Wow, sorry for such a long time since the last update! But we’re here now, so… yay!

Thankyou to: Star Jinin, Rinael, Nusku, Xhadow Kiss, chibi maakochan, Marie, PikaNecoMico, asami-chan37, Patet, Fallen One-Winged Tenshi, ChasingCaffeine, KuroitsukiNoMai, Poisoned-Inkwell, arimi-yume, Kora, JerichoGirl, abls, JLP, LacuStellar, La Luna Negra, Diana Prince, Koruyuha, YaoiOkami, Bligy, SutaakiHitori, Deus3xMachina, COLD TURKEY, realityfling18, teito13, evan elric, MizuiroSnow and Neo Diji!

Thankyou also to AutumnDynasty, who kicked this chapter in the ass with her Beta Boots.

Oh, and as for my little “contest”… Um, well, it wasn’t really a contest, but a lot of you had a crack at the meaning behind Lelouch’s second Geass symbol being referred to as an albatross by use of a simile. While a lot of you were on the mark with suggestions that it represents a wearisome burden and guilt and so forth, only two reviewers, teito13 and evan elric, were bang on. What I was looking for was the source of this belief – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is true that it’s said to be unlucky to shoot an albatross (because they carry the souls of sailors drowned at sea), but Coleridge’s poem actually created that myth. A famous line from the poem alludes to the story of the Wandering Jew in describing the “wearisome burden” of killing the albatross: “Instead of the Cross the Albatross/About my neck was hung”.

(Other fun facts about this poem: It is also the source of the phrase “Water, water, everywhere/Nor any drop to drink” (often misquoted as “But not a drop to drink”) AND… Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest? Pretty much The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: The Movie – or, at least, this second instalment of Disney’s Pirates franchise takes quite a lot of inspiration in places from the poem, including the ship full of dead sailors. The lowdown: A great poem!)

Gyah, anyway… Without further ado, I present Chapter 6 of The Ghost in the Machine – the first half of a double-part full-flashback chapter.

Well, I did say it was different.

;)

The Ghost in the Machine

Inversion – Pt I

(“Perhaps we never should have started it,” he’d said to Milly Ashford.

…So how had it started at all?)

“I’ll carry Nunnally.”

“Oh, it’s fine—”

“You look tired. And we said we’d take it in turns.”

“…Okay.” Lelouch’s big violet eyes pierced Suzaku as he approached. “But try not to wake her.”

Suzaku nodded. Nunnally did stir a little during the switchover between the two of them, but she settled against Suzaku’s back moments later, still asleep. The Japanese boy watched Lelouch stretch his own back out; carrying his sister took more out of him than it took out of Suzaku, who was much stronger, but nonetheless Suzaku knew that Lelouch would carry her all the time if he didn’t insist that he do his fair share. The little girl wasn’t heavy, but they’d been walking for hours and were all exhausted.

Lelouch hadn’t cried at all. The mask he had put on was astonishing, even injecting the reassuring smile into the tone of his voice when he spoke to Nunnally. She couldn’t see the bodies, of course – men, women, children, days old and littering the wasteland once called Japan, thrown there like trash by Britannia’s conquering army. But she’d asked what the overpowering smell was, to which her brother had replied with a smooth, kind lie to spare her the knowledge that, essentially, the three of them were walking through a graveyard.

Suzaku hadn’t been so strong – not in that respect. He hadn’t even been able to hide his tears from Nunnally, who couldn’t see them. She’d wiped them away with her hand, but she hadn’t understood them as well as Lelouch had.

Now Suzaku paused again, because they were still in the wasteland. It seemed never-ending, and when he looked at Lelouch, he traced the dirt on the back of his once-white shirt with his eyes and thought, ‘Your country did this to my country…’.

But then Lelouch turned towards him and the smile was still there and he understood. It wasn’t just for Nunnally. It was for him too.

“Come on, Suzaku.” The Britannian prince put out his hand as Suzaku had once done for him, pulling him up the rock face on the day their games ended, guillotined by Britannia’s invasion.

They had watched the world change together.

“We have to keep walking.”

Suzaku returned the smile and, having good grip on Nunnally with one arm, reached out with his other hand and took Lelouch’s.

They walked through the wasteland together.

“Our countries did this to us,” Suzaku whispered eventually.

Lelouch’s reply didn’t fit Suzaku’s statement – but, in retrospect, somehow fit everything else.

“Don’t let go, Suzaku,” he said.

“…Originally, it was a traditional Japanese hot springs resort, but since… Hey! Lelouch!” Rivalz leaned right over the back of Lelouch’s seat and smacked him on the head with the brochure. “Listen to me!”

Lelouch barely reacted to the assault, grumbling something inaudible and sleepily batting away the brochure.

“Geez…” Rivalz retreated slightly, but folded his arms over the top of Lelouch’s seat. “You really need to get more sleep at night! You’re always nodding off everywhere – in class, at Student Council meetings, even on the coach…!”

He looked at Suzaku as he said it, since he was getting little no response from Lelouch himself; the Japanese boy was in the seat next to him, apparently less bothered about him sleeping than Rivalz was.

“Oh, Lulu’s an expert at sleeping in class,” Shirley put in, leaning across the coach aisle from where she was seated next to Nina. “I wonder how he maintains such good grades…”

“It’s exactly like Kallen Stadtfeld, though, right?” Rivalz asked by way of reply, looking now at Shirley. “She misses so much school, yet she’s pretty much top of the class.”

Shirley gave a nod.

“Well, she’s ill,” she said. “In fact, she couldn’t even come on this trip. Apparently her doctor said it would be too strenuous for her.”

Rivalz snorted.

“Bit of cold weather never hurt anyone,” he replied; then looked back at the brochure he was clutching. “Though why there would have been a hot spring in such a cold place of Area Eleven is beyond me…”

“Not all hot springs are outdoors,” Suzaku said, tilting his head to look up at him. “Well, originally it would have been outdoors, but in cold places they would be built around to make them indoor springs.”

“We’re not going for the hot springs, anyway,” Rivalz said morosely. “Stupid Geography trip…”

“Still, it’s a nice getaway for two days,” Shirley murmured. “No schoolwork…”

“Not for some people,” Rivalz said slyly, looking at Lelouch – who had well and truly gone back to sleep against the coach window. “That walk tomorrow is going to kill him. How many miles is it?”

“Four,” Nina supplied, fidgeting with one of her plaits. “That is, four there and four back.”

“So eight,” Rival cackled. “I can’t wait – though, frankly, I’m surprised he came at all.”

“The Geography teacher said she’d fail him if he skipped the trip,” Suzaku relayed, watching Rivalz’s grin widen further.

“It’s like his own personal hell!” he said gleefully, leaning over the seat again to prod at Lelouch. “Dibs on not carrying him when he collapses after half a mile!”

“Mr Cardemonde!” One of the teachers got out of her seat at the front of the coach and gestured accusingly at Rivalz. “Sit in your seat properly and stop behaving like a five year old! We’re almost there.”

Rivalz muttered to himself and slid back into his own seat, leaving Lelouch alone. Incidentally, Rivalz wasn’t the only member of their class making a racket, with groups of girls chattering and giggling and the all-male clique who made it their policy to be very “anti-Eleven” occupying the back seats and throwing a ball back and forwards to one another.

That Lelouch had managed to go to sleep was, all things considered, fairly impressive.

All the Student Council members were present bar three: Kallen, who hadn’t been allowed to come, Milly, who was in a higher class, and Nunnally, who was in a lower class but wouldn’t have been permitted to come anyway due to her disabilities. Suzaku was aware that Lelouch had tried to worm out of being made to go on the trip by protesting that he needed to look after Nunnally – but, unfortunately for Lelouch, every Ashford Academy teacher was aware that Nunnally had a nurse, Sayoko Shinozaki, to take the strain off her brother.

Suzaku was surprised that he’d actually been allowed to come himself, given his army duties. Lloyd had been a bit irritable regarding the whole thing, but Cecile had almost insisted that he go, signing the permission slip for him and personally putting it in his schoolbag to make sure that he didn’t lose or forget it.

So here he was on the Ashford Academy school coach with the rest of his class, sitting next to Lelouch – who, despite having demanded that Suzaku sit next to him, hadn’t really been brilliant company for the journey, merely bemoaning the fact that he was here at all before going to sleep. Suzaku had ended up talking more to Rivalz, sitting directly behind them, and Shirley, sitting across from them.

Nina still barely dared to look him in the eye.

Of course, her xenophobia was a sentiment shared with many other members of the Ashford Academy student body – in fact, Nina was really the least of Suzaku’s concerns on that front, given that, while she appeared intimidated by him, she did not turn her dislike to action, which was more than he could say for some of the others.

He’d never been able to get the words out of his shirt, the painted-on letters clinging to the material as though they believed in the hateful message just as much as those who had put it there did.

Having friends in people like Shirley, Rivalz and Milly made it tolerable. Having Lelouch and Nunnally back, knowing that they were alright, made it better still. Lelouch telling him to sit next to him, not because he wanted to talk to him but simply so no-one else could sit next to him, made him smile.

