Kalli's Journal

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Survived Worse

"You look familiar."

Heine looked up carefully, a little surprised to see Orb's leader, Cagalli Yula Athha, standing over him, arms crossed and nearly glaring at him.

"Oh?" He'd been eating his lunch out in one of Morgenroete's grassy courtyards, away from mobile suits and hangars and glass-walled offices and everything else. No matter how many times he did it, sitting on the nice cool grassy earth never got old to him.

"Yes." She blinked once. "Are you going to eat all of that?"

Chuckling, Heine gestured that she should sit and share his lunch - there wasn't really any way he could say no to her, after all.

She smiled and sat, looking far more tired once she was beside him.

"You snuck away?" Heine questioned before offering her his thermos.

"Yeah. Two weeks straight of meetings from dawn to dusk. I just wanted a few minutes without someone standing behind me, telling me what I'm doing next," Cagalli admitted. "What's your name?"

"Heine," Heine replied. "I work for Erica Simmons."

Cagalli didn't bother with the thermos cup and instead drank right from the bottle. Heine smiled and offered her a paper napkin a moment later. It was only then that she really seemed to look at him and notice all of his scars.

"You're in the Veterans Program, right?" she asked. And Heine nodded, really looking at her. She wasn't traditionally pretty, but there was something honest about her. He could see why Athrun would have liked her, except...

"Orb? Or..."

"ZAFT," Heine admitted. "But I've been here for quite awhile..."

"Maybe I saw you when I was touring the hospitals? You look like you were pretty badly injured."

"I was," Heine replied, and when Cagalli didn't say anything, he took it as a cue to keep talking.

She didn't really flinch as he explained, instead nodding and eating the better part of his lunch. There were cupcakes, again, waiting for him back on his desk, so it really didn't matter.

"Do you want to go back?" Cagalli finally asked, looking skyward.

"No," Heine said with a little headshake. "This is my home now. And I don't think Erica would..."

"Cagalli?"

They both looked up to see Erica standing with what had to be Cagalli's unwanted entourage.

"Caught," Cagalli mumbled before sighing. "Ah... thanks for lunch?"

"You're welcome," Heine replied. He couldn't help smiling. "Sorry if I bored you."

"Not at all," Cagalli said quickly as she stood. "I hope you'll accept an invitation to dinner, though."

Before Heine could reply, Cagalli smiled at him one last time and headed off toward what almost instantly turned into a chorus of nagging.

The group was gone before Heine had everything packed up, though Erica had wandered back over to him, a strange little smirk on her face.

"Living dangerously, are you?" she questioned, before leaning to help him.

"I think it was a sincere dinner request," Heine replied, amused. "And besides -- I've survived worse."