Code Geass The River

As Kallen cut across Tokyo from Ashford to the hanger where the Guren was currently kept she let her mind drift back to the first days after Lelouch had died. For Kallen those first weeks had been nothing short of hell; those days were filled with misery, tears and pain shot through with loss... It was during that week that she first had a dream that she has come to know very well...

The dream was always the same she was back at the execution parade; but only she and Lelouch were present, Lelouch lay in a pool of his own blood at the base of his float. Kallen ran up to his body to hear him ask her one last thing.

"Please Kallen protect the world..." he weakly asks

At that point a light would illuminate Lelouch from above and two angels would descend from the heavens in the forms of Shirley, Euphemia, and Rolo, the angels would always land and stoop to pick Lelouch up before taking off back to the heavens at which point Kallen would panic.

"NO! Don't Go! Lelouch don't go! Please Don't LEAVE ME!" she would beg, only to get the cryptic reply from Lelouch of "Look Kallen Destiny no longer binds me, I'm free." Moments later he would disappear into the light of heaven and she would plaintively cry out his name to no avail.

yet though in the early days she was unable to move past that part she had recently found out what the second part of the dream was.

Kallen would find herself sitting in the void drowning in the own misery when the voice of her long dead brother would ring out.

"What's wrong Imouto?" Naoto asked

"I can't feel him... my love... I can't feel him any more... he's gone."

"Is that why you're crying?" Naoto would ask

"Leave me alone; I just lost half of my own soul because I didn't protect him, the me that's here isn't really me anymore!"

"That's not the Kallen I know." Naoto would say.

"It doesn't matter anymore." Kallen would sob.

"Get up Kallen there are people waiting for you, one is even searching for you. Don't let them down now, remember the promise you made him?" Naoto would say only for Lelouch's voice to ring out "Promise me you will return to Ashford Academy with me."

Kallen would then calm down "Naoto, you're right I did promise I would go back, I may not have been able to protect him but there are still people I care about. At the very least I can protect the world he made, even if he can't keep his half of the promise."

And as she got up and collapsed into her brother's arms Naoto would say something that she she still didn't understand "Sometimes that which has been lost finds its way back to you, try not to push it or you might lose it forever."

* * *

Lelouch Leaned against the wall of the alley that Kallen usually cut through on her way to run tests on the Guren, if he was right she would pass through this alley again in just a few minutes, as he leaned against the wall his mind drifted to thoughts of his quarry and just why he was here waiting for her to pass by. _'Why am I doing this? Why does that one promise keep me from... I can't give her the life she deserves... So why can't I just die? Why do I need to keep this promise, why has it become my reason to live? I have plenty of reasons to die... I can never see Nunnally or Suzaku again, almost everyone I ever knew hates me... Kallen probably hates me... if she does why even bother? If Kallen hates me then there is no point to keep living.'_ Looking up Lelouch saw a certain red head rush past '_Well it's now or never' _he thought, "Long time no see Q1."

* * *

Kallen Kouzuki did not consider herself crazy. In fact, no-one she knew considered her unstable, however the voice she heard asking her to stop (in the middle of a darkened alley to boot) called her sanity into question. The voice was impossible it couldn't possibly be...

"Long time no see Q1." the haunting voice had said; and she stiffly turned around as it continued "I just stopped by to let you know that I'll be in the crowd a couple months from now when you graduate, it's the best I can do to keep a promise I made you."

Kallen finally got a glimpse of his face half illuminated by a shaft of sunlight filtering from above; there was the delicate structure of Lelouch's face, his mesmerizing amethyst eyes, his messy shock of silky black hair. '_He's alive!' _she thought she wanted to run and hug him, but his abandoning of her, his apparent death, and taking so long to let her know he had survived all clashed together with the fact that it seemed like he thought he could just insert himself back into her life like nothing had ever happened, her emotions reached the flashpoint quickly. "Dammit Lelouch! I was starting to get on with my life and was thinking of so many things when you appeared with that smirk of yours like you know everything!" She said getting angrier "You don't dammit! I hate you! How could you presume you could just waltz back into my life like that! You should have stayed dead!"

Lelouch whipped around to face her his amethyst eyes widening at the sheer vehemence her words held; a single tear making its way down his left cheek. Swallowing deeply he responded hoarsely "I-I see." before hurrying away.

Kallen stood shocked for a moment not knowing where all of her anger had come from, but it shattered upon seeing the devastated look on Lelouch's face she knew that she had hurt him with what she said... she hurt him badly right then; regardless of what else he had done he came back to keep his promise and she had lashed out at him. After standing there for far too long Kallen rushed down the path that Lelouch had gone. Maybe she could find him and apologize before it was too late and he disappeared forever.

When Kallen caught up to Lelouch she found him sitting on the railing of a bridge over the flooded waters of the Sumida river. "Lelouch" she called out.

"Kallen?" he responded looking lazily back at her "I thought you said you never wanted to see me again." after a long pregnant silence Lelouch commented "You can't know how tempting the river looks right now."

It took Kallen a mere second to decipher what he meant "NO! Lelouch Don't Do IT! You have your entire life ahead of you!"

Lelouch's voice took an acidic edge "I have my life ahead of me? Why would I want a life where I can no longer see my little sister, or anyone else I care for, a life of solitude and isolation? Why would I want a life where I exist as nothing but a threat to the very peace that I sacrificed everything to give to my sister? To give to you? I only came back to try to fulfill my promise you..." in a resigned voice he continued "You threw that last hope back in my face and made your hatred clear... I have lost everything and exist only as a threat to the peace I worked to create. Farewell Kallen." With that Lelouch pushed himself off of the railing.

Kallen rushed to the railing screaming his name as he plummeted to the river below.

* * *

A/N: This was sitting mostly finished, so I finished up the couple missing lines and published it... this was made to be a two shot.


End file.

Code Geass, Tragedy