Just as Sirzechs had suggested, Lelouch's visit to the Gremory household was not in any way as awkward or complicated as he had feared. He had been received, almost welcomed even, despite the Lord and Lady Gremory being informed already regarding the reason for his visit. He and Kallen had immediately been ushered to a receiving room, their momentary wants attended to by servants. And soon after, Lord and Lady Gremory arrived, with Rias in tow.

Considering the state she had been in the last time he had seen her, Lelouch couldn't overstate how happy he was to see her smile again. Not only smiling, giddy. It took almost all of her effort to keep herself from jumping for joy.

So she had been told. Which said good things for how this meeting would go.

He rose from his seat to greet his hosts. "Lord and Lady Gremory, thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Rias, it's wonderful to see you again."

"I should hope so," Zeoticus said as he approached, Venelana hanging on his arm. "To be unhappy to see your future wife wouldn't be the best start."

"Otou-sama?!" Rias asked, still being the little japanophile she was, forcing the language on everyone around her. She held her hands over her mouth, not quite believing what she had just heard.

"Let's sit, shall we?" Venelana said, guiding her daughter to a couch, her husband taking his own place next to their daughter and her on the opposite side. "Kallen, wasn't it?" the lady of the house looked over Lelouch's shoulder to his Queen. "Please, sit. We're all family here."

The non-Gremory redhead looked to her King for permission, getting his nod and sitting next to him.

"Lelouch..." Zeoticus began, ready to start his sentence only to abort it twice. Three times. Only on the fourth attempt did his words begin to come out properly. "Our houses have had difficulties over the past few hundred years. Since the end of the war, the Gremory and Bael have been at odds. My marrying my wonderful wife," he continue with a squeeze of Venelana's hand, "and the removal of the Old Satans. Those were the last things our houses ever truly agreed on. Ever since, we've been at odds regarding everything under the sun. I might say it was inevitable," he admitted. "With Sirzechs taking the title of Lucifer intent on bringing change to our society, with Zekram leading the more traditionally minded houses. Whether we truly disagreed or not, we would be seen to disagree to keep up appearances."

"The classic us versus them mentality, yes," Lelouch agreed. It was probably being overstated somewhat, but on the other hand there were still houses drifting closer to the Old Satans for the sake of not following the New Satans. The Great King sitting as moderates worked, and perhaps some of the New Satan faction didn't quite realise that.

And even though Lelouch was aware of it, it didn't change that he hated it. Both for it being Zekram's tool to feed his parasitic need for power, and for the need of someone to be the 'not stupidly self-destructive' alternative to the New Satans. Devils could be stupid, but in a very human way.

"Yes. That kind of thing, it hasn't really done anyone any favours. Really only happening to enforce the status quo. But at the same time, the status quo is why our species has survived despite how easily it could have gone another way." He grimaced. "And yet. I can feel it. Cracks are forming. Our two factions are deviating into more than just acting as moderating influences, checking the power of the other. I worry that a day is coming when we will truly be at odds and I don't want to see that happen. I want us to be able to work together for when the state of the world shifts around us."

"That's quite an ominous statement," Lelouch observed with confusion.

"It is. And I wish I could be more forthright. You understand what the Gremory power is?"

"I understand what people believe it is," the heir of Bael answered. "I prefer not to believe in fate. So I suppose it's insight?"

"Ha! You're both right and wrong. It's a bold stance to refuse the idea of fate with how many events of our world have been prophecised, but at the same time, you're right. Insight is the key. If you understand the exact dimensions of a ball and you roll it down a hill, also knowing the exact dimensions of the hill, you can predict how fast the ball will move. Whether it will change direction as it rolls. Whether it will bounce. The more variables you understand at once, the clearer the picture you have of the future."

"And that's the Gremory power. To understand the variables." A useful power. Lelouch would know. He had a much more natural aptitude for the same thing.

"Ha! If only!" The Gremory lord laughed. "No, if we understood then it would be so much easier. There is no connection between our power and our understanding of it. It calculates the variables but we aren't conscious of it. All we can take from it is vague notions of what might be best. The more capable and experienced a Gremory is, the more accurate their insights, the further they can 'see'."

"That's what you're worried about, then." Near a thousand years old. Zeoticus had plenty of experience using his family's power. "You see problems on the horizon. Is that why you're consenting to this marriage?" No... Wait. There was a more important question. "You are able to intuit the future, yet you pushed for Rias to marry Riser. How reliable is your power, anyway?"

"It would have worked out in the end," Zeoticus said. "Or so I thought. I would need to do very little for several years. And then with maybe a few adjustments, I would have secured a happy future for my daughter." His blue eyes shifted from their usually playful state to something more focused. "Yet somehow, the Gremory power didn't account for you."

"Lord Gremory, you have a penchant for ominous statements."

