Cagalli set her tea down as Kira stepped into the living room. The sun was out but she never felt more grey.
"Hey you," Kira greeted as he sat next to her. "I'm leaving tomorrow but I'll be staying at the orphanage tonight, so I thought I would say goodbye now."
She was sure that the last time she talked to Athrun was goodbye. Even Shinn kept himself as scarce as much as their work could permit. She pushed everyone away. And now Kira was leaving her too. She felt completely alone, stewing in her shame. Wasn't this what she always wanted? Wasn't she the one who proclaimed that she could do a better job if only she would be left alone? But she she was falling apart, bursting at the seams. If she let herself be honest for once, she would beg for Kira to stay a while longer.
"I see," she acknowledged. Before Kira arrived, he informed her that he would be staying for about three months. Had it been that long already, she thought. She struggled to comprehend time most days. "No problem. You're always welcome to come back anytime."
"I was going to say goodbye to Athrun but he wasn't picking up," Kira said. "Where is he?"
"Back home."
"Home?"
"PLANT."
She took another sip of tea, hiding behind the tea cup. She didn't want Kira to notice that she was quite close to tears.
"Why?" Kira frowned.
Cagalli looked away. "I pushed him away."
She explained the avalanche of events that led to Athrun's departure—the cabinet meeting, the increasing demands for her to settle down, her inability to stand up for herself, her betrayal of him in the end. After much hesitation, she admitted to having looked into his files to figure out his whereabouts after noticing his prolonged absence. It mentioned a family issue that needed to be taken care of. There were no other details beyond that.
"If he told his superiors that it was for a family matter, then I'm sure he will be back, Cagalli. He only asked for two weeks off," Kira noted. "It's just rotten timing."
"That's what he put on the paperwork but what's stopping him from taking it further? No, he won't come back. Not after what I said," Cagalli shook her head, her voice overflowing with remorse. "I told him I wouldn't choose him."
"Give Athrun a little more credit that that," Kira offered.
"It's not that I doubt him. It's that I know he deserves better," she said. "He'll realize that one day if he hasn't yet. And when he does—"
"You can't keep doing this to yourself," he said. "You keep punishing yourself and denying what's in front of you."
Cagalli took a deep breath, trying not to cry.
"I love him, you know. I love him and it hurts and it hurts and hurts! I thought I would be numb to it by now but it never stops," She pressed her hands on her chest, her back curled in agony. "It's pathetic."
Across the room, a portrait of her father watched over their conversation. Cagalli looked at his father's steely eyes. It was a reminder that she had failed, fallen short of becoming the strong and resolute leader. It seemed even in her own personal life, she was only capable of letting people down.
Kira laid a hand on her back.
"It's not pathetic, Cagalli," he spoke gently. "It hurts because you feel it very deeply. And you feel so strongly about it because it's the truth. You think of your heart as a weakness, but it's not. It's what makes you strong."
"I don't know what to do," she exhaled, ready to let the current take her.
"Start with what you feel," he advised. "You'll know what to do, Cagalli. Start with your heart. It's time you let it breathe again."
xxx xxx xxx
It was late in the evening by the time Kira got to the orphanage. He lingered in his car a while, unsure of what to say once he got inside the house. Lacus left him a voice message the other day to let him know she would be there. It was in her tone, her usual vocabulary. He reckoned she was even smiling when she recorded it. But he knew all too well that she wasn't as fine as she made herself out to be.
Kira faced the front door, taking a deep breath before he opened it. Inside, the lights were off. The living room was tidy. The children's toys were neatly stowed away in their bins in one corner of the room. The dishes were on the drying rack, and the counters were wiped clean.
Down the hallway, he could hear Lacus' soft voice accompanied only by the distant sound of waves. He quietly made his way to the children's bedrooms. He could hear his heart pounding, anxious about what to say to his wife.
He found her in the room, sitting on the edge of one of the beds. She sang a soothing lullaby to the children whose faces looked peaceful and content. The scene made his heart hurt.
Lacus liked to volunteer at the orphanage. The place itself belonged to her and she employed people to care for the children as she fulfilled her work back home, but she always visited as much as she could. Whenever she was around, she made sure to let the caretakers have an extended vacation so she could be the one to take care of the children. Doing so was no easy feat. Kira often worried about the strain it might put on her. But Lacus enjoyed it. It was never a burden or a struggle to her. It was what she always wanted to do, she once told him. She enjoyed children. She was inspired by their innocence and sincerity. And he saw all this for himself anytime they were around children. Everything she did looked easy—the cleaning, the cooking, the teaching, the loving. She was a natural at it.
