Chapter 2
Lelouch parks his car outside C.C.'s apartment complex and stays for a good few seconds to compose himself. He thinks of the right words to tell her, of his apologies and regrets, of his remorse for himself for ruining the one thing that kept his life moving. He thinks of all the wrong decisions he made, of every pain he had caused her during their separation. He lets himself wallow and suffer when he remembers how her bright golden eyes slowly died when he told her the truth – what he thought was the truth back then. How her playfulness vanished when they rarely crossed paths after breaking up. How her vibrant emerald hair became limp. How she became skinnier every time he saw her. How she never smiled again. And he promises that never ever in his life will he cause her such unbearable and terrible pain. He promises that he will make up to her for the rest of his life. Because she was his life. She is his life.
He almost never met her, almost not to get to breathe the same air with her. And the idiotic bastard that he is just ruined that God-given time with her for a brief intense fling he thought was true.
He's a fucking idiot.
Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and readies himself. He'll knock on her door and if she opens it, he will… he will what? Where would he start? How would he start? Will she even give her the time of the day? Is she even at the apartment?
Whatever. He will go nowhere when he stays longer inside his car, so he goes out and proceeds inside the building.
If C.C. doesn't accept him, he is willing to start over and over again.
The door is ajar when Lelouch reaches the apartment. Not forgetting his manners, he presses the doorbell on the wall and is answered by a hysterical woman voice shouting, 'Help'.
Without thinking twice, Lelouch barges into the apartment and tries to locate the voice of the woman who is continuously asking for help. For he recognizes that voice very well, and the way she uses this voice only means one thing.
No. Please, no.
"Kallen!"
A crying red-haired woman comes out from the kitchen, her white blouse bloody and ruined. "Le-Lelouch…"
"Where is she, Kallen?" he asks with urgency. He can feel the panic setting in. Damn, he is already panicking. His heart is beating too loud for his ears. His hands are starting to shake.
He needs to calm down. He needs to think straight and quick.
"In the bathroom…" he immediately runs to the bathroom as Kallen continues to speak and cry while following him. "I called the ambulance already but they are taking too long. I-I j-just got here to give bring h-her some food. I don't know how long she's in the tub. Oh God."
It is the scarlet-colored water that is flooding the floor that he sees first. Then, her ivory arm that is hanging from the edge of the tub where the blood is flowing out of her wrist. Her eyes are gently closed and a serene smile is on her lips.
And she is so pale. So, alarmingly, deathly pale.
"C.C.!" Crouching, he puts his arms below her legs and shoulders and scoops her out of the tub. "C.C. wake up, wake up!" He tries to shake her as he carries her out of the apartment and into his car. He cannot wait for the ambulance. He will bring her to the hospital himself as fast as he can. Traffic rules be damned.
He puts her to the back seat wherein Kallen automatically enters and places her friend's head on her lap.
"Hold on, C.C. We are bringing you to the hospital. Please hold on," he can hear Kallen mutters from behind.
Starting the car he tells her, "Cover her cut to temporarily stop the bleeding then call Suzaku. You still have his number, right?" The woman nods. "Good. We will need him."
And with that, he speeds out of the parking lot praying to every holy he knows to save the one girl he truly loves.
"Emergency!" Lelouch shouts as they enter the hospital.
He carries C.C. in his arms, unconscious and dripping wet, leaving a trail of scarlet on the white pristine floor.
Nurses quickly come to him and transfer C.C. to a hospital bed which they immediately rolled towards the Emergency Room.
"What happened, sir?" one of the nurses asks.
"S-Suicide… Attempted suicide." Just getting those words out of his mouth brings him insufferable pain. "Save her. Do everything that you can to save her."
The nurse nods. "We will do everything. I'm sorry but you can no longer enter here. Please wait in the hall."
"Please, save her!" he shouts to the swinging doors of the emergency room.
God, please save her.
He breathes heavily as he watches the doors swing back and forth like a hand saying 'bye-bye'.
He is about to turn around when a fist meets his cheek making him stumble backwards.
"This is your fault, Lelouch," Kallen angrily tells him. Her eyes are starting to swell from all the crying but they are all blazing with anger and hatred for him. He gladly welcomes them.
Another punch on his other cheek. "This is your goddamn fault! If she doesn't make it this time, I swear to God…Lelouch, I swear to God…" The redhead is about to punch him again when a hand grabs her wrist and puts it behind her.
"That's enough, Kallen," Suzaku says but she tries to struggle and get rid of his hold.
