Disclaimer: Code Geass – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. I do this purely for my own entertainment, and (hopefully) that of my readers as well.

Opening lines of this chapter are taken from Sara Bareilles' King of Anything. Oh, and for those who are curious about where all these blurbs come from, I've put all the relevant songs in a playlist and will be updating it as I go. Link is in my profile.

Warnings for this chapter: Language and violence, although the worst of it is off-screen. More of Suzaku being slightly (rather, completely) messed-up-in-the-head.

Enjoy!

He was certainly just as agile, if not more so, in the water.

L.L. looked up from the screen of his laptop as a quiet splash rang in the air. He watched Suzaku glide underwater for a few moments, and noted how the boy made it seem so effortless as well. He didn't break the surface again until he was already halfway across the length of the pool.

The complex was entirely abandoned at this time – 7 p.m., after all, was an odd hour to find students loitering on campus unless it involved one of Millay's extravagant events. Apparently, Suzaku planned on taking his extracurriculars seriously, to which he had no objections. What he did object to was the fact that Suzaku planned to swim with the bandages around his torso and neck still very much intact, and he doubted that the boy's injuries from that incident at Lake Kawaguchi had had enough time to heal completely.

Of course, the fact that Suzaku was currently in the water spoke enough about how that discussion turned out. The stubborn idiot.

"Last chance. You sure you don't want in?" Suzaku had kicked away from the wall and was now making his way back across by floating face-up. He must have noticed L.L. staring. "The water's a lot warmer than it looks."

"Pass." L.L. finally tore his gaze away and turned back to his laptop screen. "And wrap it up, I'm hungry." Honestly, he couldn't even remember Shirley ever training at the pool this late, and she was one of the most dedicated students he knew.

Then again, Shirley wasn't a full-time soldier of the Britannian military, either.

That thought brought him back to his current endeavor: staring at blocks upon blocks of text reporting the recent hotel-jacking, and the rescue mission that followed. He knew he really shouldn't be obsessing over this anymore – the incident was over, with surprisingly few casualties, and he and the rest of the hostages had been quite fortunate. Things could have been so much worse. The course of action Princess Cornelia followed was unexpectedly humane, but that was exactly what bothered him.

There had to be something. There had to be something.

Several more splashes broke the silence, and then Suzaku was already standing at the edge of the pool. He had his head bent down, and was shaking some of the water out of his hair. "Pass me a towel, please?"

L.L. took one of the folded towels stacked on top of the table and tossed it his way. Water slid in drops and little rivulets down his arms and legs, and some of them traced the paths of scars – old ones, L.L. supposed, like the cut on Suzaku's left thigh, or the one running along his upper arm, or the strangely-shaped scar on his shoulder. A part of him wanted to ask about them, but he supposed this was neither the place nor the time.

Shaking his head, he had to force himself to refocus on the task at hand.

It was more than a little difficult, though, given how little he had to work with. The news reports, from all the local networks and even some of the foreign ones, all narrated the same thing: the Royal Guard's stunning performance (false), the surrender, the rescue. He supposed he should have expected this much from the media, but even the military's database was proving useless. He'd tried probing for transcripts or drafts of incident reports – the less 'official,' the better. But while he was able to clear all the security protocols, all his efforts proved futile when he realized there was literally nothing to see.

And this unsettled him. If that mission truly had been as glorious as the news reports made it out to be, why had the military wiped their own records clean? Given Cornelia's unforgiving nature, he doubted there had never been any records at all. And even if that were so, where were the people in the media getting their facts?

L.L. eventually realized he could answer neither of those questions with only assumptions and no data, which was about the same time he felt the drops of water landing on his shoulder, from above. "You know," he began, quickly closing the browser window, "I can't speak for society as a whole, but I'm willing to wager most of the populace would find what you're doing rude?"

"Actually, I'm all fogged-up. I can't see anything," Suzaku admitted. He pushed his goggles up against his forehead, but turned away dutifully as he resumed drying his hair. "What are you working so hard on, anyway?"

L.L. scoffed. "Haven't we already established what I do? If I'm not gambling, or teaching, then clearly I'm not working."

Suzaku frowned at that, letting the towel hang around his neck. Although it was still damp, his hair had returned to its usual mess of curls. "Can't you just stick to the second one? Gambling doesn't sound very reliable…and is it even legal?"

"You sound like Millay." With a sigh he handed Suzaku his school bag and another towel. Mildly irritating as the sentiment was, at least he was successful in deflecting the original question. "Now hurry and get changed, before I seriously contemplate leaving you here."

Suzaku rolled his eyes, rummaging through the bag for his uniform. "Yes, my lord."

Perhaps on any other day, and with any other person, he would have resisted that set-up. But – "And bring me a cappuccino and a newspaper while you're at it, thanks."

L.L. held out an arm to block the wet, rolled-up towel from hitting him in the face, and when his laptop finally shut down its screen mirrored a smirk he couldn't quite hold back.

.

You sound so innocent

All full of good intent

Swear you know best

But you expect me to

Jump up on board with you

And ride off into your delusional sunset

.

Bird's-Eye View

Stage 09

. : Those Who Desecrate : .

It had already been several days, but only now did the station manager at Hi-TV pay Diethard an actual visit. And his first words since then were neither 'hello' nor some variant of it, but rather: "Do you want your old office back?"

Immediately Diethard pushed himself away from his computer, and from the half-hearted report he was doing on the upcoming opening ceremony of some art gallery. "I'm listening," he said, with just the slightest hint of a nod.

The suggested outline was already a good four and a half pages long, but Diethard never even made it past the title and gist.

"The downfall of the Japanese Liberation Front." He glanced up at his station manager, waiting for the telltale hints of a coming punch line (because his colleagues weren't above that, no) only to find none. "Am I missing something here?"

