Author's note: I have to say that this chapter is by far, the MOST difficult chapter I've ever written. Many apologies for the delay, but this chapter was really really tricky to write. The reunion is of course the most important part of this whole fanfic, and I just kept revising the part when Athrun and Cagalli set eyes on Kira, because I just kept feeling that it wasn't up to standard! In fact, I still think it's not up to standard! Argh!

Hitomi65: Hey, I'm glad you liked the previous chapter! Hope this chapter is up to standard and worthy to be liked too!

Animedoshia: Well, I did consider twisting he story more, but I figured there ought to be an end to the Flay mystery somewhere, and we can finally get about to the reunion! There'll definitely be some Kira and Lacus moments coming up soon, or at least that's what I hope!

hardcoreGSfan: So sorry for the long delay in updating again! I know I'm always taking such a long time recently!

AAA: Oh well, this chapter doesn't have many surprises in it, but I hope it is still enjoyable to read, or at least that's what I hope!

October Lynx: Hello! I'm glad you liked the previous chapter. Not so sure if this one will beof the same standard, although I desperately hope it is! Hmm… I looked back at the previous chapter and I think that the 'the' was deliberate… but it's been quite a while so, I'm not quite sure what I was thinking then… but I get your point! I'll be looking out for these errors!

Japanje: Oh, fanfiction does these weird things sometimes. The notification isn't completely trustworthy! Anyways, okay, I do know I've been missing out on Athrun x Cagalli scenes these few chapters, but once I get the reunion out of the way, I'll be trying to fit more AxC stuff in, so hope they'll be coming soon! And yes, I really do want to visit the Gundam Café! If only someone will go with me…

Seiba Artoria: Yup, Flay is involved halfway! And yes, it is about time Lacus sees Kira, and in this chapter, it'll be Athrun and Cagalli's turn! So I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as much as the previous, although I must say, I'm not so sure that this chapter is of the same standard as the previous one! Hmm…

Kurie-tibiti: Hello! Nice to hear from you! Yes, I'm sorry, I realise I always end at the most exciting part and take a terribly long time to update. I'm guilty! But I'll try my best to upload faster next time!

XienRue: Hello! Yes, yes, I'm okay! Just busy with real life, as you put it, plus, this chapter was really really difficult to write, so I took quite a long time trying to work it out. And yup, you've hit the jackpot, this chapter contains the long-awaited reunion!

Chapter 65

"Kira!"

The confusion plaguing Lacus' mind vanished the moment she saw him collapse. Within seconds, she was by his side and so was Flay Allster, who fell to the ground with a shocked gasp.

Kira's eyes were shut, and for a frightful minute, Lacus thought he was unconscious, or worst still, dead. But then she noticed his breathing, shallow, but constant. Sweat trickled down the side of his face in rivulets, his soaked hair matted to his brow. "A first-aid kit," Lacus said, turning to Flay swiftly, "We need a first-aid kit. Quickly."

"Right, right," the scarlet-haired waitress nodded hastily, swiping at the tears that were falling unchecked from her eyes. "There's one in the kitchen. I'll get it." She stumbled to her feet and disappeared through the passageway, the kitchen door left banging against the wall in her wake.

Now alone with him, Lacus stared down at Kira hopelessly. What was she to do? They had to patch him up, but how? Scanning the diner, she decided the best thing she could do was to get him seated in one of the booths so that they could inspect his wound. Galvanized into action, she put a careful arm around his shoulders, wary of his injury, and another around his waist. "Come on," she whispered soothingly, pulling him to his feet. Kira came willingly enough, or rather, he allowed himself to be manipulated like a puppet. She guided him into the booth that Flay had vacated.

As she sat him down, she realised just how terrible he looked. He was conscious, but he might have been dead for what it was worth. The light and life seemed to have drained completely out of him, so that he was just staring into open space, seemingly unconcerned that he was pouring blood all over the floor. Like an empty shell. Whatever it was that he had been speaking to Flay about, had evidently taken its toll on him. Lacus had no idea who in the world was Rau, and what was to be made of 'the Facility', but she could tell that they were the cause of Kira's pain. Not physical pain, but something deeper, something that transcended flesh and blood. She wished she could do something for him… but what could you do to relieve someone of a wound that couldn't be seen?

