A/N: So I definitely know this chapter is LONG overdue, but once I hit my writing stride I plan to finish this story for sure. :D


It all started on a Friday afternoon.

There were some days where it was somber and dark, especially when Kallen looked at her mother when she was in deep thought. Her mother was still difficult to deal with and once Kallen caught her contemplating the blade of a kitchen knife. Kallen had then taken upon her the task of cutting the vegetables after that.

She was afraid of what was happening to her mother but did not know how to stop her.

There was a conversation they had shared after school that Kallen had analyzed later in bed. Her mother had a wisp of hair over her dark eyes, sipping some hot tea.

Now Kallen entered the door, and there were the usual conversation - "How was school?" - "Fine." - "Did you learn anything useful?" - "Not really."

But there was a variation on this one, a stark difference from that day and before that.

There were photos strewn on the kotatsu; some Polaroids with scribbles on the bottom, a few black-and-whites, and a small leather album that Kallen knew too well contained memories of their fateful marriage.

Her mother seemed oblivious to Kallen's gradual expression of horror.

"Have some tea," she said in her gentle voice. Her daughter mechanically did so, her hands shaking a little bit.

"Mom..." she began to say, not knowing how to begin.

Her mother brushed her off with a wave of her hand. "You know, I was walking to the supermarket today, and I just saw this adorable couple. Just adorable."

"Mom..." Kallen began again.

Her mother had realized, for the first time, that she was actually talking to her daughter. Instinctively her reflexes was a defense mechanism against any possible insight.

"Never mind what I said," her mother said a little too brightly, and started to shuffle up the strewn photos.

Kallen clamped the woman's wrist. "Mom," she said with a tone of finality.

"What?"

"What happened with the couple you met?"

Her mother started then to breathe heavily, and now Kallen could see she was on the brink of tears. The older woman smiled weakly.

"I don't know... It's very strange, not feeling that stupid panic thing inside you all the time. Without that you just start thinking about yourself - and what does that ever get anybody. Today, I saw them and I felt myself giving them a dirty look - I had no idea everything was moving in the wrong directions... "

"Go on," Kallen said, wanting to take on the emotional toll. She had a feeling where it might go, but she was curious for herself.

"I even remembered what it w-was like t-to have a man to h-h-hold hands with, for Christ's sake."

An audible sniff came from this insight. Her mother's eyes were shiny and wet, and Kallen took her hand. At this act of kindness her mother burst into tears. "Aw, who needs these thoughts?" She tried smiling but it was a futile effort. It was obvious that she felt pathetic for feeling lonely, and Kallen was moved.

"Are you saying that you feel frustrated-"

"Leave me be!" the other one suddenly burst out, red, furious, angry. "Why are you doing this? Why are you picking at my sores... What is it that you want?... You want what? What's with you? I hope getting me thinking of everything that's wrong when all I want is to not do this, as if it has some purpose."

Now silent tears were flowing down Kallen's cheeks as well.

Her mother glared at her, slumped and defeated. "What do you want? I give up, what do you want?"

"I want you to be happy."

Her mother shook her head. "No, it's impossible. I've tried so hard to find happiness. The only happiness that I ever had left me."

She got up, put on her jacket and headed out.

Kallen did not look back.


There was a side to Kallen's mother that Kallen would never know.

As usual she got out of bed, dressed quickly, and put some bread in the toaster, and packed her schoolbag for school.

"Kallen," her mother said shortly. "There was a call from the somebody yesterday."

"Really?" Kallen said absentmindedly, as she decided between dark green or dark blue socks to wear with her brown shoes. "Who was it from?"

"They said your father was dead."

Now she stopped and paused to look at her mother. "What?"

"They said your father was dead."

It was much worse hearing it the second time. When Kallen met her mother's eyes she knew that her mother knew everything. Kallen had tried to hide from her.

And she failed.

"Mom..."

"Go to school," her mother said calmly, her eyes an oasis of tranquility.

Kallen had no choice but to obey.


She came home with an odd sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

She unlocked the door with her key, kicked off her shoes, and said, "I'm home."

No answer.

She tried again. "I'm home."

No answer.

Now she was afraid.

The bedroom door was ajar. She pushed it open and walked in. Through the farther side of the room she could see the bottom of a suitcase. Just over the suitcase dangled a pair of feet.

Slowly, like the hand of an old clock, the feet turned clockwise; north, north-east, east. And then counterclockwise; south, south-east, east.

Kallen vomited. She could not help it.

After wiping the bile off her mouth, she sobbed.


The police came quickly, and she gave the rudimentary details. She had committed suicide by her bipolar disorder from the aftereffects of heavy drug use.

