The meeting between Lelouch and Kallen referenced in this chapter is detailed in Decode. These two stories take place in the same canon.

Pain. He knew all about pain. One could almost say he was nothing more than pain, a thousand injuries from a thousand sources in a thousand different places; a spider's web tangled around itself, memories like its silken strands, binding him to everything he was and everything he shouldn't be. He was icy deception, smooth and calm and oh so cold on the surface, the cracks hidden beneath the thin veneer of Lelouch vi Britannia, ninety-ninth Emperor and sole ruler of mankind.

And that façade couldn't last, which is why he had to die and die so soon, before it shattered and everything he'd ever done turned out like it usually did – for naught. He had to consign himself to oblivion, to the lonely, cold sleep of the damned, to bury the sins of the world under his own. A burden no-one could bear, because the world is so much bigger than one man, no matter who he was. And he didn't bear it – anyone who knew him well enough could see it in his eyes, in the slow, deliberate pace of his walk. After all, there was no need to hurry. He knew exactly what the future held, and he didn't want to go there. But he had to.

The days slowly ticked by, each stretching well past twenty-four hours in the privacy of his own head, a whole lifetime of memories compressing themselves into two months, because he had nothing else to do but think. All the planning had been completed long ago – all that was left was its implementation, and that he could perform by rote while his mind ticked through more regrets, more deaths, more lies, more everything than anyone else would ever deal with.

He was larger than life, and the one truth that inevitably came to light about those larger than life is that they would die early, often too early for anything to really begin. The larger they were, the earlier they would die, because that's the way of the universe. Balance. Karma. Whatever you wanted to call it, that's the way it was.

Unless you cheated, you had one allotted span. How you chose to live decided how fast you'd use your time up, and for Lelouch, well, he thought he'd used it up a long time ago. He was amazed he'd lasted this long. Ever since the day his mother died, he'd been living on borrowed time. Borrowed from whom, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to try and waste it. He knew, in a way, without the rebellion, he would have been wasting it. But the gambling, the history of mysteriously vanishing and skipping class, it all served a purpose once he'd decided to get out there and do something.

But that's all everything did, wasn't it? Served a purpose. Even he, the man who supposedly (well, a little more than supposedly) controlled the world, was nothing more than a puppet, dancing on strings of his own design. Strings only a few knew even existed, and the only one capable of pulling them in a different direction wasn't counted among them. He knew he'd been thinking about her far too much, but he didn't care. He was going to die anyway, and she would never know. All he'd ever had were memories, and he wasn't going to forget. Not any more.

The days ticked onwards, hands making their lazy spiral around the clock, ticking towards what he'd dubbed Zero Hour. Suzaku had been amused, and so had the witch – amongst the demon's pact, black humour was all they really ever had. And all the while, he sat and thought, knowing that he shouldn't, knowing that he couldn't, and yet doing it all the same. Because the more he thought, the more he knew he might find something out there, something to make him call the whole plan off.

Well, that wasn't quite correct. He had found something, and it was only through a self-control honed by a decade and a half of loss, two years of war and two months of pain that prevented him from doing what he knew he wanted to. Until that day, the day before he was due to die.

He went to see her, once, on the day that had no real tomorrow. His knight and his accomplice both warned him against it – they knew what it'd do to him, and feared that perhaps he knew it too. But he went anyway. He was there for a long time, hours in reality and a lifetime in his mind, and when he left, it was as melancholy, as depressed as he'd ever been. But they could see he was lighter, somehow, and they desperately wanted to know what had happened. So they did the obvious, and went to see her.

Only two words were spoken, but only those two words would ever be enough.

"I know."

And so they turned and left, content in the knowledge that she'd decoded whatever he'd said when he was there, and they knew that now his resolve was greater than ever. He'd been to see her, and she didn't hate him. They knew that was enough for him, enough to stay him from any other course other than the one he'd chosen.

They were so very right and so very wrong. Because deep, deep down, in a heart only a few knew he even had, he'd chosen a course a long time ago, regardless of whether he knew it or not. And that path would rear its head oh so very soon, as he finally realised what he wanted—no, what he needed—and what the world required weren't fundamental opposites. They were almost like quarrelling siblings. Related by blood and soul and a thousand other things, arguing with one another ever second even though they both knew that they'd reconcile eventually. They were like… they were like him and her.

The time had come. It was time for the Demon Emperor to die – but that didn't necessarily mean that that Lelouch had to die with him.

Author's Note:

This was originally intended to be a one-shot, but it kind of... stretched out. It's not going to be awfully long, but I found too many convenient scene breaks not to cut it into separate chapters. I'm thinking maybe... five or six chapters. And although it may seem like it, this isn't one of my depressed-Magery stories. I think the next chapter will make it obvious (if there's one thing I love more than writing arrogant Lelouch, it's writing Lelouch taking arrogant Lelouch Up To Eleven (TVTropes ftw). It's so much fun!).

I know the chapter is a little short - it is, after all, a prologue. The next chapter is already written and will be released fairly soon - I have to go to the hospital tomorrow (don't worry I'm not dying, or close to it. I have an ingrown toenail that needs excision) and I have an assignment due the next day, but I'll get it to you as soon as I've got more progress on the third chapter.

Until next time,

Magery

P.S Sherlock is awesome. 'Nuff said.