Ironically, since I'm writing from a girl's POV here (cue "Cagalli is manly" joke here). XDArbiter GUNDAM wrote:So you shot Murrue and brought in the Destiny Druggies? Gotta say man, you got some Big Brass Ones. I approve.
Yes, after a long time waiting . . . chapter 45. I have not found a consistent posting date for the fic yet, but I hope to find one soon and get the fic moving to the end of part 2.
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Chapter Forty-Five: Sweet Emotion
"Okay," Kuzzey said to me the next day. "Did you just turn lesbian all of a sudden or what?"
That would be marginally amusing if five other men hadn't told me the exact same thing before I approached my friends with Stellar right next to me.
"No, I haven't," I replied. "Don't be a wise guy right now."
"Why won't anyone tell me what a 'lesbian' is?" Stellar asked me.
"Don't worry about it," I said. I was getting used to what I was feeling, it was like my emotions could be moved around myself like an invisible aura I could control. I could send Stellar the feelings of reassurance without having to say anything at all.
"I'm honestly kinda shocked she's up and moving so soon. I heard she was dying," Miriallia said.
"Dying?" Stellar gasped. Oh, not again.
I squeezed Stellar's hand, just a little, and she calmed down when I sent her more reassuring feelings. It was going to take a lot of work to get Stellar to overcome this problem of hers. I could tell already.
"Please don't say that word around Stellar," I said. "She doesn't like it very much."
"Considering her eyes widened to the size of car rims I think that's pretty obvious," Kuzzey replied.
Stellar cocked her head to the side. "Isn't that physically impossible?"
Kuzzey slammed his head into the table he was sitting at. "Don't tell me she can't take a joke."
"Jokes are words, aren't they?" Stellar asked. "How can I take them? It's not like I can hold them in my hand."
It was getting really clear that Stellar didn't have much concept of human conversation. Stellar's weakness was just taking things way too literally, without allowing for any flexibility. This included the concept of death. She could not tolerate the mention of it, because she took it as a threat on her life.
I refused to give her any frustration. Truthfully, with Stellar around, I felt better than I had in weeks. Or even before I crashed into the desert. She was just so happy, nothing could bring her down other than the mention of death. It was infectious. I wasn't going to let anyone take her happiness away, or take mine away either.
"Stellar," I said. "There's a lot that you're gonna have to learn about the world outside that facility. We're going to be teaching you how to interact with people."
"'We'?" Miriallia asked. "Who's this 'we'?"
"You guys!" I said cheerfully.
They all stared at me blankly. Finally, Kuzzey raised his hand. "Not it."
"Come on! It's not like Stellar's gonna hurt anybody! Just don't mention the 'd' word and everything will go fine!" I said.
"Yeah . . . that's gonna be hard, considering we're on a warship and stuff," Kuzzey said.
"I think Kuzzey is pretty much right on this one," Tolle added, making my heart sink. "We . . . we don't have any clue what's going on here. Including why you two are suddenly attached to each other."
How . . . how could I explain this to them? That whatever Stellar had done to me, it had stopped her from dying? That she needed someone to bond to in order to live? And, in a way, it felt like she had saved me too. I don't know what was happening to me before Stellar did . . . did whatever she did, but I was beginning to fall apart, that much I was pretty sure of. I felt like my old self all of a sudden, with Stellar looming right next to me, the warmth I was feeling soothing all of my internal pain.
But if I said that to them, that would just isolate them from me, because . . . because they would think I was not like them anymore. And that wasn't true. Something got added to me, sure, but it wasn't like I've turned into some creature or angel or demon all of a sudden. I was still human. A Coordinator, sure, plus whatever Stellar did to me, but still a human being!
So I did the only thing I could do. Evade the details. "It was how I saved Stellar's life. It's . . . it's hard to explain, especially without the 'd' word, but if I didn't bond with her, she was in danger."
"Are . . . are you talking about-"
I stopped Stellar before she said "die" or "death" on her own accord and freak herself out. "No, I'm not. It's okay. It's just hard to explain."
"Oh." Stellar gave me the confused puppy expression again. "I don't see what's so hard."
How could I make her understand that I don't want to freak out my friends without saying that? I knew I should've rehearsed this with Stellar beforehand, but I had been walking on air since it happened. I just didn't account for it.
