The Joule team was granted 48 hours of leave –a gift, Yzak had been told, from the Chairman for their incredible contributions to the security of the PLANTS. While Dullindal probably meant it as a kindly gesture, but it only infuriated Yzak. The war situation was getting worse by the second, and it was hardly a wise move to be letting entire teams off duty. But, as much as he hated to admit, his team desperately needed some rest. Every single one of them were completely worn from all the tension of the battlefield.

He was no exception.

He spent the first day with Dearka, visiting the graves of Nicol, Rusty and Miguel. It had become a ritual throughout the months after the First War; he visited them often to tell them the latest news. It pained him that he could not tell them to be in peace, that the world had become a better place, because it had not. He wondered what they would say when they saw the world thrown into the same fruitless chaos that had claimed their lives. Especially Nicol. Nicol was always a gentle, soft one –the exact opposite of Yzak.

Yzak and Dearka silently saluted Nicol's grave, the last of the three they were visiting. The white gravestone, identical to the countless others in the military cemetery, marked an empty casket. Nicol's remains had exploded with the Blitz, and nothing could be recovered. The only things remaining of Nicol was a few photographs and a beautiful piano piece he composed.

The only things from his tragically short, fifteen-year-long life.

"Long time no see, Nicol."

He heard Dearka whisper to the gravestone. They both stood in silence, recalling the innocent smile behind the brave soldier they knew.

I won't let your death have been in vain.

He gritted his teeth as they both saluted the stone again, this time as a farewell. Both of their expressions were solemn; Nicol had been their comrade, but more importantly he had been their friend. His death was still an extremely painful memory to remember.

xoxox

As they approached the gates of the cemetery, Yzak saw an extremely familiar figure approach from the other side.

"Shiho?"

He stopped, and he could see her slow down as well. He had never even considered meeting her at a place like this, but he supposed it was only natural.

She had also suffered her own losses in the First War.

"Yzak, Dearka."

She nodded in acknowledgement. She stopped walking a few feet away from them, looking a little lost. Yzak was sure his face mirrored the same exact emotion. Dearka suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable.

"So I'm thinking I should probably go now."

Yzak glared at the blonde as he walked away, but grudgingly returned his eyes to Shiho. She had not shifted at all, seemingly frozen by their encounter. He opened his mouth, but it took him a few minutes to find something to say.

"Do you have any plans after this?"

She shook her head. He jerkily reached out his hand.

"Do you want to come over?"

She stared at his hand for what seemed like an eternity before she took it.

xoxox

Yzak tensed as he came out of the kitchen with two mugs of coffee. Shiho was looking distractedly out of the window. They had been completely silent through the car ride back, and Yzak had to muster up every piece of energy he had left to break the silence.

"Were you visiting…him?"

Shiho tensed and slowly met his gaze. He immediately regretted saying it; his voice came out much harsher than he had ever meant it to.

"Are you mad?"

Her voice was calm, but her eyes thinned defensively. His reflexes tried to retort, but he held back. Was he mad? He was not sure. When he first saw Shiho at the cemetery, when he realized why she was there, who she was visiting –he felt like he was bashed in the back of his head. In the months since she returned to the Voltaire, they had gotten closer than Yzak had ever thought possible. And in between the kisses and the smiles and the nights spent whispering into each others' ears, he had almost forgotten.

Forgotten about the Shiho Hahnenfuss he first met in the bridge of the Vesalius, the angry, bitter, desperate Shiho that was almost broken beyond repair.

And the death that had caused it.

"It was just a question, Shiho."

"No, it was an accusation."

Her expression was unreadable as she stared quietly at him.

No, he wasn't mad. It had just hurt him when he saw that his death was still very much a part of her, that her pain was still not a memory. He wasn't her past; he was part of her present.

And damn it, Yzak didn't even know his name.

"I'm not accusing you of anything."

Shiho scoffed and looked back out of the window. With a light thump she leaned her head against it. He felt another pang of pain, greater than the one that had nearly paralyzed him in the cemetery. The ground was giving in under him and he was falling, falling, falling.

"I still see him in my dreams, Yzak. Only once in a while, but enough for it to still hurt."

