A/N: Still don't own a single letter of this. Not likely to change in the near future.

'v'

'v'

The blade exited the deadly wound it had wedged, and blood fountained from Lelouch's damaged heart. He fell. Through the haze of pain he felt an ironic sense of déjà vu – it wasn't the first time he'd been stabbed in that exact place, and he'd recovered from a similar wound before. He knew he'd recover again. What frustrated Lelouch was the fact he'd been effectively put out of action, and it wouldn't be long until he lost consciousness – he was emptying himself of blood with each beat of his frantically quivering heart.

C.C. was on her own. And the odds were heavily stacked against her: she had six men to manage, all of them armed with switchblades, and three teenagers (one boy and two girls) to protect from the thugs who attacked them.

As he waited for the inevitable descent into unconsciousness, Lelouch couldn't help but notice the twisted irony of the situation. Here they were, in the very heart of the Britannian motherland, and three middle-upper class Britannian children were being targeted by former "Numbers" on the pretext the teens were "Number haters". During his tenure as Zero Lelouch had known of a significant amount of similar incidents occurring in or near the Japanese ghettos – "members of the resistance" who used the claim as a pretext for beatings, muggings, sometimes even murders and rapes; Lelouch had targeted the practice as part of his campaign to demonstrate his Black Knights were on the side of justice even when it meant defending Britannians foolish enough to set foot in the ghettos – at least that had been his public stance as Zero. In private Lelouch had been quite glad to protect perfectly innocent people from a particularly vicious brand of crime.

Now he was witnessing it again – only he was Zero no longer and had resolved not to use Geass unless he was absolutely forced to. In the balance hung the protection of three children about to be the victims of a gruesome violation and possibly worse; had Lelouch not been about to fall unconscious that it would have been weighed against the threat of a living Demon Emperor's discovery, which would endanger the lives of at least three million times as many children.

There was one small consolation: Lelouch had been persuaded the conditions prevailing in his neighborhood tonight – a heavy downpour and miserable lighting – would lessen the risks of his being recognized to almost zero. He'd been right: even the thug who had gotten close enough to knife him had no idea he'd just "killed" the Demon Emperor.

Lelouch winced. Something felt wrong. By now he should have lost consciousness, but his head was perfectly clear. His chest, he noticed, was no longer painful; soreness was the only reminder of the lethal wound he'd suffered only moments before. Unexplainably his body had healed in a matter of seconds, where before the restorative process had always taken at least a few hours, as he repeated attempts at finding a permanent way to end his existence.

I healed this fast because I'm supposed to act the young man decided – dodging the issue of who or what had altered his healing. He needed to concentrate on practical issues, and right now the only practical issue he had to deal with was his lying in a gutter after being knifed in the heart. Dead men do not act.

Lelouch risked a glance in the thugs' direction. None of them were paying attention to him any longer; they were focused on their four other victims. One of the girls had already been grabbed, and the former Emperor heard the sound of tearing cloth as she screamed. He heard the boy – her boyfriend? – beg the thugs to "let Carrie go", which only earned him laugh, jeers and an invitation to share Lelouch's fate.

Of course the foolish man who had issued the threat had no idea his first victim had recovered in a matter of seconds.

Lelouch risked a longer look to assess the situation. Two of the men were restraining the half-naked girl, one of them twisting the left arm of the red-head in a painful hold, and a third man was cutting away what was left of her clothing with one hand and pawing her greedily with the other. A fourth one held a knife to the throat of the second girl, a brunette so terrified she looked about to faint, and who was certainly not helped by her captor's whispers or his own roving hand. The fifth, who had just threatened the boy, held his knife pointed in his direction while he ogled the red-haired girl; the remaining one, who was supposed to keep an eye on the "cowering" C.C., had succumbed to the same temptation. Lelouch knew the only reason his accomplice had yet to take advantage of the mistake was the knife held at the second girl's throat.

He, on the other hand, was completely free to act; all he had to do was to avoid any sudden motion before he intervened. There was, of course, a simple means for him to thwart the thugs: Geass. A practiced sleight-of-hand now took care of the lenses as he lay nearly still. He would be able to give his command at any time… and then he'd have to eliminate the possibility someone might remember they witnessed a dead man talking.

Time pressed. He had to make up his mind now. If it were only me I wouldn't have wanted to use Geass. His choice was simple: force his will on humans once more, or let a horrible crime happen. Either way, Evil will remain.

