Title: Crossfire

Author: Jusrecht

See Warnings and Disclaimers in the first chapter.

Notes: A review I received for the last chapter got me thinking and I suppose it's just as well that I let all my readers know. Despite the hints that I might have dropped, this fic isn't going to include the Dearka/Yzak pairing. I know that AsuKira stories usually have DeaYza too, but this one isn't. I already have plans for them and I intend to follow them through. I hope this isn't going to disappoint anyone much, but if it does, well… tough luck. Anyway, thank you for the reviews

To isumi 'kivic', this is for your birthday. I'm sorry that it's so late (and this chapter actually lacks AsuKira-ness) but I hope you don't mind too terribly…

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Chapter Twenty-One: Lacus – Defining Fear

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"Are you absolutely sure that it was her?"

Lacus waited, the silence woven around her heavy and strained as Yzak's sharp question echoed in the hotel room. She understood the need to ascertain, but surely the question could be delivered in a more amiable fashion? And not to mention, this was the fourth or fifth time the white-haired commander had addressed the matter in the last three minutes. Dearka, already frowning at this point, did not seem to appreciate Yzak's lack of faith in him either.

"Yes," the dark-skinned officer finally answered, his voice only a little tense although he was obviously exercising more than just his usual stock of patience.

Yzak once again proved that there was a reason why he was worthy to be entitled 'insensitive' in more ways than one. "Not good enough," he growled, eyes narrowing. "What if it's just a trap? Admit it. You aren't entirely sure, are you?"

"Gee, I don't know, Yzak," Dearka feigned a hopeless sigh, sarcasm dripping profusely from his voice. "She was only my girlfriend a few years back, so no, I don't think I can ID her voice when she is, like, shouting through the phone line or something. Oh, wait a minute. On second thought, I believe it was a man's voice – you know, must be my ears. Maybe I should get them checked–"

"All right!" the commander hissed irritably and Lacus suppressed a smile which was threatening to spoil her perfectly composed expression. "I only asked, you bastard."

"Yeah, you definitely asked for it," the other man mumbled.

Deciding that they were already a hair's breadth away from an out-and-out brawl, Lacus stepped in. "Yzak," she raised her hand slightly, forcing the white-haired man to close his mouth again. "We have already talked about this, haven't we? I thought you agreed to go with the plan."

"We can't afford to make any mistake, Lacus-sama," was the stiff reply. "After the incident yesterday, it will be unwise to act without the utmost caution."

The mediator realized that she didn't have any argument to that, not to the shooting which had almost claimed her life. Inwardly she sighed. Her intentions had been good when she had decided to exploit a little portion of her authority and take the Jule's squad away from regular duty before they broke down under continuous strains in Cygnusia. She had requested them to escort her to this meeting between two head of states in Berlin in which she once again would play moderator, thinking that a little diversion would be good for them.

Her idea, however, had quickly backfired after the incident at the meeting. It left no room for doubt that the intended target was her and this knowledge, of course, had raised the highest degree of alarm among her protectors. Yzak had been able to deal with the aftermath efficiently, including arresting the second shooter just fifteen hours ago, but it didn't necessarily mean that he had forgiven himself for allowing the shooting to happen in the first place.

Lacus had never expected anything short of perfection from the young commander when it came to performing his duties, but this was going way beyond his scope of responsibility. If someone wanted to snipe her from a building twenty-floor high one block away, she couldn't see how he could have prevented it from happening.

An acutely uncomfortable feeling rose inside her chest at the thought. It was a steady throb, flowing slowly with each pulse in her veins along with her blood, from her breast to the very tip of her fingers. It made her feel cold, almost like–

Lacus shook her head slightly, rejecting the idea, and turned the course of her mind away from the matter. It had been done and over with. No use trying to dwell on it before Yzak finished the interrogation. And it wasn't as if any harm had come to her. She was perfectly safe, completely unscathed while the same could not be said about her friends.

