There was nothing worse than betrayal.

Suzaku hadn't slept well in days. Weeks, really. He was tired and heartsick and full of anger and guilt.

Nothing hurt more than being betrayed.

He hadn't spoken to anyone since he'd been told that Lelouch had been left on the island, abandoned to the mercy of Pendragon and the Emperor.

Unless it was betraying someone you loved.

No amount of reassurance could convince Suzaku that Lelouch wasn't being tortured or tormented or even dead.

By accident.

Hurting and abandoned and hopeless.

Through foolishness and naïveté.

Never to see Suzaku again, never to see Nunnally or Marianne or Milly again.

Through stubbornness and misplaced faith.

Suffering.

Through sheer wrongheaded stupidity.

Alone.

He told you not to go, not to leave him; it's your fault he's not here, you damned idiot...

Suzaku slammed his fist against the wall, the sharp pain of his broken bones grinding against each other as he lashed out again and again and again in guilt and anger and self-recrimination. At first, people had tried to stop him, tried to prevent him from hurting himself, tried to keep him safe.

So he broke their bones instead. They were the ones who hadn't rescued Lelouch. There was blame enough to go around.

And now he was left alone, free to use his time any way he wanted to. He paced and lashed out and, occasionally, slept. His dreams were filled with his last moments on the island; Cornelia's orders that they deal quickly with the perceived threats so they could return to the group 'in time', Gino pushing Suzaku back to the spot where they'd left Lelouch before they'd caught the two Victors they were chasing, Jeremiah's weapons beside a spray of blood, Kirihara's beside a pool of blood, the lack of tracks leading away from either site. Given time, Suzaku might have been able to pick out a trail, but time was the one thing he didn't have.

Because Cornelia and Guilford and Gino had been hurrying him for a reason. That reason being the hovercraft that appeared moments after the earthquake ended and the hour-long electrical charge from the next section started.

Suzaku had overheard the others talking about how the electricity shorted out the transmissions from the island to the mainland, masking the rescue and justifying the hovercraft's presence under the guise of attempting to fix the error. It was a good plan. Lelouch would have approved of it.

Suzaku grabbed his hair and backed into a corner, dropping to his knees and moaning as he rocked back and forth. They hadn't come for him or Jeremiah or Gino. They had come for Lelouch and Cornelia. And yet still, he'd been abandoned.

Schneizel had come to talk to him. Everyone, at one point, had come to talk to him. But Schneizel was the only one who'd made an impression. He'd told Suzaku that they hadn't come for him at all, that they would have left him there in a heartbeat and taken Lelouch instead, given the choice. He'd told Suzaku that the only thing he'd cared about was his family; his siblings. The rest of the Victors, in Schneizel's opinion, could rot.

It endeared Schneizel to him in a way that no one else had managed to. Even Nunnally had wept over how grateful she was that Suzaku at least had returned, and Marianne refused to face the truth that her son was doomed, trapped in the horrors of a Number in Pendragon. Schneizel knew that, acknowledged it, and resented the hell out of it.

Of course, he knew better than almost anyone else what those horrors entailed. He'd once been in charge of initiating those horrors for Lelouch himself.

Suzaku could still remember the video Schneizel had shown him, in real time, of Lelouch surrounded by beautiful naked young men, panting and desperate for all the demeaning and humiliating things they were doing to him. He could still feel the caress of Schneizel's cool fingers over his neck as Schneizel leaned in to tell him that Lelouch was doing this to protect him, that this was all Suzaku's fault. And then, when Lelouch's cries of pleasure turned pained and scared, Suzaku remembered Schneizel's other hand gripping Suzaku's cock through his pants, his voice hissing in Suzaku's ear that he was disgusting for being aroused by this, monstrous for taking pleasure from his lover's agony.

It soured, somewhat, Suzaku's present impression of Schneizel as the only person who understood how totally fucked up it was that Suzaku had escaped and Lelouch hadn't.

Rebellion, revolution. It was all anyone cared about. It was why Schneizel had left Pendragon, infuriated at the mindless decadence and pointlessness of existence and the exploitation of his distant siblings (or so he claimed). It was why Cornelia, brave and beloved in both Pendragon and the Areas, had been chosen to stand by him, and it was why Lelouch, the trigger for the unrest and violence in the Areas, had set off the rebellion. The three siblings, from three different worlds, standing beside each other, on the side of everything good and right.

