Thank you all! I really appreciate all of your support.

The aftermath of the Black Knight's introduction went in several directions. This time, there was conflicting opinions towards them on both sides. Unlike when Cornelia ruled are 11, the Japanese did not feel any immediate danger without her taking down resistant groups alongside with civilians, so the Black Knights did not receive as many recruits as they did last time. The JLF also held hostility towards them, although the JLF didn't exactly like the Black Knights the first time, this time there was even more hostility towards them because Zero had not made any appearances previous to killing their men.

Even with all this, Lelouch was still receiving a great deal of extra work trying to organise the Black Knights, added to the amount of work he had as his military persona, which had already been increased as he now had another major terrorist group to 'deal with', as well as having to deal with the introduction of the drug, Refrain and being pestered by Cornelia, who was now concerned with his safety again.

Cornelia had sent Daltron and his sons over already to protect Euphemia, but she had decided that he would have to take care of his own security.

With all this extra work, and refusing to trusting it Hawkins, he had to dump some (maybe most) of it on Jeremiah, who accepted it without complaint, and C.C. who took it with a glare, it seemed she was still giving him the silent treatment.

Amongst all the other concerns, he had another to deal with as well, yesterday, Lelouch had been handed a request to join the Black Knights from Diethard. That bastard had joined Schneizel in the previous timeline and had kept secrets from him, but if Lelouch did things the right way this time, he and the other Black Knights shouldn't betray Lelouch in the first place, so Lelouch confirmed Diethard's request, but Lelouch would keep an eye on him this time.

Euphemia had ordered that after the incident that Abbigail should take time off after the trauma, and today was the day of her return. Abbigail had entered the office room, silent as she usually was, but there was something off about her movements as she made her way to her desk, they were ridged, shaky.

Hawkins was usually very reasonable, but he always seemed to find the need to chastise Abbigail when he could, even when it was obvious that he shouldn't.

"Did your uncle call you to tell you how disgraceful it was of you to cower the way you did, I heard that the princess actually had to comfort you." There was a long pause of silence.

"No. He didn't call at all."

For once Hawkins' stern face faltered, "At all!?" Abbigail remained silent this time, and she attempted to begin working again, typing really slowly, compared to her usual rapid typing.

Not at all? Lelouch knew that Euphemia had almost as much work as he did, and from what Abbigail had told him, all the personal she knew hated her, that would mean that she had spent the last two weeks in isolation.

Lelouch sighed, "I need a break… Abbigail, why don't you play a game of chess with me?"

Abbigail flinched, "Um, I-"

"Come on." Lelouch persuaded.

"Uh, OK."

Lelouch moved to his personal office, and they, mainly Lelouch, set up his chess board in an uncomfortable silence.

"Which side do you want to play as?" Lelouch asked, and Abbigail shrugged.

"Then I will take black." And the two sat down at their respective places.

There was a long pause before Lelouch prompted, "Go on, start."

"Uh, OK." Abbigail nervously moved a pawn a single space. Lelouch responding by moving one of his two spaces. Abbigail stared down at the board, squinting.

'Is she planning out a strategy already, I wasn't expecting much from this game but maybe it will be an amusement after all.'

"Um, Lelouch," Abbigail started, pointing to a bishop. "How many spaces can that one move?" Lelouch face faulted.

"Sorry, I haven't played this game before, I tried to tell you." Putting his hand to his forehead, Lelouch sighed.

"That doesn't matter, I have a question to ask you. Are you alright?" Abbigail's eyes widened.

"Well… um, I wouldn't say I'm as good as I was before… But I'm OK. I just have to get back to work and I will get over it."

"You seemed pretty scared." Lelouch commented.

"I was. I was terrified. I am just such a scaredy-cat; I didn't know what to do. All I could think about was what if they killed me." So there was nothing deeper to it than that, how disappointing. "But then… they came, u-uh, I-I, uh, I am really sorry, I know that you will disagree, Lelouch but, I am really grateful to the Black Knights for saving me-, saving us, I mean saving the hostages. I don't mean to insult you, as I know that them rescuing the hostages didn't look good for you, but if it wasn't for them I'm pretty sure I would be dead." Lelouch was surprised, but chuckled.

"I'm really just glad Euphie and yourself are OK… On another topic, did you find any more information about Hawkins." Abbigail shook her head.

"I'm sorry, but I haven't found anything else so far, but I will keep looking."

When Lelouch walked into the Camelot research centre, he had to duck to avoid a flying projectile that looked suspiciously like a spanner. Lloyd and Cecile appeared to be arguing, and Suzaku seemed to be a very distressed bystander. Cecile was the first to notice Lelouch's entry, and was horrified at the sight of the spanner almost hitting his head.

"Prince Lelouch, I'm so terribly sorry, we didn't see you there."

Lelouch smiled, "It's fine. Lloyd, do you mind if I borrow Suzaku?"

"Yea, yea, sure." Lloyd just seemed to be happy that Jeremiah wasn't here to see the spanner incident. Because Lelouch dumped a large proportion of his workload on Jeremiah, Jeremiah was too busy to be able to able to come with Lelouch, much to his knight's distress.

"Hey Lelouch!" Talking to Suzaku had become a common occasion for Lelouch, as he desperately wished to know how Nunnally was at Ashford, and as such, Suzaku now felt comfortable enough to talk to Lelouch informally at work. The two moved out of the way.

"How the student council doing are they better than after the Lake Kawaguchi incident?" This time, it was Nunnally who had Suzaku join the council, or rather forced Milly to force him to join.

"You know Ashford's antics, Milly just thought of another over the top event and everything was back to normal."

"That's good. And Ally, how's she doing?" Lelouch asked using their code name for Nunnally.

"She misses you, but with the student council, she doesn't have the time to be upset."

"She better not get hurt." Lelouch said over-protectively.

"Don't worry, I'm looking after her." Lelouch knew he could trust Suzaku to do that. Funny, it almost seemed that his original plan to have Suzaku protect Nunnally this time become a reality without him having to do any pushing, but that reminded him of why he came to talk to Suzaku in the first place.

"That reminds me. Suzaku, as you may know already, a prince or princess has right to have a personal royal guard in charge of their security."

"Yea, I've heard about that. Don't tell me you're making your own royal guard, are you?" Suzaku said in slight disbelief, knowing Lelouch's attitude towards his own royalty.

"That's right, and you're the first person I am asking to join, what do you say?"

Before anyone asks if it is OK for Lelouch to place Suzaku in his royal guard when Schneizel owns the Camelot project, as Imperator, Lelouch controls all of Area 11's military, and Suzaku is enrolled as part of Area 11's military.