But it was still out there. The hate. The questioning of why he even thought himself deserving of being alive. It was on both sides – for Suzaku Kururugi was an Eleven and an Honorary Britannian.

Not Japanese. Not Britannian.

He turned his head to look out of the window and met Lelouch’s gaze. The dark-haired boy was wide awake now, watching Suzaku in silence. Suzaku looked back at him, feeling the sudden awkwardness of the situation crawl down his spine, trying to think of something to say other than the obvious, redundant “Oh, so you’re awake?”.

“Are we nearly there?” Lelouch asked boredly, breaking the silence himself and turning to look out of the window again.

“I, uh… yes, I think so,” Suzaku replied. “That’s what the teacher just said…”

Lelouch gave a little nod, pressing his forehead to the glass, and said nothing else. Suzaku watched him for a moment, having no idea why a sudden unexpected and unwelcome wall of awkwardness had surfaced between them, but nonetheless being very much aware of it.

“Are… are you okay?” he asked at length.

“Of course,” Lelouch replied, but his tone was clipped.

Suzaku shook his head.

“Still grouchy because of the walk tomorrow?” he asked with a smile.

Lelouch shot him a poisonous look over his shoulder, but didn’t get a chance to answer, for Rivalz suddenly sprang up over the back of his chair again and beat him over the head with the brochure a second time.

“Oh, so you’ll talk to Suzaku, but not me!” he said indignantly. “I wish Ms President was here – then you’d be sorry!”

All three teachers overseeing the trip rose this time, united in their simultaneous storming of “Mr Cardemonde!”.

—

“We’ll have to be blunt with you,” the Geography teacher said in the foyer, in which everyone was clustered with their various bags and cases. “Since this is a very small resort, a lot of you will have to share rooms.”

This announcement was met with mingled response from the students, the girls overall giving the impression of being less bothered by the news.

Another of the teachers took up a box of keys as the first pulled out a list.

“We’ve done it alphabetically. Those left over will have one of the smaller rooms to themselves.” She began to read off pairs of names as the keys were handed out – Rivalz was put with a blonde boy, Shirley with a brunette girl she knew from her swim team and Suzaku—

“There’s no way in hell I’m sharing a room with an Eleven!”

The boy who’d been allocated to share with Suzaku – broadly-built, dark blonde hair, name of Jason Kingsley – actually threw his room key on the floor of the foyer as he said it, perhaps as a dramatic expression of his disgust. He was one of the group of boys that had been at the back of the coach – likely even one of those who’d sprayed that awful message on Suzaku’s gym shirt.

“Mr Kingsley,” the first teacher said curtly, “please don’t be so immature. Mr Kururugi is an Honorary Britannian.” She went back to her list, paying little heed to Jason Kingsley and his tantrum.

“I mean it!” Jason spat, kicking his key across the floor. “Damned Elevens shouldn’t even be in Ashford to begin with! If my father knew I was being made to share with a Number—”

“I’m sorry if you don’t approve of it,” Suzaku interrupted calmly, picking up the key and offering it back to Jason, “but that’s the way it is.”

“That’s not for you to say, Eleven!” One of Jason’s buddies picked up the slack, knocking the key out of Suzaku’s upturned palm. “We make the rules – and Jay says he’s not sharing with you!”

“So clear off, Number!” another of the boys added, giving Suzaku a shove that didn’t hurt him but pushed him backwards a pace or two.

“Hey, back off!” Rivalz appeared at Suzaku’s side and folded his arms. “No wonder there’s all that fuss with the terrorists – they’re just sick of being pushed around by jerks like you!”

“If you sympathise so much, why don’t you go be an Honorary Eleven then, Cardemonde?” Jason sneered.

“Boys!” The third teacher broke between them and flapped his hands at them. “Get moving! Go to your rooms. We’ll be eating dinner in the dining room in twenty minutes.”

The group dispersed, Rivalz giving Suzaku a reassuring clap on the shoulder as he passed him. All that remained were people who still hadn’t received keys, Jason and Suzaku, the former glaring balefully at the latter as he glanced about for the key again.

Lelouch, who had just been given his own key, suddenly stepped level with him – and, in his other hand, was Jason’s room key. However, he kept hold of it and instead threw Jason the key that he had just received.

“Room twenty-two,” he said flatly. “You’re sharing with Callum Last. He is, as far as I know, one hundred per cent Britannian.” His purple eyes narrowed. “Of course, that doesn’t automatically ensure that he’ll be a good room-mate.”

Jason Kingsley opened his mouth but clearly had no comeback, for he grabbed up his bag, threw it over his hefty shoulder and stomped away.

“Sorry I didn’t step in sooner,” Lelouch muttered as soon as the Britannian boy was out of earshot. “I had to get my own key so I could swap it with him. I figured Rivalz might have something to say, anyway.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Lelouch.”

“Of course I did,” Lelouch said absently as he went to get his bag.

“No, you…” Suzaku gave a little sigh. “I don’t want you and Rivalz making yourselves unpopular.”

Lelouch gave a snort.

“Who wants to be popular with idiots like them?”

“They might start picking on you too.”

Lelouch rolled his eyes at him.

“Are you done?” he asked irritably. “Here, if you want to make it up to me, you can carry this.”

He handed Suzaku his bag without waiting for a reply and left the foyer. Suzaku merely gave a little shake of his head, got a better grip on Lelouch’s bag, picked up his own and followed.

“We’re in room eighteen,” he said, almost catching him up.

“I know. It says on the key.” Lelouch jingled it from its metal loop as he made the reply and shot Suzaku a little smirk over his shoulder.

He looked very pleased with himself – most likely because he’d gotten someone else to carry his bag for him.

He twirled the key deftly over in his fingers as he reached the door of Room 18, unlocking it with a neat click and stepping in, leaving the door open for Suzaku to follow. When Suzaku entered the room as well, gently kicking the door shut behind him, he found Lelouch standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, eyes fixated on something behind the wall of the en suite bathroom.

“Looks like you made a lucky escape,” Lelouch said at length, looking sidelong at Suzaku. “From sharing with Jason Kingsley, I mean.”

Suzaku blinked.

“I did?”

Lelouch nodded and tilted his head towards the object he’d been studying so critically.

“It’s a double bed,” he said expressionlessly.

At around 11pm, after dinner and an hour or two of lazing around in the lounge area of the resort (during which Rivalz was told off no less than three times for throwing sweet wrappers into the open fire to watch them shrivel up in the intense heat), they were all packed off to bed with strict instructions to wear warm clothes for the following day’s walk and a warning that they were leaving at 9am.

“Oh, it won’t be that bad,” Suzaku sighed, shutting the bedroom door as Lelouch went and threw himself face-down on the bed like a dying swan.

“Alright for you to say, Mr Trained Soldier,” Lelouch muttered blackly into the bedsheets. “But for us mere mortals, eight miles is a lot!”

“You’re the only one complaining about it, Lelouch.”

“That’s because I’m the only one the teacher forced to come on this trip!”

“That’s because you’re the only one who tried to squirm out of it.”

“Whose side are you on?” Lelouch asked bitterly, rolling over onto his back; he reached up and pulled one of the pillows over his head. “It’s no good – I’ll have to fake my own death…”

“Hey… you’re not actually trying to suffocate yourself, are you?” Suzaku asked, coming closer to the bed.

Lelouch lifted the pillow again and glared out at him from beneath it.

“Of course not, idiot,” he snapped. “I said I was going to fake my own death.”

“Right.” Suzaku arched an eyebrow. “Well, while you consider exactly how you’re going to do that, I’m going to go use the bathroom first.”

Lelouch snorted and let the pillow drop back onto his face again. Suzaku left him to his sulking, rifled through his bag for his toothbrush and went into the en suite bathroom. As he brushed his teeth, he thought that he wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Lelouch managed to escape going on the walk yet – he could be extremely devious when he badly wanted his own way. He couldn’t pretend to be sick, as the teacher who’d made him come on the trip in the first place would see straight through the act, but although Suzaku couldn’t see quite how else he’d do it, he admitted that he was interested to see if Lelouch managed to pull off fleeing his fate.

“You know,” he said as he emerged from the bathroom again (finding that Lelouch hadn’t moved at all), “it’s a shame that all the apothecaries close so early in these parts. I’m sure you could have gotten hold of some kind of sleeping potion that only gives the simulation of death.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you learned something in English Literature,” Lelouch retorted venomously, throwing off the pillow and sitting up. He got off the bed and stalked past Suzaku towards the bathroom, though paused long enough in the threshold to reinstate his usual haughty poise and fling “A plague on both your houses!” at the other boy.

Suzaku met the Romeo and Juliet line with a smile and a little shake of his head, which seemed to irritate Lelouch even further, for he said nothing more but shut the bathroom door rather loudly behind him.

Not that Suzaku knew exactly what kind of reaction he’d been expecting by his quoting of Shakespeare, anyway.

