Gino was not religious. He did not believe in ritual. But sometimes, in order to bear the strain of life, he needed an accompaniment of an inner music. He, unlike his mother, could not always compose such a music for himself. That music, he believed, was the word of the Christ, the God of all universes, the divine ruler of every world created by the touch of his divine hands.

He prayed for his sins and for the sins that Kallen might have committed, because he knew that she did not believe in an afterlife. She believed in the past, and he had taken pity on her.

"Did you know who he was before he was Zero?" he had asked her, quietly.

Zero, the mask of the ages! While people shout his name and praise his heroic deeds, who would remember the tragedy of the Massacre Princess? Who would remember the FLEIJA fired into the night sky as it destroyed the Tokyo Settlement? Who would remember the terrifying seconds as Lelouch smiled and took control of the entire royal family? Who would remember the real world, full of false ideologies and false hope? It was Zero, the madman who made the mass population forget these tragedies as they regained control of their lives.

"Yes. He's changed, for the worse."

"Is that why you were so distracted?"

"No, it's just not that..."

Kallen was speaking more intimately to Gino than he had ever heard her before. She was troubled. "My father died in the Pendragon explosion, right before we fought Lelouch. I fought on the side of the man who killed my father."

Her voice trembled, and she burst into noisy tears. "Why did he ever have to leave my mother? My brother wouldn't want to kill Britannians, and then he wouldn't die, and then my mother wouldn't have taken that first dose of Refrain. I hate him!"

So here was the reason why she had chosen to be Japanese. She fought because she sympathized with the oppressed, she fought because her father was a Britannian and caused so much sadness and strife in her family.

If she had been a different type of girl, he would have put out his hands and pulled her close. He would have kissed her lovely forehead and murmur quietly, "I'm so sorry."

But this was Kallen. He did none of those things, because that would have been disrespectful of her. She was stronger, far stronger than anyone he knew for a girl.

"He left me a will. It's around forty million pounds." She put her face in her hands. "It's a gift I never wanted in the first place. I wish I'd never been born by the wrong family..."

"It's not your fault, it was Schneizel's fault for pushing that goddamned button on the FLEIJA," Gino tried reasoning with her, but it only made her more hysterical.

"And I fought for him!" Kallen wailed. "Of all the deaths that weighed on my conscience, I've never been more bothered by anyone except for my father..." and Lelouch, she wanted to add, but surely Gino would find it absurd to mourn for the death of a tyrant.

"Kallen, listen to me. Look at me in the eye!" growled Gino, in that fierce passionate way he had inherited from his mother. "You. Did. Not. Kill him. Understand?" He shook her hard, trying to make her snap out of it. Kallen being a crybaby was so unlike her, it scared him. He hated it when she cried.

"I didn't kill him," she repeated. "I didn't kill him."

"That's right," he said grimly, and made her sit down. "Now, I give you absolution."

"What?"

He was suddenly self-conscious about how Christian-like he had become. "It means forgiveness. Uh, the priest, once you confess your sins, he makes the sign of the Cross and gives you penance for your absolution."

"Oh." Kallen said. "I didn't know you were a Christian."

"I'm not a very good Christian," confessed Gino. "I'm just a sucker for that two-minute pure feeling you get after going to Confession. Like if I died, I'd still be okay and I'd go to heaven."

"I don't believe in an afterlife," she said. "It's too depressing, seeing people organized into Heaven or Hell. And anyways, there's no God from where I see."

Gino smiled a sad smile that made her believe it wasn't the first time he heard of it before. "You've never prayed before? Don't tell me you've never been in a life-or-death situation."

"Only to my family. And maybe some friends, but they're all gone now."

She took out a picture of the old student council. It was a group picture of people, some that Gino recognized and some that he didn't.

"Here. Three of them are dead," and she pointed to Shirley, a cheerful looking girl, and Lelouch, back when he wasn't Zero, and Suzaku, with a tentative smile, which gave Gino a painful knot in his stomach. He missed Suzaku, even though it was true he had gone long over to the dark side. "Those two graduated, of course"-Rival and Milly-"and Nina was the developer of FLEIJA, who Schneizel manipulated to destroy Pendragon." Gino spotted a small, frizzy-haired girl with braids and glasses peeked shyly over her laptop. "And of course, Princess Nunnally, back when she was in middle school."

