But I couldn't give away the secrets of all the asylum-seekers, no matter how much I despised some of them. If information were to leak out that they were here, not just some anti-Coordinator naturals would want their blood. Even some Coordinators want them dead."

She nodded, accepting his reasons."And there is another obvious reason why. If the terrorists realised that I knew the location of the Isle, they and even the Isle-inhabitants would have killed me."

He nodded.

"That's what nearly happened." Cagalli said ruefully, finally understanding. "Because you didn't hand me over although you'd agreed to, they thought you might have revealed some kind of information to me. So they sent a person here to kill me."

She was feeling a terrible weight on her chest, but she embraced it gladly because she was finally understanding Athrun.

He reached a pale hand out to her and she flinched, but he stroked her face very gently with the back of his hand. "At one point, they were sure that you had found out. They knew that we had once been lovers. I told them that to convince them that I could bring you back here in one piece. My plan, as you know, was to defect and hide you away. But you hurt yourself, and I had to bring you to the Isle. During that time, they grew suspicious and thought I'd told you of them. Decant Corriolis was sent in to kill you for that reason."

He hung his head, and her heart ached for him. Slowly, she caressed his face with her hands and held it up to her, looking into his eyes.

"I didn't want to kill him." Athrun muttered. "But I couldn't let them kill you. Not then- not when they insisted that I hand you over to them once you had recovered. How could I let go of you when I had only just met you again? I couldn't. I invented excuse after excuse, reason after reason to justify why I had to keep you with me. Greyfriars has been buying those excuses for a long time now, even when his followers are starting to get impatient."

"What did you tell them?" Cagalli asked, pale-faced.

"It started off with you being injured and medical attention being required. When you had recovered, I told them I was extracting information from you, and got them to believe me. But it grew more and more difficult."

There was suffering in his face, and she thought of a lion she had seen in a circus cage as a child. Its face was unflinching as the circus master flicked his whip, but the sorrow in its face had something of a blind and mute pain in it. A pain nobody except the beast could understand but not tell anyone of.

He kissed her forehead. "The Isle is a place for those who want to leave their pasts behind them, for those who can afford to lave their pasts behind them and buy a new identity. I bought mine with the freedom I might have had for nearly seven years."

"A new life?" She questioned. She looked around at the place. "This?"

"That's what I wanted to believe."He said, with a strange look coming into his face."I bought my identity by giving up a life as Athrun Zala. You saw those letters Kira sent, didn't you? I stopped contact with him and Lacus a week before I came here. I've not kept in contact with them or anyone from the past since then. Those who come to The Isle all do the same. They buy new names and new lives with money, perhaps, and the opportunities they might have had as themselves."

His fingers wound themselves into her hair and he gazed into her face. "The life I would have led as Athrun Zala had little freedom in itself. I would have spent my time serving the High Council when in reality; they would have only doubted me for as long as I lived."

"But as Rune Estragon, you have to distance yourself from the rest of the world," Cagalli argued, "Alone, here-,"

"Don't you do that as well?" He said musingly. "As the Orb Princess? Isn't it fitting that we both meet here again, and that we now know each other as Athrun Zala and Cagalli Yula Atha?"

Cagalli bit her lips. "I still think you should have left with Lyra, and maybe, warned me outside The Isle. Or you might have contacted Plant and gotten them to contact me."

"I couldn't." He said dryly. "Plant can't get involved with Scandinavia openly. You know that. Or the Isle either."

It was true. In the state of foreign affairs, Plant was tiptoeing around most of Earth Alliance and Orb's affairs. Forcefully entering the Earth Alliance territories was certainly going o be dangerous enough for another war to start. It was even more difficult that Scandinavia did not acknowledge the existence of terrorists, and so Plant could not enter it without a valid reason to.

"And everybody on The Isle is a Coordinator or of Coordinator descent. Every last one of them."

"Even the terrorists?"

"Even them. And the Earth Alliance would not have liked Plant dealing with any of their colonies- nobody wants to quarrel. If Plant tried to seize the Isle, it would seem like Plant trying to regain a pocket of Coordinators and a nice piece of Earth's territory as well. You know how dangerous that is."

She nodded, trying to absorb everything and the burden he had carried for so long.

"I contacted Plant, nonetheless. I was persuaded to stay on so that I could infiltrate the terrorists' circle and influence their decision in kidnapping you. But to do that, I had to gain their trust, and Rune Estragon funded their research activities. Of course, the funds were secretly part of Plant's work. I left Lyra because I did not want to pull her down in this. And eventually, I gained enough trust from Greyfriars, and that was how I appeared with them that day, on the SS Rafael."

"If they were so eager to bring attention to the cause," Cagalli said doubtfully, "Why me? Any other high-profile figure, even those within Scandinavia, would have achieved the same purpose."

"They did try that." Athrun said regretfully. "But it was silenced."

"There was the Crown Princess' husband-," Cagalli recalled.

"The terrorists realized that anyone less important or less internationally-recognized than the Orb Princess was ineffective. The Swedish Royals ultimately control what information goes in and out of Scandinavia." Athrun told her. "Remember how the previous terrorist attacks were always silenced? It took a whole schoolhouse massacre for any drip of information to leave Scandinavia."

"Oh-," She remembered. "Yes."

