Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass

Thank you Nilie, Rumiglion and Warb for correcting and reading this for me and for always being a constant source of info!

Would you like Sides with that?

Chapter 1 – A safe house, please?

It took a month of scouring through the shadiest areas of the slums for C.C. to find Kallen Stadtfeld.

Apparently, Kallen's latest hidey-hole had been discovered by Britannian soldiers and the girl was running for her life. Somehow or another, the Knightmareless pilot thought the warehouse rooftop chasing would supposedly throw the soldiers off her tail, but obviously, the movies Kallen watched were lies and it just made her an easier target to spot. The Britannian helicopter that hovered above her and reported her every move to the pursuers at ground level certainly didn't help ease matters.

Dashing along millions of roof tiles, made slippery by the rain from earlier this morning, Kallen tried to formulate an escape plan.

Soldiers below her, soldiers behind her, helicopter above her, no fancy Knightmare to jump into, no Tamaki to sacrifice as a scapegoat and running out of roofs to run on....

Skirt illegally short, panties most likely flashing all the soldiers at ground level, ripped her last pair of tights...

No, definitely not a good day...

She long-jumped to a nearby rooftop, remembering the lessons from the few times she attended gym class when similar exercises were on the schedule.

She kicked off at one corner of her current rooftop, sailing across the gap and trying to land as best as she could on the adjacent building's tiles. She could have succeeded as well had the roof not been wet, but because that was not the case, her sneakers skid as soon as they touched the slimy tiles.

She crashed onto that roof like a thrown ragdoll and half-rolled across its seagull poop splattered tiles.

She didn't stop her rolling and sliding until she tumbled right off the edge of the roof and plummeted two storeys.

Kallen didn't even have time to think of screaming before she crashed into a surprisingly softer landing than she expected.

There was a squealing of tires as her vision faded into whiteness. She gasped before she dug her way to the surface of this soft white sea.

She was in a truck. An open top truck... filled with pillows.

Kallen blinked, confused. What were the odds of her falling at the same time as a pillow filled truck would drive by and soften her fall?

Possibilities flashed through her head as fast as lightning and ignoring the cuts and gashes she earned from her tumble across the rooftops, she reached down and pulled out her wallet with its hidden knife.

The Britannian soldiers were shouting something as they emerge from alleyways and warehouses to stop the truck. The truck's driver had no care for the soldiers' lives and crashed through the skinny gaps between warehouses like it was a simple racing course in a video game rather than real life.

If the soldiers were screaming curses at the truck then the driver must obviously not be on Britannia's side. Kallen flipped the knife out from her wallet anyway. There were organisations and small criminal gangs out there that would be more than eager to capture her and turn her in for money.

The truck crashed through a warehouse door and knocked over a mountain of boxes, causing them to topple neatly in front of their entrance.

The tires screeched as the driver slammed on the brakes. The tail of the truck swung around and Kallen was nearly chucked right out the back.

A figure clambered out of the driver's side – a girl with huge sunglasses, cap and purple hair twisted girlishly into two braids. The passenger's door kicked open and a man scrambled out, pale faced and starting to puke his lunch on the floor.

Kallen glared at the girl and readied her knife.

Purple-head flicked a braid over her shoulder and eyed the knife with obvious amusement. "Nani? My Honey? A month and you've already forgotten about me?"

"A month?" Kallen questioned, guard still up and feet ready to sprint. Purple-head lowered her sunglasses until they rested at the very tip of her nose and emotionless gold eyes stared back at her. Kallen could recognise those eyes anywhere.

"C.C." Kallen stammered and hissed when C.C. caught hold of her wrists to examine her cuts and grazes.

"Shouldn't we be moving?" the man that was throwing up muttered, face still relatively pale and green, "The boxes won't keep them at bay for long."

"Urabe-san!" Kallen cried as she recognised him under the fake moustache and beret. The man smiled at her before ruffling her hair. Kallen eyed the truck, "Are we escaping by truck again?"

Urabe immediately turned greener, "Er no, I don't think I could stomach another warehouse alleyway weaving with C.C. behind the wheel." He turned to the witch and nodded an apology.

C.C. shrugged and pulled out a bag from the truck.

Minutes later when the Britannian soldiers burst into the warehouse, they found an empty truck of pillows and the area void of wanted criminals.

"Wouldn't they follow us?" Kallen asked when they were away from the warehouses and waiting for C.C. to pick the door lock of a car open.

Urabe shook his head and grinned, "No, we blasted a hole in the basement of the warehouse. They'll find it and think we escaped into the sewers when in actual fact we put on copies of their uniform, mingled into their search team when they burst in and snuck away in the opposite direction when they weren't looking."

"Whose idea was this?"

"Mine, of course," C.C. said smugly as the door popped open.

They climbed in.

And they sat there.

Waiting.

And waiting…

And waiting…

"Um... C.C.?" Kallen finally prompted from the back seat. Urabe, in the front passenger seat, turned, noted the witch's expression and sank his face into his hands.

"C.C., please... not now." The man groaned. "We could get it later... C.C.! Oi! C.C., GET BACK IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW!"

But C.C. was already sprinting through two traffic lights, causing cars to shriek to a halt all about her and honking horns rather viciously, and towards the Pizza Hut she spotted hundreds of metres from the parked car.

Urabe growled, jumped behind the wheel and quickly started the car to chase after the green-haired demon. "Apparently she lost her entire collection of Cheese-kuns when the soldiers took over our base. She is now even more pizza crazy than before because she believes she must regain all that she lost." Insert a sigh that sounded almost like a father whose daughter had just failed him in the most embarrassing manner. "How does Zero cope with such a woman?" he muttered.