But that was impossible now. And while Cornelia and Schneizel were impressive enough on their own, the rebellion needed something else, something more personal, more recent.

And everyone wanted Suzaku to be that something.

Suzaku wasn't interested.

He'd collapsed a few times, drained from lack of food and water and rest, only to revive with his wounds tended, an IV in his arm pushing nutrients into his body, and a concerned stranger asking if he felt better.

No. He did not feel better. Nothing would ever make him feel better.

Kallen had visited as well, pleading with him to get up and do something, stop wasting his life like this. She'd said that Lelouch would have been happy that Suzaku had survived, that Suzaku had the obligation and duty to Lelouch to live that life. She was right. Lelouch would have been pleased, to the point of smugness and self-satisfaction. He'd won, and Suzaku had lost, and Suzaku was being a sore loser about it, but none of that mattered because Lelouch wasn't here.

When Suzaku finally lifted his head, unashamed of the tear streaks that ran through the dirt of his cheeks, Schneizel was standing there again. He knew better than to approach, a docile Suzaku wasn't necessarily a safe Suzaku, and it was nearly impossible to foresee what would set him off. He had other people he could risk instead of himself. Rich, powerful bastard. Literally. Suzaku barred his teeth at him in something like a smile.

"I'm glad to see I've found you in a receptive mood," Schneizel said, casually in control. "It's been decided that the kid gloves come off now." Suzaku had no idea what he was talking about. Gloves for children? Made out of children? Pendragon slang was so counterintuitive. "If you don't cooperate, we'll medicate you until you do."

It sounded like a threat. Like being treated was some kind of punishment. Suzaku shrugged to himself; in a way, it was. He wallowed in his guilt and rage, wrapping it around himself until it was his entire world. He didn't want to give it up.

"No."

Schneizel laughed. "No? I'm not sure you understand, Suzaku. It's an either-or proposition, not a yes-no." He smiled, mirroring Suzaku's feral grin. "Either you cooperate of your own free will, contribute to the society that has so kindly and patiently waited for you to stop being such a selfish git, or we wait for you to collapse again and drug you up until you feel more compliant." He voice dropped suggestively. "You know we can."

They had. To Lelouch. Still, Suzaku wasn't going to go down without a fight. His mind raced with plans for escape, despite the fact that he wasn't technically being held prisoner. Schneizel, seemingly reading his mind, looked pleased. "It's good to see you being proactive for once, Suzaku, but you'll never get out of here, not in your current state of mind." He had a point. Suzaku wasn't even sure where the 'outside' was from his room. Still, there was no reason not to try.

He'd twisted his ankle the day before, but he was used to the pain by now and the swelling made a decent splint. Schneizel stood aside as Suzaku stormed past, following behind at a reasonable distance as Suzaku lurched through the hallways, gathering a train of perturbed gawkers as he went. Suzaku ignored them all, concentrating on putting one foot ahead of the other, focusing on the hallway that blurred and doubled as his head pounded, with every pain-filled step he took.

The first time he stumbled, no one said anything. The second time, he needed to take a moment to brace himself against the wall before he refound his feet.

"I chose to give you this ultimatum now for a reason, Suzaku," Schneizel said. "Even if you knew how to get out, or even how to get off this floor, you won't last long enough to put that into action. You haven't eaten in days, you've had nothing to drink for hours, you're battling your injuries, and I already drugged you through the ventilation shafts in your room. You can run, but you can't escape."

Suzaku's eyes narrowed. He'd beaten two Hunger Games, been worthy to stand at Lelouch's side for a time, fought worse odds than this. He'd show Schneizel. He'd show them all! All of… of them… he'd… show…

OoO-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-OoO

The first thing Suzaku saw when he opened his eyes was the clean white ceiling of the recovery room. His hand ached, but it was a dull sensation, and his ankle felt perfectly fine. They'd taken care of him again. Suzaku felt like he should have resented that, but he didn't. Instead, he felt okay with it, if not precisely grateful. That should have worried him but, oddly enough, he felt okay with that too.

"Suzaku?"

Suzaku turned his head and smiled. "Nunnally." His smile faltered. "I'm so sorry about Lelouch." He'd never said that to her. He'd been too angry. He felt bad about that now, about forgetting that she would be morning as well, but not with the blinding guilt he'd been feeling since leaving Lelouch behind.

"Oh, Suzaku…" Nunnally's voice filled with unshed tears and she reached out and clutched at his undamaged hand. "I am too. But I'm so glad you're properly back now. It's what he would have wanted."