"Then let me say it plainly. The Gremory power has no idea how to account for you."

"Otou-sama?" Rias asked, looking up at him with worry.

"I haven't needed to wonder about it for centuries. Its vague but useful guidance has kept our house prosperous for all of that time. And yet," his eyes squinted shut, before he shook his head. "Nothing. When I look at you, I get nothing at all. No insight, no vague guidance. It's like you're a complete blind spot. The Gremory understand the ebb and flow of the pond and you're like a pebble dropped in it, disturbing everything from the ripples it creates. When I first met you I didn't think anything of it. But after what happened at Rias' debut... Everything shifted around you and your actions. In that moment I saw fate, or intuition, or whatever you want to call it, I saw it change."

"He doesn't know what to make of you."

So this was what Sirzechs meant. "While I don't fully know why that might be," though he certainly had some suspicions, "That explanation only leaves me more confused. This is a power you've relied on all of your life, yes? And now you find someone it doesn't work on, and you intend to entrust your daughter to them?"

"I'm glad you understand just how significant my decision is," Zeoticus told him with a laugh. "I have trusted my power, and it has never failed me until I met you. What that means is the only way I can trust you is to look at everything you have done. And from that, I can see the kind of young man you are." Once again, Zeoticus' body language betrayed him a little. His hand squeezing that of his wife's just a little tighter. So perhaps he didn't come to this decision entirely on his own. "I can see just how much you value family. I can see how much you care for my daughter's happiness. I can see you treat your servants well, even if you're your father's son in some respects."

"Zeo," Venelana gave his arm a swat. It was her half-brother her husband was talking about after all.

"I want our factions to see eye to eye. I want us to be able to work together for the sake of all devils. I don't know if you marrying my daughter would facilitate that, but I certainly hope so." He chuckled. "Hope. That's an odd sentiment for me. Hope instead of understanding. I can't say I care for it. A little too unpredictable. But so long as you're around, I'll have to get used to it."

"You'll have time," Lelouch informed him, setting aside another clue to his existence here to be dissected later. "It was pointed out to me that relationships are a little more complicated than simply agreeing to be together and it working out fine. Serafall insisted any arrangement between the Sitri and Bael only take place after an extended courtship. If you'll permit me, I'd like the same arrangement with Rias." He turned to regard her with a smile. "A chance to be a couple before a married couple."

"You intend to join them in Japan?"

"I do."

"Then... We can call this an unofficial arrangement until the day comes that Rias is ready. Until then... I insist you call me 'Papa'."

"Zeo!"

"Dad!"

Ha, Rias embarrassed enough that she spoke normally. "I don't think I'll be doing that, Lord Gremory."

"Ah, then I suppose I'll have to settle for Uncle Zeo again," the supposed proud noble head of the Gremory family sighed dramatically. "The casual cruelty of youth these days."

"We'll leave you alone," Venelana insisted, dragging her husband up with more than a little force. "I'm sure you two have a great deal to discuss." The lady of the house marched her husband out of the room, winking at her daughter as she did so.

"I'll... Go... See if I can..." Kallen fumbled for some reason to leave before giving up. "I'll be outside."

Within a moment, Lelouch and Rias were left alone in the room, the vibrant redhead's attempt at formal manners completely discarded as she charged her newly betrothed. "Lulu-nii!" she cheered, bowling him over to sit on his lap. "You... You really did it...?"

"I want you to be happy, Rias," he told her, brushing her cheek with his knuckles. "If you want me to be the one to make you happy, then I'll gladly do it."

The former Gremory heiress presumptive giggled. "It's going to be you, and me, and Sona, and we're going to be in Japan, and we get to wear those cute school uniforms, this is going to be great!" Her boundless enthusiasm was infectious. "Hey, can... Can we kiss again?" she asked, blushing but still wearing that bright grin that insisted he smile too. As an answer, the dark-haired Bael prince leaned down to take her lips with his, her blue eyes widening to feel him taking the initiative as she melted into it. "You... You kissed me! Lulu-nii kissed me!"

"I did," he agreed, kissing her on the tip of the nose.

"You're a good kisser."

"So are you." It took him a moment to realise that was true, which was confusing.

She blushed. "I practice with Akeno sometimes," she admitted, blinking as she felt his reaction from how she was sitting. "Can we do, you know, more things? If we're gonna be married..."

"Let's not get too caught up in the moment."

"You feel like you want to get caught up in the moment, Lulu-nii," she pointed out mischievously, wiggling in place.

"There'll be plenty of time to 'do more things' in future, Rias. Let's just take things one step at a time, alright?"

"You're right..." she finally acquiesced. Only to look at him out of the corner of her eye. "You should spank me for my dirty thoughts instead!"

"Not going to do that."

"Mou... Maybe you'd prefer Kallen to do it instead? Ooh, or Sona!"

"You're going to be a handful now that you got this far, huh?"