Kallen tore a piece of bread and flung it towards the pidgeons that crowded their bench. "If I knew what was going to happen, I wouldn't have signed up for a single bit of it."

Her voice was full of grief and the despair of it all from mourning the absence of the people she missed. "Sometimes I can't even look at the clubhouse. I know I'll hear their voices, and I'll turn around, but they won't be there. It's pathetic. I can't even focus on the future or be happy about it."

She folded the picture carefully and placed it with purpose into her bag, and smiled wryly at her companion. "You're probably really bored from hearing my stories, aren't you? I'll leave now."

"No, Kallen, I swear I'm not."

"The bell's probably going to ring soon. I'll be going." She stood up and brushed the crumbs off her uniform. "See you, Gino."

"Kallen!" He called out her name like it was a lifeline.

"Yes?"

"Luke 6:21! Look it up," he said earnestly. "It's in the Bible."

She looked at him cautiously. "All right, I will. See you in class."

But she didn't immediately remember to look it up, because she had bombed the quiz over Charlemagne and her mother was being difficult about the whole rehabilitation thing.

"Kallen, please, just leave the canister there. I don't feel right without it."

Kallen remained impassive to her mother. "I'm not going to do that. You've stayed off Refrain two years, I'm not having you turning back into an addict on my watch."

"You don't understand how hard it was for me-"

"No, Mother."

"Please, Kallen, I'm your mother. Don't I mean anything to you?"

"Go to sleep, Mother."

"Kallen!" The woman cried out for the final time, but Kallen shut the door and locked it on the outside. Every night, the woman would insist on organizing the house the way she wanted, and Kallen would stay up late trying to convince her mother to go to sleep. It was troublesome to look after her mother, but Kallen knew that her father would have wanted her to take good care of his wife until she at least graduated from high school.

Kallen sighed out of relief, then pulled out her calculus homework. Being at the top of the class meant that she had to study quite a lot, especially in her final year, where they were already preparing for their exams for college admissions.

But five problems in, her mind started wondering about her future. She didn't have any ambitions to do anything. After fighting in the name of democracy and liberation, working for a living sounded so lackluster compared to her old life. It was already hard enough to live like a regular person. People she didn't know would point her out and whisper to one another behind her back. Although she had developed a tolerance for all sorts of people, it irritated Kallen how they would judge her on unfounded rumors.

Maybe that was why she avoided people in general, except for a few comrades like Sayoko or Nunnally. The Princess had invited her for tea and cookies, and they made small conversation while Kallen admired Nunnally's eyes. They carefully avoided the subject of Lelouch, although it was weighing heavily on both of their minds.

Still, Kallen hadn't gotten over Lelouch. The image of Zero stabbing her love replayed again and again like an empty tune, a dream that she hated yet wanted to see again. It haunted her while she was asleep. His presence was everywhere. She missed him, even though it was true that he had killed many people for his definition of world peace. She missed his smile and his elegant fingers as they held his chess pieces, she missed his violet eyes that captured everybody's attention.

And above all, she missed his commands that he issued to her. She felt useless without someone using her. Although she knew that it ought to be liberating to be on her own and under no one's command, she felt hollow and empty inside. He was the best part of her, and now that he was dead and truly unapproachable, a hole had been torn open in her chest. It left her exposed and vulnerable.

You did not love me, Kallen thought, as she doodled a broken heart on her notebook paper. I don't know if you loved anyone in the first place.

Before Lelouch, Kallen did not think about about future romantic relationships. She refused anything that had to do with love, because it was a territory she wasn't comfortable with. She had thought with a level of certainty that she was going to live forever with her brother. Even while her breasts had blossomed and she grew tall and beautiful, she had vowed never to marry after witnessing what had happened in her parent's marriage.

But she had fallen in love with the demon. She glanced at the pictures she pinned up on her board inside her room. Lelouch, with a deceptive smile in the student council room! Lelouch, baking a cake with Milly! Lelouch, together with the old gang lighting up fireworks! Lelouch! Lelouch! Lelouch!

"This is pathetic," she mumbled. "Just because I thought about my dad I thought about Lelouch." And now she was talking to herself like a crazy woman.

She started thinking about the rest of the day, wondering how she had gotten so distracted about Zero being Suzaku. It had only been two weeks ago. Gino... did he suspect anything? Kallen bit her lip anxiously. It wouldn't be prudent to tell him, although he seemed so friendly and eager to talk to her. She sighed. It'd be so nice to discuss the old wartime memories to someone like him. She was sick of patriotism and loyalty for a while. The worldwide peace, it seemed to her, was so artificially conceived that she was unable to muster any joy for life among the civilians.

