A/N: I know everyone thought i was dead. Sorry to disappoint you but i'm still alive and breathing. In a sad attempt to make it up to all of you, for updating, hm... lets see, 5 months late? i wrote a really really REALLY LONG chap. it's 2000++ words. aren't you all proud of me? (: Well, just wanna say a HUGE THANK YOU to KaGaRi, ButaLove, Heather, naru-chan1, Angelsorceress, neji447, lalala, saPphiRe.'.m0i, kaurama-kasuki, ' '-BLaCKLIsTeD 27-' ', SacredBlade, Mrs. Radcliffe13, dreaZALA, Cari-Akira, The Jackle, Kazumi Kairi or Kari-chan, akidarchangelprincess, Minerva's Cradle, Kathya, junon2.
If not for you guys/girls i would have given up on this story halfway just because, it's a totally me thing to do.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed (Destiny) haha. i just realised i hardly put disclaimers. oh wells.
Enjoy!
I expected the unexpected. But once I expected it, then (logically) it was 'expected' and so I was never really prepared for the scene in front of me:
A flustered Lacus: with a sleeve (clearly made to rest on her shoulder) very much off her shoulder, on top of a Kira whose hands were in a NC16 region. I avert my eyes instinctively. Lacus jolts out of her suggestive, bordering erotic angle, in attempt to break free. I guess it was just their luck that her skirt was caught in between Kira, the bed and the railing beside the bed. Kira tries his best to free her but let's just say, it was quite a tangle. The couple struggling, on the bed, Kira with lipstick stain on his face, Lacus with her shirt not quite on her, looked… Amusing. I couldn't help myself-I laughed. Lacus really should stop using lipstick when she is planning to have an intense make-out session with Kira. It really does give them away so easily.
I hear a stampede of boots behind me.
They always say you never know when you are going to die. Funny, is it not? I not only know I am going to die, I see, hear and, thanks to an entire day in suits, out in the scorching sun, smell my death-a troop of Men In Black. My perception of Will Smith in black suits and sunglasses will never be the same again.
If there ever is an 'again', that is.
Funny; how I cannot stop laughing at Kira and Lacus. Now is probably the closest thing I am going to get to a deathbed and I cannot stop laughing.
My birth was already screwed; obviously fate would only allow my death to be even worse.
I brace myself to be dragged out of the room.
I really should have brought the tank...
"Stop that at once," a stern voice threatens.
Correction: a tank and a bazooka.
I try my best to chortle down my laughs. I must admit, my best, is not very good. Amazing how much tension four simple words a 5-year old child would be able to utter can create.
I am so dead. How I wish I believe in some random god so I could do something like pray. That is what they do right? I mean, if you are scared, and you believe in a god, you pray. Apparently it helps.
I decide to pray. But I do not know how.
Well, if you do not know any prayers, just make some up.
I start murmuring random words like "save me, save me, save me" under my breath. Hopefully, that resembled a prayer. The phrase slowly turns to a mantra and soon, I get myself to believe that someone will actually come to save me.
That is when I find that the scary voice was not talking to me.
"Yes sir!" a frazzled Kira answers as he, thankfully, manages to release Lacus from her temporary captivity on a hospital bed.
Not exactly what I would call a 'rescue', but I am not that picky. A delay in my death works for me.
"Kira Yamato, care to explain why your friend was on you?"
Suddenly it hits me.
Why am I so scared?
I am the freaking daughter of Orb's president, practically the heir to the throne; and I am cowering in the middle of the room because there is a troop of bodyguards (inclusive of one with an exceptionally scary voice) who were hired to take care of the son of Orb's president. I should not be scared. If they knew of my identity, they would probably protect me, lest attack me.
Besides, the bodyguard with the scary voice was not talking to me.
Encouraged by this sudden realization I straighten my shoulders (you have to look presentable if you are the president's daughter) and turn my head, ready to introduce myself as Cagalli Yamato.
I see a man. This man is strange. This man-is not wearing black. My guess was the stern voice belonged to him.
Hair: as golden as rice ready for harvest. Eyes: a deep shade of violet. Face: an older replica of Kira's.
That was the face of… dare I say it?
My father.
Out loud, though, I said "You are the bloody bastard who chucked me in the dustbin. Screw all these bodyguards; I am going to kill you."
My eyes must have shot more than just daggers because the bastard looked genuinely scared, or could he have been thinking? Being the nice person I am, I left him a couple of seconds to collect a response.