He went to the wardrobe and opened it up, finding what he was looking for on the top shelf within it; then went to the bed and took off two of the pillows, putting the whole lot on the floor. He started to undress, unbuttoning and unbuckling his Ashford uniform jacket and starting on his shirt.

The bathroom door opened and Lelouch emerged just as he shrugged his open shirt off; the Britannian boy, who had already changed into his pyjamas in the bathroom, immediately averted his gaze.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t realise you were changing…”

Suzaku turned to him, blinking in surprise.

“Lelouch, it’s fine…” He smiled. “Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen me shirtless before. We used to go swimming in the river, remember?”

“That was years ago.” Lelouch still didn’t look at him as he crossed towards the bed to put down his folded clothes. “We were little kids.”

“I know that.” Suzaku gave a sudden impish grin. “I sure hope your swimming has improved since then.”

Lelouch gave another snort and turned away from Suzaku, allowing him to finish changing as he preoccupied himself with putting his clothes away. Suzaku watched him as he undressed, noting that he still had all his neat little habits from seven years ago, right down to the way he smoothed out any creases in his clothes even after he’d put them in the drawer. Of course, Suzaku was careful with his own clothing – he had to be, since the Britannian Army didn’t tolerate any soldier who couldn’t even take care of their uniform, but Lelouch was just on another level.

Of course, a lot of other things about him had changed. Before… he had been nice-looking, but it had been a purely childish charm – now he was beautiful, which was much less an opinion and more of a universal, unanimous agreement. Before, he had been angry and scared, trying to fend for himself and his little sister in a world that had all but turned its back on them both, and it had been obvious – now, if those feeling still existed within him, they were well-hidden beneath the flawless, friendly-but-distant mask of Lelouch Lamperouge.

But still… seeing him now, clothed in royal-blue, long-sleeved silky pyjamas that looked just a little bit too big for his thin frame as he distractedly chased every crease out of his folded school shirt, Suzaku knew that the little boy he’d (eventually) made friends with all those years ago was still in there somewhere.

(Though he hoped that the little boy Lelouch had made friends with all those years ago wasn’t still inside him.)

Eventually Lelouch’s assault on his school uniform seemed complete and he rose, turning back to Suzaku.

“Where are your pyjamas?” he asked crossly, not bothering to prudishly look away this time.

“I didn’t bring any.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really wear them that much, to be honest.”

“But it’s freezing here, Suzaku.”

“Not in here, it isn’t.”

The idea of someone sleeping in just their underwear seemed to annoy Lelouch more than Suzaku would have expected – though, really, it just made it all the more amusing to watch him flounder for another barb to hurl at Suzaku’s minimalist sleeping attire.

In the end, though, he simply gave a huffy sigh and went to the bed.

“Oh, do whatever you want, idiot,” he muttered darkly.

His regime of “letting Suzaku do whatever he wanted” did, however, soon screech to an abrupt halt as he heard him rustling around on the floor next to the bed with pillows and the extra blankets he’d found in the wardrobe.

“What are you doing?” Lelouch demanded, pausing in pulling back the covers of the bed.

“Huh?” Suzaku looked up at him. “Oh, I’m going to sleep down here.”

It seemed to take Lelouch longer to formulate an answer to this than usual, but even when he eventually spoke, all he asked was “Why?” in a very end-of-rope manner.

“Well, I assume that you don’t really want to share a bed with me,” Suzaku said lightly, going back to arranging his nest of pillows and blankets.

“I…” Lelouch kneaded wearily at his forehead. “It’s a double bed!”

“Lelouch, it’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ve slept in much worse places than a hotel room floor. Trained soldier, remember?”

“Yes, but…” Lelouch shook his head incredulously at him. “Suzaku, we’ve shared a bed before.”

“That was years ago,” Suzaku said absently. “We were little kids.”

Lelouch didn’t take kindly to having his own argument thrown back in his face word-for-word; he looked at Suzaku without speaking for a long moment, then went back to pulling back the bedsheets, albeit more aggressively.

“Whatever,” he muttered, his tone clipped; he got into bed and rolled over away from Suzaku to face the wall.

Suzaku paused to look at him for a moment, bewildered. Seriously, there was just no pleasing Lelouch sometimes – he’d thought that his giving up the bed to sleep on the floor so that Lelouch could have the whole thing to himself would have been something the Britannian boy would have both welcomed and been very grateful for.

Apparently not.

Still, Suzaku went on with making his own bed up on the floor. It was too late now, he’d already annoyed him – and the young solider didn’t want to share the bed with him if he was going to sulk.

He got his blankets and pillows in order, turned out the light and curled up under them. Suzaku knew how to make a bed out of pretty much anything, so it was actually quite comfortable. Of course, Lelouch might not have agreed, but Lelouch was exactly the kind of person who’d be able to feel a pea beneath twenty mattresses.

“Goodnight, Lelouch,” Suzaku said to the silent room, after debating a moment.

No answer. He couldn’t be asleep already. He was most likely just seething under the covers.

Suzaku shrugged to himself. He couldn’t do anything more. Even if he went and got in the bed now, Lelouch would probably shove him out. Or try to, at least – Suzaku doubted very much that he’d actually be able to physically push him out.

It was well over fifteen minutes later, when Suzaku was almost asleep, that the pillow came crashing down on his skull, jolting him awake. He sat bolt upright, heart thudding with shock, and looked around wildly, eyes quickly getting used to the dark.

“Lelouch?” he asked sleepily, picking out the dark shape of the other boy sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

There was still no answer, but moments later Lelouch reached out and flicked on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room with a dull golden glow. Suzaku shielded his eyes against it initially, but when they readjusted and he lowered his arm, he found that Lelouch was still gazing at him impassively from his higher position.

Eventually the violet-eyed boy threw back the covers on the side of the bed closest to Suzaku, baring the soft white mattress beneath.

“Get in the bed, Suzaku,” he said coldly, not taking his eyes off him.

It wasn’t worth it. It simply wasn’t worth arguing with him over something so trivial. Suzaku obediently rose, picked up both the pillow Lelouch had thrown at him and one for himself and clambered into the bed. Lelouch averted his gaze as he did so, looking straight ahead at the dresser opposite.

“I’m sorry,” Suzaku said eventually, putting the pillows back where they belonged. “I… I didn’t think you’d be offended.”

“I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to share a bed with a xenophobic idiot like Jason Kingsley,” Lelouch replied stonily, folding his arms and still not looking at him, “but you know we’re not all like him. Milly, Shirley, Rivalz, Nunnally and I…”

“No, I know, I just—”

“Why didn’t you want to share with me?” Lelouch suddenly turned his gaze back on him, his amethyst eyes icy. “And if you say it’s because you’re an “Eleven” and I’m a Britannian, I swear I’ll never speak to you again.”

Suzaku shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know, I just thought… well, we’re both seventeen and I figured you just wouldn’t want to share. It’s not that I…” Suzaku gave a sigh. “What I’m trying to say is that I really didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry, okay?”

“You already said that.”

“Well…” Suzaku trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say; Lelouch tired of glaring at him and went back to looking at the dresser across the room from them.

“Goodnight, then,” Suzaku murmured eventually, closing his eyes as he sank to the mattress on his side and pulling the covers over himself.

“Goodnight,” Lelouch replied frostily; but he didn’t move, remaining sitting up against the headboard.

After a long moment, Suzaku opened his eyes again.

“You’re still angry,” he said, starting to get a little irritated himself; though he didn’t turn to Lelouch and didn’t rise.

There was another long bout of icy silence; but eventually Lelouch sighed.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said softly. “Well… I am, a little bit, but…”

“But what?” Suzaku pressed, sitting up again and looking at Lelouch.

“It’s them,” Lelouch replied. “People like them. I can’t stand the way they treat you, or the way they treat any of the other Japanese, or—”

“Lelouch.”

“But I know what it’s like, Suzaku!” Lelouch snapped, refusing to be silenced by him. “I know what it’s like to be hated because you’re different. When Nunnally and I first came to Japan, I felt like we couldn’t trust anyone. I knew they all hated us. They hated us because we were Britannian—”

“I hated you because you were Britannian,” Suzaku interrupted again. “And then I learned that I was wrong. People do learn, Lelouch. You have to trust that.”

“No.” Lelouch shook his head, finally meeting Suzaku’s gaze again. “People only learn what you teach them. Jason Kingsley was taught to look down on “Elevens” by his parents. Britannians were taught that they were better than everyone else by their ruler. People won’t learn things that are wrong unless they are taught them – and when that happens, then you have to teach them everything that’s right, as well.”

So it was still there. The anger. Suzaku looked at the seventeen-year-old Lelouch Lamperouge and saw in him the ten-year-old Lelouch Vi Britannia, who had stood against the bleeding sun in that wasteland they had crossed hand-in-hand and vowed that he would destroy Britannia.

He remembered that day. He remembered that he had been left by himself when men in black suits and sunglasses came and took Lelouch and Nunnally away. He remembered Lelouch protesting and almost crying when he was told that Suzaku Kururugi was being left behind. He remembered standing in the dust and watching the car pull away, holding Lelouch’s gaze as long as he could.

