I give up. This is the second doc my computer has eaten. I officially hate Microsoft word. It automatically creates backups supposedly, but I see no evidence of that.

In any case, here is the rewritten version of chapter 37.

"I lost."

L2 stares up to the ceiling, his eyes glazed over. "I worked so hard…"

"Lelouch-"

"No. I failed. Kallen's dead, we're all going to die, and I can't take it anymore!"

Suzaku watches as L2 gets worked up from his sitting spot on the floor. He belatedly wonders why he can both talk and respond to L2, despite being hit with the Geass. Maybe he had built up a resistance over the past fifteen or so years he had been under it.

"I spent twelve year working on this project, and… and I lose all my resolve now?" He shouts, and slams his fist into a metal bulkhead. The bulkhead probably did more damage to his wrist that the other way around.

"Your project was insane, if you wanted to kill all of us just to make it work."

"NO! It wasn't! It was the only way!" L2 practically screams. "I spent two years trying to figure out another method, and we still were two months late, but we got lucky, and now… Now I can't do it!" He whirls on Suzaku. "Do you know just how hard I have had tried to lock my emotions away? So I could go through with this without thinking of the pain I am causing my sister, Kallen and the others?"

"I do have a good idea of that, yes."

"Good, then you appreciate what you've done." L2 walks over to Kallen and sits down beside her. Blood still leaks out, and she seems to still be breathing slightly, but if she wasn't unsaveable already, she would be soon.

"No, I don't think I do. What did you think you would gain by killing those around you?"

L2 spreads his arms wide. "Look. How many of those people you included are here, with messed up lives because of me?"

Suzaku lowers his eyes. "All of them, I suspect."

"Everyone around me gets hurt, and mostly because of my Geass. That's the second most important reason to erase this curse from existence. I don't want to add more to my death toll."

"Second? What-"

"Do you remember the Sword of Akasha?"

Suzaku jerks at the name. He would remember that place in his nightmares long after he forgot his name, in all likelihood. "Of course."

"We didn't finish it off." L2 yells. "In fact, when we went and destroyed all the portals to there, all we did was make it impossible to go back and forth."

"How is this a problem?"

L2 whirls and stands over the trapped Suzaku. "Someone got trapped in there. Someone with enough knowledge to start rebuilding it."

"But that means… The last emperor's merging with the past might actually happen?"

L2 nods and runs his hands through his hair. "I spent two years looking into options, and then the next ten building this." He kicks the case. "I knew what it would do, but I figured it would be better than being assimilated." His eyes go wide and his hysteria takes a sharp dive into full-on crazy. "Now? Now all the pain I spent so long locking away is back! All the repression tactics, all the psychological trick, all useless. I… I can't go through with it."

He collapses on the floor. Suzaku blinks for a few seconds processing the new information. "Why don't you use that anti-Geass gun?"

"I didn't know it existed until today. I knew that Gregor was working on something along those lines, but I didn't know he was so far along. It would've been nice to know about."

"Still, we could probably use that to get rid of the Sword without killing everyone?"

L2 shakes his head. "I thought about that. It wouldn't work for a number of reasons. First, The Sword of Akasha has its links to our portion of the universe through Geass. To sever them, we can't just repress all of the Geass, we need to get rid of it. Second, how long do you think it would take to zap every single person affect by Geass, assuming we could reverse engineer this to make more of them?"

Suzaku chews his lip. "It would take a year or more-"

L2 slams his fist into the ground and stares wild-eyed at Suzaku. His eyes were filled with the same level of panic he had only seen once before, when he was begging at Suzaku's feet for Nunnally's life. "We have no time! By C2's estimations and mine, The Sword could have been launched a whole month ago if the person inside of there made no mistakes. I don't understand why it hasn't been fired yet." L2's eyes shrink a bit, and his voice loses the maniacal edge.

Suzaku opens his mouth to speak, closes it, then decides to say what he was going to, despite the potentially lethal possibility of L2 getting very upset. "What makes you sure the Sword of Akasha is being rebuilt, or even that someone is in there?"

"C2 and I can feel the Geass around us. It's like magnetism, we can't see it, but we can feel it. I can feel that the Sword of Akasha is being rebuilt by the Geass… as for the other person building it, we know he has a Geass, we just have no idea what it is. I can feel him moving around in the space that the Sword occupies." L2 starts pacing.

Suzaku once again tries to tell his body to stand up, but he has the exact same luck this time. "I'm reluctant to agree, but it seems like you have a point. We have no time to use the new weapon or make it work, so that leaves our only option of the-"

"No. It requires a Geass code to operate. I was going to use mine, but it seem temporarily inactive. There aren't any other codes I could use, since I had to hit C2 with this weapon to get her under my Geass. That option has been locked to me as well."

"Then what were you going to do if Kallen hadn't stopped you?"

L2 looks back to Kallen's body. "I was going to consume all the Geass power in the room at once in hopes of reactivating the code."

A silence falls. Suzaku contemplates what he has heard, and agrees that L2's words make a great deal of sense. A frightening amount, really. No way to activate L2's last resort, no backup plan. "So… Is Jeremiah nearby, or am I stuck doing your bidding forever?"

