A/N: so, there's not much to say, but i do hope this all makes sense to you. i wont hold you up any longer. here's the chapter i promised you. ugh, school tomorrow.

Chapter 14: Awakening

"Euphemia." The name rolled off of his tongue, a brief but terrible reminder of his sins and the pain he had caused. Suzaku looked at Lelouch and quirked an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked, his focus now on the raven-haired boy. He hesitated before answering, wondering if Suzaku would hate him again if he told him of the tragedy behind that name and how they were connected.

"Euphemia… li Britannia," Lelouch repeated. His reluctance was obvious, but Suzaku's obliviousness eased his concern. He didn't seem to remember, and that was good.

"Who is that?" Suzaku asked. Lelouch let out a sigh of relief. It would be alright for the time being, but he was curious as to how much he was unaware of.

"The name… it doesn't ring a bell?" he inquired, silently pleading that the answer be negative.

Suzaku's brow creased just the slightest and he thought back, carefully shuffling through his memory, and came across an extremely hazy image of a girl. He couldn't make out any small details, but she seemed to have light pink hair and wore a white dress that billowed in the wind of the meadow she stood in. He couldn't see anything else.

"What… what did she look like?" Suzaku asked, a curiosity welling inside him as to who the woman was.

"That's not important if you don't know who I'm talking about…" Lelouch replied.

"Yeah, but… I think I may know who you're talking about. The image is in my head, it's just really blurry. Just tell me what she looks like," Suzaku insisted.

Lelouch started. His brow creased slightly and his posture became a bit more rigid as if he had suddenly been put o edge, and he was. A silence ensued.

"Lelouch."

"I don't exactly remember what she looked like. All that comes to mind is the name," Lelouch replied.

"Well… did she have pink hair?"

"I wouldn't—" The lunch bell rang cut him off, and Lelouch had never been more relieved to hear that annoying tone. He stood, grabbing his bag and simply left without a word. Suzaku stared after him in mild confusion, but he knew he was onto something important and he wouldn't let the subject slip next time he saw him.

-XXX-

The rest of the school day continued without a hitch. Class was boring, as per usual. The lectures, the assignments, and any and everything else they did was just killing brain cells. To be in the establishment at all was a waste; for Lelouch, at least.

The sky, however, proved quite interesting when boredom consumed your mind, and Lelouch amused himself with that. How the sky and the ground met on the horizon, yet seemed to continued unto forever. It was astounding. Funny how the simplest things can be the most fascinating.

The instructor didn't seem to at all notice that most of the class was asleep or with their phones, but perhaps he was just too enraptured by his textbook. It was also possible that he didn't care. History could be an interesting subject, if you cared.

"Don't forget that your essays—' the dismissal bell rang, cutting him off as the students gathered their belongings and departed. Barely a minute had passed before the room was vacated.

-XXX-

Lelouch's head pulsed softly, the beginnings of a headache. He gathered his things, the dismissal bell having already rung, and headed back to his dorm to rest up and complete his assignments for the day.

The brightness of the sun effected Lelouch as soon as he stepped out of the school building. He hadn't even descended the stairs when he dropped his bag, and fell to his knees, the pulsing quickly becoming an excruciatingly painful migraine. He shut his eyes and clutched at his forehead, doing everything in his power to quell the sudden pain, but the ache only intensified; quickly escalating from a rough pounding sensation to the feel of someone raking talons up and down the inside of his skull, scraping up flesh and disturbing his thought process. His left eye throbbed and itched relentlessly, and the strength had all but drained from his legs. His left eye was bloodshot and tears of blood poured out of it while the other remained normal. He felt as if something were trying to tear its way out.

A crowd of onlookers had developed, and a concerned whisper spread through the group.

"Should I call the ambulance?" one girl asked, phone in hand. She stared in horror at Lelouch, and clutched at her skirt in trepidation.

"Lelouch! Lelouch!" he could hear someone far away shouting his name. 'Nunnaly?' was his last coherent thought before he passed out.

-XXX-

A flash of golden eyes and the silhouette of the only girl with green hair that Lelouch had ever known. C.C.

"Lelouch." Her voice was angry yet concerned. Another unusual display of emotion. "You have to dissolve this illusion. The allotted time expired when Nunnaly died, and it's thriving off of your willpower and desire for it to remain. Even if you don't the illusion will slowly begin to fade. The people who are dead will disappear, memories will slowly return. Either way you'll be returned to your world."

