Birthday fic. Obviously, Athrun's POV. Set somewhere between Jachin Due and landing on Earth, so I guess it places it between SEED and Destiny, or, more specifically, between GS and GS: After-Phase Between the Stars.

Please keep in mind that English is not my first language, so be kind and do correct me!

Enjoy! ^^

He was fine.

He didn't know why, couldn't know why, but he somehow managed to keep his self-control in check. He wasn't surprised, though. He didn't know why he actually felt fine, but he did know why he was ready to force himself to be if needed.

Because between minor incidents and morbid peace on the way back to Earth, he watched them.

He had to, it was his duty now that the Justice was destroyed. He watched how absent-minded Lacus had become, how her eyes would always travel to Kira, how her smile was getting emptier and emptier. He watched how Kira cried in his sleep, how he was growing quiet, how he seemed unable to stop his tears in random moments. He watched how often Cagalli lost control of her body in zero-g and had to cling onto his arms for support, how her temper was strangely absent sometimes, how she would cry on Kira's shoulder whenever the inevitable dark topics came up in conversation.

So he had to be fine. It wasn't a choice. He had to be there for them. For God's sake, he was a trained soldier – and a fairly good one, too. The others were not. Though Lacus excelled on her duty as a captain, she had been raised for politics and diplomacy rather than for command and military. Though Kira had the potential to be possibly the strongest pilot ever born, he was a civilian, and therefore, never meant to even see a mobile suit. Though Cagalli was far stronger than most of ZAFT female soldiers, she was a child, an idealist who was way too ready to take things to heart to be called a soldier. As for him, he had been raised to be the leader of whole armies, had been trained by all aces of all fields, had the discipline and calm necessary to forget any painful memories of the war. Yes, it was his duty to protect them now.

He wouldn't fail them. He had failed too many times already.

Lacus shouldn't be that peaceful.

He had made no effort to conclude that – it was just obvious. She had only cried just after what happened on Jachin Due, when a feverish Kira had to be supported by both him and Cagalli in order to make it to his room. On that night, she had hidden her face on her hands and cried briefly, before deciding to keep watch over Kira and sitting by his bed, her hands holding one of his. From what he was told later, she kept that way all night.

After that event, she took cheering everyone up as her responsibility, regardless of how deep was the frown that she often had when she thought no one else was looking.

As for him, he had known her for enough time to see how sensitive she was – if people around her were happy, so would she be. If people were sad, so would she be. And everyone was scared now.

So he started to make sure he would smile whenever she looked at him. Because maybe it would make her feel just a little happier. Or at least less despaired.

"Lacus.", he called once, when things got out of control and she could be found sitting quietly by a CIC station at any given time. No need for a commander right now, Watfield had said, and so she decided to take another function on Eternal. No one had the courage to say that wasn't needed either.

She tilted her head, looking at him.

"We are not going to be attacked right now.", he reassured, "Go spend some time with Kira."

She did. And he was disappointed to see it didn't change the tense line of her shoulders at all.

He wasn't sure why his body kept leading him to the simulators. But he knew it did, and he gladly accepted the idea, spending most of his day achieving higher scores.

7922540, 8145590, 8250927. Not quite enough. He wouldn't let Kira fight again, much less Cagalli, and they did lose La Flaga and Dearka wasn't exactly the most reliable person on the ship. So he had to be able to reach at least three times his current score. If they were attacked, he should be strong enough to fight alone.

And he was growing to find the increasing numbers to be quite a comfort.

Kira was by far the one who was doing worse.

Hearing his sobs was already bad enough, but watching the circles under his eyes get darker and darker was almost scary.

The happy, careless boy he once knew seemed to be completely gone.

So he wasn't surprised to go out of his room in the middle of one night only to see a sleeping Kira sitting by the door. Their rooms were rather far from each other, so he didn't need to ask to know the reason that brought the brown-haired boy to the cold, empty corridor.

"Kira.", he whispered, touching his arm. Purple eyes looked at him, puzzled. "You can't sleep here."

"I know. But it's too lonely there.", came the simple, unrequested explanation.

"I know.", he muttered back, sitting by his side.

He did understand what Kira meant. Not because his own room was also lonely. But because it was full of ghosts.

"Kira, calm down.", he'd say when loud cries filled the room in the middle of the night. "You were sleeping. Calm down, it's safe now. You're not fighting. Not anymore."

On his best days, Kira would just nod, lie down and fall asleep again. On his worst, he would keep screaming – sometimes silently, sometimes so loud that Lacus and Cagalli would storm into the room. On such days, their presence made no difference at all. He couldn't recognize who he was talking to and in fact, he didn't even seem to perceive any of them as his whole body trembled in tears. Cagalli's arms around him wouldn't help at all, and neither would Lacus' songs or the wet towel placed on his forehead in an attempt to make the fever go away. It would be a hellish night for everyone, lasting any time from a few minutes to many hours.

But eventually, he would go back to sleep. And that's why they shared a room.

He could sleep fairly well, providing that Kira would wake him up at least once every night. He didn't have nightmares, he didn't have problems falling asleep, he didn't mind company or lack of thereof. And even if he woke up, he'd sleep again in less than five minutes.

So he didn't really mind when he noticed he kept waking for no reason every 90 minutes.