Especially Cagalli. And Kira. And maybe Athrun too. Cagalli was having a tug of war with Death himself on his doorstep. Kira bore the mental scars as he trudged along to keep everything in balance. Athrun was still somewhere out there alone, hidden malice shadowing his every step.

She had to be strong. Her friends needed her right now.

"I may be asking a lot from you, Yzak," she said again, looking calmly at her white-haired friend, "but I need to meet Miriallia-san. There must be something very important she needs to tell us, something she cannot say over the phone. I'm aware of the danger of making this meeting, but it's a risk worth taking if she has any information about…"

She ended her sentence with a small, eloquent wave of her hand, letting the commander to fill in the blank himself. And Yzak did. He still had a frown on his face, but Lacus knew that her victory wasn't far ahead. If anything, Yzak was also dying to know about Athrun. Lifelong rivals or not, everyone could tell that their relationship wasn't forged out of hate.

"I can see that you have made up your mind, Lacus-sama," he said at last, resignedly if a little bitterly. "In that case, I have nothing else to say."

"Thank you," she gave the commander one of her sweetest smiles and watched him turn into an interesting shade of red. Sometimes, she had to admit, being exquisitely pretty had its uses, although of course not everybody would fall under her charm that easily. She turned to Dearka and realized that the smirking pilot was a perfect example of such case. It was a good thing that he had taken her side so far.

"The restaurant, 'Chandelier', wasn't it?"

"Yes," he responded promptly. "Nine o'clock tonight."

"And there is nothing suspicious about the place?" she inquired again.

"A perfectly harmless establishment. Just the kind of small restaurant that people enjoy coming to for a quiet dinner with family or friends. Nothing disreputable or fishy."

"I see." Lacus bit her lips. Despite everything she had said to convince Yzak, she wasn't completely sure herself. Kira was the only one beside the three of them who knew and of course she would be extra cautious, but it still wouldn't do to involve innocent civilians if the meeting decided to take a wrong turn after all. She knew what this was about. Miriallia didn't have to say it, because the complete lack of information she had been willing to share over the line already spoke for itself. The meeting would be about Athrun. And looking at what had repeatedly happened to him, they would have to tread carefully when he was involved.

The frown never leaving his face, Yzak seemed to notice her anxiety as well because he suddenly said, "A special unit is ready at your disposal, Lacus-sama."

She looked at him and realized that she would have to reopen the war in another front. "I'm not taking more than one person, Yzak," she replied carefully, preparing herself for the incoming outburst.

And as usual, the commander didn't fail her expectation.

"But that is too risky!" he protested vehemently. "One person! What if this is really an ambush?? Your life will be in jeopardy!"

"I will go with Dearka," Lacus answered in the calmest voice she could manage. "I trust he can guard me well. Don't you?"

Quite obviously aware that he couldn't answer the hinted question in his favour without lying a little – a lot, actually – Yzak decided to ignore said question altogether and proceeded with his remonstration.

"Lacus-sama, I really cannot agree to this. After what happened yesterday, it's total madness to allow you to go with only one escort!"

"I don't see any other way," she answered, looking straight into his eyes. "Miriallia-san has specifically mentioned not to bring a big crowd. Having more than one to come with me will attract unnecessary attention."

"Then I'll do it."

"Yzak."

"I will do it," he insisted, his voice leaving no room for argument. Lacus was torn between overflowing gratitude and growing impatience. She appreciated his concern, but the commander couldn't come with her – it would be the most unwise decision she ever made. As surreptitiously as possible, she glanced at Dearka who all but jumped into the argument once she had caught his eyes, apparently as frustrated as she was at this continual display of stubbornness.

"Yzak, we both know who is better suited for the job," the dark-skinned man said, his tone easy but persuasive. That it didn't quite have the desired effect was clear when the commander's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Are you implying that you're better than me, green-coat?"

