Piloting the Justice

Athrun Zala was not as how people always perceived him to be: the lucky soldier with the beautiful fiancée, the admirable son of Patrick Zala, the top elite ZAFT soldier of his consignment… He was far from those things.

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Athrun wasn't always the brave soldier people thought he was.

Growing up as a child, he had often hated wars and killings. He never believed in them, and had often deemed those who fought in it as idiotic beings who just wouldn't be able to solve anything through releasing their triggers. Not long after he graduated from ZAFT's Academy, Athrun had killed a man, his very first. He had shot him – his hands had shook from the power of the weapon, his ears nearly deafened by the sound, his mouth dry, almost able to feel the salty taste of the blood that was pouring from the bullet wound and he watched as the crimson liquid spill onto the white floor. Alarms blared, people screamed, but his scream was the loudest and he never even knew it.

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Athrun hadn't always enjoyed his beautiful fiancée's company.

In the beginning, when they had first met, Athrun couldn't deny the fact that he adored the pink princess named Lacus Clyne. The way she spoke. The way she dressed. The way she smiled. The way she often tilted her head slightly, her expression inquisitive as her serene azure eyes gazed at him. He adored her. He had often watched her, observed her, and saw how she always gave compliments to those around her, even to small details that not even Coordinators would normally notice. And, like everyone else, Athrun noticed at once the magic that Lacus held: what she said, what she dreamed of, were things that she truly and fully meant with all her heart, and he loved her.

But Lacus had been such a gentle soul, and when he joined ZAFT, he found that he could no longer face her. He felt as if he had betrayed her. Those nights when they would enjoy the breeze of the cool, night air, talking of ways the wars could end through talks and understanding, was lost the moment he saw the missile strike Junius Seven. When he became a soldier, when he enlisted in ZAFT, he found that he no longer shared her views. Her talks became unrealistic, her desires became naïve, her dreams became impossible. And he could no longer connect to her as he had before, no matter how much he loved her, no matter how much he cared for her.

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Athrun wasn't always the elite red-uniformed soldier of ZAFT.

Trained and prepared as he was, Athrun was never truly a soldier at heart. Physically, yes. Emotionally, debatable. Spiritually… most unlikely. He did not have that sense of loyalty within him. He had defeated Yzak in everything, yes. That silver-haired Coordinator had often been frustrated in coming second, but Athrun never told Yzak something that he knew the Coordinator would snort at – that he, Athrun Zala, had turned and fled as soon as he saw Kira Yamato staring up at him from the Strike Gundam. That he, Athrun Zala, had been disobeying orders, running away from the enemy, acting nowhere near as how a true elite soldier should have acted.

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Athrun wasn't always as aware of his surroundings as he is trained to be.

He had never noticed when he had fallen in love. Looking back, fifteen years later, he believed that he had most likely fallen in love the moment he saw the courage in the depths of those golden eyes. Eyes that never lied. Eyes like Lacus's, only more fiery and portraying far more emotion than he never thought possible. For he had often looked into the mirror, into his own emerald-green eyes, and he usually saw no emotion there at all. Finding a pair of irises that could show so much feelings in their depths had surprised him, and he thought, after seeing Kira in a mobile suit, he was past being surprised.

But he had met her, had talked to her, had bound her and laughed at her, and now, fifteen years later, he realised that he had been in love the first time he had met her. Even when she sneaked up on him, stealing his gun, nearly pulling the trigger to take his life, he had cared for her. Because she had cried. Because she had courage. She never wanted to kill him. Those emotions in the golden eyes never lied, not even fifteen years later, and it was impossible for him to hate her. If anything, he hated himself for understanding her. A few months later, when they were on the same side of the battlefield, he hugged her and told her how grateful he was that he had met her – that he had seen those eyes and knew he wanted to protect the emotions behind them.

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Athrun wasn't always the special person his best friend always described him to be.