Flay returned a minute later, dumping an armful of supplies on the table, which Kira merely stared at without interest.

Both women exchanged glances.

Lacus had taken a first-aid course, so she knew a little about healing cuts and bruises, but never had she encountered a gunshot wound. She studied the items scattered across the table with a growing sense of trepidation. When she met Flay Allster's eyes, all she saw was confusion and despair mirrored back at her. Apparently, Flay too had no idea how to treat a bullet wound. Damn… She turned back to Kira. He would know. He would have been in situations like that before. Only he could save himself. Crouching, Lacus cupped Kira's chin and turned his face towards hers. His amethyst eyes shifted restlessly before falling on her. Even so, he looked as if he was staring beyond her, looking at something that none of them could quite see.

"You need to teach me how to stop the bleeding," she said gently.

Kira only stared. The hurt expression on his face tugged at her heartstrings. There, Lacus was certain of it, there was the Kira that she knew. The shy child peeking from underneath the hard exoskeleton of a murderer.

"Kira," she whispered, savouring the name on her lips. How long had she dreamed of calling that name again? How long had she yearned to touch him again? After fifteen long years, he was finally before her very eyes. He was alive, even though everyone had thought it unlikely. And yet, with every second, with every drop of blood that he was shedding, she was on the verge of losing him again. She felt the sting in her eyes and she blinked back tears. She wasn't going to sit by and watch him die. She wouldn't. "Tell me what to do, Kira. Let me help you."

Amethyst eyes shifting again. His gaze flickered sideways. He looked almost dazed, and Lacus began to worry that he was going into shock. Then she saw the slight bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed and ran his tongue over his parched lips slowly. His voice when it came was soft and uncertain, almost like that of a frightened child. He sounded nothing like the man who had told her to trust him when he grasped her hand, and it cut her to pieces to hear the misery in his voice.

"Iodine," he whispered, nodding towards a dirt-brown bottle hidden beneath the mess of gauze and bandages. "Disinfect the wound with the iodine. Then pack the wound with powdered blood coagulant." A weak nod in the direction of an aluminium packet.

Already, Flay was shoving the other items aside to access the iodine. She uncapped the bottle, took a quick whiff to confirm and then paused, turning a feeble glance onto Lacus. "How do we…" her voice trailed off into helpless silence.

Lacus winced. She couldn't imagine how much it would hurt. Still, what choice did they have? She ceased hesitating. Grasping the scissors from the first-aid kit, she slid the blade into the collar of Kira's jacket and began to cut away the leather, working as fast as she could without jostling him. He didn't react, didn't move, didn't say anything, even when the women pried the jacket off him and Lacus got about to slicing his T-shirt open. With his shoulder now bared, they could see the extent of the damage. The bullet had struck Kira from behind, and the entrance wound was clean, a perfect circle no bigger than the tip of her little finger, located in the middle of his right shoulder. The projectile had exited slightly right though, so that the exit wound, which was larger and somewhat messier, shifted outwards, narrowly missing his axillary artery.

With a swift motion, Flay uncapped the bottle and doused his wounded shoulder in iodine. The pain rose like a monstrous tide, crashing against his senses until every nerve was jangling and every muscle screamed with agony. Kira thought he might be sick. His vision was fading in and out and there were bright bursts of light and colour at the periphery of his vision.

Get a hold of yourself.

He blinked back tears and sweat, gazing through half-lidded eyes at Lacus, who was frantically ripping apart the aluminium foil of the powdered blood coagulant. He knew what was coming next. He knew it was going to hurt like hell. And all he could do was put his head down on his arms and try to breathe through the agony.

The diner appeared in their view the moment they cleared the row of apartment buildings.

From a distance, the area looked forlorn and quiet. The streetlamps stood on the perimeters of the vast carpark, shedding an orange glow upon the space, an orange glow that bled inwards to the diner, which sat in the middle like a castle surrounded by a moat. Curious, Cagalli plastered her face against the side window and stared out.

