Author's Note: If you're thinking about killing yourself and are looking for a fic to pull you out of depression, this is not the story for you.

Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass.

In and After Betrayal

Vice Governor-General Euphemia li Britannia, deemed a danger to herself and others, had not been moved from the Tokyo Settlement in 853 days. A long chain of press releases told the world the following: Euphemia had narrowly evaded death after being shot by the vigilante known as Zero, following extensive hospitalization she regained all previous physical skills, upon which time she was released to a mental facility for the criminally insane. She demonstrated symptoms of disassociative personality disorder, the dominant persona expressing a constant desire to exact genocide on all Elevens. Recently she awoke as if from a stupor, completely oblivious of her actions and the incident of the Special Administrative Zone of Japan. Governor-General Cornelia li Britannia rallied hard for her release from the mental facility but was ultimately defeated upon Euphemia becoming introverted and once again mentally unwell after learning of her actions.

This was the information Diethard had relayed to Lelouch, that Lelouch had memorized every single word of, whether great or insignificant. All the while, a wheel of color spun on in his mind, of cotton-candy pink and angry, heart-splitting red.

Euphemia was being relocated to Britannia, now that it was finally deemed safe to transport her. Diethard caught wind of this through mixed sources, a dewdrop of information sliding precariously but certainly along his elaborate spiderweb of contacts. Euphemia no longer expressed a desire to murder the Japanese, but her actions were far from forgotten. The only people who knew of her relocation were those inside the Tokyo Settlement – and now the Order of the Black Knights.

Many suggested assassinating her, lamenting the fact that Zero's previous attempt of ending the life of the Genocide Princess – one name among the many she'd come to be known by, and one of the most flattering by comparison – had failed. With the outrage of the Order, and all of Japan screaming for Euphemia's blood, Lelouch was at a crossroads.

The operation was set to covertly hijack the disguised, armored truck Euphemia would be riding in. Aside from the technical details (initial infiltration, escape route), no one in the Order quite knew how Zero intended to gain entrance without arousing suspicion, and some were more prone to ask. Lelouch had been more cautious with his Geass since Euphemia's accidental massacre, relying more often on military chess games and the combined brawn of Tohdoh and Kallen, and not returning to school even after C.C. gave him a contact with the power to subdue his Geass.

The Britannians made a wise but risky decision in the transportation of Euphemia. Rather than fly her directly out of the Tokyo Settlement with an envoy of Knightmares, they intended to drive her to a private Britannian airbase that accommodated only planes (practically primeval), and have the Knightmares meet with them once they were safely over the ocean. The Knightmares would be released under the guise of a routine training exercise, and none of Area Eleven would know that it's most despised enemy was being sneaked out of the country directly beneath their noses.

After Tokyo Settlement made the decision to harbor Euphemia, their defenses increased tenfold. Though Euphemia's betrayal had increased Zero's battalion to an army, their resources were still scattered – and Britannia was conducting a witch hunt for them. They battled other injustices and concentrated on keeping themselves alive, while assuring the people that revenge would be had for the hundreds lost in Euphemia's sudden madness.

Both Lelouch and C.C. had revisited the academy a few times, on separate occasions and in disguise, with only one destination in mind. They watched and waited until Lelouch's guinea pig, the dark-haired girl whose life he'd casually interrupted, no longer returned to mark the wall. Eight-hundred-fifty-three X's marring the brick. Eight-hundred-fifty-three days. That was how long Euphemia suffered in her madness, how long Lelouch had to wait before his Geass's effect had worn off.

It was an unremarkable September day that she was being smuggled out. Lelouch hadn't glanced at the sky, hadn't bothered to notice if it were brilliant blue or resigned grey. He hadn't felt the wind, warm or cool, on his cheeks. He felt, however, to the marrow of his bones, the encroaching darkness as he climbed into the armored truck, gun slung over one shoulder, dressed in a soldier's uniform uncomfortably similar to Suzaku's old one. The door closed with a crass bang behind him and he sat down without glancing at the figure seated at the far end of the cabin.

