Chapter 20-Schism
C.C
A pulse of sunlight evanesced through crystalline windows, gold-threaded tapestries accenting the gilt spattered on Lelouch's throne. He was leaning slightly to the side and his eyes were closed with sleep; and as C.C peeked at him she felt like pulling some kind of prank. Can't have His Majesty sleeping on the job. Needing some warm water to submerge his hand in she started towards the kitchen, getting annoyed by the soft noises made by her jewelry clinking together when a flash came from behind her. "No pictures of the Emperor when he's not awake!" she fumed, turning to see a bored-looking teenager in a polo shirt holding a giant camera.
The girl, her name tag reading 'Meg', rolled her eyes at C.C. "Puh-leze. That picture will cost you a dollar."
"What?" she had the overwhelming urge to slap some sense into the girl, for the Emperor would let his mistress get away with anything.
"Don't go all psycho on me, lady. Look at the sign."
C.C turned around, to see Lelouch in the same position but instead uniformly white with small rivulets of gray running through, as if he were made of marble. Sure enough, sitting in the busy town square that had replaced the throne room a sign toted 'Brittania's Historical Destination #3: Statue of 99th Emperor.'
"Lelouch!" she ran towards it, her gown now in rags. Before she could reach him someone grabbed her around the waist. A sonorous, gravelly voice boomed in her ear.
"Where do you think you're going, C2?" Charles zi Brittania looked at her with hunger in his beady eyes and she closed her gold ones with disgust, repulsed by the clammy arms that held her almost affectionately. Suddenly she was standing in a roiling sea of bisque and amber as it swirled around the Sword of Akasha, the stench of ozone coating C.C's throat and making every breath taste like metal.
C.C felt a hand tap her shoulder. "No!" She thrashed away from it, thinking Charles was trying to steal her Code. I have to wait...stop it..."Stop!"
In the real world Lelouch stopped trying to wake her up. "I'll just let your soup go cold, then." He said, sitting back down opposite to her. C.C was partially slumped over in her chair with a cloth tied across her chest like a seat belt, this not being the first time she had fallen asleep mid-meal.
"Lelouch... sorry." she blinked a couple of times, getting used to the light. "My dream... this chick kept trying to take my picture.." She didn't know whether to tell him about the part with Charles.
He slurped the homemade vegetable broth off his spoon and pressed the hot metal to her hand. "I spooned you."
C.C almost smacked her forehead but sighed instead. "Someone is quite the comedian today."
"I'll at least try to make you smile."
Unknotting the cloth she dumped the rest of her bowl in the sink and watched it swirl down the drain. "What would make me smile is a pizza... or three. From Pizza Hut. I'm tired of having soup for dinner."
"You know I'm not wealthy like I used to be...and besides, who's the order going to be for, anyway? Brittania's number one most wanted? Now that we're living by ourselves we need to be frugal, and with the baby coming who knows how much stuff we'll need to buy? We've gone over this before!"
"You can do all the saving, but I need food. A twiggy person like you doesn't have a baby depending on them."
"Twiggy? I have a light build, unlike people who make irrational demands for pizza. Besides, you need good nutrients, not just a pile of greasy cheese and poor-quality meat." Lelouch poked his temples , looking unduly exhausted. "You should get some rest, C2. All this crankiness means you're tired."
A few weeks ago, Lelouch had thought it time for them both to move out since her pregnancy was becoming more and more apparent, settling with a ramshackle house on a small hill within the northern edge of Jeremiah's orchard, perhaps originally for a farmhand. On a good day the walk to his house was around an hour, and to bypass this inconvenience they kept a horse in a small stable that had been hastily scrapped together. At only four rooms there was still space for a nursery, bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. The nursery was slowly but surely coming along, it's walls newly painted a cheerful peach, the result of mixing other colours found lying around. It was a big adjustment after a palace, or even a farmhouse with it's semi-reliable plumbing and electricity, but they had to keep their secret somehow.
Furniture had been improvised and the only thing they were actually going to buy was a crib for the when the baby came. That is, after telling Jeremiah and Anya, something they were not looking forward to at all. Homemade toys and clothes would have to do, and Lelouch even convinced C.C to pick up the knitting needles once and a while. They thought it was funny, a revolutionist and his counterpart spending their evenings making clothes like two old ladies.