"Yeah." Suzaku huffed a laugh. "I guess he wins this round." A joke, to lighten the mood.

A tear escaped down Nunnally's cheek and Suzaku reached out with his healing hand to catch it. She managed a wavery smile in return.

"Your vitals are stable, your injuries are healing well, and your mood seems less… erratic." one of the medical staff said, breaking through the maudlin atmosphere. "All in all, well on the way to full recovery. Are you feeling up to moving around, Suzaku?"

Suzaku nodded. "I feel fine. Thank you all."

"Excellent," Schneizel said from the doorway. "Once we get your medications stabilized, we'll get started."

Suzaku nodded again. "I think I'd like that."

The next few days were filled with physical recovery and mood stabilization. Suzaku excelled at the former and was deemed 'good enough' at the latter to be freed from his confining medical cell less than a week after being admitted. His lows weren't as low, and there were none of the terrifying grandiose highs where Suzaku felt like he was better than everyone else and could do anything, and anything he felt like doing seemed like a marvellous idea. He never wanted to feel that way again. It was more than just out of control, it was out of his mind.

Instead, Suzaku felt like his brain was wrapped inside a warm cocoon of insulating fuzz. He wasn't as quick, and his memory wasn't as clear, but he didn't feel emotions as strongly or as painfully as he had before. Even pain felt dulled. Still, he was stable by any definition of the word, and free to tour the facility, his new home. Schneizel was busy and offered the services of Kanon or Kallen. Suzaku chose Kallen.

It felt nice being back at her side. He'd always trusted her and liked her in ways he hadn't even felt towards Lelouch. Suzaku hadn't had anything like a family since his father died, and Kallen had taken that spot in his heart. She was like a sister and a mother and a best friend, everything Suzaku had needed and more. Even when she'd sided with Lelouch against him, Suzaku hadn't resented her, but rather Lelouch's ability to talk anyone into doing what he wanted. And, in the end, they'd been right, and the evacuation had been the right thing to do.

Maybe Suzaku should apologize for that too. Maybe that would take away the odd awkwardness between Kallen and himself.

"And this is the dining area," Kallen explained as they entered a room that was quite obviously a dining area. There were long tables with chairs neatly tucked in, and a metallic counter against a wall with slits for meal trays to come out of. It looked cold and institutional after the warm home-cooked meals Suzaku had become used to after winning the Hunger Games with Lelouch, even compared to the messy public eating rooms in Area 11. "You'll be designated a set time for meals with a ten minute window. Miss it and you miss eating."

"I'm sorry I wasn't more on board with your and Lelouch's plans," Suzaku said, rather than respond to any of Kallen's inane self-evident lecturing. "You guys were right and I was wrong, and I should have just followed your lead. I always trusted you, Kallen."

Kallen looked at him, her expressive blue eyes pained and a little angry. "God, Suzaku, you just…" She took a deep sigh. "It's fine. You have nothing to apologize for. Let's just get this over with."

Well. That hadn't worked. Suzaku trailed behind Kallen as she toured him through the rest of the compound. "And this is the only way out. You'll need a chit to operate the elevator, and you can only get a chit after applying through the appropriate channels or asking someone like your new buddy Schneizel."

Suzaku frowned. "You don't like Schneizel?"

"What's weird is that you do," Kallen retorted. "After everything that he did to you – to Lelouch. How can you just forgive all that?"

"All what?" Suzaku asked. "Schneizel only did what he had to do, to keep his position, to be able to break as many of the Victors from the games as possible. He didn't want to. It cost him as much as it cost anyone to do what he did."

"Oh, I think it cost Lelouch a whole lot more," Kallen shot back. "And to show you what was happening…"

"At least he was being honest. He didn't keep things from me, like Lelouch did. As much as I love Lelouch, I think working with Schneizel will be easier."

"Oh for fu–" Kallen bit off her exasperated exclamation. "They've turned you into a zombie, a mindless automaton. This is no better than when you were a prickly pile of self-hatred and guilt. You're useless like this, a puppet waiting for a puppet master and I don't even know you."

She turned away, her hands balled into fists, her shoulders hunched in an angry line, and Suzaku couldn't help but smile. She was so full of life…

"Then fix it."

Kallen turned to him, her anger melting away, predictably, under her confusion. "What?"