"Luke 6:21! Look it up!"

She decided to humor Gino for a while and went next door to borrow a Bible. It transpired that Melissa Salt, a local student studying at Ashford College, was a Catholic and easily handed it over to Kallen.

Kallen thumbed the tiny book, not knowing exactly what or how to look up a Luke 6:21. A few minutes later, she leafed through the contents and found an even tinier statement printed in straight columns.

Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.

She was surprised at how light the quote was. She expected a sermon of some sort, a hidden secret in a powerful holy book. It didn't mean anything special, it only guaranteed that if you cried, eventually sooner or later you'd have to laugh.

Kallen read it again, and this time she let herself give way to her impulses. She pulled on her sneakers, laced them up, opened the door and ran. She ran in every direction, avoiding the dark alleys and empty streets. She ran so fast that her lungs burned for more oxygen. I have to run faster, she said to herself, and she did. A few people stared at her, some people got out of her way rather quickly, and some people tried to catch her, but to no avail. She was a bolt of quicksilver as she ran away from a fear that she could not name.

She stopped, finally, when she collapsed out of sheer exhaustion.

And wouldn't you know it, she laid there quietly in front of the clubhouse. The powerful memories came rushing back. The fateful meeting of Lelouch as he asked her about the Shinjuku ghetto, nearly two and a half years ago. The quiet room that she had tea with Milly as they discussed her half-Japanese lineage. The champagne bottle that Rival opened and soaked her uniform.

She was dazed as she slowly pulled her together, hugging herself as it was a little chilly in the night. She could see a few lights in the dorms and hear a couple of girls chattering in the night sky under the moonlit stars. They had already filled in the crater and built new buildings. The FLEIJA explosion was becoming nothing more than a tragic memory.

Kallen walked to the clubhouse, hesitating slightly as she put one hand on the door. Locked. Of course it would be locked at this time of night.

But she didn't mind; Naoto taught her well as a kid. She took out her ID and jiggled the lock through the crack of the door, and it opened in a few minutes. Kallen had her fair share of breaking in a few buildings once or twice. Breaking the law wasn't something she cared very much for, but what were they going to do to her now? She wasn't scared of anything, not even in the face of apparent death. Lelouch wasn't.

The huge door swung quietly, the hinges didn't squeak. Kallen stepped inside, and the coolness of such a big ballroom made her feel better from her exertion. She wondered briefly if there were any water fountains nearby. Her footsteps tapped on the marble floor and immediately she was taken with the beauty of the space of it all, bathed in the moonlight streaming through the glass windows.

History was made here, she thought with a rush of fierce joy. We've been a part of something greater, of something beyond our reach that we could not do alone.

I have lived, loved and lost people in this room. It's over. That period of my life, that particular chapter has ended. But I want it back. I want my crazy, hectic, violent, and passionate life back. I used to be strong and powerful and cool on the outside. I used to be the strongest warrior on the battlefield, flying so fast you could barely see me in my Guren. I could look at the boy I loved and smile at him because I thought he was doing the right thing. I had bunches of friends I could talk to when I was feeling lonely. I never had to wish for anything except to be back on the battlefield when I was captured by the other side.

But I mostly wish that I could have died early in the game so I wouldn't know what would've happened in the very end.

She sat in Lelouch's seat gingerly, and started crying quietly. She felt sadness, anguish, and jealousy for the ghost of the previous girl she used to be, so shining and confident. The crying eventually grew into loud, hysterical sobs that she was unable to stop. When was the last time she had cried this hard?

A light flickered on. She forced a hand over her mouth, quickly ducking under the table. Suppose she got caught? She didn't want to be caught by a stranger crying over something important like this.

"Hello? Is someone here?" A masculine voice entered the hallway. She recognized it vaguely. Like she had heard it recently, but her life had been bombarded with so much shit that she forgot almost everything in the present day.

Kallen instinctively curled into a ball, breath coming in short and fast because she was trying to keep quiet.

"C'mon, get out." The person, whoever it was, was heading towards her. "I know you're in here. Ashford doesn't tolerate thieves, you know."

