Thanks to all of you for your kind reviews and favorites. I'm really enjoying writing this story, and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Please let me know what you think!
-wedgegeck
Wait and Hope, by wedgegeck {wedgegeck [at] gmail [dot] com}
Chapter Two: Zwischenzug, KN-R4
The breeze coming off of the water was chilly, so early in the morning, but Kallen was enjoying it. She turned toward the surf as she jogged, feeling the pleasant shift from the hard scuff of the dry sand to the more yielding rebound, damp from the retreating waves. Kallen took a deep breath, scanned the clear sky ahead of her. How long has it been since I was on vacation, she wondered?
As she turned to the West, following the curve of the peninsula, Mt Fuji came into full view, clear across the bay. It bore the scars of Lelouch's desperate tactic to draw Schneizel away from land; it was black and once again inactive, the Sakuradite facilities still under repair. She'd toured them, five days prior, upon her arrival in Shizuoka - her official "visit" and only real duty during this forced vacation. Suzaku had outlined a plan for her to seek out Lelouch, but initial preparations were going to take ten days or so. In the meantime, she was on vacation on the Izu Peninsula, dodging her fame as best she could.
"Someone like you cannot simply disappear," Zero had stated, his mask firmly back in place. With the attention she was receiving here, perhaps as a consequence of her recent graduation, Kallen had to admit that he had been right. Hopefully preparations for her cover and departure were going well; her "contact" was to let her know in a few days.
For now, though, all Kallen had was time, more free time than she'd had since being imprisoned by Lelouch. Since she did not yet have any documentation about Lelouch's whereabouts, she instead spent her days acting as much like a vacationing young woman as she knew how. Regrettably, she discovered that she knew little about it at all. She jogged every morning down the beach from the house Zero had found for her, but past that she was at something of a loss. She had briefly tried sunbathing on the second day, but her fame evidently made her quite an appealing target for the paparazzi. Her excursions to buy dinner went a little better, but frequently ended in apologies to the owner of the establishment for the disturbance. Visiting Shizuoka itself had been enlightening, on the third day - she had visited the 1:1 scale model of the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. which stood as the centerpiece of the plastic model festival held later in the year, and had been complimented by several people on her "extremely well-done replica Guren key," and also her headband.
Kallen wasn't sure whether she should be amused or disturbed.
None of it, though, served to distract her from her thoughts for very long. When she wasn't wondering where she was going, or whether Lelouch wanted her there, she was going over her parting words with Suzaku. After she had announced her intentions, he had responded by telling her about what he knew of the World of C, and what had happened there with Lelouch and his parents, and C.C. Nunnally had been stoic, obviously already aware of the tale. For her part, Kallen could only wonder at it, and was unable to drive the image of Lelouch rescuing C.C. from her mind. She thought it tragic, that Lelouch should have saved the world not once, but twice, and that no one was ever to know. His cold response to her kiss, driving her away at the UFN council at Ashford, was bitter in her mind.
She thought a great deal about C.C., and about what Suzaku had told her of the woman's desire to be with Lelouch, and Lelouch's to have her live on.
All of them, herself, Suzaku, Nunnally, C.C., were safe, lived on, because he had ordered them to, had dropped the masks of Zero and the Demon Emperor on his own. Suzaku was right, she reflected: Lelouch needed to be told, made to realize that.
She ran on, past the breaking surf, and back to her well-ordered and guarded vacation home. On the dining room table she found a note, anonymously laser-printed. "Five days." It was resting under a pleasingly ripe satsuma, brilliantly orange.
Kallen's mother had accepted her departure and excuses with a soft smile, but did not ask questions when Kallen told her that Zero needed her for something covert after the vacation was done. Kallen had promised to remain in touch.
Milly had agreed to pass along the story to her other friends; she suspected something, of course, but respected Kallen's privacy, and wished her good luck.
Zero had agreed to deal with the particulars of her assignment, and her story to the Black Knights. Then she had had a day to pack before she was sent over to Shizuoka for her official visit, meeting up with Kaguya-hime. The young politician had seemed a little wistful, and a little tired, as she spoke with Kallen, but Kallen had said nothing of Lelouch, despite her strong empathy for the princess.
