Lelouch gave Jeremiah Gottwald his instructions and began to make his way back up to the roof of the now-abandoned mall. He would have to meet with his allies who were coming by helicopter.

"Right, I've sent Jeremiah on ahead. He'll take care of any obstacles in the way," he explained to them, holding his cell phone to his ear as he raced up the motionless escalators. "Don't try to fight them. He just came over to our side."

He was halfway up the building when he noticed two people standing in the middle of what should have been an empty hall.

They stood in front of a large window which made them appear as silhouettes. But even without seeing their faces, Lelouch recognized them instantly.

"Shirley? Rolo? What are you doing here?"

The two stopped their conversation and turned to look at him. As his eyes began to adjust to the bright light behind them, Lelouch began to see that Rolo was nervous, even for him. Shirley's face, however, lit up at the sight of Lelouch.

"Lulu!" she called out. "You're ok!"

"Um, yeah," Lelouch said, unsure how to respond. This was wrong, he thought. Shirley was supposed to be safe at Suzaku's side, not standing with an assassin during a potentially deadly operation.

His eyes narrowed and a small grunt escaped his throat as he recognized the shape of the object in Shirley's right hand. She should not have been able to get her hands on a gun.

Shirley and guns were a terrible combination, as Lelouch knew all too well.

"Is the fighting over?" she asked.

So she knew he had been fighting, and came back inside knowing it would be dangerous.

'Of course!' Lelouch's eyes widened as everything clicked into place in his mind. The Geass canceler Jeremiah had used.

'But if that's the case … ' he thought.

"Lulu, let me join you!" Shirley yelled.

"What?" He had to stop himself from taking a step back.

"I remember everything, Lulu! I want to help you! I want to make everything right again!"

She looked down, as if she was suddenly sad. "At the very least, I want to help you be reunited with Nunna."

Lelouch as trembling now. "Shirley …."

The helicopter ride back to Ashford Academy was silent and tense.

Shirley looked back and forth from Lelouch to Rolo. The younger boy seemed unusually nervous even for him, glancing about as if he was frightened of his own shadow. Lelouch looked out of the window the entire time with an unchanging angry expression.

"Lulu … " she asked nervously "… are you angry at me or at Rolo?"

Rolo took a short, nervous breath at her question.

"The only person I'm angry at right now is Suzaku," Lelouch responded, not moving his head or changing his expression. "And I'm also angry at myself for thinking I could trust him to keep you safe."

Rolo leaned forward, more animated now that Lelouch did not seem upset with him.

"How did this happen, brother? How could Shirley have regained her memories? Did your Geass get weaker?"

Geass. Was that the strange power Lelouch seemed to have, she wondered.

"No. The order equipped Jeremiah with a Geass canceller. I saw it in action. It negates all effects of Geass. Shirley was obviously exposed to that."

He finally turned away from the window at looked at Shirley, his expression softening. "I'm sorry. You must have so many questions."

She nodded nervously. "I don't know where to start. You're Zero, Nunna's the Viceroy, and one of our teachers is a soldier!"

"I don't even know if I can explain it all." Lelouch looked down, as if he was suddenly afraid to meet her eyes. "You remember, then, that I'm responsible for what happened to your father?"

Shirley was slow in answering, but she still said "yes."

"And you still want to help me? You don't hate me?"

Shirley was breathing heavily now.

"Even knowing how you caught my father in all this, I simply couldn't hate you. Even though you made me forget everything, I still fell in love with you. Even though my memories were tampered with, I kept falling in love with you all over again."

Lelouch reached up and grabbed his own chest. For several seconds he looked to Shirley and Rolo as if he was in physical pain.

He took several breaths to calm himself, and when he spoke again, he changed the subject.

"Do you remember who it was that messed with your memories the second time?"

Shirley's eyes widened in fear.

"It was … the emperor … "

"Did he come to Area 11 or were you brought to the homeland?"

Shirley shuddered at the memory. Her encounter with the Emperor of Britannia had been mercifully brief, but the cold, glowing eyes he looked into hers with would haunt her forever.

"We-we were brought to the emperor."

Lelouch folded his hands in front of his face. "I thought so. He couldn't be bothered to come here to do his own dirty work."

"What does it all mean?" Rolo asked.

For the first time since he saw Shirley next to Rolo in the mall, Lelouch smiled. "It means that we can restore the memories of everyone the emperor used his Geass on. When all this is over, we can use Jeremiah's Geass canceller to restore the student council back to normal."

Shirley's eyes lit up at Lelouch's words. However, Rolo continued to appear troubled.

Once they were back at school, Lelouch led Shirley and Rolo to the library.

"Are you sure about this?" Rolo asked.

"It can't be helped," Lelouch responded.

He turned over an old encyclopedia, and the bookcase against the wall began to slide to the side, revealing an elevator.

"No way," Shirley said softly, growing afraid again. Her eyes widened in realization. "This is why you kissed me here, isn't it? You didn't want me to see this!"

"Yes and no." Lelouch stepped into the elevator and beckoned for Shirley to come in.

Shirley looked around in awe as the elevator descended. "Was this here the whole time?"

"It was built by the Britannian government before this semester as a means of spying on me," Lelouch explained. "I've turned it into my base of operations here, however."

