Disclaimer: Code Geass – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. Segment titles are titles from various songs, and I don't own those either. For overall warnings and general Author's Notes, see 'chapter' 1!

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(3) 'A Hard Day's Night'

Pushing open the door marked 'Homicide' at the end of the long corridor, Suzaku found himself practically blinded by fluorescent light. Squinting, he ducked his head and stifled a groan, and his temples throbbed in protest.

He might have sworn, but he wasn't sure in what language.

Luckily it seemed to be one Liliana didn't understand, and she looked up at him in surprise. Her fingers stalled over the keys of her typewriter. "Detective Kururugi!" She blinked and was on her feet in an instant, and she looked slightly surprised to see him - this soon, like this, or at all. "Is there anything I can - ?"

"Coffee," he cut her off, without entirely meaning to do so. The door clicked shut behind him. "Black." The secretary nodded at once and began to set about brewing a pot, and he added a weak "Thanks" to assuage his guilt.

"It's no problem," she assured him, wearing a small smile. "Detective Waldstein mentioned there was a chance you might not come back tonight anyway."

Good to know his boss had such faith in him. "Where is he?"

"He's gone home by now."

"…I meant the client."

"Oh!" Liliana flushed for a bit, before gesturing limply at the door to his office. "He just, ah...let himself in."

"It's alright," Suzaku sighed. He imagined as much, anyway. Eyeing the leggy blonde as she rummaged through the cupboard near her desk for some filter paper, he wondered why on earth she was still here at this time. Though, he supposed Bismarck must have given them the order, and she and Marika had drawn lots. Tough. "Thanks, again," he said, really meaning it this time. "I hope he wasn't rude to you."

Liliana merely smiled at that. "Oh no, far from it. He was very polite."

And Suzaku wasn't entirely sure why that soured him.

His office (along with the man currently sitting in it, he reminded himself) sat between Gino's and the large common room they all used, which doubled as a study and lounge and faced the main entrance to the department. He ignored it completely and paced the small hallway the other way as he waited for the coffee to brew. Luciano's door was locked - this was a good thing, always a good thing, in his mind, but Nonette's -

The door was ajar, only slightly, but that was enough for him to catch a glimpse of the girl sitting in one of the chairs in front of Nonette's massive desk. Training and his own sharp eye allowed him to take in all of her features in just two seconds: long, wavy hair that ended in soft curls at the tips, near her waist. Pale hands and long fingers (these, clasping and unclasping the hem of her feathery skirt), face as cute as a button. Eyes were like lilac, and they were apprehensive as she looked at the floor and bit down on a glossy bottom lip.

Suzaku retraced his steps without speaking, although a part of him might have wanted to. He came upon Liliana watching the coffee maker intently. "Who is she?"

The secretary rummaged through several folders on her desk before handing one to him: "Euphemia li Britannia," she murmured in a low voice. "Third Princess. Client brought her along."

He thumbed it open. "Witness or potential suspect?"

"Both, for now." Suzaku looked up, and Liliana smiled apologetically. "She hasn't given her statement yet."

It took awhile for the meaning of that to settle in. "...No."

"He said this way, you would be 'killing two birds with one stone,'...or something." Liliana faltered, probably from the look on his face (he didn't want to know for himself). "He said you could interview her after speaking with him. And he'd be willing to wait."

"No shit." Suzaku stole a glance at the clock: it was a quarter to ten, now, and with that knowledge, even the pleasant smell of brewing coffee failed to lift his mood. Barely two hours until the next day and he'd already been handed another hour's worth of work for this one, not to mention however long the client wanted to speak with him...

"Don't worry about it." He didn't even notice that Gino had already come in until he was already here, hovering behind him with an arm on his shoulder. He was twirling Suzaku's keys in his other hand, and he hoped the blond had enough sense to not have parked his car anywhere inconvenient. Or illegal. "I can do it. Give me the file."

Suzaku frowned. "Gino, I don't think - "

"We're just taking her statement, right? That's all she's here for?" At Liliana's nod, he grinned and cheerfully plucked the folder from Suzaku's grasp. "Buy me another beer next time we're at Arthur's Castle and we'll call it even."

In any other circumstances he might have been mildly annoyed, but right now Gino's sincere smile and reassuring grip only conjured a bleary sense of gratitude. "Are you sure?"

"I'm better at this than you are anyway," he teased lightly. He took a hold of the pot as soon as it was done, found Suzaku's blue mug among the half-dozen others on a tray, and poured in half of the coffee. "Go talk to our client. He's been dying to see you."

If only he would, Suzaku thought dimly. He took a sip without blowing or holding his breath, and the coffee scorched his tongue and the roof of his mouth well before the bitterness gave him the necessary kick: this was really happening. Gino gave him a final wink and ruffled his hair - like a dog, he supposed - and bounced off to Nonette's office, taking the half-full pot with him.

Gino was gone and this was really happening. God help him.

Armed with little more than a cup of coffee and his client's personal file, Suzaku made his way into his office with all the temperament of a man about to be hanged.

