Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. RR please.

A/N: Life happened, but the faithful kept up and asked for a return of investment. Thank you so much for staying with me - this author has tried to respond in kind.

"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."

- George Bernard Shaw

Chapter 11: Adult life success

From: Mr. Athrun Reid (A/S No. ZGMF-X09A) on behalf of Ms. Cagalli Yula

Heliopolis, Ring 2, District 16, #10-08

OV No. 53083- QL

Code: AY-MHO-66219-X

File Ref: YLA-AR-81/WEH-0001

To: Trine Partners LLP

Heliopolis, Ring 2, District 43, #41-13

OV No. 19227-SA

Code: RG-TKL-10317-C

File Ref: ART-TN-81/INT-4247

Attention: Mr. Arthur Trine

Dear Sirs,

RE: Notice to cease and desist

Without prejudice, save as to costs

We refer to your letter dated 20 April C.E. 81 and the enclosures thereto. For ease of reference, we adopt the terms and abbreviations therein.

We disagree with your claim that Genesis has complied fully with all statutory and industry requirements and/or standards for engaging constructors for the development of the Area. Based on records of the noise levels measured over the defined period and set out in Enclosure 1 of this letter herein, Genesis has failed to ensure that noise levels have remained reasonable and acceptable in accordance with the HUDA guidelines for construction projects in residential areas.

As Genesis would appreciate, its noise levels cannot be deemed compliant with the HUDA guidelines in the face of such clear breach. Genesis would further appreciate that it has, on separate and multiple occasions as detailed in Enclosure 2 of this letter herein, failed to cease construction work by 6.30 pm on weekdays.

Notwithstanding such breaches of Genesis' conduct of the construction project, Ms. Yula does not wish to litigate by correspondence, and wishes for Genesis' swift resolution of this matter. Solely for the purpose of saving time and costs, Ms. Yula is agreeable to the terms, as revised and set out in Enclosure 3 of this letter herein.

We look forward to your swift response.

Yours sincerely,

Athrun Zala, on behalf of Cagalli Yula

Encl.

1. Record of noise-levels;

2. Record of construction exceeding approved schedule; and

3. Settlement Term Sheet (with revisions in tracked changes).

In his tastefully-done up, spacious office that he did not have to share with any other person - but trapped, now that his annual leave had ended - Heine lamented in order: the number of unread emails left in his work inbox; the concept of the five-day work week and the two-day weekend, and mostly society (his mother's) definition of adult-life success.

In the meantime, Mia Campbell, who was possibly proving to be one of the most troublesome, petty and complicated clients of his entire legal career, just would not stop.

In fact, Heine's work cell had blinked its red eye of death nearly continuously over the week when Heine had gone off for his annual leave in Mauritius, basically notifying Heine that the emails would never stop even after he was dead.

At some point, when he got tired of clearing emails while trying to catch some Wifi connection on a mini-van between islands or in his resort at night, Heine had just turned off the work cell during the diving excursions. This helped him to concentrate on the corals and the highlight of his trip - swimming with the sharks. The kind with dorsal fins.

Given that he relied on his secretary to call his personal cell if there was really urgent business, Heine had not actually checked his work emails for the past four days.

And so, it was with due apprehension that Heine opened his work inbox that morning to read the two hundred and seventy-eight unread emails. He muttered an oath, and tried to focus on positive thoughts.

Sol had already gone through the incoming lot and trashed the trash mail from random other service providers, and had done Heine the usual favour by sorting emails into their sub-case folders. Unsurprisingly, though, the one with the most unread emails was Mia Campbell's matter.

When Heine opened the first email of the unread list, he winced as he read it. The next two were no better, filled with random, rambling and completely unorganised paragraphs of text in capital letters and typographical errors - her latest demands and so-called "further iFoasdremation SO u can SUE DULINDAL'S PANTS OF - Sent from my AyeFone".

According to an internal update from Shinn that Heine had scanned through about four days ago with regards Mia Campbell's suit, the last round of negotiations with Athrun had gone okay, with discussions pending.

Shinn must have heard of and generally looked up to Athrun Reid, whose work performances formed something of a ghostly, lingering office legend within Zaft Zaku.

All said and done, Heine was really banking on Athrun thoroughly charming Mia. Of course, the lady had more issues than a magazine, and so she had continued to spam both Heine and Shinn's inboxes in random bursts of text and mostly outrage.

She had really done a number on their work inboxes, Heine reflected, skipping the other six or more emails in between. Her latest email however, sent precisely at 2.08 am just a day ago, made his eyes bulge out, because it was brief and actually seemed sensible.

"I hv considered, will settle for 9 mil and if he retracts. U can tell him im only doing this because im getting tired and because his lawyer was nice and proper to me - Sent from my AyeFone"

Heine dialled Shinn immediately.

"Yes, Heine?"

"Shinn." Heine said. "How did the negotiation go?"

"Well, I did as you asked." Shinn retorted, a bit snippily, as was his usual vaguely-irritated, overworked way.