I certainly was not extended the same courtesy. Guys could be so impolite these days, whatever happened to being a gentleman? In an instant, as if an invisible 'on' button had been pressed, all the MIBs/007s whatever you want to call them, produced guns (from only David Copperfield knows where) and pointed them at little old me. I seemed to be getting a lot of attention these days and for some strange reason, I loved it.
It made me feel like I mattered. It made me feel like I was worth someone's attention. It made me feel like I was more than trash. Even if, it was not most preferable the sort of attention.
Apparently, the bastard didn't think so umpteen years ago.
Oh well, his loss.
He will be the one who does not matter this time. He will be the one who is not worth a fly's attention. He will be trash (and trashed) this time.
That was what I set out to make him anyway; tiny problem: it is not the easiest thing to make a nations' president redundant.
I looked at the barrels of all the guns; shiny, not to mention all directed at me. I do pity the cleaner who will have to clean up the blood on the floor later. Bloodstains are so tough to get rid of.
Good luck, or is it goodbye, to me.
In attempt to distract myself from my eminent death, in a hospital no less, I lift my gaze and give a challenging look to the bastard. I see disbelief change to confusion, flickers of recognition threaten to extinguish, and all of a sudden, a flame is lit.
"Cagalli?" his voice does not sound so stern anymore. It actually sounds, no, it can it be, caring?
He runs to me, grabs me by the shoulder, looks into my eyes, extinguishes the anger in my eyes, my heart, my soul, simultaneously and subconsciously deactivating the "take-out-your-guns-and-point-at-the-pretty-blonde-in-the-middle-of-the-room" button.
"Cagalli," he confirms, talking more to himself than to me.
He hugs me.
Then, all hell breaks lose.
The demon fights to escape from the rein bound so tightly around its neck. Strangling. The rein, stitched together over years of denial, hiding behind the façade of anger.
Tears wrestle its way out my eyes.
Minute teardrops, I hear them-drip, drip on the marble floor.
…
Flowing freely now.
The rein has worn out, no more disguises.
It did not matter now that he was the bastard who chucked me in a bin. All that mattered was that someone cares about me. Not because of how I looked, or because of my (bubbly) personality. Someone simply cares. Someone loves me, just for being me.
How long has it been? How long has it been since that day?
The last time I cried. Prom night I cried out of anger. The last time I cried of sadness…
How long has it been?
No one was there to give me that hug I so badly needed.
No one...
Now, I got my hug, I got my father. Is it 2 years too late? Or right on time?
The tears, somehow seem to take it all away-all the pain I thought I had long buried under the earth, all the misery I assumed I had gotten used to and all the derision that seemed to fall on my back like water on wax.
Questions float in my head-too disorganized to count as thoughts.
Truth and I, face to face.
We finally meet.
"Why?"
One word, infinite possibilities.
I heard my voice crack under the strain. By my count, I had been bawling for at least 5 minutes. No fun, no fun at all.
"It is a long story."
"I want, no, I need to know."
So he told me.
My mother was a spy, a spy working for and enemy of my father's. She gave birth to Kira and me. My father did not know at the time.
She had a plan to kidnap us and hold us hostage, to force my father's hand and make Orb join the Alliance.
We were only 3 months old then.
Fortunately, the Secret Services of Orb had uncovered her plot, albeit after she just left the manor. A wild goose chase ensued. She ran off, carrying Kira and me in her arms. It eventually ended up in her being caught. Secret Service managed to find a crying, hungry Kira dumped in a bush, but they did not find me. Even after an exceptionally rough interrogation, my mother refused to disclose where she had dumped me.
No news was allowed to be printed because my father did not want the people to know that security had been compromised.
Over the years, Secret Service has continued to look for me, but to no avail.
Until a year ago.
They were going through record of orphanages and found me, a blonde who had a striking resemblance to Kira.
It turns out that they could not find me originally because another lady had taken me in, unofficially, of course. Struck by pity she found me where my mother of all people had unceremoniously dumped me. According to the all-knowing Secret Services' data, she cared for me for 2 years. After which she dumped me in a bin. Why? The all knowing Secret Service do not know.
My phone rang. Yes, talk about anticlimax.
Athrun.
"It is okay. Take the call; anyway, I am extremely late for a meeting. I will get into contact with you as soon as the opportunity arises. It has been nice to meet you Cagalli."
Just like that, my father left. Hopefully, not for good.
I pressed the little green button.
"Hello?"
"Cags,
can you come to musical fountain at the park? I need..." His voice
faded. I heard a sniff, a cough, a clearing of the throat and then,
"Please?"