The downed man rose with a grunt. Ten pairs of eyes looked in his direction, nine of them not believing what they were seeing. Lelouch suppressed a smile. Time to give those scum a good scare.

'Aw, hell. I just died' he said nonchalantly, scratching his head for good effect.

The thugs' grip on their victims slipped; shaking knives were raised in Lelouch's direction. The young man snickered. 'Seriously? Didn't you guys see a stab in the heart doesn't stop me? I'd behead myself to give a better demonstration, but the coat isn't beyond saving.'

C.C. had snapped into action before he finished that sentence, quietly removing the frightened teenagers from Lelouch's line of sight, her action unheeded by men too busy being rigid with fear to notice they were made to let go of their captives. All Lelouch needed to do was stall for a few more seconds – and he was helped there by his targets.

'Demon' one of them said with a voice made hoarse with fear.

'That's not a very polite name to call someone' Lelouch said pleasantly as he made sure he could see all six thugs' eyes. 'You know, taking into account what you kids were doing it seems you are just as demonic as I am, wouldn't you say? So why don't you get lost, forget what happened here tonight and never commit such crimes again?'

The last sentence had been backed by Lelouch's Geass. It had been long months since the young man had last called upon the Power of Kings; the young man was surprised to feel he'd just satisfied some kind of… hunger? He suppressed a shiver as he watched the band of thugs walk away under the frightened stares of their victims. Stares which quickly turned to Lelouch himself.

The young man pretended to rub his eyes, replacing his lenses as he spoke: 'Sorry I scared you that way' he said kindly, 'but it wouldn't have been a very good bluff if I had explained the blade had slipped.' There was a major inconsistency in that explanation, namely the fact the thug who'd knifed Lelouch would obviously have realized his blade had not killed, but the young man counted on the three teenagers being so upset by the whole incident that they wouldn't notice.

'How about we take them home for a hot drink and a change of clothes for Carrie here?' C.C. suggested, also sounding uncharacteristically kind.

'An excellent idea' her accomplice replied. 'Name's Lelouch' he said, introducing himself. 'And yes, it's the same name' he added with an apologetic tone. 'I don't know what my parents were thinking. This is my roomie Celine' he added, nodding in C.C.'s direction.

'Daniel' the young man said hoarsely, 'and they're Charlotte and Janice. And thank you, but we really should-'

'No buts' Lelouch chided gently. 'Your parents can come and pick you up at our home.' C.C. looked at him with surprise. Her accomplice had a very good idea of why: Lelouch's offer practically implied that he was going to use Geass on other people beyond the three teenagers. If there turned out to be no other way; the young man might prefer not to use his power, but he certainly wasn't going to turn the three children loose if there was a good chance they might get hurt even further. I'm not the kind of man who can idly watch people suffer.

Lelouch handed his battered coat over to the red-haired girl, a means of both protecting her modesty and shielding her from the rain. C.C. had to help the traumatized teenager into the coat, as she was currently quite incapable of performing such a simple task as pushing her arms through sleeves. The former Emperor sighed. Saving the teenagers' lives had been one thing; altering their memories was quite another, even if that meant leaving the girl hard memories to deal with.

Either way, Evil will remain…

'v'

'v'

Code Geass R3: Lelouch of the Redemption

Turn 03 – Temptation

'v'

'v'

New Pendragon administrative center, two months later

'Wow, I didn't think the new guy would be so cute!'

Lelouch blinked at this most inappropriate statement from a head of office at least fifteen years older than he was. Then again this woman looks like an aged version of Milly...

'Welcome to the third planning division, mister Lamfhota' the blonde woman said more seriously. 'I'm Lana Graves, and you've been assigned to work under me.' She winked. 'Poor you' she added.

'I'll manage' Lelouch replied with a small smile.

'This is Robert Frieze' Lana said, pointing at a disgruntled-looking redhead who was about forty. 'He's first secretary; any problems you have should be referred to him.'

'Not including looking for a missing rubber duck' the man said grumpily, and Lelouch had to hold a chuckle.

'Jane Slinkhard' Lana went on, now showing a petite and energetic brunette around Lelouch's age 'who's in charge of theoretical studies and post-processing.'

'… and waiting around while the damn bureaus take their sweet time, so I'll be glad to show you around the building, Lamfhota-san' Jane said, grey eyes twinkling behind her glasses. Lelouch registered her employing a Japanese mode of address.