After two hours of massive detouring (thirty minutes of which was spent unpeeling a pizza-holic from Pizza Hut), they finally pulled into a small cosy apartment complex in the suburbs where Urabe dropped them off before going about disposing of their stolen car.

To Kallen's horror, C.C., now armed with a dozen more pizza coupons than she had before, sauntered through the parking lot without a care in the world of being spotted or recognised.

She hissed at the witch who merely raised an eyebrow and entered the reception like she owned the building.

Kallen growled. They were wanted criminals. How could the witch just walk right into a place like that?! They should use the back door and...

Was that...?

Did she just...?

Kallen blinked at the receptionist who gave her a toothy grin in return.

"You..." Kallen started before her mouth devolved to that of a goldfish and she could only open and close her mouth in shock.

C.C. was checking for mail from one of the mailboxes which covered the expanse of the left wall. Kallen turned to the witch, "This is..."

"A safe zone," C.C. answered monotonously and flicking through a bunch of junk mail, "The entire building is ours. Or mine to be exact. To the outsiders, it looks like a normal apartment building containing maybe too many adults and too little children for a normal apartment population but in reality, every single occupant is a Black Knight in hiding."

"How?" was Kallen's only question as she watched two other Black Knight members wave at her before disappearing into an elevator with arms full of groceries.

The green-haired girl stopped on a letter and ripped it open neatly, "How I gathered them? Well, I found Urabe first. His plan was relatively easy and actually pretty smart. He knew that if he lurked near a Pizza Hut, he'll find me sooner or later. We picked up the majority of the building's occupants that way."

And now Kallen felt strangely dense for having not thought of that plan, so she quickly tried to change the subject. "But how did you manage to get enough money for..."

"Stealing," was C.C.'s one worded reply and the amused smirk on her face told Kallen that the witch knew she was using a diversionary tactic.

"Stealing?"

"Of course," she replied simply, "it took me approximately three days of palming and conning rich idiots and drunkards' fat wallets before I've stolen enough credit cards and IDs to take out ridiculous bank loans."

Kallen spluttered at her, suddenly feeling very sorry for those rich idiots and drunkards.

C.C. tossed her mail into the bin and signalled Kallen to follow her into the elevator. "You will be staying with me."

"EH?! YOU?!"

Their apartment was positioned at the top left corner of the building and most likely, Kallen guessed, was the largest apartment in the whole block.

The witch walked into the bedroom and flopped onto the bed with unladylike grace whilst Kallen followed and gaped at the floor of the bedroom. The curtains were closed (most likely because C.C. couldn't be bothered opening them this morning) but even without switching on the lights or with the sun illuminating the room, Kallen could see the carpet was littered with empty Pizza boxes.

"That bed is yours," C.C. pointed before she reached up to pull off her purple wig, shaking her green mane loose from its pinned up state and dug through all the rubbish for a buried phone.

Kallen squinted into the shadows of the bedroom and was thankful that her bed was untouched by the pizza boxes. Though finding a route to said bed without stepping on a pizza box would be a challenge.

One would have thought it was impossible to have enough pizzas that a large bedroom such as this one would be cluttered with empty cardboard boxes, but apparently, C.C. was making it her mission to perform every single pizza related task labelled impossible.

C.C. had finished her call with Pizza Hut by the time Kallen managed to toe the boxes aside to clear a patch of the floor to utilise as a stepping stone to her bed.

The witch rolled over to her stomach, picked up her head, got onto her elbows and observed the busty pilot with cat-like eyes. Her feet crossed at the ankles and she swung them lazily up off the bed and back down onto them again like a cat would sway their tail.

"Hmm?" C.C. sounded, feet still swinging. "So you know who he is?"

Kallen froze in her advance to the bed. There was no need to ask which 'he' they were talking about.

"Aa," Kallen forced out of her mouth after a long pause, hoping C.C. would drop the matter. She didn't want to think about it.

But the witch was not going to let her off that easily. "Lelouch... you abandoned him?"

"No, I did not!" she barked back, using the finding of the next spot to put her feet among the rubbish as an excuse to keep her eyes from connecting with C.C.'s.

"Is that so?" C.C. asked and patiently waited for Kallen to crack.

"Okay fine! I did!" Kallen huffed, collapsing on her bed and throwing her pillow at the witch. "Can I get some answers now?"

C.C. merely tossed the pillow back. "Hmm... tonight."

Kallen caught the pillow and whammed it straight back towards the witch. "Why tonight?"

C.C. shrugged, caught and set the pillow down before rolling off the bed, "Because I've always wanted to do this girly talk into the morning thing. Now come, Urabe should be back and my pizza should have arrived."

"Girly-talk into the..." Kallen started and then thought of something more important, "URABE-SAN LIVES WITH US?! IN THE SAME ROOM?!"

"Of course, he and I rank the highest in this lot and it's easier to discuss business if we live closer together." C.C. explained with a flick of her green hair, "Besides, it's a hassle to travel halfway across the building for decently cooked eggs for breakfast."

END OF CHAPTER 1

A relatively boring first chapter. Apologies.

All forms of feedback will be muchly welcomed

Word prompts are open (Limit to TWO words, please)

Updates will NOT be weekly like I did in the past, sorry. I'll try to make it as regular as I can.

KiKi Hayashi

EDIT: I do not hate Kallen. I really like her in fact. I'm sorry if this chapter portrayed her in a slightly less agreeing light but my reasoning was that she's overwhelmed that this moment in time with too much drama (being a wanted criminal, Black Knights being captured one by one, Zero being Lelouch etc) to be making the wisest decisions at least not long-term ones... Sorry. I'll correct this impression in the next chapter.