"Look at the date."

And he did, which was when he noticed that the article wasn't due for another six days. "You want me to make a pre-emptive report?" he asked, just to be clear. "On – "

"You've done pre-emptive obituaries before," the manager reminded him. Indeed he had – articles and sometimes video features eulogizing royals and members of Britannian high society deemed worthy of such an honor, just in case one of them kicked the bucket prematurely. "This should be something more exciting. Gibson's team will be on the field that day for quotes and photos, but everything else…" He lifted the outline off the table, carded through the pages once and then dropped it back down. "Is all you."

Diethard waited until the man had left before touching the papers again.

The opening blurb would set the mood: Narita, the indented comment read, early morning and mountains, anticipation and – make it as tantalizing as you can. Next would follow a section on the 'who's-who' and 'what's-what' of the Japanese Liberation Front: make it read like a story, he was told, unnecessarily, and this was why he was being given this assignment in advance. The JLF hadn't exactly been very prolific over the past seven years, so although they were considered the biggest threat to Britannian rule in Area 11, that really wasn't saying much at all. And it wasn't surprising that the public's awareness of this resistance group was very basic, fuelled by lukewarm interest: he would have to weave a sensational tale, probably embellish some things quite a bit, and cast the rebels completely as villains by the end of this part.

Of course, he could do that simply by bringing up the previous weekend's hotel-jacking – bullet point 2-5 said as much, he noticed wryly.

And then the part that really mattered, section three: come the weekend, the Britannian military was going to launch a day-long campaign, led by no less than Princess Cornelia herself, to the mountainous region of Narita where the JLF's main headquarters lay. And so the last, feeble hope of a radical independent Japan would die in a blaze of fire and a pillar of smoke (point 3-11).

The rest of it was all pomp and filler, as expected. Of course, he wouldn't be expected to discuss the military's strategies in detail, not that he could even if he wanted to. He was no stranger to requests like this, which was probably why this was on his desk, and not anyone else's, in the first place.

Diethard glanced at his calendar. He had six days. If he started now, he could finish all the pre-written parts by Friday, no problem. And if he wrote skeleton notes for the later sections beforehand, leaving spaces only for direct quotes and photo captions, he was confident the finished product would be ready well before Sunday noon.

That wasn't the problem, no.

The problem was, while he could easily whip up a victory story that the masses would salivate over, it was going to be boring.

Britannia was going to send troops to storm the JLF's hideout. Princess Cornelia obviously wanted payback for that incident at Lake Kawaguchi, and would be even more ruthless and competent than usual. Old Eleven soldiers would die. Britannian soldiers would be exalted; there would be promotions and medals. Everything would unfold like a perfectly-written script with just enough drama to reel the public in, and Britannia was so good at staging these by now that, from this side of the newsroom, it was positively sickening.

...Or perhaps there were other motivations, really. No, there had to be, for what he was about to do – for what he was doing, after he'd locked the door to his office, leafed through several previous issues of their sister company's newspaper, and placed a call on his personal phone.

"The name of the girl who was captured after the incident at Shinjuku – yes. Yes, if you please. …What?" Diethard straightened up and grabbed a pen from an inside pocket of his jacket as he asked, "How do you spell 'Stadtfeld'?"

Normally Kallen would have been the furthest thing from thrilled to find herself back in school so soon after their latest mission. She understood the need to lie low for a while – wait out all this heat, as Ohgi would often put it – but it didn't make the ordeal any less insufferable.

Today, however, she at least had a purpose. She made up her mind when she saw the brunet slide into his seat a little after lunch, having cut all of their morning classes and barely making it on time for fifth period. She didn't try to meet his eye then – she had an act to maintain, after all, and passing a note would run the risk of the message being intercepted. But she decided she had to talk to him before the day ended, which was why she found herself wandering by the pool at just before five in the afternoon.

She wasn't sure, however, what possessed her to call out his name just as he was about to kick off the board. Startled, Suzaku messed up his dive completely, and Kallen found herself drenched in the ensuing splash, all the while thinking, that had to hurt.

"Sorry." She crouched down and pushed wet hair out of her eyes as he swam over, both of them ignoring the laughs and jeers from the rest of the men's swim team. "I probably could have timed that better. But, I was wondering if you could walk me to the hospital? If it's not too much trouble, of course."

That killed the ruckus completely.

It was surprisingly nice outside, for this hour. Although the morning forecast had called for rain, there was none of that now, with late sunshine bathing the parks and roads. The breeze had picked up pace, though; Suzaku's black-and-gold uniform tunic swam on her, but she pulled it close, grateful for the extra warmth.

The hospital was still several minutes away, and small talk had been surprisingly comfortable. But she figured she may as well get it out of the way now: "They've been talking about you, you know."

Suzaku blinked at her curiously. "They've been talking about me?"

Kallen nodded. "Ever since word got out that you volunteered yourself to the terrorists' commander. Is that true?"

For a long time he just kept walking with his brows furrowed at the ground, as though he couldn't make sense of what she'd just said. "Wait, was this on the news?"

"No. There weren't any reporters allowed inside after the JLF made their statement…that is, from what I've heard at least." She hadn't tacked on that last part as quickly as she would have liked (damn it), but he didn't seem to notice. "But some of the more high-profile hostages and military personnel gave statements over the weekend, and a lot of them said as much."

"They…they didn't mention my name, did they?"

Kallen shook her head. "Only that an Eleven travelling with a group of Britannian students made the move. So is it true?" She stole a glance his way, and if he looked confused before, his expression was only troubled now. She supposed she didn't have to wonder why that was so. "I've tried asking Millay and Shirley, but they kept referring me back to you."

