Characters: Athrun Zala, Meyrin Hawke, Kira Yamato
Pairings: None
Time frame: GSD pre ep 39
Guilt
Sitting and watching Athrun like this, Kira feels resentment and anger at the Chairman gather under his skin. What kind of world could Durandal possibly desire to build that Athrun has to be disposed of?
Kira doesn't know and at this point he isn't sure he cares. First Lacus, then Cagalli and Kira himself and now finally Athrun.
Athrun turns a bit, his head rolling to the side and strands of his hair that aren't plastered to his skin with bandages fall in his face. Kira brushes them away; it wouldn't do to have him sneeze and reopen his wounds.
Kira watches the even breath of his friend and feels dark feelings warring with relief.
His best friend is wounded, bleeding, almost dead, weak and broken on the inside. His skin is pale, looking sickly and it hurts.
Is it too much to ask to just simply live in peace, to be able to talk without clashing of high-tech weaponry between them? Is it too much to ask that they can just be friends?
He swallows the tears prickling in his eyes when he hears the door slide open.
"…excuse me."
He has expected his sister again. Cagalli is only away from Athrun's side when she is pulled, much like Kira himself, but unexpectedly the girl standing in the door is not blond.
He smiles at the red-head, getting up from the only chair in the room immediately as he greets her.
"Are you sure you should be up, Meyrin-san?" She is still attached to an IV and can only walk when leaning against the wall.
She hesitates as Kira gestures for her to sit. "Thank you…"
"Kira Yamato," he says. It isn't the first time they interact, but while the entire ship knows her name, Meyrin-san is still sick and adapting to her new circumstances. It is no surprise she can't remember everyone she meets. "I visited you a few days ago with Miriallia."
She blushes a bit, nodding as she turns her gaze to Athrun.
For a while they only stare in silence as Athrun sleeps and Kira wonders if he has made everyone worry like this as well when he got shot down.
Probably, he thinks.
Definitely Athrun, because he hasn't even known Kira survived.
He needs to apologize for that. He knows if their roles had been reversed, then…
"How is he?"
Kira returns to the present from a world of pain. "He woke up once. The doctor says the more sleep he gets now, the better."
Meyrin-san nods and Kira remembers something.
"Thank you," he tells her and she startles. Kira continues. "I couldn't help him when he needed it and…Thank you very much."
She bits her lip. Meyrin-san is very shy, only more so now that she is surrounded and cared for by strangers. "Do you know Athrun-san well?"
Does Kira know Athurn well? Better than Kira knows himself, probably. He can't quite remember a time when he hasn't know Athrun. They have only ever been separated those two years before the Bloody Valentine's War. Kira knows Athrun inside out, can read his thoughts on his face and there is no one he trusts his back to as much as Athrun.
He cannot possibly put that into words. "We are very good friends," he says instead.
For some reason that seems to surprise her more than anything else today and Kira can only conclude in resignation that Athrun must have been lonely on the Minerva if him having a friend is such a surprise. He can see it; how Athrun focuses on his work and duty, almost obsessively, and how it prevents him from connecting to people .
If only Kira had been a better friend, maybe it wouldn't have come this far. Maybe Athrun wouldn't have almost died again…
He sighs.
"Athrun-san was always very busy," Meyrin-san says quietly, almost as if in response to Kira's thoughts, her eyes not leaving the unconscious form lying on the bed. "He tried to keep Shinn in line, and I don't think he had much time for other things."
"Maybe not," muses Kira. Athrun likes to be busy, feels easily guilty and takes everything on himself. Kira fears that when his best friend awakes he has to talk him out of feeling responsible for the entire damn war. "But it is different now."