He was like a thin blade of grass, always going with the direction of the wind. One moment he believed his father. The next, he believed Kira. Then, he believed Durandal. And in the end, he believed himself. His indecisiveness often came with his fear of wanting to do what was right. The fear that he might possibly be doing the wrong thing, in which the lives he had taken had been for nothing, was something that he feared more than anything else. He cared for Kira, of course he did. Kira was his brother in everything but blood, and he could never deem that Coordinator his enemy. But in doing so, Nicol had lost his life, and Athrun always wondered what that made him in terms of being a friend.

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Athrun wasn't always the determined soldier he perceived himself to be.

Committing suicide on the battlefield was perhaps the last thing a soldier would even dare think of – the thought simply never crossed their minds. But as Athrun pushed the limit of his Aegis's thrusters to the maximum, his sword clashing and pressing hard against the Strike's, that was exactly what went through his mind. The unendurable pain. The hot, wet tears that streaked down his face. How he could no longer stand it, this battle against the one person he could never kill. But he had to, and he was going to. Because he knew Kira was hurting as well, and the only way to stop both their pain was to kill them both. He would die, and Kira would die with him, and they would finally feel at peace.

He latched the Aegis onto the Strike and he gazed at the interface of his mobile suit one last time, spotting the pilot he wanted to save and kill, and punched the codes to destruct the once-crimson mobile suit. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was disbelief. Maybe it was the slightest shred of hope he had left in his broken soul, hope that they could still remain in the world without fighting each other, but he ejected himself and never knew why.

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Athrun hadn't always been as certain as he wanted to be.

He thought he knew why he had killed Kira, but then, faced with those eyes that never lied, he finally discovered that he never knew after all. He had been commanded to pull the trigger, and he did. He was informed who his enemies were, and he obeyed. But that damned girl was there when he woke up, and she had forced him into the real world of reality where emotions could never lie… and he had cried. Right there, right in front of her, he sobbed, and wished so desperately that she was hugging him instead of shouting at him.

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Athrun hadn't always understood the intentions of those around him, as he thought he might have.

He had been given a mobile suit named the Justice. To him, it had been a mocking name, for he was the last person who could even begin to see to justice, especially when he remembered what had happened to Nicol. But he had never understood Lacus's true intentions, or even the irony of what he had been given – that the actual meaning behind giving him something called Justice was to remind himself to be fair and reasonable not just to those around him, but also to himself, whom he cared about the least.

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Athrun hadn't always been the admirable son he was distinguished to be.

He had searched for his father in the GENESIS, had wanted that one last chance of being the son he truly wanted to be… but seeing his father's floating body, rushing to him, taking him in his arms, he had been unable to even grant his father's last dying wish, which was to fire the weapons and protect the Coordinators.

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Athrun hadn't always trusted himself as much as the others did.

He had no right carrying the 'Zala' name. He refused his father's dying wish. He hadn't been able to protect his kind and peace-loving mother. So he ran, ran far, from himself, from PLANTs, and he became known as Alex Dino instead. He never trusted himself to fight again, not in a mobile suit… he could not bring to put the faith in himself that he would do the 'right' thing. But if there was anything he did trust, it was his feelings that, as either Athrun Zala or Alex Dino, he would be saved as long as he remained near to one specific golden-haired princess.

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Athrun wasn't always the romantic most girls fantasized he would be.

He was a fighter at heart – perhaps not a soldier who followed orders without fail, but he was a combatant. He had joined the second war for many reasons, and one of the reasons, one of the main reasons, was so he could protect her. He wanted to protect her so much that he eventually lost himself. After the war, when he returned to her, he honestly told her that he had fought because he wanted to protect her.

He had often heard of those tales where women swooned over their knights in shining armour. He had often heard of those supposedly 'romantic' tales where women gushed at how their lovers were protecting them.

He hadn't expected a full-blown punch to the jaw, then being called an idiot, as she hugged him and cried and cursed at him… He supposed she probably had different ideas in romance as those other silly girls did.

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Athrun wasn't always as collected as he wished he could be.

