The Joule team was officially assigned duty along the defense lines of the PLANTS. Yzak was inwardly relieved that he was not assigned to assist the forces on Earth; he did not like the gravity back on Earth, and going into enemy lands felt too much like taking offensive in a war that never should have happened.

He was especially relieved that they were not on Earth when the Archangel awoke from a two year long slumber.

Yzak, Dearka and Shiho was in the bridge, communicating with the headquarters about another upcoming battle. The operator on the other side had been completely incompetent, and Yzak was getting dangerously close to punching the screen with his idiotic face when an emergency notice interrupted the call.

He remembered the anger in him quickly subside as he ran his eyes through the message, which said that the Archangel and the Freedom had abducted Orb's Chief Representative.

He glanced over his shoulder at Dearka. His expression was a mixture of shock and terror. He looked ashen, almost ghastly.

"Dearka?"

The blonde continued to stare fixedly at the screen as if Yzak never spoke. Yzak grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

"Dearka!"

He looked at Yzak for a brief moment before he returned his eyes to the screen.

"Yzak, please tell me this isn't happening."

His tone was pleading. Yzak raised an eyebrow.

"This notice is real, Dearka. What is going on?"

"…God damn it."

Dearka muttered under his breath before running out of the bridge. Yzak looked at Shiho, who seemed as bewildered as he was. True, Yzak hadn't expected the Archangel to actually show up, or at least not quite so soon. He also did not expect them to kidnap Cagalli Yula Athha from her wedding. He was surprised, yes, but he had no idea why Dearka would be horrified by their return.

Shiho glanced at the folder Dearka left behind.

"I guess I'll go look for him. Find me when you're done dealing with the headquarters."

Yzak nodded, and watched her leave with the folder in her hand. He sighed and faced the monitor again.

xoxox

The operator magically seemed to grow a brain after the urgent notice, and Yzak was able to leave the bridge in under five minutes. He caught up with Shiho as she was entering the mess hall, where Dearka sat, staring into space.

"Dearka."

The blonde looked up, but quickly averted his gaze when he saw them. Yzak frowned as he approached his friend.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Dearka?"

He did not reply. Yzak heard Shiho sigh beside him, and she held out Dearka's folder.

"You left this."

The blonde wearily reached out for it, but his fingers clutched thin air. The folder fell, spilling a barrage of documents all over the floor. The three fumbled to pick them up when Shiho abruptly stopped her hands.

Mixed with the documents was a photograph of a girl. She looked around their age, with brown hair and green eyes. She was smiling with a camera in one hand. She looked vaguely familiar, and Yzak wondered if he'd ever seen her before.

Just as Dearka snatched the photo away with a shocked expression, realization hit Yzak.

Of course. She was in the bridge of the Archangel at the end of the last war. He still remembered how she'd glanced at Dearka when they both entered the bridge, and how Dearka smiled at her. What was it that the Captain call her?

Miriallia.

Dearka's "Mir" was Miriallia Haww, CIC of the Archangel.

Yzak cursed at himself for not connecting the dots earlier; it was simple math, really, now that he looked back at it. She was the reason why Dearka could not return to the Archangel even if he'd wanted to. The reason why he was so completely horrified by the fact that the Archangel was back in the battlefield.

"Girlfriend?"

Shiho asked casually. She probably had no idea that she was stepping on a landmine. Shiho and Dearka shared a professional friendship, nothing more. Yzak tensed; the Dearka he knew could be violently defensive. The blonde's jaw clenched, but his response was unexpectedly contained.

"Ex."

She studied him quietly before stating matter-of-factly.

"She's the reason why you've been so angry."

Dearka's head snapped up, and both he and Yzak looked at Shiho in confusion. Dearka had been many things since he returned to ZAFT –distant, dejected, a complete and utter emotional mess- but angry wasn't a word either of them would have used.

"I'm not that much of an ass to be pissed at a girl for dumping me."

The blonde said harshly, but Shiho did not so much as blink.

"You're not mad at her. You're mad at yourself."

Dearka froze. She continued flatly.

"You are mad at yourself for letting her go."

The blonde jumped up, his stance defensive. Yzak could see the veins pop out of his clenched fist.

"What the fuck would you know?"

"Nothing, Dearka. But if this is the reason why your battle statistics have been lousy compared to the last war, then you better deal with it. Call her, go cry to her –I don't care what you do, but you have to pull it together because if in case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a fucking war. Do you want to get killed?"

Dearka could not seem to find a response to her straight gaze, and slumped back down onto his chair. The earlier tension had left his body, and he sat, dazed, limp. Yzak glanced at Shiho; there was no irritation or contempt in her face, but simple honesty. He did not miss the faintest sign of melancholy that graced her feature as she turned around and walked away.

As Yzak internally debated whether to chase after Shiho or stay with Dearka, the blonde started to chuckle. He watched cautiously as Dearka's shoulders shook until Dearka erupted into a fit of loud, sardonic laughter drawing eyes from the entire room.

"What is so fucking funny, Dearka?"

Yzak frowned at his friend's sudden outburst, but waited patiently for the laughter to subside. Dearka leaned back in his chair with a defeated look.

"Man, Yzak. She is brilliant. Fucking brilliant. I couldn't even figure it out for myself and she just read me like a book."

Yzak remembered all the different times Shiho had shoved the unpleasant truth in his face, and he scoffed at Dearka.

"You can't even begin to understand."

"Probably not. Damn it, she's absolutely right."

"She always is."

"It's kind of terrifying."

Yzak shrugged, and Dearka studied him with a curious look on his face. His purple eyes looked a little less lifeless than they had been since he returned to the PLANTS, and Yzak felt himself relax in what seemed to be a very long time.

"She's got you whipped, Commander."

He sighed at the blonde's snide comment, knowing it was more than true. Shiho had managed to wrap him around her pinky, with all of her strengths and weaknesses, with her infuriating charm, her sarcasm and passion, and the rare moments of vulnerability that made him want to protect her from anything that could possibly harm her in the universe. The idea of Yzak Joule allowing somebody to control so much of him was utterly laughable.

But it wasn't a bad feeling. It wasn't a bad feeling at all.

Thank you to every single on of my readers and reviewers. I know I haven't been too great about updating, as I keep saying, but I have a few days off school. I hope to make it up to y'all.