Author's Note:
Um, yeah, hi. It's so weird posting in a fandom I usually don't, lol. –Shies away– I don't know anybody... :/ Anyway, I guess I should get straight to the point though. This one-shot is short, terrible, boring, and stupid, but still I suggest you read it (please) because first, the best—or rather worst in my case—critic is yourself, and I also want advice on how to improve. So review if you can think of anything. And I hope you enjoy, despite the rushiness of it, or whatever's wrong with it. I ended up messing up a new style I was trying at, but still, any notes for improvement would be so helpful (and I've noticed this fandom is great at those types of reviews), so please . . . Thank you! Enjoy!
Side-Note:
Naruto fanfiction readers, I'm still trying. These random one-shots for Code Geass are for my obvious writer's block in Naruto stories. I'll come back sometime or another.
Footnote:
1) That was a reference to Audio Drama 15.631.
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A Dead Man
By SpacePirateGirl
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C.C. reaches the surface of the water. She doesn't know yet, of course. Her body's been dead for a while, and she can't full assess where she is or what she's doing—but she knows she's close. And when she wakes up, the waves are rolling up and down the shore, and she's on the beach. Under the cloudy sky.
She's been dead for hours, or probably less, sometimes waking up and failing to breathe—dying again, reviving again. In the distance—somewhere far away—she wonders why Lelouch didn't come back to find her. And then she's up in a second, running towards the place that possessed Nunnally because that's the only place he would be.
Seeing the Lancelot, she throws herself behind a boulder because if its pilot notices her, it's all over. Then her mind goes wild with questions—where is Lelouch? Why is the Lancelot here? Why are Suzaku and Lelouch in the same place, and—she stops thinking.
And jumps out! Her hands wave about as the Lancelot turns on, and she screams at him to stop. "Suzaku! It's me! Suzaku, wait! Please! Suzaku!" But he's already inside, and it's too loud for him to hear her. The waves, the engine, her screaming. He won't hear.
As a final attempt— "LELOUCH!" But the Lancelot is already too far away to see her.
In the past, things had always been simple. She accepted the fact that people died, and in return, people died. Simple and straight, but she never expected to doubt Lelouch's fate now. He isn't dead—she can only tell because of her connection with him—but she's sure that he will be.
And she hopes he won't.
It couldn't be so; he couldn't die. He's rescuing his sister, he has to be because if he isn't, Nunnally will be held hostage—perhaps to the same fate, death. And Lelouch would never allow that. She enters the cave, and sees the wide, double door that Lelouch probably entered. She climbs up the stairs, and sees his last attempt to save his own life—the Sakuradite. So he isn't protected by that anymore.
Crash.
"Damn it!" she hisses, but not because of the forsaken Sakuradite. Her foot's bleeding. Something shattered when she stepped on it, and the shards of glass scraped her leg. Her eyes look down to examine the wound when she sees it.
Zero's mask.
Lelouch's mask.
And seeing Lelouch's mask in such a state—broken, shattered, destroyed into a million shards—it breaks her down. And suddenly she can't breathe. And suddenly she screams. And suddenly . . . she's lost herself.
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Kallen shows up a few hours later. Her face is guilty—not that C.C. cares. It just doesn't suit her, that guilty face. What's wrong with you, she would have asked. But now doesn't seem the time, and instead she finds herself saying, "So you decided to come here, too, huh?" The question's rhetorical.
Startled at the sudden noise yet understanding the meaning, Kallen answers the rhetorical question: "Yeah. I shouldn't have left him before. I feel so horrible."
And even in the face of Kallen's vulnerable, weak, sensitive voice, C.C. feels the anger come on like a storm, like a thunderstorm, like a vicious, terrible lightning and thunder rainstorm. "You were here with him? Before? And you let Suzaku take him? And then you call yourself a Black Knight!"
The redhead's eyes widen. "No! I . . ." Then she looks down. "I guess you're right. Lelouch's given us so much, I should've kept my faith."
This time, it's C.C's turn to raise her head in shock. "Lelouch?"
"Zero is Lelouch, isn't he?"
And C.C's no longer angry. Relieved that someone else bears the secret of who he is—or was. Kallen sits down beside her on the steps beside Zero's mask. C.C's holding one large shard, and Kallen picks up the only other large one. She's hesitating, and suddenly asks, "C.C, is he really gone? Did . . . Did Suzaku really—"
"Funny," she says, clearly not amused. "I was about to ask you the same question." She sees Kallen glance guiltily at her feet.
"Is he . . . dead—"
"No." Her answer is so immediate and so harsh that Kallen draws back. C.C. breathes in the air of calmness before continuing—losing her composure in front of this woman was inexcusable because she isn't supposed to be human; she was supposed to be a different entity completely. Not human. Not hopelessly upset. "Lelouch isn't dead, but he will be," she explains. "I didn't make it back in time."
"Interesting," Kallen says, and she's clearly not interested either. "Someone like you is also guilty when you've no reason to feel guilty."
Is that what she's feeling? Guilty? C.C. almost laughs at the thought.
Kallen continues— "You know, I didn't want to say this, but it's true, and I'm no liar." She pauses. "You were always with him, no matter what. You knew who Zero was, and you didn't run away like the coward I am. And the way he looked at you—"
"Stop talking like that. He will still look at me. He still is Zero. He's not dead yet—"
"But he will be." Kallen uses her own words against her. "I'm just saying that he cares deeply about you because you never abandoned him. Like I did."
C.C. flinches. She hates being compared to a lovebird out to catch Lelouch's eye. She doesn't care. Kallen's better suited for him. "I've also noticed that Lelouch is quick to forgive. He won't hate you."