And I knew there had to be a catch with this, too. I just didn't know what it was, yet, being like Stellar, Auel, and Sting with this ESP-type of ability, being a "new type of human being". The catch of being a Coordinator was that many Coordinators had trouble having children with each other, particularly second and third-generation Coordinators. You could be effectively sterile, and the only way to have children was with a Natural if at all. The resulting child would still be a Coordinator, but Coordinators of a Coordinator/Natural couple tended to be looked down upon in PLANT society.
But there's no way this ESP didn't come without a catch. Auel and Stellar had tenuous grips on sanity, and Sting, while he seemed sane, was sardonic and cynical. It's true that the brutal conditioning and survival battles of the Extended program probably were the cause, but ESP can't really help. I was thinking that you could feel your friend's agony as he or she died. That was what I was afraid of.
If I concentrated, I could feel my friends. It wasn't like with Stellar, what I sensed wasn't as strong, probably because they were normal and hadn't had Stellar effectively transforming their brains or whatever she did. As I sensed them, I felt a brief wave of envy wash over me. I still wanted to be like them. I was afraid I had crossed some sort of road from where they were, and the barrier was one-way, I could not return, I could only make them come with me.
Realizing that brought thoughts of mind-control and zombie apocalypse to my mind and I squashed the thoughts. I wasn't going to do any "converting". And if Stellar could do it to anyone else, not just to the person she was bonding with, I wasn't going to let her. I had been altered against my will, and that was enough.
"Stellar, please. Let's have this conversation some other time," I said.
Stellar nodded, smiling. "Okay!"
I finally let go of her hand and walked over to the others. Kuzzey and Sai both seemed to tense up, and I did the mature thing: I made a face at them and put my hands in zombie-limp mode. "Booga booga, gimme your brains."
Kuzzey laughed nervously, Sai just frowned. "It's not funny, Cagalli."
"God, tough crowd." I look at Miriallia and Tolle, and both also looked uneasy.
"Look, it's not like I've been assimilated into something or another and I'm suddenly gonna turn into a hideous monster and assimilate you guys too after eatin' ya or something gross. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm getting some slop to eat before I see Elle, okay?"
"Why do you wanna eat slop?" Stellar asked.
"I'm making a sarcastic joke, Stellar. I'm am definitely gotta help you with that," I replied.
"I don't want help with 'sarcasm'. Sarcasm seems mean," Stellar said innocently.
"Just . . . just come with me. You clearly need help in the social skills department." I grabbed her by the arm and led her to the small line of crew waiting to be served.
I just faintly heard Kuzzey. "It's always those who claim they aren't gonna kill us that kill us. Remember that movie-"
Then I heard Tolle. "This isn't a horror movie, Kuzzey. And I know Cagalli."
"Do you?" Miriallia asked. "It's just freaking me out that she's acting like her old self all of a sudden."
"She got rewrote or something. And then she's gonna rewrite us all too," Kuzzey said.
"Listen to yourself, Kuzzey," Tolle groaned.
"You should not have said that," Kuzzey warned. "You'll be next now!"
Even Sai, who was clearly still mad at me judging by what I felt from him, couldn't take that one seriously. "Kuzzey, right now, I'll take old Cagalli even if it seems weird over the Cagalli we've been stuck with since she got rescued from Tassill, okay? Let's just leave it at that."
"You guys can all be assimiliated. She ain't getting me," Kuzzey said with finalty.
"You are aware Cagalli probably heard all of that," Miriallia said.
"You think so?" Kuzzey asked. I look over at Kuzzey just as he turned to look at me.
"Yeah, I did," I reply. "And this is for you, Kuzzey, old buddy, for being so confident in my non-zombieness."
I flipped him off.
Finally, everyone laughed. And I just smiled. Figured it would take a rude gesture to prove my humanity or whatever.
Probably says something about humanity as a whole, but I didn't care. It was nice to not feel alone. It was nice to feel like I wasn't falling apart. Stellar's warmth was like a blanket I could wrap myself in, and it made me feel warm too. Warm and secure and solid as a rock.
As long as I had that, I felt like I could do anything.
And I felt like I could escape the war, too.
