A/N: To my anons:
Catof'thaDune88- me too! And it really pissed me off. I'm such a hypocrite.
Shinigami Twin 04- Your reviews blow me away, they really do. And they make me blush. I'm afraid that if you go back and analyze this fic too much you are going to find all of my mistakes (I dont even know if I have any but I'm sure a person like you would be able to find them). You give my humble fanfiction more praise than it deserves. About the Lelouch/Euphie thing, it's more of a sibling love. You can probably see that I'm into incest, but I only like it if its yaoi.
Rewrite of episode 23ish of Code Geass
Suzaku's point of view.
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
I didn't understand what was happening.
I was hardly aware of the pain in my side. My hands were trembling as I placed them on the lifeless body before me. I shook the shoulders gently, as if the person were only asleep and I was here to merely wake them from their slumber. I wasn't breathing anymore. Maybe a person didn't need to breathe to be alive. My vision had blurred.
"Euphie..." I whimpered, dissolving into a fit of sobs. I tore at my brown hair, wailing to the heavens in agony. This had to be a joke. It was impossible that something like this could have happened. The light had gone from her eyes. The bullet that had caused her death was embedded in her skull.
It had been fired by my gun.
I whirled around. Zero was lying on the ground, a pool of crimson spreading rapidly around his body. Angry tears spilled from my eyes.
I had lost my princess, but I would not lose my prince.
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
Cecile and Lloyd were running down the hall just as the elevator doors opened. The sight of me, I supposed, must have been quite gruesome. Cecile let out a gasp of shock and horror. Lloyd's eyes went wide.
"Please…" I cried, clutching the body to me and feeling the warm blood running down my front and dripping onto the floor. "Please, save Zero!"
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
I could see the hesitation in their eyes.
As I entered the operating room alongside the stretcher, the group of surgeons and assistants stood frozen. Terror had settled on their faces the moment they had recognized their next patient. A group of highly qualified Britannian doctors, they were uncertain about what to do when the greatest enemy to their country was suddenly in critical condition upon their operating table.
"No." One of them flat-out refused. The others looked to be of a similar mind. At the moment, though, I could not care less about their predicament. All I knew was that the clock was ticking and my best friend, my rival, my lover, were all dying. I ripped my gun back out of its holster.
"You WILL save him!" I commanded. My voice was close to hysterics. My hands shook as I gripped the empty weapon. My eyes were wide, crazed, wet.
They were forced into action. Immediately, they set to work. The machines were hooked up, the surgical tools were passed around. Zero's glove was taken off and his sleeve was rolled up so that an IV could be inserted. The surgeons began shouting at each other in the complex Latin language of medicine that only professionals spoke.
One man went to remove the mask. I slapped his hand away.
"The mask stays on!" I growled, determined to preserve Zero's dignity. Fear and annoyance flashed through the man's eyes briefly before they were replaced once again with the detached, objective expression of a doctor with a job to do.
"Stand aside, Sir." He snarled at me. "Unless you want to watch as he drowns in his own blood."
There was nothing I could do. Everyone else had paused what they were doing to observe. They couldn't resist. Their natural curiosity disgusted me. The room held its breath.
The mask was removed carefully from his face. His head fell back onto the sterile sheets, his dark hair fanning out beneath. His flawless skin was white. Sickly white. His lips were parted and colored bright red from the blood that gurgled back in his throat and trickled out as he tried, desperately, to draw in air. He was conscious, but barely. Sweat glistened on his forehead and he trembled as intense spasms of pain tore through his body. He looked like a porcelain doll. So beautiful, but so tragic.
"Christ…" Someone muttered in the stunned silence. "He's only a boy."
"No. This…Britannian? I can't believe it." Murmured another in half awe, half revulsion.
The face of an innocent adolescent did nothing but add to the traumatizing and grisly scene. The stillness was broken by the alarming beeping of the heart monitor. There was a flurry of movement and apprehensiveness once again. But there was motivation now. There was emotion. The life of a masked terrorist was no longer on the line. Instead it was the life of a boy. He could have been someone's son. He could have attended school. He'd hardly lived a full life. And that made the stakes so much higher.
"His blood pressure is dropping."
"Someone get him a goddamn breathing tube!"
Lelouch came alive suddenly, struggling fiercely as the clear plastic tube was shoved down his throat.
"Hold him down."
I stepped forward at this point, needing to do something. I held Lelouch's arm. A needle injected something and after a few minutes, Lelouch's thrashing lessened and he stopped trying to pull out the tube. His eyes, which had begun to cloud over with drowsiness, found mine. He relaxed, perhaps realizing that he was safe. His mouth opened and closed without sound. His lips formed the syllables of my name. He continued to gaze at me with his amethyst eyes until they became too heavy to hold open and he finally succumbed to the drug.
"He's going to need a blood transfusion." One of the surgeons commented, wiping his brow. I was already prepared for this.
"I'm O negative." I said, extending my bare arm.
As I sat there, with blood draining from my body at an uncomfortable rate, I drifted off without noticing.
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
I was in a bed when I awoke. Bandages covered my side. I figured that I must have passed out as I was giving blood and someone had stitched me up while I was unconscious. I had been moved to my own room. The television in the corner was showing the news. A quick glance at the images onscreen was all that was needed to remind me of the ongoing battle. The Black Knights had taken the SAZ and the TV stations were all playing the same broadcast of them swearing revenge against Euphemia and the Britannian government.