When they found out they wouldn't be able to have children as a consequence of their genetic profiles as Coordinators, Lacus uttered not a single grievance. They left the clinic without speaking a word to each other. When he tried to bring up what they were told by the doctor when they got home, she simply smiled at him.
"There's nothing to talk about," she declared. "We must count our blessings. That's all there is to it."
He was never able to broach the subject ever since.
Lacus kept herself engrossed by her work. On the weekends she baked, she tended to her garden. She never let herself stop moving. She took no days off from work. She kept her smile as sweet and tender. It was her armor.
In the months after that revelation, Kira found himself mourning not just for the children they couldn't have but also for his marriage. He was ashamed of himself for that now. He was her husband. He was supposed to be the one to hold her hand through anything.
He wasn't even the one who badly wanted a family. He loved Lacus. He could spend his life subsisting so long as he was with her. Seeing her suffer, knowing that it was in part his fault that he could not give her children—it killed him on the inside.
"Kira," she acknowledged him.
He had been standing by the doorframe, observing her, lingering there because he worried that if he moved his heart would spill over with everything he wanted to say.
"Lacus—"
She put a finger to her lips and told him to keep quiet. "They just finally settled."
There were five kids at the orphanage then, three of which Kira remembered. The other two were most likely new.
Lacus got up and walked out of the room as he followed. She made them tea as he pulled out two chairs and the folding table for them in the patio. The moon was full and bright.
"How is Cagalli?" She asked.
Kira sighed. "I'm afraid still as stubborn as ever."
She smiled at that. Kira was relieved if only for a moment. Making her laugh was his favorite thing to do. He would give anything for them to return to an easier time.
They sat in silence for a while until Kira summoned the courage to speak.
"There was something she said," Kira opened. He eyed her in the corner of his eyes.
"Hm?"
"It made me think, about us, about—" he paused. "About what we've been doing the past couple of months."
She didn't say anything but she set her teacup down.
"She said that it hurt to feel, that she wished she could be numb to it by now but it keeps hurting anyway," he continued. "Lacus, I know you're hurting. And I know it won't stop, at least not for a long while. But you don't have to hurt alone."
She turned her head away.
"I'm your husband. When I married you and vowed to spend this life with you, I meant it."
"There really is no need, dear," she smiled as she spoke but the wavering in her voice betrayed her. "There's no need to—"
"Let me be there for you," Kira pleaded. "Let me carry the pain with you."
Lacus brought a hand to her quivering mouth.
"Kira," she meant to protest but like a dam at breaking point, she broke. Despair flooded out of her, and she clung onto Kira for dear life.
"It's okay to cry, Lacus. Remember you told me that," he said gently rubbing her back. "We will get through this together."
"I cannot bear it," She cried in between breaths. She strained to keep her voice low. "I can't—"
He rubbed her back, unable to make promises that things would get better.
"I will never be a mother," She whispered with full surrender. It was the first time she said it out loud, with no more fight left in her to ignore it.
Kira cried with her as he embraced her with everything he had. He held onto her as tightly as he could to let her know he would pick up all her broken pieces and put them right back. He loved her. That was the beginning and the end of it.
"Miss Lacus?"
Just then, a voice interrupted from inside the house. It was the voice of a little girl.
"Miss Lacus, I'm sorry," another voice called, a little boy. "Bianca had a nightmare and wouldn't stop asking for you. Are you there?"
Kira gave his wife a knowing smile.
"Can't you see you already a mother, darling," he said wiping her tears away. "And you do it so well."
She smiled, a genuine kind for the first time in a long while. Kira let her get back inside the house after planting a kiss on her forehead.
"Bianca? I'm here dear. I'm so sorry you had a bad dream! Come, let's get Mr. Bunny so you don't have to go to bed alone. Leo, thank you for keeping her company. Go back to bed, I'll take care of your sister."
"Thank you Miss Lacus."
"I was so scared!"
"Oh, I bet you were pumpkin! But you're being very brave right now, aren't you!"
He heard her sweet voice fading as she ushered the kids back inside the bedroom. Kira allowed himself some tears of relief.
The sound of the waves enveloped him. There was a faint buzzing of insects in the woods about. Some of their best memories took place in this house. This was where he found out Lacus was quite good a first person shooter games, where she tried to teach him the piano. This was where they slowly rebuilt everything the war took from them.
This was where he got down on one knee to ask her to marry him. The memory brought a smile to his face.
The horror they suffered through the past year wouldn't be the only challenge they would face, he knew that well. But so long as he wasn't doing it alone, he knew he could take anything on.