iii. fonder.

The first thing he notices when the Knights of Rounds make their appearance is that there is a familiar fiery red Knightmare with them.

'The Guren?' Ougi exclaims, catching sight of it at the same time Lelouch does. 'Who's piloting it?'

'They're using my Knightmare?' Laksharta asks indignantly.

All eyes follow the Guren as it flies alongside the Lancelot and makes a direct dive at Toudou. Toudou, for all his skill on the battlefield, struggles to hold his position under the double attack.

'It's Kouzuki!' he reports, and there's a dead silence. 'Zero, Kouzuki's fighting with Britannia!'

There's an explosion of disbelieving shouts and Lelouch closes his eyes behind his mask.

. .

Kallen Stadtfeld stands outside the gates to Ashford Academy, drinking in the sight of the school. A light flickers on in a distant window and she wonders where the Student Council is now and what kind of hare-brained idea Milly has had them participating in.

She has spent such a blissful period at the school that it is painful not being able to go back. She regrets it sometimes, but then she remembers why she has left the school and she knows that she can't return until she has achieved her goals. It is enough, she thinks, just to be able to see it again.

A crisp breeze tosses her hair and she tucks the straight strands behind her ears, promising herself she will leave after a moment more.

. .

He stiffens involuntarily when he sees her. She is facing the school, oblivious to his presence and he shifts the bag on his shoulder before approaching her.

'Kallen,' he says softly, so as not to startle her. She spins around and her face lights up, and for one wild moment he believes she is still the Kallen he knows.

'Lelouch!' she returns, happily.

The night sky is only lightly scattered with stars, but a quick look at her eyes show him that despite her friendly greeting, she has without a doubt changed. Instead of the heart-on-her-sleeve Kallen she'd once been around him, he sees a Kallen with guarded eyes, who has forgotten every success and disaster she has helped him- Zero, Lelouch- through.

'What are you doing here?' he asks.

'I could ask you the same thing,' she says, smiling. 'Why are you out here at this time?'

'I'm a little late in returning from an excursion I took,' he tells her, not bothering to elaborate on the details of the trip. 'You?'

'Oh...' She turns to look at the school. 'I just missed this place, that's all. Suzaku told me that I could visit as long as I didn't take too long.'

'Suzaku?' Lelouch repeats. He doesn't like the way she says the name, how dependent she sounds on Suzaku.

'Yeah.' Kallen frowns at him. 'Didn't you know? We're back in Area 11 for a while. We're apparently needed to deal with the Zero problem here.'

Area 11. Zero problem. A flare of deep anger at what the Emperor has done to her threatens to overwhelm him. He hates seeing her like this: a weak imitation of herself, with someone else's ideals and views.

I did this, he thinks. It's my fault that this happened to her.

The thought makes him reckless. He steps up closer to her and says, seriously,

'Am I just 'Lelouch' to you, Kallen?'

'What do you mean?' she asks in confusion. 'You're Lelouch, my friend... A Student Council member...'

'Beyond all that,' he presses, waving a hand impatiently.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' she says and her expression turns wary. 'Are you feeling all right?'

He knows he should stop here, because Geass is Geass, but he can't just move on with his life when she's like this, trapped in a false world because fate had been cruel enough to connect her to him.

'You don't remember anything about me at all, beyond this school? Am I just Lelouch, a person you know from Ashford?'

He thinks he sees a flash of fear and uncertainty in her eyes, but the night is dark and his own wishes may very well be influencing his sight. She takes a half step back and shakes her head.

'I don't remember anything because there are no such memories!'

Lelouch sighs. He doesn't try to stop her when she moves to leave.

'I'm sorry,' he says. 'Take care.'

. .

She's afraid.

Her strange encounter with Lelouch has stirred odd thoughts and emotions to the surface of her mind, like sand clouding a pool of water when disturbed. Suddenly, she is finding vague contradictions in her own opinions and feelings, her own life. There's a part of her brain that tells her Lelouch is just a former classmate at Ashford, but there's a feeling that she knows him much, much better than that. He is... more important to her than Milly, Shirley and everyone else.

She doesn't know how that is possible. She has only ever seen him at Ashford and once or twice outside its confines, but never as more than simple friends. There has been nothing in her interactions with him to warrant these feelings of closeness to him.

Kallen groans and shoves her head under her pillow. She wonders if she has some kind of unacknowledged, subconscious crush on him.

No, she decides. There's something else.

Her dreams that night disturb her.

. .

He is walking to meet Milly about a supposedly urgent matter when he sees Kallen on the school grounds. He hesitates and then heads over to her.

'Lelouch,' she says when he reaches her and she sounds strained. Her arms are crossed tightly. 'The other night here... What did you mean when you asked me about knowing you beyond Ashford?'

His eyes widen. He hadn't thought that his words had any real effect on her.

'What do you remember?' he asks.

Kallen seems locked in a silent struggle with herself. She doesn't answer him immediately, but after a second, she bursts out:

'Nothing! I have a feeling that I should know you better than as just a friend from school, but I don't know how, and that's the problem! It isn't right- I can't-'

She stops, breathing heavily, and looks at him in anguish.

'I'm confused,' she says, biting her lip, like the words are coming out of their own accord and she wants to stop them. 'Ever since you said those things, I've been dreaming ridiculous things, about Britannia and Japan. And everything feels- wrong. '

Hope, he is reminded, is a powerful thing. A plan quickly forms itself and he doesn't even pause to consider the consequences if the plan fails. He meets her gaze and smiles.

'Trust those feelings,' he advises her and she seems startled by his reply. 'Don't rely on your memories; just your heart.'

. .