"What, no!" she denied impishly. "I'm going to be a good wife, who does all the naughty things her husband wants to do."

Right. The things he wanted to do.

-(-)-

It had been a long time coming. A promise made months ago, the fulfilling of it delayed again and again due to pressing circumstances. But it was finally time.

"Would you like me to wait outside?" Lelouch asked his Queen as she waited in the car outside her childhood home. A comfortable detached house on the outskirts of Aberystwyth. "This feels like a moment I very much shouldn't intrude on."

Kallen, dressed in comfortable clothes for the season and with an umbrella for the ever-present Welsh rain, glanced at him. This person she knew, yet didn't know. "I... Yeah, that would probably be best."

"Do you plan to tell them?" Lelouch asked. "If so... I'll be there the moment you ask, if you should need help. If necessary I'll take all the blame."

"Right. What would it matter if a few measly humans hate you, eh?"

"Hey," he said quietly, laying a hand on her arm. "You are my Queen. They are your family. They're important to you, so they're important to me. And if they want someone to be angry at, I'd rather it be me."

In a flash, a memory struck her. A memory not hers. Of a masked man barking orders at her while she held a woman who looked so much like her mother. "R-Right..." Shaking away the memory, she pushed such thoughts aside. "Any advice?"

"You do intend to tell them then? You're the first person I've reincarnated so I can't say I have much meaningful experience to draw on."

"Not had to divulge any life-changing secrets to the people you care about?"

He sniffed a laugh. "Not by my own will."

Another flash. A man she loved telling her to live on without him.

"Are you alright?"

Blinking, she realised her eyes had become wet with tears. "I... I don't..."

"The best advice I can give," he said, laying that same hand on her leg, "Is to be as honest as you can. Er, assuming that honesty means telling them you're happy and safe. Above everything else, that's what they'll want to know."

And if she wasn't? But then, was she not? She was coming to be, but then... Ddraig had been right. It was a door that she had chosen to open, and now it wouldn't close. Every answer she had gotten only confused her more. "Thanks. Well, wish me luck."

"Good luck," he said as she opened the door, pushing out and opening her umbrella.

She shut the car door behind her, making the short, nostalgic walk up the footpath to her home. Her former home. It wasn't her home anymore.

The door opened before she even made it up the path, her mother coming out and pulling her into a hug. "Kallen!"

"Hi, Mum," Kallen said, doing her best to suppress the images of her that weren't real. That weren't hers.

"Don't you 'hi, Mum' me, you bloody twit!" the ageing Japanese woman chided her in mildly accented English. "We were so worried and not a peep from you! Do they not have phones at military hospitals?!"

"Well, you know, long-distance charges," Kallen tried to joke, only to realise just how poorly it went over by the look on her mother's face. "I'm sorry, Mum."

"Too bloody right, you are! Come on in out of the rain! Is your friend not joining you?" her mother asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Ah, no, he offered to stay in the car. Bit personal, eh? He's just my escort. Making sure I get where I need to go."

"Alright then, come on, I'll get you a cup of tea."

"Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Kallen?"

"NO!" the redhead suddenly exclaimed, startling her mother. "I... I mean, no I'll help."

The older woman laughed. "You don't have to do that! Just out of the hospital? I think I can handle making my daughter a cup of tea just fine!"

"Well maybe that's why. Maybe I'm stir crazy and want to do things."

Her mother huffed. "Suit yourself. I've learned well enough not to fight you when you get some foolish idea in your head. Come on then!"

Following her inside, she was soon greeted by her father who... Was the same, more or less. While her borrowed memories were striking and horrifying regarding her mother, her father wasn't so different. Just a slightly different kind of distant. She wondered if his looking at her with pride was only possible because he knew she wouldn't be in the armed forces anymore. If he would have worn some different emotion if he thought she was going back.

And then there was Naoto. Still living at home while he did his postgraduate study at the university. Her big brother, going places, his whole life ahead of him. Tears she couldn't explain shed from her eyes, confusing and worrying her family for something so out of character.

And then... They sat down. Got to talking. It was all such a relief. To have her family here, all of them glad to see her, glad she was safe. And she was. She was safe. And happy. So were they.

... Wasn't that enough? She had wanted to know more. To understand more. Knowing the truth behind Lelouch had been so important to her she had ignored every warning telling her to stay away. Celia was too scared to look. Ddraig told her there was no need. And still she rushed ahead, taking knowledge that had only hurt her. Would it be right to force unpleasant knowledge on her family when it might only cause them pain? To know she had died?

In the end... She lost her nerve. She had a pleasant reunion with her family, telling them a heavily edited version of her plans for the near future. And then... She left. The truth of her new life hidden from them. It was better this way. Once the door was opened, it couldn't be closed again.

She returned to the car, finding her King scribbling on a notepad, some complicated magical diagram for something or other. Beyond her understanding. "How did it go?" he asked.