"There's a van parked over there," she said, tapping a nail against the glass.

"I see it too."

Athrun spun the wheel and the car they were in swung neatly into the carpark. They travelled in a large circle around the van, scanning the area for movement, but the van was empty and there seemed to be no one about. Athrun eased the sedan into a parking lot so that they were facing the diner, and he killed the engine. They sat in the dark silence, the cold seeping gradually into the car.

Up ahead, the diner was shrouded half in darkness and half in light. The neon sign that stood above the entrance was unlit and the shades were pulled down in all three windows, but there was light in the last one, a glow that permeated the drawn shades. Exchanging glances, they slipped out of the car on each side and rounded the hood, until they were standing side-by-side in the cold night air.

With Athrun in the lead, they approached the diner, putting enough distance between them and the restaurant to ensure that whoever it was inside wouldn't catch a glimpse of their fleeting shadows. They circled the building and came to its back entrance, where Cagalli felt Athrun grasp her forearm to halt her. She glanced at him, a figure silhouetted by the street lamps' orange glow. Having attracted her attention, Athrun raised a finger and pointed.

There was something on the ground by the backdoor, and when Cagalli crouched to get a better look, she saw the broken remnants of the door lock. Someone had shot the lock out of the backdoor. She cast an alarmed gaze at Athrun, who responded by drawing the gun from his jacket pocket. With a hand, he gestured her aside, and reached for the doorknob.

The door swung inwards into darkness.

They were in the kitchen, which was flanked on both sides by floor to ceiling cupboards and stoves. In the middle was a single steel counter. Beyond that, was the door that led to the front of the diner. And through its small glass window, light was streaming into the kitchen.

"It's an essential part of being an assassin," said the instructor. He was tall and muscled. Broad shoulders, broad chest, legs like tree stumps. And when he stood at attention, his chin lifted high, his hands clasped behind his back, he looked like a mountain to his audience, which comprised ten to fifteen youths who would eventually grow up to become Rau's next batch of assassins.

"You need to learn to save yourself," the voice thundered. It resonated within the four walls of the cell. "Not because you're important." His small, beetle-like eyes swept over his young charges. "But because failing your mission due to injuries is not a reasonable excuse, and you cannot – you absolutely cannot – die during your mission. Under no circumstances can your body be left behind, in the hands of the enemy. If you have to patch yourself up just so that you can crawl out of that place, you do that. Understand?"

He didn't wait for a reply. Raising a hand, he pointed at one of the young boys in the first row and nodded at his assistant. "Let's demonstrate."

There was a loud bang. Like a clap of thunder that lit up the entire room. A young girl screamed. Somewhere, another uttered a shocked gasp. Several covered their ears. A spray of blood arced through the air and splattered across the faces of the youths sitting beside the boy. The sound of the gunshot had been so loud in the enclosed cell that it made Kira's teeth chatter, and his heart thump with more vigour. He watched in horror as the boy collapsed with a cry, blood pooling on the ground from the wound he had in his shoulder.

The instructor seemed completely unfazed. He merely crouched by the fallen boy and gazed down at him indifferently. "Here's what you do with excessive bleeding," he said, holding out a hand. His assistant handed him a bottle, which he uncapped and emptied over the boy's shoulder. The bloodcurdling scream that escaped the boy's lips made Kira cringe.

"Disinfect the wound with iodine," the man instructed. "Then stop the bleeding using powdered blood coagulant." He shoved a syringe into the boy's wound and depressed the plunger, dispensing the powder into the ravaged muscles and flesh. The boy hardly made a sound. Already, he looked half dead; the only sign that indicated he was alive was his shivering, as if he were entering a state of shock. "Blood coagulants trigger faster blood clotting. They keep you alive, at least for the time being, until you receive proper treatment. Use this time to complete your mission, or get out of there. Understand?" Beetle-like eyes narrowed as he turned to glare at them.

Then, getting to his feet, he wiped his bloodied hands on his trousers and nodded once at his assistant. "Get him bandaged up."

