Burden
Request: Maybe your take at what happened after Lelouch killed Euphie, how C.C. comforted him? Please :3
"We have our contract. I promised to stay with you until the very end," she murmured. Gently smoothing his hair, C.C. rested her cheek on his head as she embraced him.
"You're not alone, Lelouch."
"Are you going to leave me too one day? Just as everyone else has?"
She was slow to reply. C.C. may have been a witch, but she didn't make promises she couldn't keep, and if history truly repeated itself, as she knew it did, she knew that she too one day would leave him, just as she had left Leila and Mao and the countless others she had spent time with and had granted Geass to. But the boy didn't need to know that right now. What he needed was warmth, comfort, someone to lean on, and reassurance. She may have been cold, but she wasn't heartless, and so, she held him as she whispered, "We made a promise for the future, didn't we, Lelouch?"
He looked up at her, and she studied the weariness in his eyes and the way his guilt was burdening him. He looked so lost and afraid. He was nothing like himself - she had never seen him look so blatantly vulnerable and helpless, so heartbroken as he truly realized what she had meant when she had told him that the power of the kings would make him lonely. Where had all of his arrogance gone, she wondered? Washed away with the blood of his sister and millions of the Japanese that had been massacred, all because of his folly. That was where it had gone.
There were tears in his eyes, tears that told her how deep his pain was. C.C. never let him go. She knew all too well how terrible and excruciating loneliness could be, so she never once let her arms fall to her side. Her silence was one of comfort as he wept into her embrace. His own arms eventually came up to wrap around her, his gloved nails digging into her shoulders as he tightly gripped her, as if saying that he was feeling so agonizingly alone and to please just stay with him.
His hold was hurting her, but C.C. bore the pain, if only to help ease his pain a little more. Sobs wracked him and he shook, and she never once let him go. When the torrent of tears had calmed some, she whispered into his hair.
"A burden shared is a burden halved."
"You would willingly bear such guilt and pain?"
"We are two of a kind. It would be wrong not to help someone so important."
And he was important to her. Perhaps for reasons different than she implied, but the survival and continuation of Lelouch vi Britannia, and his quest, was important to her. And so she would do whatever it took to get him down the path he had chosen, whether it was sacrificing her life for him, reprimanding him, or even lying to him. Lying wasn't beneath her - she had been lying for centuries, there had been times when she had even lied to herself, and she would continue lying, if it would help him recover.
"I will always be here for you, Lelouch. Everyone may leave you, your friends, your family, your army, but I will always be here."
He was silent and still for a long time, the only sign of his life being the rhythmic tickling of her ear by his warm breath. C.C. wondered what he was thinking, what he was going to say and do next. She considered rage or disbelief, or even over-attachment. What he did say, though, made C.C. remember how she had never met someone like the boy in her arms.
"Thank you, C.C."
Her eyes widened as an unfamiliar warmth spread over her. Even when he rose from his seat, she still hadn't quite recovered from the shock he had delivered with his kindness. She watched as he walked to the large window of the waiting room, his dark silhouette outlined by the golden glow of the dying sunlight, and resumed his post as Zero, the man of miracles, as Zero, the brilliant man behind the mask who had no mercy for Britannia and the injustice of the world.
C.C. eventually left the room, wanting to put space between herself and what had just happened. Leaning against the wall, she studied the pattern of the ceiling, reflecting on his words. The boy knew nothing. And he had probably forgotten how special those words to her, how before she had met him, she had never had those two words directed towards her in all of the lives she had led. Or, perhaps, he did remember, and this was her repayment for being with him in his time of need, when he was all alone and needed a shoulder to lean on, needed someone to wipe his tears. Perhaps he did remember. You could never really know with him - he might not know it, but just as she couldn't be predicted, there were at times when Lelouch was a wild card and was just as mysterious to her as she was to him. But that was what made things so interesting, wasn't it?
So, C.C. smiled.
Request Complete