Lelouch clenched his fists and felt something cold and heavy in his right hand. The gun.

"Shoot me," C.C insisted, but Lelouch could only stare at her in disbelief and mild anger. "Lelouch," her voice was calm yet livid, "take my immortality and return to your world. You'll need it to complete the Zero Requiem. All those lives you stole… you did it for a reason. It wasn't just for Nunnaly. You were going to change the world. You're to save millions of lives—"

"And at what cost!?" Lelouch barked at her. He looked away in disgust. With himself, the world, society. He was sick of it all. "At what cost?"

"The end justifies the means," C.C said casually, all emotion now drained from her words.

"Is that what you say? What I say?" He let out a bitter laugh. "What if those means involve the death of thousands of innocents?"

"You cannot undo what has been done."

"Then what about this?!" he gestured wildly about, referring to the world she had created.

"This is a mere illusion I've created within C's World. You and your world have merely entered a temporary frozen state of comatose, and the moment you uplift it will be the moment your life continues as it should. But before that can happen, you must kill me. No matter how long you maintain this world, your people will continue to suffer. You are the only one who can be satisfied with such false happiness."

He felt a hand grasp his, and the gun was brought up to C.C's forehead.

"All you have to do is pull the trigger," she said, pushing his finger onto the trigger button. A shot exploded from the gun, and he heard the sick thunk as it plunged itself into C.C's head; felt her blood spray onto him. He heard her body fall, yet he knew that it wasn't over. She had made him do it, and because of that, she was not dead. Lelouch would have to pull it himself.

"I won't do it. I won't leave Nunnaly."

"Nunnaly is dead." The statement was firm. A truth that Lelouch had only just begun acknowledged, and it stung. A silence hung in the air. "I have reawakened your power. Should you want to return to your reality, look into a mirror and simply command yourself to remember." Her voice echoed through the still air even though her body had disappeared.

-XXX-

Lelouch's eyes flitted open. He scanned the room to find that he was in the school infirmary. The blood that had previously leaked from his left eye had been cleaned up, and his eye had returned to normal though the itching sensation had not yet fully diminished. A dull throb in his left temple was all that remained of the violent migraine.

"Are you alright?" Suzaku asked. He sat on the bed beside Lelouch's a look of deep concern creasing his brow. Lelouch nodded, sitting up slowly. He brought his left hand up to touch his eye. 'the eye in which the Geass dwells,' his memory supplied. He closed his eyes in deep thought.

"Lelouch?"

"I'm fine," he replied, opening his eyes. The itching sensation had ceased entirely. Suzaku nodded. He glanced down at is hands then back up at Lelouch, a new determination in his eyes.

"Lelouch, I want you to tell me who Euphemia is," the brunette demanded. A silence ensued. Lelouch averted his gaze, hand clutching the sheet he was covered with.

Afternoon sun streamed in through the large window on the far wall, making the barren room brighter than usual. They could hear the conversations of their peers outside.

"I cant…" he replied quietly.

'Lelouch!" Suzaku insisted vehemently.

"I can't, Suzaku," Lelouch said sternly. His tone left no room for argument, and yet…

"You know you can. You're just not willing." He sighed. "Stop keeping secrets, Lelouch."

"I'm not—"

"Yes! You are! Do you think I'm an idiot?! Did you think I didn't notice?! You're loss of appetite, how lethargic you've become. And did you know? Sometimes you fall asleep before me, and I hear what you mutter in your sleep. Things about a rebellion and killing and going back to "reality." What is that? Explai—'

"A dream."

"What?"

"It's all just a dream." Their eyes met. "So forget about it." Suzaku froze, a blank look on his face. His eyes, rimmed with a glowing magenta*, seemed to be staring of into some faraway place.

"Fine," he said, letting the subject go all too easily. Lelouch looked at the brunette, perplexed by what had just happened.

"Your geasss holds the power of absolute control," C.C's voice echoed from the back of his mind. 'So this… this is geass." He thought, and suddenly he had the overwhelming urge to gouge our his left eye and end it there. The tyranny. The struggle for dominance. Geass. All of it. Instead, however, his hand came up to rest on his eye and he laughed. A hollow, bitter laugh resounded from his mouth.

End Note- well i hope this chapter wasnt as horrible as i think and that its worthy of a review.

*-i kno lelouch already used his geass on suzaku to make him live, but i figured that its my story so i made it so that the geass would work because the original use of it had been wiped from his memory.