Pairing/s: Lelouch/Kallen, mild Milly/Rivalz.

Relevant notes: Spoilers up to Turn 24, speculation and a kind of spoiler in (iii.). It's basically a line (in a way) from Kallen that's from some CG merchandise. Credit for Lelouch's response to Kallen's line goes to Tokkan (I think) from Animesuki, whose post I got the response idea from. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry! It's saved you a lot of stressing.

Dedication: To Aerith, just in case L/K doesn't get a happy ending.

A/N: At this point, all I'm hoping for is that not everyone dies in the final Turn. Secretly (or not so secretly), I'd like some sort of resolution to the L/K relationship, because I don't consider the scene in Turn 22 to be a real resolution; it didn't feel finished to me, even if they did 'sayonara' each other. If they do end up parting anyway, I'd like Kallen to at least learn Lelouch's motives in playing the evil guy.

The parts are not connected. (iv.) is from an AU I was musing on, before Turn 24 made Schneizel's character way too different to the one I imagined for my story. (v.) was written in an angst-y mood, (iii.) was inspired by the spoiler line, (ii.) is just a 'shipper's wishful thinking and (i.) was inspired by Kallen's R2 character song, a little (and also by the ending of Heroic Age).

-end long A/N-

Here's hoping for a good ending to Code Geass!

One More Chance

v. closure.

It was cold outside. Tamaki promised to return for her in an hour and she nodded, tugging her coat closer as she watched him peel away. She'd scolded him more than once about his driving on the way, but he'd ignored her and she'd thought that maybe, he was trying to find that rush of adrenaline that only battle could bring. It had only been two weeks since the end of the war and she already felt an odd yearning for the hum of danger in her blood. It was wrong, she knew, but it was there.

Kallen pushed through the cemetery gate with the smell of burning rubber still trailing after her and worked her way down the path snaking through the quiet grounds. Her brother's grave wasn't too far and even if it was, she would have been able to reach it with her eyes closed. It was near the edge of the cemetery, the border of which was lined with old, drooping trees. She thought she saw a flicker of bright green among them when she arrived at Naoto's grave, but when she blinked, everything was still again.

There was a bunch of flowers lying on the grave. She frowned; they were fresh and the tissue paper wrapping was still crisp. She bent down and touched the flowers curiously.

'Who left you these, Naoto?' she asked. 'I didn't know anyone had come here already.'

The cemetery was silent. She straightened and looked contemplatively at the small headstone for a moment.

'It's over, Naoto,' she said and she smiled, wistfully. 'I wish you could be here to see it. Japan is free and Britannia's gone. It's all happened like you dreamed.'

Her brother had wanted this future more than anything else and he'd never stopped believing it would eventually come to pass. He'd been the one to give them all hope again, when everyone else had given in to the life Britannia set out for them. He'd died, but his dream had continued in them and then in the image of Zero-

'Ougi's married now,' she continued, refusing to let her thoughts take that direction, 'and he's even going to have a baby soon. He told me that if their baby's a boy, they'll name it after you. Isn't that nice of them?'

She stopped, because suddenly everything she was saying seemed to feel wrong, like the small talk that always arose with strangers. Why was it that despite having seen Naoto's wish fulfilled, she still felt unsettled and empty?

'I miss you,' she whispered. 'If you were here, you would tell me I'm being stupid. I should be happy. Why aren't I?'

'It's because every goal you've set has been achieved,' someone said, stepping up beside her, and she froze. 'You've forgotten what it feels like to live without a single desperate aim in mind.'

Kallen willed herself to speak with composure. She didn't look at Lelouch, even though she could feel his gaze on her.

'What are you doing here?' she asked, not quite calmly. Her words were a little too panicked, a little too highly pitched. 'I thought... you'd gone.'

'I did,' he told her simply. 'And I came back.'

'Why?' she asked and there was no pretence at composure now. 'Why are you here, at my brother's grave?'