Opening the makeshift fridge to look for some mozzarella and sausage C.C began shoving jars aside. "What would be good on this pizza are some sardines, peppers, and strawberry slices."
"Don't make a mess."
"Why don't you ever cook pizzas for me? And I'm not just asking that because, according to you, I'm-" she gasped a little and touched her midsection, where the discernible bump under her shirt was just starting to reach her bellybutton.
"More kicking?" Lelouch pushed in his 'chair' and put his hand beside hers. After a minute he squeezed her fingers. "Wish I could feel it."
She crossed her arms with a disdainful snuff. "It's annoying."
It had been mid-November when C.C first felt the butterfly tingle of the baby's movement. She was scared at first; the complete verification that there was indeed a new life budding inside her. With excitement she'd woken Lelouch from the fevered sleep of nightmares he never admitted to, their daughter or son's first movement bringing an almost epiphany. She was going to have a baby. Her baby, Lelouch's baby, their child together. It wasn't simply an idea like love, but a fact. By existing it demanded a future; to crawl in, walk in, live in. A future that, for the first time awhile, was something to look forward to.
At that moment C.C felt a strange surge of happiness; like holding a warm stone and feeling it's inner heat radiate to her hand. "Lucca can tell when we're talking about her."
"Huh. I don't believe that." Lelouch skulked over to the sink and tugged on the stubborn taps, finally freeing some lukewarm dishwater. "And 'Lucca' sounds more like an irritating pet name. Something as bad as calling a guy Lulu."
"Why do you have to be so bitter...then maybe Elise? Nataline? " C.C sat on the splintery crates of firewood they used as a couch.
"If you have a girl. We have no idea about that, remember. But I do think it would be good to start considering names. What about Ciel or Marielle? And for a boy, Etienne."
"Marielle sound too much like 'Marianne', but Etienne is okay." Though she'll always be my little Lucca. She disregarded the male names but knew that wanting a girl was something you never said to someone, not even yourself. "It's only six or something...do you want to see another memory?" Figuring she had too much history to talk about they had done this occasionally; Lelouch just curious about what kind of things she'd gone through.
"Sure." He touched the glowing sign on her forehead, both of them standing side by side as they watched something from the 1300's that C.C herself had almost forgotten.
A battered, green-haired woman was tied by her hands to a stake. She didn't cry as the ropes around her wrists were tightened, and the robed man to her left opened a dusty book and began to read. "Cecinah Chulainn, you are sentenced to death for witchcraft. Do you deny these claims against you?" From the back of the crowd Lelouch and the real C.C could see that the entire town had come to watch. A spare tear rolled down the woman's cheek and sizzled into the fire being lit at her feet.
"No."
The crowd gasped, no doubt frightened by the way she was smiling maniacally. "And I'll mention this town when I'm re-united with the devil-"
"Enough!" the clergyman crossed himself, gesturing for the townspeople to throw on even more logs.
"The prince of darkness won't be pleased when he learns that you've killed on of his servants!" She hissed as the flames burrowed through her ruined, muddy shoes. "By the power of Lucifer I cast a curse upon this town! May pestilence slaughter your children-" Something heavy was brought down on her head, and in the real world C.C and Lelouch both opened his eyes. The sign on both of their foreheads cooled as they completely left her memories.
"I'm not sure what to say." From the crate where he sat C.C could see the evening's last shadows bisecting his face.
"How about something like." She put on a fake husky voice. "And you've accused me of being overly dramatic, C2. My turn."
"I guess I promised." He leaned forward, letting her touch the equally luminous sign on his forehead.
...Shirley!...
...who did this...
...that's not...
