2063 a.t.b.
Burning to death was by fucking far C.C.'s least favorite way to die. When facing long agonizing death or torture, the witch had long ago learned how to lock her consciousness away in C's World. She couldn't completely sever the link between her physical pain and her conscious awareness, but in the shelter of C's World, most pain felt more like pins and needles while your limbs woke up from being asleep. It wasn't the best sensation for sure, but it was many times better than actually feeling your own flesh melt off your bones as you finished dying. Her whole body felt like it was covered in that pins and needles feeling at the moment.
Except for her Code. The Code on her forehead burned . It was definitely still less painful than it would have been. Much less painful. Hell, she still had conscious thought, even if her forehead really fucking hurt . But she could never cut off sensation anywhere near as effectively from her Code as from the rest of her body.
On some level she knew that a part of her was fully experiencing burning to death in the material world. This trick was just preventing her from forming any memories, long or short term, of her current bodily experiences by moving her consciousness into C's World. She knew she should be grateful that this part of her consciousness hadn't had to experience the agony of burning to death in hundreds of years at this point. In the past, she had appreciated the irony that from a certain point of view, any C.C. that burned to death really was dying, since the one who lived on couldn't truly remember the experience. But she couldn't bring herself to appreciate anything right now.
Her forehead fucking hurt!
L.L. had some explaining to do.
All at once, the pins and needles vanished and her Code stopped burning. Her body had died.
Finally.
C.C. sat herself down cross legged on the ground and closed her eyes, hands across her lap.
Breath in. Breath out.
She couldn't clearly remember when this ritual had started. Someone from her long forgotten past had taught her this meditation calming technique, and somewhere along the line it had become her norm in C's World after a painful death. C.C. definitely needed some calm right now.
Breath in. Breath out.
She resisted the urge to reach up and touch her Code. It no longer hurt, but it would still be extremely tender to the touch. She never knew exactly how long it would take her body to regenerate... time passed a bit differently in C's World than in the material world. Or at least it did while her body was dead. Sometimes she sat here for what felt like minutes, other times days.
Breath in. Breath out.
C.C. wondered if someone who knew her would arrive to snatch her body. Would she wake up in the middle of the burned down ruins of an apartment building? A morgue? A coffin? Coffins were the worst. Total darkness. No way out. She would much rather be experimented on than stuck in a coffin again, though it was extremely unlikely at this point in time. Coffins were expensive, and the only people who might pay for one knew she was immortal.
Breath in. Breath out.
Perhaps her husband would manage to recover her corpse and she'd awake comfortably in their room at the local inn. Her husband…
Breath in. Breath out.
L.L. owed her an explanation. The police were supposed to be his responsibility - he'd been waiting outside to Geass them on arrival while C.C. snuck in and pried the Geass Fragment from the old lady. Had she not been interrupted, the old lady could probably have survived the process, but they'd both been riddled with bullets while the Fragment was only half out.
Breath in. Breath out.
C.C. wasn't sure exactly what had happened then. She'd died from the bullet wounds pretty quickly, obviously. By the time she had resurrected, the room was aflame, the woman was dead, and the Geass Fragment was gone. She'd tried to get up and escape the room, but while she had resurrected, she was still injured. One of the bullets had paralyzed her from the waist down. It would heal quickly, but not quickly enough. Her body had been trapped in the room behind a wall of flames.
Breath in. Breath out.
Pins and needles returned, but her Code didn't feel like it was still burning. Presumably she had resurrected before healing all of the burns. She toyed briefly with the idea of leaving C's World to see where her body was and what was going on, but with the amount of pins and needles feeling, she doubted she'd be coherent enough to absorb anything about her surroundings in the material world. She'd probably just scream a lot before inevitably returning to C's World to dodge the pain.
Breath in. Breath out.
C.C. banished conscious thought from her mind and focused entirely on her breathing and the pins and needles. She had no solid understanding of how much time passed, but at some point, normal feeling returned over perhaps 20 minutes in a patchwerk fashion across her body.
Huh.
Breath in. Breath out.
Normally healing was gradual and relatively uniform. C.C. wasn't exactly sure what pain vanishing in patches like that meant. Potentially painkillers? They'd have to be pretty strong though to work that quickly. Oh well, time to go figure it out.
She opened her eyes, released her grip on C's World, and embraced the familiar sensation of falling through her Code back into her body.
In the material world, C.C.'s eyes were still closed. Doing her best to not change her breathing patterns or give any sign that she'd awoken, the witch focused on her hearing and touch to figure out what she could about where she was.