"No-one's ever asked me about it," Suzaku murmured. He frowned, before turning to meet her gaze. "Is this why you wanted me to walk with you?"

"Are you ever going to answer my question?"

Again, he just kept walking. But they were forced to stop at an intersection, and as they waited for the light to change he finally gave in with a sigh. "Yes. It's true."

She'd already suspected as much, if truth be told. The weekend ordeal had turned Millay and Shirley into veritable celebrities overnight, with students and even some of the younger faculty members eagerly requesting an account of the events that had transpired. Apparently there had been another man with them – Nunnally's tutor, or someone like that. And of course, Suzaku, but while the girls were consistently vague about his involvement in the situation, Kallen could never quite tell if it was because they really knew that little, or because they weren't allowed to say as much.

That day, she'd been so cut off from the rest of the rebels in the upper floors – she'd had no idea her classmates were even at the hotel, much less that one of them had surrendered himself to the JLF. She wondered, had she been privy to that knowledge, if it would have swayed her.

But the thought was an unsettling one. "What did you have on them?" she asked instead.

"What?"

"You had to have something. Otherwise, why would they even listen to you?"

"It wasn't me. It was…" Suzaku caught himself and shook his head. His eyes were pleading. "Kallen. Can we talk about something else, please?"

"I heard your father's a collaborator." She pressed on, despite his earlier entreaty. Not that she enjoyed his obvious discomfort, but damn it, she wanted to make sense of it all. "You told me he was dead."

"He is."

What? "If you're still lying – !"

"I'm not." A flash of anger crossed his face for a moment, and she wondered if she'd pushed too hard. But just as quickly it was gone, replaced by a kind of quiet resignation. "I'm not. He…"

A long pause followed, in which he seemed to struggle to compose himself. He shifted his grip on her textbooks.

"Those men knew my father," he said at last. "Some of them went way back, and so…that was enough, somehow."

'Way back.' Most of the members of the JLF were from the old Japanese military, before Britannian rule – had Suzaku's father been a soldier as well? And if their ties had indeed been that strong, why did he decide to collaborate in the first place? …Damn it, this was only making it worse.

Kallen shook her head. Besides, she didn't come into this conversation with the sole intent of asking Suzaku about his father. "Do you know what they're saying about you?" At his blank stare, she continued: "They're saying you sold out. Some think you offered to cooperate with the terrorists in exchange for your own protection. Others even believe you were with them from the start."

"What?" His eyes widened, and he actually faltered in his step. "No, I – they're saying that?"

"More than you'd think. You really are oblivious, aren't you?" So Suzaku didn't spend an awful lot of time at school – he tended to skip out a lot, for whatever reason (although, she could think of a few). Still, she found it hard to imagine he hadn't at least heard some of the nasty, often ludicrous rumors spreading around him, about him. "Is that true?"

Suzaku shook his head, earnestly. "I wouldn't. I'd never betray Britannia like that."

But you would betray Japan? It came as her mind's knee-jerk response, and briefly Kallen wondered where it came from.

On some level she knew she was jumping to conclusions – it had been his father's choice, not Suzaku's, to side with their oppressors. But it certainly didn't help that the more this conversation progressed, the more Kallen realized she really had no idea who Suzaku was.

She doubted it, but if there was any truth to those rumors – at this point she truly, honestly didn't know if that would make her dislike him, or admire him.

"I don't understand it, you know." Suzaku gave her a questioning glance, and she frowned. "Those who collaborate with this government. It just doesn't make sense to me."

She tried to gauge his reaction without turning her head. But it was too hard to see anything in her peripheral vision, especially when he chose to look at the ground. "Maybe there wasn't any other choice," he said.

"There's always another choice." No other choice – what on earth was he talking about? "Anything would be better than bowing down to the people who oppressed you." And before he could ask the obvious 'But aren't you Britannian?' she added, "Generally speaking. This goes for everyone, Britannians or Numbers. The Japanese should have put up more of a fight – for their dignity, if nothing else."

For a while after that neither of them spoke. The top of the hospital building was in view now, peeking above half-finished houses sitting in a construction site nearby. Even if the structures were in the early stages, little more than insulation on skeletons of wood, she could see they were going to be big houses. A sign near the edge of the lot closest to the sidewalk proclaimed that all units had been pre-bought; it was to be expected, she supposed, given such a nice location.

She imagined what fine houses these would be once they were completed, and tried not to put that image side-by-side with that of the Shinjuku ghetto, in her head.

"Can I ask you something, then?" Suzaku's voice was softer now, and he seemed pensive. "What do you think of Prime Minister Kururugi, and what he did?"

"That was…" She had to think about it for a bit; she had to make sure what came out of her mouth was something Kallen Stadtfeld would conceivably say. "Disappointing. It was good for Britannia, of course, but he left his people when they needed him the most. If he wanted to make a point, he could have found another way."

"What would you have done?"

"Me?" Her answer was ready long ago. "I'd have fought to the death."

"Even if the war was unwinnable?" he pressed. "Even if you'd end up with a massacre?"

"And how do you know that?" she shot back. "What about Itsukushima? Or what happened at – " Kallen stopped herself when she realized she was about to say 'Lake Kawaguchi', because no. Officially, the JLF lost that campaign. And officially, she would know nothing more. "It wasn't all one-sided," she recovered. "For someone who's Japanese, you don't seem to have a lot of faith in your own people."

Suzaku shook his head. "One incident doesn't justify continuing a needless war."

"Then what would you have done?" Kallen stopped walking altogether, and turned around to face him completely. She was dimly aware that she was starting to get agitated, that her voice was slipping away from its usual demure, detached softness. And they were effectively having a heated discussion, which could very well degrade into an argument, in the middle of the city. But it was too late to turn back now, and she felt as though she needed to know. "Do you honestly think everything worked out for the best?"