He kept his eyes on the feet of the other guard and counted in his head. He had calculated exactly how long it would take them to move onto the highway at their pace, and then from there how many minutes he had until they reached the exit where Kallen was waiting, where they would escape into the underground. He felt the truck rumble as it hit a familiar pothole, then he removed his helmet.

The other guard tilted his head to the side, confused. His face was unreadable behind his visor, but Lelouch had found that plastic had as much effect of stopping his Geass as glass. The man across from him stuttered words of bemusement as Lelouch removed his contact.

"Listen to me," Lelouch said, and the man fell immediately silent. Lelouch kept his voice low, so as not to allow the prisoner to overhear. He issued with detached precision the orders he'd had ready for months, preparing for this very moment.

The guard nodded and sat straighter than before, animated by a robot-like obligation to obey. Lelouch re-applied the contact and walked steadily, even as the truck shook around him, to the front of the cabin.

She was facing away from him, toward the front where there was nothing for her to look at but a blank steel wall. As he circled her, he took in her appearance: blindfolded, strapped in by leather restraints (not metal, no, something easy to cut if the terrorists decided to attack, something simple to haul her out of), chair bolted to the floor. She was wearing white pants and a white button up shirt, and her hair fell plain and unstyled around her face, only lightly skimming her shoulders. He knelt before her.

"Hello, Euphie," he said warmly, but he felt the waver of trepidation in his voice, the waver of fear. He reached for her face and gently undid her blindfold.

She blinked, eyes bleary and unfocused. "Lelouch?" Her voice crackled from disuse. Once her gaze found him, he was surprised to see a small smile on her lips. "Are you a soldier?"

"No," he told her. Her pupils were wide, her eyes glassy. She had probably been lightly sedated. "I had to dress like this to see you."

She bobbed her head in a slow nod, her hair falling over her eyes. "It doesn't suit you," she said, but the words sounded playful, even slurred, "but neither does Zero's cape."

Lelouch felt something awful twist inside him, like thorns wrapping around his ribcage. His gaze went from her eyes to her cheeks to her lips to her forehead, anywhere but her eyes. Down her neck, to the misplaced strand of pink hair almost effervescent against her simple white shirt.

"Your hair is shorter," he said, trying to talk out the constriction in his throat. These weren't the words he'd rehearsed, this wasn't the soliloquy of apology he'd written and rewritten in his mind, but he couldn't feel he could force it out yet. Instead, petty conversation worked to relieve the tightness he felt in every muscle.

"They had to shave it off," she said. "They said I kept trying to pull it out." He called the courage to look at her lips again, feeling the world tilt as they did, into a smile.

His head felt light, everything so surreal aside from the glow that was Euphemia. He couldn't understand why she was smiling – smiling for him, at such a time, when he was the one to drive her insane. Why her words were frail but spoken with kindness, as though she were afraid that if she didn't soften them, they might slice him in half.

Lelouch couldn't think to say anything. Not even the most vapid remark came to mind. He busied his shaking hands with the buckles of her restraints rather than work out a word, starting with her ankles, then her legs, until the last thick strap of leather across her shoulders fell free. Euphemia slumped at once to the side, but he caught her quickly, gently setting her down so that she could lean against the legs and seat of the chair.

"Thank you," she said. Her head was never quite straight, her hair always wafting over her cheek.

He tucked her hair behind her ear and spent the moment just watching her face: the perfect arc of her eyebrow (Cornelia loved her sister and must have given her every small luxury she could, even if it were something as simple as tweezing her eyebrows. Picturing the proud woman bent over her sister's bedside brought along another harsh pang, this time between his lungs), the rigid and dry lines of her chapped lips, the lazy droop of her eyelids as the drugs made her docile.

