Author's note: There there! Here's the next, long-awaited chappie! I shan't hold you up; read on and enjoy, folks!

Chapter 50

Assistant Commissioner Ramius was annoyed. More than annoyed actually; more like exasperated. She now wished that she hadn't stopped Athrun Zala from strangling Yuna Roma Seiran. If she could, she would have let Athrun kill the man and hide the body. Asshole, she thought to herself as Yuna Roma Seiran stood in front of her desk and complained, in no uncertain terms, that Athrun had lost his mind and ought to be put in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

She watched with some amusement as Seiran shoved the wad of tissues farther up his nose, stemming a trickle of blood that had strayed down his upper lip. For a second, Murrue wondered if Athrun Zala had indeed, as Seiran pointed out, lost his mind. She had never seen this side of Athrun. She remembered the surprise when she heard the commotion and pushed open the conference room to see Seiran pinned to the wall by none other than Athrun Zala. Sure, Seiran was the most infuriating person in Headquarters – heck, he was probably the most infuriating person on the planet – but still, Athrun Zala had a very pleasant temper to match. It didn't seem like him to do something so rash and aggressive. Perhaps, she considered, it was due to the fact that the case was personal. Athrun Zala had already lost one family. Didn't seem right that he should lose another.

Still, she mused, Athrun hadn't gone completely over the edge. At least he had held back somewhat – Seiran's nose wasn't broken, just banged up a little, even though the moron was screeching in front of her desk as if Athrun had ran over him with a truck.

"Well," Murrue interrupted calmly as Seiran paused from his ranting to draw breath, "you're not dead yet, are you, Detective Seiran?"

The purple-haired man stared at her. "That's because I was lucky!" he exclaimed, gesticulating wildly. "If you hadn't come in, Athrun Zala would have killed me. I swear that murderer needs to be put down! I can build up the case if you like. I've got the Big Three – opportunity, means, motive. That should shut him up for good."

"But if you're not dead, Detective Seiran," Murrue Ramius drawled out, speaking slowly as if to an unreasonable child, "then I suppose, you can't accuse Detective Zala of being a murderer, can you?" She sighed and shook her head, waving him towards the exit of her office. She was done entertaining Seiran. There was a pile of work that needed to be done. "Get back to the Lacus Clyne case, Detective. That's priority #1."

"What?" Seiran stared at her again, slack-jawed. "You're letting Zala off the hook?"

Murrue ignored his last comment. "Get a move on, Detective. This is a high-profile case. The higher-ups are concerned. Your promotion could depend on this case," she said, tone encouraging. It was like offering a little something something to a child in order to curb his tantrum. But it worked apparently, because Seiran began to move towards the door, mind already drifting away from the incident.

"Oh," she added, wrinkling her nose a little as Seiran paused in the doorway of her office. "You should change. It's important to look presentable. That's the first lesson in being one of the higher-ups, which you'll probably be if you solve this case. Go on." She plastered a complacent smile on her face. She was being careful when she added the word 'probably'. Just that little something something to motivate the kid and get him out of her office, but god help them all, Seiran would never get a promotion if she could help it.

Seiran glanced down at his blood-stained shirt, then back at her and grinned, "Right you are, AC Ramius. Great advice. I'll get it to it right away."

The door shut behind him and Murrue sank back into her leather-upholstered chair and heaved a loud sigh. Talking to Seiran had never been easy, but at least, she was glad that she had saved Athrun's ass. The last thing that Athrun needed after all this shit, was police assault charges slapped to his name. She picked up her pen and got back to the report she had been looking at before Seiran burst into her office.

The phone on her desk buzzed and she hit the intercom button without looking up. "Yes?" she said. Her assistant and secretary, Arnold Neumann, replied with "the Commissioner's on the line."

"Okay," said Murrue, "patch him through."

There was a short pause and the Commissioner's voice came through the speakers. "AC Ramius?"

"Yes, it's me, sir."

"I've heard news that Detective Athrun Zala from the Special Unit is in the building. Arrange for your men to arrest him."