Kallen smiles a painful smile. "Whether Lelouch cared about me or not, I still want to thank you because you really were as close to him as you said you were. You're his accomplice (1)."
"Then . . . Can you do me a favor?" she asks hesitantly. She wants to go, but she doesn't; Kallen will take her where she wants to go, but maybe she won't. The uncertainty plagues her, the contradiction plagues her, the whole mess she's in plagues her. "Will you take me to Ashford Academy and leave me there alone? I want to . . ." She doesn't know what she wants to do.
Kallen looks at her, and smiles just barely—slightly. "Sure thing."
And C.C. realizes it's the only friendly conversation they ever had—or ever will have.
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She can't bear to turn the television on. She doesn't want to know—some things are better left unanswered. And he would have made it—his unreal confidence in himself only demonstrated how easily he would have lived to the end of the contract. Now she has to start all over again. Nobody ever came as close as Lelouch Lamperouge did, so she knows to refrain from wishful thinking.
Of course, the real reason she's so upset—and she knows this very well—is that Lelouch treats her differently than everyone else. Not as a demon or a curse or a monster but as a friend, a confidante.
An equal.
And it's been a while since she's been compared so easily to an actual human. Now he's to die shortly, and there's nothing she can do. She doesn't understand what brought her back to Ashford Academy. Maybe she's hoping she's dreaming, and Lelouch will be sitting at his computer, planning the next battle as always. Or maybe she just wants to say her final farewells, and this is the only suitable place.
Her hands reach reluctantly for the doorknob because she knows Lelouch Lamperouge will never inhabit this place ever again. She enters and breathes in the air of regret. Lost, C.C. finds herself wandering the place—the dining room, the restroom, Nunnally's room, in which she swore she could still hear Nunnally's laughter. And finally the living room—she laughs at the room's name.
Then her long-forgotten heart falls to pieces when she stands at the entrance to Lelouch's room. She reaches for the doorknob, but halfway there she pulls away. Happy and sad memories accompany this room, and still, whether the memories be upsetting or not, a simple feeling of content runs through her blood at the sight of it. Rewriting the memories of the room without Lelouch or without the content is unthinkable.
C.C. closes her eyes. And she takes gentle steps in, as if her feet could shatter the stable ground.
Even without her sight, she knows the exact route to his computer chair, where he sat endless nights upon, where he worked without sleep. She sinks into the soft cushioning of it, and breaths in his scent. And as expected it's cold and freezing, and cold and lonely.
And then she stands up and finds his chessboard with ease—her eyes still shut tightly—and she feels the pieces that Lelouch's hands once held. Lelouch made them alive, and they're dead now. They're dead things that she doesn't like.
Still looking for some comfort in this beloved room, she stumbles—now blindly—upon a closet with the clothes he bought her. C.C. touches one piece of fabric, and then slams the closet door shut—still with closed eyes.
And then she realizes she doesn't know where she is. His room is a hole, an empty black hole, with nothing in it and everything in it, and it hurts to stand in the middle of it all in the blackness and light and deadness. She doesn't remember the way out. She doesn't remember the way to the computer stand, or the chessboard, or even back to the damn closet she just still stood next to.
Her eyes are closed, and she knows if they opened, they would see nothing more.
She stumbles around, her hands out in front of her, guiding the way through the thick forest called Lelouch's room, and trips over something that smells of cheese and feels of softness—she lands on his bed. And afraid, she crawls under the covers. The room is, oh, so cold, and the covers offer little warmth.
Even with closed eyes, she feels the tears streaming down her face and wonders how human she can be and how long she can be human. This one room made her alive, and now it's dead; it's dead because Lelouch is gone, and Lelouch is dead. And she stuffs her face into the pillow to erase the human tears. His scent enters her nose, and she cries even more. She wants to go, to leave and never come back, but his bed, their bed, the bed they shared together, is warm and so warm and the only warm thing in this once-warm room. So warm.
The cries transform into shrieks. Quiet shrieks that no one will hear. Her fists slam on the mattress. Because in this room, she is human. And in this room, she is free to cry, to love, to hate, to scream, to wish, to feel. The facts connect, and she engulfs herself in the covers. She . . . cries for, screams for, hates, and just loves Lelouch—no!
In an instant, she springs away from her spot on the bed, stumbling backward on her feet, hitting a wall with the back of her head in the process. Frantically, her fingers—with still closed eyes—trace the wall until she finds the door, and she jumps—stumbles—out and breathes in deep breaths of terror at the thought she almost hadn't made it out.
The room is dead. There's not one single living thing in it. Not the chair, the chessboard, the closet, the damn, warm bed, and certainly not Lelouch. And not her either. She's not alive. She died before Lelouch was even alive. And his room sucks all dead things in.
"Oh, Lelouch," she mutters to herself.
No, there was not one single living thing in this entire house. C.C. draws away from the empty, black hole, and hides in the daylight outside. And just as before, she wanders aimlessly around the busy streets where people laughed and laughed and talked and smiled, and then she realizes that this place is becoming a black hole, too. And just like his bed, and his room, and his house, and the entire school of Ashford Academy, the world had not one living thing in it. The world was dead.
And even though her heart begs her to reconsider her feelings for Lelouch, to love him because her heart does, even though her heart still beats on, she keeps her face expressionless as she goes somewhere—to nowhere.
Because.
It's impossible to fall in love with a dead man.
Even though she thinks she already has.
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And when she finally hears the news, how he returned to Ashford, how he was alive and not dead—and she was alive—and everything, she realizes it is impossible to fall in love a dead man.
Because the dead man isn't dead.
Lelouch Lamperouge is alive.