He remembered thinking that it was unfair that they had made it across the corpse-cluttered hell together, filthy and tired, hungry and thirsty, even managing to bring with them a little girl who could neither see nor walk, only to be pulled apart at the other side by those who were responsible for it.

“Suzaku?”

Suzaku blinked, coming back to his senses. Both Lelouch’s expression and tone had softened.

“What?” Suzaku asked offishly.

“Are you crying?” But Lelouch didn’t wait for a verbal answer, reaching up and wiping at Suzaku’s wet eyes with the cuff of his pyjama shirt.

“Of course I’m not crying,” Suzaku replied with a weak grin.

“Liar.” Lelouch frowned. “…I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“You didn’t. I was thinking about something else.”

“Romeo and Juliet again?” Lelouch asked dryly.

“No, I…” Suzaku sank into silence again. He didn’t think he really wanted to get into this. Not right now – maybe not ever.

“Suzaku?” Lelouch persisted.

“You know,” Suzaku said – blurting it out quickly, quietly, “when I… well, that day they came and took you and Nunnally away, I thought… that was it, that I’d never see you again.”

Lelouch was silent for a moment – clearly he hadn’t been expecting that as Suzaku’s answer.

“It seemed that way, didn’t it?” he said finally, his own voice soft.

“Then I heard you were dead.”

Lelouch said nothing to that at all.

“Then,” Suzaku said, his voice barely audible, “you came back.”

Lelouch looked away.

“Would you rather I’d stayed dead, Suzaku?” he murmured.

“Of course not!” Suzaku grabbed his wrist as he said it to assert the meaning of it. “Lelouch, when I saw you, when I realised that it was you—”

“I thought you were dead, too.” Lelouch pulled his thin wrist out of Suzaku’s grip. “I didn’t want to think it at first, and I suppose I was young enough to fool myself. Whenever Nunnally asked me if I thought you were okay, I always lied and said yes. But we left you behind, and in the end… I came to the conclusion that no-one had come to get you and that you’d died alone out there, and I knew… that if you’d died thinking that nobody cared, you’d have been both right and wrong. Japan didn’t care. Britannia didn’t care. But I did.”

“But I’m alive, Lelouch.” Suzaku took hold of the other boy’s thin shoulders this time, physically turning him towards himself.

“So am I, Suzaku,” Lelouch replied despondently, meeting his gaze again.

“I know.” Suzaku nodded, hesitated, then slipped his hands past Lelouch’s shoulders and wrapped his arms around the Britannian boy’s slender frame, pulling him against him in an embrace. “…I’m so glad.”

He felt Lelouch initially stiffen in his grasp but didn’t let go; moments later, the smaller boy relaxed into his hold and tightly bound his own arms around Suzaku’s back. He didn’t say anything, didn’t make a sound at all, but after a while of being still in the Japanese boy’s hold, Suzaku felt him shaking slightly.

“Are you crying?” Suzaku asked, smiling a little at the irony of the turn-around as he disentangled Lelouch’s arms from himself and pushed him back a little.

“No,” Lelouch said tautly, fiercely wiping at his eyes himself.

“Liar.”

“Shut up, idiot.” Lelouch batted at him with all the ferocity of a particularly tired-out kitten.

Suzaku laughed a little; but when it died away he realised that he didn’t really know what he’d been laughing at and that he and Lelouch were still very, very close.

So close that they…

He didn’t think about it. Not before it happened. Not while it was happening. He had no idea which of them had leaned in first. He thought Lelouch might have been the one to accommodate and tilt his head, but he couldn’t be quite sure.

But this wasn’t years ago. This was now. And they weren’t little kids anymore.

He felt Lelouch threading his fingers in his hair, tangling in his curls. That was the first move. So he thought it would be okay to touch Lelouch back. And, at first, Lelouch didn’t seem to mind him trailing his hands down his throat and running them over his chest; but when Suzaku went to the buttons of his blue pyjama shirt and slipped the first one undone—

Lelouch broke the kiss abruptly and jerked out of his grasp. He gazed at Suzaku breathlessly for a moment, the colour flaring in his usually-pale face.

“I’m sorry,” Suzaku burst out, kicking himself mentally. “I-I wasn’t going to—”

“It’s okay, Suzaku.” Lelouch averted his gaze, reached over him, flicked off the lamp and darted back to his own side of the bed, curling up under the covers. “Goodnight.”

Suzaku sat in the dark, furious with himself. He hadn’t been trying to undress Lelouch, he’d just wanted to touch him beyond the barrier of material, but he knew he shouldn’t have been so forward. He’d scared him off, and as if things hadn’t been on the path to being awkward tomorrow morning anyway…

He decided that Lelouch probably really didn’t want him in the bed anymore and pushed back the covers, making to get out—

Without saying a word, Lelouch reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

Suzaku lay back and pulled the bedsheets over himself once more. He looked up at the ceiling in the dark, feeling Lelouch’s fingers still clutching at him, and smiled.

“Goodnight, Lelouch,” he whispered.

They were closer come morning. Suzaku opened his eyes at the shrill serenade of the alarm and found Lelouch facing him, only a few inches from him, still asleep. He lay still for a few moments, observant of their nearness, Lelouch’s unconsciousness dissipating any awkwardness – but eventually the alarm clock picked up its pace and he was forced to sit up and reach out to turn it off.

He glanced back at Lelouch, who still hadn’t moved, and wondered if he really hadn’t heard the alarm or was just pretending to still be asleep.

Suzaku got up, leaned over and shook Lelouch to remedy either his actually being asleep or his pretending to be asleep.

“Come on, Lelouch. It’s seven-thirty.”

He’d forgotten how grouchy Lelouch could be in the morning – the Britannian boy opened his eyes just enough to shoot Suzaku a truly filthy look before pulling the covers up over his head.

Suzaku sighed and left him, going to the bathroom. Well, it was probably a combination of him not being much of a morning person and the whole reason he was being made to get up in the first place…

Lelouch was, however, sitting up in bed when he returned, typing something into his phone.

“Rivalz just texted me,” he said blandly, not looking up. “He said he’ll come by in fifteen minutes and go down to breakfast with us.”

“Oh. Okay.” Suzaku gave a nod, knelt down by his bag and started to dig around in it, unearthing the clothes he’d brought for the day’s walk.

Lelouch fidgeted with his phone for another long moment, then eventually slid it closed and pushed back the sheets completely, stepping lightly out of bed and padding barefoot across the floor towards his own bag.

Suzaku lifted his head, pausing in his own task to watch Lelouch go about his own. At the moment his fine dark hair was sticking out at odd angles, messy from sleep – it was almost comforting to see him looking less than perfect, even for just a moment. That said, Suzaku got the feeling that if Lelouch had had to share with Callum Last instead, he might not have been so at ease wandering around with bed-hair, but in front of Suzaku, he didn’t seem to mind.

Suzaku was far from insulted. In fact, it was a good sign. It meant that Lelouch was comfortable with him—

Even if things were, as he’d predicted, slightly strained between them right now. Lelouch hadn’t looked at him at all except to glare at him.

“Did you bring a coat?” Lelouch asked abruptly, breaking the silence and actually making Suzaku jump.

“I, uh… yeah.” Suzaku fished it out from his bag and held it up to show him. “Here it is.”

Lelouch gave a nod, gathered up his own clothes and went to the bathroom.

“Good,” he said curtly, and he shut the door.

Suzaku gave a little shake of his head and went back to taking out his clothes so that he could dress. Lelouch and his picky little ways – Suzaku knew that he’d only asked about the coat in case the Japanese boy had opted not to bring one the way he hadn’t brought his pyjamas. Maybe it was just because he’d spent, since the death of Marianne, seven years looking after his little sister, who’d always relied on him more than any other girl her age would due to her condition, but it was amusing to see little nuances of that kind of behaviour surface now and then from beneath the cool, blasé façade of Lelouch Lamperouge.

Lelouch took ages in the bathroom, but when he emerged, he was fully-dressed and perfectly immaculate, every ebony hair now obeying his orders. He put his folded pyjamas in the drawer next to his school uniform, went to retrieve his phone from the bed, then came over to Suzaku and fixed his collar for him in a rather irritated manner.

“Sorry,” Suzaku murmured, standing still to let him adjust it.

“It’s okay,” Lelouch replied distractedly.

“I meant… about last night.”

Lelouch paused.

“That’s okay, too,” he said at length.

“No, it’s…” Suzaku took Lelouch’s wrists as he withdrew his hands after putting the collar right, making him finally meet his gaze again. “I just don’t want… things to be awkward between us over something so stupid. I mean, I… I only just got you back, and I want things to be like they were before, when—”

“When Japan hadn’t been taken over by Britannia?” Lelouch interrupted expressionlessly. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“I mean,” Suzaku pressed, ignoring him, “that I want our friendship to be like it was when we were kids.”

