Athrun boarded the plane with nothing more than a suitcase and a heart full of expectations.
The weather agreed with his choice of clothing—the artificially engineered skies of PLANT was cloudy and gloomy that fateful day. His monochromatic ensemble gave nothing away like a shadow on the pavement. The only hint of colour blooming out of the darkness was that of the Haumea pendant that rested on his chest. Such a small thing that carried so much weight.
It was the last day he could wear civilian clothing for a while. Not that it mattered. His luggage contained very few personal items anyway. Inside were his orders, some dress shirts, a couple spare trousers, precisely two of his favourite books, and a handful of special photos he hoped to pin on the wall of the inevitably bland government issued room assigned to him. Apart from the measly number of items he carried with him today, he had given everything else away.
It was not like he would be forbidden to return to PLANT. But he felt wistful anyway. He looked outside the window as the rest of the plane prepared for takeoff. This place, what it stood for, had long infringed on his very being, pressing from every direction. From the moment he was born, he would be a coordinator, Patrick Zala's son, the perfect soldier, and the fiancé of Lacus Clyne—nothing more. All that people knew Athrun by were attributes that someone else had determined for him. But from here on out, he decided, the man looking back at him on the windowpane would be someone else. It was, to him, a proper farewell. The next time he steps foot on his motherland, he promised he would be a changed man—a man with something to be proud of, something to hold dear.
He sighed as he settled into his seat.
"This is the captain speaking. Flight alpha-oscar-three-zero-eight, bound for Yalafath Island, Orb, on track for early arrival. I will provide more details when we are close to landing but it seems weather upon arrival is set to be sunny, with a high of twenty-five degrees Celsius, and a low of sixteen degrees Celsius in the later hours of the evening." The pilot announced.
Athrun was not paying attention all that much, really. He had been on countless flights before. After all, being the son of a senior politician meant that his father's obligations bled onto him. Seldom were decisions made out of his own volition. But he was a child then. And if that was something he could peacefully accept before, the same could not be said of him now. The shadow of his father extended beyond his childhood. It crept on. And it was the fact that his father still had a hold on Athrun even as a grown man that he could not abide. A dead man, a ghost, had chipped away at his confidence. The first war came and went. The brief moment of peace did nothing to keep the second one from coming. And yet after all these years, it was still about his father. It was still his voice that commanded his every action no matter how much he hated it.
But the war finally over, and Athrun is still Athrun.
Well, not if he could help it.
The plane was wheeling its way to the runway. Flight attendants were abuzz, reminding passengers to put on their seatbelt, to keep their carry-on bags stowed away properly, to make sure their phones are put on airplane mode.
"Mom, I want the tablet! I want to play!" a child's voice from the row behind Athrun eagerly demanded.
"Shush dear. Wait a while. I promise you'll get to play later. But you have to buckle up now, come on," the child's mother replied.
Amidst the hubbub of a plane preparing to takeoff, Athrun found himself feeling an odd ominous emptiness swirling in his stomach. His mother, Lenore, he remembered. Her patience, her grace, the way she never lost her composure, her brilliance—he remembered it all too well. But even the tiny moments of happiness remain tainted now. Leaving PLANT meant leaving her behind too.
Tucked inside the inner pocket of his coat were his papers, his orders and a formalization of his allegiance to Orb. He inserted his right hand in the pocket, fishing for the document, not to take it out but to simply touch it. After all that he had been through, he was desperate for the chance to hope again. The twenty-two-page document was right there, clipped together, signed and folded. It will all work out, Athrun repeated in his head. Things will fall into place. With the plane climbing up the sky to pass the clouds and escape PLANT's gravity, Athrun felt the weight of his future slide down his throat.
He had tied as much loose ends as he could before his move to Orb. And he ticked off the list dutifully, like a test he was desperate to ace. Perfectly this time around, he thought. He would do it all perfectly. He would be worthy of her.
Her.
There she was in the screen in front of him. The channel it was on was rounding up the headlines for that hour. The Representative of Orb, Her Majesty Cagalli Yula Athha, delivered a speech at the capital's plaza that morning. She received countless bouquets as she shook hands and met the public.
He just needed her, he thought, conscious of the necklace around his neck. She was his salvation. She always has been.
Athrun felt the plane accelerate. Back pressed on his seat, he closed his eyes. He wanted to feel the past recede into nothingness inside him.
xxx xxx xxx
"To live is the greater fight!" A voice echoed in his head. The images were blurry, like a photo not yet fully rendered. Blocks of color. Smoke. Then there were faint sounds of a faraway battle like droplets of water echoing in an empty bathroom. Where was he, he wondered. He was floating, watching himself outside his body.