"I didn't tell them," she admitted.

It wasn't an answer to his question, but he nodded anyway.

"Lelouch..." The door was open. She had chosen to open it. All she could do now was to walk through it. "Why did you kill yourself?"

The pen shattered in his hand.

-(-)-

"Dream walking," Lelouch breathed, pacing back and forth in his Queen's bedroom, holding the vial of alchemical mixture in his hand. "Dream walking. After what we just went through with Hyp– the sleep god."

"I needed to know."

"What?! What did you need to know?!"

"I needed to know why you knew me!" she snapped back at him from her position on her bed.

"No you didn't."

"It's important to you so it's important to me, right?" she threw his earlier words back at him. "Besides, since I was in those memories it's only fair–"

"You weren't," he corrected her coldly. "You, Kallen Stadtfeld, were not in those memories."

"No, some other version of me, eh? Some Japanophile bint driving robots on roller skates or some shite! Not important at all, girl who looks and sounds just like me with the same name!" Her accent had begun to drift. First to her lilting Welsh, then smoother with more of an American drawl. "That you decided to die rather than be with me–!"

The instant the final word 'me' left her lips, his eyes widened. His hand moved and struck her across the face before he grabbed her shoulders. "You're. Not. Her," he insisted. Not caring for her anger. "You didn't just see it, did you? You felt it. You experienced it."

"Don't you ever think about slapping me again."

"Would it be more acceptable if I brought you to your senses with a haymaker?" he challenged her momentary hypocrisy. Not that it would mean much with her this riled up. "Kallen, did you experience it?"

"... Yeah," she answered, continuing to glare at him. "They keep popping back up like memories too."

He let her go, returning to pacing. "Damn it." This wasn't something he had been afraid of. He didn't even consider something like this might have been possible. "This... Do you have any idea what you were doing to yourself? Yes, you were learning about me, but you were doing it by pulling her memories into yourself. Like downloading the files to your brain. Problem is, you can't just do that without them becoming your memories. Your experiences. Now you have a little piece of her in your mind, affecting who you are." He looked at her, hiding his frustration at her continuing glare. "Did you not hear yourself just now? Did you not notice you referring to yourself as her? Since when does Kallen Stadtfeld have an American, a Britannian accent?!"

Her furious glare was suddenly replaced with confused wide eyes before she looked away. She hadn't realised her accent had changed then. No wonder she looked so unrepentantly furious, she thought he slapped her just for being angry.

He had met Kallen. He had met Celia. Only one of them vaguely seemed to know something about his past life. He hadn't even considered that Celia might have pushed for this. Or that it would be possible for Kallen to take on the memories of her past self. Or alternate self. Or whatever they were to each other. "Kallen, that other Kallen isn't you. I didn't want this."

"Yes you did."

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did! Don't lie to me!" she yelled. "I'm not gonna forget the day I died any time soon. I said your name, then you said mine with so much hope in your voice. You thought I was that Kallen. Your Kallen. And you said her name like your prayers had been answered."

"I... Yes," he admitted, his teeth grit together. "You're right. I wanted to see her again. But that no longer mattered when I realised you weren't her. Like I told you when you first asked me, you remind me a lot of her. And I want to do right by you because I didn't live up to the faith she put in me. That's why no, I don't want you to have her life pasted over yours! You are Kallen Stadtfeld! That is the name of my Queen, not Kallen Kozuki!" He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "How many times have you done this?"

"Just once," she admitted. "After the first time... I got the gist, was worried about doing it again."

As she should have been. As she should have been before she did it the first time, even. "We can't say for certain that this circumstance matches other examples of similar situations. However, the best chance to ensure you don't become an extension of Kallen Kozuki is to ensure you don't do it again." He looked at the bottle in his hand, the risks quickly calculated and weighed in his mind. "We're both going."

"What? You just said–"

"You're not getting fed any more memories. But I need to see this thing and the only way to do so without getting harassed or receiving inconvenient attention or just plain getting lost, is to do it with the protection and guidance of a legendary dragon."

No matter what kind of damage it had done to Kallen, no matter the reason it had done it. He needed to know. If C's World was somehow in this world, it would be the first real way for him to learn why he was here. Why he met people so much like those he knew in his first life, yet he was the only one who remembered it. There were so many questions that he needed to be answered.

About this life... And his last.

-(-)-

A/N: So. Been a long time. That would be for two reasons. First, I'm not exactly encouraged to post on this site with reviewers being kind of jackholes (not so much for this story. Even the people who don't like this one whether for discomfort or dissatisfaction are polite enough about it. But on other stories). Second is that thing the site decided to do where they don't send e-mail alerts unless you opt in. A very stupid policy from my perspective but... Whatever. I don't run the site. I don't know the details. Maybe it made sense to them.

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