Lelouch raised his eyebrows at him and slipped his wrists from his grasp.

“Well, that seems a rather depressing way of putting it,” he said.

“Why?” Suzaku asked in surprise. “That summer with you and Nunnally… that was probably the best time of my life—”

“But we were all you had. And you… aside from Nunnally, you were all I had. Suzaku, that summer was wonderful, and I’ll never forget it, but we both have more than that now.” Lelouch shook his head at him. “You can’t live in the past.”

“Then what?” Suzaku asked quietly. “If it’s all meaningless—”

“That’s not what I said. Of course it all means something. If you want the future, you have to have the past – you have to learn from it. Sometimes you have to make it your reason to fight. Don’t you remember, Suzaku? I told you not to let go.” Lelouch offered his hand to Suzaku now, as he had back then. “But holding on… isn’t the same as living in the past. I don’t want our friendship to be the same – because we aren’t the same.”

“But—”

Lelouch closed in on him again and kissed him. Suzaku floundered, taken by surprise, not sure what to do with his hands. In the end he lowered them, about to settle them at Lelouch’s waist—

There was a knock at the door and Lelouch broke from him immediately.

“Rivalz,” he muttered, and he went to open the door, leaving Suzaku standing in the middle of the room, stunned.

“Well, well, Mr Lamperouge,” Rivalz drawled on Lelouch opening the door, “I see you’re dressed and ready for the walk like a good little boy.”

“Shut up,” Lelouch responded icily. “You know as well as I do that there’s no way the teacher would believe me if I suddenly and strangely came down with something that would prevent me from going on the walk.”

“It’s called ‘Crying Wolf’,” Rivalz mused agreeably, looking over Lelouch’s shoulder. “Ready, Suzaku?”

“Hm?” Suzaku blinked at him. “Oh, yeah, right.” He pulled himself together and went to join Lelouch and Rivalz at the door.

“Let’s go, then.” Rivalz led the way down the corridor towards the dining room, his hands behind his head. “How did you two sleep? I wasn’t great, myself – I’m sharing with Alex Carter, nice enough guy, you know, but hell, he snores like anything, it was seriously unbelievable… I feel okay at the moment but I bet it’ll kick in later.” He leaned back to nudge Lelouch sharply in the ribs. “Looks like you’ll have some company when you’re trudging three miles behind everyone else.”

“I look forward to it,” Lelouch replied acidly.

Rivalz only grinned good-naturedly and turned his bright gaze on Suzaku, who was walking next to Lelouch rather silently.

“How about you?” he asked, arresting Suzaku’s otherwise-averted attention. “Lucky Lelouch was able to swap his key, otherwise you’d have had to share with that idiot Kingsley.”

Suzaku gave an absent nod but didn’t say anything; Rivalz frowned and looked at them both in turn.

“Hey, did you two have a fight?” he asked, turning and walking backwards so that he could gauge their reactions to his questions. “Because I know why he’s grumpy, but seriously, Suzaku, you’re usually much more cheerful than this.”

“Of course we didn’t have a fight,” Lelouch snapped. “Do you really think we’re so childish that we can’t be left in a room together overnight without arguing?”

Rivalz shrugged.

“Well then, I guess your bad mood has just rubbed off on Suzaku, too,” he sighed, turning around again to walk properly. “It’s a shame, he was always such a nice young man…”

Suzaku actually couldn’t help but laugh slightly at that, but Lelouch and Rivalz were still idly squabbling when the three of them entered the dining room to get breakfast; Shirley waved to them from a table where she, her room-mate and Nina were already sitting, gesturing to the three free seats at it.

“Awesome,” Rivalz said in a gleeful tone, leading the way over the breakfast buffet, “we don’t even have to battle for seats – Shirley saved us some…”

Their path to the plates was, however, blocked by Jason Kingsley and his little gang.

“Guys, the buffet is that way,” Rivalz said flatly, pointing behind them.

“Shut up, Cardemonde,” Jason replied, not even looking at Rivalz; instead his gaze was fixated on Suzaku, the rest of his little group grew closer behind him. “So, Eleven, what was it like sucking Britannian cock?”

Suzaku blinked at him.

“Wh-what?”

“Well, he seemed pretty desperate about sharing a room with you,” Jason went on, nodding at Lelouch, “and I can think of only one reason why any Britannian would want to share with trash like you.”

“No, you’ve got it all—” Suzaku started.

“Leave Suzaku alone,” Lelouch interrupted icily, addressing Jason.

“Or what?” Jason asked dismissively, not looking at Lelouch either. “You’ve got a lot of nerve telling me what to do, Lamperouge, when you spend your time hanging around with Elevens. Even just shagging them is—”

“Mr Kingsley, another word and you’ll be banned from the walk,” the male teacher said in a hard voice, descending into the little group out of nowhere. “All of you, go and get something to eat or you’ll be walking on an empty stomach.”

Jason Kingsley hesitated, then gave a shrug and sloped off with his little gaggle of followers. The teacher gestured sarcastically towards the buffet to Rivalz, Lelouch and Suzaku and went on his way.

“Well, look at that, Lelouch,” Rivalz observed. “There is a way out of going on the walk after all – just be a racist jerk to Suzaku.” He frowned. “Though, that said, for you they’d probably double the amount of miles.”

“It’s alright,” Lelouch replied gloomily. “There’s still time to throw myself off the roof.”

Rivalz gave a mockingly-morose nod and went to get a plate. Lelouch started to follow him, but Suzaku grabbed at his sleeve.

“Lelouch—” he began worriedly.

“It’s alright.” Lelouch smiled a sour smile that wasn’t directed at him. “They don’t know anything.”

—

In the end, Lelouch didn’t throw himself off anything and was forced to endure the walk.

At first, they – Shirley, Rivalz, Suzaku and Nina – all stayed with him at the back of the rough line of students, but eventually they began to taper off. Shirley got tired of him answering her questions with irritable one-word answers and went on ahead with Nina, the girl she was sharing her room with and some other girls from her swim team. Suzaku and Rivalz tried to stay with him but kept unintentionally leaving him behind when he lagged.

While Suzaku wasn’t surprised that Lelouch complained the whole time (“If he stopped wasting his breath whining, he wouldn’t be nearly so tired,” Rivalz muttered confidentially to Suzaku – not that there’d been any need to whisper, for Lelouch was quite a way behind them), he couldn’t help but remember the day they had walked amongst the dead, carrying Nunnally between them.

It had been miles and miles; hot and dirty and rotting and they’d only been ten years old, but Lelouch hadn’t complained once.

They’d been walking for several hours, making notes on their clipboards and taking photographs and drawing sketches, when they came upon the frozen lake. The teachers huddled together and fussed over their maps for a moment, and then the male teacher went to test how thick the ice was.

“If we cross in single file, it should be safe,” he decided; but went first nonetheless to test the theory. He made it across unscathed and beckoned to the class. “Just watch your step at the middle,” he called. “It’s a little thinner there.”

The other two teachers herded everyone across in a neat line (“Mr Cardemonde! No skating!”) and assembled at the other side, starting a quick headcount.

“Hey!” Rivalz said suddenly, glancing around. “Where’s Lelouch? Wasn’t he just with us?”

One of the female teachers picked up on his question and started to scan the crowd of students.

“Where’s Lelouch Lamperouge?” she demanded.

“He must have been left behind again,” Shirley said, going to the edge and looking out across the frozen lake.

The teacher rounded on Rivalz and Suzaku.

“The last time I saw him, he was with you two!”

“The last time we saw him, he was with us!” Rivalz said defensively.

“There he is!” Shirley chirped, pointing across the ice. She waved her hands to get his attention. “Lulu! Come on!”

“Lamperouge!” the teacher stormed. “Hurry up, for god’s sake!” She turned to the rest of the students and gestured to them to keep moving. “The rest of you get going… Miss Fenette, get away from the ice, please.”

Shirley stepped back next to Rivalz and Suzaku, still waving.

“Come on, Lulu!” she called. “We’re waiting for you!”

“Where the hell has he been?” Rivalz said incredulously, watching Lelouch start onto the ice after a moment of looking at it critically. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but it appears he actually does get slower if you don’t pay any attention to him… Come on, Lelouch!”

“I hope the ice hasn’t weakened too much from us all walking across it,” Nina put in quietly from where she was standing a further few paces back.

“Eh, someone like Lelouch wouldn’t be the one to break the ice,” Rivalz said dismissively—

And as though for bitter irony, the ice shattered just as Rivalz said it and Lelouch went under.

Shirley screamed. Several of the students came haring back to the ice at the sound of it, wondering why she’d shrieked and why the teacher was having to restrain her from running out onto the ice.

“Let go!” Shirley screeched. “I’m a good swimmer!”

“You’ll freeze to death!” The teacher threw Shirley back onto the bank and looked out across the lake, now punctured in the middle, as the other two teachers came to join her.

There was no movement at all from the lake.

“Someone do something!” Rivalz burst out. “He’s going to drown!”