He wasn't surprised at all to find the man comfortably seated in his chair. Impeccably dressed (as always) he was toying with a wooden box in his hands and didn't even meet Suzaku's eyes as he came in. "Detective Kururugi. It's been awhile."

The man's rich voice cut through the air around him and made it sing. No, perhaps now was the point which shredded all his hope and denial, when Suzaku didn't know, for a split second, how to answer. So he invariably ended up choosing the response that hurt the most: setting his coffee precariously onto an empty space on a bookshelf, he waited until the door was closed before dropping to one knee, a hand on his heart and "Your Highness" forced through clenched teeth.

To his credit, Schneizel el Britannia didn't burst out laughing at that, nor did his lips curl into a sneer before letting a snort slip through. No, he was always more refined than that, favoring nuance when vulgarities would have worked just as well: "Please rise, Detective. If I'd wanted anything involving you on your knees, we wouldn't be having this conversation - or any, for that matter."

Suzaku pretended he didn't feel as though he'd been punched in the gut.

But he'd been effectively given an order, hadn't he? Doing as he was told, he stood up to his full height and noticed Schneizel finally looking at him now, through narrowed slits of violet eyes. He turned away, resisting the urge to scoff. This was the second time he'd seen violet eyes today, and yet while the pianist's (Lelouch's, his mind corrected) were similarly alluring, they were warm - these were the exact opposite. "If you insist, Prince Schneizel."

"Oh come now," the man chuckled. "You don't have to be so formal around me. I'd think that men with history like you and I do would be more comfortable with one another than this, wouldn't you agree? Suzaku-kun?"

Suzaku grimaced at that. "Please don't call me that."

An elegant eyebrow was raised in amusement. "Pardon me. Am I pronouncing it wrong?"

"Yes," he lied. Reclaiming his coffee, he walked over and sank into one of the other chairs facing Schneizel. He wasn't about to start something by requesting that the man move away. "Did your business meeting go well?"

"Well enough," the Prince hummed, without batting an eyelid. (So it had been true then, at least as far as he could tell. But Schneizel was an excellent liar, and he needed no reminders of that.) "In any case, I hope you'll excuse that I'm taking up your time like this. Clearly these aren't office hours anymore."

"It's fine," Suzaku bit out, reaching across his desk and taking his fountain pen.

"Cigar?" Schneizel was still wearing that small smile, and now held out the wooden box before him. He opened it and ran a finger along the edge, describing its contents in a nonchalant tone: "Palmitas from the La Gloria Cubana line. These were a particular favorite of my brother's, though, I prefer their Dalias myself."

Suzaku frowned. "I quit," he said. Another lie.

"Oh? Well then you'll have to present them to Detective Waldstein on my behalf." He chuckled, closing the box and sliding it across the top of the desk, until it came to rest neatly beside a stack of case files (this case's files). "It amazes me how much can change in a span of four years."

He wondered if he was being baited.

"You found the body, is that right?" Suzaku opened the folder on his lap and detached the first page, using the blank space on the back for his notes.

Schneizel nodded, and steepled his fingers together. "A little after five-thirty in the evening. Dinner was about to be served."

"What was the occasion?"

"My sister Guinevere's engagement." So far, so good, Suzaku thought to himself, matching that up against previous testimonies. Not that he'd been expecting anything else. "To say that she was positively distraught would be an understatement."

"You don't sound as much, yourself," Suzaku murmured, without thinking. Shit. Was he not completely sober yet? Picking up his coffee, he took a long sip to clear his head and distracted himself by scribbling: 'First Princess engaged; not invited to wedding.'

"On a cerebral level, I'm not. It looked to be a painless death, which is at least something we can find solace in." Schneizel leaned back, adjusting his gloves with a closed expression. "He looked to be at peace - in fact, his countenance reminded me of General Calares, actually. Calm and serene in death."

At the name, Suzaku's grip tightened around his pen.

He waited a beat, another, before letting out his breath. "And what were you doing in the dining room?"

Schneizel looked away. "I already told you, it was around dinner time."

"According to this you found the body alone." Suzaku flipped through pages upon pages of cross-statements, all saying more or less the same thing. "Now I don't know the protocol of fancy affairs like this, but I'm willing to guess it was either the servants were supposed to bring the food to you, or you were all going to move to the dining room when the time came. Either way, you pulled yourself away from the crowd." He looked up from the file, and met the Prince's scowl. "What happened there?"

But then the scowl dissolved into a wide grin. "I've no regrets - this job suits you, Detective Kururugi."

Suzaku flushed. "Answer the question, please. Your Highness."

Schneizel rolled his eyes (and he even managed to make this look dignified) with a sigh. "Why do I feel as though I am being interrogated? I was the one who hired you to find my brother's killer, no?"

"Doesn't mean you aren't on our suspect list." And he was rather high up on that list, now that Schneizel was just a formality away from becoming the new Crown Prince. At the man's narrowed eyes, he averted his gaze and shrugged. "I'm only doing my job."

