Pairing: Lelouch/Kallen.

Relevant notes: References to season one episodes, spoilers up to Turn 10 (especially 10), light spoilers for future episodes, awful speculation.

Warnings: Swearing (one mild instance, one not).

In the Beginning, There Is A Promise

i. absence.

There is a hand mirror lying on the table.

He picks it up and twirls it idly, his thoughts wandering to the celebration he is about to interrupt. Kallen bursts in and the mirror jerks out of his hand, shattering when it hits the floor.

'Oops,' Kallen says, laughing. 'I was about to take that back to Kaguya.'

She bends down to help him pick up the pieces and he suddenly remembers that breaking a mirror supposedly means seven years' worth of bad luck.

Thankfully, he isn't superstitious.

. .

Her Guren runs out of energy.

She is still staring at the warning screen in disbelief as Xingke wraps her up and effectively prevents her from escaping. She's imagined dozens of different ways she could be defeated in battle, but she's never stopped to seriously consider a scenario where her goddamn energy runs out. It's such a pathetic way to end, after everything she's been through. She can't die like this, dangling in mid-air at someone else's mercy.

A burst of explosions echo around her and Xingke begins dragging her away, in the direction of the Chinese Federation army. Her heart jolts as she realises that rather than dying and joining the spirit world, she has become something else- a captive, a prisoner of war.

. .

He watches her disappear and something inside him cracks.

'Kallen! Don't give up- I'll save you!'

Diethard tells him that he has to leave her, because one soldier is not worth the lives of everyone else, but all he can think of is the relief in her voice when she'd answered, and how he can't abandon her again. He has left so many people behind already- Nunnally, Suzaku, Euphie, Shirley, Rivalz, Milly, Nina- that he thinks one more- Kallen- might very well destroy him.

He is a million things, but above all else, he is human.

. .

She waits in her unmoving Guren and listens to the noises that penetrate her sanctuary. There's a blast, and another. She tries to fit the sounds with pictures, but she doesn't really want to imagine what might be happening out there, what Xingke is doing to the Black Knights. She hates knowing she's unable to help them fight.

It's my own fault, she muses. I didn't wait for orders; I just rushed out.

She'd wanted to prove herself. She considers C.C a good friend, but that hadn't stopped her nagging feeling of inferiority to C.C. She'd seen Lelouch confiding in C.C, discussing his plans, and she'd flown away in order to soothe her own pride and ego...

And here I am.

. .

He's forced to retreat, in the end. Night falls quickly and plans are brought in prematurely. There's a frantic rush into places.

C.C is looking at him with a new kind of respect in her eyes. She is meant to be in her Knightmare by now, but she lingers.

'Did you think I was going to abandon Kallen?' he asks suddenly, without the least prompting from her.

She isn't fazed by his sharp question. She studies him with the easy coolness that characterises her.

'I wasn't sure,' she admits and then she says, with a tone full of meaning, 'but I suppose that I shouldn't have had a doubt you would promise to rescue her.'

There's a subtly veiled suggestion in her words that surprises him. He frowns, but all she does is smile briefly and then sweep away to prepare for battle.

. .

The cockpit is opened and she is roughly pulled out. Two men grip her arms to the point of bruising and several others train guns on her as she straightens up. She smiles to herself at the wary way the Eunuchs look at her.

There's a curt order and she is marched out of the room. She considers an attempt at escape, but there are too many soldiers around her for her to think that success is possible. She doesn't want to die, after all. She has too many things she has to- and wants to- do: watch Britannia fall, create a peaceful world for her mother, see her friends again...

Death is not in her future.

She is taken to a small room, tied securely to a rigid-backed chair and left alone. A short struggle tells her that the bonds are much too tight to break. She knows that all she can do now is wait.

. .

The battle is over.

Their celebrations are subdued. The loss of so many soldiers, as well as their ace, weighs heavily on everyone's minds. They look up at him and wonder what Zero will do to bring Kallen back. He doesn't tell them that he doesn't know.

'We could trade her for the Empress,' Tamaki suggests.

'Give up all our plans for the sake of one person?' Diethard snaps. 'Do you want to defeat Britannia or not?'

'The point is that we need Kallen to do that,' Ougi says tersely. 'She's one of our best pilots.'

Lelouch listens to them argue. He knows that what Diethard says is true. Giving up the Empress will set them back in their plans, especially when they are so close and have done so much to get her. At the same time, he isn't sure how far they will go without Kallen. Their strength on the battlefield, as well as their morale, will suffer if they lose her.

'We have to forget our own feelings and remember why we are fighting!' Diethard insists.

And what if our reason for fighting includes her? Lelouch asks, silently.

'We'll propose a trade,' he announces, cutting into their heated debate, and only Diethard looks dissatisfied with his decision.

. .

The door opens and light spills into the dark room. She looks up, blinking against the brightness, and her hands clench into fists behind her back when she recognises the figure stepping in.

'Kallen,' Suzaku greets her, smiling, and she glares back.

The other two Knights of Rounds follow him in: the pilot of the Tristan, Gino Weinberg, and the Mordred pilot, Anya Alstreim. She feels a tickle of inexplicable irritation at the blankness on the young girl's face, but she thinks her irritation at the Tristan pilot's smirk is justified.

'What, come to gawk at the prisoner?' she asks angrily. Gino looks amused, but the reply drifts toward her from behind the three Knights.

'Not at all. You're our guest, not a prisoner.'

The room seems to shrink when Schneizel enters. She isn't sure why, but a deeper fear than she'd felt when she'd been captured quickly settles over her. The Second Prince of Britannia directs a light smile at her and she has to force back a shiver at the sight of it.

'Please accept my apologies for the way you've been treated,' Schneizel says. 'I can assure you that it won't be the same in the future.'

'The future?' she repeats, faintly.

'Oh, yes,' he answers, still smiling. 'Zero offered to return the Empress if you were sent back safely, but we declined. After all, we wouldn't like for you to go back with your current opinion on our treatment of guests.'

. .

'They said no?'

Ougi's stunned exclamation fuels an explosion of confused chatter. Lelouch watches numbly as C.C picks up the cheese plushie sitting beside him and squeezes it.

'Schneizel?' she asks quietly, and it's not so much a question as an appeal for confirmation.

'Most likely,' he replies, tapping his fingers on his knee. 'You don't think he knows who I am, do you?'

C.C shrugs. She hugs her plushie tighter and murmurs,

'What are you going to do now?'

'I don't know,' he answers. He hates using those words and he hates the fact that he has used them so many times in the past few hours. 'Schneizel must know who I am. He wouldn't risk his alliance with the Chinese Federation if he didn't. He refused our offer because he knows I won't hurt Tianzi.'

'And the Chinese Federation agree with his keeping Kallen despite your offer?' C.C asks, raising her eyebrows.

'You don't know the way Schneizel can manipulate people,' he says grimly. 'If he has Kallen, he's going to use her to his advantage, and he's probably convinced them it was a necessary decision.'

C.C waits.

'There's nothing we can do right now,' Lelouch says and he wonders if C.C can see how much it costs him to say it. 'We're going to have to leave her and think of another way to get her back.'

. .

Suzaku leads her out of the room, the other two Knights and Schneizel trailing behind.

'Where are you taking me?' she asks, trying to sound calm. She doesn't want to let him see how scared she is, or how rapidly her confidence that Lelouch will save her is fading with each new development. 'Suzaku?'

Suzaku glances behind him, presumably at the Second Prince. He turns back to her with an expression she can't read.

'We're going to Britannia.'

She knows then that Lelouch won't be able to save her anymore.