Euphemia had stayed by Nunnally's bedside every single moment she'd been permitted to do so, waiting in the lobby during each of her four surgeries over the past six days and seven nights, joined for several of those days by Lelouch- he'd said, a few times, that there was "something he had to do"- and rarely by Cornelia, though she'd dropped by just this afternoon to speak with the doctors. Euphie knew her sister was busy, as she'd said, trying to quickly find and punish the people who did this to Nunnally, but although Lelouch hadn't said a word about her yet, she could see that the boy had been angry at Cornelia- especially yesterday, for some reason, when he wouldn't even look at Euphie, nor hold her hand.
The duty of maintaining a constant vigil at Nunnally's bedside in case the girl woke from her coma fell to Euphemia, and she wouldn't have it any other way- doing anything other than staying by Nunnally's side until she regained consciousness just seemed impossible to her, and she wondered how Lelouch was doing it... but seeing his eyes yesterday, they'd seemed colder and harsher than she'd ever seen them. He'd frightened her, and as he'd left that morning, his voice had been icy and hollow when he said he was going to see Cornelia, and to take care of Nunnally for him. He'd been gone an awful long time... When he'd told her to take care of Nunnally... it had almost seemed like he'd meant he was going to... do something drastic. No, that was impossible. There was no way Lelouch could do something like that. And yet, until she'd seen the look on his face this morning she was convinced there was no way he could look like that, either...
Euphemia glanced out at the afternoon sun filtering through the blinds of the hospital, and bit her lip. Torn between two siblings- one of whom she knew for certain needed her here, and the other who might need her to stop him from doing something stupid. She couldn't leave Nunnally in an empty room, even for an hour, she just couldn't! But what if Lelouch was really going to...? Oh, what would Cornelia do in this situation?
"Nunnally..." Euphemia's hand clenched a bit tighter on Nunnally's as she pulled it to her cheek and gave it a little nuzzle. The constant beeping of the machines was harsh and mechanical, something that seemed totally at odds with Nunnally's nature- definitely something she would never want in her room- but they also gave Euphemia the assurance that, so long as they continued, Nunnally was alive, and that she would soon wake up. "Come on... Wake up, Nana..." She sniffled a bit, recalling how they used to sleep in together on lazy mornings- and sometimes even afternoons. Lady Marianne would usually be the one to wake them, though occasionally Lelouch would do so in the gentlest voice imaginable, and he'd sometimes start with a little rhyme he'd made up for his sister...
"Sun's up, buttercup..." Euphemia began to recite a bit weakly. "so don't you keep on snoring... The whole world's out there waiting for you..."
The door creaked, and a single violet eye peered into the crack.
"Don't be lazy, daisy... rub your eyes and greet the morning..."
Euphemia let out a little squeak as a pair of gentle hands touched her shoulders, and Lelouch's voice replied, "The sky needs your smile to make it blue..."
Quickly, she'd place her hands atop his and blush, looking up at him. "Are you... Are you all right? This morning, you-"
"I'm sorry about this morning, Euphie. I was mistaken about something. Seeing Cornelia helped me a lot." His fingers began to rub gently up and down her shoulders, and she would slump back into the folding chair and close her eyes. "Everything's all right, now. I'm not leaving this room until Nunnally wakes up."
"Good, because she's going to soon... I can feel it." One of her hands reached out to rest atop Nunnally's again, squeezing gently, as if to make sure she was still really there...
Lelouch smiled, then cleared his throat. "Um... Euphie... I'm going to need a minute alone with her after she wakes up. ... I need to be the one to tell her about... mom."
Euphemia paused, then glanced downward between her shoes. "... I understand, Lelouch."
