UPDATE: Soooo, I made an incredibly embarrassing mistake. And I didn't even notice until Anon notified me about it on Tumblr! Just saying this now, embarrasses me still. I ended up reviewing my own fic, and it's just so... I can't. I was reading a different and older CLuCLu fanfic (because I was craving angst & some hurt&comfort), on my phone and switched from one tab to the next in a hurry and the pages in my phone got mixed-up somehow... So I apparently ended up commenting on my own fic.

I laugh now, but the memory still makes me want to bleach my brain. Still, I hope this careless mishap of mine doesn't derail anyone from reading the sappiness in this one. I'm sorry, and I'm going to crawl back into my hole now.

A/N: Something short & sweet & covered in cheese. Idea wouldn't leave as I was writing the Med-Residents AU request, so I had to… Also, recently rewatched Re;surrection & the ending got to me again. Please forgive my late-night brain fart.

C.C. deserves ALL THE LOVE~ TT_TT

TRIGGER WARNING: Implied violence and heinous crimes ahead.
ANOTHER WARNING: Possible OOC-ness & sappiness...

A Thousand Years & Forevermore

C.C…

That was C.C… Naked and bleeding with fresh lacerations. Crying, holding herself together with arms so emaciated, it was hard to believe that she was human. Pale frail arms dotted black and blue. The straight and delicate nose that he knew was bent, crooked — blood pouring from the nostrils. Hair so limp they looked as if they would snap in two like brittle hay. A swollen eye, a ruined mouth, torn breasts.

C.C., what have they done to you?

He reached for her in vain as the scene shifted.

A rowdy crowd screaming and shouting in foreign tongues. Shouting at him… No. Shouting at whoever was behind him. He whirled around to see her, C.C., again. Tied to a wooden stake like an animal, kindling underneath her feet. She was crying, begging and pleading for mercy that wouldn't come. The stench of smoke hurt his nostrils as they set the wood on fire.

The flames were fast and hungry, eating up what it could. Twigs, leaves, lumber, coal… Human flesh.

His eyes watered as he forced himself to watch — forced himself to see how the world had wronged his Witch. She had lost consciousness from the black smoke. But it didn't stop the fury of red and orange. What was once fair skin turned black, yielding to the flames to reveal muscles and soon bone.

A hoarse voice cried above the noise — the sound too loud for his own ears. He realized it was his own voice, crying for it to stop. Just please stop.

The world shifted underneath his feet again, opening to a gloomy room barely lit by candle light. The first thing that caught his attention was the sobbing, the hoarse pleas, begging them to please stop. The bile rose to his throat, threatening to spill. The view was nauseous. These despicable repulsive abominations — human filth, the lot of them. How could they do this to her?

C.C. again… Naked and bruised. And… And being used.

One after the other. Passed around like some object.

And they were laughing, jeering, grunting and moaning like swine as they brought heavy hands down on her battered form. Kicking her, pulling her hair until thick green locks came away in fistfuls, relieving themselves on her.

He had to do something. He couldn't stand the sound of her sobs, her eventual resignation, her cries of despair as they induced and forced unwanted pleasure on her.

How dare they?

"Please. Please. Stop it! She— She doesn't—"

In that split second before it disappeared again, their eyes met and Lelouch was left with a greater sense of loss than anything else in his short life. He'd seen her die in his defense so many times. But the fatal blow of a bullet was nothing compared to this.

Gasping, panicked violet eyes flew open to scan the room. Darkened ceiling, a soft mattress beneath him — a blanket draped over him that wasn't supposed to feel so stuffy.

Shoving the covers off, Lelouch sat up in bed rubbing his face, and surprised to find that his hands came away wet. He'd been crying… But of course he was. The dream — the memory, her memories — were painful to watch. He'd grieved and suffered for a lot of things in his life, but it wasn't like this. To have witnessed her deaths and her tribulations. She was stabbed, tortured, burned, drowned, beheaded, dismembered, vivisected, fed to flesh-eating creatures, starved to death, left to rot, mutilated, hanged, shot, abused, manipulated, drugged, assaulted, raped, imprisoned…

Countless times she'd died, and countless times she rose to life — always buried alive.

After all of that, he truly didn't blame her for wanting death and rejecting life… Who would want to live after all of that?

In his distress and mourning over the lives she'd lived, he hadn't realized he was saying her name again and again, waking his sleeping companion in the process.

"Lelouch?" Her soft voice called through the darkness.

Words failed him. How could he ever hope to properly tell her what he'd just witnessed? Throat tight and eyes still brimming and overflowing with tears, he embraced her as he apologized. It wasn't his fault at all, but still…

"Lelouch what's wrong?" She asked, her voice gentle as she held him and comforted him. She ran soothing fingers through his hair, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

Finding his voice, he told her all that he'd seen and all that he could remember, all the while, swearing that he would love her and show her that everyone who hurt her meant nothing. That nothing would touch or hurt her again for as long as he stayed by her side.

"It's over, Lelouch. It's done. There's no point in crying for buried memories or the past. We have our future."

Eyes still swollen from crying, he gazed upon her lovely face, committing every feature to memory as he stroked her cheek and traced every contour — fingers brushing over her brows, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her lips, her jaw. Devastatingly beautiful creature. His eternal goddess. The other half of his wandering soul.

"After all this time, you should know, I only got over them recently. And do you want to know why?"

"Why?" He whispered, leaning his forehead against hers.

"Because I found you." She murmured, her own voice thick with tender emotion after everything he professed and apologized for. "I may not have known you or knew you would exist. I may have wanted to die. But I think Fate was kind, in some small way. Perhaps I have survived this long so I could meet you, know you… Fall in love with you."

He managed a small smirk, eyes alight with what she recognized as affection and care for her. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long."

Nodding, she nuzzled his cheek, fingers intertwining as he pulled her closer into his body — to his chest where his heart beat and pounded with life. "But if it means finding you, I would do it again. I would wait for centuries, perhaps a millennia. Logic will tell me to give up, but my soul knows. I will travel from era to era, searching for you."

They belonged together. This conviction made stronger with her profession, "You make me believe in love again."

Overcome with passion so deep, he reached forward and closed the distance between them. He kissed her, conveying sentiments and emotions that words failed to say. His heart, his mate. His queen and his witch. He would never abandon her, nor leave her. She would never live another day without being reminded about how much he adored and loved her. Moving away from her lips, he kissed every inch of her face, moving lower and lower to kiss every inch of skin on her body — to kiss every part of her that suffered, bled, and re-formed.

"Thank you, C.C." He whispered into her chest, above her beating heart. "Thank you for waiting."

But she shook her head and ducked to kiss his forehead. "I should be thanking you. As broken, jaded, selfish, and destroyed as I was, you saw me." She caressed his cheek with the same tenderness he used to hold her face and the rest of her. "Showed me kindness and compassion when nobody else would. I love you. I love you so much, and saying it to your face will never be enough."

"I am yours, you understand. Yours…"

You're all I'll ever need after all this. All I'll ever want. All I'll ever love.

They swallowed the rest of their unspoken words and indulged in another kiss, sinking deeper and deeper into love and passion that left no room for doubt or the horrors of a past life.