"But nobody can deny the Orb Princess' disappearance," Athrun said confidently. "And in fact, there is no better way to bring world attention to a very small region in Scandinavia by taking an international figure there."

"Would they have killed me if you'd handed me over?" Cagalli whispered.

"They already decided to shortly after I brought you to the Isle. After all, your role had been completed. Orb was going to storm into Scandinavia to find you, and for the first time in ages, Orb was in a dispute with Earth Alliance. They had no more need of you, as the man who came into your bedroom said- if anything, you would be a hindrance if you returned to Orb at all. They'd already achieved their end by bringing you to the Isle, through me."

She shuddered, thinking of how vehemently Athrun had kept her from returning. He'd done everything in his power to keep her from escaping, knowing that she had no way of doing it without being caught by the terrorists first and dying for it. She had not understood him then, but now she did.

"I couldn't ship you back to Orb secretly either. If you were back in Orb, the whole world would know you were safe. That would have been openly double-crossing the group I'd sworn allegiance to." He said quietly. "They would have killed me. I was afraid to die because I would never meet you and tell you what you meant to me ever again."

She thought of how impatient his kisses had been when she'd first arrived, how he'd forced the truth out of her, how desperately he had reacted when she had lost her speech after witnessing a murder. How many had Athrun killed for the purpose of protecting her?

"I thought you were harming me." Cagalli confessed. "That I was just another obstacle in your path to something you wouldn't even let me know about. I was so confused and hurt with all the secrets- and I never understood why you brought me here and why you locked me in that room for that period of time."

He knew he didn't have to explain anymore about the refugees he'd brought into his house. It was enough that she understood this much. Anymore would be unncecessary, and his telling her about Erik Strumsson and the Halfs the Isle had received would only make her want to leave sooner. Athrun looked at her and realized that even now, he was afraid of her leaving when he needed her so much.

She was tracing his lips with her fingers, her eyes lowered, and her breath warm against his. He took away those hands, staring at Cagalli.

"I knew that I wanted to be the one who met you on the yacht that night, and that I wanted to tell you that I was innocent and I'd never killed anyone in Orb. I wanted you to accept me again and to let me save you- to bring you away to Lyon, where I'd hoped you'd be safe for some time. But I never wanted to hurt you." His voice broke.

She brought her arms around him, finally able to grasp what it meant to love Athrun Zala.

Cagalli kissed him, trying to feel him respond against her, and slowly, he began to reciprocate. She whispered, "You've always done everything for me, haven't you? You came here because of me, and you stayed here because of me. Every person you had to kill, you did it to protect me. Look at me, please, I-,"

He gazed at her and saw that her eyes were filled with tears. Athrun brushed them away with his fingers, stroking her face, and she whispered, "I want to live for you. You've lived for me, all these years- I want to do the same for you."

"You already have,' He said firmly, "Every time you put your arms around me and told me that you belonged to me, I knew I was doing what I was meant to do. I was meant to be used by you, to be given to you, I resisted but I failed so many times- I'd always return to you even if you cast me aside."

"You belong to me." She told him, smiling faintly. "You belong to me now, and I won't let you leave me even if you want to."

And Athrun raised his hand to her, stroking her mouth with his thumb, his other fingers framing her face. "I'm not going anywhere if you don't."

His voice had lost its ability to remain toneless and now it hurt her to hear him address her with more tenderness than she deserved.

She held his hand, pressing it to her cheek. "You've been alone all this time, haven't you? Here on the Isle, waiting for that night when you took me back here. You were always afraid to let me know anything about the place, and about you. But both our plans failed."

"Yes," He said roughly, drawing her into his arms, his heart swelling with emotion and anguish. "I had only thought of your safety at first. I knew I couldn't convince them to leave you alone- the best I could do was to convince them that a live captive served their purposes, rather than a person who any terrorist group would claim they'd killed if they managed to. So I volunteered to help them bring you back, and then I brought you to my Manor instead of theirs, to keep you safe. But then I began to feel for you again, and I couldn't let anyone else have you."

She pulled herself away, although not entirely. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but there was the same strength in her face and her mouth was pleading and trembling. He had a hold on her, Cagalli understood. A thread that bound them together, a thread she'd tried to cut so many times before. But not anymore.

Without a word, she knelt, reaching for the last button on his shirt, giving in to the inexplicable heat and lust in her. But it was more than that- it was not mere desire but need now. And Cagalli undid it, and moved to the one above it. His fingers found hers, and their eyes stared at each other.

"Let me be with you." Cagalli beseeched him, "I want to please you. I don't want anything in return. Just let me be by your side, even if you begin to hate me during this hour or after that."

"No." Athrun said gently, pulling her hands away from his waist. "You were right for refusing to let me take all of you for each contract we made. I can't do this to you."

"But I'm not asking to return to Orb." Cagalli begged. She looked up at him, and he saw that her lower lip was quivering with emotion. "I'm only asking that you take me and let me please you for once."

He stared at her, and she kissed him hesitantly.

It was nevertheless powerful and evocative and he found himself being explored by her, a fearlessness in the way she parted his lips with hers, pulling him even closer. Good lord, what could a man do with someone like her?

He let go of her fingers, cupping her waist as she dutifully slid her hands under his shirt, one after the other, and peeled his top above and away from him. As she set it beside them on the couch, Athrun tried to refuse her again. He placed a hand on hers and shook his head mutely.