Kallen though about those meetings, those faces, the twinge of conscience she felt concealing the truth from them. The little note brought it all into sharp focus, but she brushed it away; she could decide what to do about them after she figured out what to do with Lelouch. She had made her choice, there in the garden with Nunnally and Suzaku. Perhaps, she reflected, the choice had been made well before that, but when specifically she could not say.
The ensuing five days alternately dragged and flew by, anticipation vying with anxiety. Kallen busied herself reading up on intelligence dispatches from the Black Knights, and wondering where Lelouch's hand was in the analyses she was reading.
In the early morning of the tenth day of her vacation, Kallen received a message with an address, instructing her to meet her contact without being followed. She gathered the few things she was told to take with her, plus the Guren's key, and made her way to the contact point. Her guards, unsurprisingly, were complicit. A small car arrived at the appointed time, and the door opened. Kallen entered, and her eyes went wide with recognition as she sat down, her mouth open in amazement.
"Knight of Six? You're my contact?"
The pink-haired girl glanced at her impassively from under an absurd-looking blue hat, before raising her camera and snapping a photo. "Fish out of water, saved."
Kallen had not seen Anya Alstreim since Oghi's wedding, but she had supposed that Anya was off doing something back in the Britannian homeland. The girl pulled the car away from the curb and began heading North. "Where are we going-" Kallen stopped, unsure what to call the girl.
"Anya," she provided. "We are going to the farm, so that we can meet Jeremiah, and you can go to Lelouch." Anya spoke in a mostly monotone voice, but smiled a small smile as she related the information, not taking her eyes from the road.
"Anya," Kallen began again, "where are you taking me, now?"
The girl replied, "To the farm, to Jeremiah. You'll have a little more vacation before you get to leave."
"Where is Lelouch?" Kallen found it hard to be calm in the face of Anya's almost provoking evenness of tone.
"That is for Jeremiah to tell you."
Kallen crossed her arms and turned to look out the window as they headed out of the city. "What's the farm?" She asked, watching the sun begin to rise.
"Home."
The farm was a good way out of the city, into the middle of nowhere. The FLEIJA scars were behind them, or at least Kallen hadn't recognized any in a while. Anya said nothing else during their trip, and Kallen fell silent in response. She did finally speak, though, as they had been driving up an unpaved road for quite some time now, passing nothing but what looked to be orange trees.
"Are we close?" Kallen inquired, enjoying the feel of the sun through the window.
"We're here," Anya intoned, pointing as they rounded a curve. A farmhouse with green shutters, and a few outbuildings occupied the center of the orange grove. It was pleasant, even inviting. Anya stopped the vehicle in front of the farmhouse, wordlessly left and began walking toward the door. Kallen picked up her backpack and followed suit, quirking an eyebrow at the small pet door and the peculiarly ugly blue and brown rocking chair in front. Anya removed her shoes at the door, and Kallen did the same.
The inside of the house, Kallen thought, was even more odd than the chair might have indicated. The windows were covered with drapes the same green color as the exterior shutters, but the hardwood floor displayed a cluttered assortment of rugs, all different colors, none of which matched the drapes. Off to the left, the dining table had six chairs of three different types, and a tablecloth in a plaid which somehow managed to dodge every color combination already in the room. Kallen dropped her backpack on the table, and watched silently as Anya headed to the kitchen, and started making coffee.
Kallen turned as she heard a noise from the door, only to see a small train of animals file in toward Anya. And at the head of them, a familiar face. "Arthur!" She exclaimed. The cat meowed in her direction as he strolled into the kitchen. Anya turned around after setting the coffee to start, and moved to the refrigerator. She poured out a small saucer of milk and gravely presented it to Arthur and his companions, all of whom yowled appreciatively.
Anya looked up to notice Kallen's curious expression. "You know Arthur. The others are Cat," she pointed to a grey male, "Flower," she pointed to a larger white cat, "and Heorot." The last was a small tabby. Anya frowned slightly. "Jeremiah named him." She turned to get a mismatched pair of mugs, smiling inexplicably at the one in her left hand with a strange art-deco pattern. She handed the other mug, some kind of children's art project, to Kallen. She tilted her head for a moment, as if remembering something, and got another mug down, this one emblazoned with the logo of a sports team Kallen did not recognize.