"I'm not implying anything, Boss." It was obvious that Dearka was trying his best not to grin. "It's a cold hard fact that even though you can lead and dish orders better, I'm practically without equal when it comes to personal combat skill. And despite everything you've said, this is a close-range thing and you know it."

Yzak opened his mouth, the mighty scowl on his face promising many unpleasant retorts to this flagrant insubordination, but the other man had added before he could produce a word. "Besides, don't you need to carry on with the interrogation on the shooting suspects? The investigation is too important to be delayed for another day."

"Yardbirds can do it."

"Yardbirds can not do it," Dearka said insistently. "I probably can but you are much better than me in these things. You know, shouting and intimidating and generally scaring the hell out of people."

It brought a smile to Lacus's lips. She shared a brief, conspiratorial glance with Dearka and dutifully contributed her line. "And if you stay behind, it actually can serve as a good camouflage in addition to everything else."

The look Yzak gave them could only be described as grudging. "Because if I stay behind and follow my schedule, then it means there's nothing important going on somewhere else?"

"Exactly," she nodded. "I will announce that I have a slight cold and cannot go to the dinner. Everyone will assume that I am here in my room, resting."

"That's right, Yzak," Dearka joined in. "Everybody knows that you won't let Lacus-sama out of your sight without at least a battalion of guards."

The commander's face crimsoned again and Lacus wisely stayed silent while Yzak sputtered a disjointed train of angry denials to his smirking subordinate. Said subordinate hardly acknowledged a word and asked instead, "So you'll let us go?"

"Fine, one person," he growled, still visibly flustered, "but the unit will stand by around the restaurant,"

Lacus shook her head. "No, not around the restaurant, they will be too noticeable," she reasoned. "Two blocks away."

"One."

"Deal," she said quickly, her smile so very innocent that it was impossible for Yzak not to realize that he had walked right into that one. His face gained another shade of crimson, although Lacus didn't have the slightest doubt that this one had absolutely nothing to do with her skill to charm people.

She folded her hands on her lap and leant back with a satisfied air. As long as it got the job done.

The rest of the day went by much too slowly. The meeting dragged on and on and Lacus felt like she knew exactly how many clocks there were in the cabinet building after glancing at one of them every two minutes or so. It was not until her pen scratched the last paper she would have to sign for the day that she finally allowed herself the briefest sense of relief.

And now, for the other appointment.

Getting away from the dinner was an easy affair, as her sentiment was evidently shared by the other guests of honour. After the incident on the day before, none of them cared for much festivity. Lacus, faithful to the plan, locked herself in her room for as long as two hours and instructed for a light dinner to be brought up, all under the pretence of coming down with a cold. At half-past eight, a girl with short blonde hair, wearing a knee-length skirt and a lavender blouse, slipped out of her room unnoticed and rendezvoused with a certain dark-skinned man, also dressed in casual attire, in an alley just at the back of the hotel.

"You're all set?" was the only question Dearka asked her before they took off. Lacus could only nod – she was too anxious to make any small talk. One of the many hairpins she used to hold the wig in place grazed uncomfortably against her scalp, but there was nothing she could do about it unless she dared to risk ruining her carefully applied disguise.

The journey was, thankfully, quite uneventful. They had decided to take a cab and arrived at the restaurant in no more than ten minutes. As Dearka had said, it wasn't a big establishment, definitely not one of those fancy places she often found herself end up in due to her current profession. The patrons were mostly families or friends getting together for a pleasant dinner, she couldn't help but notice as they made their way to an empty table for four at the corner of the room. Most of the tables were filled – this increased her worry somewhat, but it should have been expected. Nine o'clock was still a relatively normal hour to have dinner.

They sat down and a waitress came to take their order – two bowls of cream soup, and then milk tea for her and a glass of beer for Dearka. Waiting was a tedious job, but when it came traipsing with dread hand-in-hand, the whole process became nearly unbearable. She tried to focus her mind on other things, namely the conversation going on in the next table, but it still didn't stop her from flinching every time the door swung open to admit a new visitor. It wasn't like her at all that even Dearka started shooting her concerned looks from the corner of his eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked her in a low voice, deliberately leaving out her name in case someone in a neighbouring table overheard.