'Dan Welder' Lana continued; the man she introduced looked a scarred man who had to be in his fifties, and who looked like he'd seen too many wars. 'He oversees our accounts and is in charge of begging the government for funds.'

'That's Lana trying to tell you not to dream of a pay rise anytime soon' the older man said with a gravelly voice, followed by a chortle which surprised Lelouch.

'Service is its own reward' Lana shot back without missing a beat, and she wagged her tongue at Dan.

The older man laughed.

'Everyone' Lana managed almost seriously, 'the new hand here is Lelouch Lamfhota' – the young man heard an all-too-familiar squawk coming from Jane – 'he'll be replacing our late lamented Helen as my assistant.'

Dan whistled. 'Poor chap, she's going to drive you to exhaustion in no time' he said with a grin.

'Improper choice of words, Chief Graves' Robert growled, 'Helen hasn't departed, she just quit.'

'Shh' and Lana put a finger across her lips, 'you're going to scare him.'

'No need' Lelouch said with a chuckle, 'I'm already so frightened it's only a matter of seconds before I faint.'

The blonde woman laughed. 'I'm going to like him' she commented.

'As long as the Chief remembers pranks aren't included in her job description' Dan said innocently.

'Hehee'. Lana grinned. She turned back to Lelouch. 'I'll introduce you to Erich and Emilia later; they're the only ones who actually understand what we're working on.'

'She means they're architects' Robert supplied.

'I see.' Lelouch nodded.

'We don't have our own staff of secretaries yet' Lana said, 'and I hope we get them before Robert goes insane' – the interested party coughed loudly and spluttered a protest which, of course, fell in deaf ears: 'Jane's available, you know' Lana added – then she ducked below the trajectory of a fast-incoming rubber.

Lelouch laughed softly. 'Working here is going to be an interesting experience.'

'You have no idea how interesting, boy' the grizzled Dan said, his eyes twinkling. 'You were telling him about the pool of secretaries' he reminded their chief.

'I was' Lana said, standing back up after she retrieved the rubber. 'They're on the second floor. You bring any assignments you have to the head-desk; it joins the pile, then gets dispatched to one of their crew, then gets back to you.'

'And you get to complain about the delays while you wait and about the result when they're done' Jane added.

'They aren't that bad' Dan protested.

'No, they're worse' Robert mumbled.

'I guess I haven't forgotten anything of importance?' the blonde woman asked, looking around.

'Where to find the vending machines?' Jane supplied, looking gingerly at her boss as the blonde woman hefted the rubber she'd picked up.

'We're not turning this boy into another coffee addict' Lana growled. Then, mischievously: 'But you can ask Prince Charming here if he's ready to sacrifice himself to protect you against the dragons on the path to your favorite drink.' She winked and watched the brunette turn a nice shade of pink. She stammered a 'Please stop it' which only served to make the head of office grin.

'And this is what you call efficient team management' Dan said, sending Lana into a fit of laughter.

Lelouch gave the blonde woman a few seconds to recover. 'Aside from keeping this charming young woman company' he said, and Jane's blush deepened, 'what are my duties going to be?'

'Come along' the blonde woman replied. 'You'll be mostly working in my personal office; once you've made your bones-'

'- we aren't Mafia -' Robert growled.

'- you'll run the show when I'm out of the office' Lana finished.

'Provided they don't chuck you in the madhouse first' Dan added pleasantly.

Lelouch chuckled. 'I had an impression I was already there.'

'I am going to like him' Lana said, grinning. Lelouch decided the feeling had good chances of being reciprocal. 'Let's get you started, Lelouch.'

'I think you've forgotten something' Dan interrupted.

There was a squeal from Jane, and then the "thunk" of the rubber hitting her chair's back – the brunette had tried to lean aside to dodge her returning property and managed to fall on the floor. 'Ouch!' She emerged, red in the face but quite unharmed.

'All taken care of' Lana said contentedly, and she left the main office. Lelouch followed. He was rather looking forward to working with the blonde woman and her team. He'd not been feeling so alive since Millay's graduation party. Shirley had died shortly after, and everything had gone downhill until he found himself nearly completely alone. Only C.C. had remained, until now.

Of course Lelouch knew better than to look for friends in his new coworkers. Still they were the first acquaintances he'd keep as Lelouch Lamfhota.

The young man smiled. His new life was off to a very decent start.

