Author's note: Oh my, so so so so so so sorry for the extremely long delay. I'm aware that I've taken two weeks or so to get this chapter up and running. Way too long! So terribly sorry about it, but life has been hectic these couple of weeks. So finding time to write has been more of a challenge than the actual writing itself! Imagine that! But anyway, let me stop my complaining and let you get on with this chappie! I must say that I'm actually excited about this chapter (and more so for the next!) So read on and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it! But before that, of course, a shoutout to my beloved readers:
Hitomi65: Why, thank you! I hope you like this chapter as much as the previous one!
Yuriski-1st: Well, I know it was pretty foolish of Kira and his team, but for the sake of the story, I had to keep Orga alive. So I was actually thinking of working on the assumption that these assassins, because of their experience, seem to always have some sort of sixth sense, some sort of intuition about certain things. So Kira senses that something isn't quite right about Orga and the situation! Hope this explains a little bit about why Kira did not shoot Orga right away?
PinkSugarDust: I'm glad you like the chapter! So sorry I took so long to update, but I hope you still like this one!
AAA: Well now, I don't mean to have you wrapped around my finger, but there's just something exciting about suspense, isn't there? Of course, the downside is having to wait for the next chapter after some sort of cliffhanger, so I know how terrible I am! But I really tried to finish this chapter faster!
Nitameicya: Hehe, I'm glad I surprised you! You're right, I am interested in working out Flay's motives, which should be coming up in the next chapter, I hope… Maybe she'll turn out good in the end? :D And I know Cagalli doesn't have such a big role but there's a section devoted to her in this chapter, which I hope gives her a bit more weight in the story! Tell me what you think about it!
Seiba Artoria: Hello! Long time no see indeed! I'm glad you like the chapter despite the fact that it was nerve-wrecking! Heh, to be honest, I did consider making Flay take a good girl role in the story, because after all, I did empathize with Flay in GS. But then I decided to make her take on a more vital role! Hope it works though!
Animedoshia: Haha, oh my, you're not a fan of Flay, are you? Well, so maybe it's a good thing I didn't make Flay all goody-two-shoes then? :D
Japanje: Hello! Hey, I'm glad you like this story so much! And thank you, I'm glad you find every chapter exciting, although I do think there are some good moments and some not-so-good moments! Well, still glad that you like them all! But oh my, don't stay up so late! You're an Athrun fangirl, huh? So what kind of Athrun moments do you like?
hardcoreGSfan: Yeah, I know, things are little confusing at the moment. But I am hoping to clear some stuff up in the next few chapters so hopefully by then, things will be much better! Especially the part about Flay and who ratted Athrun out!
Chapter 63
The clock was ticking loudly. Too loudly.
Cagalli shifted and pressed the heels of her hands against her ears. Stared up at the ceiling, which looked all grey and indifferent. Tick, tock, tick, tock. It reminded her of each and every second that was inching past. No turning back. No going back to that apartment, where she could have sniffed around a little more and see if she could find signs of Kira. No going back to the theatre, where she could have reacted faster and Lacus wouldn't have been kidnapped. No going back to the street, where she could have clung on to her brother with everything she had and he wouldn't have disappeared.
No turning back.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
She twisted around, snagged the alarm clock on the dresser, and wrenched the batteries out of it. The clock fell silent. The rest of the room was quiet; the hum of the radiator was barely audible. Cagalli lay in the dark silence for a minute of two. Feeling suddenly all alone. As if the whole world had shrunk to the size of the bedroom, and the shadows were swallowing up the light. As if the whole world had become some sort of… incomprehensible thing.
On impulse, she raised her hands and placed her palms flat against the wall above the headboard. The plaster felt warm underneath her skin. She wondered if she had gotten her orientation right. Was Athrun in the room beside hers? She wondered if his bed was pushed up against the wall like the one she was sleeping in. Would that he mean he was just inches away from her? So close, and yet, so far. Was he lying awake, feeling all alone and upset like she was?