"It stopped the war." Suzaku stood in place as well, a couple of feet away from her. To her frustration, she couldn't read his neutral posture and carefully blank face. "It stopped more people from dying."

Kallen found this so ludicrous she forgot to ask him what 'it' he was referring to. "You can't be serious. Look around you. People treated like scum in their own country – seven years and counting! And you're telling me you're honestly fine with all this? You call this peace?"

"I'll take it," and here his eyes hardened ever so slightly, "if the alternative is a country in pieces."

They were standing on a sidewalk, the edge of the construction site to her left and the street to her right. The park they'd just exited was just a stone's throw away.

After she slapped him, the faraway shrieks of laughing, playing children seemed entirely too loud.

"I've offended you." Suzaku didn't look back up to meet her eyes; he kept his gaze nailed to the pavement beneath their feet as he mumbled out, "I apologize."

"Save it." Her cheeks and ears burned. She supposed it was fortunate he wasn't asking her any questions – especially after that outburst – but for some reason this made her want to slap him as well. And she wasn't sure why. "I can walk the rest of the way. See you tomorrow."

Kallen grabbed her books from him more roughly than she'd intended, before stalking off. He let her do as she pleased, and he didn't follow her.

And it was only much later, when she was sitting by her mother's bedside – with the woman's rough, pale hand clasped in hers and marred with teardrops as Kallen promised she would fight – that she realized she still had Suzaku's Ashford tunic draped over her shoulders.

Sitting at the large table in the center of the Student Council room, Shirley found she wasn't so much beaming at the two tickets set out before her, as she was glaring at them.

It wasn't always like this. When she'd opened the envelope – sneakily, behind her upright Biology book, because although she'd resolved not to do so until lunch break she realized she just couldn't wait – the concert tickets her father had enclosed almost triggered a squeal. That had been several hours ago, though.

And now that she'd had time to actually think about it, the gift was causing her nothing but trouble, because –

"Oho, still haven't decided?"

Millay's sunny voice as she sauntered in did nothing for Shirley's dilemma. "No," she admitted miserably, holding her head in her hands.

"Here's what you do," Millay laughed as she parked herself into the chair opposite Shirley's. She propped her arms up against the table, laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her hands. She then leaned in as though she were about to dispense a very important piece of advice: "Just flip a coin."

Shirley groaned. "Madame President, I can't make this decision based on that!"

"I don't see why not. Heads, it's L.L., tails – "

"Madame President – "

"All right, all right." Millay unlinked her hands and lifted them up in mock-surrender. "I'll tell you one thing, though, all jokes aside: if you invite Suzaku, you might be asking for trouble."

Shirley heaved a sigh. She'd been afraid of that, and hearing it from another person didn't seem to help.

Had these tickets arrived just a week ago, she wouldn't even be in this predicament.

If she was going to be honest with herself, she'd have to say Nunnally's quiet tutor caught her eye from day one: his charm, the way he carried himself, how he seemed so sure of whatever he was talking about. It wasn't just that he was that good-looking, though that helped too. And while she knew precious little about L.L., really – she rarely saw him outside of the clubhouse, and that trip to Lake Kawaguchi had been the only time they'd spent together without Nunnally – she was hoping this concert would be her chance to change that, get to know more of this man.

(But then Suzaku had entered the picture – Suzaku, who was sweet, unassuming, soft-spoken even after he broke one record after another on the men's swim team. Suzaku, who was easy to befriend if anyone gave him the chance, but couldn't prove it because no-one would. Suzaku, who had saved her at Lake Kawaguchi without thought for himself when she was so certain she was in for the worst.)

"He's an Honorary Britannian though, isn't he?" she said, eyes downcast. "That should make a difference, right?"

"It should," Millay agreed. And she looked almost sad as she did. "But some people just don't see that. If he's already having this much of a hard time at school, can you imagine the reactions you'll get if you walk into a theater with him? And what would Mister Fenette say?"

Shirley hadn't thought of that. She imagined telling her father, over the phone, exactly who would be claiming the second ticket to the show with her, and…well, she didn't want to conjure up exact words, but she guessed he wouldn't be too happy with her choice of a companion.

"Maybe if he doesn't ask…" Then she shook her head. "Who would you take?" she asked instead, shifting gears.

Millay only laughed at that. She took a stack of papers from her bag – Geography homework, from the looks of it – but there was a mischievous gleam in her eye when she reached for a pen. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"I – I didn't mean it like that." An unwelcome blush crept up her cheeks. "I meant, if you were me."

"Hmmm." The blonde flipped through several pages without looking up, a smile still stuck on her face. "I imagine L.L. enjoys classical music more. Does that help?"

"Probably." If she was going to take one of them to the concert, she had to at least make sure there was reason to believe that boy would enjoy it. Although, she had no idea what Suzaku's music tastes were like, come to think of it. "What if Lulu thinks I'm too young for him?"

Millay raised an eyebrow. "…There's that," she said, and Shirley could see how her concern made sense. The man had been tutoring Nunnally for quite a while now; he had to be, what, at least twenty-five?

He didn't look it, though, which may have been part of the appeal?

"Though if you're afraid of rejection…" Millay stopped and pushed her homework away; clearly immersing herself in Shirley's love life (or…what approximated it, at least) was far more interesting to her. "Then you should go with Suzaku."

Shirley bit her lip. "You think Lulu is out of my league, huh?"

"I didn't say that." Millay rolled her eyes with a huff. "I'm just saying. L.L. can turn you down, but Suzaku can't. Because…you know…" But she didn't, and just blinked at Millay in confusion, to which the older girl sighed and gave in. "He knows his place."