"Now," his attention returning to his young students, "time for some hands-on." He strolled across the room towards a metal desk. All the while, the young boys and girls stared at him, wide-eyed. The room engulfed in shocked silence, broken only by the soft keening of the wounded boy. At the desk, the instructor lifted a bundle of sheathed knives, then turned and strolled down the line of youths, dropping a blade onto the ground before each student.

Kira stared at the sheathed blade that clattered to the floor by his right knee. When he glanced up again, the instructor had reached the end of the line. He turned on his heel to face them, his beetle eyes flashing. Raising a finger, he tapped his right shoulder and said, "Remove the pocket knife from its sheath. Aim it right and do it fast. One clean stab. Point your blade outwards so you don't sever your axillary artery. And then I'll give you the iodine and the blood coagulant." He reached up to his shoulder holster and unhitched the gun he had nestled in the leather guard. Flicking the safety lever off, he juggled the gun from one hand to the next. "Do it yourself. Or I'll do it for you. But I have no guarantee that my bullet will miss your axillary artery."

He stared at them with cold hard eyes, the corners of his lips curled upwards in a cruel smile. And as if there was something controlling his movements, Kira felt himself reaching for the sheathed blade. On either side of him, the other boys and girls were doing the same thing. The pocket knife was light, and the steel blade was icy-cold against his palm. How could something this small, this light, cause serious damage? And yet, if he didn't aim it right, he knew he would slice his axillary artery in half. That big, fat artery that fed blood to his right arm. His other instructor, the one who taught them all they had to know about the human body, had explained that if a major artery was severed, an adult could bleed out in several minutes. He was just a youth, no more than a child. If he didn't get it right, he would be dead in a minute or so. Kira hefted the blade in his hand.

On his right, a boy with green hair – a boy whose name he had heard before, Sting – let out a painful gasp as he plunged the blade into his right shoulder. And the sound was like a trigger, like a button that had been pressed. The warring emotions in Kira dissolved, replaced by a numbness that was becoming very familiar to him. A lack of feeling, a lack of emotions. Why did stabbing himself matter? So what if he killed himself? He had been ordered to do it, and that was the only thing that mattered. He was being taught a lesson on first aid. And if he needed to hurt himself in order to learn that lesson, so be it.

The knife glinted dangerously as he swung it, and drove it deep into his shoulder.

"Kira."

A hand touched him on the brow. It was a gentle touch, but his nerves were so overwhelmed with pain that he shivered. It had been pure torture, having to endure as Flay and Lacus fed the powdered blood coagulant into his wounded shoulder.

But at least the worst was over.

He winced as the women wrapped the length of gauze around his shoulder, pulling it tight.

"Almost over, Kira," Lacus soothed as she felt him tremble underneath their ministrations. He was in pain, but she could do nothing for him. She chewed down hard on her bottom lip and tasted the metallic tang of blood. She felt sick - the blood slicking her hands and fingers felt like poison; there was so much of it that she wasn't sure at all that the blood coagulant would be enough to keep the bleeding under control. The hospital… She had to get him to the hospital somehow. She felt tears pricking the back of her eyes. But what could she do if he didn't want to go? And if she could get him in there, how was she going to explain his injury without getting the police involved?

Blinking back the tears, she slung a length of the bandage carefully across his chest and round his neck to secure the dressing. Flay was attempting to knot the ends of bandage, when all of a sudden, they felt him shift. His head, which had been resting against his forearms, lifted and he twisted around. The look on his face made Lacus freeze - the pained expression was gone, replaced by the coldness and distance that reminded her again that he wasn't quite the Kira she knew.

"What's wrong, Kira?" Flay whispered anxiously.

Kira said nothing. They watched as he placed both hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet.

"What-"

He shushed them with a finger to his lips. His eyes were hard amethyst crystals, the set of his jaw stiff; his expression that of a murderer. He slipped out from the booth, as the women stared at him in bewilderment. Moving swiftly across the diner, he snagged the gun he had left on the table with his left hand and pressed himself up against the wall by the kitchen door.

"Why-" Lacus' words were cut off by a sudden burst of movement.