“He won’t have drowned yet, he may still surface,” the male teacher said distractedly. “It’s too dangerous to send someone to— Kururugi!”

In all the time they’d been dealing with Shirley and flustering about what to do, Suzaku had pulled off his coat and scarf and dropped everything else he’d been carrying; and now he bolted past them all onto the ice, ignoring their furious yells of his name and their reprimands of his actions.

“He’s a soldier,” Rivalz said firmly, grabbing one of the female teachers by her coat sleeve. “He’s trained for stuff like this.”

There was nothing any of them could do to stop him, anyway; he plunged into the icy water through the hole that had spread and cracked further by his approach and was gone.

Rivalz went to pick up Shirley, who was sobbing, as the rest of the class all clustered curiously around the ice, murmuring amongst themselves. Even Jason Kingsley seemed a bit rattled.

What seemed like an eternity passed. One by one the students fell into a spellbound hush and only the bitter wind was audible. The frightening, alien uncertainty ran untapped through them all.

And then Suzaku broke the surface. He managed to haul himself out of the water, and when he did, gasping for breath, it was clear that he’d dragged Lelouch out with him. He allowed himself barely a moment for recovery, picking Lelouch up under his back and knees and bringing him to the bank, some way away from the crowd. However, they didn’t take the hint and flocked towards him.

“Kururugi,” one of the teachers began briskly, “is he—?”

“Get back, all of you,” Suzaku snapped, not even looking at them as he wrenched at the zip of Lelouch’s wet coat. “He’s not breathing.”

He got Lelouch’s coat open, giving him better access to his chest, and bent over him, pressing their mouths together to breathe life back into him. On seeing how serious it was, the group of students and teachers backed off again, giving Suzaku room to try and revive him.

Lelouch wasn’t responding to his attempts. He just lay on the snowy bank, cold and lifeless, wet hair plastered against his pale forehead and his lips a beautiful shade of blue. After three systematic, calm, controlled cycles of breathing into him and pushing against his chest to try and make his lungs catch the breath, all of which failed, Suzaku started to panic.

“Come on, Lelouch,” he muttered desperately, lapsing into Japanese, pushing the heels of his hands against the unconscious boy’s ribcage. “Wake up, you have to wake up…” Tears began to well and the heat of them on his freezing face stung. “You have to live… remember, we just had that talk last night about us each thinking the other of us was dead, and we were both wrong, and you can’t… you can’t just go and throw that all away now… I won’t lose you again, so wake up!”

He withdrew. Lelouch still lay unresponsively on the snow-covered grass. Any longer and, if he woke up, it would be brain-damaged—

No. Who was he kidding? Any longer and he wouldn’t wake up at all.

Suzaku took one final breath and gave it to Lelouch, quicker off the mark this time, and harder, too, in ramming his hands against his lungs—

Lelouch jerked under his touch and coughed, the sound of it garbled, liquid-filled; Suzaku lifted him and turned him over, giving him a smack on the back to help him cough up the water in his lungs. Lelouch spluttered and shivered, but despite how miserable he seemed, Suzaku smiled weakly.

He was alive.

“Lulu!”

“Miss Fenette! Mr Cardemonde, please… all of you, we don’t need an audience. Keep walking.” The male teacher, who had spoken, lowered himself down next to Suzaku as the other two teachers shepherded the rest of the class away. “I’ve called the resort. Someone is going to come by car on the mountain road to collect the two of you and take you back. You’ll have to go straight to the First Aid wing.”

Suzaku gave a wordless nod, beginning to shiver as the coldness began to reacquaint itself with his adrenaline-sapped body. Rivalz brought him his coat before being moved along with Shirley and Nina, but Suzaku wrapped it around Lelouch instead.

Lelouch seemed on the verge of passing out again, but clung with wet fingers to Suzaku’s soaked sweater.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to walk a little way to get to the road,” the teacher said when only the three of them remained. “I’m very sorry, but we’re kind of out of the way… We hadn’t expected an accident like this to happen.”

“Accident…” Suzaku’s green eyes narrowed as he rose, pulling Lelouch up with him – the Britannian boy could barely stand, his knees buckling under his own weight. “He nearly died.”

“I am aware of that.” The teacher got walking, leading the way.

“Then why didn’t you do anything?!” Suzaku burst out.

“What could we have done? Only someone like you – someone trained to deal with this kind of situation – could have gone in after him and not gotten themselves killed as well.” The teacher didn’t look at him. “I suppose it’s a very good thing that you were here, Mr Kururugi.”

“Well, you can thank Her Highness Princess Euphemia Li Britannia for that small mercy,” Suzaku replied stiffly.

“If you put it that way,” the teacher said absently, “then we owe nothing to an Eleven in this situation.”

Suzaku stopped, still holding Lelouch up, watching the man – a teacher – walk on ahead.

Because Lelouch had said that people didn’t learn the wrong thing unless they were taught. The same went for the right things, but…

“I’m sorry,” Suzaku said softly, “but I appear to have taught you nothing.”

He’d been braced for the impact of the water’s coldness but it was still a shock to the system, nerve endings alighting and shrinking back from the sensation as he was completely submerged beneath the lake’s frozen surface.

Knowing that time was against him, the startlingly-low temperature robbing him of oxygen faster, he opened his eyes and looked around in the bleak murkiness, the underwater area dark due to the layer of ice over the top of it. He found Lelouch, however, unconscious and slowly sinking. He hadn’t tried to swim at all – he must have simply taken in a lungful of water when the ice broke beneath him.

Suzaku flipped himself over and pushed off against the ice, driving himself towards Lelouch, having to swim the last few feet in order to grab his wrist and drag his limp form towards himself. He got a better grip on Lelouch around his chest and kicked upwards, pulling them both towards the surface with all of his strength, his taxed lungs beginning to scream for oxygen, his whole body aching, his vision beginning to darken even as the light from the surface grew nearer and brighter—

Suzaku leaned his forehead against the shower wall, taking a break from being submerged under the hot powerful stream. He’d been sent to have a long hot shower immediately on their arrival back to the resort to get himself warmed up. Lelouch was in a far worse way than him, having lapsed back into unconsciousness in the car – he was being tended to out in the main part of the First Aid wing whilst Suzaku showered in the bathroom area.

Even as his skin reacted delightedly to the gush of hot water raining down on it, Suzaku was strangely devoid of feeling within. Lelouch was alive, but… but things could so easily be different. He had almost not revived, and if… Suzaku hadn’t been there at all, no-one would have saved him. He’d have drowned and claimed that frozen lake as his grave.

And when Suzaku thought that Lloyd almost hadn’t let him come—

No. He couldn’t blame Lloyd. After all, he had allowed him the time off to come – grudgingly, perhaps, but nonetheless, he had relented. Perhaps Rivalz and Suzaku himself were to blame – they should have made sure that Lelouch was with them at all times. If they’d been close to him, then even if the ice had broken, one of them could have grabbed hold of him and stopped him falling in. Or maybe it was the teachers, for making them cross the ice in the first place. Or maybe it was the rest of the class, for not being careful to not crack the ice. Or maybe it was Lelouch, for falling in at all.

Suzaku stood beneath the shower a moment more, rinsing out the last of the torturous ‘What Ifs’, before shutting it off and stepping out into the small steamy bathroom; taking the towel off the radiated rail and wrapping it around himself. They’d left dry clothes for him, so he quickly towelled off and reached for them. The material beneath his fingers was soft, but thick, familiar…

Japanese.

Dark blue hakama. Crisp white kimono. He’d spent half his time dressed like this when he was a child, but since Britannia’s occupation of Japan… Well, there’d certainly been a repression of Japanese culture under the re-establishment of the country as “Area 11”, but although some people still wore traditional garments like this, Suzaku hadn’t had a chance to since joining the army.

He dressed in front of the mirror and looked at himself in silence. It was… strange. He hadn’t seen himself dressed like this since he was ten. In fact, he’d been dressed like this…

…the day he had met Lelouch.

How different they had looked then. Lelouch hadn’t been wearing royal clothes, but even so, the semi-casual attire had still been so prim and proper. And Suzaku, dressed like this, had looked at him and hated him.

Now he and Lelouch dressed the same – for school, at least. It was all part of his re-branding of himself as an Honorary Britannian. He wore the same school uniform as Britannian students and the same army uniform as Britannian soldiers.

And yet, this…

He pulled himself away from his reflection, neatly folded his towel and left the bathroom, carpet soft against his bare feet. A woman – one half of the couple who owned the resort – was out in the main area of the small First Aid wing, making some tea. She, like her husband (and like Suzaku), was Japanese – they seemed to be somewhere in their fifties. Not much of either of them had been seen, their teachers supervising the students in what was, essentially, the run of the place.

She had taken complete charge of Lelouch and Suzaku, however, assuring the teacher who had accompanied them back that she would look after them, at which her husband, having driven to collect the three of them, took him back up to rejoin the other teachers and the rest of the students.

She looked up upon his entrance and smiled at him.

“Come and have some tea to warm yourself up,” she said, speaking in Japanese.