Cagalli turned onto her side and stared into the semi-darkness. Pondering. She was surprised to find that she actually missed Athrun Zala much more than she had anticipated she would. It was a strange feeling. She had never been in many stable relationships. Love had never really been her focus; her mind was set on her career in the theatre. And besides, who would love a tomboy like her?
All her life, she had known Athrun only as a playmate when they were kids and later on, as a close friend when they grew up. A friend you could count on. But, she hadn't thought of him as a lover or a life companion. Yet, there was something changing - she could sense it – something changing about the way she felt about him, the way she felt around him.
Athrun was attractive. Drop dead gorgeous even. There was no doubting it. His deep navy blue hair made him stand out even among the handsomest men, and his emerald eyes were just plain enchanting. He drew stares from women everywhere he went. But that was all on the surface; there was so much more to Athrun, which ensnared Cagalli like a love spell. For starters, Athrun was intelligent, always had been. And he had a special charm about him - a curious mixture of power and tenderness that hinted at some kind of wild, unrestrained ambition, masked over by his soft-spoken persona. A man haunted by his pas, struggling to come to terms with it, because he was just so good that he took all the guilt of the previous generation on himself. What was there not to love?
And every single time she felt him close by, she inevitably found her eyes riveted on him. When the hell had all that started?
She didn't know. It had obviously been subtle. She remembered waking up from that nightmare, with stitches in her head and the fractured memories flashing past like streaks of lightning. He had been the first person she saw, his deep green eyes staring at her, then softening with relief. And the way his fingers smoothed the bandage across her forehead, running gently through her hair. The way he always peered at her with concern, then tried to hide it with a weak boyish smile. The heat rolling off his toned body when he shielded her from the barrage of bullets. And then, the gentle pulsing warmth against her neck as he lay by her side, breathing softly in his sleep. He had been there for her every step of the way. From the moment she found herself plunged into this nightmare, to the absolute horror of discovering that Kira might still be alive.
Kira…
How could it be? How could things go so terribly wrong?
She didn't understand. She didn't have a clue. She tried to picture Kira when he was all grown up, and she saw a gentle young man, with smiling eyes and unruly brown hair.
Not a cold, calculating murderer.
How could it be?
And she knew that Athrun wasn't taking the news well either. Athrun and Kira had been best friends. They had clicked the moment they met each other, like a glove fitting a hand. Athrun was everything Kira wasn't, and Kira was everything Athrun wasn't. They were more like twins than she was with Kira.
Cagalli had never raised the subject to anyone. Not to Lacus, not to Athrun, and god forbid, not to her parents. But she knew it, she could sense it – the empty gap left behind by Kira's disappearance. No one said anything, but it was always there. And when Miriallia had confirmed that Kira was possibly still alive, Cagalli had felt the world falling to pieces around her because the world had been turned on its head. It was like she was a stranger in an alternate universe, but wasn't aware of it. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.
She hardly remembered returning to the motel room, but they must have, because the next moment, she remembered lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, hearing a strange moaning. It wasn't until it transformed into a soft keening and whimpering that she realized the frightful sound was coming from Athrun. She sat up in the bed, and watched as Athrun lay curled up in the armchair, the black metal of his gun glistening in his cradled arms. He looked like a child, burdened by an immense power and responsibility. He had been muttering to himself, an unintelligible word or two, and then, very softly, he had murmured Kira's name. The ache in her throat and chest rose to almost unbearable proportions and she had had to sink her teeth into her bottom lip and taste the rust of blood, to prevent herself from crying.
When she approached, her bare feet soft on the floor, she realized just how vulnerable Athrun looked in his sleep. Curled up in a fetal position, he looked as if he wanted to make himself as small as possible. The name 'Kira' lay upon his lips. The world was a cruel place, she thought to herself, because if you loved someone, you couldn't keep him. She had loved Kira, who had always been an integral part of her life, of her very existence, and then he was gone. She had loved Lacus as a sister that she had never had. And then she was gone too.
