Kalli's Journal

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Cagalli was fairly sure her blush was permanent - her face truly had frozen that way. But there had been no way to excuse herself from the retirement festivities without actually mentioning that she was indeed leaving. Which meant that a few dozen high-ranking officers, other politicians, and assorted support staff all knew she was heading off.

And instantly they all figured out why and a few had some half-inebriated commentary for her. She didn't really need the encouragement or instruction, much like she didn't need the lingering embarrassment. Though Cagalli knew it would fade - someone would do something even more ridiculous, after all, thanks to the open bar. And she'd be relatively forgotten...

Her own intake of alcohol had been relatively mild - a glass of champagne and a glass of wine with cheese and crackers in between. It was enough that she grabbed a young soldier and his jeep to drive her back to her residence, but not enough that she felt anything other than comfortable.

The young man driving her kept glancing over, as though he'd never have expected to be driving the leader of the country home. Cagalli instantly decided to try to spend more time visiting with the soldiers -- even in peace, they were important and she didn't want to feel like a stranger to them.

"Nice party?" he finally questioned. Cagalli nodded.

"It'll still be going for awhile longer," Cagalli said. "If you've been instructed to go back... well, might be good that these things can just be hosed out."

The young man chuckled. "I'd guessed. Nice to know the top brass can live it up like new recruits, though."

Grinning, Cagalli nodded. The open-topped jeep left her hair free to blow in the evening air. She could feel rain in the air. Maybe the jeep would get washed out on its own.

By the time she got out of the jeep, Cagalli had relaxed. She thanked the young soldier and waved as he drove off. At least she'd gotten his name -- just in case he ever applied for governmental driver position.

The house was sparsely populated, for which Cagalli was thankful. But it was the weekend, too --

"Welcome home."

Cagalli looked up from silencing her phone. Kira was in the main hallway, in dark cargos and a button down shirt, his arms full of blankets.

"What are you--"

"Shhh," Kira interrupted. He grinned. "You're home earlier than I thought, but don't worry... I think everything is ready."

Cagalli couldn't help smiling as she stepped over to him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Am I going to regret leaving you home all day?"

"I wasn't home all day," Kira countered. "I actually went back to Morgenroete and spent most of the morning talking to Erica. And then Murrue found me for lunch."

"So my closet is unscathed?" Cagalli smiled and fell in step beside Kira. "And what are the blankets for?"

"Relatively, yes. And they're for our after-dinner activity," Kira said. "It's supposed to rain..."

"I could feel it in the air on the ride home. Open-topped jeep."

"Mmm-- how was the party?"

"Likely to be going for most of the night. I got quite a bit of advice about what we should be getting up to tonight," Cagalli replied.

"Good advice?"

Cagalli smiled. "We'll see."

Honestly, she'd been surprised when the commentary had started - it was nothing she expected anyone to say when not half-drunk. She slipped ahead to get the door to her suite for Kira--

Inside was... a pile of folding tables. Half-a-dozen, still folded and stacked...

"What's..."

"Thought we could build a blanket-fort," Kira said as he dumped his armload of blankets onto the pile. "For the storm."

Cagalli couldn't help smiling. Of all the things-- "Perfect," she said. "But first I want to change, and maybe grab a quick shower? I can smell the party on me."

"I'll bring dinner in?" Kira questioned. "Unless you're not hungry?"

"I think I'll be ready by the time I clean up," Cagalli replied as she started undoing the buttons of her jacket.

"I won't rush."

Cagalli peeled off her clothing on the way to the bathroom, piling it into a hamper as she passed. She wanted to follow Kira and be close, but she also just needed a little bit of time to herself, something she hadn't gotten all day.

She intended a quick shower - just enough to wash the smell of smoke from her hair and the day from her skin. But once she was under the water, Cagalli couldn't help lingering. The heat felt good and helped her relax a bit more.

Once clean, she dried off quickly and put on a tank top and pair of pajama bottoms. Hopefully Kira wouldn't mind if she wasn't dressed up. It wasn't late, but Cagalli figured if she was going to be crawling around in a blanket fort, she could at least be comfortable.

Dinner was spread out on a card table when Cagalli stepped back out into her suite's main room.

"We have to eat it all so we can use the card table," Kira told her with a little smile.