Lelouch wasn't quite the same anymore, she realised, turning to him. He stood taller and his eyes weren't as guarded. She could look at him and pretend he was the Lelouch she'd met at Ashford, who taunted her mercilessly and who she hadn't loved. She hadn't known that seemingly clear-cut Lelouch. She'd known the one made up of complexities and riddles, who was vulnerable one moment and fighting against the world in the next, and in her moments of doubt, she'd wondered whether she had even known that Lelouch either.

'I wanted to see your motivation for fighting. I never did hear about him, after-'

'- we were interrupted by the others,' she finished for him. 'I remember. And then you said you used us all and that I was your best pawn.'

She sensed Lelouch tense beside her, but she didn't regret it. He didn't know how much that had hurt; how it had destroyed her to hear that from someone she'd cared about and who she'd fought with for so long.

'I didn't mean it, Kallen,' he said softly. 'I didn't want you to die for me.'

'So you were protecting me, were you?' she bit out. 'Like how you let me think you were the worst kind of scum on Earth and that I should kill you? Was that to protect me as well?'

'Don't you understand?' His voice suddenly took on a Zero-like quality, the passionate tone he used to reserve for boosting morale or leading his Knights into the fight. 'I've lost so many people because of the path that I've taken. If I could keep one more person from following me to their death, then it didn't matter if they hated me, or tried to destroy me. If they lived, it didn't matter.'

She didn't answer him immediately. He'd stirred her emotions into chaos again and it was what she hated about him: the way he could break down all her defences until any conclusion or decision she'd ever made demanded to be re-evaluated. She'd tried to teach herself not to care about him anymore and to consider him with indifference, and he was making her care again.

'Did it ever occur to you that maybe it was my choice too?' she retorted. 'I wanted to die for you. It wouldn't have been a sacrifice.'

'And I didn't want you to die,' he snapped, exasperated. 'What about your brother's dream, then? You would have gladly died without seeing it through?'

'Naoto would have understood,' she said, her anger subsiding enough to be replaced by a numbing tiredness. She had regretted her idea of dying with Lelouch, back when the Order had turned on him, but it had been fleeting. She'd believed that he was worth her life.

'Kallen-'

'You lied to me, again and again. I don't care that you wanted to protect me; I was meant to protect you and instead I tried to kill you!'

He was silent, studying her intently. She didn't try to look away.

'You didn't give me a choice to stay with you. You made the decision for me and I... I hate myself for what I did after. Lelouch, you can't protect everybody! Sometimes you have to let them live their own lives!'

'Even if I know it'll only lead to their misery?'

She hesitated. 'I would have been happier knowing you were who I believed you to be- that you were a good person- even if the rest of the world hated me.'

Lelouch's eyes widened and it was then she forced herself to avoid his gaze.

'I'm sorry, then,' he said, so regretfully that it was all she could do not to fall apart.

'Tell me one thing, Lelouch,' she said, steeling herself. 'Do you care about C.C. and Suzaku?'

'Yes, I do,' Lelouch replied, carefully. Kallen could tell that he knew what point she was making.

'You didn't feel the need to push them away,' she murmured, even though he didn't need to hear it. 'Do you see, Lelouch? You trusted them with your plan and you didn't try to shelter them.'

'C.C., Suzaku and I... For as long as we can remember, we've been in pieces. I wanted to keep you from ending up the same way.'

It was so quiet after he stopped that she could hear the rustling of the tissue paper around the flowers and a crunch of dead leaves as someone moved nearby. She glanced around, but there didn't seem to be anyone in the cemetery except her and Lelouch. A suspicion began to surface in her mind, linked to the bright green she'd seen earlier.

'Where are you going after this?' Kallen asked. 'You're leaving again, aren't you?'

'If you know already, why are you asking?' he answered and for a second, he sounded almost amused.

'Did you come back just for this?'

'Would you have been happy if you hadn't been able to say all those things to me?' he returned easily.

She raised her eyes to look at him and his expression told her that this was the last chance she'd ever have to say everything she wanted to say. She didn't bother filtering her thoughts before putting them into sound; after all, wasn't that how she always was?