"Indeed, and how diligently so. Perhaps this is the career you were born for, Kururugi. It certainly has more glamor to it than, say, getting shot at in mud trenches in France, wouldn't you agree?"

Suzaku's vision darkened, and the walls of the room seemed to close in on him. Schneizel had always had a way with words, and now he could almost hear the gunfire ringing in the back of his mind. He squashed the vestiges of that memory down through sheer will and realized, perhaps Schneizel had had no plans of talking about the case from the get-go. "Have you really come all this way at such a late hour to mock me," he asked tightly, "Your Highness?"

"Mock you?" Schneizel looked as though he'd never considered it. "Whatever for? You were a hero - "

"I was your scapegoat," he ground out in a strained voice, clutching the end of the page and not realizing he was crumpling it.

" - Who saved my brother Clovis from certain disinheritance." Schneizel finished languidly as though he'd never been interrupted, once again inspecting his gloves with a trained, perfect detachment. "With General Calares and all the higher-ranking officers themselves killed that day, there was no-one else to blame for the failure of that mission. You understand, don't you? Someone had to take the fall."

"But I wasn't..." Suzaku struggled to get anything out after that, ultimately failing. It was hard enough just to breathe.

Because he wasn't the one who ordered those men to charge. He wasn't the one who waved away conflicting intelligence reports and led their whole squadron into what would turn out to be heavily-guarded enemy terrain. He wasn't the one who waited, from the safety of the barracks, as four hundred men walked right into their deaths.

He wasn't the one who got them all killed, men he'd served with for four years. Because he was with them on the field, one of the twenty-odd men who'd survived. It wasn't until he woke up two days later, bleeding and delirious and hauled by one of his subordinates under a fallen bridge, that he learned that the barracks had been bombed and there was no-one left to report to.

The day the war ended, Paris broke out in cheers and revelry on the streets. And Major Suzaku Kururugi, who was recommended for promotion that year, had to attend his court-martial.

"Whoever heard of a lieutenant colonel at twenty-three, anyway?" Schneizel mused. "Some of the men were already talking amongst themselves, did you know? Spreading rumors. Some of them were untrue." His lips turned up in a wry smile. "Some."

That didn't matter to him. None of it did, anymore. And he never would have imagined, five years ago, that he would be saying these words to one man and completely meaning them, with every fiber of his being. "You ruined my life." But things changed.

Schneizel spared him a look. "I got you an honorable discharge, and a comfortable job that didn't involve going out everyday and wondering if you would come back alive. Some would call that 'generous'." And then, just as quickly, he was staring at the bookshelf in Suzaku's office, completely disinterested. "As for your earlier question: I don't know. Perhaps I was hungry, or perhaps I wanted to extract myself from an endless conversation with one of the many noblemen's daughters who had been invited to attend that night. I can't remember, and I honestly don't know."

Suzaku carefully took aside the part of him that was still fuming, still bitter, and locked it in a corner of his mind. Things changed, and perhaps long ago, the universe decided that if ever it was going to cater to the whims of a master, it certainly wasn't going to be him. Not in this lifetime. "You don't know," he echoed dully, staring at creases across the margin.

"Feel free to write that down if you wish." Schneizel sighed, checked his fine golden watch that glittered obscenely in the dim office, and moved to rise. "No, I don't suspect anyone in particular, and no I have nothing more to say. My brother Odysseus was a simple man, and he had no enemies that I know of. I do wish I could give you more to work on, but that is the best I have to offer. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe it's about time for me to collect Euphy."

Suzaku didn't write it down, and he didn't move even as Schneizel was already on his feet, making his way to the door. He did, however, notice when Schneizel made a detour, and when he felt a heavy gloved hand on his shoulder, he tensed and looked up.

"Why me?" he asked sharply. "You could have hired any detective in Pendragon."

Schneizel laughed at that, actually laughed. "Because." And then, in a matter wholly unbefitting of the Second (no, Crown) Prince of the Empire, he braced both of his hands on the back of Suzaku's chair, effectively trapping him there before he could react, and leaned in very, very close. "Because you hate me." He smelled of champagne, fine and sweet. "You suspect me. And because these two facts are additive, Detective, I know for sure that you'll spare no effort in finding every shred of evidence there is against me." Then he pulled back; he seemed so much taller this way, and his eyes glittered as he looked down. "But I am innocent, and so I trust that with the diligence you are bound to pour into this exercise in futility, you will deliver the killer to me."

Suzaku hadn't moved, hadn't blinked, hadn't taken a breath (because he'd smelled champagne, and he'd been read so easily) by the time Schneizel let himself out of the office.

"Good night, Detective."

And when the door finally clicked shut he let out a shuddering breath, reached for his coffee and chugged it all the way down. It was bitter as hell, and his eyes watered, but when he slammed the empty mug back down onto the desk, threatening to shatter it, his hand was no longer shaking.

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Author's (end) notes: I wish I had a Gino where I worked. For real.

Um…thanks for reading and reviews would be loved? :D