And Athrun… He had loved his mother, but she was the first to go. Then his father. And just as he thought he had nothing left, he had found new love in Siegel Clyne, Lacus, and the Yamato family. Then, Kira had been snatched out of their lives and now, it was Lacus. How many people could you lose in a lifetime?
The wound on her head throbbed, and Cagalli shifted, wanting to press a cool palm to her brow, when she realized her pillow was wet with tears. She sat up in bed. Rested her elbows on her bent knees and stared down at the patterned quilt, until the whorls and curves merged into a confusing symmetry of lines, which blurred as the tears filled her eyes.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she stood up. The floor was warm under her bare feet, as the radiator worked hard at generating heat. But where she was going, it would be cold, so Cagalli tugged the quilt off the bed and hauled it over her shoulders. She headed for the balcony, which was shielded from view by a set of rich velvet curtains. The glass was freezing when Cagalli placed her palm on it and slid the panel sideways. An icy wind hissed as it rushed into the bedroom, cold and biting against her damp face. Her silk robe, which billowed around her, was hardly any protection from the cold. Still, she stepped out onto the balcony and approached the cement balustrades, the tips of her quilt rustling as they brushed against the floor around her ankles.
The balcony overlooked the front garden, a huge vast area that stretched outwards to a cast-iron gate and the giant hedge border. Strategically-placed lamps lit up the beautifully-landscaped area, glowing like little orange balls of fire among the neatly mowed lawns and trimmed bushes. Cagalli was on the fourth floor, which was high enough for her to look over the hedge and see the surrounding area that framed the Clyne Mansion and its grounds. The Clyne Mansion was one of many in the acres of private land, and she could see, in the distance, the dark silhouettes of the other mansions, which edged into the slim, symmetrical blocks that represented the city skyscrapers in the far distance.
Where are you, Lacus?
She stood in the cold wrapped in the heavy quilt, her blonde hair streaming over her shoulders as it caught the breeze. Was she really with Kira? Where could they possibly be? She closed her eyes, which were stinging from the wind, and the tears spilled over her cheeks. But her face was numb and she couldn't feel them. Not even when she raised her frozen fingers up to her wet cheeks.
What were they going to do? Where were they going from here?
Abruptly, she heard the soft thump of a fist against wood and she glanced over her shoulder, past the fluttering curtains, at the dark interior of the guest room. Silence for a moment, and she decided she had imagined it. But the same knock resounded again, this time accompanied by an anxious call, "Cagalli, are you awake?"
Cagalli stepped back quickly into the bedroom, which was no longer warm. The radiator had failed to expel the gusts of cold wind that swept through it. She closed the paneled glass behind her and the curtains fell limply, their tasseled edges swishing against the flooring.
Athrun was standing outside her door when she swung it open. He had showered and he was dressed in a black leather jacket pulled over a knitted green turtleneck, and tanned slacks.
"What's wrong?" Cagalli blinked, "Where are you going?"
"Get dressed," Athrun said swiftly. His emerald eyes were dark and unreadable. "We're going back to the diner. I'll explain why on the way."
Kira had never been betrayed before.
And that was because he had never placed his trust in anyone, except, perhaps, his own team. He had never trusted Rau for instance. He would have been stupid to do so because that would have been equivalent to asking a bunny to trust that snakes were herbivores. And Rau was no doubt a slippery one. Still, it did hurt, a little, to learn that he had been sold out by the very man he was working, and living, for.
But it didn't hurt as bad as realizing that he had trusted Flay so much, that the very thought of her betrayal knifed him like the heartless stab of a killer. For a second, he wanted to deny it, wanted to launch himself at the stupid grinning bastard and pummel his face in, all the while yelling that Orga was lying. But the years of training held him back and he didn't lose his cool. That would have been a childish gesture that would serve no purpose.