'v'

New-Pendragon, the Empress' private office; later the same morning

Nunnally felt somewhat ashamed as she let her half-sister Cornelia into her office, and she had good reasons to feel ashamed. She was about to use one of the persons closest to her as a test subject for a means of manipulating some of her less friendly advisors and siblings. The former Nunnally would never have considered such a deed, but after several weeks of contemplating her brother's means to good ends she had come to admit a ruler sometimes had to disregard conventional morals when it served the greater good. Thus the preparation for the coming exchange with Cornelia had been a test for Nunnally herself – and she had passed. She hoped (she believed) that her brother was watching her and that he was proud of her.

The experiment to which Cornelia was being subjected revolved around the ornate scepter which rested horizontally on a delicate golden stand on Nunnally's desk. As was the case for most people in the world, the only glimpse Cornelia had had of that particular object was in the broadcast which had consecrated Lelouch's victory at the Battle of Damocles, and the Demon Emperor had not revealed that the scepter was in fact the switch used to trigger the launch of the flying fortress' FLEIJA warheads. The question was whether a person like Cornelia, an elite warrior trained to notice the smallest details, would remember the scepter at all six months after she'd had her only glimpse of it. If Cornelia didn't remember, Nunnally could be pretty sure none of her intended targets would, and it'd clear the condition for Nunnally to use the scepter… against her own siblings.

The test would be an extended one. Nunnally had summoned Cornelia to discuss a rather different but no less important matter with her sister, and she knew the coming exchange would be tense. It would revolve around the first steps of Nunnally's plans to implement democratic processes in the Empire, and even though the implementation was going to be limited to the lowest levels of power, at least for the time being, a person like Cornelia was bound to have strong objections against handing any political power over to the people. Nunnally's half-sister was, after all, a former governor in several Areas who could draw on her extended experience of power to support the claim Britannia's class system worked better than any form of democracy could.

As her half-sister greeted her Nunnally suppressed a sigh. Between a tooth-and-nail discussion over the issue of universal voting rights and the necessity to keep an eye on Cornelia's possible notice of the Key, the coming interview would be a trial the likes of which the young Empress had seldom endured.

'v'

New Pendragon administrative center

Nunnally didn't know her brother was enduring a trial of his own at the same time – and not quite meeting expectations. Lana Graves looked a lot less cheerful when, after only an hour and a half of work, Lelouch brought her his draft for the analysis of polls taken to survey the opinions of New-Pendragon's residents regarding green spaces within a large metropolis.

'Oh, come on, you can't have done more than a preliminary analysis' she commented.

Lelouch blinked. Then he cursed himself internally. I've been working as intensively as I did when I prepared for Zero Requiem he realized.

The blonde woman was scanning his work, rifling through the pages, and Lelouch watched her anxiously. Her expression, annoyed at first, gradually turned into one of amazement. Her question, when it came, didn't catch Lelouch unaware.

'How did you manage that? Not only you've been working about four times faster than the average for this kind of job, you've even managed to spot a recurrence I would never have with ten years of practice!'

'I don't know if it's natural talent' Lelouch replied uncomfortably. 'I didn't think I had performed exceptionally.' Which was all too true.

The blonde woman grinned like the Cheshire cat. Once again Lelouch couldn't help but remember Milly. 'You and I are going to make an excellent team.'

It could have turned out a lot worse: now he was positive Lana wasn't going to question him. However Lelouch's experience with Milly gave him a very good idea of where he was headed: his boss playing the pranks and him doing the job.

He groaned. Why me?

'v'

With Lana Graves Lelouch knew he'd met a second Milly Ashford. He'd also wondered whether his coworker Jane would turn out to be a second Shirley – the girl obviously admired him, and she'd reacted to their chief's teases the same way Shirley had to the student council president's in her time.

The petite brunette took the first opportunity to show Lelouch around (or rather to show him the way to the vending machine serving the best coffee in the building), and also to engage him in some private conversation. The subject, however, wasn't quite what the young man had expected.

'Do you have a second name?' she asked – a very trivial question in itself, but the look from the girl's grey eyes was extremely serious.

'I do' a puzzled Lelouch replied.

'Why don't you use it?' the girl asked.

'I'm comfortable with my first name' the young man said truthfully.

The grey eyes blinked twice. 'How do you manage?' their owner said with obvious surprise.

Something clicked in Lelouch's mind. 'Your first name used to be Euphemia' he said.