Murrue glanced up from her report in a hurry and stared at the phone on her desk, as if it had just come alive. What in the world had happened? Had Seiran, the asshole, really approached the Commissioner? How had the Commissioner found out about the commotion in the conference room? Playing down her alarm, she asked, in what she hoped to be a neutral tone, "On what charges, sir?"

"There's been a complaint that Detective Zala broke into an apartment without a search warrant. What sort of behavior is this, Assistant Commissioner? I thought Yuna is now in charge of the Lacus Clyne case and Detective Zala's been temporarily suspended. So why is it that he's been spotted breaking into someone's house in the middle of the night?"

"That's impossible," Murrue frowned, "Detective Zala wouldn't do such a thing. Who is the complainant? Let me send some men to talk to him or her and find out more. It could be a misunderstanding or misidentification. I'm sure-"

"There's no need for that," the Commissioner interrupted her, voice gruff with a no-nonsense vibe about it. "I've had it checked out. It's a reliable witness. All you need to do is get your men down to the Special Unit, have Athrun Zala arrested and press charges. Right now." The line went dead, and Murrue was left sitting ramrod straight in her chair, the incessant beeping of her desk phone threatening to drown out her disbelief. She had saved Athrun from police assault charges, but how in the world was she going to save him from being charged with breaking-and-entering?

She glanced up when he walked in, head jerking upwards in a fluid motion. At first, there was a flare of panic on her face, but it transitioned quickly into relief. As if she was actually glad to see him. Her lips even curled from a faint smile. He shifted his grip on the gun, and tried to steady his hands. She wouldn't be smiling anymore when she saw what he was about to do.

All that Broadway glitz and glamour had faded. Lacus Clyne's luscious pink hair was now dull and caked with dirt, trailing limply over her shoulders. Her dress was grey from the dust and its torn sleeve hung loosely off her shoulder. His jacket lay skewed over her torso and her legs were tucked in close to her chest. Makeup was smudged across her face, lines of pale skin ran down the sides of her face, where sweat had trickled down and washed away the rouge and powder. She looked nothing like the alluring Broadway singer on the three-storey length publicity poster hanging outside the National Theatre.

Yet, underneath the ragged appearance, Kira noticed something else. Something he couldn't quite describe, or identify.

Was it defiance? Not really. She didn't have a smug grin on her face; she didn't have her chin held high. There was no sparkle of pride in her blue-grey eyes. So no, it wasn't defiance. Was it confidence? Confidence in what? In Athrun Zala rescuing her? Or courage? Like facing death without blinking an eye? No, no. It was more than that. Much more than that. Sure, she was displaying confidence, but so had many of Kira's victims. But all of them had still shied away when he approached. Because even though they were confident that they would be saved, they still detested his presence; couldn't stand him being near. But Lacus Clyne wasn't shying away from him. As for courage, Lacus Clyne didn't look like she was ready to die either, so she wasn't staring at death bravely. There was something more.

The woman looked as if she genuinely felt happy that Kira had walked through those doors. Which hardly made any sense.

And then he realized that it wasn't defiance, or confidence, or courage. He had seen that gaze before, in his teammates' eyes whenever they were on a mission. It was trust, but Lacus' gaze was more than that. Hers was a kind of trust subsumed with innocence. Like she truly believed that he wouldn't hurt her. That he would, in fact, protect her from harm.

Trust.

Lacus Clyne actually trusted him.

And he broke all that trust when he raised his gun and pointed it straight at Lacus Clyne.

Cagalli figured that driving seventy miles per hour on a somewhat busy road had to be considered dangerous.

Driving at that speed and talking into the phone was equivalent to suicide. But she kept her mouth shut as Athrun did just that.

Actually, he wasn't really talking. It was more like yelling, and Yzak Joule didn't sound very pleased on the other end of the phone either.

"Stay put," Athrun snapped. "Don't take a single step out of the safehouse, Yzak."