She motioned for Kallen to sit down, poured her a cup of coffee very deliberately, and very slowly, and then did the same with the other two mugs before sitting down herself. She stared openly while Kallen tasted her coffee, and promptly took a photo of Kallen's reaction. "Pleasantly surprised," she intoned, then took a sip of her own.
Anya seemed disinclined to continue, so Kallen spoke. "Do you work on the farm?"
"Of course." Came the immediate reply.
"Does anyone know that the Knight of Six runs an orange farm?" Kallen asked, honestly curious.
"Not really. Zero keeps it quiet, and we sell our produce through intermediaries mostly. Many Japanese would look unkindly on a Britannian business out here in the country, after all, so we keep a low profile."
"What do you do here?" Kallen prodded.
"We grow oranges," Anya looked at her as a professor at an errant student. "Specifically, we grow Owari, Satsuma, and three Western varieties. Jeremiah wants to add a few more, but the farm is fairly small, and we've only just gotten started." She paused to drink her coffee. Kallen noted that she was still wearing her absurdly floppy blue hat. Noticing Kallen's gaze, Anya removed the hat and stood up. "Let me show you your room."
Kallen grabbed her backpack and followed Anya down the hallway. They stopped at the second room on the left. Anya showed her in; it was like the rugs in the front room, only more explosive. Kallen ignored the flooring and strange assortment of pillows on the Western-style bed and turned to Anya.
"This is my room," Anya said. "Please put away your things for now, and meet me up front once you do. Jeremiah should be home shortly. You'll be sleeping here. The bathroom is down the hall to the left," she gestured, "and it's communal." She moved as if to leave, but Kallen spoke first, looking a bit conflicted.
"I don't mean to put you out, Anya. Where will you sleep?"
Anya smirked momentarily and then resumed her calm expression. "I do not sleep here anymore," she said enigmatically, then left and closed the bedroom door behind her.
Kallen fell back, sitting onto the bed, wondering and then trying not to wonder about Anya's comment. The girl was hardly given to joking, but then again Kallen hardly knew her that well. What reason would she have to lie? But Orange-kun, there ... Kallen gave up, laughing, thinking of Mordred shaking orange trees while Jeremiah Gottwald smiled approvingly.
Still grinning, her own worries forgotten for the moment, Kallen unloaded her small bag and wondered if perhaps the cool Knight of Six had intended to lighten her mood. The thought cheered her, as the thought of another's goodwill always did. Unpacked now, Kallen noticed a bookshelf in the corner and looked closer at the titles. Some were in English, others in Japanese - it was a strange assortment of boarding school books, adventure novels, etiquette guides, cookbooks, and anthropology texts. Kallen pulled a copy of an old library book off the shelf out of curiosity. How to know the Tapeworms.
Briefly, Kallen felt serious concern for Jeremiah Gottwald's relationship with the strange young woman.
After returning the book to its shelf and examining Anya's closet - vague ideas of helping the girl match something came to mind - Kallen hesitated. She felt a little happier, and a little less anxious than she might have expected. Perhaps it was that the knowledge that Lelouch was alive, even with the uncertainty it brought into her life, was preferable to the forced happiness she had managed before Nunnally had sent her the King. All the moving, the changes, the shifts from one place to another, unsure where she was headed next, they didn't feel frightening, or restrictive.
Kallen felt free, and active, in control of her own destiny for the first time in a long time. She smiled, wrapped her arms over her chest and squeezed. Lelouch, she thought, Wait for me.
When she entered the front room, she noticed that the door was open. Anya was outside, and appeared to be helping Jeremiah Gottwald unload a few things from a truck. Kallen walked to meet them, and Jeremiah greeted her.
"Lady Stadtfeld! You honor us with your presence. Forgive me for not bowing, but I am indisposed," he spoke, three boxes stacked in front of him.
Kallen smiled, wondering, as she did so, at the peculiar circumstance which had led her to be smiling at Jeremiah Gottwald. Lelouch certainly had a way of bringing people together. "Thank you for your help, Lord Gottwald. Also, let's please stick to first names from now on. Do you need a hand?"
Jeremiah grinned and tilted his head toward Anya, who was photographing the scene. "If the two of you could retrieve the items from the cab, that should be everything, Kallen."