'I loved you,' she told him rapidly, like if she waited too long, the words would stick in her throat. And maybe they would. 'I wanted to stay with you for as long as I could. I wanted to protect you because I cared about you and because I knew you would eventually give us- Japan- freedom again. I felt betrayed when you said we were all pawns. I felt guilty because I'd helped you for so long and it was like I was partly responsible for you being able to take over Britannia. I had to be the one to take you down, because I had been the one to help you. And then I felt guilty because I knew I should and at the same time... I didn't want to.'

Lelouch seemed startled and she didn't blame him. She had never laid out her feelings so frankly to him before; she'd been close, many times, but she'd never been able to manage it.

'In the end, you did free Japan, so I... Thank you, Lelouch, for everything. I'm sorry, for everything.' She didn't bother to elaborate because she knew that Lelouch, always so perceptive, would understand what she meant.

It came down to this: It didn't matter if she loved him. He was too enigmatic, too complicated. He didn't fit in her world anymore. His life had never been simple and the power he'd been granted ensured it never would be. She couldn't- wouldn't- try to imagine him ever settling into a life that was anything like normal.

'If things had been different...' Lelouch said, slowly, and she offered him a shaky smile that asked him not to play with what ifs.

'C.C.'s waiting for you,' she said. He nodded and when she moved forward, almost against her own will, he did the same. He held her tightly for a moment and let her go.

'Goodbye, Kallen.'

'Goodbye, Lelouch.' Kallen wavered, very briefly, and then she walked away, heading for the cemetery gate.

She didn't look back.

. .

iv. begin again.

. .

Kallen wondered, sometimes, why she was still living. Tilting her glass back and forth absentmindedly, she stared moodily at the smooth surface of the bar counter. She lived by going through the motions nowadays: she woke up, headed for her job at her father's office, returned home and slept, with meals that always tasted the same interspersed in between.

The Order of the Black Knights had crumbled. She was one of maybe a dozen still in Area 11- Japan, she reminded herself, even though the word was becoming more foreign every day. The rest were scattered in various Areas around the world, left to shift through life however they could. Some of them had already given up; she'd heard about the suicides of at least three people she'd once known. Hope was cruel like that; when you had it, it lifted you to highs you'd never known before, and when you lost it, it dragged you into the depths of hell.

The stool beside her sank, startling her to attention and she looked up to see someone she'd never expected to see again.

'Lelouch?' she asked, unnecessarily, incredulously.

'Kallen,' he murmured, signalling the bartender and directing a tiny smile at her. 'It's been some time since I last saw you.'

'Three years, six months,' she informed him, her eyes tracing the once familiar features of his face. Three years had brought little change to him and it was only his expressions that were different now, sharper and more intense regardless of the emotion behind them.

'You keep track?'

'I try not to,' Kallen said and she looked away. She picked up a napkin and pressed her fingers onto it, letting it soak up the moisture left from her glass. 'Aren't you meant to be in Britannia?'

'I'm here on royal matters,' he said and she caught the bitterness in his voice. 'My brother's orders, of course.'

'Should we even be talking?'

'All the senior members of the Order have a surveillance team regularly watching them,' Lelouch said. He took a sip of his drink. 'Surely you've noticed? If we don't talk now, we never will. Besides, we aren't doing anything wrong, are we?'

Kallen tried not to feel disappointed. The flare of hope that had sprung to life when she saw him was foolish, and she attempted to extinguish it.

'No, we're not,' she answered.

He laughed at her flat tone, able to see what she was trying to hide. 'You were always easy to read, Kallen.'

The sudden pang of nostalgia that hit her was an almost physical pain. She would have given the world to be back where she had been nearly four years ago. She wanted to be with the Order again, with Ougi, Tamaki, Minami, Sugiyama, C.C., Laksharta, Lelouch. She wanted to be able to truly hope again.

'Let's take a walk,' Lelouch suggested abruptly. He threw down a few bills, enough to cover her as well, but she put her own money down beside his. He offered her a hand. 'Are you able to walk?'