***
"This room is getting crowded," Flay groaned as I brought Stellar into my room later that day.
"Look, Elle sleeps with me so it's not like the bed under you is ever used," I replied. "Stellar can sleep under you and Miriallia sleeps above me and Elle like always."
"Why does Elle sleep with you?" Stellar asked.
"Because she's a young girl who feels safer if she sleeps with the person protecting her. She like thinks of me like a big sister," I replied. I hadn't introduced Elle to Stellar yet, I had spent a couple of hours away from Stellar just to prove I didn't have to be stuck to her like glue, and spent those hours with Elle, and felt perfectly fine. So it's not like Stellar or I were going to fall into despair or something just because we were separated. That was nice to know. That wasn't the catch.
"Oh, like she's family?" Stellar asked.
"Exactly," I said. It was hard to bring up what happened to Elle's mother, who had been murdered on this ship, a murder that remained unresolved. I wasn't sure if it was ever going to be resolved. A part of me still thought it was Flay, but last I checked the primary suspect was still Miriallia, whose alibi had come off as suspicious to Natarle Badgiruel. But ultimately there was just no way to prove who had done it. There wasn't even a motive.
"She doesn't have a mother or father waiting for her when we get back home," I said, hoping to both lessen the blow for Stellar and also trying to avoid saying one of the dreaded "d" words. "I promised her I would take care of her until we make it back home, and then I hope my parents will take over. They're nice people. I'm sure they won't mind adopting Elle. They adopted me after all."
Thinking of my parents brought hope to me. After everything, we were almost to Orb. Just a week or so away, maybe, if no one else attacked us. Finally, I was going to make it back home. And . . .
I wanted to see them so much. They were my parents. They were the ones who loved me, and I was going to love them too. I just hoped they didn't mind me bringing Elle and Stellar along.
Elle and Stellar? That was right, I had two people attached to me somehow. And Stellar was psychologically damaged too.
Just to drive my thoughts register even more, Stellar voiced what I had been thinking. "Do you think your parents could adopt me too? I . . . I'd like to have a family."
"Spare me," Flay groaned from her bunk.
I knew why Flay was saying that. It wasn't like she had any family to come home too. I wouldn't be surprised if she went right to the Orb military after coming home, she had become a pilot and Orb was always needing pilots from what I knew.
I knew I was done with the military and fighting the moment we docked, though. I was going to go right back into college and let the war pass me by like nothing happened. The only proof that this whole thing had happened to me would be my memories and having Elle in my parents' care. Though I was probably going to have to change majors. If the Earth Alliance considered me a war criminal or deserter, I'm not going to be welcome in Earth Alliance territory. That doesn't make international relations exactly a wise major.
But Flay? She had nowhere else to go. The Orb military would take her in a heartbeat. Flay had battle experience, which made her even more valuable. Orb had avoided warfare for so long that the only officials who had fought in war were senior officers. The grunts, most noncommissioned, and the lower-ranked commissoned officers had never fought in war unless they had emigrated from another country.
And they'd want me for the same reason.
I forced myself to ignore Flay and keep my attention focused on Stellar. "We'll see, Stellar, okay? I hope so. You're different than Elle, though."
"I don't understand," Stellar replied.
"Well . . . it's kind of hard to explain," I said.
"I don't want to be alone anymore," Stellar replied. She wasn't crying, her words were coming out firmly, like a declaration. "I want to be part of a family, Cagalli. I want to be safe. Without a family, I don't know if I can be safe."
"Huh," Flay grunted from her bunk. "Kinda odd how you think the same things I do, and you've got a screwed-up head."
Stellar looked at Flay. "What is wrong about what I am asking for? Everything I can remember is death . . ."
She bit her lip. "Death. Death. Death."
"Stellar," I grabbed her and made her face me. "Don't do this to me. You're safe, okay? No one's attacking us, no one's attacking you. Okay?"
"Sorry," Stellar mumbled softly.
"See what I mean that you got a screwed-up head, Stellar? You can't hear those words without freaking out. How can anyone talk to you if they're gonna be scared that you're gonna freak out on them?" Flay asked.
Stellar just looked down. "I don't want to be screwed up. I just want to be safe. Does that make me screwed up?"