Kallen nodded and grabbed a hanging bag, as Anya pulled a leather suitcase and messenger bag from the front seat. "Just leave those in the front room for now, please," Jeremiah commented, his voice somewhat muffled by the boxes.
Once everything was deposited into the house, the three of them sat down at the table. Jeremiah, Kallen noted, concerned, was drinking the cup of coffee which Anya had poured earlier, and which she knew for a fact must be cold to the touch. He caught her glance as he drank, and quirked an eyebrow.
"Thank you for the coffee, Anya."
The young woman's expression reflected a glimmer of a smile, but her eyes were beaming. "You're welcome," she said evenly, and stood up to busy herself at the sink, rinsing her own coffee mug.
Jeremiah cleared his throat as Anya turned back to the table. "Lady Stadtfeld, ah, Kallen, sorry. Kallen, Lelouch-sama is in Norway at present. Your cover identity is more or less complete; I have brought a selection of items for you to take with you on your trip," he gestured to the stack of boxes. "You will be flying out in two days. We will use that time to introduce you to Lelouch-sama's current operations, insofar as we are aware of them, and his..." Jeremiah's voice trailed off as he frowned. "His present condition."
Kallen looked at him, worried. "Does he know that I'm coming?"
Anya chimed in, "No. C.C. knows."
C.C. knows, Kallen reflected. She wondered how the witch was taking the news. "Did she say anything about it?" Kallen inquired, worrying at her lower lip.
Jeremiah looked at her. "She sounded sarcastic, but then, she always does." He did not elaborate.
Kallen sighed. She had never been to Norway before. "What is he doing in Norway?"
Jeremiah took a swallow of his cold coffee. "He is engaged in regular analytical and intelligence operations for Her Majesty Nunnally and Zero, and he is investigating abnormal industrial development in the Northern nations of the EU, specifically."
"Has he been there long?" Kallen asked.
"Three months, I believe. They move every so often." Jeremiah paused. "Kallen, we do not hear from Lelouch-sama as often as we would like. He is doing important work, and the quality of the work he is doing has only gotten better in the past year, but he never rests, so far as we know. Not since the first few months, anyway. Everyone involved has noticed it." His expression was pained. "We just cannot seem to do anything about it."
Anya moved as if to reach out her hand, then stopped and glanced down. "We would appreciate your help, Kallen Stadtfeld, Kouzuki Kallen." She looked up at Kallen. "Zero's knight."
Kallen swallowed, uncertain how to respond. Even with Nunnally and Suzaku's words, she had not really understood that a large part of her involvement was people concerned not with her well-being, but with Lelouch's. "I don't know what he'll say to me," she answered honestly, "but I won't let him dismiss me, or push me away, this time."
Anya glanced at Jeremiah, who was smiling gratefully. "Just hope for the best, then."
"I will," Kallen replied.
"Well," Jeremiah said after a pause. "I suppose we need to have lunch eventually." He looked expectantly at Anya, whose face expressed some concern. "Kallen, please check over your new belongings, while I assist Anya in the kitchen."
Pink hair whirled as Anya stood up and turned toward the counter; Kallen was almost positive that she had seen a blush.
Kallen paused her review of Lelouch's dossier on the industrial holdings of the Stoltenberg Statbein corporation, as dull a piece of intelligence as she had come across in years of action in international espionage and terrorism. She sighed and looked over at her partially packed luggage - she had gone through the assortment of outfits Jeremiah had brought, separating out what she intended to take with her, while Jeremiah and Anya made lunch. As they had eaten, Jeremiah had gone over her equipment, including three separate telecom devices, one military-grade laptop, and a small assortment of encrypted data keys, in addition to a folder of personal holdings and accounts under her cover identity, Adalhilda Schwarz, Britannian citizen and sometime émigré in the EU.
It was all a bit much to take in, but Kallen was determined to memorize the information for the identity with which Zero had so kindly provided her. When that got too boring, she had turned to reviewing the intelligence data with which Lelouch was working presently. It was tedious, but it was at least informative. According to Jeremiah, Lelouch had been far from idle as the 99th Emperor of Britannia, creating dozens of identities and a myriad of investment holdings in every corner of the world. The setup in Norway, Jeremiah had said, was part of a long-term plan of Lelouch's regarding the stability of the EU, involving the shadow investment in an energy conglomerate, Stoltenberg Statbein, financed during Lelouch's brief reign by Britannian capital.