C.C. could barely feel her body, though she was pretty sure she was lying down. No restraints that she could feel, but her sense of touch was extremely… muddled. She could hear water running in the background somewhere. Even from behind closed eyes, she could tell there was light wherever she was.
Seven times nine.
63.
The address of the first Pizza Hut she ordered from was 1734 Hobbes Street, Pendragon.
She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
Interesting, no obvious mental effects from what she could tell of whatever painkillers were being used. Definitely localized anesthesia of some sort.
C.C. opened her eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the light in the… room. She was in a room. Light came from windows and from a lamp near the sofa she was on. On the far wall was a familiar king bed, and she knew if she tilted her head back there would be a small desk with L.L.'s laptop on it. This was the hotel room they'd spent the last week in while doing reconnaissance. A quick glance down confirmed she was both naked and still recovering from her burns.
The water turned off, and C.C. heard footsteps near the bottom of the sofa.
"Master, you're awake!" The familiar face of Sita, came into view above her. "How are you feeling?"
"I can barely feel most of my body. What painkiller did you use?"
"Cocaine. You shouldn't move around, you'll slow your recovery."
"Where did you… nevermind. How long was I out?"
"About four hours since you got here. From what Master L.L. said, probably about six total."
So he was at least well enough to have transported her here. C.C. repressed a sigh of relief.
Rather than ask where her husband was, C.C. reached into her Code and imagined herself stretching out towards him. It certainly wasn't telepathy, but since using her Code to repair and reforge his, they'd had a link that neither fully understood. She could sense that he was conscious, relatively nearby (probably hadn't left the town?), and she felt something akin to a smile across their link as he recognized that she was awake.
Hmpfh.
Easy to smile when you weren't covered in burns.
C.C. knew it was childish but she was still salty about burning to death, and dropped their connection for the time being. He could explain when he got back to the hotel.
"What happened to the Fragment?"
"Please focus on your recovery for now, Master. Do you feel up to eating? I've got soup prepared."
"I'll wait. I should be fully recovered in another hour or two at this rate. What happened to the Fragment?"
"Should I fetch a pizza then? I could be back by that time with whatever you want."
C.C. narrowed her eyes. "Your distractions will not work."
Sita looked down at the ground.
"What. Happened. To. The. Fragment?"
Sita mumbled something unintelligible.
"Louder," snapped the witch.
"Master L.L. went after it."
"What!?" her head turned far too quickly towards the young woman. "On his own?"
Sita did not look up from the ground. "He brought Rajeev with him?"
Not reassuring. C.C. grunted and reached into her Code again, this time for L.L.'s contract. She could use the contract to trace his exact location and from there she could….
Wait.
What!?
Her Geass contract with L.L. was gone.
Hours later, her husband materialized beside her in her Memory Museum.
"You gave Sita quite the fright retreating here without warning."
"Did I?" She asked, turning away from him to face a framed memory without so much as a glance towards him. "Well, how could I be so cruel and selfish as to take action without considering how it affects those who care for me?"
She could feel a rising swirl of guilt, anger, defensiveness and frustration in L.L. at that. Defensiveness won out. "If I hadn't acted, that Fragment would've slipped through our grasp and we'd have been out months of work tracking it down. We don't have time to -"
C.C. whirled around and cut him off there, stepping forward and locking her eyes onto his. "Don't have time, L.L.?" she spat. "We're immortal ! We have nothing but time ! But that doesn't make us invincible ! You ran headfirst into a dangerous, unplanned situation without me, just as your Geass stopped working." His eyes widened but she continued on. "We didn't know how the Fragment manifested in its new owner, but you still brought a normal, vulnerable human along who could've been affected by this new unknown Geass."
L.L. tried to respond but C.C. was on a roll and didn't give him a chance. "You had no idea who this person was who got the Fragment! They could've had serious backup and you could've been captured . Leaving aside the overwhelming risk to the Zero Requiem if your survival is ever confirmed, your immortality is only physical. You are not immune to torture, and you are frankly awful at using your Code to insulate yourself from pain. Your Code does not protect you from being driven insane!"
Somewhere during her rant her finger had raised up to point at his face. She dropped it and turned around. Her hands were shaking. They both felt the end she left unsaid.
Then I would be alone again.
Guilt and shame bubbled up in L.L., which she felt clearly across their link. He moved to sit on a bench a few feet away.
C.C. crossed her arms in front of her to still her hands. She felt drained from releasing that much emotion and wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and sleep, but she could feel him gathering and calming his own emotions and reflecting on what she'd said, so instead she stared into an empty picture frame and took a bit of time to compose herself. C.C. resisted the urge to populate it with a memory and dive in. She did have something to find here, but right now was not the time. Her impatience at this exact moment wasn't stemming from actually needing to rush to find an answer.
