Chapter Text
Epilogue - Home
After the Foundation conflict, Athrun went back to work.
The need for reliable information, eyes on the ground was never greater for Cagalli, as she forged a path forward in the confused wake left behind by the Accords.
Athrun and Meyrin began a series of rolling short-term missions to survey the impact of the brief, devastating conflict – it was rapid work, moving quickly from location to location, and necessitated close collaboration with the network of Terminal contacts spread across the globe and colonies.
And it meant being away from Orb, again.
He didn't resume sending postcards to Cagalli. For one thing, they were busier than ever, and whatever downtime Athrun and Meyrin used to enjoy was close to non-existent.
A few months later, when re-organising his belongings in his sleeping quarters in the Cavalier, he found, crumpled and pushed up the back of a drawer, the postcard of the alpine dawn he'd never got round to sending.
He smoothed it out and considered the three words on the back. Then laughed.
Thinking about everything that had happened, he'd been right – for a change – about the importance of putting things into words.
And yet…this didn't seem needed anymore.
He tucked it away in one of his engineering journals to use as a bookmark.
Towards the end of the year, Athrun put in a formal request to the Orb Army to end his Terminal secondment.
The world was still messy and volatile, and it was becoming increasingly clear to him that his part in it needed to shift and evolve.
Cagalli had more influence and power than ever before, yet she was equally at her most vulnerable as she stood at the precipice of a moment which would determine what kind of leader she truly was, what kind of legacy she would be responsible for.
The opportunity was there – to steward the Cosmic Era towards disarmament, to nurture dialogue between the PLANTS and the Earth, to fight for the co-existence of naturals and coordinators.
(Cagalli wanted to do it because she believed in it, but she also wanted to do it for Lacus).
Each step she took from here, however, would have consequence not just for herself and Orb, but the future for all.
Cagalli never asked for anything. Athrun had often churlishly wished in the past she would – ask him to help, ask him to stay, ask him to be her one and only.
Now he understood that it was just part of all the wonderful complex things that made Cagalli who she was…even if it could still sometimes send his head into a spin.
Cagalli was also no longer alone in Orb having built pillars of support around her in the form of trusted advisers and friends. And, of course, if she ever needed them, she could always call on her family.
Even with all that support around her, and even knowing she always had him next to her heart, regardless of wherever he may physically be, Athrun started to notice the way her eyes would flit downwards when he asked her how she was, before she mustered a cheerful reply.
How sometimes mid-sentence she would go still, look absent, as if suddenly taken by the importance and gravity of her position.
How her eyes and her voice were still as determined and optimistic and golden as ever, but if he looked and listened very carefully, there was something there that was a little lonely.
And so Athrun knew he couldn't just operate from the shadows anymore. He needed to return to the regular Orb Army. He needed to support Cagalli more visibly. He needed to find his place where he could one day be by her side.
Or at least, until then, he could be more available for whatever next culinary escapade caught her whim, would make her smile.
Athrun and Meyrin were on mission in a town on the border between Eurasia and the Kingdom of Scandinavia. It was bitterly cold, the streets frozen with ice, and daylight fleeting as the date marched closer to the shortest day of the year.
He had submitted the paperwork for his transfer request a few weeks ago, but no reply as yet.
Athrun returned to the Cavalier following a surveillance run, rubbing his hands together to try to ward away the deep chill that had set in his bones.
"Something has arrived for you," Meyrin gestured at his chair, looking up from the notes she had been carefully reviewing on her tablet. Meyrin had diligently kept notes on it from the beginning of their secondment to Terminal, but in recent weeks Athrun noticed she had been even more active in her record-keeping…
Athrun hadn't discussed it with her, and she hadn't said anything, but he knew she would have noticed Athrun stepping back in mission prep and de-briefs, allowing her to take the lead more, to set the strategy. She would have understood what that meant.
Athrun hummed in reply then looked down at what was waiting for him.
It was a postcard of Orb. The jewel-like ocean, white sandy beaches, lush-green vegetation thriving in the fertile volcanic soil.
Meyrin stood and said "I'll leave you to it,".
A place to return to, someone waiting for you there.
He flipped the postcard over.
On the back was a drawing of a heart followed by just two joyful, emphatic words – the feeling the writer put into them somehow leaping off the page.
"Come home!".