'I didn't drink that much, Lelouch,' she said irritably. Ignoring his hand, she followed him out into the warm evening. They walked in silence past shops and restaurants until they reached a quiet park.

'See there?' He indicated with a flick of a finger a man strolling along the edge of the park, some distance from the path they were following. 'He's one of the regulars who cover you.'

'Why does Schneizel bother with this?' she demanded. 'Why didn't he just kill us all instead of letting us go?'

'Because it's more interesting this way. The members of the Order are all separated by oceans and seas, but he knows that one day, they'll find each other again, or even recruit new members. He expects it and he wants it.' He lifted his head to look at the sky. 'Crushing a rebellion is always a good way to assert your power, and at the very least, it will provide him with an interruption of this monotonous peace.'

'I hate this,' she muttered. 'How does he expect us to restart the Order when it takes everything we have just to keep living?'

'Perhaps I can provide you with a motivation.' Lelouch moved quickly; he'd swept her to the cover of a tree before she could blink and had her pressed up against it in the same amount of time.

'What are you doing?' she asked frantically, trying to push him away. 'Lelouch!'

'Play along,' he said, sounding apologetic. He leaned in so close that their lips nearly touched. The smell of alcohol lingered in the air between them. 'I don't want them to think we're speaking about anything too serious.' He smiled teasingly and at the same time, there was a kind of haunting darkness in it, something she'd noticed in all his gestures. 'I don't want them to think we're talking at all.'

'Hurry up, then,' Kallen ordered, frowning at him. She didn't blush anymore. It was a weak, innocent reaction that belonged to the Kallen she had been, not the one was now. 'I don't exactly want to be in this position for the rest of the night.'

She felt him nod and then he was summarising a plan to begin the rebellion again, and she was marvelling at his ability to create hope, just from his words.

. .

iii. miles to go before i sleep.

. .

He was dying.

Wasn't it bizarre that even though she'd been actively trying to kill him, seeing him actually die left her feeling like she was being ripped into two?

Kallen had been fighting Suzaku when he'd frozen in mid-attack and veered away to the Damocles. She'd followed, despite the Guren being so heavily damaged that it was only a matter of time before Suzaku completely finished her. Gino had long left for solid ground, to his frustration being unable to help in his broken Tristan.

Suzaku had crashed through the Damocles, right into an airy room with plants curving along the walls. He was entering on foot and she knew that he was completely defenceless. If she pressed a single button, she could kill him right there and then.

Her gaze followed him to someone in white lying almost exactly in the centre of the room. Suzaku kneeled down, head bowed, and she realised it was Lelouch. Breath catching, she watched as C.C. appeared from the entrance to the room- the one that Suzaku hadn't created- and actually ran to him. Kallen could see both Suzaku and C.C. murmuring to Lelouch and then Suzaku bent down to embrace him. Suzaku left the pair behind and returned to his Knightmare, stopping briefly in front of the Guren.

'He wants to see you,' Suzaku called out. Kallen thought he sounded too emotionless, but when she looked closer, she saw his hands clenching into fists by his side. 'You got your wish. He's dying. Talk to him before it's too late, Kallen. I'm going to search for Nunnally.'

Before she could express her shock at what he just said- Nunnally was alive?-, he was in his Knightmare and soaring out through the giant hole he'd made. Trembling, Kallen climbed out and made her way over to Lelouch. C.C. pressed a kiss to his forehead and moved away. She was crying.

'Lelouch,' Kallen greeted him quietly. There was blood on his robes and his breathing was shallow.

'Kallen...' He blinked, seemingly trying to bring her into focus, and he looked so beaten, so... frail that it hurt her to look at him. 'You came?'

She nodded.

'Were you coming to kill me?' he asked, not in the least accusing or angry, and that was all it took for the tears to fall. How many times had she cried over him? It seemed like over the past few weeks, she'd shed almost as many tears for him as she had for Naoto.

'I'm sorry, Lelouch,' she said and Lelouch, bleeding, fading, dying, smiled at her.

'I'm sorry too, Kallen. Have you hated me these past few days? This past month?'