For an associate, many thought Shinn Asuka was incredibly brazen and bordering on insubordinate in the way he spoke to senior associates and partners, but Heine liked Shinn's work. Also, Heine was too sanguine to give a shit about Shinn's resting bitch face one way or another. Overall, they generally liked working with each other, as much as that was possible.

"Like I told you in my email update, I brought her to the last round of negotiations when I was covering for you, and I let her speak directly to Athrun Reid. I didn't interrupt him once. I just took notes - as I said in my update on - wait hold on - four days ago. Did you read it?"

Heine ignored Shinn's suggestion - and the completely accurate guess - that Heine had not been reading all his emails whilst on annual leave. "And then what happened?"

"And then he suggested that while his client couldn't apologise, his client could at least formally retract the allegedly defamatory comments about the client's dealings in the pop industry. She started screaming and saying that she wanted an apology, but then the fellow told her that a formal retraction was in some way worse for his client. He said it was worse, because it left more unsaid, and was not good for his client's reputation as an artiste manager anyway."

"Lesson in reverse psychology for you." Heine observed primly, always impressed at the shit that lawyers could make up on the fly, and particularly at the thought of Athrun looking quite straight-faced while telling that to Mia.

"He said, well he used the word "beseeched"-"

"Which probably made her wet." Heine thought snidely, but was too well-brought up to say, and wisely did not.

"-he beseeched her to consider the offer on the table, and to make peace with the situation. He told her that it was in everybody's interests to use the money that they'd spend paying lawyers and going to trial to buy a long holiday, or even a nice apartment, as the case would be."

"So the sum is down to 9 million?" Heine demanded, only just opening the last internal update from Shinn and not even really reading through it. "Have you drafted a settlement agreement for the client's consideration yet?"

"I can draft it by today if you want a first cut, but as written in my latest internal update, which you may or may not have seen," Shinn said pointedly, sounding about as willing to do it as to stick a fork in his own eye. "I told Athrun that it was better for them to draft that first cut of the settlement agreement for our review. Like I told you in the update, which I get that you may not have read yet, I wanted to push back since you were coming back from leave anyway. Since I didn't get any word from you, I assumed you were okay with it, and he agreed that they'd draft the first cut. Now, we're just waiting for Elsman Reid's email to come through. Also, we're gonna just negotiate the last amount through correspondence, because we had an impasse over just the amount. Dullindal's offering only 3 million."

Biting back a sigh, Heine double-clicked on a bunch of emails to make it look like he had read those, just so that Sol would file them away. "Figures."

"Ok." Shinn told him bluntly. "Now that you're back, do you still need me to cover the file? I'm never one to shirk away from work when I have capacity, but I have a really heavy caseload for the next few months. All that's left is to review the draft settlement agreement when it comes in, or proceed to trial if settlement fails."

Heine cursed internally, completely aware that Shinn must have had the same client-facing experience as Heine with Mia Campbell. While Heine could have forced Shinn to absorb the file into his case list, Heine decided not to bother. This was because Heine had retained part of his conscience as a junior partner, and mainly because Heine's billables weren't exactly stunning now that he had gone on leave for a week.

"No, it's fine, I don't need you to cover the file any more. Thank you for the hard work. Wish me luck, I'm gonna try and settle this one."

"Good luck." Shinn said sourly, always politically-correct and the clear and obvious poster-boy for toothpaste and sunshine. "You're gonna need it."

The forest was bathed in that specific shade of orange fading into pink-violet, the kind usually seen on a particularly hot day that faded into the cool. If Cagalli closed her eyes to imagine it, she could almost see her parent standing near the clearing, pretending that he did not know exactly where she was hiding, while he counted from one to twenty.

There was silence, now that the machines had stopped their work. They were getting closer and closer, and it was a matter of two weeks before three quarters of the forest had been cleared. Where Cagalli stood would be as far as they could go, but most of it would have been gone anyway. It was all over, in a sense.

She jotted down the last of her edits, then flopped down on her back, eyes closed, glad that she had thought of bringing a blanket out to lie on the grass this evening. The sun had warmed the ground so much, and she hummed a little, wondering when she had made her peace with the place. She hadn't grown up here, but she had visited this enough for it to be in her already-fading memories of her father.

Her laptop, digital planner, notebooks, sample photographs, and a dozen other things that she'd been working on laid all around her, a strange makeshift work cell that continued to hum and buzz.

But her phone rang, and after a few moments of imagining that she was faraway and elsewhere, she picked up to return his greeting.

"Where are you now?"

"Just at my old flat, getting stuff." She told Athrun. "There was a little kerfuffle at the office earlier, so I thought I better deal with it this evening than wait tomorrow morning. I'm still at my place, just finishing up."

"Is everything -"

"Oi, Cagalli! Hiiiiiii! Hiiiiiiiiii!"

"Dearka says hi." Athrun informed, interrupted but passing on the message in a far calmer voice than his friend's in the background, despite his slight panting. "We're actually at the gym - he somehow manages to lift a dumbbell with one hand and text with the other. Client updates and all that."

"You lovebirds can't even go without calling each other up every day or what?" Dearka hollered.