He blinked, a little taken aback by the sudden language-switch. He hadn’t heard anyone speak Japanese for quite a while. Of course, it was perfectly natural that she’d speak Japanese to him – she could obviously tell that he wasn’t Britannian, which was presumably why she’d left these clothes for him, assuming that he would be able to put them on without any difficulty and that he wouldn’t be offended.

He was perhaps the first Japanese guest who had been here for a while, despite the fact that it had once been a traditional Japanese hot spring resort.

“Thankyou.” He dipped his head in a respectful little bow and sat down at the small two-person table on which she’d laid out the tea – green, in a traditional tea set. She put one of the little cups down in front of him and he wrapped his fingers around it, gratefully sipping at it. “How is Lelouch?” he asked on lowering it, easily slipping back into his native tongue.

“Stable,” she replied, taking up her own tea. “He’s resting in the other room. I’ve called a doctor to see him, but I think he’ll be alright. He’s rather underweight for a boy his age, but he’s young. He may have to return to your school a little later than the rest of you, but… I’m certain he’ll recover.”

She smiled at Suzaku reassuringly and he returned it.

“Good,” he murmured over his tea.

She looked at him for a long moment.

“It was a very brave thing you did,” she said at length, her voice soft. “He owes you his life.”

“He’d have done the same for me,” Suzaku replied confidently; then frowned. “He’d probably have drowned us both doing it, though…”

“You could have died saving him.”

Suzaku gave a shrug.

“I’m a soldier. I’ve been trained how to handle situations like that.”

She nodded slowly.

“I know you’re a soldier. I know who you are – you’re Genbu Kururugi’s son.” There was a slight change to her expression, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what about it had altered. “The innocent they tried to frame for the murder of Prince Clovis.”

“That’s me,” Suzaku agreed distractedly, looking at his tea.

“The one Zero saved.”

Suzaku looked up at her again.

“You’re a supporter of Zero?”

She gave an uneasy shrug.

“It’s hard to know who or what to support these days,” she sighed. “There may just be another demon beneath Zero’s mask, but for the moment… he and the Black Knights seem as though they care, at least.”

“It’s vigilantism.”

“As opposed to fascism?”

He looked sharply up at her and she bowed her head.

“I apologise,” she said quietly. “That wasn’t… that is, I…”

“It’s alright.”

There was silence between them for another long while. Suzaku finished his tea and rose.

“Can I see Lelouch?” he asked.

“O-of course.” She gestured towards the door at the far end of the room. “He’s in there. Try not to disturb him, though. He was asleep when I left him.”

Suzaku gave a nod and crossed the small room to the door she had motioned to, putting his hand on the handle to open it. On the threshold, however, he paused.

“You know,” he said, not looking at her, “…he’s my best friend.”

He paused. She said nothing. In the end, he simply stepped through into the adjacent room and let the door swing silently shut behind him.

The room was very small, but accommodating enough. The curtains were drawn but there was a small lamp, switched on, sitting on the tiny bedside table, illuminating the area immediately around it. There was nothing else in the room but for the bed and the fold-up chair placed next to it.

Suzaku went quietly to the bedside and lowered himself into the chair. Lelouch slept soundly within the bed, nestled under the covers and with another blanket put on over the top of the sheets; he, too, had been put in Japanese clothing in place of his own wet things, although, from what Suzaku could see, the material was softer and a little thinner so that he wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

He suddenly seemed very small, perhaps because he was swamped underneath all that material – it was as though Suzaku was looking down at a Lelouch suddenly restored to ten years of age again, just as he had seen in himself before the mirror.

His hair had dried oddly – presumably it had been rubbed dry before he had been put into the bed, for now it lay in lots of unruly little flicks and spikes all around his pale face. Suzaku reached out to brush a stray strand from his cheek, the backs of his fingers lingering on Lelouch’s skin a little longer than necessary.

It had been only the barest of touches, but Lelouch stirred, his eyes flickering open a little. He turned his head on the pillow to look at Suzaku and the bright violet of his eyes gleamed brightly beneath his thick, lowered lashes.

He smiled weakly.

“Hello, Lelouch,” Suzaku greeted him softly, sliding back into English.

“Hello, Suzaku,” Lelouch replied; his voice was very faint, even a little hoarse, but the warmness was there. He started to move under the sheets, grimacing as he tried to raise himself; Suzaku stood swiftly, pushing him gently back down.

“No, lie down,” he told him quietly. “Lelouch, you’re sick. You have to rest, okay?”

Lelouch didn’t resist, but there was further movement under the sheets, and then he managed to get his hand out from beneath the layers of blankets, extending his pale, thin fingers out towards Suzaku – who took them between his own palms as he sank back into his seat.

“You’re going to be okay,” he went on, feeling that Lelouch’s hand was reassuringly warm.

Lelouch gave a tiny, faint nod and looked up at the ceiling.

“I know,” he said. “Thanks… to you.”

Suzaku shot him a little grin.

“You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”

“Mm.” Lelouch smiled again, but this time it was aimed at the ceiling. “You’re a… wonderful person…”

Suzaku’s own smile faded slightly; he said nothing, however, and simply dipped his head. A few tears hit the wide white sleeves of his kimono—

But he looked up again when Lelouch’s fingers wrapped around the hand cradled beneath them and gave a tight squeeze. The Britannian boy was looking at him again, and his smile was brighter than before, matching the brilliant glimmer of his beautiful eyes.

“Don’t let go, Suzaku,” he said.

(And later, as Suzaku left him to sleep, he actually smirked and murmured, “Hey, Suzaku – looks like I got out of going on the walk after all…”.)

Suzaku was fit to return to Ashford Academy the following day with the rest of the class (most of whom now flocked around him, regarding him a hero, amongst other things), but Lelouch didn’t return for a week. He called Nunnally every day to assure her that he was getting better, and called Suzaku too, even getting him to go and eat dinner with his sister a few times to make sure that she didn’t get too lonely.

When he did make his “triumphant return”, however, it was surprising to note that none seemed more pleased to see him than Milly, who instantly descended upon him the moment he set foot in the Student Council room.

“Why, Mr Vice-President,” she cackled, “how good of you to join us! And you’re just in time to help us organise the next big event on our busy, busy calendar!”

“Which would be…?” Lelouch asked wearily, disentangling her from where she was hanging persistently around his neck.

“A Hero Festival!” Milly announced, bounding away to grab one of the posters she’d had printed; she got Shirley to help her roll it out and hold it up. “In honour of Suzaku saving your scrawny ass.” The President gave a mockingly-scornful shake of her head. “See what happens when I’m not there to supervise you, Lelouch?”

“How do you know I didn’t try to drown myself on purpose to get away from you, Ms President?” Lelouch replied scathingly.

Milly laughed.

“Oh, Lelouch,” she sighed, “that’s not going to fly. There’s no way you’d go to so much effort just to rid yourself of me.”

Lelouch rolled his eyes and went to sit between Suzaku and Rivalz.

“And does the hero approve?” he asked loftily of Suzaku (while Milly was distracted harassing Shirley).

“Well… there’s no need for it, I think,” Suzaku replied. “It’s kind of embarrassing that she’s making such a big deal out of it.”

Lelouch nodded in understanding.

“Yes, we all wish that Ms President wouldn’t do these things,” he agreed flatly.

“Except Ms President,” Rivalz muttered.

“Oh, and by the way,” Milly put in, leaning over the desk suddenly towards the three of them; her gleaming gaze focused on Lelouch. “…The Hero Festival is tomorrow.”

“There you are.”

Lelouch looked up from where he was knelt on the storeroom floor, rummaging through a box of fireworks; he acknowledged Suzaku’s presence with a small nod and went back to his prior occupation.

“You say that as though I’m the one hiding,” he said absently, digging out a rocket and inspecting it.

Suzaku flinched jokingly as he stopped next to him.

“How do you know I wasn’t sent to find you?” he asked.

“The festival is in honour of you, Suzaku. Even Milly won’t make you do her bidding today. Which… is more than I can say for me.” Lelouch glanced up at Suzaku, scowling. “Come to think of it, it’s really very unfair. I’m the one who almost drowned, yet I’m the one down on my knees sorting out fireworks.”

Suzaku laughed.

“Want me to help?”

“Oh, it’s okay. I’m almost done. Milly sent me to get the rockets and there are only about seven or eight in here, I think. They’re left over from that Chinese New Year-themed festival she threw – some idiot put everything that was left all in one box down here. A wooden box, I might add.” Lelouch put the rocket he’d pulled out down on the concrete floor next to the other six he’d already salvaged. “Seriously, this should have been sorted yesterday, or this morning at least, instead of sending me to get them ten minutes before they’re scheduled to go off…”

“Yeah, I wondered where you’d gone. The last I saw you, you were with Rivalz in the kitchen.”

“Supervising Rivalz, you mean.” Lelouch rolled his eyes. “Still, he’s not as bad as Shirley… Where’s Nunnally?”

