Purple Flowers: A Code Geass New Year's Fic, a code geass fanfic

A/N: I really like holiday fic, and there's not enough for New Year's ;D This may be the shortest author note I've ever written :P Hope you enjoy, and please review! :D

ooo

Purple Flowers – A Code Geass New Year's Fic

Every New Year's Eve, the Britannian army gave a gift to its lowest ranked members. The Honorary Britannians of the infantry got one night to go home to friends and family, if they were close enough, and since most were stationed in or outside their hometowns, they usually were. Every year, Suzaku Kururugi put his hand up for watch duty. Someone had to do it, and it might as well be someone with no family, and no friends, and nowhere to go.

Suzaku didn't feel sorry for himself, and he refused to let anyone else, though they all did, every year—they could hardly know. Suzaku had shot the last of his close family, so he had no right to resent being alone. Kirihara Taizou had covered it up for him, so he could only be grateful to the old men who'd lived with him at the shrine. And it wasn't like he'd been left with nowhere to go by the war's destruction—the shrine had been left perfectly in tact. He doubted it belonged to him as it had when he'd made himself the last member of the House of Kururugi, but for it to be left alone as it had, Kirihara had to have made some deal for it. Suzaku knew the old man had made a lot of deals. So it probably belonged to him now, and Suzaku knew it was unoccupied—cursed by his crime, and by the story of betrayal that he'd allowed to protect him. So he could have gone there, if he'd wanted. He didn't. Of all the memories he didn't want, the one that loomed largest filled that house. Within those walls, there still stood the room where a foolish ten-year-old had done the unforgiveable. And Suzaku didn't want to be any nearer to that than absolutely necessary. No, Suzaku had no reason to feel sorry for himself, and every year he volunteered at the earliest chance for New Year's Eve watch duty, and let no one pity him if he could help it.

But even though he wouldn't go there, it was the occupants of the shrine, and his few remaining family, that floated through Suzaku's thoughts as he counted down the New Year alone. There was Kaguya—he knew she'd still been alive at the end of the war, that Kirihara had gotten her out, so chances were she was out there somewhere. The Sumeragi Concern was in tact, he knew that much, and she was its last living heir, just as he was to his House. So she was probably with Kirihara, and Munakata and Kubouin and Osakabe, running their little advisory committee.

Suzaku had considered going to them, taking up the leadership of Kururugi and sitting on the NAC, had considered it many times. He'd tried to think past the way guilt surged up at the thought—guilt that knew he had no right to the House that gave him birth after what he'd done. He had considered whether pushing that guilt aside and stepping up as the sixth House of Japan might be the best way to attain influence and protect his nation. And every time, he'd decided against it. Old man Kirihara and the others had the NAC, and it had a lot more influence than Suzaku did right now, that was for sure. But he'd seen enough, and seen enough of Britannia, that he knew they weren't getting far. Britannia was giving them a little to stop them wanting more, just like they gave him and the others Honorary Britannian status, an almost worthless prize that meant all but nothing, to stop them thirsting for independence. He doubted Prince Clovis or any other Britannian governor would ever let the NAC or the Houses of Japan that sat on it gain any real power. Going to them would mean leaving the military, which meant he couldn't try both ways. And it was here, in the military, that Suzaku was strong. He knew he had advantages others didn't.

Suzaku was easily the most capable, most exceptional soldier in this barracks, probably in all Britannia's infantry in Japan. So far that hadn't done much for him, but he'd been young. And he'd heard stories—stories that if they were really, really, really strong, a Number could become a Knight. They all knew, though you didn't mention it to the Britannian officers, that at least one of the Knights of Round was a Number. And that had made Suzaku's decision. Kirihara's group was going nowhere, being pacified and bribed off, until soon enough the old men would be dead and Kaguya would hardly be much for Britannia to contend with. But if he stayed a soldier…if any Eleven had the strength and the skill to catch the attention of Britannia's commanders and become a Round, Suzaku knew it was him. And there, there he would have real power. If he could take their abuse and their cruelty and their injustice, and live with it, and keep fighting, and keep trying, then there was a slim chance he could make it there, make it to the top, and as a Round Suzaku knew he'd be able to help Japan. Surely. If only he could just keep fighting.