Her eyes dimmed but stubbornly, Cagalli drew near once more.

While the room was unheated and the lack of a shirt made this clearer, he felt feverish with her stroking his abdomen and chest with her palms, kissing his shoulder and pressing herself towards him. She would not give in to his reluctance.

More intently now, he shifted her aside, ignoring the roar of disapproval his body sent with the distance he created between them. Athrun looked at her cautiously. "You-,"

"I want you to." She whispered. "We've never before. We were too young to know what we were doing then. We were too silly chasing wars and power for the sake of our dead fathers."

"Cagalli." He said softly, with hesitation, "We shouldn't do this, you shouldn't-,"

She trembled, still pressing her mouth to his shoulder. Her eyes were wide and golden, and she reached to his thigh, stroking his flesh through the material of his pants with her soft hand. "Why? I can, so why shouldn't I?"

Athrun turned away from her, trying to steel himself and the flush of warmth and desire that was beginning to spread from every crevice of his body.

"It's not the same anymore." She said steadily. "I know who you are now, and I'm sober enough to know what I want. I'm not trying to satisfy myself and try to forget you by having some kind of fling that puts the past to sleep. We're not reviving the past- not when we're in the present now."

Still, Athrun shook his head a little, and her voice shook.

"Why?" Cagalli said tremblingly. "I don't want anything in return for this, I only want you to love me. I know I'm not like anyone you must have had in the past, but I-,"

His voice was harsh as he interrupted her. "Don't you dare compare yourself to the others."

She looked away, thinking of the selflessness that Lyra had shown him even while Cagalli had forced him into such pain. Even the other women he had loved for a few hours would probably have given him more than what Cagalli could ever give.

And she bit her lips, trying not to cry.

His hand found its way to her cheek as he made her look at him. His voice was still rough, but his eyes were tender. "You're worth more than all of them put together."

Then delicately, he took her face to his, laying a kiss on her lips. In the back of his mind, Athrun was aware that the scent of his musky cologne on the cardigan had mixed with her lighter, more floral scent, and the combination on her skin was irresistible. He'd vaguely noticed it when he'd wrestled it off her earlier, and now the creamy flesh of her arms made him shiver.

He ran his fingers along each bare shoulder as she closed her eyes, breathing shakily. He unbuttoned her dress with deft fingers, kissing her now and not breaking away. While Cagalli desponded eagerly, deepening the kiss, she felt his fingers shift to her waist, pulling apart the dress. Blushing, she reached for his belt and began pulling it away, and she flung it to the couch in response to his undressing her.

He bent and began to kiss her forehead, a gentle, chaste kiss. But then, Athrun could not resist pulling her to him, catching her in his arms and deepening the kiss he laid on her lips once more.

As Cagalli busied herself with exploring his mouth, he found the clasp at her back and undid her brassiere, slowly pulling it off her chest and arms, then throwing it to the couch. It joined the other articles of clothing they had already freed each other of. Then she pulled herself away, gazing at him, blushing slightly, shielding her bareness with her hands, which proved less than sufficient.

"What's the matter?" Athrun said, a bit tensely.

She only shook her head slightly, looking bashful as she moved off the couch slowly, then knelt. Her voice was trembling a little, although he did not think much of it. "I'm supposed to do this now, aren't I?"

He did not sense her unsureness because he was already enraptured with her. Athrun got up too and stepped forward slowly, her fingers reached to undo his pants and he felt them pool at his knees. But Cagalli lowered them even more to his ankles, and she sat up a little more in her kneeling position.

She began reaching out to stroke him while she rested and rubbed her cheek against his left thigh. As she grasped and rubbing at him, he groaned, balancing the weight of her head against his hip a little more with the help of his left arm. But he made a decision and pushed her by her shoulders.

Breathing unsteadily, Cagalli felt her back thud soft against the furs of the carpet and felt him kneel next to, then over her. She blushed, a little embarrassed. Shifting down now, he parted her thighs and began kissing her abdomen.

Athrun heard her laugh nervously, and he whispered huskily, "What's the matter now?"

Cagalli murmured, "Wasn't I supposed to-,"

"That can wait." He said swiftly, running his fingers over his hips. He tugged at the remaining article of clothing she wore, hearing her gasp a little, and that made him pause. "I rather do this first. But shall I stop?"

He felt her shake her head. "No, I didn't mean that-,"

Her hands shifted his head to her, and teasingly, he licked at her, knowing that she was unlikely to be satisfied with that. True enough, she started shivering again, and he caved in as she pleaded with him in strange, soft sounds that were partially-formed words. He brought his mouth closer to her, tasting, stroking, locating her sensitive nub as she trembled with sensation, too impatient to pull the cloth from her legs completely. Her little sounds of gratification grew louder, and she hissed, slick with desire.

He whispered, "Tell me what you're thinking."

She shifted a little, hands by her head, palms facing the ceiling. She leaned her head back fitfully as she gazed towards him. "I-," Her voice caught and she gasped quietly once, her eyes feeling wet with pleasure. "It feels right."

"Good," He whispered, touching her again. Then Athrun was exploring her as she'd intended to do to him, aware of every pant and murmur that spilled from her lips, a thousand times more sensitive to every spasm that she experienced as she reared violently.