Cagalli was destroying her body.

Too much coffee, too little rest, too much work, too little food. She was, in short, killing herself. He was sure it was pretty much a matter of days before she'd collapse.

There wasn't much he could do about it besides making sure he always knew where she was, doing what and how pale she looked. Generally, the answers would be the same: on Kusanagi, trying to make contact with people related to Orb, paler than yesterday.

By the time they got halfway to Earth, he decided it was too much. He asked Kisaka to take care of Kusanagi, dragged her to the Eternal, gave her more productive tasks and made sure to hand her every meal.

But apparently that still didn't keep her hands from shaking whenever she heard a loud noise.

It was a new habit. She was always by his side, in some way or another. If she wasn't in fact talking to him as they crossed the corridors looking for someone needing help, she would still find him whenever he started to wonder where she could be. Or maybe he was the one always making sure he kept an eye on her.

Either way, the experience he had didn't prevent the mild shock he felt when she stopped in the middle of a phrase, quickly placing a hand on his arm, the other touching her forehead. Her eyes were closed, her lips dry and pale, her hands cold and shaking.

"Are you alright?", he asked, more than just slightly alarmed. It had been happening, lately: his heart would race, his brain would process millions of thoughts in a second, his reflexes would overreact. He knew it was related to what seemed years of carefully constructed fast responses to a threat. It could be very annoying, but he was glad about it now. Or else he would've missed the perfectly real danger she was facing now.

"Yeah.", she said quickly, opening her eyes and fixing them on the end of the corridor, "Just got a little dizzy."

"Should we-"

"No, I'm fine.", she promised, "No need for infirmary."

Her hand left his arm and she took an impulse on the gravity-less space. A small turn and she was facing him with fierce eyes.

"You seem tired.", she stated, her eyes getting strangely sharp.

"Don't change the subject.", he retorted, holding her wrist to keep her from resuming their walk. "Have you been eating?"

"Of course I have!", she snarled back, "You don't give me much choice."

"When did you eat for the last time?", he insisted, subconsciously noticing a small hint of blush that proved she was embarrassed for lying.

"Not so long ago.", she averted her eyes (for no more than a second, but he didn't miss it).

"When?"

"I had breakfast.", she muttered finally, proceeding to proclaim a whole set of reasons. He didn't listen to any of them. Instead, he felt anger building up quickly and clenched his fists.

"Cagalli!", he shouted, trying his best not to go any further than that.

But apparently that was too far already. Her eyes widened and she froze, lips parted as she freed her wrist to place her arm protectively in front of her body. He felt like punching himself. All his plans to keep her well and he forgot that almost every loud sound would send her back to battlefield. On top of that, it was her name – which he had noticed that only lost in bad memories to noises that seemed like explosions. Good job.

He closed his eyes for a second and focused on his breath, trying to calm himself down. A nice skill to have when being on the same team as Yzak. Nicer yet when dealing with a moody Cagalli.

He repeated her name, this time softly, and he could almost hear her breath going back to normal, her shoulders relaxing and her eyes slowly focusing on him.

It was too recent for her to deal with the traumas. He had seen that on younger soldiers. Most likely, it would take at least three months for her to live a fairly common life. That is, if he didn't make things worse. So he waited for a moment before returning to their argument, aware that she was not yet ready to face anger directed to her, rightful or not.

"The breakfast was more than six hours ago.", he said at last, trying to sound friendly, if not caring. Apparently it worked, because he had to try hard not to laugh when she lowered her eyes – the perfect image of a kid being scolded. He just didn't expect he'd be the one to do Kisaka's job. He'd always thought Kira would be the overprotective kind of brother, but so far he was more tender than tough, and so he had been learning how to keep Cagalli's temper from going overboard. A difficult task, but not impossible.

Pleased with the results so far, he took her hand and proceeded to pull her to the opposite direction they had been going.

"You can complain later.", he explained when she looked like she was ready to kill him, "Right now you get to eat before you pass out."

She frowned, but didn't struggle, and he took that as a victory.

And hoped he would win every three hours from this day on.

He had no problems eating. His food was perfectly balanced and he made sure he wouldn't skip any meal if he could help it. Sure, he didn't especially enjoy anything, but he didn't hate it either. And anyway, he wasn't even supposed to like war rations.

Every day on lunch he would calmly eat, put his plate away on the proper place and wait a few minutes before going straight for his new ZAKU for a daily check on its structure and OS.

He had never hated food. So he was quite surprised he'd always throw up as soon as he saw the other damaged mobile suits.

He was fine.

But just because he needed to be.

That's it.

What's wrong with me? I tortured the birthday boy! Well, apparently Athrun can't stop angsting on Seed, Destiny, OVAs, SPs, mangas and anywhere else. So maybe it actually makes some sense.

Oh. I did write this fic before his birthday. I just forgot to post. ^^'

And after angsting myself because I couldn't find a way to make things work out for Athrun, I decided to post it as it is. Maybe someday I can manage to write a Part II so that I can get Cagalli (or maybe Kira?) to fix him. Because I feel really bad about giving a character a problem but not a solution.

Hm… Reviews? What did you guys like? What you couldn't stand? Is my English as impossible to read as I'm sure it is?