A/N: This is not a Lelouch/Anya fic, it eventually comes to center on Lelouch and Suzaku's relationship. The first chapter is an introduction to this AU universe, and kick-starts the storyline.


TITLE: Continuation

RATING: T

CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Suzaku/Lelouch, Anya, Orange-kun:D

SUMMARY: Lelouch shuts himself away from the world. Anya tries to help. Suzaku cannot forget. Suzaku/Lelouch.

'Won't you come out?'

'Are you scared of the sun?'

'If you come out, it'll hurt less.'

'Don't be scared, Lelouch.'

They sit together at the dinner table.

Him and her.

Her and him.

A farmhouse next to a river, a farmhouse in the middle of an orange plantation.

Jeremiah smiles at her when their eyes meet. His spoon is dripping with onion soup, his smile is wide but strained.

'I see. He still doesn't want to come out.'

Anya scowls. 'I'm trying my best here.'

'I know. Don't worry, he will come out, one day,' Jeremiah says, and he smiles rather sincerely, ruefully.

'Don't be so hopeful,' Anya scorns.

'Don't worry, Anya. Don't worry. When he is ready, he will come out and face his life again,' Jeremiah says mildly, with the ease of someone who believes.

Anya doesn't believe.

She's trying to, maybe she's getting there, but she doesn't.

Not right now.

'At the very least, this time, he will walk into a kinder world.'

Jeremiah wears a melancholic smile now, his eyes travelling to the small flight of stairs that lead to the basement.

Lelouch is in a small storage room on the basement floor.

Anya breaks a roll of bread into half. 'He'll walk into an orange plantation.'

'Anya…'

'What now, Orange?'

'…For someone with such little faith in Master Lelouch, you certainly spend a lot of time outside his room.'

She wants to rebuke Jeremiah.

She wants to prove him wrong.

But tonight, again, she is in the basement.

She is sitting in front of that towering door.

A tray of food has been pushed out from underneath. A bowl of onion soup, two rolls of bread, and half a block of butter. The tray is completely untouched, Anya can tell.

Only the pudding is missing.

'Jeremiah says, at the very least, this time, you will walk into a kinder world.'

'Come out. Being alone with Jeremiah is gross. It's boring.'

'Let's grow oranges together.'

'Come out and see everyone.'

'How long are you going to continue like this? You'll stay in there for the rest of your life? Isn't it lonely being alone? Isn't it scary being alone? Come out, Lelouch.'

'…'

'I'll be going now, Lelouch. It's late.'

'…An…ya.'

Anya spins around and crashes onto her knees again, pressing her hands against the door. The voice is hoarse, raspy, cracking everywhere, but it's familiar. It's Lelouch.

'Lelouch?' she calls out.

She tries not to sound desperate.

Again, that broken, withering voice –

'…My throat…hurts…'

There is a strange, prickling sensation in her eyes. She feels like she tried to swallow down too much bread during dinner. Something is caught in her throat. Her breath keeps hitching. Her voice is starting to be shaky like Lelouch's.

'I'll bring water,' she says. 'Open the door, Lelouch.'

'Your hair's gotten longer,' Anya comments.

Lelouch is leaning against the frame of the door, his legs tucked loosely against his chest. His arms and legs remind Anya of matchsticks from a bedtime story of long ago. Black hair spills over his shoulders slightly, curtains his face. A single amethyst eye peers at Anya from beneath black locks, the other is shielded by a white medical eye-patch, for courtesy's sake.

Lelouch fidgets slightly, his bony feet shuffling across the floor. He is dressed in uncharacteristically common clothes – just a long-sleeved white shirt, black trousers. An old, hooded black coat of Jeremiah's hangs from his shoulders. It's a few sizes too big, the sleeves are left dangling.

He reminds Anya of fallen twigs that turn up all over the plantation overnight.

Was he this skinny before?

'It's okay,' Lelouch tells Anya. He's having a hard time getting his voice to work again.

'Does it still hurt? Your throat.'

'Not as bad as just now,' Lelouch admits, staring at the ground this time. His hands are trembling.

'That's good,' Anya says.

She sits a mindful four feet away from Lelouch.

'Shall I call Jeremiah?' she suggests.

Lelouch shakes his head wordlessly.

They sit there for a while, Lelouch staring blankly around the basement as if he were in a foreign country. Anya watches him quietly. The room behind Lelouch is pitch-black. A pathetic, flickering lamp above in the basement itself is the only light.

Then, Lelouch speaks again.

'You're…growing oranges?'

'It's an orange plantation,' Anya replies.

Anya thinks she sees the ghost of a smile, so quick and so faint it is almost as if it was never there. Lelouch remains staring into the nothingness ahead.

'That's funny.'

'I know.'

Lelouch glances at Anya. She meets his one amethyst eye, from which the Geass has mercifully receded from, and she knows Lelouch isn't like the Lelouch in the pictures on her blog.

'Will you work with us tomorrow?' Anya asks.

'No,' Lelouch replies flatly.

'How do you think we provide meals around here?' Anya deadpans.

Lelouch turns away from her, and Anya is overwhelmed with an urge to take back her words.

'If…if I can stay inside, then I will,' Lelouch mumbles, almost inaudibly, incoherently.