She leaned back, gasping quietly, twisting suddenly and then becoming still. She watched him move away, and she was aware that her cheeks were burning, even though she had experienced this with him before.

But Athrun, thankfully, did not quite catch her sudden awkwardness. Instead, he knelt above her, looking hesitantly at her. Now, she felt Athrun moving up to her. Her voice was hushed, and she parted her lips to whisper. "Come closer to me."

Hissing a little, Athrun got up to stand and undress entirely now, kicking aside the pants to a place he cared little about. When he dropped himself to his knees, coming closer as she'd asked, he pressed himself against her lips, bidding her to touch him. She was already parting her lips, and her tongue was stroking all she could manage, her mouth tasting and swallowing him as he groaned.

As she gazed into his eyes and he rooted his hands in her hair and cried out, she nibbled, grazing him with her teeth. When she focused on him, her tongue wrecking havoc, he reached beneath to her head, pressing her closer to him. Kneeling there, he cracked open one eye, watching her as she brought her head up a little more, his hands cradling the back of her head. Her hands were splayed on his thighs, his knees hard against the carpet because he was kneeling, her mouth and her lips teasing and baiting him. Her hands were gentler and more tentative than what he'd expected, but that change made him desire her even more.

It didn't occur to him that she was nervous, and even if he sensed it a little, he didn't think it was abnormal for Cagalli, who had only just learnt of the secrets he'd kept within this room for so long. While she touched him, Athrun closed his eyes, lost to the sensations of her soft palms rubbing against him.

Inevitably, Cagalli remembered how he reacted when she had done this with him. Panicking inwardly, she tried to remember what had followed next when she'd taken peeks at some chapters she had really been supposed to skip in that archive of sensational stories she'd borrowed from Aaron. But her mind drew a blank even as Athrun made a small, desperate sound of pleasure and shifted away from her.

"Forgive me," He said softly, cradling her. "I know you're another person's, but I can't stop now, I-"

Cagalli looked up at him, her expression a bit unsure, but something undeniably sultry about her eyes. "I've never wanted anyone else, except you." She moved her hand from his hardened thigh to hold him again, making him shiver with need and anticipation.

She sat up as he moved away, still on his knees, then laid carefully by her side. He smiled a little at her and she tried to return it even thought her heart seemed to be pounding against her throat, and flustered, she resumed touching him. She kept her hands gentle against him, watching him close his eyes and lie back, her head resting on his chest, and she hoped it would buy her some time to remember what to do.

He seemed to be shivering a little, and suddenly, a nervous thought struck at Cagalli. Her touch seemed to be igniting the impatience that he had controlled up until now. Contrary to what she had hoped, his body did not relax but seemed to become tenser. She looked at the straight lines of his form, the cruelness of his silhouette despite its lean, almost slim appearance, and the body that was capable of crushing and tearing others apart. Nervously, she tried to bring her hand away, suddenly unsure of how to continue.

But Athrun was certainly not keen on that, for he opened his eyes, using his right hand to hold her hand firmly in place.

She only looked at him, her cheeks rosy and asked shyly. "What should I do next?"

That question was not the first one she had asked, and in surprise, he stared at her. There was something frightened and unsure about her that he could not ignore anymore. Was it really simple nervousness, Athrun wondered? She had cast her eyes away from his, and he could not read her expression, but he sensed that the last of a façade she had possibly worn had vanished.

He considered what she she'd said all over again, and then in amazement, Athrun articulated his thoughts, "You've never done this before?"

She looked away, afraid. "Not with anyone- no. I've haven't done anything actually, with anyone."

"But-," He said hoarsely, "You told me that Marlin-,"

"I lied." Cagalli said shakily. "I knew you were jealous of him and that made you agree to the contract. But if I told you that I hadn't been with another, you wouldn't have touched me, would you? You wouldn't have wanted me if another man hadn't already taken me. How else could I make you trade the information?"

Athrun began to laugh quietly, then louder until he was shaking with the thought of how silly she had been, and yet, how cleverly she had managed to incite jealousy in him even then.

But Cagalli stared at him, confused, and he hastened to explain. "You thought I wouldn't want you if you were inexperienced?"

Then he pulled her towards him and laid her on the carpet, resting a cushion under her head. Her eyes gazed into him, and she whispered, "Was I wrong?"

"Very." He said tenderly, stroking her lips and tracing her mouth. "It wouldn't make a difference. I've always wanted you."

"But I've never done this before," She said, gasping as he laid next to her and bit slightly into her neck. His hands were moving over her, causing dozens of little fissions of heat to build agonizingly under her skin. "I'm not sure if I can please you."

He raised himself over her and his hair covered the sides of his face like a curtain of midnight. Intrigued by how beautiful he was, Cagalli reached up and wound her fingers in his hair.

Athrun's voice was a whisper. "Were you afraid all this time?"

She nodded. And in a husky tone but somewhat understandingly now, Athrun kissed her cheek and spoke. "I see. So what do you know about what we're about to do?"

Cagalli coloured, wondering how to broach the subject. But he was being so straightforward, so gentle, and so candid that she found no room to be unnecessarily embarrassed. "I don't know much, except that- that- men don't like inexperienced partners-," She trailed off in a whisper, utterly losing her boldness now.