It no longer took long to come to that conclusion—he'd had the discussion in his head too many times. And that was the end of thinking about Kaguya, and Kirihara and the old men who'd been as good as family, since they'd all lived there at the shrine a lot of the time. He knew most of the house staff had ended up dead, he'd seen a lot of the bodies, for one thing, and a ten-year-old remembers every familiar face lying cold and strangely limp on the bloody ground. Years ago, shortly after entering the military, he'd sought after the two nurses who'd been mostly responsible for raising him, and found they'd both been part of that slaughter.

He was fairly sure Kyoshiro Tohdoh was alive—Britannia, at least, thought the man who'd taught him to fight was with the terrorist underground, and they were most likely right. Tohdoh wasn't the type to back down, and he was fiercely Japanese, and Suzaku was sure if Britannia had any chance to parade him as dead they would have taken it. Thinking of Tohdoh wasn't much comfort, though. Suzaku had always admired him, harsh as he was, and it was hard to think of him rotting in the dregs of resistance that popped up occasionally to kill some civilians and slowly diminished, surely knowing they had no hope of ever doing any good.

And so Suzaku came to the last residents of the shrine. They probably weren't alive—Suzaku knew that. But he didn't know for sure that they were dead either, and if anyone could survive all this and hide…it would have to be Lelouch Vi Britannia, and if Lelouch was alive he was protecting his little sister Nunnally. And so for the last hours before the New Year ticked over, Suzaku always tended to end up thinking of Lelouch. He was mildly less depressing than the rest—there was a reasonable chance he could be alive, and he definitely wasn't in any dying terrorist resistance, and he wasn't fading away on some meaningless, deal making committee of what had been great men. Lelouch had been like family, for a short time—closer than family, since Suzaku had never known a great deal of closeness in blood. He had been Suzaku's first friend, and he'd been a good friend, even though he was stuck up and silly and pretentious and as weak as a girl—Suzaku had to laugh—there was the ten-year-old in him coming out. It was amusing, for a while, to think what Lelouch might be like if he had survived. Most of the time, Suzaku just ended up seeing him as a taller, less high-pitched version of the little kid he'd spent all day, every day with for the best and the worst year of his life. Still silly, still pretentious, still tripping over his own feet and unable to walk up a hill without stopping to catch his breath.

It was Lelouch, to an extent, who gave Suzaku some of the hope he had in his rough plan—hope more than plan—for the future. Prince Clovis wasn't exactly a model of morality and justice, and nor was Britannia's Emperor. But Lelouch had been a prince of Britannia, just like the rest, and even though he'd been arrogant and annoying and intolerably smart, he'd been…kind. Sometimes. Gentle, in his own way. He'd yelled and made a fuss a lot, but he didn't want to hurt people, he was just like that. He'd felt sorry for people just like Suzaku had. He'd loved his little sister more than anything in the world, and Suzaku knew he would have given anything for her. He'd been a spoiled little kid. But he'd been…he'd had a good heart. Suzaku was sure of that. And if one prince (and Nunnally too, she was kind of different, but Suzaku doubted she'd been any less sweet and innocent before having her legs ruined) was like that, surely there had to be other people in the Britannian royal family who were essentially good. That was probably how the much-whispered-about Knight of Round who was a Number had ended up there—through one of these good princes or princesses, somewhere in the world. And if there were good people out there in the Britannian royalty, than bringing out that good and making it work for Japan had to be possible. As long as Suzaku stayed in the army, and kept demonstrating his skill and devotion at every chance, maybe one day one of those royals, one of the ones like Lelouch who might not hate him for his blood (even if Lelouch had, at first), might spot him, and then just maybe he'd have his chance.

When the fireworks began over the Tokyo Settlement to welcome in 2017, Suzaku, sitting in the watchtower above the infantry barracks, hadn't properly celebrated a New Year's in seven years, and that last celebration was what he remembered. His father hadn't really paid him much more attention than usual—thinking back on it, the old men were probably all talking of war. But for once, he hadn't needed it. For the first year ever, Suzaku had had a friend. And while Kaguya spun around in her New Year's clothes and showed off to the maids and occasionally chattered to Nunnally (to whom Suzaku had sternly instructed her to be nice), Suzaku had dragged Lelouch out to his favourite spot for watching the fireworks.

