Author's note: Here's the next chappie! Okay, this one is still a little slower, because I wanted to pause a little from the action and show how the characters are feeling at this point in time. Perhaps the only action here is the DNA result… But still, hope you guys enjoy the read!

Chapter 58

Kira was awakened when something fell into his lap. Instantly alert, the blood roaring in his ears, he glanced down and found a bundle of clothes resting on his thighs.

"Change," his chauffeur – the one who hated him – snapped out, "We're here."

Kira cast a glance around him. It was pitch dark outside and the tinted windows didn't help. A couple of metres away, he saw what looked like glowing lamps coming from a low building but he couldn't be sure. Returning his attention back to the vehicle's interior, he started to undress out of his camouflage gear, his long, lean frame a tight fit in the automobile's narrow back seats. The driver had handed him a plain white tee, a grey sweatshirt and matching slacks. He pulled them on and tossed the blood-soaked clothes onto the seat beside him, not forgetting to transfer the pass key to his pocket. He unlaced his combat boots and swapped them for the pair of sneakers sitting in the footwell.

Then the driver gave him a nod, or rather a tilt of the head with a nasty scowl across his face, and Kira pulled the handle of the car door, flung it open and stepped out into the cold in his fresh set of clothes.

He found himself standing by the side of a road, looking up at a three-storied building constructed of red bricks. The neon sign hanging over the main entrance shone bright yellow in the darkness, its luminous cables curved to form a single word: MOTEL. Talk about originality, Kira thought as he stepped towards the building. The chauffeur hardly waited for his door to close before taking off, the loud hum of the engine and the screech of the tires deafening in the otherwise silent night.

Looking round him, Kira realised that he was not in a secluded neighbourhood though. The silence was due to the fact that it was 2:45 a.m. in the middle of the night. On both sides of the motel was a long stretch of shops and buildings, most of them shuttered and closed for the night, except for the winking orange, red and green lights of a 7-Eleven down the street. Across the road, there was a deserted playground, flanked on each side by low apartment buildings. An occasional car or two rumbled down the double-laned street, which was scuffed and worn out, but not cracked.

Kira stood where he was for a moment, studying his new surroundings, before he headed for the entrance of the motel. He pushed past stained glass doors into a small lobby, its front desk and walls panelled with wood. It looked relatively clean, relatively well-kept for a motel. Behind the desk, a young lady glanced up from her papers. She looked wide awake despite the time and she flashed him a brief smile when he entered. "Welcome," she smiled, a little too brightly for a clerk who was working the nightshift. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Alexander."

Kira was sure that he had never set eyes on the woman before. But he wasn't surprised by the strange fact that she was greeting him in such a friendly manner, and not to mention that she was calling him by the wrong name. Rau's people were responsible for their lodging arrangements and god knew how they always managed it flawlessly. Regardless of where they were. They could be checking into a hotel along the French Riviera and the hotel manager would be receiving them as if they were billionaires who frequented the penthouse. Or a ramshackle hut in a village, and the villagers would nod and smile at them as if they had always been a part of the tribe.

It was no different here, in this motel. The woman was expecting him, and she was playing a role, following a script that was no doubt planned from beginning to end by Rau's people. For a second, Kira wondered if the woman herself was one of Rau's spies, or was she really a desk clerk bribed by Rau's people?

But it didn't matter.

He nodded at the woman, indicating that he understood the hint. He was to be a Mr. Alexander in the motel.

"Right," the woman continued. "The housekeeper's come by this afternoon. Your room – the one on the second floor, fifth from the right – has already been cleaned up. I hope you haven't forgotten your pass key, Mr. Alexander?"

Kira simply fished the card out of his trouser pocket and flashed it at her, already moving steadily towards the wooden staircase that spiralled upwards on the left side of the front desk. He mounted the steps, which creaked and moaned underneath his weight as he climbed up to the second storey. Things looked a little worst on the upper floors. The panelled walls were covered in cream-coloured wallpaper that was peeling and exposing the wood underneath in large shreds. The threadbare maroon carpet on the floor was stained and smelled of mould. Kira picked his way to his new room and jammed the pass key into the brass slot. A pale green light lit up and he withdrew the card.

Inside, he found a room substantial enough to carry a single bed with a bedside table, a writing desk and a closet. By the head of the bed, a door opened inwards to expose the lavatory and the shower, which was fenced off from the toilet by a glass wall.