Involuntarily, the frame did populate with the memory that came to mind. She kept herself grounded enough to not fall into it, but she could hear and see it anyway through the frame.
It had been about two years before they'd gotten officially engaged. They'd been curled in bed after a long day of travel, talking about what they might want their hypothetical vows to include.
"You never explain yourself," she'd said.
"What? If anything, I thought I over explain and over plan? Were you not complaining that we do not need to rehash the plan for tomorrow just over dinner? Something about not needing to review all seventeen escape routes a third ti-"
"That's not what I mean."
L.L. remained silent after that and just held her, waiting for her to explain. She knew she wasn't being particularly clear, and if she wanted him to put something about this frustration in his vows - in their most important contract - it needed to be clear. He waited a good ten minutes while she stewed over how to clearly express what she wanted, and by the end she almost wondered if he'd started dozing off.
"What I mean is…" She sighed. He stroked her hair and she pushed her face into his neck, resting there for a minute, breathing in his scent. She slowly pulled back, her arms around his neck, and turned him sideways to face her. "When you hurt people. When you mess things up. When you make mistakes. You never justify or explain to anyone you hurt; you just let people assume as they will. Assume the worst. That's fine for everyone else, but if we're going to get married I need you to commit to not do that to me." His eyes started to move away from hers and she caught his face with her hand and turned it back to her. "We're on the same page that outcomes matter more than intentions, Lelouch," she could see his eyes soften at the use of his birth name, "But if we're going to get married, then the reasons for your choices matter to me, and I need you to commit to explaining yourself to me. Especially when you've hurt me."
He pulled her in close and her head settled against his chest. "I'm not good at that."
"I'm not asking you to be good at it, Warlock. I'm asking you to get good at it."
"Well, I am a quick study."
C.C. smirked into his chest. "Don't be cocky."
"I know it's going to take work for me. I will get there."
"I trust you to keep our contracts."
A few minutes passed and C.C. started to doze off against L.L. before he finally whispered, "C.C., can I ask you to put something in your vows as well?"
C.C. blinked sleepily but rubbed her eyes to wake up a bit. She mumbled, "I'm not limiting my pizza intake."
L.L. actually laughed at this. "I'm not that foolish."
"Good." She smiled, pulling back a bit to make eye contact with him again. "Then what do you want, lover boy?"
"When you're hurting, or when you hurt someone, you pull away. You leave to be on your own. You left the directorate after my mother's assassination, because V.V. hurt you. You left Mao because you thought being near you would hurt him. You left the entire world, including me, and retreated inside yourself after choosing to not let my father kill you. You tried to leave me without explaining in Zhilkstan because you didn't want me to choose to not come with you. You tried to leave again without explaining in Moscow when you thought your Code was making me sick."
Back in her Memory Museum, she felt L.L.'s arms wrap around her waist from behind as he joined her to look at the memory. The irony of the situation was not lost on her, and she took a deep breath and again resisted her impulse to vanish fully into the memory.
"I want you to vow to stay with me. Let me be with you, even when you're hurting. Don't leave me behind when your impulse is to run. If you need me to, I can come with you."
C.C. forced herself not to look away from his eyes, but it was hard. "It's… very instinctual for me. I don't even actually remember most of what made it instinct, and that makes it really hard to fight, L.L. I just know I've had many lifetimes worth of painful lessons teaching me to err on the side of leaving."
"I'm not," she said, quickly, as she watched his face fall, "saying I won't try. I will. A lot. I don't want to leave you. Ever. I just don't want to make a vow I'm not sure I'll be able to keep."
She pulled herself into him and buried her face in his chest. "I guess that's pretty messed up, huh? I do have to promise not to leave you if I want to marry you. That's sort of the point."
They were quiet for a few minutes, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. More contemplative than hurt or charged. "We're quite the pair, aren't we?" L.L. mused, stroking her hair. C.C. laughed and sniffled a bit. She wasn't crying, per se, but her eyes were definitely moist.
"Can I promise you what I can right now?"
"Of course."
She pulled back and looked into his violet eyes again. "I promise that if I do leave, I'll come back. And I promise that if I feel that drive to leave, I'll do my best to just stay put where you can be with me. And someday, when I can mean it, I will promise you that I won't leave."
"Make me one more promise."
"Ask."
"When you're fighting not to leave, and if you ever do leave, revisit this moment. Please."