"That or we figure out how to incorporate my fridge into the fort," Cagalli told him. That didn't sound like a bad idea. Now she was really thinking about the fort. As a child, a blanket over a card table or two would be fine. But as an adult, some actual engineering would need to go into the endeavor.

"I like that," Kira said. He nodded and then headed over to her. "Hi--"

"Hi." Cagalli smiled and wrapped her arms around Kira, pulling him in for a long kiss. He tasted like he'd been sampling dinner, but Cagalli didn't mind. She didn't expect anything less from him. The only problem was that she felt the kiss everywhere and honestly, she was kinda hungry. If they were going to do anything constructive with the evening, she was fairly sure they needed to actually get to it.

Kira slipped a hand up under the back of Cagalli's tank top and Cagalli tugged him closer. Well, maybe dinner really could wait?

"We should probably eat," Kira half-mumbled when he finally pulled back a bit. Cagalli nodded against him.

"Tell me about the party?" Kira asked as he led her over to sit. She hadn't expected to be served, but Kira quickly got her a plate together from the various containers. For a moment, Cagalli felt bad. If she'd gotten back earlier, they'd be eating their picnic properly, in their fort.

"Not much to say," Cagalli said before describing the general, his service, and some of the antics that were starting at the party when she'd left.

"And plenty of commentary for you," Kira concluded as he handed her the plate he'd piled with little rolled sandwiches, raw salads, cold rice and fruit and more.

"Thank you," she said, smiling at him. "And half the stuff I already knew, at least. It's not like--"

Yeah, not like either of them was a blushing virgin, though Cagalli knew she was blushing at the moment.

"The rest we'll have to try out," Kira said quickly as he turned to get his own meal.

"Kira!"

Kira chuckled and didn't say anything til he sat. By then, Cagalli was eating and watching his every move at the same time. Honestly...

"How is Strike Freedom?" Cagalli asked after devouring a couple of the little rolled sandwiches. She was hungrier than she'd thought, apparently.

"Out of view and not creating too much of an international incident," Kira replied. "I had to remind a couple of people that it's not technically owned by ZAFT, even if they've been doing the maintenance. That's not to say it's mine, exactly, but I think I've convinced everyone that it stays with me, wherever I am."

Cagalli nodded. She hadn't really thought of it that way. And for a moment, she was a little annoyed that no one had contacted her about the machine. But it wasn't exactly her business. Morgenroete and the military could settle it. And it sounded like the situation had needed a minimal of settling.

She slipped up from her seat to get a couple more sandwich rolls. There was still a pile of food and honestly, she knew she'd be putting it away. Unless Kira was going to act as a bottomless pit, it was just too much.

"I could have gotten those for you," Kira complained. Cagalli shook her head.

"It's fine. Do you want anything else? I'll have to put the rest away-- we'll just have to figure out how to build the fridge into the fort," she replied.

"I'd just asked for something simple."

"It is simple. There's just a lot of it." Cagalli sat again and popped another sandwich roll into her mouth.

The rain started a moment later, light for a minute before becoming a heavy downpour. The thunder wasn't far behind. Before Cagalli could even say anything, she noticed that the curtains had all been pinned closed.

"I think we should use the sofa as the back wall," she said as she stood and stretched. Kira had gotten seconds and that took the amount of food to put away down to an amount that would nicely fit in the small fridge she kept mostly for drinks and snacks.

"Oh?"

"It'll make a shelf, I think, that we can store things on," Cagalli said. "Maybe chairs around the edges and the tables more in the center to keep the ceiling up?"

"We could do rooms, too," Kira noted. "Would we need rooms?"

"I think the most creative I ever got was two card tables, one behind the other. So I had a bedroom and a parlor." Cagalli smiled, remembering her father giving her little trinkets that became integral parts of the fort every time she built it. They were all gone now, but the memories remained.

"I had Athrun as co-architect," Kira explained. "We tried a lot of things. Most of them caved in on us, of course, but that was half the fun."

"I bet," Cagalli replied. She'd never really had anyone over to see her forts. Not other children, at least. To her, a blanket fort was a solitary place to read during storms by the light of a battery-operated candle in a brass holder that her father had given her.

