A/N: Okay, um, wow, it is way after Lelouch's birthday, but finals got in the way. So here you are. It's not very good, but I like the resolution, and I hope you do too.

Hello

All around them, as far as the eye could see, nothing stirred save for the gentle snow falling from the sky. The moon peeked out from the thick grey clouds, illuminating the two figures who were slowly making their way through the fields blanketed in snow. There was no sound to be heard, save for the snow crunching under each step they took - even the dry rustling of the naked trees was absent, setting a romantic, if not ghostly, atmosphere.

It was missed by C.C. though, who was busy staring at her friend, who was walking just five steps ahead of her. She noticed each and every subtle change as her eyes grazed over him. His back was so much wider than the last time she had seen him, not to mention how his shoulders, which were hunched from the cold, had also become less of a boy's shoulders in breadth and more of a man's. And true to his word, he had grown taller - a full head taller than her, so that he was finally the one looking down on her, instead of the way it had been for years. He had changed so much more than she thought he had. Not just in body either - in mind too.

As she followed after him, acutely noticing how even his footprints surpassed her own, C.C. wondered if she even knew him anymore. It didn't seem like she did. It seemed like he was a completely different person, a stranger, even with the hundreds of letters stuffed in the shoebox under her bed. Even the silence seemed to attest to her fear - it was no longer a comfortable silence, but more one of tension, a silence straining with awkwardness. It was foreign, being so unfamiliar with the one who had once had as large of a part in her life as her arm.

And then the first domino fell with a quiet click, and C.C. stopped walking. As she stood in the snow, watching him move on without her, she swallowed with some difficulty as she finally admitted defeat and surrendered to the demons that had been whispering in her ears for the past six months. Listening to them talk about how she didn't know him anymore, that she couldn't overcome space and time no matter how hard she tried, and that it was time to let him go, C.C. watched him grow smaller and smaller.

She wanted to go to him. She wanted to run to him, to hug him and tell him how she really felt, but she just couldn't go on any longer. It was just too much. Finally, after years of writing to one another, he was here, right in front of her. She thought of the countless times she had dreamt of this moment, how she had lay awake in bed as she tried to imagine what their reunion would be like, what she would say, what he would do. And he was here. He was finally in front of her. After years of waiting, she could finally hear his voice, touch his skin, see his face. After years of waiting, they were finally together again, even if it only was for one night.

But this… What was this? It was making her miserable, this. The silence. The way he kept walking, leaving her behind. How she couldn't see his face and only saw his back. C.C. quickly moved her attention from Lelouch to his footprint. This was stupid. And this had been a mistake. No, this wasn't a mistake. She had made a mistake, the greatest mistake of her 18 years, but coming here wasn't it. It was thinking that they could pick up their relationship from where they had left it when they had been 14, that they could move on to something greater, something that would appease and lighten her heart.

That had been her greatest mistake.

C.C. subconsciously clenched her fist. How much stupider could she have been? Requited love? Boyfriend? Being loved? Ha! As if that would ever happen. As if he would ever think of her in the way that she thought of him. She thought of their most recent letters - for the past few months or so, they had completely avoided the subject of relationships. Even C.C. had ceased her teasing, as if by some unsaid agreement that they would completely circumvent the matter. She had wondered why, but now she knew. She had finally figured out why.

He already had someone he loved. And it wasn't her.

She grit her teeth as she let the bitter words sink in. She had been too late and had missed her chance. She hadn't acted fast enough, had been a coward, and because of how frightened she had been of his reaction, had unwittingly given him to another. C.C. pursed her lips as she breathed in deeply in an attempt to calm herself. There was no use in crying. Crying wouldn't accomplish anything. It wouldn't turn back time, it wouldn't give her a second chance, and it certainly wouldn't change reality.

Crying wouldn't fix the greatest mistake she had ever made.

So why…

Why couldn't she walk after him? Why couldn't she look up to stop her tears? And why couldn't she pick up the pieces of her heart like a good witch was supposed to and pretend as if nothing had happened, even when her world had crumbled to return to the dust it had been formed from?

Why couldn't she pull herself together and smile for him?

. . .

When he realized that he was walking alone, Lelouch stopped. Why couldn't he hear C.C.'s footsteps? She hadn't gotten hurt, had she? Worried, he turned. She wasn't hurt, thankfully, but for some reason, she was standing in the middle of the road, her head bowed with her hair fluttering in the chilly winter breeze. Confused, he frowned and called out to her, but she was either ignoring him or his voice had been swallowed by the snow, because she didn't move. Confusion immediately changed to concern and he immediately retraced his steps back to her, wondering the whole time what was making her so upset.

"Oi."

She didn't reply. As he stared at her, waiting for a reply, nothing moved all around them, save for the dancing of their clothes in the light winter wind.

"C.C."