"The order's come down. I can't ignore it." Yzak sounded more harassed than ever.

"It's Seiran, for goddamn's sake," Athrun responded. He spun the wheel and cut into a side road. Cagalli swayed left, clinging to her seat for life. "None of the moron's orders can be trusted!"

"Who said anything about Seiran's orders?" Yzak said, "I'm talking about the Commissioner."

"What?" Another spin of the wheel and Cagalli swayed right.

"I said, the Commissioner's ordered the team to withdraw. Seiran must have gone up to the Commissioner. He's approved Seiran's orders. We can't ignore it now."

Athrun fell silent, but Cagalli could sense the waves of tension roll off him. Yzak waited for a moment, and when his chief didn't reply, he continued, "the team's packing up now. In one and a half hours, we're supposed to withdraw to a five-mile radius around the safehouse, and we've been ordered to take the serum with us." He paused, expecting an answer from Athrun.

"I'll be there," Athrun snapped, and hung up abruptly. "Damn Seiran," he snarled to himself.

Lacus stared at the gun, eyes wide and horrified. She stared for as long as she dared, then let her gaze drift over the deft fingers, up the lean muscled arm, to the impassive face looking back at her from behind the mask. Her mind had gone blank. She couldn't think. All the hopes she had had of rationalizing her way out of her predicament vanished in a split second. She couldn't understand what they wanted, why they had taken her or why they were going to kill her now. Had it been the serum that Athrun had talked about – the one that her father's corporation was developing? What was so tantalizing about the serum? Why commit so many crimes just for that single vial of drugs? Had the kidnappers got their hands on it already? Was that why they were going to kill her? Where was Athrun? Could he be right outside the building? Waiting to ambush the kidnappers? Or was it far away, still scouting for clues as to where she was being held?

More importantly, she couldn't understand… why the man who had given her food and water, who had looked at her not as a tool to achieve his aim but as a person, who had lent her his jacket for warmth, who had protected her from his comrade's rampage… would want to kill her now? She couldn't understand, why Kira was the one who wanted to kill her?

She stared up at him, searching the hidden face for some inkling of the answers to her questions, but found nothing. The man's eyes were hidden from view behind tinted glass and the lower half of his face by a black cloth. Maybe she had got it all wrong… Maybe this wasn't Kira. Or perhaps, it was another Kira, a different Kira. The Kira she had known, and lost, was still missing and he wasn't coming back anytime soon. This wasn't Kira. This was a cold-blooded murderer, who had admitted that he got kicks out of killing people. Tears welled in her eyes and blurred her vision. The image of the man before her wavered and distorted, until it became simply a watery impression.

Kira saw the tears stream down her face, and shocked himself by feeling an unfamiliar urge to sink to his knees in front of her and wipe them away. He touched the pad of his index finger to the trigger and pressed ever so slightly, feeling the fleshy pad of his finger compress. But the pressure wasn't enough to move the trigger. A little bit more, and…

It wouldn't even be a loud bang. Because they couldn't afford to have curious passers-by alarmed by a gunshot coming from the industrial site. So he had his silencer screwed on.

It would just be a pop. Quick and efficient.

Like always.

Usually, he would aim his muzzle at the spot between his victim's eyes. It was an easy and convenient target and it guaranteed that the victim wasn't going to stand up any time soon. But this time, he shifted the gun, lining the muzzle up with Lacus Clyne's forehead. The bullet would hit her in the middle of the brow, push through the soft folds of the brain inside her skull and out through the back of her head. More importantly, with his gun raised a little higher than usual, he wouldn't be able to see her eyes, or the fear in them.

But as he moved the weapon into position, he realized he couldn't quite fix it on his target.

Because his hand was fucking trembling.

The trembling wasn't very obvious. After all, he had had intensive training. It had been beaten into him, both literally and figuratively, that he should never falter when his gun was whipped out and his finger was hovering over the trigger. So under the unpracticed eye, his right hand still appeared rock solid and trained on Lacus Clyne's brow. But Kira himself noticed the very slight tremors in his fingers.