When they reached the bottom they exited the elevator and turned right. The control room was right in front of them, but Lelouch had another destination in mind.

They entered another room which was being used as a makeshift infirmary. At the far end of the room, Sayako Shinozaki lay on her stomach on a narrow couch. Her torso was covered in bandages from the wounds inflicted on her by Jeremiah.

Shirley put her hands over her mouth. She had forgotten all about Sayako after the ermperor erased Nunnally from her mind, but now the maid was as familiar to her as anyone else in the school.

"How is she?" Lelouch asked the nurse who was taking care of Sayako, an OSI member who was under the control of his Geass.

"She'll recover, but she'll be in pain for a while," the nurse said.

Lelouch walked over to the couch and knelt down. Sayako opened her eyes and looked up at him with a pained expression.

"Master … Lelouch …. " she said weakly, "I'm sorry … I failed you … "

"No." Lelouch assured her. "Thanks to you, I had enough information to come up with a plan."

Sayako gave a weak smile, and her eyes glistened with pride. "You really … are incredible … Master Lelouch … Rolo and I together … couldn't touch Lord Jeremiah … and you faced him … all by yourself … and didn't get a scratch … "

Lelouch responded with a mere "hmph" and gave her a warm smile.

Sayoko's eyes widened as she saw who was standing over Lelouch's shoulder.

"Miss Shirley! What are – "

'It's all right," Lelouch said. "Shirley knows."

"Oh," Sayoko said. "Are you …. "

"We've got a lot to talk about."

"I see … " Sayoko looked up at Shirley. "In that case … I should apologize … for what happened in the library the other day."

"Huh?" Shirley asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Sayako was filling in for Lelouch while he was in the Chinese Federation," Rolo explained. "She may have overstepped her bounds with you, and with every other girl in the school."

Shirley looked at Lelouch, who was going red with embarrassment and running his hand through the front of his hair. "Wait, that time we kissed, that was Sayako?"

"I'm sorry," Sayako said. "I was trying to hide the secret passage from you."

"Shirley put her hands on her hips in indignation. "Well, I don't appreciate it. I thought I was kissing Lulu!"

The door opened and they all turned around to see the newcomer.

Villeta Nu had raced over from the OSI control room as soon as she heard that Lelouch and the others had returned.

"Lelouch, is it true – " she stopped when she saw who was with him.

Shirley had cowered behind Lelouch the moment Villeta entered the room.

"Shirley," the undercover gym coach said in shock. "But why?"

'Of course,' Lelouch realized. 'Shirley's remembering that she once shot Villeta. As if this situation wasn't awkward enough.'

He sighed. "It looks like this isn't the best place for a full explanation after all."

"What are you going to do?" Rolo asked when they reached the room they shared in the boys dorms.

"About what?" Lelouch asked. He sat down on a chair and held his forehead as if he had a headache.

"About Shirley. Are you going to erase her memory again?"

"No," Lelouch declared, growing upset at the very idea. "Even if I knew I could use my Geass on her again after what Jeremiah did, which I don't, she's had her memories tampered with twice. I won't do it to her a third time."

"Do you want me to kill her then?"

Lelouch gasped and looked at Rolo in horror. There was a reason he had been terrified when he saw Rolo and Shirley together in the mall, and it was not the gun Shirley had been holding.

He took a deep breath to calm himself down before responding.

"Rolo, killing is never the first resort. It's something that should only be done if there are no other options. Why do you think I haven't had you kill a single person since we began working together?"

"But you've killed so many people!"

"Yes. I have killed many people in battle. But I don't kill everyone who gets in my way or annoys me. I didn't even kill Villeta when I first used my Geass or her or when she found out my true identity. Today, I could have killed Jeremiah, but it would have been a waste."

"I see," Rolo said,considering Lelouch's words.

Lelouch got up and put his hand on Rolo's shoulder.

"Your future is ahead of you," Lelouch said, smiling at his 'brother.' "You can be whatever you want to be. There are so many things you can do with your life that don't involve killing. The choice is yours."

Rolo's eyes widened. "Right," he said excitedly.

Lelouch's smile widened. "Good. I'll go make us some dinner, and then I'll help you with the rest of your homework."

As Lelouch entered the kitchen, his smile turned into a scowl.

Rolo was trained from his earliest childhood to be a merciless, remorseless killer. Lelouch had hoped he could undo the conditioning which made Rolo into a child assassin, but he was beginning to doubt the order's brainwashing could be overcome.

If his fears turned out to be correct, Rolo would become a danger to everyone, not just Shirley, but Nunnally as well.

If that happened, Lelouch would have no choice but to put Rolo down.

Author's note: I recently binge-watched the entirety of Code Geass for the first time and I was quite enamored with it. But I was struck by a number of 'what-ifs. This is the other big on: What if Rolo didn't kill Shirley and she finally got to confront Lelouch about everything?

There are 2 changes outside of Shirley surviving. In the original episode Sayako was treated in the control room and then went with Rolo in the helicopter. I kept Sayako at the school since I don't think she should have been going out for another fight so soon and separated the room she was treated in from the control room. The way the lighting was changed in this episode made it look like a different room to begin with.