'It was' the brunette confirmed with a shudder. Her interlocutor reminded himself the girl must have lived in Japan. She would have suffered quite a bit of abuse Lelouch thought.

'Euphemia is just a name' he said. 'So is Lelouch, for that matter. Sharing the name of an evil character doesn't make one evil.'

'I know it doesn't, but most people don't know that. Or maybe they don't care.' The young woman shuddered.

Another innocent bystander who had to suffer because of me Lelouch told himself. Who knows what she's been through just because she happened to share the Genocide Princess' name?

'So changing your name protected you' Lelouch said.

'That and leaving Japan.' The girl was now staring at her feet. 'I'm not courageous like you, Lamfhota-san. I ran away.'

'Don't blame yourself for this' Lelouch chided gently.

There was a small pause as the brunette gave Lelouch a searching look.

'How do you deal with all those others?' Jane asked.

'Through no merit of mine, really' Lelouch replied. 'The Demon Emperor killed one of my brothers. Most people tend to quit harassing me after I tell them how I feel about it. Those few idiots who don't want to quit get discouraged by their own friends.'

The girl blushed. Her stare remained fixed on her feet. 'I'm sorry' she said with a small voice. 'I shouldn't have asked.'

'Don't apologize' Lelouch said. 'You needed to.'

'I did' Jane admitted. 'Thank you.' She was blushing harder than ever.

'It was my pleasure' the young man said courteously. He was rather successful at hiding his own embarrassment – the girl in front of him was obviously falling for her new colleague at lightning speed. His old self, the Lelouch before Shirley had died, would have been feeling incredibly awkward. The present Lelouch was embarrassed for very different reasons, though: he didn't know whether he should nip her hopes in the bud. The past Lelouch might have accepted such a girl's love; the present one knew returning her feelings would lead nowhere.

It hadn't been much easier for Lelouch to manage young Charlotte, the teenager he'd saved from being raped a couple of months' earlier. The girl's way to deal with the trauma of the aggression was harassing her savior (and getting little in return aside from a break-up with her boyfriend). She reminded Lelouch of some of his more persistent suitors at Ashford Academy, girls like Miya who made it a point of being in his company as often as they could, even if that meant greeting him three or four times a day (and blushing as they said how silly of them it was not to have noticed they had seen him earlier). Charlotte couldn't quite see him that often, but she had one advantage over the Ashford Academy girls: she could meet him alone. C.C. was seldom present at daytime, as she was either looking for paid work or scrounging basic necessities for the pair (the former was growing steadily harder as C.C. began to acquire a reputation for sloppiness – try as she might, the green-haired witch just couldn't find enough interest to properly manage whatever menial job she was hired to do). This had left plenty of time in the afternoons for Charlotte to visit her savior, and the young red-head never seemed to run out of pretexts to come back to the miserable home and sometimes even managed to drag his occupant out.

Lelouch had put up with it graciously, for reasons that had nothing to do with the eager girl's infatuation. Carrie provided him an insight on how people might react to a man bearing the same name as the Demon Emperor, and her friends provided him with a nice testing field. Of course it was a bit embarrassing that the girl kept offering to provide for him – she was the daughter of high-ranking functionaries (minor nobles actually), and even in the reconstructing Britannia this meant the girl's allowance was higher than the earnings of many members of the poor classes. Lelouch refused the charity, but he had agreed to let the girl suggest her parents they find him a role as a civil servant.

They had found him an assistant director's job as he'd discovered today, after reporting where Carrie had said he should. It was quite clearly supposed to be a sinecure of some kind… only it was far more. In fact it was possibly the best possible job Lelouch could have hoped for in his circumstances. Not for the environment, even if he did think he'd get along well with his coworkers, but because it concerned a matter Lelouch was very familiar with (he had, after all, laid out the frame for the establishment of Britannia's new capital city), and a matter which was important to him. Lelouch had laid the lives of hundreds of millions to waste. He couldn't do good for this many in his new position, but he could make a difference for hundreds of thousands from his position – with no strings attached. It was a refreshing change. After all, it had been a long time since Lelouch had been able to do good without having innocents pay for it.

'v'

'v'

A/N: An actual update, and it's only been a year and a half! *whistles*

I'll be frank: I'm testing the waters with this update, which had already been written for a while but was waiting for the rest of the turn to be completed. If the story does interest some people, I'll resume writing. If it doesn't, it's perfectly alright. I have a number of other irons in the fire :)

Thanks for reading.

-LB