He stared at Orga's face, awash in white light, and saw the insane glint in his wide eyes. The frightening thing about all of it was that Kira had a nagging sense that Orga wasn't lying. Flay… Kira wondered just what he knew about the woman. He knew little about her, and had never thought of checking up on her background either. He had been careless. He had been so easily bought over the moment she turned up on his doorstep, right at the moment when he was most disoriented, most lost after leaving the Facility. He hadn't thought of checking her up. Or maybe… maybe he had. Just that, he was afraid to, because he didn't want to know the real reason why she was getting close to him. Didn't want to face the possibility that she was just a spy working for Rau, and that outside the Facility, he had no friends at all. Never had, and never would.
And because he had been so weak, because he had been so afraid, because he had so foolishly thought that he could have a real friend and could possibly be like a normal person, he had gone on ahead and trusted her, and sent Lacus right into the lion's den. His weakness was going to kill the very woman he was trying to protect.
"Why tell me all this?" He snapped out. His voice caught in his throat, emerging in staccato tones. Another sign of weakness. He tightened his hold on the grip of his gun, clenching his fingers hard, until he felt the bruising pain.
Orga shrugged. "I just figured you would appreciate knowing the truth before you died. Knowing that you were the one who sent Lacus Clyne to the grave yourself." He hiked up the sleeve of his jacket and snuck a glance at his watch. "10.24 p.m. I believe Lacus Clyne only has about thirty-six more minutes to live."
The last member of Orga's team. The woman that was unaccounted for. Kira thought to himself, Orga had sent her after Lacus Clyne.
"I was going to wait," Orga smiled, "until 11.00 p.m. before killing you. I thought it would be a nice touch. Just as Lacus Clyne has a gun barrel pressed to the back of her head, you'll have one pressed against yours too. And then the moment the minute hand strikes twelve… Bang! Bang!" Orga raised two fingers to his temple to demonstrate his point. "Both dead. Nice, huh?" He lowered his hand and reached under the pillow on the bed, drawing out a Glock. He flicked the safety lever off, and trained it on Kira. "But you're dangerous and I can't afford to wait, so I'm getting rid of you first. You can wait for your girlfriend down there."
Kira didn't bother raising his gun. He could feel the rough thumping of his heart against the inside of his ribs, felt the giddy rush of adrenalin, but he forced his breathing to slow down. It was a lesson he had learned and practiced long enough. You couldn't panic, because panic only got you killed. "What about the rest of my team?"
The expression on Orga's face soured. "Much as I would like to put a bullet each into all your heads, Rau's instructed us to bring them back. So you don't need to worry your little head about it," he sneered, "they'll have another team leader. There's a catch though." A sardonic smile twisted Orga's lips, and the insane glint came back again. "Just as long as they help me get rid of you."
A shocked gasp from Stellar, and a 'no way' from Auel. Sting was silent, and so was Kira. He wasn't all that surprised; it wasn't past Rau to come up with cruel games like that. But what concerned Kira was that he had to get out of there alive if he wanted to save Lacus and he would have either three adversaries to take down. Or six.
His doubts were cleared when he heard the click of a safety lever disengaging behind him. Kira turned and found himself staring down the dark gun barrel of Sting Oakley.
"Sting, what are you-" It was Stellar who grabbed Sting's outstretched forearm, surprise and horror reflected in her tearing eyes.
"It's not so difficult, Stellar," Sting said, his eyes hardening with contempt. It was a look that Kira recognized, for he had seen it many times when they were out on missions, and Sting was the one who pulled the trigger. It was the look of a cold, ruthless murderer. "It's the first lesson we learnt back in the Facility. You survive by making sure those who hold you back don't get a chance to hold you back again. It's what we do. And right now, the one we're looking at is the one who's dragging us down. And we obey our orders – no questions – and Rau has ordered us to kill him. So you need to get your head straight, S."
The use of the codename didn't escape Kira. Sting was already establishing his murder as their new mission. And apparently, Auel understood too, because he began to raise his gun.
