This is a redo of a work I wrote three years ago. Please excuse me for any mistakes with characterization. Once again this is a rewrite.
Enjoy~
It was late. To the prestigious Zero, darkness was nothing. Darkness could play to advantages in a war. It could be your friend, your ally, if you allowed it. To Lelouch, though, it was too late. The darkness frightened him. Not in the way that children are frightened by it, or even gullible adults. No, Lelouch was haunted by it in a totally different aspect. The onset of darkness marked the end of a day. Another day where he had failed to free Japan. Another day where he lost yet another life precious to him.
"You're home" C.C drawled in a bored tone. She was lying stomach down on Lelouch's bed in a white negligee, one hand propping up her head, the other lazily flipping through a girl's magazine. Her bright green hair dripped over her exposed, pale shoulders like a waterfall of foliage-dyed water.
It was quiet for a few moments while Lelouch removed his jacket. Instead of hanging it up like normal, though, he threw it forcefully to the ground. The sound caused C.C to look up and cock a pea-colored eyebrow at her superior.
With a grunt, Lelouch lied down on the floor, releasing a breath he didn't know he'd been holding in. He glared up at the white plaster ceiling, trying to block out that days events. He was sure that if he squinted with enough force at the ceiling, there was a possibility he would. Or maybe it would fall on him and crush him. Both possibilities seemed nice at the moment.
"What did you do with the girl?" the brunette hadn't noticed C.C's look up to that point, but with the resounding of her voice throughout the room, he was promptly jolted out of his day dreaming.
"Which one?"
"You know perfectly well of who I am speaking of" a hint of annoyance was detectable in the girl's normally passive voice, "I didn't feel like sticking around while you two had some sappy, angst-y conversation"she drawled
"He name is Shirley, C.C" Lelouch all but growled at his partner.
"I know" Blunt. As always. But what more could you expect from the girl?
Once again, a silence seeped into the room, except this time, it was uncomfortable. The room swelled with the silence like a flood of harsh, bone-chilling water.
"I wiped her memory. She remembers nothing"
"Oh?" C.C cocked her head to the side like a bird, "You don't sound too happy about it. Please enlighten me on what made her so different from all the other humans you have used your Geass on" the green-haired girl then gave Lelouch a strange look, one that wasn't quite a grimace, but oozed mockery and malice. "Don't tell me you fell for that girl? That weak little excuse of a human? That dumb bitch that-"
"That is enough C.C!" C.C's eyes only widened the slightest, and she went back to her reading.
The brunette sighed and stood up, running a hand through his brown, spiky hair. "If you need me I'll be on the veranda"
Lelouch stepped out onto the balcony, a cold wind tussling his his hazelnut tresses. Despite his earlier attempts to block out the events from just hours earlier, a memory of Shirley appeared at the front of his mind.
"You really loved her didn't you?" she had said while smiling. While her smile was radiant, her eyes resembled that of a glassy pond during December. Unrecognizing. Unregistering.
As Lelouch stared off into the cloudy night, trying to make out the stars between the patches of clouds, the brunette reckoned that she was better off not remembering him. He was a stained, tainted soul, weighed down by the ghosts of his past, while her soul was pure.
Beautiful.
Whispering to himself, he gave a single plea to the heavens, and anyone who may have been listening,"Now what am I supposed to do with all these leftover feelings for you?" Shirley would never know how he truly felt about her. How many times her innocent smile had pulled him back from the brink. How he wished so desperately that he could bring her father back. How he wished he could hold her in his arms, hugging her, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and floral perfume.
She would never know how much she meant to him.
These thoughts sent a hot wave of an unknown emotion through Lelouch's body, down from his brain to his stomach, releasing a flourish of emotions that made him feel ill.
Despite these feelings, he knew that she deserved better than him, and one day she would get that. Someone just as pure and lovely as her. He solemnly believed this fact. He accepted it. He had to...right?
If he knew this, why was this searing pain still plaguing his body? He felt like he was bleeding on the inside, from an internal wound that was not clotting. A scar that would not form. A wound that would always be there to remind him of what he had done.
For a fraction of a second, Lelouch found himself wishing he had never become Zero. He wished he could take back every wrong act, every evil deed, Every sin, every life.
Just throw it all away.
Wipe the slate clean.
Why? Why were the people Lelouch loved the most always the ones in Zero's way?