Kallen was tired. Villetta and Ohgi and Rival and Tamaki had came to comfort her, but there was no denying the grim fact that her mother was dead.

It wasn't her fault, they kept saying, but Kallen could not help thinking that she was somewhat responsible for her mother's life. She understood that the right to taking one's life was inviolable, but sometimes a reason or a friend can make that unnecessary.

She had been on heavy medication, Kallen thought bitterly. Damn doctors. They didn't give a shit about an Eleven, especially one who had been a drug addict. No hope for her, so why bother curing her?

Kallen did not step inside her mother's room after that. She spent some time on the stair steps of their apartment, vaguely questioning abstract concepts. Her eyes, formerly the color of a summer sky, were now gray and sad. She wore the same clothes for three days; faded out jeans, a dirty white blouse, and black sandals. They were clothes that her mother used to wear when she worked in the Stadtfeld garden.

Gino found her like this lying on her couch in her apartment after Villeta had relayed the sad news to him. She looked like a broken doll, empty and lifeless.

He could not bear to see her like this.

"Kallen," he said, touching her shoulder.

She looked at him, her eyes raw and empty. "Is that you?"

"Yes, baby doll, it's me," he said softly. "I heard what happened."

She smiled weakly. "You shouldn't see me like this. I'm a wreck."

"There's always something about a wreck that you can't take your eyes off it," he responded. It wasn't supposed to be an endearing statement. It was just a natural response.

She chuckled, though. "Oh, you joker," she said fondly, although it hurt to think how her mother would have appreciated Gino comforting her like this.

Kallen had slept very little since her mother died. It was too hard to let go of the past and start living in the future.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

His bluntness surprised her a little bit.

"I would have done it already if I had the words for it," she said sadly. "It's as if I was..." Kallen paused, the grief causing her voice to vanish. She tried again. "It's as if I was peeled open for the world to see."

He sat beside her. She laid her head on his shoulder, her hand entwined with his, and she focused on breathing in and out.

"It's so painful," she whispered. "To know that my mother would let me down, in the very end."

Her eyes were wet and dewy. "I thought that maybe when she had a therapist, things would get better."

"Maybe it was a moment of weakness," Gino said.

"I wish she trusted me to make things better."

"Maybe it wasn't you."

And Kallen just looked at him like he was crazy. Or someone to be pitied. Or both.

"Someone doesn't just commit suicide after thinking it about a day."

"She was always dependent on my father, " Kallen said, as if she agreed with him. "I knew that even though he left her, she clung to the hope that maybe, somehow, he would leave his wife and come back to her..."

And now that her hope had vanished, she had gone.

Tears splashed, and suddenly it felt as awful as it was the first day when she found her mother hanging from her room, her neck at an odd angle. The air was squeezed out of her lungs, and she sobbed and sobbed until she didn't have any tears and the pain kept building up.

Until she felt asleep, she swore the hand stroking her hair over and over again belonged to her mother.


The empress of Britannia woke up cold, and curled into a ball. The few rays of sunshine peeked over the horizon, but had no warmth as they crept over her body.

She blinked, and was astonished to find a woman waiting for her. Not a maid that she recognized, nor was it anyone who was allowed in her palace, much less her own private bedroom.

Her reaction was instantaneous. A mad scramble ensured that Nunnally was pointing a loaded pistol at the woman, an arm supporting her back as she could not sit up straight by herself.

"Be calm, Empress," the woman said. "I am not here to kill you."

The teenager did not budge from her position, eyes staring straight ahead. "Then why are you here? I have many enemies."

The woman was very fair, with raven hair in flowing cascades down to her waist. She was tall and reminded Nunnally of her late mother, although Marianne did not have a symbol on her forehead. Nor did Marianne ever prefer to dress in complete white.

She seemed amused by the gun. "I know no material boundaries," she said, and her hand went through the gun barrel and emerged with her flesh intact. "Certainly not those that determine my death, anyway."

Nunnally lowered the gun, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're a witch. Just like C.C."

"Yes."

"I have no use for witches," Nunnally said mildly and tucked her weapon on her nightstand. "My father had V.V. at his disposal, and I cannot walk thanks to him."

"Do you not find your truth-finding Geass useful?"

"I have," Nunnally acknowledged.

"Then you have been bound to me."

"If I renounce my Geass, shall I still be bound?"

"Yes."

Nunnally thought for a few moments. "If I am bound, then may I inquire who you are?"

Now the woman hesitated. "I have been called many names, however, I would prefer you to call me Phillipa."

"No double initials?"

Her sculpted lips turned upwards in a smirk. "None whatsoever."

"How can I trust you?"

"You can't," Phillipa said simply. "But perhaps this will change your mind..." The fair woman clapped her hands twice, filling Nunnally with an enormous sense of well-being.