"Auel…" Stellar's voice cracked
Betrayal, it was a teacher that taught you that you should – could – never trust anyone. Not even the people who were supposed to watch your back. Kira smiled. The Facility had taught them all well. He was the only one who had failed, because he had had that one moment of weakness. Strangely enough, Kira found himself being glad. He was actually glad that the rest of his team had learned well. And he didn't want to make things difficult for them, especially not for Stellar. But he had to get out, if he wanted to save Lacus. He forced himself to look away from Stellar's eyes and to meet Sting's hard, cold ones. Already, his mind, trained to think like an assassin wherever he was and regardless of his situation, was calculating the distance Sting was away from him, measuring the angle that Orga's gun was pointed at him, his alert eyes watching Auel, Shani and Clotho who were slightly farther away. He would have all the time in the world to whine about his misfortune later. Right now, his aim was to escape. Alive.
Straight away, Kira noticed that there was an odd angle to Sting's raised arm. Rather than holding his gun at a right-angle from his body, his arm tensed the way they had been taught, Sting's arm was relaxed and his elbow was bent. Kira didn't hesitate. Kicking off his left leg, he swung his right heel around and it connected sharply with Sting's crooked elbow. He didn't wait to see the impact, spinning around instead to face Orga. Orga was positioned slightly to his left, several paces away from him. Kira ducked low to avoid his enemy's raised gun. His sudden attack had taken Orga by surprise, and the assassin had yet to react. Kira grasped his exposed wrist, used his momentum to swing Orga round and smashed his knee into the man's gut. Orga tottered sideways with a curse.
By then, Shani and Clotho had snapped out of it, and they were already pushing Stellar and Auel aside to get at him. But Kira had learned that taking out the ringleader always inevitably confused the followers, and no matter how skilled Rau's assassins were, they were trained to act in teams. Shani and Clotho were like bulls in a china shop; they rushed headlong at him, guns brandishing wildly as they tried to get a good aim. Without a leader, they were disoriented. Kira dodged their assault easily, disarmed Shani with an elbow to his head and struck Clotho neatly under his chin with the heel of his hand. He moved again, dancing sideways, just in time to avoid a bullet that whistled past mere inches from his head. Orga was stumbling to his feet, his face twisted in pain, the gun trembling in his hand as he tried to steady its aim. The rule of the game: keep moving because a moving target was always harder to shoot than a still target. Kira dropped to the ground behind the staggering figures of Clotho and Shani, but he was flabbergasted when another slug came his way, denting the ground beside him. Orga Sabnak didn't seem fazed at all by the fact that his teammates were in his way.
Glancing over his shoulder, Kira saw Auel and Stellar standing, frozen as they were on the spot, as if they were still shocked by the turn of events. The gun in Auel's hand quivered, and his attempt to raise and aim it was futile. They were standing in the open, exposed to the bullets coming from a mad man like Orga, who had no qualms about shooting and killing his own teammates by accident. Kira cursed under his breath. Ducking another bullet from Orga, he vaulted over Shani's fallen body and came up behind Auel. The suddenness of his approach had freaked his blue-haired teammate, who spun around and released a stray bullet, which cracked the ceiling above and sent flaks of plaster raining down on them. Kira ducked and swept his legs out from under him. Auel crashed heavily to the ground, and the gun fired by accident again, this time sending a slug Orga's way. The bastard dodged it in time though, by throwing himself to the ground with a loud grunt.
Kira turned to Stellar. He meant to do the same thing he did to Auel, sweep her legs out from under her, just so that she was closer to the floor and away from the trajectories of all those wild bullets ricocheting all over the room. His resolution was wavered by her tear-filled eyes – she was staring at him, as if she didn't know who he was. Her hands clasped protectively at her bosom, her head shaking from side to side. "Kira, please," she whispered, "don't do this…"
He nearly hesitated; for a moment, he considered taking her with him. But he couldn't. He had put Lacus in danger; he couldn't afford to put Stellar in harm's way too.