Well . . . at least Stellar knew what "screwed up" means. She wasn't completely oblivious to common terms. That was a good start.
"No, it doesn't make you screwed up, Stellar," I replied. "It's the way you're reacting to us using certain words even when you're not in danger."
Stellar bit her lip. "Say them to me."
"Huh?"
"Say them. Say them all. I won't freak out. I won't," Stellar said, her arms trembling.
"Oh, this is gonna be fun," Flay groaned.
"Please," Stellar said, with her piercing brown eyes, similar, yet just a little different from my own. It was truly like gazing at a little sister.
"All right. Die. Death. Dying," I fired right at her.
Stellar's eyes widened, and she grabbed head. "No. No. I'm not . . . I'm not gonna . . ."
"She's gonna blow," Flay said knowingly from the bunk.
"I'm not!" Stellar shouted. "Say them again!"
"Kill. Killing. Death. Die. Dying," I said, watching Stellar beginning to convulse as she backed up towards the closed hallway door, grabbing her head.
"I won't!" Stellar snarled, seemingly at herself. "I can take it! I can take it! I'm safe! I'm not gonna die!"
She fell to her knees, and it became obvious that she was drenched in sweat. "Just words . . . just words . . ."
She looked up at me. "Again."
"Stellar, you're already soaked in sweat. No," I replied.
"Please-"
"Stellar, this is something that needs to be practiced gradually!" I replied. "You can't just get over it in a couple of minutes!"
"Who says I can't?" Stellar asked.
Great. She's turned rebellious on me too. And she wanted to go again. She genuinely wanted to. I could sense her determination. This was all she's going to be thinking about for the next few days, getting past her block words, overriding them so she could stomach to hear them.
This would've been a good thing if I wasn't worried she was going to wind up killing someone, like, say, me, in the process.
Thankfully, at that moment Elle walked inside, Miriallia behind her. "Cagalli?" Elle asked.
"Elle!" I walked over to her. "Thank for keeping an eye on her, Miri. I'm going to introduce her to Stellar right now."
"Stellar?" Elle asked. At the sound of her name, Stellar turned around to look at Elle.
Elle gave Stellar a confused look. "She kinda looks like you, Cagalli, except her hair's a little poofier or something."
Stellar blushed at that. "Everyone says I look like Cagalli."
"Well, you don't sound like Cagalli," Elle says. "Cagalli almost sounds like a guy. You actually sound like a girl."
Gee, thanks, Elle. I thought we were past the point where you'd say I sound like a guy. I brushed it off though, I couldn't lose my temper, especially at Elle, in this moment. Not if I wanted Stellar and Elle to get off on the right foot.
Stellar's blush became a little more obvious. "Uh, thank you? Isn't that what I'm supposed to sound like? I have . . . I have girl stuff-"
"Stellar, too much information," I interrupted. "Anyway, Stellar, this is Elle. She's going to be part of my family soon, I hope."
Stellar looked down at Elle. "Oh wow."
Then a big smile broke out across her face. "So . . . if I become part of your family too, she's going to be like a little sister?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Yay!" Stellar ran up to Elle and picked Elle up, and she began twirling around in a circle, Elle in her arms. "I'm gonna have a family! I'm gonna have a family!"
"Put me dooooooooown!" Elle wailed, clearly dizzy.
Stellar laughed in pure joy as Elle yelled that, and she set Elle down in the next moment. "I want to be your big sister too, Elle! I want to have fun with you and, and . . . I don't know what else!"
"Okay . . ." Elle moaned.
I guessed that it was as good of a start to the relationship as I could've hoped for.
***
"I pray that your pretty little head hasn't ascended to some higher plane of serenity or something," Badgiruel growled at me that night. "I need you ready to fight at a moment's notice. I've let you have most of the day off but tomorrow I need you ready to go. We don't know who's going to come after us or when."
"You're really sure that we're gonna be attacked," La Flaga replied.
"Aren't you?" Badgiruel asked.
"Yeah," La Flaga sighed.
Badgiruel put her hand on the captain's chair. We were meeting on the bridge, all of the commissioned officers, which included Flay, but she had been silent the whole time, just listening, or perhaps pretending to be listening.