Tendrils of subconsciousness covered her vision, his thoughts merging into hers and bringing none other than Shirley Fenette with them. The obviously fatal wound in her chest was pumping out more of her life each second. "Lulu...we'll just keep... falling in love..." crimson desperation glowed in her eyes, slowly flickering out alongside the innocent green. Her blood spread slowly across the polished floor, and though C.C knew this was just a memory she had the urge to rush to the dying girl's side and hold the hand that limply clutched at the air. Lelouch dully watched himself congratulate Rolo as soon as the younger boy appeared, and the memory's edges converged to another, torrential rain broken only by a single umbrella. His former self's arms wrapped around the rain-soaked fabric of Shirley's uniform (Just stop it) both of their lips slick with (shut up!) her tears an the dirty taste of rain (what I've done to you is...) the streetlight searing his (how can you stand being held by me) eyes and hopefully they'd be blinded, later, alone and sorry as the swells chill him to the bone and the blood of others (so I can't see it on my hands) is up his neck, drowning...
The abruptly broken connection brings them with a jarring slam back to the real world. Something throbs behind C.C's eyes, the knifeblade of Lelouch's thoughts finally gone from her head, and she presses slightly sweaty palms into her eyes until little lights pop on front of them. "So that's why you acted all rapey when you came back and tackled me."
Lelouch became engrossed by a spare nail that was lying on the floor and flatly answered. "You wouldn't understand someone like Shirley."
The cool winter sunlight completely leaves the room until it it's hard for both of them to see, and C.C feels her eyes weigh down even though she's sitting up. But I have just been sitting here, staring at a wall for I don't know how long... She's the first to speak. "I'm not tired yet..what are we going to do?"
"Dunno."
"As much as I like to collect dust..."
"We could go outside...bring a coat, though."
She followed him out the door after grabbing the lumpy mess of yarn that was her first attempt at a baby blanket. "And then what? We'll passionately take a roll in the hay under the stars? How romantic!"
Lelouch had definitely caught the extreme degree of sarcasm. "Oh, grow up. I was thinking of going to see Tobasco." The skittish quarter horse had sort of been a housewarming gift, and the short walk to the stable passed where Lelouch was thinking of having a garden planted. The frozen patch of soil didn't look like much, but he could easily imagine using it as a source of food. Following Lelouch down the path C.C stopped at the dark-brown square, shrugging off Lelouch's arm that was around her shoulders. Looking out at the long tunnel of orange trees that stretched before her she was awed by how the frosty leaves shone with the moon's serene glow; an alien terrain coated with washed-out grass whose every blade stood out in fine detail, amd single black dot crossing the opalescent white hole punched in the sky.
Is that what I think it is...?
Lelouch interrupted her thoughts. "It can't be good for us to have no human interaction except for each other, and...I'm going to spend as long as this existence lasts with you, that's a given. But maybe in a few decades.. there are a lot of small towns where someone could disappear."
"That's okay, playing house with you isn't so lonely." she points to the fingernail-sized speck. "Guess what that is."
It only takes him a second to recognize the outline. "They released the Damocles? I thought..my body was supposed to be on it."
It hovered in it's own placid orbit thousands of miles away, taking one last glance at the Earth before burning up in the sun; a tiny fly scuttling across the giant plate of the moon. C.C sank to the ground and lay out her coltish legs like a attentive stargazer. When she gestured for Lelouch to sit he tugged on the single braid she always wore. "Moonlight strolls with the Emperor? Know your place."
"I guess they've moved on."
"Wha...who?"
"Everyone. When I kidnapped you from the funeral...the had to wonder where you went. So now they've probably accepted that Lelouch vi Brittania is nonexistent, rotted to pieces out in a swamp somewhere."
"What a gruesome thought." he waited for her to say more but C.C was preoccupied, toying with the scenario of if Lelouch was actually gone. I'm glad Lucca will have a father. Mine...I don't know who...and the only thing Lelouch had known of his was that he needed to be killed... with a sigh she inadvertently took Lelouch's advice, and settled into peaceful dreams of pepperoni.
I listened to my favorite opening theme, World End, too many times and 'Everything is briiiiiiight' hardwired me to write happy things:D
Reveiwer of the Week: Lonely Child
Young C2 w/ raven hair and blue eyes...adorable!
Reviewer of the Week: The Strike Fury
*is having bad day is having bad day is having bad day* (reads review) My faith in humanity...has been restored!
Accusation