Jeremiah had refrained from saying more, implying that Lelouch would take the time to explain if he thought it important. Kallen guessed that Lelouch was using the corporation's influence in some way, but her review of the intelligence had left her bored and exhausted. All she really knew was that the EU was the least stable part of the UFN alliance right now, and Lelouch was trying to do something about that.
Kallen sighed and rolled over in the bed. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, she thought, assuming that I'll even need to know this stuff. Thoughts of her own exclusion, of reviewing intelligence, making plans, feeling eminently unsuited for the role - it was all too reminiscent of the year after the failed Black Rebellion. The capture of many key members of the Black Knights and the diaspora of the rest had left she and C.C. in command of the resistance, for all intents and purposes. In the wake of the revelations of Lelouch's identity as Zero and the power of Geass, Kallen had run away, left him to Suzaku and his fate.
She had thought, after she ran, that he would perhaps be killed. What did happen, instead, was far worse.
C.C. had not shown surprise, when they realized that Lelouch had been returned to Area 11 with no memory of Zero; Kallen had tried to match her dispassionate look in public. In private, she raged and wept, called herself a coward and a traitor, then turned again to blaming Lelouch. C.C. had known Kallen's mind, then, and had chosen to leave her with her grief. When Kallen resolved with C.C. to rescue Lelouch, she had put much of her questioning away. In Kallen's mind, the only satisfaction she was to receive would be from Lelouch.
As the weeks turned into months, C.C. and Kallen grew unwillingly closer as they worked together to acquire the shattered resources of the Black Knights, to turn them to their own purposes. Kallen had learned to rely on the cool, sardonic judgement of the witch, and for her part, Kallen believed that C.C. relied on her as well, for her support. They were alone in working to convince the others to liberate one Britannian student, to risk everything on Zero's resurrection. It was not about Japan, then, for Kallen; it had never been, for C.C.
They were working together for Lelouch, to save him, to bring him back. They used the Black Knights for that purpose. And they did not lie to each other about it. It was a bond, something which had tied the two women strongly together.
Kallen remembered her own encounter with Lelouch, remembered the feel of the pistol in her hand as she demanded to know whether he had ordered her, commanded her to follow him. His answer was what she wanted to hear, and she had decided, therefore, that she did not want to hear it. Lying in Anya's mismatched bed, the laptop beside her, Kallen stared out emptily in the late afternoon sunlight.
She had been afraid to trust him.
C.C. had trusted him implicitly. Lelouch trusted her as well; Suzaku's tale of the World of C confirmed that.
Where did that leave her?
What am I to you, Lelouch?
What are you, to me?
She rolled onto her back, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep.
The next morning, a very groggy Kallen made her way from the bedroom to the furo, back to the bedroom, and then into the kitchen to accept Anya's proffered cup of coffee. She and Jeremiah were sitting at the table, reviewing plans for her departure. "We went ahead and ate dinner without you," Anya mentioned in passing, while Kallen gratefully drank her coffee.
"Sorry," Kallen said. "I didn't think I was that tired."
Jeremiah and Anya looked at one another. "Since you aren't flying out until early tomorrow morning, would you like a tour of the farm?" Jeremiah asked cordially. Feeling somewhat more human after the coffee, Kallen accepted.
She was unsure what to expect, but Jeremiah proved to be quite knowledgeable regarding his adopted profession; Anya interrupted occasionally to take pictures or comment on Jeremiah's lecture. She seemed particularly proud, handing down a fresh owari to Kallen and watching her try it; she looked to Jeremiah for approval, Kallen noticed. The tour was quite in-depth, and took until well into lunch to finish. By the end, Kallen was feeling a good deal better, and beginning to think that perhaps Jeremiah and Anya were better hosts than she might have suspected. She laughed at one of Jeremiah's comments as they walked back into the house, and behind her, Anya smiled.