And although Nunnally had blinked for only a moment, the woman had gone, leaving nothing but the scent of blooming magnolias behind.


The next day, Kallen looked and appeared relatively normal.

When someone tentatively where she had been, she simply said she had been ill for a few days, but yes, she was better now.

It wasn't that she lying, because she was better in a strange way after crying.

But the death of her mother was too much for her to talk about. The tears were still there, waiting to be sloshed around like some overfilled basin. Any movement would tip it over.

She was very careful now, taking her time with words she examined before saying them.

Gino kissed her that morning and headed off to the ambassador's office telling her he would try to get a position near her. It had been a sweet gesture, but she was especially wary of him. She didn't want to hope for something stupid or impossible.

The student council had taken note of the change that had come over the previously hot-tempered girl. In her place, there was a quiet, thoughtful person who somehow miraculously turned into Saint Teresa, complimenting people on the most trivial of things and taking time to thoroughly check up on the things she missed while she was gone.

"Kallen-senpai," Caroline said respectfully, when they were alone and Kallen was revising budget cuts for the many student organizations. "Did something happen? To you, I mean."

Kallen took her time putting down her fountain pen. She was fond of Caroline for being the very few people who stood up for her in school, but she was also very cautious about who to trust.

"You mean, why am I different?"

Caroline nodded.

"I... lost someone who was... "

Suddenly her throat had lost control. A lump made it so difficult to talk.

"It's ok, senpai," Caroline said, and her voice was really quiet. "Did you two... break up?"

"No!" Kallen quickly.

And then her eyes were downcast. "My mother committed suicide."

It sounded so odd, admitting it to someone she didn't understand for the first time.

"Oh my God," the other girl said. "I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," Kallen said, and she picked up the pen. But the two of them knew it wasn't.

"How do you go to school and... just act like you're fine?"

Kallen half-smiled. "Because I have things I have to do, and thinking about her isn't going to help me any."

"How can you control what you think?"

"No war stops for a warrior who dies in the middle of it," Kallen said darkly. "My mother did what she needed to do."

"You thought your mother needed to kill herself?" Caroline asked, her pitch of voice escalating higher and higher. "You mean, you don't care?"

"She was already dead in the first place," Kallen said flatly. "To her, killing herself should have meant nothing to me."

"Well." Caroline's voice was now cold and flinty, unexpectedly sharp to Kallen. "That's just awful. To have no faith in your mother. Just awful."

The girl turned on her heel and slammed the door as hard as she could.

Kallen felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.

Then she picked up the ink jar, examined it for a moment, and then hurled it at the door where Caroline had exited. It shattered into a thousand pieces and the ink stained the carpet, giving her no little satisfaction as she realized how difficult it would be for someone else to clean it up.

She has no goddamn idea, Kallen thought. Not one bit.


"I have something for you," Gino said as he was driving her back home from school. "But I'll have to drive you there in order for you to see it."

Kallen cocked her head, eyes widening in anticipation.

"What is it?"

He simply smiled his wonderful crooked smile and evaded her questions while piquing her curiosity at the same time.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Gino asked lightly, as his hands were on the steering wheel.

"What?"

"You're glaring at me. Did I do something?"

"No," Kallen said, and realized that she had an ugly grimace without knowing it. She rectified her expression to what she hoped was slightly pleased and embarrassed.

He shook his head. "You don't have to lie to me, you know. Penny for your thoughts?"

"I told Caroline about my mother, and it came out wrong. She thinks I was heartless to have no sympathy for her."

"Did you?"

Kallen hugged herself as if she was getting colder. "I think I always had a chip off my shoulder when I looked at other families... I resented her for a lot of things."

She scratched her neck. It was itching like hell ever since her mother hung herself from her bedroom. "I'm an illegitimate child, really. How dysfunctional can you get?"

Gino chuckled. "Not as dysfunctional as mine."

That provoked a smile from Kallen. "True."

"You're not afraid of me, are you?"

"No."

Which was not exactly true, Kallen thought. She wasn't afraid of him in the conventional way. She was more afraid of him being able to dissect her every thought, every secret that she didn't want anybody to know.

They stopped in front of the government building, and he parked in front. Being Knight of One had privileges, and Gino shed his leather jacket before heading out in the crisp autumn air.

Kallen was still in her school uniform, and she thought it was strange to be in this sort of place off-limits for civilians.

The receptionist let them through the glass doors after two security guards verified that they weren't armed. Gino, being a Knight of One, was on good relations with Ohgi and therefore passed by without any trouble.

They walked through a chrome hallway and at the end Gino slid his card key to enter the last door.