He tightened his grip on the gun and tried to ignore the fact that his fingers and palm felt clammy and wet. All of a sudden, he felt suffocated under the mask and the balaclava, as if the cotton had suddenly become impermeable. Steady, idiot. He wanted to shut his eyes and clear his head, but one of the first rules that he had learned back in the facility was never to take your eyes off the enemy, or the target. So he ended up blinking away sweat that was dripping off his forehead in rivulets.

Just a little more pressure, and it would all be over.

Just a double tap. Bang, bang. And it would all be over.

He felt the tension in his forearm, the familiar tightening of his muscles in preparation for the kill. But what wasn't so familiar, was the tightening in his chest. A deep ache was racking up his insides, like someone had reached into his chest and closed icy-cold fingers around his thumping heart and squeezed. Hard. It didn't make sense. He had killed women in cold blood before, without a single second of hesitation. He couldn't understand what was stopping him now. The fingers around his heart closed tight and his felt his right hand shift, the gun's muzzle going off target.

No!

He could see Lacus Clyne's eyes again. Blue-grey eyes that reflected a wild terror and bewilderment. He wondered if he had a similar horrified expression on his face. Her lips parted and she said something but he couldn't hear. His heart was pounding so hard that all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears. Then, "Please, Kira."

He froze, heart caught in the vice-like grip of the icy-cold fingers. Throat parched and dry. There was a desperate plea in her voice, and it seemed to fuel the ache in his chest. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. He needed to get out. He couldn't stand being in her presence, couldn't stand being subjected to that frantic, yet hopeful, gaze. He couldn't pull the trigger. He couldn't…

He turned and ran, crashing into the wooden door behind him. He fumbled for the doorknob, but it wouldn't open. Frustrated, he wrenched hard at it and finally felt the brass knob give. Hauling the door open, he slammed it shut behind him and just ran. Down the corridor and into the steel cage of a lift. The doors groaned to a shut behind him and Kira sank down onto the steel floor, feeling the rough corrugations under his knees. He tore at the balaclava and ripped off the mask until he was free, watching as droplets of sweat fell and made perfect circles on the dusty floor. His gun clattered to the ground and lay untended.

For the first time in his goddamn life, Kira had disobeyed his master's orders.

Author's note: Whew! What d'ya think about this chappie? I hope it's good, or at least not below your expectations? But I wonder what Kira's going to do now about Lacus? There will be swift retribution from Rau, I tell you! I think I'm such a sadistic person – who in the right mind would torture Kira like that? And of course, Athrun's running into quite a lot of trouble now, with Seiran, and the law! Anyways, if all goes well, I believe Athrun, Cagalli and Kira will meet in the next chapter… Hmm… I'm working on that. So, don't forget to review x3 and tell me what you think's going to happen next! And of course, to my readers:

Cheeseries: I hope this chapter makes up for the cliffie in the previous chappie! I'm always glad to hear from you. It hadn't occurred to me that it's been months already until you reminded me about it! Sheesh, this story is taking way too long! :D

Seiba Artoria: I think I should have uploaded faster… If I can get things to work out right, I believe Athrun and Kira will be meeting soon in the next chapter, or perhaps the next next. But real real soon!

Ragingwing004: Well, Kira does crack indeed! But now I feel like I'm really sadistic for making him suffer emotionally like that. Hmm…

hardcoreGSfan: Sooo, is this chapter as exciting as the previous? :D I'm always so happy to hear from you. Your excitement makes me feel excited too! :D

AAA: hahahaha. I'm sorry about the cliffhanger! But I do think I'm pure evil because of the way I'm torturing poor Kira!

Moi: Well, I do have plans for some kind of a 'run-away' eventually. But I'm working on it :) Hopefully, it'll be as you said, convincing! I'm also trying to work out the meeting between Cagalli and Kira. It might come together with the meeting between Athrun and Kira since Cagalli is tagging along with Athrun, but we'll see…I've really got to think about that…