"No, it's not enough! It's not enough for what he did to C.C.," she shouts while pointing at him with her other hand. "And if I lose my best friend because of this bastard… If I lose her…" suddenly all of her fury and energy leaves her body and she slumps on the floor with a thud, head bowed, chest heaving.
Lelouch touches his stinging cheek and leans on the wall behind him all the while thinking of everything that just happened.
He feels... blank.
Gone.
Empty.
There's a black void in his chest that comes out of nowhere sucking all of his emotions, his feelings and his thoughts. A whirlpool of ebony that deprives him of being able to feel and react.
He must be in shock, he thought.
Turning his head, he stares at the closed doors of the emergency room.
Come out. Open the door and come out.
He can almost see it – C.C. standing behind those doors, watching them, might be a little surprised that all of them are gathered in one room after their friendship had ended months ago. He can almost see her laughing at them for they look pathetic and a crazy mess of anger, fear and frustration.
"My dear friends, how low have you fallen," she would say not unkindly but with a hint of adoration and teasing.
Stop teasing us and come out of that room.
Walk out of that room and throw us that triumphant smirk of yours because you've won again.
You always win.
"C.C."
"Lelouch."
Slowly, he turns to the source of the voice and sees Suzaku holding out a bottle of water to him, staring at him worriedly. "Why don't we sit down?"
He numbly follows his friend and notices that Kallen has already calmed down and is already sitting at the other chair, holding her own bottle.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Suzaku asks.
Lelouch opens his mouth then closes it again. He does this a couple of times until he surrenders to the fact that his voice can't form any coherent word at the moment.
"C.C. cut her wrist," they hear from the opposite side. They turn to Kallen whose head is bowed with her hands clasped on top of her legs. "I found her in the bathtub with the water above her chin. There was blood everywhere. The water has turned red," Kallen's voice begins to shake, "I don't know how long she has been like that. I almost did not go to her apartment earlier but I remembered how she skips meals nowadays. I… Oh God," she lifts her head and a new set of fresh tears are starting to leak from her cerulean eyes, "What if I didn't?"
"You did and that's what matters." Surprised by his voice, Lelouch holds Kallen's eyes doing his best to send her assurance and comfort.
Kallen stares at him with a hint of resentment still lingering in her eyes. "Why are you even there? Are you going to give her more pain than you already have?"
"No. I…" He turns away not knowing how to say the right words.
Crossing her arms, the girl lets out a mirthless laugh. "Don't tell me you were there because you realized you were the biggest idiot and you were going to ask for forgiveness because you want to be with her again."
Silence.
"I want to punch you so hard right in the face again Lelouch Lamperouge. I don't care if that will ruin your features."
"Stop this already," Suzaku interrupts. "Let's set aside our issues first and try to think of how we're going to get through this. Kallen, is this the first time that it happened again?"
"This is her second attempt."
"Second?"
"Her second attempt to end her life since their separation," she answers coldly.
Lelouch closes his eyes and inhales deeply.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Can you hear me? Follow me, C.C., breathe in, breathe out.
It's gonna be alright.
He can feel his hands shaking and turning cold.
"This is her second attempt."
And before that there have been a few, but she stopped doing it.
She stopped longing for death for a while.
This is his fault. Kallen is right. This is his fucking fault.
"Lelouch, I just want to feel something. Why can't I feel anything? Everything is just heavy. I want this to end."
"I'm here, C.C. I'll carry the burden with you."
"You're here."
"I'm not going anywhere."
But he left her.
But she was alone.
The sound of footsteps takes him out of his thoughts and a doctor emerges from the room.
"Family of the patient."
They all stand and go to him.
"I'm her sister," Kallen lies.
The doctor stares at her for a while as if suspicious if this red-haired woman is really bloodrelated to the green-haired lady in the room, and then nods. "The patient lost a great amount of blood. There are also cuts on her legs and arms though they are not that deep. We also found signs of early stage of hypothermia. If you have found her a minute later, we might have lost her. But she is now in a stable condition. We closed her wounds and have replaced the blood she had loss."
A loud sigh of relief from the trio permeates the air. Lelouch can feel like he can finally breathe again, like every breath he had taken was a tick of the clock, a countdown for the unknown judgment of his sins. And now he breathes like there's no tomorrow because she is also breathing the same air as him. Though she would be more likely breathing with the help of an oxygen apparatus.
But she is breathing.
C.C. is breathing.
"Can we see her?" he asks the doctor.
The doctor, a man with thick white hair and round glasses, looks at the wary faces before him grimly. "There's another thing that you need to know. The patient is currently in coma."