That night, right when Lelouch was on the verge of falling asleep and Euphie had already been snoring for quite some time, Nunnally moved her arm. Over the course of the next few hours, despite their attempts to wake her gently, Nunnally remained fast asleep, but began to occasionally move and twitch more often, and even to make slight noises in her throat, but it wasn't until nearly three o'clock in the morning that her hand went up to her face and felt the bandages wrapped tightly around her eyes... Lelouch, his bloodshot, puffy eyes seeing only the blur of another motion, was at first told by his sleep-deprived brain that it was another false alarm, but forced himself to stand and shake his head vigorously as Nunnally's hand began to move about the hospital bed, feeling the wires attached to her body, the IV attached to her arm, her hips...
Lelouch would quickly take that hand in his own, and Nunnally gasped a moment in fright, before straining with the effort to sit up- an effort that failed- and placing her other hand atop his, just as he pulled them both up to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
"Good morning, Nunnally."
"Lelouch..." Nunnally croaked, her throat raw and dry. "I'm so happy..."
Lelouch's expression shifted, to one of confusion... "You're happy?"
"I dreamed that you were dead. I could hear your voice, and Euphie's, in this horrible darkness... I thought I was dead and that you were... It's still dark, though..."
"Well... you see, Nunnally..." Lelouch swallowed a lump in his throat.
...
"Well, you see, Euphemia... Mother had to go to rest... She went somewhere we can't see her again for a long time." Cornelia held Euphie gently as her three-year-old sister rested across her lap, her cheek resting on Cornelia's knee.
"Mama's resting?"
"Yes. She's not hurting or sick anymore, Euphie." Cornelia reached in to stroke her sister's hair.
"She's better?"
"... She's not in this world anymore, Euphie. She's gone."
"Where'd she go?" Euphemia still didn't seem upset in the least.
"Well, that's the thing, Euphemia, I don't know. Nobody knows where you go when your body stops working, but I do know that she's not sick anymore where she is. And that we'll go to see her someday... but not for a long time, not until we're very old and we've had very long and happy lives of our own."
"Does Mama still love us?"
"Yes, of course she does. She'll always love us no matter where she is."
"So why won't she come back?" Euphemia tilted her head.
"... She can't, Euphie. She can't come back here, to our home, ever again. Her body isn't alive anymore, so she had to go somewhere else. To where everybody goes when their body dies."
"Oh... so she went to heaven. Rosa told me about heaven!"
Cornelia closed her eyes, partly glad that one of the maids had told Euphemia something that seemed to give her comfort at the notion... but also partly annoyed that Rosa had been teaching Euphemia religion, something she knew she'd have to help Euphie abandon someday when she got older, such things not being appropriate for royalty... Still, childish notions such as those the commoners cherished could be forgiven for at least a few more years.
"Well, if you want to call it that."
"I wonder if she misses us."
"She told me that she'd always be watching over us... so no... I don't think she misses us, because she hasn't really left us, you see?" Cornelia would stroke the palm of Euphie's hand with a finger.
"Oh... Hm... So is Lady Marianne going to be our new mama?"
Cornelia bit her lip and glanced away. "Nobody can ever replace mother, but she asked Lady Marianne to help take care of us when she couldn't... So she and Lelouch will be living with us for a while."
"Oh.... Okay..." Euphemia yawned, ending with a bit of a squeak.
Cornelia was simultaneously glad and somewhat unsettled at the way Euphie was taking the news, but then again, she was very young... a bit too young to truly understand the meaning of what had happened...
...
"Mother's dead." Lelouch glanced at the floor, the grieving boy unable to put it any less bluntly than that, swallowing hard.
Nunnally was silent for a moment, before eventually letting out a great sigh and pulling Lelouch's hand to her cheek, nuzzling it. "I know. I... I saw."
"Then you saw who...!" Lelouch started with a gasp, but stopped himself.
This is the last thing she needs right now.
"... I'm sorry. That's all I remember, is Mother being hurt and falling onto me and then everything went black... forever. I didn't see anything else. Or anybody. I'm sorry."