It was high in a tree above the walls, and Suzaku had had to all but lift Lelouch up, because the gods' four-foot gift to humanity couldn't climb much better than his wheelchair-bound sister. The idiot had almost fallen out as soon as Suzaku had let go, and after lunging out to catch him three times in two minutes, Suzaku had given up and decided to just hang on to him until they got down. Eventually, though, he'd managed to get them settled in his most stable spot—and so they'd sat, high above the wall on a thick branch, Suzaku's arm firmly around Lelouch's shoulders to stop him toppling. Lelouch was on the trunk side, since he needed more support, but they were small enough, light enough at nine and ten that Suzaku could just lean back against the branches behind him. It was cosy, hidden up there, with the stars out, and leaves all around, and no adults to yell and scold and mutter about Suzaku being friends with the hostage. And when the sky erupted with fireworks on the stroke of midnight, it was like they were coming out just for them, red and gold, green and blue, purple like Lelouch's silly unnatural eyes.

Red and gold…

Showers of stars and bursts of fire that from the barracks watch-tower looked uncomfortably like bullet rounds from Knightmares or the bombs that set old Tokyo aflame.

Green and blue…

A rainbow over the new, Britannian city, though they stayed only gold across at the Britannian school—Ashford Academy was letting off these ridiculous things that exploded like giant fleurs-de-lis in the sky.

And purple…

And purple would always remind Suzaku of the boy he'd watched drive away with Britannian relatives who didn't want their new ward's little Eleven friend, no matter how Lelouch argued. Even seven years later, Suzaku had never met anyone else with eyes like Lelouch's. The Britannian Emperor's were purple, sure, he knew that. But in every broadcast, every image, they were cold, hard. Lelouch's eyes had always been soft, even when they tried not to be. And even though he knew it was silly, silly when he'd known the little boy so briefly, a lifetime ago…on New Year's Eve, as the fireworks rained down, Suzaku always missed Lelouch Vi Britannia.

***

The tiny Lelouch shivered as wind gusted the tree they were perched in, and Suzaku grabbed Lelouch's wrist with the arm round his shoulders and used his other hand to do up Lelouch's coat, 'cause the idiot would be far too proud to do it himself. The fireworks had been going for ten whole minutes now, and they'd go at least another twenty. Suzaku thought it had to be the most brilliant festival all year. The whole sky was full of smoke, but the colour kept on bursting through, and from up here they could see the fountains of sparks in the centre of the city, all the firecrackers being let off in the streets, the massive display in the sky and the red lanterns filling the windows.

Lelouch glared at Suzaku as he finished with his friend's coat. "I wasn't cold."

Suzaku pretended to push him off the branch, and Lelouch squealed. "Suzaku!"

Suzaku grinned. "I was holding on to you, idiot."

"I could have died."

"Sure." Suzaku snorted laughter, and Lelouch hmphed haughtily.

"These fireworks aren't very impressive."

Now it was Suzaku's turn to glare. "They are too!"

Lelouch made a very small dismissive gesture with his hand, 'cause he couldn't stop clinging to the branch long enough to make a larger one. "The ones above Pendragon outclass these easily."

"Liar."

"I am not!"

"I'll let you fall."

"Suzaku!"

Suzaku almost smirked, as much as an essentially innocent nine-year-old is able. "Admit ours are better."

"No."

Suzaku bit his lip to hold in laughter as he let go his grip on Lelouch's far shoulder, and withdrew his arm just an inch. Lelouch's grip on the branch tightened so hard he was shaking.

"Admit it, Lelouch…"

"You really are unimaginably stupid, Suzaku." Lelouch's voice was shaking, and it made his taunts sound considerably less insulting…and Suzaku was used to him anyway. "Surely you realize that whatever 'admission' you force out of me while threatening to push me to my death from a tall tree is completely void of meaning."