"Yes," she forced herself to smile. Dearka only raised his eyebrows and said nothing. He looked completely at ease despite their situation and Lacus silently scolded herself for being so easily intimidated. Being nervous would only attract attention. Usually she was good at these things, but tonight…

Kira's face flashed inside her mind and it brought a sharp pang in her heart. All of a sudden, she wanted to hear his voice. The last time she had called him was this morning, her windowpane still cold with dew and fog under her trembling fingers, and she had had to do anything in her power to keep the quiver out of her voice because she had never heard anyone sounding so… dead.

Lacus mentally winced at the word and quickly corrected it. Tired. Kira had sounded tired, but then again, he had all the rights in the world to sound tired. She wished that she could be there at his side, to lend him what power she could give, no matter how minute or insignificant. No one deserved to be alone in such difficult times.

She tried not to think if it was him who needed her so badly or the other way around. Selfishness had no place when mutualism was involved.

It still didn't let her escape from the guilt, lingering at the edge of her consciousness like a sharp claw ready to sink into her flesh. She could feel the nails grazing her skin already.

"She's late," Dearka muttered after they had sat without exchanging a word for what seemed to be hours. It was only then when Lacus noticed that she had finished her meal without even realizing it.

"There must be something detaining her," she answered, the most neutral one she could offer him although it sounded almost empty to her ears. She wanted to believe, but her edginess didn't help convincing her that nothing bad had happened.

Dearka glanced at his watch. "Well, we still have about half-an-hour," he told her, his eyes suddenly lit up with amusement, "before someone gets worried about you and decides to send his battalion in."

The unexpected shifting of focus of their conversation took her by surprise and she looked at her companion who was smiling lazily at her. Lacus found herself smiling back. "You should stop saying things like that, Dearka," she reproached him gently. "They'll only make him more upset at me."

"It doesn't matter whether I say those things or not since you'll upset him nonetheless," he pointed out.

"What do you mean?"

"You're always smiling."

Ah. Lacus felt her smile being sewed tightly to her face. She knew where this was going.

"I like to smile," she answered, again neutrally.

"Because everyone likes to see your smile, right?" he said with a grin which looked a tad too sympathetic. "It's an incredibly tough job."

For some reasons, the comment – or maybe the grin – caused a wave a discomfort to rise in her chest. "I don't consider it my job," she told him – as honestly as possible amidst the uneasiness.

The grin didn't falter. "If you say so."

"Besides, it's better to smile no matter what the circumstances are," she heard herself adding. "And I don't know why, but smiling actually makes me feel better."

"Maybe you're right," Dearka admitted, but a firm note in his voice told her that this discussion wasn't over yet. "Still. Yesterday there was an attempt on your life and today you're already smiling like nothing has happened. Don't you even feel fear?"

A good question, Lacus thought silently, but she had come to the answer by herself a long time ago. She was the one who smiled. These classic contradictions couldn't possibly escape her.

"To feel and to show it are two different things," she replied, her voice thinning at the end. His eyes softened a little, though because of what she wasn't certain.

"I understand," Dearka said with a slight nod. "You're really an admirable person. I only hope you don't sacrifice your happiness too much."

Lacus was silent for a moment, the noisy conversation coming from the next table filtering in through her mind unheeded. She wondered if she should rise to the bait. She didn't like discussing this subject – it was an uncharted territory for her – but sometimes she wished that she could.

In the end, the discomfort beat her again and left her seeking for another subject. She tried not to bit her lips in frustration.

"Is that why you said I upset him nonetheless?" And yet she still could sound so unperturbed. Lacus often wondered how she did that.

