There she was, at the agreed upon location, at the agreed upon time. Kallen opened the trunk of her car, clearly demonstrating to C.C. she had not kidnapped some helpless bystander in the hopes of gaining an advantage. Here they were, in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest city, and hopefully miles away from the nearest person.
C.C. had sincerely believed Kallen was never going to show up, and certainly not alone and unarmed. Not after everything they had been through. She still suspected Kallen had a trick up her sleeve, but was unable to think of what. She carefully eyed Kallen's body, searching for signs of hidden weaponry.
"You can get out now, I'm not hiding anything," Kallen said. She turned around, allowing C.C. to confirm she had no weapons hidden on her back. "I really think you're overdoing this."
C.C. stepped out of her car. She kept her gun aimed at Kallen's heart. She did not believe she was overdoing anything. Her years with Kallen had only reinforced the belief that this woman was dangerous.
"Remove you sunglasses. Toss them behind you," C.C. ordered.
Kallen slid off the sunglasses and carefully threw them backwards. C.C. looked into her eyes and saw it. She saw the mark, clear as day, blazing proudly in both eyes, the mark of Geass. Among all the Geass users she encountered, Kallen's Geass was the most wantonly destructive, and as likely to kill the user as its target. Yet Kallen survived.
"With this, you're free, I imagine? Lelouch is dead, the Geass Directorate is gone, everyone who even knows what Geass is is either dead or," Kallen paused, lowering her eyes. "Erased."
Something was bothering C.C. Kallen shouldn't have been this calm, this relaxed. The last time C.C. had seen her, Kallen had been, well, insane. She was unable to even sleep for fear of losing control of her Geass. She looked too... rested.
"Are you going to get on with it and kill me?" Kallen looked almost bored.
Her hesitation ended. C.C. fired a large caliber round straight into Kallen's chest. The force caused her body to twist as the round exited her back, trailing blood several feet and painting the ground. Then she fired again, and again. She hated this. She hated how strong Kallen was, how dangerous it was to approach her, and how necessary this made it to fire at a distance before moving closer for the fatal shot. With Mao at least she had the opportunity to kill him at once, not drawn out like this.
C.C. watched Kallen's body drop into a puddle of blood. C.C. walked closer until she could align the gun vertically with Kallen's heart. She fired one last time. With this, C.C. let out her breath, not realizing she'd been holding it, and dropped the gun. It landed on Kallen's stomach and C.C. kicked it off. C.C. leaned into Kallen's face and placed her hand on Kallen's forehead, moving her hair from her eyes.
"I'm sorry," C.C. whispered, and kissed Kallen.
It felt like an eternity, or rather, it would have to anyone else, as C.C. felt Kallen's warmth. Then she opened her eyes as her hand felt something unnatural. She looked at her hand and saw a smudge of makeup matching Kallen's skin-tone darkening her fingers. Then she heard Kallen breathe.
Panicked, C.C. jetted back, about to scramble for her gun when a hand grabbed her throat, and another pinned her against the ground. Kallen was on top of her in an instant.
"Checkmate," Kallen's grinned widely.
As Kallen's grip tightened C.C. looked at her forehead and saw traces of slightly darker skin underneath the makeup. C.C.'s eyes widened in realization.
"It can't be," C.C. choked out, then lost consciousness.
3 years earlier:
"Power?"
"Power to slay you enemies. Power to change the world."
"In exchange for granting your wish, which you won't tell me?"
"Yes."
"Why should I agree to that?"
"Because it's the only way you'll get out of here alive."
Kallen swallowed. Here she was, negotiating with a dead woman over the conditions of her survival. One who died making a distraction to save her life. Despite how unbelievable this was, Kallen found she had little choice.
"I accept."
Kallen didn't feel much different. Then again, she was currently running for her life.
A door opened and a Britannian soldier emerged. Kallen made eye contact for a moment. She felt something leave her body.
"I've found..." the soldier started before clutching at his throat. He looked upwards and started flailing his arms frantically, throwing his gun to the side. His eyes widened before he fell to the ground. Water pooled around his body. Kallen stared, perplexed but aware his bizarre death was the result of this new power. There was no time, and Kallen ran.
Along the way Kallen encountered two more soldiers. The first started bleeding profusely from his chest as he screamed, until a sickening crack silenced him, and the other simply fell over dead, a look of terror forever frozen to his face.
1 year later:
"How's the pizza?"
"Great!" C.C. smiled.
Kallen smiled back.
After Schneizel revealed Zero's identity to the Black Knights, the suddenly childlike C.C. was left in Kallen's care. Ironically it was Zero who made this decision, which left Kallen wondering why he was already planning on leaving. Still, it was an interesting experience seeing the immortal mysterious waif suddenly reduced to a child.
Not only that, a frightened child, scared of everything but her own shadow. It took several days before C.C. was comfortable enough around Kallen that she stopped flinching every time she raised a hand.
Over the first week they started to get to know one another.
And Kallen developed a crush.
A/N (Abridged): This fic is ultimately the combination of two ideas. The first one was Kallen taking care of C.C. while she lost her memories. When I watched R2 I noticed that shortly before Lelouch is outed as Zero, he leaves a message for Kallen leaving C.C. in her care. I saw this as an interesting move with the opportunity to see how Kallen reacts to the new C.C., but unfortunately nothing comes of it in the series proper, as C.C. regains her memories immediately after that.
The second part was, essentially, "What if, instead of Mao obsessing over C.C., it was Kallen?" I found this interesting, the idea of seeing Kallen go mad from Geass.
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