Suzaku drew his arm back another inch, though he was pretty sure he could still catch Lelouch easily. He'd been much further away than this the first couple of times the almighty prince had slipped.

Lelouch blanched. "Stop it."

Suzaku shrugged. "You probably want to fall back down, if our fireworks are so horrible to watch."

Lelouch was almost making the branch shake. "I didn't say that…"

Suzaku deliberately bounced the limb supporting them both.

Lelouch gasped loudly, and looked downright panicked. "Suzaku, your stupid fireworks are perfectly good fun to watch."

Suzaku prodded Lelouch's knuckles, which had turned rather whiter than usual. "Better than Britannia's?"

Lelouch sounded like he might start to hyperventilate. "Maybe as good."

"Lelouch…"

And the unshakable exiled prince of Britannia snapped. "Fine! If it really means that much to you, Suzaku, yes! Better. I don't even care! They're just stupid fireworks!"

And Suzaku wrapped his arm tightly back around the tiny ten-year-old's shaking shoulders before he could knock himself off the branch in agitation. Lelouch leaned into him at once, and Suzaku tried not to feel just a little bad…the hopeless idiot really was terrified.

In the distance, flowers bloomed in blue and pink and purple fire.

"Hey…Lelouch?"

Lelouch glared, and looked straight out at the fireworks. Suzaku squirmed uneasily. His one and only friend looked a little like he was going to cry…or like he'd been going to, at least. Stupid Lelouch. So maybe Suzaku had gone just a bit far. Lelouch was such a sissy! Still…Suzaku took a deep breath. "I wouldn't really have let you fall, you know."

Lelouch hmphed. "Like I'd trust you."

Suzaku rolled his eyes. "Like you'd let me pull you up a tree if you didn't. You're hopeless."

Lelouch didn't reply to that.

It wasn't until twenty minutes later, as the last burst of blinding colour, hundreds of fireworks together, thundered above them, that Suzaku figured out what to say. One arm still tight round his friend's shoulders, he used the other to prod Lelouch gently in the ribs. "Happy New Year, Lelouch."

And Lelouch gazed out at the fire dying in the sky, and pressed himself closer into Suzaku's side as the thunder made the air vibrate. He was still sulking, but he was more practical than to really let it last long. So his voice was quiet, but it didn't matter.

"Happy New Year, Suzaku Kururugi."

***

As the last embers of the big display faded into the smoke above the new Tokyo Settlement, Suzaku Kururugi stood watch alone in the barracks tower, and whispered the one memory he could bear to the last fireworks still going in the distance; some lucky, rich students stubbornly carrying on the show at the big Academy.

"Happy New Year, Lelouch."

But only the wind answered back.

Happy New Year, Suzaku…

ooo

Every year at Ashford Academy, the New Year's Eve party was a night to remember. The students of the school had come and gone over the years Lelouch had been there, but he had been one of the founding students, and so had his four closest friends—his little sister, Nunnally; the headmaster's granddaughter, Milly; Rivalz Cardemonde, whose family had come over as part of the first wave of incentivised settlers from the mainland; and Shirley Fenette, daughter of an early investor in the new Tokyo settlement, capital of Britannian Japan—Area 11. From the very first year, Student Council presidents had always made the New Year's Eve party their showcase event. All the students wore formal attire, suits for the boys, massive, elaborate Britannian dresses for the girls. Milly had been Lelouch's only friend—except Nunnally—that first year, and they had been a pair at the elaborate evening ball. Milly, after much deliberation (sat through with minimal complaint by Lelouch, who had already learned that Milly was the one person he should fear in life), had decided that her best bet at stunning each and every one of the party's attendees would be to match her dress to Lelouch's eyes rather than her own, since they had to match, and Lelouch would look stupid in a blue tie.