He crouched and swung his right leg round, pivoting on his left heel. He caught Stellar's ankles and her knees buckled under her as she fell. Behind her, the door loomed into view. Kick off and run. Kick off and run. The voice in his head was driving him nuts. Kira rose from his lowered position, then collapsed with a mind-blowing pain that enveloped his body as it struck the ground. Someone had tackled him from behind and the impact shoved all the breath out of him.
He lay on the ground, stunned for a second or two, then twisted around to see his adversary. It was Sting, his eyes wild. Something hard was digging into Kira's ribs and he glanced down quickly to see a gun lodged against his chest. He struggled, striking out blindly in the direction of Sting's face and gave him a glancing blow. Sting reared back slightly, which was enough for Kira to propel his body upwards with all his might. His shoulders caught Sting's, and the green-haired man toppled backwards from the impact, but his grip didn't loosen on Kira, and Kira was hauled after him. They ended up rolling on the ground, trying in vain to gain leverage over one another.
A bullet struck near their faces, sending little chips of wood flying. It stung when the splinters grazed their cheeks. Out of the corner of his eye, Kira noticed Orga stumbling to his feet, his gun pointed in their direction. Apparently, the hard blow Kira had dealt him must have cracked a rib or two, because the man was wincing with every movement. The gun shifted again, swinging their way.
Mustering up his strength, Kira twisted hard in Sting's grip, so that they both rolled sideways away from the line of fire. The maneuver saved them from being shot, but they ended up colliding into the dresser, which sent the table lamp crashing down on them, littering them with little shards of glass. Struggling to his feet, Kira heard a shriek, and turned just in time to see Stellar launching herself at Orga, deflecting his next shot. "You're going to hit Sting!" She screamed.
Kira took a step forwards, but his legs caved under him and he fell hard. Glancing over his shoulder, he found Sting getting a hold of his ankles. He kicked out, trying to get away, but when it didn't work, he flipped around instead and dove towards Sting. They fell in a straggled heap, two bodies grappling and struggling with each other, slick with sweat.
And then, all of a sudden, a voice yelled at him, "Hit me!"
It sounded so far away, so impossible, that Kira froze. And stared.
A rough hand ceased his shoulder and shook him hard, as if to snap him out of his reverie. "I said, hit me! Damn it!" growled Sting, "Now!"
Mind racing, Kira swung his fist back, then forwards again, and heard the sickening crunch as his knuckles connected hard with the man's cheek. Sting sank to the ground in a heap, his knees buckling under his weight like twigs. The gun clattered loudly to the floor and skidded across the room, ending up near the door.
Kira didn't wait to see what was going to happen. He got up and ran, dove down and caught the gun smoothly in one hand, then smashed his weight into the door. It splintered outwards.
Outside, the carpet in the hallway was soaked. Kira fell once as his shoes failed to get a good grip, but he pushed himself to his feet, stumbling down the corridor. The sprinklers had run out, and the doors along the corridor were still locked. Several guests had been awakened by the commotion and were banging their fists against their sealed enclosures, yelling their heads off. The lift was still jammed and Kira didn't pay it any heed. He dashed for the stairway and pushed through the heavy steel door, just as a ring of shots came whistling past, gorging dents in the metal.
He didn't turn around to see who it was shooting him. He simply flew down the stairs, which was jam-packed with people streaming downwards. Evidently, the shots and the sprinklers had alarmed the rest of the guests and they were running for their lives, thundering down the stairs in all states of undress. The flow carried Kira right down the stairway, out of the exit and out into the lobby, which was full of people yelling and clamouring for attention. He shouldered his way through the crowd and ran for the front entrance. As he burst through the glass doors, the cold struck him like dozens of icy needles. His clothes, stuck fast to his skin because of he was drenched, made the cold even more unbearable than it was. The only heat he had was generated through his running, and Kira kept it up. He turned a sharp corner on the main street and raced down the narrow lane, dodging oncoming passers-by who stared curiously at him and the growing crowd gathering at the lobby of the hotel.