L2 shrugs. "You can move. I don't care. I failed, and I failed where I couldn't afford to fail."

The others come alive with startled looks. Nunnally in particular looks confused, but her confusing is pushed to the side as she notices the pool of blood under her friend's corpse.

"Kallen!" She rushes to the older girl's side, but… It looks like it's too late. Nunnally turns over the body and starts trying to administer CPR.

C2 takes a look at the body, then up to L2, and she start stalking up to him. He was avoiding her gaze for some reason. "L2, what have you done?"

"I failed in a lot of things. I would appreciate it if you closed your eyes."

"And why would I do that?"

"I hit you with anti-Geass weapon, and your powers are back in full."

C2 clamps her eyes shut. "When could you possibly have hit me?"

"Right before I walked into the room. It's surprisingly quiet on low power." L2's voice reaches her ears and she stalks over in that direction, only to find a wall. She really wanted to avoid hitting anyone with her powers, so she couldn't look for him. "When this affect wears off, I'm going to kill you."

L2 laughs hollowly. "It won't matter. The Sword of Akasha is charging up. You remember that, right? The entire reason we didn't stop to build new knightmares in preparation for our asualt? It's too late. It's all too late."

He slumps to the ground, almost bonelessly. All that can be heard in the room is Nunnally's continued efforts and the increasing breathing rate of those who were still standing around.

"What now?" Asks C2 finally.

"We all merge into one form, and my father wins. Ironic, he still has a hold on me years after his death."

"Why can't we use the gun-"

"We don't have time!"

"This is a broadcast chamber! Let's figure out if we can modify the gun in the time we have left to interface with this system, and we might be able to cut off the Sword of Akasha anyway." C2 insists.

"I… How would we do that?"

C2 points to Rakshata. L2 groans and stuffs his head in his hands. "I'm useless. I… I need to go take a break. Have fun with your project." L2 stands up shakily and walks out the door.

Nobody follows.

"Ok! We need to get her out of her restraints." C2 says to Suzaku. He nods and the two of them start untying the woman, who is… less than appreciative, to say the least.

It was only once they explained the situation that she reluctantly agreed to help them, and only then because she had just been Geassed herself, and it was in her best interest. Unless she wanted to be mentally marger with The Earl of Pudding for the rest of eternity, sharing minds. She readily agreed after that.

After the two woman had turned their attention fully to the odd weapon, Suzaku walks up to Nunnally, still futily attepting to revive Kallen's corpse.

Suzaku is startled to see her chest still rising and falling, despite the sheer amount of blood that had already poured out of her form.

"Suzaku, Why won't she wake up?"

"She's lost so much blood… Honestly, she shouldn't still be breathing."

"We need to get her to a medical station right away!" Nunnally yells.

"She's in no condition to go anywhere. If we could, I would go and get something."

"If we get her to the elevator, we could take her to the near top floors and get her to the hospital wards." Kallen says desperately.

"We can't. She wouldn't make the journey."

"Then what can we do? WE NEED A DOCTOR NOW!"

"Did someone call me?"

Both of them turn their heads to see a man dressed in doctor's garb. Neither of them recognized the face, despite him clearly expecting them to.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. You need to fix her right away!" Nunnally points.

The doctor's face goes stony as he enters professional mode. He quickly knees by her side. "Whoever kept her lungs clear did a good job. It looks like aside from blood loss, the wound isn't that serious. Nothing vital was hit. I'm going to see what I can do."

o-o-o-o

An hour later, L2 walks back into the chamber, torn between relief he wasn't assimilated by the Sword of Akasha and wondering whether it would be welcome after his heart had shattered in the way it had.

In one corner of the octagonal room, C2 and Rakshata mess around with some disassembled electrical components that look like they used to be part of the anti-Geass gun. In another, Suzaku sleeps with Nunnally snuggled up against him, also deep in sleep. Someone he vaguely remembered as a medical officer for both the Black Knights and the Black Assassins was leaning over…

L2 almost throws up again. After an hour, you'd think he would be empty, but his stomach kept adding more from somewhere. He keeps it down and walks over to the doctor. "What's going on?"

"I was examining her corpse, but something strange happened." The doctor mutters. "I think you should see."

"I would rather not."

"I'm sorry, but I really think you should."

L2 reluctantly turns around and lifts the sheet covering Kallen at the doctor's behest.

"Lelouch!"

"K-Kallen?"

She throws her arms around him and gives him a hug, one that got blood all over his already stained clothes.

"I thought… I though I-"

"You didn't. That's all that matters."

The doctor throws another sheet at the pair, it landing neatly of L2 so he has to swat it away."

"You two need some rest. I know a thing or two about medical equipment, so I'll see if I can be of any use over there."

The two sit there awkwardly as he walks away. "Um…"

Kallen drags L2 down to lie beside her. "I heard what you said to Suzaku."

"Oh."

"We're likely to die soon, aren't we?"

"It's not exactly death… yeah, pretty much."

"Then just spend what we have left with you right here, okay?"

L2 nods and wraps himself in the sheet provided. Kallen's arm snakes out of her sheet and clasps his hand.

It made them both feel a little bit better.