"We're deserters now," Badgiruel said. "I'm not going to blame Captain Ramius for what she did. It's clear to me that something evil was happening within that facility. And we have proof of the misdeeds in Stellar Louissier, Auel Neider, and Sting Oakley, not to mention all of the data I procured during the battle."
Her free hand clenched into a fist. "But . . . Captain Ramius' decision means that there will be no survival for us unless we make it to Orb. We cannot surrender, you understand? The Earth Alliance has reinstated the death penalty for deserters. I have no plans on dying until this information is out in the open, when it is impossible for the Earth Alliance to suppress it."
"I'm not sure if regular Earth Alliance is even aware of it," La Flaga said. "It seemed to be Blue Cosmos-related to me."
"Blue Cosmos is absorbing more and more power in the Earth Alliance as we speak," Badgiruel replied. "Soon they could be close to indistinguishable. There's no contemporary comparison, so let me use the best historical one, Blue Cosmos is becoming to the Earth Alliance what the SS became to the National Socialist Party in Germany during World War II in the Anno Domini era."
"The SS?" Flay asked.
"They were a legion of fanatics fighting for their political party and ideology more than for their country," I replied.
"Sounds like the ZAFT with PLANT," Flay replied.
"I know that," Badgiruel replied. "What I'm saying is that the Earth Alliance is starting to go in the same direction. And if they start truly losing the war, they could get desperate."
"They're already getting desperate," I said. "That Extended place is proof that they've been desperate since before the war."
Which was true. The accounts of the three Extended we rescued pretty much said they had been stuck in there for at least a decade or so. This was not something Blue Cosmos thought of overnight. It was something they planned, likely in reaction to something PLANT was doing, and whatever PLANT was doing was in response to something the Earth Alliance was doing. It's just a vicious cycle with everything escalating until something explodes.
Badgiruel glares at me. She clearly disagrees. "That facility is not 'desperate'. Too much thought was put into it to be 'desperate'. You want to know what 'desperate' is? What we're doing right now, that's what, Lieutenant Yamato. We're just hoping that Orb will provide us with shelter and exile because there's nowhere else for us to go. I don't even think the Junk Guild will take us in."
The Junk Guild was a loosely organized group of vagrants that stripped technology off of fallen machinery and sold it, often on the black market. They weren't necessarily evil, and the enemies they fought most of the time tended to be mercenaries or other members of the Guild. They were mostly annoyances to the Earth Alliance and PLANT, and if a member of the Junk Guild got in either's way he or she was basically swatted like a bug.
And, unfortunately, Badgiruel was right. The Junk Guild wouldn't take us in. We'd attract way too much attention to their organization.
So our only hope, our only chance, was in neutral Orb.
That meant we were desperate. And that Badgiruel was right.
"I want you all ready. We're going to be passing close to the ZAFT Carpentaria base in a couple of days. That will be ZAFT's last, best chance to get us. All of you, be ready for that," Badgiruel said.
Badgiruel sighed then. "I have nothing else to say besides orders. But we're getting too relaxed here and I don't like it. La Flaga, double the hours of Allster's training."
"What?" Flay cried.
"Are you arguing with your superior officer, Ensign?" Badgiruel asked.
Flay stared.
"Until it's officially otherwise, we are still Earth Alliance soldiers," Badgiruel replied. "We may be rogues but we're still part of their military. Don't forget that, Ensign Allster."
Flay looked down, muttering something.
"All right, I'll get on that," La Flaga replied awkwardly, scratching his head.
"Good." Badgiruel looked at me then. "As for you, Lieutenant Yamato . . . I've let you keep your head in the proverbial clouds for far too long. I want you to meet with Petty Officer Athha first thing tomorrow morning and perfect the Strike's O.S. the best you and he possibly can. Our next battle will likely be our last one . . . and possibly be our most vicious, depending on how much ZAFT decides to throw our way."
"Yes, ma'am," I replied. I know better than to argue, especially after seeing Badgiruel put Flay in her place.
"Thank you." Badgiruel turned around and looked outside. "Let's see if we can make it to Orb without anyone else dying."
I could agree with that sentiment.
No one else dies, I thought.
It was a vow I was going to take with me for the rest of my days on this ship, a vow I was going to fulfill.
Even if it meant taking it to my grave.