Two streets away, he came up on the van. Fishing frantically through his pockets, Kira withdrew the keys with one hand, the other still clutching the gun tightly. In that insane second, he discovered that the safety lever was still flicked off, and he could have shot himself, or someone by accident as he was running. He was losing it. The thoughts raced through his mind like little zaps of electricity. He unlocked the van hastily and hauled himself into the driver's seat. Cranked up the engine, put up the heater on full blast and shoved the gearshift into 'drive'.
Slamming his foot into the accelerator, he took off, wheels screeching against the asphalt road. He checked his watch. 10.39 p.m. Twenty-one more minutes to go. For the first time, Kira felt the fear tighten its hold around his heart. He prayed he wouldn't be too late. He couldn't be…
The room was dark when Lacus opened her eyes. Not just dark because there was no light, but there was something else – something sinister – about the atmosphere. The way the shadows around the room towered over her, as if they could hide faceless predators.
She squinted at the clock by her bed. Saw that it was only 10.39 p.m. It was still early, but she had decided to take an early rest. She wasn't sure if Flay and Sai were coming home tonight. Her guess was that they wouldn't. Flay had seemed quite displeased when she turned up at the diner that afternoon, and she couldn't blame her. Lacus knew she was putting them all in danger, but somehow, she just had to know. There were of course some other questions that she wanted to ask, some more answers she wanted to find out, and Flay probably knew it too. So it wasn't crtain if the couple would return home.
Lacus felt a little guilty. They seemed to know Kira, as if they were his… Could she call them his 'friends'? Would someone like that have 'friends'? Either way, they were helping her, and putting their lives on the line for her, even though they hardly knew each other. Yet, she was actually driving them out of their own house. She wondered what was going to happen next. Was she actually going to hide out in this apartment for the rest of her life? Was she ever going to see him again? Or maybe he was lying, and he had already decided to just leave her there?
Lacus shifted onto her side, pulling the covers up to her chin. It was a cold night, and she couldn't seem to shake off the nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right. She was about to haul the bedclothes over her head in frustration when she stopped. The lights in the living room outside had come on and it spilled into the guestroom from under her door. Lacus raised herself onto her elbows and stared at the narrow slanted diamond that the light was forming across the wooden floor slats. Had Flay and Sai returned home already? The radiator was humming loudly; perhaps she hadn't heard the lock turning in the front door.
A wave of relief washed over her so that she closed her eyes for a moment, tilting her head backwards. They had come to terms with her presence. Finally, they were no longer avoiding her… Lacus opened her eyes and looked once more at the light under her door. Yup, she wasn't dreaming. Suddenly, feeling galvanized into action, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and got up, striding quickly to the radiator where her robe was warming. Maybe, she thought to herself, just maybe, Flay had decided to tell her more. Maybe Flay was finally ready to reveal the identity of her kidnapper. She shoved her arms into the sleeves of her robe hastily, yanked at the belt and hastened round the bed to the door.
Swinging it open, she blinked as the sudden light assaulted her eyes. As they grew accustomed to the brightness, she found herself staring at a woman sitting on the couch. Her back was to Lacus, but Lacus had already realized that the woman was not Flay Allster. The woman turned, glancing over her shoulder casually, when she heard the creaking of the door hinges. Lacus didn't recognise her, but the woman was smiling benignly, as if she had known Lacus all her life. "Hello, Miss Clyne. I hope I didn't wake you."
Author's note: There you go! Quite a long chapter, hope it makes up a little for the delay. So, what do you guys think? Is Kira gonna get there in time, and how is he gonna save Lacus Clyne? Oh my, I'm excited for the next chapter. Well, I do hope I don't take as long as I did this one! Anyways, don't forget to review, review, review and let me know how you find this chapter! The long-awaited reunion should be coming up in the next two chapters or so! And of course, more about why Flay is, or is not, the traitor! So look out, guys!