"Fit it," Suzaku said, as if it was that simple. It would have been if Lelouch had been here. "If you think I'm broken, fix it. I'm not sure what you want exactly, but you know me better than anyone else. If I'm just a puppet, why don't you become my puppet master?"

The sigh that Kallen made at that was more tired than anything else. "It's like they took everything away from you but your utter cluelessness. Do you know what they want from you? Do you even know where you are?"

"Area 0," Suzaku said. He remembered that, from the way everyone kept repeating it like it should have made him feel safe or less angry. It hadn't helped. "In… some kind of building?"

Kallen looked at him with something like pity. "Suzaku, this is Area 0. This building. We're underground. There are thousands, maybe millions of floors and rooms here, all organized and regimented and powered with sakuradite. There's nothing alive above the ground, nothing. This is a dead land, Suzaku. We're living inside a corpse."

That was unnecessarily vivid. "O…kay. That explains the exit elevator."

"It explains a lot more," Kallen said. "Haven't you even noticed that there are no windows? That every wall and corridor looks like every other wall and corridor except for the alpha-numeric codes? Haven't you ever wondered about anything?"

No, Suzaku hadn't. At first, he hadn't cared, and then he just couldn't access the part of his mind that wondered about things. That was probably part of what Kallen didn't like about him now. "No. It… didn't matter? It's not like knowing I was underground would have made anything better or worse. I don't think anything could have made things worse."

"Oh, Suzaku…" The last of the tension left Kallen's shoulders as she reached out and cupped his face in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture. "I'm sorry. It's kind of hard to remember how angry and hurt you were before you turned into…" She released Suzaku to wave vaguely at him. "…this. I'll try to be more patient."

"Not one of your strengths," Suzaku said, half kidding. Kallen cracked a smile, so that was good.

"No. Not really." Kallen took a deep breath. "So, Area 0. It's really, really organized. You have to be on time for everything, and all of your time is budgeted for you. When you sleep, when you eat, when you 'recreate'. You'll get duties as well, and if you miss those you lose privileges – outside time, recreation time, meals, if you skip out too often." She looked hard at Suzaku. "Do you have any ideas what duties they'd want from you?"

Suzaku shook his head. "No. Not really." He smiled. Kallen didn't smile back.

"They want you to become Zero."

Suzaku laughed. "They what? What's Zero? I mean, I guessed that Schneizel wanted a mouthpiece, but to make something up like that…"

"He didn't," Kallen said. "Lelouch did. With those stupid speeches when he first volunteered, with that grandiose 'fuck you' to all of Pendragon at your last interview. You said it yourselves. You are Zero. And it's not like that didn't resonate like hell with the rebels. Area 0 was the first Area, the proto-area. It's been a myth to a lot of Areas with more imagination than Area 11 since the last war. I'm not sure if Lelouch knew what he was tapping into when he made that speech, but he lit some kind of flame. And now Schneizel wants you to take up that mantle."

"Oh." Suzaku took a moment to figure out if he wanted that. He wasn't sure. "Should I?"

Kallen frowned. "I don't know. Maybe. I don't know what Lelouch was thinking." She looked at Suzaku, with a hope that was fully prepared to be disappointed. "Do you?"

Suzaku fought to give her the answer she wanted. But the more he thought about it, the more foggy it seemed. "I… don't know. I mean, he was so good, focused on the future, on keeping Nunnally and his mother, and the rest of you safe… And then he was hyperfocused in the games. All about the moment and keeping everyone safe and whole until the next threat. He found us water and figured the island's pattern, but he never seemed to be thinking ahead."

"You think he had a plan that kind of just… fell to the wayside?" Kallen asked.

"There's only one way to find out," Suzaku said. "I'm going to have to watch whatever footage we have of the Hunger Games, to try to see if I can get any hints from Lelouch."

OoO-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-OoO

Kallen said no. Suzaku asked Schneizel, and Schneizel said no. It took Suzaku the rest of the day to find a way to go over even Schneizel's head.

Area 0 had existed even before Pendragon had been established. Pendragon was an absolute monarchy, under the heel of a dictatorial leader. Area 0 had been ruled in a completely different manner, with elections every five years for every important government position. Re-elections were, however, possible, and Genbu had been Prime Minister for just under a decade.

While Charles was an absolute ruler, Genbu answered to a council and his people. It was a better way of ruling, but it certainly didn't make the Prime Minister any humbler or moderate, and certainly no more likely to allow the unwashed masses to have direct contact with him.