"Say hi back to him for me." she chuckled. "And tell him to bugger off. What's up?"

"Hi Dearka. Bugger off, Dearka. Nothing much, usual workout. But one of my cases is heading for a settlement, so I think I'll try to work out the final details in the settlement agreement tonight."

She heard him pause, breathless, and could hear loud beats blaring in the background and the sounds of whirring. He was probably still on the gym's treadmill near his office, she guessed.

"Everything okay? I just thought I'd call."

"All good." It was good enough, and that was all that mattered to her.

He said nothing to her reply, but she had grown so used to his silences and the crests and falls of his moods that she understood he was being hesitant and afraid of asking too much. She had wondered about the same with him too. He always seemed a bit unwilling to speak about his background, as if it were something rude to talk about.

"Working late?" She said, and then laughed, because she already knew the answer.

"Should be, but I can come fetch you. Do you have lots of things to bring back?"

She sat up, brushing off the grass. "Nah, don't bother. I'm just going to wander back to your place to drop off the stuff first, maybe I'll join some friends for a drink. They're going to Vestige's opening tonight."

"Still on duty?"

"Nah, we already have a freelance writer covering this opening, which I'm due to edit in a few weeks, but the gallery offered some of us a special entrance tour. I should put in a bit more effort about these things - y'know, get my face beat, dolled up, schmooze, network, the whole jazz."

He laughed. "You should. I enjoy it when you do. Maybe I'll rush out the draft and goof up the settlement, just so I can pass by the gallery to ogle at you."

"Take a picture, it'll last longer. But I doubt I'll stay out as long as you." She said, getting up to stretch a little. "There's food in the fridge if you get back before I do. Don't go hungry when you get back to the office."

"Thanks. You too, make sure to grab a bite." She could hear him smiling, even though she knew that it must have been very slightly. The machine noises where he was grew again, and he must have turned up the intensity of his exercise.

Just a few days ago, they'd sent out the reply to the settlement offer, proposing certain dates for face-to-face negotiations if need be. He had been so calm, so sure, and she could understand why it was a calling of sorts for him to be a lawyer, and to run his own firm.

She had cleaned his drawers the other week, and she'd gone through a bunch of receipts and seen his anonymous donations through some friends. There had also been handwritten notes from troubled youths in homes, writing to their mentor-buddy, and his notes of encouragement and often startlingly sympathetic advice in reply.

She hadn't told him that she'd seen those or touched anything too obviously to reveal her presence, but everyday, she was discovering more about him, despite his efforts not to say anything or reveal too much about more than where he was in the present.

He was difficult to understand, in many ways, and he never really offered to speak about his family and the mother that Kira told her had deceased. For all his appreciation of photographs and colours and the graphic, visual things that she shared with him from work, he had no images of his family anywhere in the apartment.

"I was thinking." Athrun was saying. "I could drive by where you are to fetch you, if you want to stay out for drinks with your pals."

The sky was getting quite dark, she thought distractedly, and it was just as well that she headed back to the inner rings of the city, where her friends were, where the action and brightest lights were, and where his apartment was, holding most of her things with him.

It all seemed too fast, too much, to have moved in with him. Enough of her friends had broken their hearts for Cagalli to learn vicariously that all this was too risky - she had enough common sense to know that in her situation, she oughtn't to have have thrown in her emotions and her past in the mix, but then she already had. He wasn't just an attractive man working on developing his already bright future and just looking for a bit of fun like she had been; he was somebody she had, against her better sense, fallen for.

There was something about him, something so rare and difficult, but wonderful and good, and she bit her lip hard, still hearing him breathe on the other end, wanting to be deserving of all this.

It was so unfair, that people had become so afraid of saying or hearing it, when it was simply what it was. Just because there was no guarantee, or just because there was no promise of permanence, people became afraid, and so was she, for all her bravado. But she knew what it was - Cagalli had known it some time back.

"I love you." She said suddenly, all in a rush, her last secret told.

It was all off and wrong. It shouldn't have been that way; not the place where she was saying it; the place that he was in; the way she could hear some hip-hop beat in the background of the gym; the way she could almost feel him go silent. She had wanted to be alone with him first; maybe after he laid all his cards on the table first; after she felt that he was ready first. But then she hadn't been able to wait.

"I really, really do." She bit her lip, both exhilarated and ashamed by her sincerity and vulnerability. "I just wanted you to know."

But he said, loudly and clearly, over the background, "I do too."

One of Patrick Zala's reasons for success was that he could get by with very little sleep.

He was almost notorious for sending out emails and messages at any time of the day, and was responsive to a fault. Another reason, which a few close and select friends knew about, was that he suffered from terrible insomnia and was often plagued by dreams about his late wife.

Over the years, some had advised him to find somebody and remarry, but Patrick often told them brusquely that he had no time for such things. He did not even bother hanging some obscenely-young, beautiful woman off his arm at dinner functions like many of his other peers and business associates. Patrick did not care, and he had tried to, but found genuinely no romantic affection for any other person.

