category: Gundam SEED

disclaimer: I don't own it.

THIRTY-SEVEN.

Caridad Yamato had loved her sister dearly. All throughout their childhood Via was always the brighter of the two: the sharper, the prettier, the more admired. But Caridad hadn't minded. She'd kept an eye out as her sister played around and they grew up and both of them had loved each other unconditionally despite their differences.

The rainy afternoon in November when Via came knocking on her door took Caridad entirely by surprise. "I need your help," she'd murmured, staring at the ground, and the broken young woman with the two children in her arms seemed light-years different from the spirited girl she had used to be.

Over strong coffee Via had explained all that had happened in the last year – Ulen's experiments and what he'd done to their twins, how Kira had been born in an artificial womb and yet Cagalli was a pure natural.

"Ulen tells me our son is the ultimate coordinator," Via scoffed. "He will be smarter and stronger and faster than even the coordinators we have today. As if that's supposed to be a good thing. As if it'll bring him happiness." Two sets of soft cries pierced the silence and she leaned over and rocked the bassinet gently.

Caridad studied her sister. The table that separated them might as well have been a sea for all the distance that had grown between them. Her sister was a prominent researcher and she was a stay-at-home wife. Via had married an extraordinarily brilliant scientist and she a generous and warm information specialist. Via ran around advancing humanity and saving lives and she experimented with the recipe for the perfect pie crust. But even if they were Via Hibiki and Caridad Yamato now and not the Amamiya daughters, they loved each other still, and Caridad walked over to Via's side and held her for a long time.

As she was preparing to leave, Via pulled a photo out of her coat pocket. It was of her with her children, one in each arm and her smiling down at both. She dug out a pen, quickly scrawled their names on the back and then tucked it carefully into the side of the bassinet. "Tell them about Ulen and I when they're older. Tell them everything I told you, and tell them how much their mother loved them."

Caridad had grasped Via's arm worriedly. "What are you talking about? This arrangement is only for a short time. You'll tell them yourself, Via. I-I'm sure of it."

Via shook her head. "I don't know. The anti-coordinator riots have been getting worse, and you never know anymore what'll happen tomorrow. I'm so grateful that you and Haruma are willing to do this, to keep them safe."

The two had stood in the doorway for another ten minutes, locked in a tight embrace of stiff arms and damp cheeks. Then Via kissed the twins and her sister, whispered goodbye, and stepped outside into the pouring rain.

Two weeks afterwards, Caridad received the news she'd been so dreading and spent a week moving around the house with swollen red eyes. A month later, Uzumi Nara Athha came to visit and take Cagalli away. Caridad cried some more as she watched him retreat from the window with a blanketed bundle and the photo in his arms. It seemed unfair for her niece and nephew to have to grow up in a world where they had to be kept apart. But Blue Cosmos was searching for a pair of twins, Haruma had told her one night. It would be for their own good to separate Kira and Cagalli. So she bid farewell to another member of her family and tried not to wonder if she would ever see her again at all.

Someday, she sighed to Kira as she bounced him on her knee and he gushed happily. Someday.

x

Nineteen years later, after the end of two wars, Kira brought his sister home. Cagalli was kind and energetic, and Caridad liked her. She and Kira seemed happy and it in turn made her content. There was hope, if people as young as them could have battled and still be able to laugh.

Kira still came to visit when he could but Caridad noticed the changes that had displaced his character from the core, with the perception that only mothers possessed. She sighed and resigned herself to the fact that he was a man now, who had fought and killed and cried enough himself. War justified such transformations. So she kissed Kira's cheeks twice each time he left, and sent him and Cagalli handmade birthday presents every year, and hoped that they never stopped smiling.

notes: Oddly enough, I have nothing to say today, so I'll leave things be. I hope everyone is doing well!

NEXT PHASE: Once a soldier, always a soldier, as the remaining members of the Le Creuset Team discover.