He laughed gently, kissing her forehead. "Who's been telling you old wives' tales? That was only spun up to frighten daughters from being too eager to jump into bed with any hormonal boys who showed interest in them."

Athrun leant closer, holding her face in his hands as he looked directly at her. Her heart was thumping, and they could both sense her apprehension, but his next words set her at ease. "Don't look at me like I won't be here with you in the morning, and don't look at me like I'd ever push you away, now that you've agreed to be here with me."

She shivered, trying to come to terms with what she had understood so far. "But the first time will always hurt, and won't that make it a turn-off?"

He smiled humorously. "Maybe. I've never really thought about it."

"That's because you're not female." Cagalli said pointedly.

He laughed candidly. "If you really want me to admit it, I can vouch that my first time was a mess. But that didn't make me a social outcast or a convict or something. It's just another old wives' tale, I suppose."

"Damn you Aaron!" She cried in embarrassment, realizing she'd revealed the full extent of her ignorance. "All that chick-lit with the unreal, mind-blowing encounters! I should have known all that was fiction anyway!"

And awkwardly, she looked at Athrun, who began to chuckle disarmingly and spoke. When he did, his voice was a sensual whisper that sent thrills everywhere in her body. "I can tell you what's not fiction though."

"What?" She said unsurely.

"That I need you." He said simply. As Athrun trailed kisses over her shoulder now and bit a little into her neck, she moaned but twisted away, looking at him with wide, slightly apprehensive eyes. "After this- does it get rougher?"

"Were you afraid that I would hurt you?" He said teasingly, letting go of her momentarily and propping himself on one bent elbow to stare at her.

Cagalli nodded eagerly, almost keen to confirm that she had not listened to a drunk and possibly crazy Aaron in vain. "I've heard stories that frightened me- even when they concerned experienced girls. The secretary for one of the ministers often comes into the office with bruises and cuts and she says those are accidents and rope burn marks and-." She trembled, looking at him wide, frightened eyes, clearly put off by the horror stories she'd heard without realising those were exceptions.

"I won't. I'd never." Athrun assured her, cutting her off by pressing a finger to her lips. He pursed his mouth slightly, thinking how awful it had been for Cagalli. To have been frightened out of her wits and never having the pleasure of making love with someone she had liked or been attracted to- that was unthinkable.

Still, he found a tiny bit- or more accurately, huge- satisfaction at realising he would provide Cagalli her first experience. When he had slept with inexperienced partners, Athrun had never cared much for their nervousness or lack of knowledge when it came to bed matters. He had mostly preferred partners who knew what lovemaking was to entail. With Cagalli however, he found her innocence intriguing- vitally intoxicating even, and he felt a frisson of pleasure at knowing he would teach her to love him.

He berated himself inwardly, knowing that he was being horribly chauvinistic with that thought. But he couldn't have helped it, Athrun realised. There was something about her that made him extraordinarily possessive, and he was glad that she was allowing him to be.

"I'm being honest now," Cagalli blurted out and making him laugh again. "I don't know much, so don't be disappointed. And- and," Her face turned pink for a second. "J-Just go easy on me!"

"Did you mean literally or metaphorically?" He asked huskily, smirking at her.

She stared at him indignantly, then laughed once and smacked his shoulder playfully.

He hugged her tightly, whispering, "I'd never do something as stupid as push you away. I've done that once before. Idiotic, really." She embraced him back, giggling a little in her nervousness. The atmosphere was as Athrun had never experienced it- friendly, entirely sincere.

But it was time to change that a little, as Athrun was clearly intending. Athrun moved over her then, and she could feel him trembling violently, growling in low, unsteady gasps as his lips travelled up her neck. She felt his hardness pressing against her belly then thigh, but desire overcame the first tremor of fear. He drew his head back, braced on his elbows as he looked down at her, and his hands framed her face gently, holding her still to look in her eyes.

Cagalli found difficulty breathing. All she could do was run her trembling fingers down his spine, and her legs against his, wrapping them around his waist intuitively. Then roughly, he ran his mouth from her lips to her chin and neck, nipping and biting, and she cried out.

Her foot stroked his calf in tormented pleasure, trying and she felt the heat gather between her legs as he sat up suddenly, pulling her up with him. He shifted to her back, and over her shoulder, gazed at her chest while easing her shoulders to calm her down.

Appreciating his efforts to make her relax, but not quite aware of what he was really doing, Cagalli closed her eyes, leaning back against his chest as she knelt, her knees sinking into the thick furs of the carpet. It was an unconscious lesson she was learning, however. He was teaching her to respond to him, and in doing so, he was preparing her for him. While he eased her shoulders and back, she made murmuring sounds, enjoying his touch.

Athrun too, was enjoying himself quite thoroughly. He ran his hands as a wordless caress against her front, over and over again, pausing only for her breasts. When she opened her eyes as she felt him slacken his administrations, Cagalli caught sight of how Athrun staring silently at her her. A little embarrassed at his open admiration, she grinned at him and said laughingly, "Well? Are you going to just stare?"

He smirked, she felt a delicious throb of danger move within her. "And here I was, thinking that I would have to go easy on you."

"You still have to." Cagalli said cheekily, imitating his smirk and surprising him. She lifted her arms and wound them around his neck, and his chin's weight increased on her shoulder as he kissed her neck. "While what I know isn't everything, what I know isn't exactly useless either.