The kitchen door exploded inwards and she saw Kira move, darting towards the doorway to intercept the intruder. But he was too late, the intruder stepped through the passageway and into the diner. Within seconds, the action was over, and there, standing right there before her, were Athrun and Kira, their guns raised and aimed towards each other.

"Athrun!" exclaimed Lacus in astonishment, "You- what are you doing here? How did you find us?"

Athrun didn't reply. His intense emerald eyes were watching Kira closely, his eyebrows furrowed so hard in concentration that he didn't even look at Lacus. When he spoke, his voice was cold and distant, nearly unrecognisable. "Cagalli," he called out, steady and emotionless, his voice demanding obedience, "take Lacus and Flay and get out. Go through the front entrance. I'll cover you."

There was movement behind the kitchen door, and a blonde woman slipped through the doorway, edging into the diner. Lacus recognised her immediately. "Cagalli!" her voice caught in her throat, as she set eyes upon her best friend. Cagalli tore her gaze from the stand-off between both men, and took several tottering steps towards Lacus. Both women collided as Cagalli wrapped her arms around Lacus, and Lacus hugged her back, resting her chin in the crook of Cagalli's neck. The tears, which she had tried hard to swallow, spilled down her cheeks.

"Thank god you're alright," Cagalli whispered. She pulled away before Lacus could respond. "Come on, we need to get out of here." She wrapped her hand around Lacus' wrist and began hauling her towards the front entrance of the diner.

"No, wait."

"Move, Lacus," Athrun rapped out without shifting his gaze, or the aim of his gun, from Kira.

"No," Lacus shook her head, resisting against Cagalli's pull. "He's not the enemy, Athrun. He's a friend."

Athrun's gaze flickered. For just a second, it darted towards Lacus, then back again to the man standing before him. But his gun didn't move. This man… Athrun stared hard at him, running his eyes over the stranger. There was something awfully familiar about him. The mess of brown hair soaked in sweat; the hard amethyst eyes meeting his glare unflinchingly. He could see that the man was injured – there was a bandage around his right shoulder, its ends trailing down his arm. A recent injury, Athrun thought to himself. What the hell had happened? He met the purple eyes with his own green ones, and a memory buried deep emerged from the depths of his mind. A little boy with tousled brown hair and the most beautiful twinkling purple eyes.

Kira…

The sudden memory knocked the breath out of Athrun; it was like he had been punched in the stomach. It couldn't be… It was impossible… He shook himself out of his reverie. Now wasn't the time. They had found Lacus and it was his responsibility to make sure that they didn't lose her again. "Cagalli," he said again warningly, "take Lacus and Flay and get out. Now."

"Listen, Athrun," a plea in Lacus' voice. "He's a friend."

A pregnant pause.

"He's a long-lost friend."

The last sentence made Athrun falter. He turned to glance at Lacus with an expression of utmost disbelief. It couldn't be…

"It's him, Athrun. It's Kira," Lacus confirmed, as if she had predicted his doubt, "We've found him."

This time, it was the stranger who broke the eye contact and turned too to stare at Lacus with confusion in his eyes.

Lacus' eyes were glistening with tears when she shrugged out of Cagalli's grip. "It's true," she said, smiling a weak smile, the tears breaking free and streaming down the curve of her cheeks. So long… She had waited so long to say it… "You're Kira, aren't you? Kira Yamato. We've finally found you after fifteen years. It's been such a long time, Kira."

There was movement by her side, and Cagalli stepped forward tentatively, as if she couldn't believe her very eyes. "Kira? Is it really you?" She took another shaky step forward, and Kira retreated, the gun falling limply to his side. For a second, the coldness and distance in his eyes vanished, replaced by uncertainty, as he stared at the blonde woman. And then, all of a sudden, his amethyst eyes glazed over, and by the time they realised that he was falling, they were too late to catch him. Kira had collapsed to the ground unconscious.

Author's note: So there! I don't know what to say about this chapter… I'm not sure if it meets expectations… What do you think? Is it horrible? Is it good? Argh! If it's horrible, I may rewrite it... I don't know... Do review and let me know what you think about this chapter!