"Stop running!"
A screen flashed bright on his face. It was a monitor—something that was all too familiar. And then he was sweating in his cockpit, keying in the code to self-destruct. His mind was in a frenzy. Images, memories were pulsating behind his eyeballs.
Junius Seven exploding.
Kira, Kira, Kira.
The island.
That island.
Her.
Blonde hair, amber eyes.
The pendant.
Red.
I will protect you.
A father who shot his son. The father's anger, the son's blood.
Genesis.
More blood.
Tears.
A darkness, a malice was brewing inside him. It felt like losing his breath though he hadn't moved an inch. He was dying, he thought, just a few more codes to input and he would soon lose his life. He hadn't even considered all that he would lose, all that he would no longer see. He hadn't given death a thought. Would it be pain? Or would it be nothingness?
Nicol, Rusty, his mother. His father too.
His fingers ran through the many layers of security prompts but he was caught in a loop. The same scene replayed. The same letters. The same message on the screen.
Ping!
"To live is the greater fight!" The voice cried again.
Who? Where? He wondered. The voice felt like home. It echoed and echoed, feedback was blaring in his ears. But he couldn't remember who it was or where he'd heard it before.
Smoke filled his surroundings. And he blacked out. Time didn't exist. Ten minutes or maybe a year— he couldn't tell. It was just darkness. And then there was the sun.
Summertime.
Orb and the sand.
Hands reached out from the haze to fix his collar. He donned an Orb uniform.
The hands straightened his jacket. He tried to reach out to touch the mysterious figure, but he couldn't move. The woman's face was obscured, and he couldn't see who it was. But he felt that he knew this person after all. The taste of her lips, the feeling of her in his arms. There was a dull ache that bore a hole in his gut.
"Alex Dino," a voice said with a little laugh. "Are you sure you'd rather have an alias? You know I'd find a way to let you stay here despite what others might think."
Her body.
"Come into the water! It feels great!"
The ring.
"I understand."
Her tears.
"So, you're not coming back to Archangel? To Orb?"
The ceiling of the infirmary.
The ring was still on her finger in that moment.
"I'm sorry."
And then the next it was gone.
"Stop running!"
There was so much anguish; so much loss. To what purpose? Why had he left at all? What was the point? Was it worth the price he paid? He was forgetting.
"Cagalli!"
His mouth opened but no sound came out of it.
Yes, that's her name. Cagalli. He tried to grab onto her—her shoulders, her arms, anything at all. But his arms were immaterial. Just when her face began to appear with clarity, he was turning into a ghost.
Her back turned against him now.
She was walking away. Her shadow stretched and he called her again and again.
xxx xxx xxx
Easing into consciousness now, the sudden imposition of reality was jarring. A baby was wailing a few rows ahead of him, people were rushing to grab their belongings from the overhead storage, the metal clicks of seatbelts unbuckling—it was all too loud.
A dream. It was just a dream, Athrun thought. He woke up feeling the glaze of sweat around his neck. He sat still for a few moments and then decided altogether that he would get up once everyone else had disembarked. He wasn't confident he was fully awake yet. He couldn't explain what he felt.
His phone informed him of the time. They had landed early just as the captain of the plane had announced.
In the chaos of an international airport, he found himself thoroughly contained. Athrun felt more alone than he had ever felt in a long while. Everything felt tenuous. Such as it was when you want something so badly. Every movement he made was done so with full attention and concentration. He didn't want to miss a step. He made his way through the terminal with eyes darting everywhere. He needed to know all of this was real. He took it all in.
Sat in front of the wheel, Athrun took a moment to collect his thoughts before stepping on the pedal. There he was, reunited with his old car from before he rejoined ZAFT. There was no use getting riled up over the past. He thought about it way too many times already. He knew each and every single reason for his mistakes. He also knew they were but stupid excuses. At the end of all the time wasted on rumination, one fact remained constant: the past had been written, and there was no way to rewrite it. This was life after all, Athrun thought. It was a messy endeavour, and never packaged in neat folds and boxes. Feelings contradicted actions, and decisions betrayed intentions. Pain existed, as well as happiness, more often than not, at the same time.
It has been such a long time since he last dared to hope, but if there was any chance of living a life he could be proud of, there would be no better time to make that choice than now. But the dream he had was still singing in his head—a dissonant symphony of voices he hadn't heard in a while.
The song it played was the ominous kind.