End of an Era

Set in R2, and femslash. Can you guess why this isn't really Milly/Lelouch?

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After everything else that had happened in the last few days -- the starry-eyed girls suddenly claiming to be his date for a ridiculous number of events, the lingering smile that had never before touched his eyes, and then the reports that he was running, jumping, dodging her assailants on campus -- the sight of him on her doorstep should really have been the final straw.

And Milly did stare at him for a moment, not quite polite, while she wondered how he had even known where to find her. She hadn't given anyone her forwarding address yet; there hadn't been time, with the flurry of confetti and cheers she'd left in.

(All part of the plan, of course. No time for an address meant no time for anyone to feel anything but happy, and she hadn't wanted anyone to feel anything but happy.)

But then Lelouch smiled at her, that ever-so-slightly too-intense smile, and instead of asking him playfully what he was doing here -- where was Shirley, didn't he belong to her now for however long that lasted, hadn't she won him fair and square -- Milly found herself weakening.

Melting.

So she let Lelouch step over the threshold and into her new apartment,
let him close the door without saying a word. No questions, just silence. Surprisingly intimate silence. And he never stopped looking at her.

The distance closed between them, her stomach fluttered, his hands came up to cup her face; they kissed.

It wasn't what she had expected kissing him to feel like. Gentle, and soft, and restrained -- but none of the hesitation Lelouch always seemed so full of. To be honest, it was a little unsettling. It made her nervous, the way Lelouch at least had never made her nervous. But when she felt him starting to withdraw, his grip on her jaw starting to slacken, Milly still cinched her arms tightly around his waist and kept him there, preserving the kiss. Letting him know that she wanted more.

And more he gave her. Drawing in a quick breath as if to steady himself, Lelouch surged into her mouth, tongue coaxing, and she let him past her lips eagerly.

Somehow, without ever breaking the kiss, she managed to find the new too-small sofa she didn't even really like (but loved because it was hers, purchased with her own money for once) and pull him down onto it. She unbuttoned her own shirt, and paused to let him adjust to the sight of her lacy black bra. Not exactly appropriate for her first day at work, but grown-up: a statement she had made, as surely as the sofa, that she was a woman now and not a schoolgirl any longer.

Lelouch noticed it, but did not pause. His pretty violet eyes only narrowed appreciatively, and then he was ducking his head, warm wet lips on her collarbones and lower with inexplicable certainty.

Again, it wasn't what she had expected. His hands tracing the expensive fabric over her ribs, behind her back to find its clasp unerringly; his palms covering her naked breasts and making her feel shivery and warm. The barest stroke with just the edge of his thumb that tightened her nipple and caught her breath. Milly had known it wouldn't be an overeager rush, the way it might have been with some eighteen-year-old boys, but no tension?

No nerves?

From Lelouch?

Milly gazed down at his bowed head until he lifted his eyes, and the look on his face -- the intensity -- made her weaken again. Her hands were on his lower back and she shifted them to find where his shirt was tucked into his pants so that she could tug it free; so that she could touch his supple skin. She wasn't surprised when he twisted to catch her hands before she could.

He didn't want her to feel the corded muscle. The powerful body that belonged to the person who had so athletically avoided her traps earlier that day.

The powerful body that could never have belonged to Lelouch. He avoided gym classes. He ran out of breath trying to cross campus.

Even then, she hesitated, and that was when Milly knew she had to say something.

She withdrew her hands from his grip, and brought them up to his face to brush his lips with a blunt fingertip. "Is he safe, wherever he is?"

The violet eyes that weren't Lelouch's shuttered and his expression closed off. "No. But he is where he needs to be, and of his own volition."

It was really remarkable how much it looked like him, how much it sounded like him, and all her senses still screamed his name. But it wasn't him.

Milly supposed she should have been angry with him, and with his impostor. This person had touched her in places she hadn't allowed anyone to touch, and she supposed she should have shoved him off. But instead she reached up to cup his cheek and rubbed her thumb over his cheek. "This is a mask?"

"An exceptionally good one," the person who wasn't Lelouch agreed.

She drew a slow breath. "...Take it off, please."

Violet eyes widened, but already the voice was softer, higher. "Miss Milly, are you -- are you very sure...?"

Milly nodded, and slowly Lelouch's impostor found the edges of the mask and drew it away. Then a wig of close-cropped dark hair. Colored contacts. And molds on the cheeks and nose that, Milly suspected, made it easier to speak and breathe than a single-piece mask.

For a long moment, Milly just looked over her would-be lover thoughtfully. Then she gave the older woman a slightly crooked smile. "How in the world were you planning on keeping this up? I was going to figure it out eventually."

"I wasn't planning on more than that first kiss, Miss."

It wasn't what she had expected to hear. She supposed she should have been used to that by now. "What do you mean?"

Sayoko matched her smile, if belatedly. "I'm sorry, Miss. It was presumptuous of me. But this was your last day as a member of the student council, wasn't it? I thought you deserved to get at least one thing you wanted."

If she had been talking to anyone else, Milly would have brushed that off; what, don't be ridiculous, everyone knows that Milly Ashford is getting exactly what she wants, every minute out of every day.

But Sayoko had been with the family since her youth, and knew her better than that.

Unlike Lelouch. Oh, he was clever enough to have figured out that there must be more to her than her cheery facade, but he had never pried. And when it really mattered, he always seemed to have other things on his mind.

The sofa shifted beneath her, and Milly came out of her reverie to find that Sayoko was withdrawing, standing up and moving away from her. Adopting her usual respectful distance.

It had never seemed so unappealing.

Milly wet her lips. She had wanted to kiss him, even if only once. Even if only as a joke. But she was never going to have that.

"Sayoko, wait," she said, and caught the older woman's wrist.

It still wasn't what she had expected, wasn't what she had been hoping for --but maybe it was time for more than girlish fantasies. Maybe it was time for something real.