Millay had worn an unhappy expression as she said those words, and Shirley found herself cringing as well. She knew how unforgiving the system was, but… "I don't want him to come with me if he doesn't want to!"

"Then problem solved! L.L. it is."

"But…what if Suzaku does want to?"

This time it was Millay's turn to groan. "You're making this so complicated!" she admonished. The first bell rang, and she squeaked at that, gathering up her books. "And now I have to go. Honestly Shirley, you're obsessing over this too much. Pick Rivalz."

Shirley frowned; unlike Millay, she had this next period free. "But I – "

"Or you know…" Millay paused at the door, half-in and half-out of the room, and shot her a sly grin. "Give them both of the tickets, and have them go together. Win-win?"

"Madame President!" Shirley folded her arms across her chest and shot her an indignant pout, but Millay was already laughing and waving goodbye. "You were no help!" she called out, just for good measure.

But ten minutes later, halfway through the second bell, Shirley just gave up and fished through the coins in her purse.

Suzaku had to navigate the rest of the way back on auto-pilot, because the bulk of his mind was currently occupied.

Britannia's invasion of his homeland was seven years ago, and yet sometimes he felt as though the consequences were no less potent now than they were then. Always, always, it would pop up just when he was getting a bit too close to that threshold of acceptance – seven years ago, with his country torn up by war, he made a choice.

He made a choice.

Suzaku always knew the path he'd chosen wasn't the only one – the recent surge in terrorism was more than enough evidence of that. And his father had advocated another, and he'd made it perfectly clear – 'Enough. What can a ten-year-old possibly hope to know about war?' – whose word carried more weight.

(But he saw that people were dying in scores by the hour. He saw that Britannia's seven-tonne machines housed men who weren't above shooting down enemy soldiers who were merely on foot. He saw his country turn into a wasteland overnight while their conquerors hailed from home an ocean away, and wasn't this enough?)

He always thought it was. Or, he told himself that it was. One of those was true, and as he grew older, he slowly came to realize there was a difference.

"Excuse me?"

It took a while before Suzaku heard that, and when he did he was already about to enter the park proper, barely at the edge of the construction site. Frowning, he scanned the area for the source of that voice. His eyes came to rest upon a middle-aged Eleven man, gaunt and slightly pale, dressed in tattered clothes with a scarf tied around his arm.

"Excuse me?" The man spoke again, in stuttering, heavily-accented Britannian. "Speak in Japanese?"

"Yes." Suzaku looked around once, just to be sure the man wasn't addressing someone else; he couldn't be, not when there was no-one else within earshot, and Suzaku switched languages then. "Did you need something?"

"Ah…" The man visibly brightened, and motioned for Suzaku to follow him. "Can you help me, please?"

Suzaku opened his mouth to ask a question, the obvious one, but the man had already turned his back to him. He spared one last glance at the park, and the shadows of swing sets and benches cast by the setting sun, before following at a cautious distance.

The construction site was less-developed on the inside, with most houses lacking insulation on the walls and some merely empty lots with floor plans translated in twine. The site was like a maze, with both of them having to navigate through stray wooden beams and heavy equipment left for the day. He guessed this man must be a day laborer, then, from the way he stepped confidently and seemed to know the place by heart. If he was right, though, Suzaku doubted how well he coped with the demands of that job given his emaciated frame. Perhaps that was why he needed assistance with…whatever this was?

It was just as well, he thought sullenly, glancing at the pre-sale sign in bright colors on one of the houses that was further along. The real estate agent was Britannian, and so was the construction company in charge of this entire project. He wondered whatever happened to the Japanese professionals and local industries, those that seemed to have such a bright future before the invasion tore everything apart.

He watched the nameless construction worker as they weaved through the site: this was the furthest his countrymen could ever hope to reach.

But was it, really? The few Japanese corporations whose heads were allowed to retain at least some form of control were those that had publicly expressed cooperation with Britannia. He supposed his situation wasn't all that different, although perhaps acquiring the Lancelot had more to do with blind luck than grace. It was better than he could have hoped for.

(Then why were Kallen's words still lingering in the back of his mind?)

That train of thought came to an abrupt end when they rounded the corner of yet another unfinished house, and a rough hand closed over his collar and yanked him aside. "What – hey!"

"Finally. Took that chick long enough to ditch you."

Suzaku glared at the boy who now had him by the front of his shirt, pressing him up against the wooden scaffolding. He wasn't all that much older than Suzaku himself, and there were three others who appeared behind the adjacent wall. They all seemed to be sporting the same uniform, but it wasn't one he immediately recognized.

"Are you sure he's the right one?" asked the boy who appeared last, wearing a suspicious frown.

"Of course he is. There can't be more than one Eleven at Ashford." The first one let him go then, before turning to the Japanese man and tossing a handful of crumpled bills his way. "Here."

The man counted the money quickly, before launching into a series of profuse thanks in broken Britannian. He didn't look back as he hurried away, and Suzaku finally understood the shaking, the stutter, the scarf around his arm.

'Do you honestly think everything worked out for the best?'

"Look." Suzaku would have made a dash for it right then, but two of the boys stood firmly in the way of his only possible exit. He had no idea what he'd done to trigger this, but it probably wouldn't even matter. "Whatever this is about, I – "

"No, we already know plenty." Another boy's lip curled into a snarl as he approached, carrying a short wooden support beam in his hands. "So what was in it for you, huh? Cut of the ransom money?"

Were they serious? "Nothing." Gods, this was ridiculous. "Whatever you heard about me, it's not true."

"Little shit thinks we're stupid." The boy in front of him laughed in his face, before placing his hands on Suzaku's chest and roughly shoving him against the scaffold. "Do you?"

Suzaku bared his teeth – that hurt – and let out a snarl. "Let go of me!"