But Suzaku wasn't one of the unwashed masses. He was the hope of Area 0 and the rest of the Numbers. He was Truth and Justice and Whatever Lelouch Had Said. He was important enough to get a face-to-face meeting with Genbu within days of requesting it.

During those days, he familiarized himself with the layout of Area 0, where his new quarters were (in the Area 11 section, but close to the center, where it was easy to get to the other Areas' sections), where Kallen and Nunnally's quarters were, where Cornelia and Gino had ended up (in central command and on the periphery of Area 4's section, respectively), where the exits were, where the military training rooms were, where the technical development rooms were (or, in other words, where Lloyd was), and where he fit in all of that.

He didn't fit. Suzaku's place had been in the wilderness, with dirt under his feet and nothing but the sky above his head. Suzaku didn't fit in here at all. Zero, however…

Suzaku didn't want to think about that. Not until he figured out what Lelouch wanted.

If he'd had any expectations of Genbu, they were quickly overwhelmed by the man's actual presence. He was tall, not quite as tall as the Emperor, and very imposing. He wasn't smiling, but he had a face that looked like it never smiled, and Suzaku found himself relieved to not be the exception.

He got the feeling that anything exceptional, anything that surprised Genbu, even in a good way, was something that would be picked apart, examined for any kind of threat, and likely neutralized just to be on the safe side. Genbu did not look like someone who took risks, at least not ones that didn't pay off in a huge way.

Lelouch would have… not liked him, exactly, but been entertained and challenged by him. Suzaku was just intimidated.

"Prime Minister."

Genbu didn't smile, but Suzaku thought his expression softened slightly as Suzaku made his deference known. "Suzaku. I'm glad to finally have the chance to meet you. Schneizel says you're ready and willing to work with us, now that your grieving period is over."

He made it sound like some kind of inconvenience. Suzaku bit his lip, finding enough control with the medications he was on to refrain from snapping at that. "I'm sorry for any troubles I caused you."

Genbu waved that off. "It's expected of veterans of the Hunger Games. Gino is still recovering, despite the fact that his reactions were less… violent than yours. Still, I won't deny that we've been waiting a long time for you to come to your senses, and now that you have, the real work can begin."

"About that," Suzaku said, quickly enough to almost be interrupting. "I was wondering if I could see the footage of the last Hunger Games before I made any decisions."

"Why would you need to see that?" Genbu asked, not at all surprised. Clearly someone, likely Schneizel, had forewarned him. "We just pulled you out of a self-destructive, violent spiral. Why would you want to throw yourself back into one?"

Suzaku shook his head. "I don't! I never want to feel that way again." Out of control, so angry he couldn't think, so guilty that he couldn't breathe. "But I need to know what Lelouch was thinking, and there are huge blanks in my mind when I think back to the games and the times before them. I need to fill in as many of those blanks as possible, so that I can figure out what Lelouch wanted, what's the right thing to do."

"Suzaku…" Genbu sighed, softening just a bit more. "Just because Lelouch wanted something, that doesn't make it right. I know you miss him, you still mourn him, but he wasn't perfect."

"He got everyone out of Area 11," Suzaku said. "Well, not everyone, but a huge chunk of people. He always tries to do the right thing, and he knows enough about the real world that he can take that into consideration. As hard as I tried, I never really got a handle on how… cruel people can really be. He knew that, knew how to use that. He'd have some idea what to do, I just have to figure out what."

Genbu didn't look pleased. "If I let you see the footage, will you give us our word that you'll be our Zero?"

"I can't promise that."

"Then why should I let you have what you want?"

Suzaku shrugged. "Because if you don't, I'll never cooperate. You can make do with Schneizel and Cornelia, with Gino and Kallen and even Nunnally if you can talk her into it. You don't need me, no one needs me. You just want me to make your lives easier, and I want to help, but I won't help anyone who isn't even willing to bend a little for me."

Genbu snorted. "Perhaps you're less naïve than you think you are, Suzaku." He thought it over for a long moment, a moment in which Suzaku held his breath in anticipation. "Very well. Tomorrow after breakfast, but you must have at least one psychiatrist and either Schneizel or Cornelia with you at all times. I won't risk you losing your mind again."

That was close to the last thing Suzaku wanted as well. "Thank you." He found that, despite working his hardest to get the opportunity to review the Hunger Games, he wasn't really looking forward to it.

What he was looking forward to, morbidly enough, was seeing Lelouch again.