Author's Note: So here's the thing. I forgot about this scene I intended to have in the last chapter. In some cases I could work it into the next chapter, but this one will feel forced if I do that. At least that is how I feel. Due to where the story left off and everything. However this is also important. It will help drive a character forward.

So for, what I hope will be the only time, I will be writing an Extra. It will feel out of place in the next chapter and out of nowhere. So that won't happen either. This is NOT an omake. This is 100% canon to A Blast From the Past. So please enjoy this piece.

Disclaimer: My not owning the series has not changed.

Stage 08.5
Lovelorn

Shirley had no clue how she had managed to keep herself together for the past two hours. Regardless of that, as Lelouch and Nunnally left her sight, whatever armor she had donned began to crack. Her locked up betrayal and grief peeking through. Swallowing hard Shirley immediately wiped away the tears already beginning to fall. Having made sure no one was looking at her before she did.

She had to leave. There wasn't time to change into her uniform. Not if she didn't want to lose it here. She would just go grab her clothes and then make a run for it.

Quickly turning Shirley slipped back into the room without saying a word. She didn't trust herself enough to speak. Not without bursting into tears. Walking past everything and behind the folding screen that she and the others had changed behind.

It was only as she grabbed her uniform that she noticed her hands were shaking. "Shirley?" She stiffened as Milly called out to her. Someone she wasn't any where near ready enough to talk to. "Are you already changing clothes? That wasn't the plan."

Shirley let out a shuddering breath before trying to answer as steadily as possible. "I'm not changing but something's come up." To her pleasant surprise she managed to say that without her voice cracking. Shirley stood straight and, as confidently as she could, strode out from behind the screen.

"I will return the costume tomorrow okay?" Her eyes were looking everywhere but on Milly. She was pretty sure doing so would make her break down on the spot.

Milly frowned as she saw how tense Shirley was. Tentatively she asked, "Are you okay?"

Clearly, as Shirley quickly determined, she had underestimated Milly's perceptiveness. Not knowing how to reply she simply tightened her grip on her uniform and walked past her friends with her head down. She paused at the door and, against her better judgement, turned her head and gave them a wavering smile. "Of course."

Without another word she turned her head and fled out the door. Calling behind her, "I'm sorry!"

Milly would have said something back had she not seen the tears running down Shirley's face as she turned away. Instead she just took a step forward with the intent to follow, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. "Don't."

She turned around in confusion, and some anger, to find Rivalz shaking his head. "I can't just stay here!" The blonde was shocked at what he was telling to her to do. It wasn't like him.

"You can and you should." Rivalz leveled a hard stare at her and refused to back down. After all this was her fault. Lelouch's too, but not to the same extent. Milly was the one who had been pushing Shirley towards his best friend for quite some time now.

As for his own feelings? Knowing Lelouch he probably wasn't even aware of how he felt. So Rivalz could only be angry at himself for never noticing. For never even questioning their relationship. He had always assumed it was because Lelouch was the vice president that Milly would listen to him.

Rivalz hated to admit it, but that should have been a clue. Milly generally listened to no one. The only exceptions he knew of were the principal, Lelouch, and, if only by extension, Nunnally. Not that the princess often had suggestions regarding Milly's plans. At any rate their president held his best friend in high-esteem despite all their shenanigans. Had even helped them escape unnoticed a time or two.

"Why should I Rivalz?" Milly demanded as she looked every bit the noblewoman she was born as. "She was crying and I can't just leave her be if I can help."

"But you can't help!" He raised his voice stubbornly as he knew there was only one way to stop her from following Shirley. "Not when you are the reason she is crying!"

Milly stepped back at his words in shock. Her heart thudded in her ears as she knew she wouldn't like where this was going. "W-what?"

Rivalz prepared himself to hurt the woman he cared for, but would never return his feelings. "We aren't blind nor are we stupid." He stared into her wide ocean blue eyes with his steely gray. "Both Shirley and I could tell that you two love each other! You and Lelouch!"

She immediately recognized Rivalz had her in checkmate. Milly could see the truth on his face before looking away in defeat. "I can't speak for Lelouch, but . . . chances are slim anything can come of my feelings. I accepted that a long time ago."

"Maybe we would have worked out had Lady Marianne not died."

Shirley knew they had seen her crying. So she only ran faster in the hope to evade any of them trying to follow her. The armor protecting her from breaking down had fallen away in pieces as she did. She couldn't focus under the weight of her broken heart as she burst out of the building at a full sprint. The wind taking her tears away as fast as they fell.

She ignored the students that were starting to stare at her costume and kept going. With no way to her father and Lelouch certainly being out of the question Shirley only had one place left she could think of to go. Her room. The orangette could feel herself starting to drown under the rising flood of her emotions as she bound up the stairs in the girl's dormitory.

Shirley was glad that Sophie, her roommate, was at volleyball practice right now. As soon as she locked the door she threw herself onto her bed with an ugly sob. She knew what she had seen earlier today, but it was much harder to accept it. She wondered if she would have actually had a chance had they not been forced to flee.

Though if they hadn't then there would still be so much she wouldn't know about the siblings. They would have been forced to explain a thing or two, but Shirley had to admit she hadn't known Lelouch quite as well as she thought she had. At such a time like this Shirley could only think of the age old saying, 'It's better to have loved and lost rather than never loved at all'. She wasn't sure if she agreed it was worth this ache.

This horrible emptiness she could already feel grasping at where her heart should be. Shirley had never been one to do or experience things halfway. That most certainly applied to her emotions. It was why she had always got on Lelouch's case about trying harder in school. He was capable of so much more.

If he was athletic too she would almost believe him to be some sort of super human. It just wouldn't have been fair for him to be so devilishly charming, mind-mindbogglingly handsome, a near genius, AND good at sports. Even so with three out of the four Lelouch won big time in the gene pool lottery.

Despite having never confessed Shirley wasn't sure her heart and soul hadn't simply designated him as being hers. Surely that was the only way she could feel so strongly about him. The only reason why she felt like her entire world was crumbling beneath her very feet. Why she would do almost anything for him and all Lelouch had to do was ask. Even if it involved being alone with him in his room.

As a blush spread across her cheeks what happened in earlier in the day replaced what her dirty imagination produced. The impossible-to-erase image of Milly hugging Lelouch from behind then morphed into one of them kissing deeply. Shirley let out a fresh sob that turned into a wail of grief.

"How can I move on? I love you with everything I am Lulu."

Author's Note 2: Some good news for you all. I intend to have the next full chapter ready for you by the 13th this month. I can't guarantee that, but it is the goal. I have almost a full two weeks though. So it is far from impossible. Especially since I know most everything that will go into it. Not yet sure where it will end, but that will depend on how long it is once we reach the Narita battle itself. No matter what it will take more than one chapter though.