"Hey!"

"Fucking Eleven – !"

It didn't even register until after the fact. There had been a sudden flash of anger – because this really was ridiculous, and it was unfair – and pain, and then Suzaku had grabbed the boy's arms and roughly wrenched them away. He then grabbed the boy's collar with one hand and the waistband of his pants with another, hurling him across the concrete.

"Please stop." Suzaku straightened up despite the little pinpricks of pain shooting up his back – wood splinters, he recognized belatedly, from the scaffolding. Maybe if he intimidated them enough, he could end this. "I'm a trained fighter. I – "

The words died in his throat when he smelled it – cigarette smoke, from seemingly nowhere and everywhere at once.

And all that his mind could come up with in response, as his lips and the rest of his body froze and locked-down in fear, was gods, not again.

He wondered if it wasn't yet too late, if he could still will it away…but no sooner had that thought (that hope) taken form in his mind when he saw the extra silhouette there, heavy and dark against the far wall. Suzaku couldn't see the man's face (he never could) – only a shadow across with the angle entirely wrong, and a cigarette between his lips.

Cigarette smoke. Sometimes it would be a pipe, and sometimes a cigar, but it always, inexplicably, smelled the same: a scent that had seeped into their furniture, into those heavy tailored suits, into every last one of his nerves as he stood toe-to-toe with his father that August night.

"No…" Suzaku shrank back and pressed himself against the scaffolding, hard. And although the pain was there, and he was making it worse, he realized with a growing horror that it wasn't quite enough to break him out of this. "No, get away."

There was something in the man's hand. It wasn't his watch this time, but something just as familiar. Slowly, Suzaku came to realize what it was (and it was odd: Kirihara's voice echoing in his mind this time, from the first time he'd touched the newest addition to the decorations in his father's office – '…looks simple, yes? They say it once belonged to Hanzo himself…') But for the life of him, he couldn't understand how the blade could be pristine, when the handle in the man's fingers was dripping with red.

"Get away!" The boys were laughing at him now, but he couldn't make sense of what they were saying because everything else was a dim, faraway sound; he couldn't even pretend he was talking to them anymore, because he'd already slipped into Japanese. "I didn't…" Because seven years ago, when the crickets were noisy and the night was clear, a ten-year-old boy stepped into his father's study, bearing a childish entreaty to stop the violence, stop the war; he never even realized he'd picked up the knife – "I didn't have a choice!"

When the wooden beam first slammed into his stomach, Suzaku gasped and doubled over in pain.

And yet, a part of him was relieved.

"And they say I might be exempted from the History final, if I maintain my current class standing."

"Nunnally, that's wonderful." L.L. smiled to match the one gracing Nunnally's features, but he reached over the open book on the table to squeeze her hand so that it would mean something to her. "And at the same time, rather disheartening." He waited a beat, before continuing in a mock-regretful tone: "It would appear as though my services are no longer needed."

"Don't be silly! Before we started, my grades were never as high as they are now." Nunnally's laughter was always a refreshing sound, clear and infectious as it was now. But it died eventually, and gave way to a pensive sigh. "I'm really glad you're okay."

"Ah." L.L. could already see where this conversation was going, and he gently released her hand only to slide a bookmark into the open page and shut the book in front of him. Nunnally was neither stupid nor forgetful, and it was obvious that she cared. This topic was bound to come up eventually then; may as well. "Millay told you?"

"She didn't have to. That day, it was all over the news." She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but faltered. She then lowered her head and folded her arms carefully over her lap, continuing in a murmur. "When I tried to call, and none of you were picking up, I feared the worst."

She had no idea, he thought silently at that. But of course, it was better this way. "Well, we're all right now, and what's past is past. Though I'm truly sorry for all the worry we caused."

"It's nothing compared to what you must have gone through." She shook her head insistently, and furrowed her brows. "You and Suzaku, especially."

L.L. cringed. "Millay told you about that, I suppose?"

"She wasn't very happy about it." Nunnally sighed, and a corner of her lips turned up in a tiny smile, as though recalling the exchange. "And I understand. Everyone loves a hero and all, but it's hard when it's someone you care about."

L.L. had to smile at that. For a girl who was all of fourteen years old, Nunnally could often be very mature. What was even more remarkable was that she never seemed to be aware of this herself. "We're fine." He frowned; such a simple response sounded lacking even to his own ears, so he added: "Admittedly a bit roughed-up, and the girls are a little shaken, but it's nothing we won't recover from with time."

She sighed again. "I hope so."

The late-afternoon sunlight filtering in through the open window was warm and subdued, and the long shadows it cast only highlighted the deep lines from the frown on her face. "Nunnally. What's on your mind?"

She didn't say anything for a long time, but her expression stubbornly remained. And then: "Do you know what they're saying about Suzaku in school?"

The troubled way she knit her brows, and the quiet hesitation in her voice, unsettled him more than the words themselves. This was saying much. "What?" he asked carefully.

Nunnally told him. And the initial surprise very quickly gave way to quiet, creeping anger.

"That's absurd." L.L. set his jaw, and clenched his hand into a fist – the one that was free, not the one still holding her hand, because he still had the presence of mind to remember this. "That doesn't even make sense!" It didn't. "Don't believe a word of it."

"I don't," she assured him. "Millay and Shirley are trying to stop the rumors, but…" She trailed off, biting on her lower lip. "Do you think this will hurt him?"

"I don't know." He glared darkly at the table, as though that spot could somehow reasonably be a placeholder for all the nameless rumormongers to whom Nunnally had just alluded. "I honestly don't know."