Anya nods. 'I'll let Jeremiah know.'

'Thanks.'

'Can I take a picture?'

'…Okay.'

'Can I be in it with you?'

Slowly, Lelouch nods.

Anya climbs to her feet, and slips into place easily next to Lelouch in the doorway.

Soft breath, snowy skin, emaciated body, and a coat too big.

'I'm sleepy,' Anya announces. 'Aren't you sleepy, Lelouch?'

Lelouch shakes his head. 'I slept in the day.'

'You should stop that.'

'I'll stop.'

Anya checks the time with her phone, before looking up at Lelouch again. 'Do you want to eat something? You didn't eat anything the whole day. Jeremiah was getting worried.'

Lelouch stares hard at the ground, his hair blocking his face.

'I ate the pudding,' he says blandly.

'That's not enough,' Anya frowns. 'And I've never heard of a man who likes sweet food.'

Lelouch looks decidedly mortified.

Anya gets to her feet, brushing dust away from her shorts. 'I got it. Don't make that face. I'll get killed by Jeremiah.' Then, she offers Lelouch a small smile. 'I'll bring some pudding. Let's eat together.'

Again, that faded, ephemeral smile.

'How is it?'

'…It's…nice.'

'That's good.'

Lelouch nods. He shoves a quivering spoon transporting a wobbly blob of milk pudding into his mouth rather hastily, and looks down as he chews.

'Do you have something you want to do? You've stayed in there so long,' Anya says thoughtfully, swallowing a spoonful of the sweet confection.

'I…' Lelouch chews on his bottom lip and stares hard at his half-finished plastic cup of pudding, as if in a dilemma.

Anya waits, with patience she never knew she had.

'I…I want to watch the news.'

'You want to know about Nunnally?'

Lelouch inclines his head, hesitantly.

'The TV is upstairs,' Anya tells him, scooping a bite-sized lump of pudding from the cup.

'Are you sure you're not going to fall over?'

'I'm…fine.'

'Here, here. Sit here.'

Lelouch complies.

'I'm going to turn it on.'

'Nunnally's doing good, isn't she?' Anya's voice resounds through the awkward, stale silence.

'She is.'

Lelouch has curled up on an armchair, his forehead pressed against his knees, his fingers grasping Jeremiah's coat. He's still shaking. Anya's not sure it's because of the cold anymore.

'As expected of your sister,' Anya tries again.

'Not…really,' Lelouch mumbles.

'Don't you want to meet her?'

Lelouch's arms tighten around his knees.

'I can't.'

His voice is nearly an octave higher, strained, fractured everywhere.

'You don't plan to see her ever again?' Anya asks, moving her gaze to the ceiling.

The living room is empty and quiet save for them, and the low buzz of the television. They've not even turned the lights on. Hopefully Jeremiah does not wake up.

'If I meet her…everything Suzaku and I did…Suzaku…Suzaku…wh-where's Suzaku?'

Anya forces herself to continue staring at unlit bulb overheard.

Lelouch's change in attitude and voice is heartbreaking, heart-wrenching. Anya is afraid he will start crying.

She wouldn't know what to do.

'Don't worry about Suzaku,' she says softly. 'He's playing his role as Zero properly.'

'Anya…you know…?'

'He was the one who brought you here for hiding. He told us everything,' Anya explains.

There is a choked, potent silence. Anya finally turns to stare at Lelouch again.

His face is still buried in his knees, his thin, frail shoulders are trembling violently, his whole skinny frame wrecked with harshly muffled sobs.

'Lelouch…are you okay?' Anya asks, rhetorically.

'My…chest hurts,' Lelouch croaks. 'It hurts.'

'There's no medicine for that yet.'

'I wish…I wish I hadn't…'

'Lelouch, please stop crying.'

'…why did he…'

'Please stop crying, Lelouch. I don't know what to do.'

Anya feels like crying, too.

Anya wishes she can swap places with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah would know what to do.

Jeremiah would know the answers.

Anya doesn't know how long they sit there together, drowned in the hum of the television and Lelouch's incessant crying.

But he comes to a stop, in the end.

When crimson light starts pouring into the farmhouse and she can hear nothing more than the cheesy dialogue of a mediocre movie showing on the television, she switches the television off and stands in front of the armchair Lelouch is in.

He has wound himself tightly into a small, quivering ball on the armchair, pale, fragile fingers grasping the worn, nearly fraying coat close around his body, black hair messy and disheveled, his cheeks streaked and stained with tears.

The faraway sound of a door opening and shutting.

'Anya, well done.'

Jeremiah's voice is gentle.

'I couldn't make him stop crying,' Anya whispers. 'I didn't know how to.'

Jeremiah places a warm, comforting hand on Anya's shoulder.

'Don't worry, Anya. Don't worry,' Jeremiah repeats, for emphasis. 'It was a good start.'

I've not written a fic in a long, long time. T wT;; I feel very rusty. And I only very recently finished watching Code Geass. Talk about Slowpoke-style slowness. =X=;

More notes: Again, this is not a Lelouch/Anya fic, nor a Jeremiah/Lelouch fic. Suzaku will appear in the next chapter. But you can read this as a stand-alone, if you like. (:

Please leave comments & constructive criticism! :D