"Absolutely." He breathed, gazing at her side-turned face and thinking how beautiful she looked, her hair framing her face, tousled and golden, and her eyes molten with lust.

And slowly, almost as if he wanted to prolong the agony of her waiting, Athrun transferred her to look at him, and lowered his head. His hand still kneading her, he ran his tongue down the valley of her breasts and heard her gasp as he cupped her breasts tightly.

"You're mine," He said softly, in that sensuous murmur. A tiny moan eased itself from her throat as he fiddled with her tenderly, playing harder and harder until her cries were satisfactory to his ears. "And I won't stop. Everything we did was a prelude to this, Cagalli. Everything I did, everything you allowed me to do was preparing you for what we will share. You didn't even realize it, did you? Everything I chose to do that you allowed- that was to prepare you for me, for you to let me take you like this, with you knowing, with you wanting because you understood-,"

He caressed her breasts with both hands, and stroking one bud still, slipped a hand down between her legs, his eyes gazing momentarily at the remaining article of clothing she still wore, even when he'd pulled it down to her knees earlier. Athrun heard her moan and shifted slightly.

"You don't like it?" Athrun said huskily, wantonly caressing the nipple he was occupied with still. They could become engorged with even the lightest caress of a feather, and he wondered how she could dip herself into a pool of cold water without having a towel right next to her to disguise her body's reaction. He felt himself grow, if possibly, tighter.

She mewled in the heat of the sensation and her breasts trembled temptingly as her body did. He fought the urge to hold her breasts still with his hands while the rest of her body writhed against the soft carpet.

"Athrun," She begged, "Please-oh, I,"

"Patience," He said lazily. He tweaked at her less gently now, and she arched her back in a heady pleasure.

"You like what I'm doing, don't you?"He said deliberately, bending down and kissing the bud lightly but not giving it more than a fleeting brush against his lips. His other hand was still stroking her gently.

Cagalli nodded feverishly, and he smiled.

"Like this?"

He moved closer to the other nipple and ran his tongue slowly across its point, knowing that of the nerves lay under it, like a complex system of wiring that led to the tug of electricity at her core.

Her hands were pushing his head closer, but he refrained.

Cagalli stared at him, her golden eyes dilated, and not seeing. Her voice was a plea, even if the words would not form. He could not torment her any longer, or keep away from her for any second longer. So he drew her into his mouth, warming it with his tongue and running his tongue over the ruche surface. He drew in a breath forcefully, feeling her quiver, and he felt something in him threaten to explode.

"Athrun," She whispered in a tiny cry. "Like this. Yes."

As she held onto him, he reached to her hips and stripped her panties from her knees completely now, balling those and tossing it somewhere. Her thighs were already wet, and he stroked them, enjoying their slickness.

Cagalli breathed his name, her voice stretched and yearning, and he brought a hand between her thighs, parting them and stroking her to make her relax, his mouth shifting to another bud. Then slowly, he snaked a finger smoothly into her, and then, without hesitation, added another into her as she cried out, panicking a little.

Athrun couldn't help thrusting his fingers roughly and even more deeply into her, a contrast against the even controlled movement he had applied earlier on. His mouth grew more intense on her breast, and she threw back her head, a sound ripping itself from her throat.

He transferred his mouth to her neck now, kissing it. "Relax. Trust me."

She calmed down, stroking his ear by curling her arm towards his face. He resumed his administrations on her breasts, his fingers still moistening and teasing her folds. He marveled at how lovely she was, her breasts full and high on her body, sensitive and soft, then taut and pliable in his mouth within the very next minute.

He added yet another finger into her to stretch her, noting how tightly his fingers were while in her. Cagalli swallowed, trying to adjust to the combined thickness of a few fingers in her, still swiveling her hips. He murmured a reassuring word or two, knowing that he had to familiarize her body to what his would be like. Only when she had become used to him did he pull his hand away.

He brought it to her lips as she tasted her own desire, bringing each finger into her mouth, one by one. She licked his fingers, tilting her head back a little to taste the entire finger. He watched her as he dipped each finger into her velvety mouth and withdrew it. As he did, her lips made a soft, suckling sound, and he had to control the urge to hold her down and enter her there and then. Her eyes were a light shade of gold, swirling and molten as he occupied himself with her breasts and she concentrated on his fingers.

Then, delicately, he brought his lips and tongue to her thighs, and her feet struggled as she writhed in ecstasy. He tried to taste her a little by little, savouring her, recording her responses in his mind, but he found himself lapping at her moist sweetness and the way she flowed, smooth and like honey for his tongue and teeth.

She called his name, an animal's soft, longing cry.

"That's right," He said in a low voice, trembling with desire and tenderness. "I'll make you remember that I was the first man you ever had."

As he raised himself above her, she glanced down and felt slightly fearful, wondering if he would even fit. But he lifted her face back to him, and his slight smile made his intent clear. He wanted her to remain looking at him.

Then she felt him press against her, entering her, tearing into her, filling her, and far too slowly. A cry of pain shot from her, and small, sudden and uncontrollable tears suddenly flowered from her eyes' corners.