"Euphie…" I whispered to myself. "Why?" The memory was strangely fuzzy. One moment I was running to her and the next she was lying on the ground, dead. Faceless people on the battlefield had one purpose and it was to die. I knew from the moment that I became an honorary Britannian and joined the army that I would live the life of a murderer. But this…
I deserved to die. I was despicable. I wrapped my arms around myself, my nails digging into my arms painfully. "Why wasn't I able to stop myself from firing that gun?"
"Shall I tell you?" Said a small voice. I looked up suddenly. A child stood just inside the door of the room. He was Britannian and his clothes spoke of wealth. He had blonde hair that was longer than his own body. I wondered why a child was on the Avalon.
"It's nice to meet you, Kururugi Suzaku. My name is V.V." The way he addressed me sent chills down my spine. His voice, although boyish, sounded much older than he looked. He gazed at me with his large eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a knowing smirk. Something about him was off. I waited for him to keep speaking.
"Geass." He said. "Zero possesses a supernatural power called Geass."
"Impossible." Maybe he was just some crazy kid.
"Then how do you explain what happened to Euphemia? Or you?" V.V. asked. "Neither of you can be blamed for your actions. Zero's geass, "To be obeyed", makes it so that a person must follow whatever command he gives them." All of this sounded crazy to me. I wasn't the type of person to trust in such fantasies, but I couldn't deny that what he said made sense. All the pieces would fall into place. Euphie's sudden desire for Japanese blood, my sudden cowardliness and disobedience on Shikine Island, Euphie's murder, all the things that have happened could be explained by this. A welcome scapegoat. So I believed.
"How can this 'Geass' be stopped?" I said after a moment. V.V. smiled wide, as if he had expected that I would ask that question.
"The Geass user must be killed." He answered. My hands clenched and I bowed my head. V.V. must have also known that I wouldn't like his response. He continued, "But there is another way to neutralize it. Every human being has a Geass ability, but the only way to activate it is to make a contract with a Code bearer." His eyes flashed red for a second. He stepped closer.
"Kururugi Suzaku, would you like to know what your Geass is?"
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
My suspicion grew as I stormed down the quiet hall toward the room where I knew Lelouch was being kept. When I reached the door, it slid open for me.
The bed was empty.
I grabbed a nurse walking by. She shrieked.
"Where's Zero?" I demanded. She looked confused and frightened. "Where is the person that was just operated on?!" The poor woman looked close to tears as I yelled in her face.
"I…I don't know what you're talking about, Sir Kururugi." She cried. "There hasn't been anyone in this room today." Was she stupid? There were bloody scalpels in a tray next to the bed. I looked into her Geass-possessed eyes and realized.
"Damnit!" I swore, letting go of her and running back out of the room.
The Avalon wasn't all that big of a ship and Lelouch couldn't have gotten far. Not with those wounds. It wasn't long before I spotted something on the tile. A drop of red. I followed the trail, the amount of blood on the floor increasing as I continued on.
I was led back to the section of the Avalon where the Lancelot was kept. Lelouch must have watched the way we came from when I'd first brought him in. He was leaning against the Knightmare, breathing heavily, the bandages wrapped around his thin chest already soaked. His mask was clutched in one hand. Even with my furious glare upon him, it was a few minutes before he noticed me.
"It's nothing personal." He panted, as if the mere attempted theft of the Lancelot was what had caused my fury. "Cornelia, Schneizel…they'll come for me…if I stay here." He closed his eyes, as if the effort of talking had left him drained. His knees buckled underneath him and he slid to the ground, leaving a bloody streak down the white armor of the Lancelot. He let out a small chuckle. "It's really a shame…that this is… as far as I'm going to get."
I hated Lelouch so much right now that I couldn't even express the emotion on my face. I hated him because I couldn't hate him while he was like this. Helpless and bleeding. As Lelouch sat there fearing for his life, somehow, my lust for revenge and my anger at him didn't seem nearly as important. Right now, he couldn't possibly know the pain in my heart. He didn't know that he was beyond forgiveness. That made me angrier. I walked over to him.
"What are you going to do with me?" Asked Lelouch as I stood over him. He might have been scared, but he had no strength left to show it. Slowly I bent down and collected him in my arms, gently as my current state of mind would allow. I lifted both of us into the Lancelot and started it.
"Suzaku…" breathed Lelouch. It was the same tired, relieved voice that had been whispered quietly in that cave after our lovemaking. It seemed so long ago. It seemed like it had been someone else's life.
It was a tight fit for the both of us, but not an uncomfortable one. Lelouch was lying across my lap. I held his head to my chest, my fingers knotted in his bloody, matted hair. His shaky breathing was the only sound in the small compartment. Warm liquid was seeping into my clothes from the body pressed close to me. It was stirring to know that Lelouch's blood wasn't just Lelouch's blood anymore. It was my blood too.
"Lancelot, you do not have clearance to launch, I repeat, you do NOT have clearance to launch."
"Kururigi, what do you think you are doing?"
Silence ensued after I disabled all communications. My lips twitched into a smile. Once again, thanks to Lelouch, I would have to go against orders.
Although, this time it was my own choice.
.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.
I seem to have a fascination with blood don't I? Why doesn't the English language have another word for "blood"? Seriously, I felt like I used that word way to much in this chapter.
Anyway, please review.