I know I am not the best at reading people, but usually, just usually, when you hear a sniff and the person is not sick, the person is crying. Sue me if I am mistaken.
"On my way, give me 5 minutes. Bye!"
I did not wait for a response. I rushed my goodbyes to Kira and Lacus and just before closing the door told them to remember to lock the door this time, winked then dashed out of the room.
So, I knew two things. Athrun was crying and he was in the park.
I was going there, obviously to cheer him up. Following a line of logic, which I thought was really scientific of me; I concluded that Athrun just wanted someone to make out with. I cursed silently. Was that all I was? A make out toy without make up?
No; at least, not this time, I decided.
I went into the nearest 7-eleven near the hospital and got a bar of 'Hershey's-cookies and cream' using the last bits of my pocket money for the month, just before sprinting across the road to the park just outside the hospital. Sometimes it was good living in such a small country like Orb.
I made it there, breathless but in under 10 minutes. Athrun should know that 5 minutes me-time meant 15 minutes in the real world. In other words, I was early. But he was nowhere in sight.
"Cags!" a voice called, from the sky? Superman?
I looked up and saw a blue head in a tree ducked behind the trunk.
What could I do? Drag him down? Sadly I did not have Michael Jordon's height, so I climbed the tree.
Yes, they do not call me "boy" for nothing. With more effort put in, in trying to not drop/break the chocolate than the actual climbing of the tree, I made my way up the tree, only to be shocked out of whatever wits I had left after the numbing encounter with my father.
I saw tears, real tears, on Athruns' perfect face. I guess he must have seen through my crystal clear head and found my disbelief.
He tried to explain, "I-My father- he-"
I put my fingers, unbearably difficult not to just kiss him there and then, on his lips and hushed him.
He looked into my eyes.
I guess he saw comfort, since he smiled. A tiny one but a smile, nonetheless.
I smiled back, then gently placed his heavy head on my chest, not my boobs, and patted his head.
At first, he had no reaction and I thought that I had read the signs all-wrong. Just as I was about to lift his head, he burst into sobs and thrust his chiseled arms around my frame.
"It's okay. I'm here," I told him as my fingers combed through his midnight blue hair. "And I brought chocolate," I said, presenting a bar of 'Hershey's'. I with my free hand I managed to tear open the packet and I broke off a piece and put, cum stuffed, it into his mouth.
"Chocolate makes everything better," I explained.
He sniffed, wiped his tears away then gave a wide grin. It looked fake to me.
"Thank you." And then he crushed his lips onto mine and pushed me against the rough bark of the tree. Thank heavens it was a big tree with big branches to sit and make out on.
He pried open my mouth with his chocolate-flavored tongue. I submitted and let him explore every inch of me. Usually, I would hold back, not today. It just so happened that today, he was my favourite flavor-'Cookies-cookies and cream'.
His hands grew more desperate, his tongue more probing. I felt his crazed desire pressing against me.
I broke off the kiss.
"No"
Breathless, panting.
"What did I do?" His hand still dancing across my spine.
"I am not your make-out toy."
"Whoever said you were?"
"You are doing this to overcome your grief. I am not going to let you. Tell me what the problem is. I will fix it, then, you can relieve yourself," I finished, brushing off my last few words.
"Can't." His hand froze over the arch of my back.
"Why?" it seemed that was my favourite question of the day. I place a hand on his forearm, "you can. You don't have to hide from me."
He told me, I listened.
He gave me his torn, paper heart to hold, to take the weight off his shoulders. I took his heart and mended slowly, words caressing and weaving the broken pieces back together again. Granting him confidence, repairing his soul, helping him find relief.
I returned his heart to him whole, undamaged, untouched. Forgiven, accepted, and loved.
Unlike with all the others where he snatched it back instantly, he did not lock it up back into the safe (with a seven-digit code) in his chest. For the first time, he did not want his heart back.
"For safekeeping"
He gave me his whole heart.
"For you to heal"
I gave him mine.
Two tainted hearts are infinitely better than one. At least with two, there is hope of them being mended.
Under the moonlight, lovers found their hearts.
Things to do:
1. Pluck flowers from the Orphanage's Garden for Kira
2. Find out what the difference is between reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars, of fail Bio
3. Call my father (the word still sounds funny coming from my mouth)
Things not to do:
1. Fall of the darn tree
2. Barge into a room guarded by a horde of bodyguards
3. See Kira and Lacus making out
4. Get home after curfew, which, whoops, was an hour ago.
A/N: hate me? love me? tell me anyway (: REVIEWS PLEASE!