But he had time. He had too much time, in fact. And so he continued to trade his time and to fill his life with the things that he had left - his businesses, the financial power that Genesis Corporation had; the share values that increased year after year even in rough times; the balances in the bank account. He didn't have very much left, anyway.

He should have turned in at least an hour ago, as his doctor had advised. After all, he wasn't exactly getting younger, even if he was extremely careful about his diet and fitness.

But as he laid in bed, trying to fall asleep as was a typical occurrence, he knew he was also not committed to the act. He was not willing to put away his personal planner and mobile, which buzzed from time to time with updates from business associates, accountants, venture capitalists, investment advisors, and subordinates who answered to him, in different time-zones, in different places, scattered all over the Cosmic Galaxy. He was the head of an empire, and yet, he had been cursed with a micro-managing personality.

Locked in his bottom bedside drawer were a few photographs. While having doubled his already-sizeable fortune by investing and acquiring businesses that generated ground-breaking drug and technical patent after patent, Patrick was old-fashioned in that he hated digital photographs and holograms and whatever new-fangled spin people were adding to cameras.

Lenore had laughed at him back in the day, calling him an old fogey, but then he had insisted on buying and using an old-fashioned polaroid camera. With that camera, he had taken photographs of her and their baby son, once upon a time. In fact, there had been an entire album of them at some point, and Patrick had carried it around with him, no matter which city or space colony or earth territory he went to. Now, it was locked up in a drawer, a compilation of memories that Patrick tried every night to keep at bay.

Some memories were a bit faded. There were flashes of that feeling whenever Patrick closed his eyes - that breath-taking, choking, painful, but wonderful feeling of Lenore in his arms, laughing at something he'd said, or those times when he said something and made her cry those angry, streaming tears, or the way she'd squirmed when he'd kissed her stretch marks after their son's birth and told her not to be self-conscious, because he loved those.

And then sometimes, he could remember a little boy, whose eyes were so, so green, and the sensation of the smallest hands in his much rougher ones; the sound of a record playing and his son asking him to sing again. There were some memories too, with a boy - a man - shouting something back at him, that terrible, terrible look of hatred in those green eyes; the slamming of a door; his son leaving the house. Mostly, there were ghosts.

Those pictures in that album, locked away in a drawer, were likely the only photographs of his family. Patrick's parents, who had passed away a long, long time ago, had been publicly-recognised and photographed figures in the financial world, but Patrick had not wished that on his wife and child.

Fiercely protective of his family's privacy, despite Patrick's standing in the financial world and Genesis Corporation's fame, he had never allowed media attention to focus on their family. Whilst Patrick was frequently in the public eye about his corporate affairs and had always been; he was equally sure to ensure that his family was not, because Lenore hated the idea of hanging off his arm at social and business dinners.

There had been no real reason for his family to be in the media attention anyway. Lenore was an academic, a sociologist by training. Had she not met him and married into a privileged family and wealth, she would have been teaching and stayed on in some university in Coppernicus. But she had married him, and she would never have to work a day in her life.

Still, she had hated the glittering, society events that he often had to attend for business, and he accepted that she didn't like attending and being part of high society. Instead, she had focused on charitable organisations and quietly done her volunteer work without any fanfare or publicity for Genesis Corporation, despite his suggestion that she do more to put herself forward.

And Patrick had always been busy; he continued to be, growing busier and busier with an inheritance that he prided himself on progressing, and suddenly, Athrun was five, then ten, and he wasn't a clumsy, gurgling tyke anymore, but somebody who apparently listened to music that was on television and had posters of bands that Patrick hadn't really heard of, but could have bought the concert tickets of with a snap of his fingers.

Lenore had managed their household well, as well as shifting to wherever Patrick was supposed to be based each time, usually three months behind him. Looking back, their fights and quarrels should have made him stop, but they had usually patched up because she was extraordinarily understanding, and Patrick had taken advantage of her patience. Year after year, Patrick had told himself that the next year, he would kick back and let someone else manage more, instead of him.

But there were the developments in this and that, and there were emergencies with the businesses with supply shocks, and then there were issues with factories and acquisitions of assets. There were the family vacations that Patrick had to cut short, year after year, and Lenore and Athrun would carry on as per usual. That seemed all fine and dandy, because Lenore could manage, and Athrun seemed well-behaved enough.

And then one day, Patrick had looked back and wondered when his son had grown taller; started running faster and taking on his mother's demeanour and quiet strength. There had been a day when Patrick flew to the latest city that he had relocated his family to for business, already preparing to fly off to another, and Athrun had suddenly turned into a youth, more serious and quiet than the child that Patrick had tossed into the air and ruffled the hair of. In the boy's place, there had been a lanky, slim man-boy whose features were becoming sharper; a person who smiled at him politely, never really asked about the business that Patrick had been on, and never really said anything about what was going on in school, even though the report cards showed that the grades were consistently good.

And then suddenly, Lenore was gone.

Patrick closed his eyes, trying to focus on the present. That was the least he could do, because that was the only thing that he could do.