A week later and her dreams become stranger. Half the time they involve Britannia exploding in flames, an event which doesn't pain her dream-self at all. The other half of the time, her dreams consist of her clutching a mask, which is always in shadow and impossible to see clearly. She wakes up searching for an answer as to what the mask looks like, and all she ever comes up with is something bizarre: Zero's mask.

She sleepwalks though a week. Suzaku suggests she go out for some air one afternoon and she obeys without much consideration. The streets are quiet for that hour and she takes the most deserted paths, avoiding people whenever she can.

'Kallen?'

She finds a somewhat familiar looking brown-haired man, maybe in his twenties, staring at her. He wears a strange expression.

'I'm sorry, do I know you?' she asks.

He looks depressed and she thinks, quite suddenly, that look doesn't suit him. She has no idea where it comes from.

A second man appears behind him and grasps his arm, avoiding her eyes.

'Come on, Tamaki,' the second man orders and she realises that the first man is Shinichiro Tamaki, a member of the Order of the Black Knights. The pair walk away quickly, as though expecting her to follow. Her feet carry her a few steps forward, but inexplicably, she doesn't want to move any further.

She doesn't want to have to arrest them.

. .

'What if she kills you?'

Lelouch shakes his head, moving the chess piece in his hand- the black queen- absentmindedly.

'She won't. I know her.'

'You know the Kallen without altered memories,' C.C says coolly.

'I know what it's like to have false memories,' he fires back. 'During the year I was here without Nunnally, I had vague feelings that something wasn't right. The fact that I had memories of Rolo didn't prevent those feelings. The only problem was that no one was here to plant suspicions in my mind, so I was forced to accept my life as it was. The Emperor can alter and remove memories easily, but deep emotions are another matter.'

'You think Kallen has these doubts, too?'

'I do.'

C.C merely looks at him, drawing her cheese plushie closer to her.

'This will work,' he says, setting down the chess piece. 'I'm certain of it.'

. .

Suzaku doesn't notice her gradual withdrawal into herself. She thinks that Anya is a little more observant, but then she realises that she doesn't really know how to read Anya, or much about her at all, for that matter.

They are called out in another fight against the Order of the Black Knights. She leaves the others to focus on one Knightmare Frame, which immediately flies off when she turns to it. She follows it.

There's a blast aimed at her from behind and she dodges it, making short work of the low-flying Knightmare that had fired at her. The one she had been chasing is only slightly further ahead, weaving through a series of low, abandoned buildings and she chases after it- until there is a strange crackle of electricity and her Guren is suddenly unable to move.

'What?' she gasps. She slams furiously at the controls with no success and she is forced to eject as the Guren plummets a short distance to the ground.

A movement catches her eye once she lands safely: someone in a black cape is whisking just up ahead into one of the buildings. She instantly recognises the clothing as Zero's and without a second thought, she picks herself up and sprints after him.

. .

He waits for her, tensing when he hears her footsteps clatter into the room.

'Zero!' she says fiercely, sliding to a stop in front of him.

'Kouzuki Kallen,' he replies and her reaction is exactly what he'd wanted. 'What's wrong? Isn't that your name?'

'You shouldn't have come here today,' Kallen tells him, ignoring his question, and she raises the gun in her hand at him. 'This is your end.'

'Is it?' he asks her calmly. 'You aren't a killer, Kallen. Not like this, especially when you don't even know why you're fighting me.'

Her breath catches and her hand shakes slightly.

'What are you talking about?' she snaps. 'I fight for a peaceful world.'

'Yes, but for what reason? Just in general, a peaceful world? Why do you fight with so much determination?'

'I've told you!'

'You said you wanted a peaceful world. From what I have seen of people, they fight for someone or something in particular. You don't even have any real loyalty to Britannia.'

'Wrong,' she says and her hand stills. 'I am loyal to Britannia.'

Lelouch doesn't miss a beat.

'And yet you're loyal to Japan too, aren't you? When you stepped foot in Japan, you felt like you were returning home, didn't you? It felt so much more like home than Britannia... A sense of belonging...'

'No!' she says angrily, even though he can see her uncertainty flit across her face. 'Britannia is my home, and everything I fight for.'

'Shoot me then,' he returns instantly. 'Kill me and destroy every hope of the Japanese people. You have no loyalty to this place, or the people, so do it.'

Kallen's hand is still outstretched. She stares at him.

. .

There's something familiar about that voice. She aims her gun at him and watches him carefully.

'What's wrong, Kallen?' Zero says softly and an absurd idea forces itself at her: I know him. 'Do you think this is a trick? It isn't.'

'You talk to me like you know me,' she says, attempting to stall. 'You don't.'

He moves slowly, step by step in her direction. She keeps the gun at him even though her resolve is quickly disappearing and she knows she isn't going to shoot him, despite everything reason tells her.

'I do know you, better than nearly anyone in this world. You have fought beside me for a long time now. You are my most loyal soldier and my friend. Britannia took you and brainwashed you. I couldn't save you- and I'm so sorry.'

And for some reason, she believes him. Her own memories contradict his words and still, she believes him.

Zero reaches her and places a hand on her gun, gently tugging it away from her. A wave of déjà vu sweeps over her as he does so.

'Thank you, Kallen,' he says, and it triggers emotions completely out of place: surprise, gratitude, happiness, pride...

'I don't understand,' she whispers, looking at the blank mask that hides his face.

'I know,' he says. 'I'll help you. We'll go forward together.'

She understands then, that even with all her ideas that he is evil and that she has to fight for Britannia against him-

She trusts him, more than she logically and reasonably should.

. .

Her wariness drops away, leaving her vulnerable and open, and he swears that he will see the Kallen he knows again.

Maybe he can save her after all.

end