'Why...?' she asked faintly and then her voice grew stronger and she burst out, 'Why? Why did you do all this?'

'You have to understand,' he said, looking earnestly at her. 'This was the only way I could bring peace to the world.'

'Peace?'

'So I did convince you that all I wanted was power,' he commented with a faint smile, and suddenly everything was so clear that she felt a wave of disgust at herself. This was Lelouch's weakness, wasn't it? His mentality that he alone had to protect people, no matter how he did it? How many times had she seen him shelter Nunnally from anything that could possibly hurt her, even the most trivial things? Hadn't C.C. said something to her about this, once upon a time, when he was at Ashford without a single memory of them? She opened her mouth to apologise, for turning against him so stupidly, but her mind provided her with a different word altogether.

'Idiot!' she snapped at him, the tears still falling. 'Do you know how close I was to killing you? Why didn't you just tell me what you were doing?'

'I wanted to protect you,' he said and he reached out to rest a hand on the side of her face. The expression in his eyes was soft. 'Kallen, I-'

'If you say 'I love you,' I won't forgive you!' she burst out. 'Not now, when you...'

He shook his head. 'I don't want forgiveness,' he told her, lightly, and then he tugged her down and kissed her so gently that when they broke apart, she was sobbing harder than ever.

'I'll help Suzaku find Nunnally,' she promised him. 'I'll tell the world... about the person you are.'

'Thank you, Kallen,' he murmured. She leaned in close, burying her face in his hair and whispered,

'I love you.'

And then she stood, leaving C.C. to stay with him until the end and she flew her Guren out into the blue, blue sky.

She had promises to keep.

. .

ii. finding a happy ending.

. .

Lelouch slammed the car door behind him. It was early morning and the sun was only just beginning to show itself over a sleepy Japan. He made a dash for the hospital entrance and was glad for the automatic doors, because he honestly believed he might have run into them if they didn't open themselves. Suzaku called out to him the moment he was inside and pointed at one of the corridors that branched out into different sections of the hospital.

'She's in Room 111,' Suzaku told him and then he hesitated. 'I think you might be too late.'

Giving his old friend no sign of his fear, Lelouch nodded his thanks and hurried away. By the time he reached the correct room, he was breathing heavily and growing more apprehensive by the second. Trying to calm himself, he knocked softly and entered.

Kallen was lying on the bed, her face pale and her hair sticky with sweat. Both she and Nunnally, who was sitting beside her, turned to look at him.

'You're late,' Kallen accused.

'I know, I know.' He took her hand when he reached her and bent to kiss her. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm exhausted,' she sighed, softening instantly when she met his gaze. 'But I'm okay, thanks to Nunnally.'

Blushing, Nunnally shook her head.

'No, I had no part in it. You were so brave, Kallen.' Nunnally smiled. 'I'll go and find Suzaku.'

After she'd exited, Lelouch turned for the first time to his newborn daughter in the cot beside Kallen. He peered down to look at her tiny features and carefully touched her little fingers, curled up as she slept.

'She's beautiful,' he remarked and Kallen laughed.

'Of course. She has your genes, after all.'

Kallen shrugged apologetically at his glower.

'Sorry, Lelouch. I couldn't help myself. But,' she said pointedly, 'I had to give birth without you here.'

'You would have only used me as a punching bag if I was,' Lelouch returned, smirking.

Kallen considered it. 'True, but a punching bag would have been useful.'

'I'm sorry. I should have refused Kaguya's request.'

Breaking into a smile, Kallen tucked her hair behind her ears and slid further down in bed, lying on her side so she could see her daughter. Lelouch perched on the bed in front of the cot and Kallen's hand found his again.

'I'm not angry at you,' she said. 'You were helping to keep the peace in Japan and I can't fault you for that.'

He squeezed her hand and they sat in silence, watching their little girl sleep.

'What are we going to name her?' Lelouch asked.

'We agreed already, didn't we?' Kallen replied, sounding surprised. 'If we had a boy, we'd name him Naoto, and if we had a girl, we'd name her Shirley.'

'Did we?'

'Yes. Do you still agree to that?'