His mobile continued buzzing. As he opened his eyes, trying to breathe evenly, he nonetheless reached for the mobile to check the latest emails that had arrived. One had arrived half an hour ago, from Ezalia, which was titled differently from the other discussions they'd had about Genesis Motors and the usual business conversations.

Although he had a very good idea as to what it was about and had sworn not to care so that she could manage it, he wasted no time in opening it to read.

At the Vestige Museum, the cocktails were being served at triple time. Backed by a few art trading groups and auction houses, the gallery had opened with a splash - quite literally. There was a giant champagne glass filled with specially-formulated iridescent bubbles and crystals, and multi-coloured fairy-lights strung up everywhere.

It was all very posh and hip, and of course Dawn would have to feature this opening and write all about it in the Lifestyle Leisure section in the next issue. Erica had decided to use a freelance writer for this feature, and so Cagalli had only needed to brief the writer and coordinate the introductions to the right people for the writer to interview. Thereafter, Cagalli would do the first-cut of editing, and Erica would oversee its approval and finalising. It was almost cut-and-dry, in that sense.

Mostly, Cagalli generally avoided attending more than her fair share of public events like these, where there were a hundred cell phones and cameras snapping everywhere, but she had long-ago suspected and confirmed that as long as she kept out of the way, she would never be photographed. She wasn't anyone, not in particular - usually, once she'd found the writer covering the event and did the usual meet-and-greet, handing out her business hologram-card only where absolutely necessary, she would stake a corner, much like this one.

All the other media folk would be covering this too, obviously, but they were looking out for the public figures; the celebrities; socialites; the supermodels; the wannabe-supermodels; the wannabes-turned-influencers or whatever-they-wanted-to-call-themselves. Very few were really looking at the art pieces; not with so many celebrities swanning around.

"Look at her, she's working that chandelier like it's actually a dress."

To prove her point, Julie pointed out a glittering, stunning Meyrin Hawke posing in the distance, surrounded by at least twenty cameras. The model was in a couture slip straight that was entirely made of thousands of tiny crystals strung together and which left nearly nothing to the imagination, but Cagalli supposed it was all very impressive and high-fashion. No doubt, Meyrin was the next-big-thing who had apparently just scored a key part in an upcoming graphic novel-to-screen blockbuster.

Some distance away, a very dishy actor had arrived in a cape and was holding some form of walking stick, which he had clearly and absolutely no need for. Another was wearing a tuxedo with cut-outs at the back, and a pop singer was wearing some sort of disturbingly glossy, nude rubber body-con dress.

"You know." Cagalli mumbled. "Some of this is really, really questionable. I don't know how my freelancer for this article can focus on the art pieces and this gallery when the fashion stakes are getting so ridiculous in here."

Considering that this was an art museum gallery opening rather than the premier night of some blockbuster, there were a startling number of celebrities. However, the group of her colleagues-cum-girlfriends were nothing if not self-entertaining, and they were having a real hoot while trying to remain fairly dignified at their standing table in some corner.

"Honestly, guys, style's just a game." Milly said, shaking her head. She fished out her glittery unicorn cocktail fascinator, discarding it on a napkin without a second glance at its supposedly branded-collaboration stamp. "It's just about the 'tood."

She was scanning the other tables too, then nodded politely to someone she spotted in the distance. People, like Milly and Cagalli, were usually targets for the aspiring, ambitious models and designers and whoever else who wanted to launch their careers in the most important fashion publication, and so they continued to huddle at their safe table, acting as if they were extremely exclusive to people who did not already know them.

"Some trends really should stay dead." Julie conceded, still casting a critical eye over the celebrities and crowd. "I never liked peplums, it just made my hips look ginormous."

"Just think of it as fun while it lasts, since it's part of the deal." Milly advised. She swigged her pink guava pina colada down all too quickly, and fished a peach Bellini like a pro from a waiter who drifted by. "The models have to act like it's totally normal to be wearing crazy shit, and the photographers and videographers then act as if it's normal too."

"Yeah, remember that trend when people were wearing their underwear as shirts under their blazers?"

"Punishing the un-young and the un-skinny." Mayura grumbled, never giving up on her latest fashion-activist cause, despite being young, skinny, and in Cagalli's sincere opinion, extremely pretty and attractive. She munched loudly and deliberately on a gluten-free mini-taco with organic avocado stuffing, making an indignant face. "You know that rubbish was becoming borderline indecent on the streets; those celebrities just did it to show off their core and ab work outside the gym, and then our poor young kids started trying to starve themselves to do the same."

"Oh come on!" Julie protested. She shook her head vehemently. "Let's try to avoid such deep issues, okay? I don't want to get possibly guilty about the social impact of our so-called beauty standards and what we're doing to people's perception of beauty, et cetera. Fashion's supposed to be fun, and I mostly like my job, don't ruin it for me!"

"Yes, well, if we thought about it really deeply, we'd be flabbergasted. You know Natarle affirms and endorses loads of questionable trends." Milly pointed out. She had already thrown out her drink's artistically-arranged orchid and sage garnish with little to no fanfare, because Milly was all about substance.