Lunch was a late breakfast, Western style, and Kallen enjoyed every moment. Watching Anya surreptitiously feed bacon to Arthur and Flower while Jeremiah pretended not to notice, she realized why she felt so much better in their company: Jeremiah and Anya were a family. She didn't know how they had managed it, or what exactly had led them to the orange farm, but it was beyond dispute. Kallen, watching from across the table, felt a little jolt of envy, and then smiled wryly. Lelouch needed to hear from them as much as he did from her, she was sure. As she cleared away her plate, Kallen resolved to make sure that happened.
Evening brought with it a further review of Kallen's cover in Jeremiah and Anya's out-of-place home office, equipped with an almost comical amount of hardware. Anya tried her hand at dinner alone, which yielded an odd, yet edible curry, and the three of them spent the remainder of the evening in companionable silence, reading and playing with the cats. Jeremiah, Kallen noticed, spent a good deal of the evening watching Anya chase Heorot around.
Kallen slept well, and woke to find a small lunch packed for her. Jeremiah and Anya drove her to Shizuoka airport, unloaded her luggage beside her on the curb. Before they left her, Jeremiah shook her hand and said, "Please give our best to Lelouch-sama."
Anya leaned in afterward and shook her hand gravely. "Good luck, Kallen. I pray for your success." As they drove away, Anya snapped a photo of her there, and then waved until they rounded a curve, out of sight.
Kallen shook off the oddly strong emotion she felt at their parting, gathered her things, and entered the airport. She was bound to Nagoya, then into the Britannian heartland, then over to Brussels and finally Oslo.
She was on her way.
Approximately eighteen hours later - which felt like thirty - Adalhilda Schwarz entered the Oslo airport, tired but tense. She was close now, to Lelouch. It wouldn't be much longer, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could wait. Walking out of customs, where her boldly false passport presented no issues whatsoever, Kallen felt for Guren's key beneath her shirt, then headed toward the baggage claim, but stopped when she recognized a neatly written sign in the receiving crowd: "Miss Adalhilda Schwarz."
Holding the sign was a very short Japanese woman, a polite smile firmly in place between the exhausted and the excited people around her. "Sayoko-san?" Kallen said in a low tone as she walked up to the woman. "Why are you here?"
Sayoko bowed her head, unimposing. "Schwarz-dono, I am here to bring you to your accommodations. Please follow me." Sayoko retrieved her baggage, and they made their way to an idling cab. She nodded to the driver, who loaded Kallen's things and then opened the door to let them in, bowing to her in turn. Once they were inside and moving, Sayoko spoke.
"Thank you for coming, Lady Stadtfeld. Mistress C.C. is expecting you."
Kallen looked at her. "What about Lelouch?"
Sayoko's expression did not change, but her eyes dropped slightly. "He is unaware, at present, of your arrival."
"Thank you, Sayoko-san." Kallen looked out the window at the city. It was just getting dark out - she remembered that it should be somehow the same day that she left. Kallen sighed.
As they drove in in silence, Kallen's thoughts turned to C.C. again. She seemed uncaring, so frequently, but Kallen knew better. She had not hunted Lelouch under Britannia's nose in C.C.'s company for nothing. She might pretend to be unfeeling, apart, unknowable, but Kallen knew the truth - C.C. loved Lelouch, even if she had never admitted it.
Takes one to know one, Kallen reflected.
After about twenty minutes, the cab stopped in front of a smaller building in an older style that Kallen didn't recognize. When she got out, she could hear the water, not far away. Sayoko commandeered her luggage before she could object, and gestured toward the entrance. Sayoko opened the front door with a key, then shut it behind them. She opened a sliding double-glass door next with a cardkey and a code of some kind, entered on a keypad. The doors slid open and they walked into a small foyer. Kallen was beginning to wonder whether they were in an office or an extremely impersonal home when she saw the witch coming down the stairway into the foyer. Sayoko stood apart from the two of them, Kallen's luggage at her side, eyes alert.
C.C. was wearing a loose-fitting powder-blue gentleman's oxford shirt and white panties, and nothing else. She cocked her head to the side; her green hair, unbound, draped over her left shoulder. Her eyes were open, but her head was tilted down just enough so that she was looking up, a picture of sardonic provocation. Kallen felt her own exhaustion, her own anxiety, then steeled herself and returned her gaze. C.C. smiled. Kallen's mouth tightened into an even line.
"Welcome, Kallen." Her voice was like cold honey. "Why are you here?"
