Sorry guys, I know it's been for-freaking-EVER since I last uploaded, but school had kept me so busy, you wouldn't even believe! But I'm back now, and I'll be publishing a lot over the summer, I promise! You know the drill, I'm sure. R&R

Kallen felt hot tears streaking down her cheeks as she stared at Nunally. The young girl also wept. They wept together, for the martyr who had intentionally drawn the world's hatred. The martyr who had ordered his best friend to kill him, so that the world he destroyed could then be rebuilt into that "gentler place".

They wept for Lelouch vi Britannia. No, they wept for Lelouch Lamperouge, the young man who had sought to create a peaceful world for his baby sister. He knew that, in order to rebuild the world, it first had to be broken down, and at the end of his life, he had given up being the man to do both. He had been content to die with the world's hatred on his shoulders, and with Suzaku's promise to rebuild it in his place. Lelouch had been content to die with no one knowing the great kindness that had truly driven his actions.

But Nunally knew. As she had touched her big brother's dying body, images had flashed through her mind. Every single piece of Lelouch's final plan, right down to his telling Suzaku to kill him. And the knowledge was too much for her to bear on her own, so she had found Kallen, knowing she could confide in the Black Knights' Ace.

From the moment that Lelouch had apparently betrayed the Black Knights, Kallen had insisted that she hated him. She thought that she wanted to kill him for using her and everyone else. And yet, when the man disguised as Zero had run Lelouch through, she had been horrified. More than that, she had been heartbroken. All of the Black Knights had been, in that moment, for no matter what had happened, Lelouch, as Zero, had led them to astounding, impossible victories. He had performed miracles for them. He could not simply die by the hand of a man dressed as his alias. Not when he had proven impossible to capture, let alone kill.

Yet, he was dead, and it had been by his own design.

I guess that makes sense, Kallen thought brokenly as she held Lelouch's little sister. The sister he had always adored. He could only be killed if he allowed himself to be. Everything went exactly as he planned. Just like always.

"I guess he really did know what he was doing," said Kallen thickly. She stroked Nunally's long, pale brown hair, the way she had sometimes seen Lelouch do if his beloved sister had been saddened or scared by something.

"He did!" Nunally cried. "And the world will never know everything he did for it! They'll never remember him as anything but a tyrant!"

"We know," Kallen murmured. "We know. You and the Black Knights were his world, the only one he cared about. We'll remember him as our savior. But in the end, Lelouch didn't really care how people remembered him anymore, did he? He did what he had to do in order to get the results he wanted. I think…Nunally, I think he was glad to die.

A second flood of tears began as Kallen continued.

"He destroyed. He made it his duty to destroy, so that Suzaku would build. He hurt everyone he cared about, because if they became his enemies, his goal could be reached. Nunally, I think his heart broke inside every time he acted towards the end. The necessary measures he took were tearing him apart. Death was…probably a relief."

There was a moment of silence, in which the young girls cried. Then—

"Kallen?" Nunally said softly. Kallen looked down at the small girl with eyes just a bit paler than her late brother's. Funny, the things one noticed when distraught and missing somebody you never thought you'd miss.

"Yeah?" she answered.

"I think you're right. He wasn't afraid of death. He was smiling. When Suzaku stabbed him, and then when he fell, he looked happy. He died with a smile."

Kallen felt her lips curve up in a sad smile, tears still falling. She had been too far away to see Lelouch's expression when he died, but she had a feeling that Nunally was right. Lelouch always smiled, sometimes even laughed, when things went his way. Which happened a lot. More often than the angst-y teenage boy would probably ever have admitted to, concerning his life. His plans always worked.

"I'm glad that my big brother had friends like you and Suzaku," said the young, crippled girl. "Friends who understood his heart so well."

A sob finally tore free from Kallen's throat, and once that first one escaped, they just kept coming, wrenching from her chest with painful intensity.

"There was one other thing I saw when I touched big brother," said Nunally after some time, wiping her eyes.

"Yeah?" Kallen sniffed loudly, and rather unattractively.

"Yes. And I have to tell Suzaku. Maybe after he hears it, he can forgive Lelouch."

"It's about Euphy, isn't it?" Kallen choked.

"Yes."

Chapter one, done! I hope that was to your liking? I should have warned you, I wrote this fic to attack your feels! I'm shameless, I know.