It was a given from the start that the students at Ashford wouldn't warm up to Suzaku immediately. Even if some of them had spent years in the Settlement, they were all brought up with the notion that Britannia was great and all-powerful drilled into their heads, all else be damned. People like Millay and Shirley and Nunnally were the exceptions, not the rule. Still, he hadn't quite expected it would be this bad. And while he was certain (or rather, he wanted to believe, at least) that these perpetrators most likely were small in number themselves, he would have thought the children of nobles and statesmen would have been raised better than this.

"I'm sorry if I've upset you."

There was a quiet sadness in Nunnally's voice when she broke into his thoughts, so he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "It's fine." He smiled, and the anger abated a little. "It's not your fault. And I do appreciate that you told me."

"I thought you'd want to know." She paused, and he was about to tell her she was right. But then she brightened and spoke again before he could get the chance. "You and Suzaku have become very close, haven't you?"

L.L. kept his smile, but couldn't stop his brows from knotting into a curious frown. That was…certainly true, he conceded to himself. He enjoyed Suzaku's company, in spite of how he still found some aspects of the boy fascinatingly strange. He was sure that was mutual, but he was no longer quite as sure if curiosity was what kept them together. In any case, whatever they had now, it had progressed quite a lot since the day he first met the soldier at Shinjuku. "What makes you say that?"

"Nothing. Just a feeling." He didn't have to wait long before Nunnally lost her poker face completely, bursting into a giggle. "And Millay said as much, as well."

"We've been through this." L.L. rolled his eyes. "Everything your sister says about me is a lie."

"That's cruel!" Nunnally exclaimed, feigning offense. "She's called you handsome, you know? Are you saying that was a lie?"

"Ah. That's an opinion." He smirked. "It can't be false, but it can't be true, either."

"Oh, now you're just arguing the details!"

"But of course." L.L. joined in Nunnally's laughter, briefly forgetting all about rumors and racists and terrorists and Suzaku, the unspoken question whose unspoken answer eluded him. There would be time for that later, he dismissed; that wasn't what he was here for, today. "And on that note," he chuckled, re-opening the book and flipping several pages, "shall we revisit the Pacific War?"

Paperwork was always tedious and boring. Most of it was just formality anyway, and would be processed whether or not it had the Sub-Viceroy's signature at the bottom. Euphemia sighed, yet another twenty-pager finished for the day. There were five more of its kind to go.

"What is it, Euphy?"

"Oh, nothing!" She shook herself out of it and brightened. "Nothing."

Perhaps it was hard to be convincing when Cornelia was sitting at the massive desk just opposite hers, having already finished her share of the work. Had she been dallying that long? Euphemia threw glance at the clock and blinked.

Was that the time?

She winced a little, guiltily. But it was just so hard to concentrate when her mind kept on drifting.

"Well I was just wondering…" Cornelia fixed her with a solid gaze that said 'go on,' which was when she realized she really couldn't hide anything from her older sister. Perhaps it was a good thing she didn't try, then. "If I wanted to arrange for an audience with someone, would that be a problem?"

"Who? Someone from the homeland?"

"No, from here." She shook her head, and she desperately hoped Cornelia wouldn't ask any more questions when she expounded: "A citizen, actually."

"…I don't see any reason you can't." Cornelia's frown was thoughtful, but it didn't seem as though she found the request as odd as Euphemia would have expected her to. "Even if you don't strictly hold any executive power in this Area, as a member of royalty it's your prerogative to summon anyone you wish."

"I see."

Cornelia looked at her, and her frown deepened for a few seconds before she asked, "Do you have a name?"

She thought of him again, the Japanese boy who'd stood up and sacrificed himself for the young girl who was being carried away, the boy with the unruly hair and striking eyes – much more striking then than those she'd seen in his mugshot, attached to one of the many reports she'd reviewed on her first day as Sub-Viceroy. And… "I'm afraid that's all I have."

Cornelia shrugged. "It's more than enough," she said, and everything was so much easier after that.

L.L. stopped trying to reach Suzaku at around nine p.m.

He'd tried not to think too much about it when two text messages, both containing the usual invitations to dinner, went unanswered. He'd assumed the boy must have been busy with something or another – schoolwork perhaps, or overtime at A.S.E.E.C. So he would have understood a refusal, but he didn't even get that much.

It was odd. Suzaku had never been one to forego a reply, if only out of courtesy, and no matter how late.

Still, there were more important things, L.L. convinced himself, and it wasn't as though he wouldn't survive dinner alone, for a change. But those 'more important' things – a practice essay Nunnally had written, and yet another attempt to make sense of the hoteljacking campaign – had all been pushed aside fairly quickly as well. And so had dinner, a half-finished plate of leftover pasta and a rapidly warming glass of champagne, forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Everything took a backseat when he got that email.

It came from out of nowhere, popping up in the middle of his work: a short message with a handle that made it clear that its sender had used a dummy account. He skimmed quickly through the perfect Japanese, the overly-familiar tone, and something in his stomach turned at the end of the first paragraph.

His very first contractee – also, the last one remaining – was apparently back in Area 11.

'I've missed you' was how the email ended, instead of a proper signature or even a name. Neither was needed.

And then, scarcely a minute later, he got another email from yet another dummy account, containing only this: 'I'll find you.'

L.L.'s finger lingered over the 'Delete' key twice, and twice he ended up swearing as he closed the browser, holding his head in his hands.

This was not happening.

"I know exactly what he wants," he snapped irritably, yet another of C.C.'s comments getting to him more than it should. He knew she wasn't trying to get a rise out of him, not deliberately anyway, but she was merely stating the obvious.

She was merely stating something he'd hoped he would never have to address.

Nunnally's essay and a command-line window that had long since expired remained minimized as he furiously scoured four different news sites. He wasn't sure why he was even bothering, though – that very first Geass he'd granted, arguably his most powerful one, could be used in an infinite number of ways. Doing this was just about as useful as groping blindly through the dark.