But Athrun swiftly wiped them away, knowing that she was still riding on the lingering effects of pleasure and that the pain was both diminished and fading fast. He ignored the urge to plunge deeper into her to fulfill his own heat.

At that moment, she bucked against him, effectually tightening around him, and he shuddered. She heard Athrun's breath catch, but he never broke eye contact, not yielding to her body's shock. Athrun bent over her as she move uncontrollably, her body still instinctively trying to reject and throw his own body off hers. But hands were occupied with holding hers down, and she flailed against him, her strength quite surprising.

Roughly, he kissed her, biting her lips when she tried to break away with the pain of his entering her. Cagalli was still fighting him uncontrollably, crying out in pain and involuntarily trying to throw him off her, but he had been well-prepared, holding her wrists down by both sides of her head.

Her small cries of pain seemed to melt past everything, putting only the pleasure he was experiencing into focus. She felt amazing, moist and incredibly tight and like a burning noose around him. He wondered if the nerves in his body were exploding, but he forced himself to be still, focused on her, for her face was scrunched and he saw that she was biting her lips.

His whispers of reassurance were almost incoherently in his desire. Athrun found that he, or perhaps even she, for it was indistinguishable at this point, was twitching uncontrollably, his body enclosed by her walls. And he was afraid, for he thought he would come there and then, whether she responded or not. She was sprawled under him, her body soft and glorious in the furs of the carpet.

There had to be some kind of release. She was burning, perishing in the heat, and her nerves were charred, yet far too sensitive even when she was struggling. Cagalli sobbed once, and she struggled under him, trying to find a way out, an end to the uncontrollable, incomprehensible passion that was threatening to eat her whole.

After what felt like an excruciating eternity, he was as fully within her as she could allow, and through the sweat and dazing heat, Cagalli became aware that fire he had started in her had not died, despite the pain melting away. As she felt him begin to move within her, it elicited a low, needy growl from her throat. Athrun gently let go of her wrists, lingering only momentarily before his lips located her neck so he could nibble. As she felt her body getting used to his, she relaxed a little, but felt herself tensing again when Athrun licked her thundering pulse with a small smirk.

Obligingly because her own passion was taking control of her, Cagalli gripped him hard, her nails digging into his soft back, her legs tightening around his waist, her hips bucking against his, trying to get him even deeper inside her, even though she was already as full with him as she could be. It was bliss beyond her wildest dreams laced with sheer torture, and the only way out for her and for him, he realised, had been for Cagalli to give in.

He did not say anything, too charged to speak coherently, and within moments, she nodded said shakily, "I'm fine."

"Good." He said softly, with some relief. And Cagalli began to move her hips, dissipating the last effects of the pain and finding the first hints of pleasure. He groaned, trapped in her, embedded in her depths.

And then, quickly, she transited into the wild heat that consumed that both once more, and he was mounting her entirely, sitting astride and in her, and she was moaning and begging him to move faster. She was a tempest, her body liquid and molten, his body awake and alive, tearing into hers, his movements threatening to become erratic, but his will keeping them both in check.

She writhed, and he had to control himself as she grew even tighter around and against him. He groaned softly, wondering when he had lost control and she had become dominant even while grappling with this new experience. But she begged him again, and those dissolved the thoughts in his head. "More."

"No," Athrun said sensuously, still moving at his unhurried, strong pace, not willing to be badgered into ending it too soon. "You'd forget me if I let you have your way immediately."

Her face was beautiful, almost ethereal in the warm light, and he gazed at her expression, understanding that it was contorted with pleasure and feeling. He felt a new stab of lust and possession enter him, and he caressed her face, lifting himself over her with the other. His hands found her breasts as they trembled with the movements of her body, and he kneaded them greedily. This time, Cagalli found his rhythm easily, and Athrun guided her well, building their movements into a frenzied, desperate tango of sensation until she cried out.

The blaze inside encompassed her then and erupted through every pore and cell, exploding in a blinding, intense heat such that the awareness of everything else died. Breathless now, Cagalli cried out, low and hoarse, clinging on as if he were her only hope to keep from completely burning out of existence.

His mouth covered hers in a growl, feral and desperate. And Athrun reached below her simultaneously, cupping her rear and forcing her to move for him even while she climaxed, and his name on her lips melted into his groans of hers. He felt himself losing some consciousness, and saw that her eyes were hazy with the same effect. But he controlled himself and reached down in the height of their frenzy and bit her neck, hearing her ecstasy while vaguely recognizing his own.

He wondered if his blood was flowing backwards, whether his essence was being drawn out of every pore of him, through that small opening that led to the rest of her. His soul and very spirit seemed to be gushing and bubbling out of him, as if he had reached a boiling point. Then he poured himself into her, entirely, and then emptied himself of her in one fluid, pulling movement.

But even when they lay side by side, his kisses and the combination of her desire and his made the familiar heat stir within Athrun again. Her tongue flickered, wet and pink behind her lips, and he felt himself tighten. Cagalli's neck bore his teeth marks, although those would fade within a day. Quietly, Athrun placed a hand on an inner thigh, conscious that he had marked her as his.

"Funny." Cagalli said breathlessly, almost talking to herself. "I never realised it felt this- this wonderful. Was that why the girls in the office kept talking about the times they'd fallen asleep in someone's arms, even though they had so much heartbreak to share about?"