He tried to soften his tone - he was impatient with the cold, not with her, and he didn't want another misunderstanding with her. Especially now, when he still had something important to tell her. But she still remained mute and frozen, and alarms went off in his head. Was she alright?

Pressing his warm hand on her cheek, he told her, "We're halfway home. We just have to walk a little more, and then you can take a hot bath to warm yourself from the weather. I promise it's just a little way more, so just endure for a little longer. Here."

He unwrapped his black knit scarf and wound it around her. He had dressed warmly - his school uniform's winter jacket was unusually thick, probably because he lived in the countryside where the barren openness offered no shelter from the harsh winter winds and made it seem significantly colder than it really was, compared to the city with its tall buildings. But this woman… She hadn't even bothered changing out of her school uniform, despite his warnings. He should have known that she'd just ignore him. But all the same, guilt struck him. It was because of him that she was suffering from the freezing weather like this, all because he had asked her to come down from Tokyo for his birthday.

Adjusting his scarf to better warm her neck, he was about to tell her that there was pizza waiting for her at home, when she suddenly pushed his hands down so that they were hanging by her side. He watched as she reached up and unwound his scarf before roughly shoving it into his chest, as if to say that she didn't want his help. Taking it from her, Lelouch watched, surprised, with wide eyes as she stepped around him and was about to walk by, until he saw a glint and saw how wet her eyes were.

C.C. tried to push by him, not wanting him to notice. It was his birthday - this was wrong. She had already ruined his birthday enough, to cry was just mannerless and—

She stared at his hand, which was gripping her arm. When his hold tightened, she winced but said nothing and only looked at him, waiting for him to say something, waiting for their relationship to go back to normal.

"How many times have you cried because of me?"

"Lelouch, it's your birthday, we shouldn't talk about this toda—"

"How many times," he turned to face her, "have you cried because of me, C.C.?"

"Aren't you angry, Lelouch? Because of me, you had to sit in some waiting station all day long. Because of me, your birthday came and went."

So that was what this was about.

Lelouch leaned back and looked at the winter sky and its twinkling stars as C.C. stared at the ground. Tears were dangerously hanging from her eyelids over the expanse of crisp white snow, over the toes of his brown shoes, and over the tongues of her school loafers. She had never felt so guilty before - the more and more she thought about him having to wait all those hours all by himself, not even sure if she was coming or not, made the guilt heavier and heavier until she couldn't swallow and she couldn't breathe. Why had he even waited? What had possessed him to stay in that seat all afternoon long and deep into the night? What had made him think that she was coming, that kept him from losing faith? And why was he being so nice to her? When she had ruined his birthday?

"C.C."

"What is it?" she mumbled.

"C.C., look at me. Look at me please, C.C."

She reluctantly looked, only to be surprised by his smile, which was lit up by the soft moonlight reflecting off of the pure white snow.

"You're here, C.C. All that matters is that you're here now. I've already forgotten about that, and so you should. Do you understand? All I care about is that you're here because… Well… Because I…" He faltered for a second as his ears turned as red as Rudolph's nose. "Because I love you."

Her eyes widened as he nervously dug the toe of his shoe into the snow.

"I've been meaning to tell you. That I've loved you for some time now."

He loved her? He… He liked her? He daydreamed about her just like she daydreamed of him? His heart raced whenever he opened one of her letters just like hers raced? She wasn't alone in the way she felt?

"Do you? If you don't, then I understand. I don't want to make you uncomfortable if you don't feel the same way. Even if you don't, I'd still like to continue being friends with you, I promise it won't get in the way of our friendsh-"

C.C. fell into his warm smile as she tightly wrapped her arms around him. His thick coat soaked up her hot tears as she tried to muffle her sobs. She could feel his arms hold her - she only burrowed her face into his chest, relieved that she hadn't ruined anything, that he wasn't angry with her, and that everything was still alright.

"There, there," he chuckled. "Everything's going to be fine, C.C. All's well that ends well, right?"

"I thought I was going to miss it," she choked. Shuddering from her tears, she whispered, "I thought that you had given up and left because I had ruined everything. I thought that I wouldn't be able to tell you before you left for England."

"Tell me what?" he quietly asked. Leaning back, she looked up at him as he gently wiped away the tracks her tears had left.

"That I love you."

He smiled.

"And there's the birthday present I've been waiting for all these years."

"Happy birthday, Lelouch."

"Thank you, C.C."

Her breath was light as his lips inched closer to hers. Her eyes fluttered as she stared at his lips, transfixed by how closer they were, before meeting his hooded gaze.

"I… First kiss," she mumbled.

"That's alright with me," he murmured. "It's not as if I'm any different."

The corners of her lips drew up into a smile for the first time that entire evening before it disappeared behind a kiss that stuck her feet to the ground and a warmth to wash all over her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

I missed you, Lelouch.

I missed you too, C.C.

Happy birthday, Lelouch.

Thank you, C.C.

I love you, Lelouch.

I love you too, Cera.