So many years after the final war, he had fingered the engagement ring stored in his pocket, tugging at his collar and breathing deeply several times. He had killed many people, but this was foreign to him, and he didn't like it. He watched her, talking only-God-knows-what with that brusque tone of hers, signalling her annoyance at whatever it was that was bothering her – it wasn't that he didn't want to listen… he just couldn't, under the circumstances. So he cursed at himself inwardly when the question just blurted itself out of his mouth, and he kicked at himself inwardly when she stopped her rants and stared at him, wide-eyed.

She asked him to repeat.

He did, and stumbled on his words, twice.

Then he blushed.

Then he looked away.

Then he finally took the ring out from his pocket.

Then he walked towards her.

Then, finally mustering the lion's courage to look into her golden eyes, he repeated his words, slowly and more calmly this time, and replaced the old ring with the much more fitting engagement ring.

And then, so unlike the gentleman he should be who could catch his to-be bride, he was knocked off his feet and landed on his backside as she threw her arms around him, laughing and crying with tears of happiness.

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Athrun never found himself able to define beauty.

He had 'seen' beauty in so many different ways. He saw beauty through Caridad's cooking, as a child. He saw beauty through his mother's words, when he was older. He saw beauty through Kira's friendship and faith, when they were to part. He saw beauty through Lacus's singing, the first time he heard it. He saw beauty when he stared into those emotion-filled golden orbs, trapped on an island.

But nothing could compare to the beauty of the girl he held in his arms, crying, her golden hair quite long for a newborn, her eyes a shade of emerald-green, like his – for once, he forgot how to really breathe.

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Athrun was never able to fully define that person, that 'Athrun Zala'.

The child slept deeply in his arms and he found himself unable to look away at her serene face, as usual. The light, peach-tinged skin. The soft blonde hair framing her heart-shaped face. Her face, almost a copy-paste of her mother's, except when she would open her eyes where the emerald orbs were obviously inherited from him. Perhaps from the cold, or from some sort of discomfort, she shifted slightly, her body just a little tense, but she soon relaxed and her breathing went steady again. His eyes softened, observing her still. His little angel.

"Athrun," his wife called from behind. He turned, a smile immediately breaking across his handsome face as she joined him, a copy-paste child in her arms, though with midnight blue hair like his, also sleeping. "Are you alright?"

"Ah," he answered, shifting slightly so his daughter could sleep more comfortably. "When will Kira and Lacus be arriving?"

"In ten minutes – Kira just called and said they're on their way," she answered. She sighed heavily. "It's about time they paid a visit. How long as it been, anyway? I'll definitely give Kira an earful for this! He'd better have a good explanation –"

He tuned out, again, not because he didn't want to listen, but because he was so mesmerised. Acting on impulse, his body moved forwards, careful not to disturb either one of the twins, and he pressed his lips firmly on hers, silencing her. She raised her eyebrows, her golden eyes surprised.

He had been through a lot. Wars. Battles. Lost. Found. Tears. Laughter. Hatred. Love. Betrayal. Friendship. Confusion. Relief. He had lost himself too many times, but had found himself again in the strangest of circumstances. But there was one true thing that Athrun knew would never change, no matter who he believed he was, no matter what situation he found himself in;

"I love you, Cagalli."

Athrun Zala was a person who loved, and would always protect, this woman named Cagalli Yula Athha.

Athrun Zala, son of Patrick Zala, was defined as what Cagalli had unconsciously influenced him to be, and for what she had given him... the two beautiful daughters, the family, and the love he could never explain in coherent words.

Author's Notes: This is a very small tribute to my favourite character of the GS/D series, Athrun Zala. I guess this came to me because Renegade is focusing very much on Athrun in the latest chapters, and he's been on my mind constantly, so I had to write this out. I hope you enjoyed it - my first real AsuCaga fic.

Credit for the format and style of this fic goes to puzzlepuzzle with their fic, 'Not always entirely' that focuses on Lacus Clyne - it's on my Favourite Stories, and I definitely recommend you to read, perhaps drop a review behind as well?

In any case, thanks for reading. I have a good mind in writing a more extended AsuCaga fic after Renegade, but I'm still undecided. Drop a review and give me your thoughts? I'd really appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed this oneshot - have a nice day!