A tall, distinguished man, dressed conservatively in a grey suit, brushed back his blond hair, the eyes he shared with much of his family flashing violet in the dim light. He strode through the hallway with purpose, a thick, official envelope stamped with the Empress's seal in his right hand. He didn't bother to knock on the door of his destination; he was the second prince of the Britannian Empire, and there were few doors locked against him.

The man seated behind the mahogany desk stood instantly upon Schneizel's entrance. He bowed deferentially, his dark brown eyes watchful and careful. As head of covert operations, Justice Havens was the master of the spies, and the king of watchdogs for the empire. A slim, tough man nearing his fortieth year dressed in a simple black suit with a subtle navy tie, his unassuming demeanor belied the scar that halved his right eyebrow and dragged down his cheek. Not to mention his kill record. The prince offered him a small nod of acknowledgement before handing Havens the envelope nestled in his hand.

"Orders from the Empress, Havens. Discretion and speed are stressed, as always." Havens glanced down at the envelope, debating with himself. His first instinct was to ask Schneizel what the envelope contained, but it was difficult to get unbiased information from the man. There was always a strange glow to his eyes when issues that tipped the scale away from Nunnally were brought up. Havens was used to biased information, but only after he had made it that way.

Holding his silence and making his way back to his desk, Havens slit the envelope open with the same cool indifference and economical precision he had once slit throats in the field. As his dark eyes swiftly flitted over the heavily scrolled words, his eyebrows slowly lifted. After reading the message through twice, he finally lifted his eyes to the prince.

"Have you read this?" he asked quietly, gesturing with the letter without offering it. Schneizel drew himself up, a familiar expression of foreboding and warning hooding his eyes and hardening his mouth.

"No. I am not apprised of every small command the empress sees fit to delegate. She has assistants for that," he finished sharply. Havens bobbed his head in apology, but couldn't help but wonder what the prince would think of the command he had just received. He guessed that Schneizel's precarious place within the empire was to thank for his snappish mood. Since Odysseus couldn't be confirmed as dead, Nunnally didn't want to promote his younger brother into his position, no doubt to avoid any more conflict within a family still recovering from the violent rifts that had nearly torn it apart should he return. Although Havens privately thought that Odysseus wouldn't care if he was indeed still alive after the Pendragon incident, the empress had taken a firm stand, and she had proven surprisingly stubborn.

As such, Schneizel stood as Nunnally's heir and crown prince; however, upon the birth of any children, he would quickly be displaced, and would stand as little better than the assistants he derided. For a man once reveling in power, Havens supposed this was a difficult thing for the proud prince to swallow.

"Thank you, Your Highness. I will see to it that Empress Nunnally's orders are carried out quickly and discretely, as always." Havens took to examining the letter, waiting until Schneizel had imperiously strode from the room to lift his eyes. Heaving a deep breath through his nose, Justice took his seat behind the desk, tipping his chair back precariously, his impeccable balance keeping it poised on one leg with little to no effort.

Zero was in London right now performing an inspection for the Empress. Besides the capital, the countryside was riddled with old manors falling apart at the seams and craters the size of ponds. Ghettos stained the area outside old major cities. Not the most ideal countryside, and not a big enough political player for enough of his agents to be comfortable with it.

That would make the task of Zero's assassination a little more difficult than usual. But for a man who had killed more than his fair share of straying political figures, he doubted it would pose much of a problem. What really puzzled him was that Nunnally had ordered it at all. What would the second prince do without his master? And what would the empress do without her shadow?


It was almost two in the morning in London, and as Suzaku dropped onto the aging couch with an explosive sigh, he glanced around, purposely avoiding the glint of the black mask he had dropped in a corner. Nunnally had left the arrangements of his quarters while abroad up to him, and Suzaku, ever the repenting sinner, had booked a small, seedy room on the uglier side of the city. Its only mirror was in the bathroom, which was a relief. He had broken all of the ones in his quarters in the palace, much to the servants' chagrin.

He scrubbed his hands over his face, pressing his fingers against his eyes in a vain attempt to staunch the images that played there. In the three years since the Demon Emperor Lelouch's death, Suzaku had been haunted viciously. The eyes of the dead, the tears of the living; he was constantly barraged by the memories of lives destroyed and dreams ended. And so much of it at his hand. He laughed bitterly, the rusty sound echoing in the dim air.

Lelouch, ever the strategist. Did the bastard have any idea how intensely he had condemned his old friend? Punishing him with a life spent in service of the very empire he had once served loyally, tried to change, then heartlessly abandoned. Forcing him to spend every moment serving Nunnally. It wasn't so much the young woman he despised – she was one of the few reliefs he had, and Suzaku knew that he provided her with some modicum of comfort in replacement for her dead martyr of a brother. But it was the memories. The memories that pounded at the inside of his skull, that thrummed through his body with the beat of his blood until he thought he would drown in them. And he couldn't escape it.

Lelouch had commanded him to live. If you could call this half existence any sort of life. But as long as Suzaku's heart still beat, he was obeying his king's orders. It terrified him, the concept that his life had been whittled down to that. After a lifetime of dissent and hope, Suzaku no longer tried to change anything. He had had his revolution, and he still wasn't even sure he had fought for the right side, even though he had fought for both. He had received his inheritance; ghosts, and a mask. There was nothing else left.

The preparation didn't take long – the last six months had made the movements almost mechanical. The small bite at the crook of his arm didn't even make Suzaku flinch – when the heroin slid into his blood and bloomed in his brain, he finally closed his eyes. It was the only way he could sleep. It was the only way he could find peace. In that drug-induced fog, the ghosts couldn't find him, the people crying while he stood with their blood on his hands blocked by the clouds of heroin. There, he saw the woman he loved alive, and smiling. He slipped away while he could, into oblivion.


My first reboot.

At least I waited a couple years, which is like decades in the FanFiction world. I was browsing through some old AMV's that I had bookmarked when I came across some awesome Code Geass ones. CG is some amazing AMV fodder. I have to admit, I never actually finished the series – it was all so heartbreaking. I obviously know what happens at the end, and will be forcing myself to watch as much as I can for this.

I will be holding to the storyline of my original CG fanfic, Blue Blood and Green Eyes. I haven't decided if I will keep Aurora in her entirety, but the essence of her character will remain the same. She will be his rescuer, and his redemption. God knows he needs it.

Suzaku fascinates me. He's such a tragic, complicated, sexy character, that I am immediately drawn to him every time I glance at the CG universe. He almost eclipses Lelouch for me, which is not easy. When I went through this round of research, it dawned on me that there was really no way for him to cope with everything that had happened without substance abuse. Since I couldn't see him weaving and slurring, I quickly decided on heroin. God, poor baby.

Since nothing in Britannia happens without political intrigue, there is something afoot deep in the higher echelons of the government, something nefarious that must be destroyed. But this is definitely a story about Suzaku. I feel like him and Senya (the main character of my novel) would get along really, really well. I love damaged characters like a fat kid loves cake.

Hope you enjoy it!