"No shit." Cagalli snorted, turning her eyes back to her friends from the celebrity-driven activities. She stirred her own Kahlua cocktail and shook her head. "Remember that stressful period when Fashion Accessories and Hair Makeup were jostling for that issue's cover and centre-fold space? If I recall correctly, it was the bra-as-a-shirt trend, versus feather-print eyeshadow and colour-changing lipstick. I guess abs were the real winners in the end."

"My dears." Milly said pertly. "Let's not act like Fashion Accessories and Hair Makeup aren't always jostling for cover and centre-fold space. You know Clotho and Shani hate-hate-hate each other too. They keep screaming at each other, and their teams are encouraged to act like they're rivals, not part of the same damn publication."

"True that. Boy, I dunno how I'd deal if I weren't based in the Lifestyle Leisure department." Cagalli agreed. "Erica is a saint, versus the other departments' Head Editors."

"So for the next destination feature, where's it gonna be?" Milly asked.

"Erica's deciding between Scandinavia or Formosa." Cagalli confided.

Mayura perked up. "Any chance of you travelling for this one?"

"Maybe - I'm pretty sure Erica can't travel with the baby in third trimester at that time. But it'll be a week at the very most, if at all. She might not want me to write this feature; it all depends. I'll probably need to travel more, since Erica can't for the upcoming months."

Milly stared. "Athrun's okay with that, right? I mean, they're all short trips, I'm sure, but I know that if Erica is going to go on maternity leave, she might take the chance to promote you to Deputy Head Editor, Cagalli. Then you'll have to travel for months at an end to all those featured destinations, and work remotely."

"Er-" Cagalli scratched her head, suddenly realising that she had never really thought about it, or discussed or travelled while being in a relationship - not that she had ever admitted or actively decided to be in one the way things had somehow developed with Athrun.

In college, one of her dormitory mates had kissed her at a party, and she'd kissed back, mostly drunk, but sufficiently attracted to him. Then they'd made out and took it all the way for the heck of it. Looking back, it had been a silly way to learn about how vulnerable people could be about these things. But they'd both been young and reckless and they tiptoed around the relationship status conversation for two months, never talking about the future or what they wanted, before they had a fight about something petty or the other, and then he'd moved to a different dormitory and neither made any effort to catch up.

And there had been a few others like that, shortly before graduation, and then Cagalli had returned to Heliopolis without telling him and she was pretty sure there was no loss one way or another. She had thrown herself into work upon coming back to Heliopolis and meeting Erica, and only now did it occur to her that she was in blue-ocean territory with Athrun.

Milly watched her with sharp, hawk-eyes, and Cagalli hastened to say, "I haven't discussed that yet - hadn't really thought about it, actually. I guess we'll see how it works, if there's any long-term travel."

She chewed her lip, thinking about their upcoming meeting with Genesis Motors' lawyers.

She had promised to give Athrun an answer about what she wanted to do with the Orb legacy after the dispute with Genesis Motors was settled. It was just as well - she had read and taken some time to consider the points that he'd typed out, and his conclusions arrived at with whatever information she could recall, or direct him to.

His conclusions were startling and frightening, and it was difficult for her to confront the specter of what she'd done with her father's legacy. While Cagalli had harboured her plans regarding the eight percent of Orb shares held in a trust, Athrun's suggestions that she pursue a re-opening of a long-closed court case, and that she haul Unato Seiran and his wife to court for a very public suit, seemed to go far and beyond her plans. She wasn't even sure if she could ever be prepared for that, and to reclaim her last name and what it meant in terms of Orb.

And through all of this, what would become of her relationship with him? Athrun had offered to represent her as a lawyer, but she was well aware that if he got tired of her at any point and for any reason, he could jolly well walk out.

And then what? Would she be left with a very public court case that she wasn't sure she had the energy and determination to fight?

What would become of Cagalli Yula, the independent, mostly-secure employee at Dawn; the person that she had worked so hard to become without having any association with the Atha legacy, and the same person who had pride in her work, significant success, and most importantly, a fair level of self-acceptance?

Then what of her love for him, that she had only just admitted to and professed, the same love that she knew was growing deeper and deeper? What then, because she had invested so much and wanted him to in return?

She blinked, because she had no answers. She tried to look at Milly straight in the eye, trying to find something else to say.

"Guys, guys." Julie whined, overwhelmed by everything else. "The food platter guy keeps avoiding us, I keep wanting him to come around, he keeps ignoring me."

"He's trying to get an eyeful of the celebrities." Mayura pointed out, also distracted and thankfully missing the tension between Milly and Cagalli. "But tough, the wall of cameras got there first."

"I wanna follow up on this." Milly hissed, and Cagalli nodded numbly, holding up a pinkie, which Milly took and shook.

With the fifty-or-so standing tables like theirs and the celebrity-driven chaos a safe distance away, Cagalli was mostly left to observe. Personally, Cagalli liked partying enough to have a social life within Dawn, but attending parties for work had taken the joy out of them, and she usually found herself happy to sip from a corner and watch all the celebrity buzz from a safe distance, idly scanning once in a while for people that she recognised from time to time. As such, she occupied herself with catching up with her colleagues, and scribbling down notes on the event from time to time, in case she had to check anything back with the writer hired for this piece.

