category: Gundam SEED
disclaimer: I don't own it.
NINETEEN.
Lunamaria returned to the Minerva mentally drained. Trailing Athrun and listening in on his conversation with his friends had done nothing but confuse her. All the talk of a fake Lacus and the Chairman's intentions was mystifying and misleading. Chairman Durandal was doing the right thing, she thought angrily, and Athrun would be foolish to fall for the words of Orb again.
Lunamaria stepped into the showers and found her sister there as well. "Ah! You're back." Meyrin dropped her hair dryer and gave her a quick hug. "The ship's been so quiet. You've been out, and the other pilots went somewhere too." She tilted her head quizzically. "Where exactly did you go?"
"Special ops," Lunamaria answered briefly because her head was still spinning with everything she'd heard. There was quiet as she started peeling off her clothes and Meyrin turned back to the mirror.
"I'm sure you heard about what happened to Rey while he and Shinn were on that mission. So strange." At Lunamaria's uncharacteristic silence, Meyrin prattled on in an effort to fill the tense silence. "And Commander Zala was gone as well." Lunamaria stiffened as she fumbled with the tap, but Meyrin continued. "I've been wondering about him recently. He seems distracted, doesn't he?"
"I wouldn't know," Lunamaria didn't meet Meyrin's eyes and turned on the water. "Perhaps the constant battles are getting to him. Civilian life must have dulled him."
Meyrin paused. She was observant, and her sister's sudden cool tone toward the man she used to never stop talking about did not go unnoticed. "Are you all right?"
Lunamaria dropped her hands from her soapy hair abruptly. "Athrun Zala is a lost cause, Meyrin!"
Meyrin sat down on the bench facing the showers. "You've had a huge crush on him ever since we figured out who he was," she said carefully. "Do you not like him anymore? Is it because of Lacus Clyne?"
Lunamaria choked a little. "No!" A few minutes passed and she turned off the shower and took a seat on the bench next to her sister. "It's not his fiancée that's the problem." She remembered how he was always pushing her off him and never really talking to her. "He doesn't even like her that much," she mumbled.
"Then who?" Meyrin leaned forward, perhaps a smidgen too eagerly.
Lunamaria shook her head, trying to get rid of what she'd learned when spying. She should have realized before, she noted bitterly. The way he was never more than a step behind Representative Athha when they were on the Minerva, how bothered he'd been about the wedding in Orb, why he'd never returned to the PLANTs after the first war, that ring the Representative would not stop touching while meeting Athrun on the cliffs.
"Cagalli Yula Athha," she bit out edgily, and turned to Meyrin resignedly. "He's a lost cause."
notes: I've been in bed sick lately, but I motivated myself enough to keep up the daily updates the last two days. I'm obsessive like that, and it would have really bothered me to break the pattern, even if it was only for a little while. Hope that you all aren't feeling as miserable as I am!
NEXT PHASE: Cagalli suffers silently while dress shopping with Lacus.