She prayed for him to avoid her. She wasn't a thief. She was a genuine student, the best they ever had with the exception of Lelouch!

The person sighed, and said with an amused tone, "Okay, if that's how you want to play it. I'm a pretty rough guy. You don't want to mess with me." He left the room. Kallen relaxed. Maybe he was gone. She crawled out under the table and was greeted by a very physical weight on her chest.

"Gotcha, you little thief, you." Then the elbow shifted to her neck. "Wait, you're a girl, aren't you?"

"Gino, it's me." Kallen said tiredly. "Please get off me." How could she forget the sound of his voice? She only dimly registered the smell of his cologne, a grassy sort of scent mixed with a few other things that she was too tired to identify. It was sensual and friendly and seductive. She had never noticed about what a guy would put on in public eye.

He got off her with a yelp. "Kallen? I thought you didn't live in the dorms."

"I was just revisiting a few..." Her voice cracked from holding in her sadness. "I looked it up. Your quote."

The door was half open, spilling light into the clubhouse, and Gino stood in the light while Kallen stood in the darkness. She could not read his expression, her eyes half blurred from the tears threatening to spill in front of him.

"Oh, Kallen..."

She sobbed, and fell mercifully in the arms of her God. He was warm, and she was heartbroken.

"War," he said, stroking her hair in the dark. "Glorious war. It makes orphans of us all."

Gino was struck how small Kallen was. Out in the battlefield, she had seemed so strong and impenetrable. Now, she had turned into a girl who was pushed beyond her emotional boundaries, something human and fragile. He swallowed, and tried not to cry himself as he held Kallen like one does to comfort a child. Now would be an occasion when his masculine primal instinct took over, and he felt the urge to find Lelouch (wherever he was now) and beat the shit out of him until Kallen stopped crying.

But he couldn't do that, so he had to settle for wishing that whatever had happened she would eventually forget. Maybe he could have met her instead as a proper Britannian, instead of settling for something broken. Something full of sadness he couldn't do anything about it.

This was more than just her father, he realized. It was her friends, her own self-being, the awakening from the horror and the bloodshed from the things she had done. They stood there in the darkness for a long time, until she got tired of crying.

"Put your arms on my shoulders," he said. She complied, and he lifted her body up and carried her to a nearby room. He settled her into a reclining chair, her body easily conforming to the S-shape, and he couldn't help but admire her. Kallen was only wearing a cotton dress, but she had the best figure he'd ever seen on a girl.

Kallen blinked, a miracle considering her eyeballs had lost so much fluid. "Where are we?"

"The apartment behind the student council room. The Ashfords let me rent it for the semester."

She sat up abruptly. "I've got to go home."

"Relax. I'm not going to do anything to you." Gino said, and got her a glass of orange juice. "You're in no condition to walk home. Especially now."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because, in the words of Jeremiah Gottwald, it's part of the code of chivalry to take care of a damsel in distress." He put the cool glass against her lips, and grudgingly she began to drink. Getting fluids in her body were important if she intended to go to school tomorrow.

"I'm not a damsel in distress."

"True," he agreed. "You're not. But you qualify for one right now."

"Why do you like me so much?"

The question was like a punch to the stomach. He fumbled for an answer, but her eyes! Bright gems of light, even though they were strangely clouded. They were two extremely perceptive people who understood each other. Maybe they didn't know everything, but they had so much in common and identified with each other.

"I don't know," he said simply. "There's a lot of reasons, I guess."

Kallen's eyes fluttered, and then closed. "Okay," she said. "Okay, I'll trust you."

She drifted off to sleep a few minutes later. Gino brought a blanket to her and tucked it under her chin, just like Vivi did when he was a little kid himself.

"Sweet dreams, Kallen," he said quietly, and turned off the light.

Author's Note: I think Gino, being a Knight of Rounds and being no one's servant except for the Emperor's, has gone through many of the same things that Kallen has gone through. He empathizes with her. He's definitely attracted to her in a superficial way (I'm pretty sure the bunny suit sums this up) but also I can see why he's not too fond about serving Britannia.

The Christianity motif was fascinating for me to incorporate. Even though CG is an AU, I still think that Britannia would adopt the religion. Gino is born under the nobility, as stated by Bradley, but I applied artistic license when it came to his parents. He doesn't need to work for a living, but he does it anyway.

Oh, and if you catch any mistakes, my bad. I'm too lazy to edit. :P