Flinging open the closet, Kira eyed the clothes hanging along the metal rail overhead. There were five complete sets of clothes – trousers, tee-shirts, sweaters and jackets – which told him that he was going to be hiding out in the motel at least for a while. The drawers revealed clean underwear and socks. He turned his attention to the bedside table, pried open the uppermost drawer and found what he was expecting. A wad of cash – his monthly allowance, which wasn't a lot. That was why Stellar and the rest of the team wanted to go cash-hunting when they didn't have missions. That, and the fact that they desired the thrill.

Kira dumped the cash back into the drawer and flung himself face-down onto the bed.

The sheets were clean and neatly laid out on the bed, but they smelt funny, and cold. Uninviting. But Kira shut his eyes and let his body sink into the mattress, which was so lumpy it felt as if it was filled not with sponge but damp cotton.

It didn't matter though.

The buzz of Athrun's phone startled them all.

Athrun muttered a quick apology as he delved into his pocket and drew out the cell, which was vibrating with angry intensity. It was a new phone, so Athrun had had none of his contacts installed into it. Still, he recognised the number flashing on the screen.

Miriallia Haw.

For a second, Athrun debated if he ought to pick up and speak to Miriallia privately, or hit the speak button so that everyone, especially Cagalli could hear. He decided that much as he hated Cagalli's involvement, he knew how much the result meant to Cagalli. He couldn't deprive her of that. Even though there was a chance he would end up regretting his decision.

So his thumb found the speaker button and he depressed it. "Yes?"

Miriallia's voice, when it came through the speaker, was shrill and obviously agitated. "This is insane," she snapped. "You better have an explanation as to what is going on, Ath-" She stopped herself before she could blurt out his name, then changed it quickly to "Alex Dino!"

"What are you talking about? Have you got the results of the DNA test?"

"Yes," Miriallia bit out, "but the results are insane!"

Athrun felt Cagalli pressing closer. "What, Miriallia? What is it?"

"Okay, for starters," the forensic scientist's voice began to calm down, "the DNA from the toothbrush? Shinn's been hard at work at the database and he didn't get any results. So whoever it is, doesn't have a criminal record, or whatever record in our database. Second thing: after looking at the crime scene at the warehouse, I extracted the DNA from the blood and ran it through the tests. Now, as you know, unravelling the entire DNA will take hours; it's as tedious as the unravelling of the DNA on the toothbrush. But I figured the two might be related, so I only worked on a certain portion of the DNA. It's not complete, I admit, but for now, the results show that the DNA on the toothbrush and the blood in the warehouse match. I'll say they're 90% the same person. Of course, I've got my tech guys working on it. Maybe in an hour or so, we can prove that they're exactly the same person."

There was a long pause and silence on the other end of the phone, broken only by Miriallia's breathing, which sounded especially harsh over the speaker.

"And the thing about testing Cagalli's DNA against it?" Another pause. Miriallia's voice was steely and stern now. Athrun felt a sudden anxiety descend upon him. He had a feeling that he knew what the results were, and he wasn't sure if he was happy or upset by it.

"I've got the hospital to send Cagalli's medical history over, and there's a DNA analysis in it. I compared Cagalli's DNA to the sample. The similarity is close to 50%."

Feeling as if the breath was catching in his throat, Athrun murmured into the phone. "But fifty percent is inconclusive, isn't it, Miriallia?" His emerald green eyes sought Cagalli's and he saw the concern in her gaze.

"Well… yes. It is inconclusive. But still, it indicates that the two of them are… related."

"What do you mean by related? To what extent?"

"I don't know. I can't say for sure," Miriallia's voice roughened as if she was frustrated. Then it slowed and she began to speak again, but this time, there seemed to be a touch of sheepishness or guilt in her voice. "The reason why I took so long to get back to you is that I sent for the medical reports of Cagalli's parents too. The hospital had them."

Athrun and Cagalli exchanged apprehensive looks. Behind them, Mu and Murrue were too gazing at each other in confusion.

"Here's the strange thing: the DNA comparison shows a possibility that… that the guy you're looking for, is the child of Cagalli's parents. The paternity test proves positive, if you minus all the alterations done by the chemicals. Which means that Cagalli and the guy… they could be siblings."

A long uneasy silence enveloped the room. Athrun was staring at Cagalli whose wide-eyed gaze was misting over with tears. "It's Kira," she whispered. As she uttered the name, her voice caught in her throat.