For this evening, it was clear that the event had successfully attracted the right crowd and people-of-note. People were dressed smartly, in the latest trends that -of course!- Dawn had covered the issue before.

"Fringe is well and truly back." Mayura said disgustedly, only loud enough to be heard slightly over the house music and celebrity shebangs. She curled her perfect dark-plum matte lip and adjusted her modish-goth blazer pointedly, emphasising its stern, boasting lines and the razor-sharp tailoring. Every gleaming zip had probably been aligned to an OCD's satisfaction, Cagalli observed. "I mean, look at it! The vest fringe, the boot fringe, the pant fringe, the bag fringe, the bead fringe, the fringe fringe. Messy!"

"Fringe can be nice!" Julie protested. "I like the movement and the dimension that it gives! I think fringe adds that bohemian vibe, no?"

In contrast with Mayura's current aesthetic, Julie had on an abstract, watercolour-splash silk pantsuit that Cagalli vaguely recognised as the latest Sping/Summer collection from High Colour Mighty, otherwise known to the world as HCM. HCM was one of those luxury fashion labels that would have been convincingly free-spirited and indie-chic, but for its million-dollar stake in the fashion industry, and Cagalli could see why Mayura, who had gone to art school, favoured the silhouettes most frequently spotted at somewhat-decried music festivals.

"Boho is hobo." Mayura argued. "It only looks good on the young and beautiful, because only the young and beautiful can afford to work the homeless-look. I personally think that we shouldn't be encouraging ageist trends like that - fashion should be more accessible! Cagalli, are you on the fringe, or not?"

"Ambivalent, since I'm not Natarle who's paid to decide these things." Cagalli told them. "Also, I haven't really been convinced about the er- fringe benefits."

She waggled her eyebrows to cue their laughter, and they all took the bait and chortled, despite having rolled their eyes and groaned at first.

Mayura poked her in the arm in retaliation. "See exhibit A for the most blasé fashion magazine assistant editor to have existed, ever. You work in Dawn! You have access to all the designer pieces for loan, stop acting like you're above it all, dammit! At least pick out something from the loan rack for these things; you know Mana Royfield is always side-eyeing you and offering you stuff from that rack as a veiled insult! And shit pun, by the way."

"Hey, it was a legit pun, please. And I'm not above it all, I did pick out something from the Dawn rack for tonight!" Cagalli protested. She gestured at her attire. "With Mana's eventual blessing too, I'll have you know, despite how I'm gonna regret all of this in two hours when I have to pee."

The piece that Cagalli had gone with was a sleeveless emerald jumpsuit with a graffiti wall print on the pant sides as asymmetrical borders. It would, no doubt, cause her a fair bit of grief in the bathroom, but she had managed to pace her cocktail intake quite successfully for the past two hours.

"Did Mana suggest this to you at first instance?" Milly said interestedly. "Or did you pick this out and did she then throw shade at you?

"When does Mana not?" Cagalli grinned. Mana was one of the most senior key stylists in the Fashion Accessories department and about the only plus-sized employee in that hyper-critical, image-conscious division, but she had a larger-than-life personality, brutal tongue, and an infamously-sharp eye for colour and cut. Even Clotho Buer, her notoriously argumentative and aggressive department head, was terrified of and respected her. Mana was also the main person in charge of sorting the loan rack which fashion houses submitted their samples for Dawn's consideration, and she regularly-nagged Cagalli's lack of deference towards trends.

"It was part of Mana's short-listed rack for the pop-art, street-style trend that we're featuring in the upcoming issue. But when I swooped on it, she slammed it as being borderline boring for an evening like this. Then when I refused her other selections, she said she'd give her blessing if I amped up the eyeliner and took the stainless steel jewellery, which I did."

"Oh, Mana knows what she's talking about." Mayura beamed, looking at the results of Mana's insistence with approval.

Cagalli laughed, shrugging and thinking about Mana's dramatic, but well-meaning ways. "Yeah well, she first tried to pick out a super-sheer, blingey dress for me, because sheer is coming back in trend with fringe - not necessarily, together, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I wasn't having any of it - sheer is not my style, and I also prefer to wear underwear."

"Yeah, I dunno, maybe you should check with that Athrun of yours, he might have an opinion about sheer clothing when you're wearing it." Milly said, keeping her face admirably straight. "Look, why don't I go to Meyrin Hawke and see if she can get the designer to loan us that outfit at Dawn? She does owe us one for launching the limelight on her - maybe she could hook you up in that outfit herself. Then you can wear that sheer stuff home and ask Athrun for an opinion on the sheer trend."

All of them burst out laughing, and Cagalli said ruefully, "You'd be surprised - Athrun doesn't issue opinions unless he's paid to look into the issue and to deal with the research."

"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure your man would be happy to give an opinion about a sheer dress pro bono." Milly shot back. "After he's looked at the issue and dealt with the research. And you know what, if you think he's not being vocal enough about whatever it is you want his views on, you should demand."