Dearka leant forward, his eyes dancing with unconcealed amusement, and lowered his voice into a whisper. "He will never admit it to you, but the truth is he's worried. Like, worried worried. He really admires you, you know."

She was saved from any need to reply when the door to the restaurant once again opened. Her gaze automatically drifted toward the newcomer and her mouth instantly went dry when a dark-haired man wearing a pair of eyeglasses walked into the place and looked around, his eyes stopping at their table after a moment.

Lacus would have made some sort of exclamation if her voice hadn't been held by something enormous in her throat. She still hadn't been able to move a muscle when he started to walk toward them, the expression on his face tight with so many emotions that perfectly mirrored her own.

Dearka was quicker to recover. He stood up, pulling Athrun into his arms like an old friend, and busily asked him to sit down. Lacus watched their exchange in some kind of trance, both hands weak on her lap, and it wasn't until Athrun's eyes fell on her again that she tried to shake her self out of it.

"You cut your hair," she managed to whisper once she had found her voice again, faint though it was. It brought a small smile to Athrun's face.

"And you change yours," he nodded at her blonde wig. "I like the old one better though."

"I prefer your old style too," she murmured, wishing that the tremor in her voice could subside. It really didn't matter with what hairstyle Athrun saw it fit to reappear. The fact that he was alive and speaking to her was enough.

She could still hardly believe it.

The same waitress approached their table and Athrun quickly made his order before she could take a good look at him. The haircut and glasses provided some camouflage, but Lacus knew that the main reason why no one had yet to recognize the Chairman so far was because no one really looked at him. As far as they were concerned, he was just another guest in the restaurant.

So far.

"You're late for almost an hour," the chiding tone was there in Dearka's voice. Despite his earlier airiness, apparently the dark-skinned pilot had been as worried as she had. "What the hell happened?"

Athrun tensed slightly but his voice hardly betrayed anything. "Oh, you know, the usual. I had to make sure of some things first."

"Yeah, but if only you realize how–"

It was something she knew would happen. She could feel it on her skin and she didn't miss the slight tilting of Dearka's head, and then the rapid glance he sent to the other side of the room and then the widening of his eyes.

She barely flinched when the first shot shattered the thin veneer of tranquillity protecting the restaurant.

"Lacus!"

The next thing she knew, she was already on the floor with Athrun on top of her, the back of her head pounding slightly. There were screaming all around them, adding more chaos to the cacophony of gunshots and china breaking on the floor, and she dimly realized that Dearka was already firing his gun repeatedly. Her mind was numb. Her entire body was numb. She couldn't move a finger, not even when Athrun had moved away to fire a few rounds of his own. The memory of yesterday's shooting, each scene, part, episode, was flitting across her mind like a movie being played ten times too fast. She still remembered everything clearly. The clear blue sky. The blinding sunlight. The drone of someone speaking next to her. And then the quiet, quiet whish – the sound of death missing her by an inch.

It was only then when Lacus finally admitted that it was fear.

"Go! I'll hold them back!"

It was more like she felt instead of saw Athrun nodding. Everything had simply gone autopilot for her. A hand pulled her up and she stood up quickly, still in the shelter of her friend's arms, and they both ran to the direction of the door. Another barrage of shots rang, and she suddenly felt a searing pain on her left shoulder. Everything was too quick and she was too surprised to make any vocal reaction. All she could think of was that they had to run. The door swung shut behind them. Someone burst through, more gunshots and screaming, and her thoughts briefly flew to Dearka. She tried to speak, to catch Athrun's attention, but her throat wouldn't allow it. Her shoulder was throbbing and something warm was soaking through her blouse. The wind was shrill in front of her ears, only drowned by the sound of her heartbeat and the occasional shots. Pedestrians with terrified faces blurred past as they continued to run, Athrun's left arm around her while the other ready at his side with a cocked gun.

They kept running and running, followed by the sound of their own footfalls and echoing fear into the fog of the night.

End Chapter Twenty-One

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