But then…

"He hasn't been using it," he quipped aloud, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "No, he mustn't have, because…I would have sensed it if he did, right?"

Yet he hadn't sensed runaway from Nagoya. C.C.'s blunt response only confirmed this: if he sensed anything from this contractee, it would only be because he was already in Tokyo.

L.L. sighed, scrolling blindly through the 'breaking news' section. He closed that and returned to one of the emails, trying to extract any information he could get.

Everything was encrypted. Several layers of this later, he was re-routed to a server in Russia.

He couldn't help a wry smirk at that. L.L. had taught him well, it seemed, and now all that was being used against him.

"In all honesty, I'm surprised he's still even alive," he murmured. And C.C. didn't reply to that, not when there were so many ways she could have.

L.L. steepled his fingers together and eyed the timestamp on the email. 'I'll find you.' He needed to think.

Things would become complicated if this contractee found him. He could leave Area 11, but it would be difficult not to leave a trail, and how would he explain it to Nunnally, to Millay? And after all, he was immune to the Geass, wasn't he? If worse came to worst, if L.L. could bait him to use his Geass repeatedly until runaway…

He shuddered, wondering where such a chilling thought had come from.

When his phone suddenly vibrated, on the table beside him, his heart leapt into his throat and he actually jumped a little, swearing violently. He let it ring for a few more times, reaching out and waiting for the unknown number or, worse, 'Number Withheld', and that would clearly be check.

But to his surprise, relief, and confusion all at once, the display only said 'Suzaku'. "Hello?"

"…L.L." It seemed to take forever for Suzaku to respond, but his voice was unmistakable, if not a bit faint. "I'm…I'm sorry I couldn't make dinner tonight. I tried – "

"That's fine," he cut in, adding a short laugh to soften the interruption. "I assumed you were busy. It's okay. We'll take a rain-check. How about tomorrow night?"

He had the phone sandwiched between his shoulder and ear at this point, and was in the middle of trying to trace the other email when he frowned, noticing that Suzaku hadn't said anything for quite a while.

"Still there?" he prodded.

"Yeah…" L.L. could barely hear him; was there something wrong with the reception? "That would be…nice…"

He frowned, momentarily forgetting about the email when he realized Suzaku was still on the line, and yet all he could hear was the boy's breathing. That was odd. He could barely hear his voice, but this… "Suzaku. Did you need anything?" he asked, taking the phone in hand.

"L.L." He supposed what followed that was a sigh, but it sounded shaky. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head, more for his own benefit. "You already said that. I told you, it's fine."

"No. I'm sorry for what I'm about to ask."

L.L. wasn't sure why that last part had suddenly been so clear. He was even less sure of why, upon letting those words sink in, the earlier dread returned and somehow seemed to be worse. "Suzaku," he said carefully, rising to his feet. "Where are you?"

He got no reply other than a series of soft knocks on his door.

With C.C. silent and the emails from his contractee completely forgotten, L.L. stepped away from his computer. The walk from his desk to the door wasn't a very long one, but it seemed that way now, and the closer he got to it the more he quickened his pace.

He pulled open the door with his free hand.

And when he saw Suzaku standing there, he very nearly dropped his phone.

"I'm sorry," Suzaku mumbled again, still speaking into his phone. His hair was a mess and it obscured his eyes, and L.L. finally understood why he could barely hear him over the phone; he could barely hear him now. "Can…can I stay here tonight?"

Notes for Chapter 9:

- I couldn't resist the urge to slip at least one Kallen-fanservice moment into this fic. No disrespect meant, of course, just poking a bit of fun at canon!

- I must have spent close to two weeks frozen on the solo!Suzaku scene here, debating on whether or not he would 'fall for it,' so to speak. The decision wasn't easy (at all), and a different answer would have taken this chapter in a radically different direction. Anyway, for those who are curious, the other route would have been: not entering the construction site, not missing dinner with L.L., being distracted all the while and recounting the conversation with Kallen when L.L. calls him out on it. In short – more talking, less bleeding.

- Root cause of all of Suzaku's random moments of borderline-insanity in this universe: soon. I promise.

Allora Gale, Silencian, fra, Melamori, AngelicDemon97, Drakyndra, GreenOnBlack, , nachan, Persephone1, Seriyuu, MithLuin, Mystra-chan06, doodle808, Thisismedealwithit, Hane no Zaia, Eien-Kiseki, P, Aozora094, plummy-kins, cherubchan, darksilverrose, Slyshin, slivershell, Reborn-euphoria, icestar-comet-moon, warmsugar, Khandalis, FeatherxxDreams, GoldenKitsuneHime13, Xivy, croquant, and OolashaSylvanas – thanks so much for reviewing! You guys are awesomely-awesome and I love you all. I'm a bit pressed for time as of me typing this, so regretfully review-responses will be up a little later, sometime this week :D. I'm very sorry about that. (I'm also thinking of doing review-replies by PM from now on, so if anyone has any objections to that, let me know!)

To put it shortly, this chapter took a long time to write mostly because school has been rather cruel over these past months (don't let the frequent Noir updates fool you; that fic is just my guilty pleasure, and it's so much easier to write than this longfic). On the bright side, there does seem to be a finish line in sight, and I hope to submit my thesis by mid-summer. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Anyway, I'll admit some parts of this chapter gave me a really hard time as well. I do hope it turned out okay, though. Let me know what you think, and you get an internet cookie for doing so :D. Yay!

Next chapter: Cruelty and kindness are two sides of the same coin. What matters is not the intention but the perception, and when one pushes kindness too far he may wind up getting back more than he bargained for. (Stage 10: Those Who Mend)