"…Shiho."

"He's covered in blood, and his limbs are all bent wrong… And he tells me that I betrayed him. That I don't deserve to be alive, and I should be rotting in hell with him."

She smiled wryly.

"Sometimes I almost agree."

Her dark lashes fluttered against her skin. His throat was completely dry. He took a few more steps and pulled her into his arms. He frowned. She had definitely lost some weight; such slight changes were unnoticeable under the standard issue ZAFT uniform. He almost winced at the sharp pain in his heart.

He loved her.

And he wanted to save her, more than anything else in the world.

"Well he's wrong."

She looked up at him a little uncertainly.

"Shiho, all I really care about is that you're here. With me."

She continued to stare at him with her beautiful eyes, and he could feel himself blushing. He had dropped another cheesy line, again. Her face crumpled

"Come on, the coffee's gonna get cold."

She nodded like a young child, a smile tugging at her lips.

xoxox

They spent the rest of the afternoon on his couch. Shiho called it "vegetating" –a well deserved break, free from the anxiety of the battlefield, after so many months in the front lines. Years, really, since both of their lives were centered around war since they were sixteen year old cadets in the academy.

Although the concept of spending an entire afternoon in such an unproductive manner initially revolted him, Shiho's catlike yawn as she threw herself on the couch subdued any kind of resistance in him. He simply sighed before resigning himself to a few hours of laziness and slobbishness –both such foreign concepts to the perfectionist Yzak Joule.

And he had to admit, it was probably the most wonderful way to waste his time.

By the time the clock hit seven, the coffee was long gone and their stomachs were screaming to get fed. Neither of them could even muster the will to get up, though, and Yzak suggested ordering pizza. Shiho looked at him incredulously.

"Pizza? Did you just say pizza?"

"What, do you not like pizza? How can you not like pizza?"

Yzak frowned. Vegetating and wasting time was one thing, but disliking pizza was reaching a whole new different level of blasphemy. Of course, that was not what Shiho had meant at all, and she simply started cracking up on her side of the couch.

"No, not that. Just… I imagined something like pizza would be too…plebeian for your taste."

He gave her a mock-glare which only made her laugh harder.

"I'm a teenage guy living by myself, so yes, I do eat pizza."

"Oh god, please tell me you're not one of the guys who pretty much survive on pizza deliveries."

He felt a quick blush creep up into his cheeks. She was absolutely right; Yzak could not cook, or rather, he did not have the kind of patience needed in cooking. On the rare occasions when he was off duty (and for those two long years in between the wars), he survived on pizza and Chinese take-out. Or sometimes, he just didn't even bother. By then Shiho had rolled off the couch and was curled up into a ball on the floor, laughing so hard she almost looked like she was seizing. He threw a pillow at her face before he reached for his phone, which did absolutely nothing to stop her.

It was close to nine when they finished the pizza. Yzak stood up to throw the box away when Shiho's arms grabbed him from behind.

"No, stay here."

She pulled him back on the couch and he found himself staring up at her with the cushions under him. His collared shirt suddenly felt hot and stuffy against his body. She leaned down, the tips of her hair tickling his cheeks. Her lips were twisted in her trademark smirk, but there was something else that flickered in her eyes.

Like a little girl sleeping for the first time without her teddy bear.

"Shiho."

His voice was hoarse. All of his senses tuned in to her warmth, her breathing, her existing.

She was absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.

"Don't go."

Yzak raised his arm and gently stroked her cheek.

"I'm not going anywhere."

And he kissed her like the most precious thing that ever existed, because that was exactly what she was.

xoxox

Yzak will never forget the night that followed.

Or the morning after, when he woke up to her still asleep beside him. It was exactly what he expected life without the war to be like –peaceful, and calm. Just a simple life, where his biggest worry was not that the PLANTS could be destroyed under an OMNI attack, or that Shiho might not return from combat one day. A life where he could wake up, every day, with her in his arms. Where she could be this peaceful even when she was awake.

A life that he wished he could share with Shiho.

He mentally slapped himself, wondering when exactly he had become such a ball of sap and overused cliché statements, before getting out of bed to clean the mess they made the night before.