"But the hospital's records have no history of another child being born to the Yamato family," Miriallia continued over the phone, oblivious to the tension that was forming around Mu's kitchen table. "There's no indication that Cagalli ever had a brother. Whether younger or older."

Athrun cleared his throat and tore his gaze away from Cagalli with difficulty. "Miriallia, would it be possible that the guy is Cagalli's… twin? Fraternal twin?"

A pause as Miriallia pondered about it. "It's not impossible," she replied, "Fraternal twins don't have identical DNA. They share only 50%, which makes them like any other pair of siblings. So it's not impossible. But it's like I said, the hospital showed no records of a brother. And if you're talking about fraternal twins, it's not possible because the birth records show that Cagalli was born the only child."

"What?"

"I said, the birth records show that Cagalli was born the only child."

The soft covers felt wonderful against her skin. They smelt fresh and clean, and mingling with the delicate scent of the lavender soap she had used when she showered, it felt as if there were aromatic candles lit up in the room. She was exhausted, maybe aching a little from having slept curled up on that dusty floor, but still, Lacus found herself unable to sleep.

She wormed her way deeper into the burrows of the blanket, and stared around her. She was in a guest room, or rather a storage room. Flay Alster and Sai Argyle had been kind enough to take her home with them and she discovered that 'home' referred to a tiny studio apartment on the sixth floor of a shabby, rundown building not far from the greasy spoon. There was a living room, a kitchen and two bedrooms, one of which was shared by the couple, and the other had been converted into a storage area. Flay had apologized profusely about the state of the room and her fiancé had got immediately to work, towing the cardboard boxes and broken furniture out of the room while the scarlet-haired woman warmed up some left-overs from the diner.

With food in her stomach, Lacus had helped the couple lay out a foldable bed and display the sheets. Then Flay had loaned her a set of clothes and directed her to the only bathroom in the apartment. She had scrubbed and washed, trying, with some difficulty, to remove the dust and dirt from her long hair. She found out that they had no hairdryer, so she had to sit by the open window in her temporary bedroom, before she crawled into the bed and fell onto her pillow, her still-damp hair fanned out all around her.

Sai hadn't managed to clear the whole room, so the window, with its glass panels flung outwards, was flanked on both sides by boxes of knick-knacks. At the foot of her bed, sat an old ironing board, leaning against an overstuffed armchair. These made grotesque, eerie-looking shadows that towered over her as she lay in her nest of bedclothes, and thought.

She wasn't quite sure what she was thinking actually. Her mind was whirling, her thoughts fuzzy as sleep tugged persistently at her. But she wouldn't succumb to it. There was an image in her head, and she wanted to hang on to it for as long as she could, remembering every little tiny detail – the bright glint in the eyes behind the tinted glass; the subtle movement of the black cloth as he spoke; the scarlet-red blood oozing through the pink and white shred of cloth wrapped around his forearm; the cock of his head as he pondered her request, then the retreating back as he turned away from her and was slowly swallowed by the shadows.

The entire experience felt quite unreal. She had no idea how long she had been kept in that room; time had ceased to exist. Even until now, she realised she had no idea what time it was. The square of black starless sky framed by the open window told her it was night, but was it 12:00a.m.? Or was it approaching dawn already? How many days had she been gone? It was as if she was still trapped in that endless nightmare, where time and space had lost their meaning.

Where was Athrun? Was he still searching fervently for her? Was he alright in the first place? What about Cagalli? Was she alright? And her father? Subjecting him to such worry was a cruel punishment that he didn't deserve at all.

Lacus felt hot tears prick her eyes, a thin layer of glass misting her vision like frost. She blinked it back as much as she could and found her thoughts drifting back to the stranger yet again. Who was he? Someone so familiar, yet so distant. In her imagination, she would run gentle fingers down the side of his face, caressing the sharp corners of the mask which added more edge to his unfathomable character. With hesitant fingers, she would lift the mask and expose bright violet eyes that glittered like light on amethyst jewels. Then she would ease down the black balaclava and see the face that she had never thought she would ever see again.

But it was all in her imagination.

She realised suddenly that she was just a wall away from people who could possibly reveal his identity.

Flay and Sai.