And so Milly had looked elegantly, nobly, Britannianly beautiful in violet, and when she arrived at his door ridiculously early, well before the night began, since neither of them could possibly cut through the party alone to meet up for their entrance, she had stuck in Lelouch's buttonhole a bright, vivid purple flower, a blooming rose, genetically modified to a shade it could never have naturally attained. Lelouch and Milly had not attended the party together every year since—Milly had pushed him into going with Shirley one year, and last year, Milly had been Student Council President and declared that no one could choose dates until the ball itself…when they would be decided by a series of absurd games that gave Lelouch the distinct urge to shut her in a large box and tape it closed. But despite that, Milly had continued to insist on buying Lelouch that flower, every year, without fail. A small, sentimental gift to celebrate another year spent safe and happy and undiscovered. The first year, it had alarmed him, like little did, because for one disorienting moment it had looked too familiar. The second year, he had very nearly asked her not to do it again…but hadn't, because he'd known he'd have to explain himself. Now, after five years, the bright purple rose no longer alarmed him, but he still remembered.

Behind the wall of the Kururugi Shrine, across the other side of Tokyo, there had grown a massive tree, where half-way up, Suzaku Kururugi had liked to watch the New Year's fireworks. At the base of that tree had been a flowerbed, abandoned and empty because it was dwarfed by the tree, and round the side of the estate where no one went, out of the way past the store house Lelouch called home. And in that abandoned flowerbed, the abandoned prince of Britannia had grown one rose bush, the seeds bought with more money than he could really afford because here, a world away, it was the only thing he could do. Lelouch couldn't erect a monument to his mother, but he could grow her favourite flower, even if it didn't grow so well. Blooming roses, the colour of his father's eyes. The colour of his eyes. A vivid, glowing purple.

At 11:45pm every New Year's Eve, the Ashford Academy ball drew to a close. Each group of students had their favourite place to watch the big fireworks above the city, and for Lelouch and Milly and, as the years went on, their growing group of friends, it was the roof of the Student Council Clubhouse, the roof of Lelouch and Nunnally's home. It was nice—it was always nice. Milly was loud and cheerful, and Rivalz was an enthusiastic enough listener to compensate for Lelouch. When Shirley joined them, the second year, she and Milly laughed together, and picked shapes in the glowing display. Lelouch would describe to Nunnally as best he could what was splashing across the sky, and when Nina Einstein, the shy new arrival who Milly had taken under her wing, joined them the fourth year, she added in a running commentary on what metals created each colour, how the fuses were set and the explosions came together and the science worked its magic to make the sky light up. The year Milly became president, she even got Nina to make them their own fireworks, specially created to paint the gold Ashford logo across the night.

It was a perfect way to celebrate the coming of a new year, and Lelouch could want for nothing. Every year gave him success on which to reflect—success, at least, in so far as Nunnally was still hidden safely within Ashford. Yet every year, there was one loose end, one stray thought that he couldn't get rid of. Every year, Milly handed Lelouch a bright purple rose, and every year, Lelouch thought of a cold garden bed, and a massive tree, and a small boy with bright green eyes who'd dragged him into the branches and stopped him falling and teased him and taunted him and watched the old fireworks with him and defended them with foolish Japanese pride. Lelouch couldn't see the shrine from the roof of the clubhouse—it had no particularly visible features—but he could see the part of Tokyo where he knew it still stood. Lelouch didn't know whether Suzaku was still alive—the chances he'd survived the war weren't all that good—but he hoped he had.

And every year, as the last massive shock of colour burst across the sky, Lelouch touched the purple petals, and looked out at the flowers of purple flame, and whispered a new year's greeting, just in case, to his first real friend.

"Happy New Year, Suzaku."

And he could almost imagine that stubborn, strong, childish voice whispering back to him in the smoke.

Happy New Year, Lelouch.

ooo

A/N: I can't speak Japanese (and don't know of any translations of the sound episodes…?), so I have a lack of canon details for the early Ashford years. So I made the ones I needed up :P If anyone feels inclined to correct me, please do! XD I would love to know :D I also have very little knowledge of Japanese new years' celebrations, and wrote this too last minute to research them, so I guessed a little and figured it's an AU Japan anyway ;D Again, feel welcome to correct me :-) Same goes for any other errors – I ran out of time a little and ended up writing this in a few hours before dawn this morning, so while I've edited it as best I can, further corrections are most welcome :-)

Please review! And a very happy new year to all :) (((new year's hugs))) :D