"Nunnally, you have no reason to be sorry to anyone. I'm the one who should apologize, I-... I should have..." Lelouch choked up briefly, before closing his fingers tightly on Nunnally's. "It should have been me. I should have been there, instead. Not you."
"You're selfish, Lelouch. Then I'd be the one who's sad right now, not you." Nunnally teased, giving a little smile.
"What are you saying... You're not sad that you're...?" Lelouch bore a bewildered expression.
"Well, of course I'll miss being able to walk, and see things. But I'd be so much sadder if you'd been hurt. You're OK, and you're here by my side, and that's all I ever needed, Lelouch. You'll always protect me, right?"
"Of course, Nunnally, I swear it."
...
"Cornelia, you seem to have forgotten just what kind of person Lelouch is." Schneizel put his fingertips together, steepling his hands as his elbows rested upon his knees, an unusual posture for the Second Prince, but one that showed that even he had been somewhat put to shame by Cornelia's scathing rebuke. "He would have gone to confront Father with or without my help. I neither encouraged nor discouraged him, but rather, gave him advice on how to get what he wanted while minimizing risk and saving face. This is the art of politics, an art I should say he needs to learn."
"Schneizel, he's learned quite enough about politics already! They're the reason his sister's blind and his mother's..." Cornelia stammered, before blinking back a few tears.
"What happened was a tragedy, Cornelia. You are grieving in your own way. Lelouch is grieving in his. It just so happens that for that boy, he deals with his grief through action. That sort of boy- that sort of man- will make a great leader someday. Provided he does not make any reckless, foolish mistakes before then." Schneizel sighed and stood, reaching down to offer his hand to Cornelia, who reluctantly took it.
"We must do all that we can to ensure that does not happen. When I found the Empress's body atop Nunnally- shielding her- I knew immediately what she had done. She had sacrificed her life to protect her daughter. If we allow any harm to come to young Lelouch or to Nunnally, her sacrifice- her dying wish- was for nothing."
...
"Nothing. She died for nothing." Charles zi Britannia growled as he stared into the mirror, both his hands planted firmly upon the desk below it. "If I carry on with our plan, I play directly into my brother's hands. But if I abandon it... She is lost, and so is our dream. Please, C.C." Charles turned to face the witch, standing cross-legged in the corner of his study. "Allow me to speak with her. I know that you possess the ability to communicate with those who dwell in that world... the World of C."
"Charles, I am afraid I did not come here to express my sympathies." C.C. responded, her deadpan gaze traveling up to the Emperor. "I am leaving this place. V.V. has shown me quite clearly that he has no intention of giving me what I want. And you, yourself, have just proven to me that you only intend to use me, too. You condemn your brother for his lie, but you are every bit the liar that he is."
"You are leaving, then." Charles narrowed his eyes, a rough chuckle rising in his lungs. "And where is it that you will go? Where do you think, in this wide world, you will ever find the power to kill an immortal if not at the end of our research?"
"Perhaps I've decided I'm not quite ready to die yet, Charles. It is none of your business."
"Then you are the one breaking our contract, not me, C.C." Charles growled.
"I never had a contract with you, Charles. It was always with Marianne. And now she is dead. My contract with her is now void."
"Your contract with her passes to me. She was my wife- what was mine was hers, and what was hers is now mine. That includes you." Charles began to move forward, and C.C., for the first time in their discussion, tinged her face with a slight emotion- a brief quaver of fear tickled the pit of her stomach, as she began to back away.
"I belong to no one, Charles." C.C. protested.
"You will fulfill your agreement- with her, and with me." Charles's hand snatched outward, blindingly fast, and closed firmly around C.C.'s neck. "And then, eventually, you shall have your wish." C.C.'s brief squeak was cut off as he began to squeeze, with all the strength he had in his colossal right arm, crushing her windpipe and bursting several veins. "You... shall.... die." The last word rang hollowly in C.C.'s ears as the world faded to white.