Athrun smiled inquisitively at her. "So you heard the stories from the random people in your office?"

She nodded, a bit embarrassed and blurting the first things that came to her mind because of that. "But I didn't really know what to do- of course, now I know and I'm not without my own experience anymore-,"

He shifted her onto her back and gazed into her eyes as he slid into her once more. Cagalli made a small, wild sound of pleasure and he began to fill her entirely, pushing himself into her until he had filled the cavern of her body entirely. She threw back her head, arching her body with a little cry that spilled from her lips. And Athrun ran his hand to her lips and stroked her face tenderly.

"No." He said quietly. "Now you aren't."

The wild, heightened sensations did not fade, leaving them unsteady, unable to relax into one another. They fought each other for control. As Cagalli raised herself to kiss him, and he gazed at her plump white breasts, like young pups, spruced, wet with perspiration and with pink noses, the blood rushed to his loins once more.

He waited until she'd become comfortable and even confident above him, and then tackled her, dominating her once more. When she finally gave up fighting him, Athrun nipped at her neck, then nuzzled her. Cagalli looked at him, blushing adorably, her eyes were wet with tears, shy and lowered. In that moment, he understood her pain and joy.

She smiled, her voice breathless. "It's the first time I've ever experienced anything like that. All in one day."

"You're not a girl any more." He said deliberately, holding her face in his hands. "You're a woman now. Mine."

She moved against him a little, and with a groan, he knew he could never be satisfied when it came to her. And he grabbed her chin with his fingers.

"You belong to me." He said quietly. "Go on. Say it for me. I belong to Athrun."

"I belong to-," Her voice was ragged with sensual anticipation and endless desire. "To Athrun."

Her answer was enough to make him flood into her even though he hadn't meant to or even expected it. And Cagalli's lips formed a silent 'o' of pleasure and longing as he tried to sink deeper into her. Soon, it was clear that she could not take any more of him and he was deeply and almost entirely in her.

"I'll never let you go." He whispered dazedly. "You belong to me now. All of you."

Athrun raised his head and gazed down at her, brushing a trembling hand against her cheek. Cagalli moved just enough to faintly nuzzle him.

When he could finally move once more, he kissed her gratefully and laid a hand gently on her soft stomach. Eventually he had to let go to stand up he reached into a set of drawers she hadn't managed to get to. And sighing a little, Athrun brought forth a small box and moved back to her.

"What is it?" She whispered, sitting up slightly, still panting even with the little he had done to her. Cagalli was alarmed, he could see, afraid that he had not been satisfied by her.

But the next thing he did allayed her fears entirely. Athrun opened it and her eyes flew from it to his eyes. Without a word, he sat by her and took her hand into his, sliding a ring onto her finger. Her eyes filled with tears and he pressed her hand to his chest, saying hoarsely, "I kept it, but it's yours. It was always yours."

"I gave it to Meyrin!" Cagalli whispered. "Wasn't she the one who'd kept it?"

He shook his head gently, smiling ruefully. "She gave it back to me before I went to Orb. But I never got a chance to give it to you."

"What if-," Her breath caught and Cagalli choked back a sob. "What if I can't wear it for you?"

Athrun made no direct answer but kissed her forehead gently. "It doesn't matter if you'll have to leave me eventually and go back there. It doesn't matter if you go with someone else in the end, as long as you know that I never wanted anything else except to be with you."

Kneeling next to her, Athrun picked up her hand and slid the ring on. With a pang, Cagalli realized how familiar it felt, how much she'd missed having this band of light coolness against her flesh even when she thought she'd long forgotten what it felt like.

And wryly, Athrun added. "But I'm not giving it to you because of what we just had, alright? I meant to when you left for Orb. And even just now, I decided I wanted to bring that forward. I just- just forgot when you looked at me the way you did and asked me to take you."

Cagalli laughed, a happy, shy sound, and brought her arms around his neck. He chuckled too, settling next to her once more. She looked so soft and young, so heartbreakingly innocent and breathtaking that he wondered if he had made a mistake by sealing her to him with how he'd just taken her and placed the ring on her finger. Looking at her, Athrun knew he'd taken her, all of her. It would be impossible to forget her ever again.

He raised himself over her and gazed down. Her arms found his as she moved into his embrace, and she was overcome with the joy of finding him and herself once more. Athrun closed his eyes and gently kissed her forehead, lying down at her side, drawing her to him. Cagalli readily responded, rolling over, snuggling close as she lay her head on his chest, listening to his heart as his pulse gradually tapered off to normal.

Feeling completely sated, and utterly relaxed, it wasn't long before Cagalli drifted off to sleep. The band on her finger sat around the flesh, and she closed her eyes and saw it in her mind's eye. The world around them didn't matter anymore than the first snow falling outside, not visible to their eyes and the lack of a window. In the unheated room, filled with his secrets, they had their warmth for each other, and it was enough.

In the world around her, she had been lost, and in the house, she had been a captive. But in this room, in his arms, Cagalli found him, and Athrun knew that the night would draw softly and tenderly against them, a cloak of protection, a salve to the wounds.

He waited until she had fallen asleep, then quite involuntarily, did the same. But as he did, he could sense her breathe against him, and he knew the snow outside was falling as steadily as her heart beat beneath her flesh.

She had come home.

To him.

---

2 months. 15 days.