He paused and remembered the cheerful, affectionate and beautiful girl he'd once known. He looked at his daughter.

'Shirley it is.'

. .

i. one more chance.

. .

They were solemn as they climbed the stairs to the roof. During the day, Ashford Academy bustled with life, having been restored to its former glory after the war ended and the world settled into a new era of peace. At the moment, however, it was quiet. Every student was either in their room or standing on the lawn below, at Milly's invitation. They seemed to understand the feelings of those on the roof and the reason for this annual lighting of fireworks at the school.

Kallen shifted the box of fireworks pressing against her hip. Milly was leading the way, talking quietly to Nina. Rivalz was right beside Kallen, equally weighed down.

'How many are we lighting this year?' Kallen muttered. Rivalz grinned at her.

'It looks like a lot, doesn't it?' He glanced at Milly and his grin faded. 'I think she wanted this year to be the most spectacular, since, you know... It's been exactly five years.'

Kallen didn't answer. Her thoughts shifted to Shirley and Nunnally, whose graves they had all visited together the afternoon before, and then, inevitably, to Lelouch and Suzaku. After they'd carried out their plan for a better world- Zero Requiem, they'd told her it was called- they'd both disappeared. Neither they nor C.C. could be found in the years following.

Milly pushed the door to the roof open, letting moonlight spill onto the stairs. The others followed her out and set down their boxes with relief. The students below stood with their heads tilted up to watch the proceedings. Milly waved at them, smiling a little wistfully and remembering, Kallen guessed, the times she presided over Ashford's student body.

'Oh!' Nina gasped suddenly. 'We forgot the photos.'

'Where are they?' Milly asked.

'Um... I think they're in the clubhouse. I was putting them in new frames today and...'

'I'll go get them with you,' Milly suggested and she and Nina returned to the stairs again.

'It's a lovely night,' Kallen remarked, heading for the edge of the roof. She leaned on the railing and looked over at Rivalz, who seemed anxious all of a sudden. 'What's wrong?'

'I... I'm going to ask Milly to marry me!' At Kallen's surprise, he fidgeted nervously. 'We've been dating for two years now, and I've always known, you know... that she was the girl for me.'

Kallen strode over to Rivalz and gave him a hug, trying to convey in it the sincere happiness she felt. It was time that some of them were really, truly happy again and she believed that Rivalz and Milly would be able to experience it, together.

'I'll show you the ring,' Rivalz offered. 'Actually, I wanted to ask your or Nina's opinion first.' He moved to the stairs. 'I think I'll get it now. It's not far. I'll be back before Milly and Nina are.'

Kallen returned to the railing after he'd gone. The night breeze had forced several of the students to retreat to the warmth inside and she had to admit, if it weren't for how important their annual fireworks display was, she would be inside too. They'd started their tradition a year from Shirley's death, remembering Lelouch's wish for them all to be together once more to light fireworks. Kallen hadn't known about it until Milly and Rivalz had approached her with the idea, and after that first time, they'd returned faithfully to Ashford each year, no matter where they were living at the time.

She heard the door open and guessed it was Rivalz, although he must have positively sprinted to be back so soon.

'That was quick,' she commented, waiting for him to join her.

'Five years is quick?' someone who wasn't Rivalz said and her heart seemed to skip a beat. 'I suppose I don't have to ask whether you missed me.'

She turned slowly, almost unwilling to in case it wasn't him.

It was.

Lelouch smiled at her, in that familiar, beautiful way. She took a deep breath and blinked a few times, never once letting him out of her sight.

'Is it really you?' she asked, desperation weaving through her words. She couldn't be hallucinating, could she?

'No. I'm merely a vision.'

'Lelouch!'

'It really is,' he said, becoming serious at her panicked tone, and she walked briskly towards him until it became a full sprint that took her straight into his arms.

'You came back,' she said, her voice brittle with tears.

'Of course. I had to light fireworks with everyone again, didn't I?'

Kallen tightened her arms around him and when he pulled her closer as well, she decided it wasn't cold at all; the night was perfect.

end