"I did something horrible," she said then, her voice a whisper as brittle and breakable as a porcelain doll. He opened his mouth to say something, but she continued, "They weren't going to tell me. Did you know that? They were going to send me back right away and keep me locked up, away from magazines and television and anyone who might let on."

"What happened?" he managed, his voice a dry crack. He could understand the others' intentions. Even restricting Euphemia, stripping her of her freedom, would be better than having her live in a hell of her own creation – of his creation.

"An orderly showed me a video." Her head tilted further onto her shoulder, as if her neck hadn't the strength to hold it up. Lelouch placed a careful hand on the back of her head and straightened it, keeping it there. Euphemia smiled again. "Her father was Japanese, she said. He'd gone to the ceremony to thank me for letting him be with his daughter again." Tears wet her eyelashes, webbing them together. "She paused the video as the camera was looking over the scene, and she pointed to a man in a blue shirt. He was covered in blood. She said, 'That's him.'"

"Euphemia…"

"I killed someone's father," she went on. Her words broke with her sharp intakes of breath and the tears rolling freely down her cheeks. "I killed fathers and mothers and sons and…" Her chest shook and her breathing sounded painful. Lelouch placed his free hand over hers and waited for her to finish, felt undeserving to interrupt her grief. "And they won't even let me say I'm sorry!"

"They'd kill you," he told her. He heard more than knew, as if distantly he were watching this unfold between two total strangers rather than himself and his first love, that his cheeks were damp as well.

She squeezed her eyes shut and hunched forward, falling into the crook of his shoulder and fisting her hands against the rough Kevlar of his uniform. "I wouldn't mind, as long as they knew how sorry I am."

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. They felt thinner and sharper than they ever had before, as if she had been whittled down to the bare necessities of her make-up. The skeleton of Euphemia, the barest substance of her was kindness: even as she wept into his shoulder, it was for others, not for herself. For the pains she caused, rather than the pain she felt. It was right there in his arms, but the farthest thing from his as was possible, so completely unattainable. He had touched it only once, and tainted it.

"I'm sorry, Euphie," he said. The words burned like brimstone coming up his throat, bubbling the flesh black. He wanted to tell her every reason, every small detail, but instead he just repeated those two words. "I'm sorry."

His helmet was on the ground next to her feet. He strained to reach into it without her noticing, his hand trembling, wanting nothing more than to withdraw and hold her closer. But the part of Lelouch that was Zero and only Zero knew that he had lost track of time, and any moment now it would be too late to save all of Japan, much less Britannia.

There was a small injector taped to the inside of his helmet, similar to a Refrain gun. He tore it free, blurry eyes focusing on the liquid inside. It was mostly clear, tinged an almost imperceptible blue. Unthreatening.

"When it's over," she mumbled, her voice cold against the bare flesh of his neck, "will you come visit me, Lelouch? After you've made everything right?"

With one arm, he tugged her hard against him, and with the other he drew aside the hair at the back of her neck, and placed the needle-gun against it. She had felt it; her body tensed a moment, and then relaxed.

"I'll see you again," he told her, drinking in the color of her hair and the warmth of her body. "I promise."

Her arms encircled him, her lips pressing a pretty whisper to his neck.

He pulled the trigger.

Through the needlepoint, the liquid drained. It was a quick and painless poison, already rushing through her veins. He dropped the gun and allowed her hair to fall back over the tiny blot of blood.

"I can't wait," she told him, words weak, as her grip lessened and she grew limp against him.

Eventually, he would allow himself to let go. Eventually, he would find the strength to don his helmet again and escape, after having lain her body out respectfully. Eventually, the other guard would tell Area Eleven that it was Zero who had assassinated Ex-Vice Governor-General Euphemia li Britannia as she was being secretly transported out of the country.

Eventually, he would keep his promise. He would crawl out of Hell and lay his dirty soul before her in Heaven, in the place she had come from and returned to, the place he had only briefly glimpsed when her lips parted and she was happy.