"I promise."
"Then I accept your contract." His hand came up and cupped her face. "And C.C.?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"Show me."
The memory faded from the frame, and C.C. leaned back into her husband's embrace and wrapped her fingers through his. "We've both come a long way," he whispered. "I'm sorry for worrying you. I do promise it was less reckless than it sounded for me to go after the Fragment. I didn't like making that decision without talking to you, though, and after we've had a chance to talk through my thinking and the situation, if you'd like me to, I'll promise to not repeat this." She nodded. "Did you want to talk now?"
"No. I think I need rest, and possibly pizza, before we talk more about this." She pulled his hand up to her mouth and kissed it. "It's been a bit of a day." She felt him nod.
"Thank you for not leaving." She could feel his love for her across their link, and it warmed her heart.
C.C. smiled. "We have a contract."
Those words pulled her back to the task at hand, and seemed to bring L.L. back too.
"Speaking of, how did you know my Geass stopped working? You mentioned it while you were… pointing out my behavioral opportunities, earlier."
She turned to face him, letting her arms drop to her side. "I can't sense our original contract."
L.L.'s eyes widened. "What?"
"You heard me correctly. The original contract linking us together is no longer present."
"That contract was the source of my Geass. Do you have any idea what happened to it?"
"I have a very rough theory, but no concrete evidence. I'm here because I needed to review the end of all of my previous contracts and make sure I haven't seen anything like this before. I'm about halfway through."
"Do you want company in reviewing the remaining memories?"
"No. You can stay if you feel you must but I'd rather you didn't."
Her husband nodded. "No, I'll leave you to it then. But C.C., before I go, please tell me your rough theory. I accept that it may be completely incorrect."
C.C. shifted on her feet a bit and dug her nails into her palms.
Breath in. Breath out.
He deserved to understand this theory. It was certainly his business. And it was probably right. If she were being honest, at least half the reason she was reviewing these previous contracts endings was to put off telling him her theory.
Mreh.
"Whether true or not, you may never tease me about this." L.L. started to respond but C.C. put her finger to his lips and glared. "Ever." L.L. nodded. She knew he wouldn't now. They both enjoyed their teasing banter but he'd never actually hurt her.
"Fine. As you obviously know, we were married quite some years ago, and your Code was reforged some years before that." He nodded, clearly confused. "Do you remember the wording of our original contract?"
"Yes. 'In exchange for power, you must make my one wish come true. Accept this contract and while you live in the world of humans, you will live unlike any other human. A different providence, a different time, a different life. The power of the king will isolate you.'"
"Correct. There were two conditions for me initially granting you Geass."
"Making your wish come true, and living in the world of humans."
"Correct. Have you used your Geass in the past week?"
"No. You think it was connected to my death a week ago? It had occurred to me but I couldn't figure out how. I've died quite a few times."
Your body has died quite a few times, she corrected in her head, but she bit her tongue. Now was not the time to harp on his phrasing. "The second condition no longer applies to you. With your reforged Code you no longer live in the world of humans."
"I know quite a few people, including Sita and Rajeev, who would disagree with you."
"This particular subject is a longer conversation for a future date. For the purposes of understanding this theory, I need you to accept it." She couldn't stop herself from glancing at his Code before looking back into his eyes.
"This is another thing that would be dangerous for you to fully explain to me as I am now?"
"Yes." Her eyes softened. "I am sorry. I don't like keeping secrets from you."
"I trust you." She was sure he could feel her sincerity across their link, and was grateful. "But this wasn't my first death since we reforged my Code."
"No, it wasn't." She looked away, fixating on a framed picture of Charles and V.V. as children across the room. Their hands were pressed firmly together as they smiled at each other.
Breath in. Breath out.
"I only realized this about a month ago, and didn't think it would affect our Geass contract."
Breath in. Breath out.
Absurdly, she missed Cheese-kun in that moment. She wanted to be curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around him. She dug her nails into her palm hard enough to break skin instead. "I know we've been married for quite a while, but… I finally accepted…"
Breath in. Breath out.
"I've accepted that my wish is no longer unfulfilled." I've accepted that I am truly loved.
With her wish fulfilled, and L.L. no longer living in the world of humans, neither of the conditions were still valid. With no valid conditions, the contract had ended as soon as his body died.
Pathetic. Weak. Sentimental. Her childish wish had cost them an immeasurably useful tool.
L.L. stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms. She could feel love and calm radiating from him and surrounding her through their link. He called her by her birth name, then, and she pulled herself snug against him. "That's worth more to me than any Geass."
She smiled into his chest.