"Less gossip about me, please, it's no big deal." Cagalli protested, cheeks colouring thoroughly. Unbidden, the conversation that she'd had with Athrun just hours ago and their unexpected confessions flooded back, and it made her feel tingly and light-headed. At the same time, she wondered about him working in the office while she continued to be here, and she wondered whether he would open up to her more eventually. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. "Anyway, Milly, what's up with you and Dearka?"

"Nothing." Milly dismissed. "We've hung out for lunch, dinner and drinks, the way I'm doing with you guys now, but he's a sideish pal, and a player. Remember I told you guys about that bar incident with Fllay going cray-cray? Anyway, we're just friends - I don't like these overly-slick types with flashy cufflinks who smell of coconut oil!"

"Coconut oil?" Julie said interestedly. "Sounds like you've already sniffed him out. You girls getting action, eh?"

"Like I said." Milly harrumphed. "He's a friend."

Mayura giggled. "Milly - is he the tall, tanned dude with the sideburns and the dimply smile, the one in the suit? I feel like I saw you guys at lunch, last week."

"Yes, I was afraid of that." Milly said. "See, people now think there's something going on, but he's just a random dude and no, we're not together, unlike Miss Yula here with her hot-stuff boyfriend."

They would have continued bitching about work and digging for more dirt, but for the sharply-dressed and fast-approaching Sai Argle. Behind him trailed Kuzzey in a suit that he had managed to wrinkle while following Sai around, and suddenly, their table was crowded.

"Hey ladies!" Sai Argle beamed, looking like a bona fide catch in his tuxedo and signature square-cut glasses.

"Hey Sai." They chimed dutifully. Not for nothing were they somewhat wary of the nice, well-mannered, but very privileged colleague and possibly their future boss, since he was an important stakeholder's heir and the likely future owner of a good chunk of Dawn's shares. For now, he was an employee in the Business Development department at Dawn, but as far as they were all concerned, nobody had ever been rude or mean to Sai, for fear of career-limiting repercussions.

Milly however, had gone to school with Sai and had been his photo-chemicals lab partner. She was in a slightly different and rather fortuitous position, and so she punched him on the arm and said loudly, "Now don't get all lady-killer with these ones, they're all taken, you hear me?"

"You keep trash-talking me, Milly. What's a guy to do?" He laughed genially, unfortunately also setting down his cocktail glass on their table.

"Deal with it." Milly said, thoroughly unsympathetic. "So, any new squeeze, Sai?"

He looked a bit embarrassed. "Er, I'd like to announce that Fllay and I are back together."

"Right, that's nice." Milly said, not really hiding her displeasure, and reaching for another drink. There was an awkward, long-drawn pause, then Milly took in a deep breath and said, "Did I tell you about last week?"

Julie, being an extremely loyal wing-girl to Mayura, pretended to wave to somebody in the distance and quickly excused herself. Mayura immediately followed, but Sai had begun chatting in earnest with Milly about Fllay's latest antics, and did not seem to even notice. Kuzzey just continued to drop each and every attempt that Cagalli made to converse with him, because he was too busy staring at Sai and silently trying to influence Sai's growing shock and disapproval of Fllay's latest tantrum.

"I'm telling you, Sai." Milly was saying bluntly. "She's trouble. She's gorgeous, famous, smart and hot, I get that, but she's also a user - she uses people. All she's concerned about now is landing another cover with Dawn, and I know you're a great guy and all that, and you know I adore you, but you best watch out."

At that point, Cagalli cleared her throat awkwardly, mumbled some excuse about checking in on the writer for the article, and promptly make herself scarce.

While the deejays continued spinning their electronic-funk and pop beats, the LED-chandeliers gleamed from perspex ceilings, casting strange splatters of bright colour on skins and walls. She paused to admire or puzzle over one or two art installments, but mostly drifted along, waving to people that she knew, making no effort to stop for too long.

That was exactly her style, that touch-and-go, not really needing anyone for anything, until she had met Athrun. She had her colleagues and friends, who were mostly in the same circle, but she kept mum about why she had joined Dawn when she was clearly not really interested in fashion.

She had just stayed on and worked, accepting the promotions and raises along the way, keeping her head down as much as possible. The Seirans, she knew, would have jumped at the opportunity to locate her and convince her to sell them the Orb shares held on trust, now that she had come of age. Not that Cagalli would do that over her dead body, but the thought of seeing them made her feel physically ill. She had told Athrun just as much, when he'd asked if she would consider suing them for breach of directors' duties and fraud, amongst other things.

"It's your life, Cagalli." Athrun had told her. "You don't have to go chasing after some skeleton in the closet, although I think you have a fair chance of ventilating that issue and having it sorted properly in court. I want to help you - I started off that way, and that hasn't changed, but you should decide what you prefer. When we're done with the settlement of this private nuisance, you can decide what you want to do next, if at all."

She took in a deep breath, thinking about everything that he'd said, but mostly about him.

A/N: Thanks for sticking it out with me. I'd love to hear from you! Show some love with a review *) it's been Too Long!