Lacus wondered why she hadn't thought of asking the couple about him, when the three of them were leaving the diner, tramping through the cold night air. They didn't speak a single word to each other at all. Just put their heads down against the wind and trudged on. Until they reached the studio apartment, and Flay and Sai busied themselves with making her comfortable. None of them mentioned the weird circumstances under which they had met. None of them mentioned the fact that all over the city, police officers were searching for her. None of them mentioned him.

But Lacus was sure that they knew who he was. And she was surprised by herself for not asking.

Why?

She realized the answer as she lay awake in that foreign bed. She had been afraid. Afraid to know the answer. Afraid to find out who he was.

Afraid that he would be the person she wanted most to see.

It was close to four a.m. by the time Athrun and Cagalli returned to their room. All through the ride back, they didn't say anything to each other and even when they got back, the brooding silence stretched on.

Maybe they were just absorbed in their own thoughts, processing the implications of Miriallia's words in their own respective minds. Maybe they were exhausted. Maybe they were just afraid to talk.

Wordlessly, they took turns in the bathroom. Then Cagalli curled up in the single bed, buried beneath the thin sheet so that only her blonde hair was visible against the cream-coloured pillow. Athrun turned out the bedside lamp and folded himself into the armchair, which he had pushed up against the wall so that it overlooked both sides of the room – the window with its drawn blinds as well as the locked door. He put his loaded gun in his lap and stared at Cagalli's still figure. Her breathing was regular, and Athrun found the sound a comfort to him, as he faced down a confusing myriad of thoughts that threatened to wear him down.

Athrun didn't know that he had fallen asleep until he jolted awake in the middle of the night, fumbling for his gun, only to touch soft skin. He glanced up in the gloom and saw the silhouette of a woman bending over him, shoulder-length hair brushing against his face. "Cagalli?" he croaked, feeling disoriented. "What's happening?" His hand closed instinctively around the grip of his weapon and was surprised when Cagalli plucked it out of his fingers carefully. She laid it aside, then wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged him out of the armchair towards the bed.

She pulled aside the crumpled sheets and sat him down on the edge. "What's happening, Cagalli?" He whispered. His throat felt odd, his voice sounded hoarse. He watched, baffled, as Cagalli rounded the foot of the bed and slipped under the sheets on the other side. Placing a firm hand on his forearm, Cagalli coaxed him until he lay down beside her, the two of them close in the narrow bed.

He hesitated, flinching a little as Cagalli spooned herself around his body.

"What's wrong?" he said again, feeling shy and stupid for not having anything else to say.

"You were dreaming."

He glanced down, astounded, at the smooth blonde hair splayed over his arm. He was dreaming? Athrun couldn't quite recall it, but he did feel uneasy; his mind tormented, his thoughts fractured. Had he been talking in his sleep? Maybe crying out? Was that why his voice was hoarse? Underneath all that confusion, he caught a glimpse of a boy.

With brown hair and smiling violet eyes.

"What do you think happened?"

He tilted his head and looked down at the top of Cagalli's head. He couldn't see her face, but he could hear the hurt in her voice.

"What do you mean?" He asked quietly, even though he knew where the conversation was headed.

"To Kira, I mean," the soft voice replied. She leaned back so that he saw her glittering amber eyes. Outside, a car streaked past the main road, engine loud in the silent night, headlights streaming in through the metal blinds and falling across their bodies in fast-moving pillars of light. As they trekked across Cagalli's face, the light reflected off her wet cheeks. There were twin tracks of tears curving down the sides of her face. "What do you think happened to him? What would make him a murderer? Make him turn on us like that?"

Athrun felt as if something heavy was lying across his chest, weighing him down, compressing his heart, even though Cagalli's head was pillowed on his shoulder. "I don't know," he swallowed hard. His saliva didn't flow smoothly down his throat. "I don't know," whispered Athrun again. He put his arm around her shoulders, which had begun to shake, and buried his face in her soft hair. Cagalli reached up and put both hands on his shoulders, and they held on to each other, both trembling.

As if that was the only way they could survive.

Author's note: What do ya think? Too much angst? I realized that's how most of my fanfics end up… Boy, do I have a sad life or what… That aside, do keep the reviews coming! I would love to hear how you feel about the chappie and what is to come in the following ones! But I do have to warn you, the next few chappies might not have much action because I'm working on the KxL and AxC relationships. So if you're looking forward to the romantic stuff (hope it doesn't become cheesy!) then keep a lookout! Of course, the action will come back again, because after all, Athrun, Cagalli and Lacus haven't set eyes of Kira yet! So don't forget to review, review, review!