Kira gathered up dishes as she put the remaining food in the fridge. Cagalli had a few random pieces of silverware and plates tucked in a set of drawers near the fridge so Kira was free to set their dirty dishes out for a maid to pick up.

"Okay," Kira said with a little nod. "Let's see if your sofa idea will work."

"Depends on how big the blankets are," Cagalli replied. "And how we're weighting them, if we need to."

"I think that was why things always caved in with Athrun," Kira said. He grabbed a chair and pulled it out to the edge of the room. "We always missed figuring out where we needed support and weight the first time around. Things would stay until we started moving around."

"I'd put a big heavy flowerpot on top," Cagalli said. "It never had flowers in it, and now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't a flowerpot. But I thought it was, even if it didn't have flowers in it."

Chuckling, she realized it was probably a spittoon. Unlike some of her blanket-fort must-haves, she couldn't remember the origin of the spittoon and wondered if it might've survived everything. Of course, asking around later might provoke some hilarious speculation.

She grabbed another chair and moved it out, then quickly shuffled it back towards the sofa.

"Get the other one," she said, pointing at the other high-backed dining chair Kira had just moved. Placed sideways at the ends of the sofa, they would continue the sofa-shelf, if that worked, and had storage room underneath. Depending on how the sofa worked out, it could also be a bed... though it didn't have enough room for more than one of them unless they got really close.

That didn't sound like such a bad idea.

"If we put a card table nearby with something on it for height, we'll be able to use the sofa as a bed," Kira said, apparently getting the same idea.

"But how big are the blankets? We might have to get creative and maybe swipe a few clothespins or something," Cagalli said. Already she was looking around for something to give a center card table more height. It took a moment for her to remember a plastic tote in her closet that she hadn't used in awhile but kept just in case. It was light enough for the card table but could probably be weighted to not move if necessary.

She ran off and returned with it just as Kira got the card table from dinner settled nearby.

"Perfect," Kira said with a nod. "I think. You know, there's a pretty good chance this will all cave in on us, right?"

"That's half the fun?" Cagalli questioned. Thunder rumbled loudly outside and Cagalli startled. But Kira was there, his arms around her.

"I've got you," Kira said softly before kissing her shoulders and neck.

"I know." Cagalli relaxed in his arms. She looked at the mess they were making and couldn't help laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"All of this," Cagalli replied, gesturing. "Let's get back to work?"

The first attempt caved in spectacularly, halfway through construction. A chair even fell over and Cagalli half-expected someone to burst in and make sure they were okay. But no one arrived and their second version held up til the end despite a few thunder claps making them both jump - even when crawling through their creation.

While there weren't rooms, exactly, there was a dedicated entryway and a tunnel that went off in the direction of the fridge. Pillows and the blankets not used as the ceiling and walls were spread on the floor around a battery-operated lantern that Cagalli kept in her bedroom. Phones were outside, but within reach if absolutely necessary. Cagalli had brought in a couple of books.

Kira leaned back against the sofa and smiled.

"We are officially safe from the storm and the paparazzi," he declared.

"I'm sure they're speculating as wildly as Orb's military as to our activities," Cagalli added. They both smiled and Cagalli scooted over to sit beside him. There was no way to move through the fort that wasn't crawling or scooting, which made Cagalli thankful for the extra blankets. Having the sofa to lean back against was nice, too.

Kira settled an arm around her and pulled her close as thunder rumbled outside.

"I thought you said I was safe in here," Cagalli teased. She kissed his cheek and settled a hand on his thigh.

"From the storm and photographers," Kira reminded her. "Not from me."

"Oh-- then I suppose you're not safe from me, either." She slipped her hand over a bit and gave Kira a challenging look.

She was on her back a moment later, Kira's mouth on hers and his hands up under her tank top. She hadn't bothered with underwear, a fact that Kira was bound to discover at any moment.

"Unfair," she whispered as he kissed lower, along her jaw and down her neck. "You're faster."

"Mmhmm--" Kira pushed her tank top up more and slipped down a bit to suck on one of her nipples while gently squeezing the other one between two of his fingers. Cagalli moaned as sensation shot through her.

"Don't stop this time," she told him. And she meant it. Phones and international incidents be-damned. She wanted this and she knew Kira did too.

"I won't," Kira replied. "I won't."