Kallen could see it was a warehouse of some sort and she could hear the whirring of machinery. She wondered where she was.

Bright sunshine momentarily blinded her and she had to blink before taking in her surroundings.

"Ohoho, I didn't expect your commission for her, Weinberg-san."

"Commission?" Kallen asked, as Lloyd grinned at the pair of them. His beautiful assistant, Cecile, was as always by his side and maintained a smile.

"He's financed a whole new Knightmare for you," Cecile said. "I do say it's our best work, but we didn't expect the pilot to be you, Kouzuki-san."

"Mm, I would have expected another Knight of Round for the Empress," Lloyd interjected. "I assumed that the client was very skilled."

Kallen swallowed. She could not imagine how much money a Gen-9 Knightmare would involve.

She furiously turned to him. "Why? I'm not going to be recruited as a Knight for you."

Gino noted the spark that appeared in her gorgeous blue eyes whenever she was angry. God, he loved her so much. He could go broke (a laughable prospect as of right now) and he'd still be happy if she was with him.

"I just wanted you to be happy," he said simply. "If you don't want it, I can have the two of them calibrate to a different pilot."

He held the keystick in his palm. "Your choice."

Kallen hesitated.

"Okay," she said. She felt weirded out, and like she had been pressured into something that might turn into something weird.

"Excellent!" Lloyd exclaimed. "I feel reassured that my baby is in sweet hands."

"You don't feel weird that I, the former enemy, should possess... this Knightmare?" Kallen asked.

"I don't have much of an allegiance to anybody," Lloyd admitted. "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

A few lights in the ceiling cast a harsh glare on the Knightmare that stood underneath a white sheet. It was small, for a Ninth Generation Knightmare.

"Behold," Lloyd said dramatically, and he pulled the taut fabric down to reveal - "Isolde!"

The mecha was sleek and electric blue. Small, but emanated an aura of deadly power. Kallen took a liking at first appearance, spying a Hadron blaster on the left and a nasty-looking claw on the right.

"What do you think, hmmm?"

"It looks awesome!" Gino said excitedly. "Kind of like Guren but better."

"No!" Lloyd said, slamming a palm on the control panel. "Not that silly machine that Rakshata concocted. My prototype extends the Energy Wing to a whole new level!"

"Okay then," Gino said apologetically. "Isolde it is."

Kallen kicked Gino playfully in the ankle. "You clever bastard, you named it on purpose, didn't you?"

His face was an expression of innocent bewilderment. "What?"

"Your Knightmare is named Tristan. Tristan and Isolde? C'mon, that is so cliche," Kallen said, but she was smiling.

"Ah, but you like it, don't you?" Gino winked at her. "Let's take it out for a test drive why don't we."


In life, there are sudden events that change your life that could easily scar you if you couldn't handle it gracefully. In this case, Nunnally had stumbled on a startling revelation - her legs weren't numb anymore.

When Nunnally's leg bumped into the nightstand, she shrieked out of surprise that she could feel it.

My legs? I shouldn't be moving like this - and how did I move them there in the first place?

Her eyes were confused as one tentative hand lifted her knee. Like magic, it bent effortlessly without the burden of her arms.

Nunnally's eyes were wet. She could walk now! Phillipa had granted her wish, a wish she'd thought was absolutely hopeless and stupid to wish for. She thought she had accepted her disability a long time ago, but she couldn't help crying over the fact that she had always suffered from being blind and crippled.

Thank you, Phillipa. She sent a quick prayer, and then swung her legs over her bed, eager to start walking.

And tripped.

"Ouch!" she said, her forehead in pain. She had overestimated her strength. Of course, considering she hadn't walked since the age of four, she wouldn't exactly be running marathons in a day.

Nunnally grasped the edge of the night stand, and slowly pulled herself upright. The exertion tired her instantly. But she was proud of herself. For the first time in many years, she was standing tall.

"Do you like your legs?" Phillipa asked, and Nunnally was startled. She hadn't heard anything; it was as if the witch silently swooped over her, watching her every move.

"I do," the girl said humbly. "And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can't but also wonder what you are expecting from this very valuable gift you have bestowed on me."

"It's up to you, Nunnally," Phillipa said carelessly. "I'll be back when you learn how to run."

She kissed Nunnally on the cheek, and the teenage Empress looked at her benefactor for only a moment. Her eyes were questioning, innocent, possibly even naive...

Then she blinked, to which she discovered that the witch had disappeared in a flash.


A/N: I like this story too much to give up on it. I have more ideas and I hope that some of my readers will go back and re-read my previous chapters.

Please review. I'm probably planning a lemon next chapter, too. I've been meaning to write that out, considering that this will be a mature story.