“She’s with some girls from her class. She seems to be having a good time. So does everyone, actually. I think pretty much the whole student body is out there – I even saw Jason Kingsley.”

“Oh, everyone loves Milly’s crazy parties.”

“Except you.”

“And you,” Lelouch countered calmly, looking up at Suzaku once more. “That’s why you’re down here, isn’t it? Tired of them all fawning over you?”

“…A little.”

Lelouch gave a little snort and dug to the bottom of the box.

“Well,” Suzaku went on quickly, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate everything Milly has done, and I’m very happy that everyone is glad that I was able to save you, but it’s all so…”

“Fake.”

“I was going to say ‘overwhelming’…”

Lelouch surfaced from the box empty-handed, put the lid back on and got up, dusting off his hands.

“And is that what you meant?” he asked, turning to Suzaku.

Suzaku looked at him hopelessly.

“Lelouch, I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said, shaking his head. “You were angry when they were hostile to me – now you’re angry because they’re being nice to me.”

“Don’t be so naïve. You know as well as I do that they’re only flocking round you because you saved my life. That’s what people do. You proved your worth on a personal level – Suzaku Kururugi, to them, is a “good Eleven”. You still don’t represent the Japanese to them, and you still don’t represent yourself as their equal.”

“I know that,” Suzaku replied irritably. “Don’t be so difficult, Lelouch. You know I didn’t even want Milly to make a big deal of it.”

Lelouch gave a little sigh.

“I know, I know… Come on, seeing as you’re down here, you can help me carry these damned rockets…”

Suzaku gave a nod; but as Lelouch turned away, he grasped at his wrist.

“Lelouch,” he said, as the Britannian boy turned back to him in surprise, “you’re… you’re okay, aren’t you?”

Lelouch smiled.

“I’m much better than okay,” he replied. “I still have a bit of a cough – the doctor said it might be a while before my lungs are as strong as they were before—”

“How is that “much better than okay”?” Suzaku interrupted incredulously.

“Because…” Lelouch grinned. “I don’t have to do Physical Education for the next six weeks. I have a signed doctor’s note exempting me from it.”

“Lelouch, you never went anyway.”

“I know, but now I don’t have to spend the entire hour hiding from the teacher.” Lelouch tilted his head thoughtfully. “Honestly, sometimes I think I got just as much exercise not going to Physical Education…”

Suzaku only smiled.

“Well, I’m glad that you’re alright,” he said.

Lelouch’s expression faded to a more serious one.

“Because of you,” he said quietly. “Rivalz said you had to revive me. You didn’t even save me, Suzaku – you brought me back from the dead.”

“What choice did I have?” Suzaku’s grasp on Lelouch’s wrist tightened. “It was either that, or… or lose you again.”

“I’m glad you were forced into such dire straits – I and my continued campaign to avoid enforced physical activity thank you.”

“Don’t joke about it.” Suzaku released Lelouch’s wrist in favour of grasping his thin shoulders. “When you went under that ice, I just… it didn’t even seem real, it was like… it was some horrible figment of my imagination, reminding me that I’d lost you the first time… And then Shirley screamed and it made me realise that it was real, and everyone… everyone just stood there—”

“So you had to save me.” Lelouch smiled at him. “As you’ve saved me before. You really ought to be my knight, Suzaku.”

Suzaku said nothing, only exhaled deeply and sank forwards, resting his forehead against Lelouch’s and closing his eyes.

“Thankyou for saving me, Suzaku,” Lelouch murmured, his voice soft and lulling. “I owe you my life.”

“You’re welcome,” Suzaku replied, his voice equally hushed.

After a long moment of standing still, their fringes flush against one another, Suzaku leaned his head back again, opening his jade eyes very slowly to look at Lelouch.

Those big violet eyes pierced him again, as they had in the wasteland and as they had the night they’d discussed the politics of Britannians and Japanese sharing beds.

Lelouch leaned towards him again to close the gap, lowering his lashes, tilting his head, and Suzaku—

“Lelouch!”

“Lulu, where are you? Milly said she wants the fireworks sometime this century! Um, entirely her phrasing!”

“The fireworks…” Suzaku was the one to abort the action this time, taking his hands off Lelouch’s shoulders. “I-I’ll get them…”

Lelouch seemed equally flustered, but by the time Suzaku had picked up the rockets and Rivalz and Shirley had located them, the cool façade was firmly back in place, his slightly put out expression replaced by his oft-employed lazy smile.

“Should have known Milly would call in the cavalry,” he said blandly. “Though you’re both wasting your time – I already roped someone into carrying the fireworks for me.”

He gestured to Suzaku, who joined them with the seven rockets in his arms.

“Is that all there was?” Rivalz asked. “I thought there were more left over than that…”

Lelouch shrugged. Shirley took his arm and tugged at it.

“Come on, Lulu,” she said, pulling him across the storeroom. “Ms President says she has another job for you…”

Rivalz stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at Suzaku as Shirley spirited Lelouch away as fast as he would reluctantly allow her to.

“So,” Rivalz drawled, “nothing’s changed.”

Suzaku gave a nod.

“Yeah,” he replied absently. “Nothing’s changed.”

—

(Milly’s “job” had been attempting to persuade Lelouch to swap school uniforms with her – a gimmick, she’d said, something fun to add a little sparkle to their joint President-and-Vice-President-of-the-Student-Council stint of announcing the fireworks in Suzaku’s honour.

Lelouch refused, Shirley giggled but wouldn’t help Milly get him into the female Ashford uniform by force, Kallen rolled her eyes in irritation and Nina blushed and averted her gaze.

In the end, though she did make a point of wrestling with him for a bit trying to get his jacket off, Milly gave up and resigned to doing the announcement in her own clothes – but vowed, as Lelouch stalked indignantly away, that she’d see him in a skirt in front of the entire Ashford Academy student body yet.)

And that was called the WORST. SCHOOL TRIP. EVER.

I’m going to say it straight off, as I said to my beta-reader:

I am perfectly aware that this chapter is both hilariously-fangirly and, frankly, just plain ridiculous. I took a lot of liberties with the canon, it’s pretty OTT in places and Suzaku cries his freaking eyes out.

However… it was planned. I intended to write it like this. And, despite how silly it is, I am pleased with how it came out. Overall, it does what I want it to.

I hope you enjoyed it – if nothing else, it was a break from emo/suicidal!Suzaku and amnesiac/drug-addict!Lelouch, right? Tee hee. :)

(FYI, the ice thing? Totally foreshadowed in the first chapter. It’s only one line – kind of tenuous, really, but it’s there. I said it was planned.)

Oh, and the Romeo and Juliet thing. Heh heh, I can’t help throwing in these literature references. At least I know I’m not wasting my money on that English Literature degree – I’ve clearly learned something!

(Besides, I just adore Romeo and Juliet. It’s my favourite Shakespeare play – and I guess, at this point in the Code Geass canon, Lelouch and Suzaku are somewhat comparable to Romeo and Juliet in that they don’t have a problem with one another despite their birth, but their houses/countries really, really do and make it so that the pair of them can’t just be friends and get the hell on with their lives. Also, the line Lelouch quoted – “A plague on both your houses!”, originally spoken by Mercutio – is kind of applicable to the way Lelouch and Suzaku F-in-the-A every country going towards the end of R2, their own included… Oh, and they both “die”. Or fake dying. Whatever.)

Speaking of comparing Code Geass to things that aren’t really anything like it, for those of you familiar with the Broadway/West End musical Wicked… Ever noticed the parallels between it and the actual canon storyline of Code Geass? [Warning: Spoilers for Wicked ahead] Here’s the run-down: Main character (Lelouch/Elphaba) has a long-deceased mother, a bastard of a father, a younger sister in a wheelchair and severe issues with just how sucky the world is; things start to look up when main character is granted/discovers power which allows for getting out there and changing the world for the better, only it doesn’t last long and soon everything goes to Hell again, making a hatred symbol out of main character, which leads them to plan/fake own death for the sake of world peace or something like that. Meanwhile, best friend of main character (Suzaku/Glinda) starts out as a jerk, turns very nice, believes that main character has betrayed them and goes back to being a jerk again, before finally reconciling with main character at the end right before they (supposedly) die; best friend of main character also has more costumes and titles than any other character. Oh, and the little sister in a wheelchair (Nunnally/Nessa) starts out as timid and admiring of older sibling, then becomes some kind of political leader and turns into a bitch, right before overcoming handicap (though while Nessa manages to get out of her chair and walk, something never managed by Nunnally, she also gets a whole house dropped on her, so… maybe she should have just stayed in the wheelchair. O.o)

Lelouch’s father never turned out to be the Wizard of Oz, though. That would have been awesome.

ANYWAY… wow, that’s along AN, and it was a long chapter already…

I’m sorry if your eyes hurt now.

Next chapter: The thrilling second half of Lelouch and Suzaku’s silly-schoolgirly-crush-shenanigans, in which they hopefully won’t be conveniently interrupted every time they try to swap saliva!

Eh, life’s tough.

RobinRocks

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