Joesph Fenette sighed. It had been much too long since he had been able to return home. Everything had been in utter chaos since the breakout of the experimental subjects at the Narita lab, and the death of Prince Clovis had almost ruined everything. The late Prince had even identified their project, Code-R, by name just before succumbing to a mental shutdown. While that had averted a greater disaster, the loss of their royal patron had thrown the entire project in jeopardy, but fortunately it turned out that there were others with a keen interest in Cognitive Psience.

Sometimes he questioned if he should have ever involved himself in this line of research. Shirley, his precious daughter, would never understand if she learned exactly what his work actually entailed. She thought that he worked as a geologist, and accepted that he had to be away from home for great lengths of time, but he had always hated lying to her. She idolized him as a perfect father. He still remembered that conversation they had had when she was little as if it were yesterday.

"Guess what Papa? Someday when I grow up, I'm gonna be your wife!"

She of course hadn't really understood what that meant, so he had told her, "Oh that's very sweet of you, honey. But your teacher told you, didn't she? Someday you'll meet the man you really love."

She had looked confused. "More than I do you?"

"Hum… It's hard to explain. Well, if you truly love that person and he cares for you just as much, it would make me the happiest father on Earth."

Young Shirley had taken those words to heart, and he could hardly be more proud of the young woman she had grown up to be. She was honest, hardworking, had plenty of friends, always got good grades, was a star athlete in the Swim Club, and was perhaps even more beautiful than her mother had been. Perhaps he spoiled her a bit, with gifts he sent to cheer her up when she was feeling lonely without him, but she had never taken what she had been given for granted.

Yet things had also taken turn for the worse for his daughter. First there was the physical abuse allegedly perpetrated by her coach on the swim team, much of it specifically directed against her, and Shirley had been too afraid to reach out for help. That he had been unable to spare her those horrors was perhaps his greatest failing as her father. More recently, her letters to him revealed that she had experienced her first broken heart, and the pain of it was clearly eating away at her.

Perhaps he was being derelict in his duty by returning to his family now, but Shirley needed him more than ever, and if he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure he would be alive for much longer. Members of the old Code-R research team had been being killed by mental shutdowns or other "accidents" for some time after Prince Clovis' death, and he had the sense that his days were numbered. He wanted to spend what time he had left with those who had always made him the happiest.

There was another matter gnawing at him. Medical and psychological tests, taken under the guise of routine appointments, had revealed that his daughter possessed high natural potential to harness what they called "The Shadow", that untapped darkness lurking within every human's psyche, turning it out to face the world as what they termed a "Persona". Until recently, the "Persona" concept had been purely hypothetical, until they had artificially induced that potential in a subject, who then successfully manifested a Persona… and proceeded to orchestrate the breakout from the lab. Even getting that far had incurred enormous costs in money, time, and lives, so to find someone so close to him with such strong natural potential was troubling.

Shirley wasn't supposed to have that potential. The only reason that he had administered the test to her at all was to validate it, with his daughter unwittingly serving as part of a much larger control sample, ensuring that the test gave significantly different results to those with and without the potential.

Shirley could undoubtedly advance their research into Personas considerably, but the process of actually awakening to one's potential was almost invariably traumatic, and very often fatal. He couldn't subject his precious girl to that, so he had destroyed the records of the tests, so as to allow her to continue to live a normal life in blissful ignorance of that other world.

He sat down in his chair, and lifted his glass to his lips. He really could use a drink around-

Joseph Fenette lurched forward, the glass falling from his hands, as a sudden pain lanced through his head. It was excruciating, unlike anything he had ever felt before, like a part of himself had been suddenly ripped away. Without that crucial part, he felt his mind beginning to collapse inward on itself. While that would have been frightening enough on its own, it was made all the more terrifying to him because he knew exactly what was happening to him but was utterly powerless to prevent it.

They had got him. This was what a mental shutdown felt like.

Shirley… she wasn't home yet… he hadn't wanted her… to… see…

He coughed up black ichor.

This was the end for him.

He was so-

xXx

"Father, I'm home!" Shirley called. She hadn't expected him to be able to take time off from work. It was just the bright spot she needed right now.

There was no answer.

"Father?" She repeated, her expression faltering slightly.

Everything in the house was eerily quiet. Suddenly having a very bad feeling, Shirley quietly walked into the living room.

There her father was, seated in his chair, but he appeared to take no notice of her.

"Daddy?" she asked, slowly walking closer.

In another moment, she wished that she hadn't.

"Father!" Shirley let out an anguished gasp, and dropped to her knees, covering her mouth as an overwhelming wave of nausea washed over her.

Her father was dead, his eyes rolled back into his head, black ooze leaking from his every orifice….

Just like how Prince Clovis had died.

Shirley threw up, and then broke down sobbing uncontrollably.

Why? Who would want to kill her father? He had never hurt her. Why now of all times? She suddenly felt like a ship adrift without an anchor.

No… she knew exactly who had killed her father… the same people who had killed Prince Clovis….

The Black Knights.

A/N

Joseph Fenette's characterization as a member of the Code-R research team is never definitively shown in the TV series proper, but he is portrayed as such in a novelization of the series.

The dialogue in the recollection of the conversation between the young Shirley and her father is taken from Episode 13 of Code Geass, as it is important to establishing the nature of their relationship.

The pace of updates will slow for a while, probably to once every few weeks due to considerations IRL, but I should be able to resume a more rapid pace of writing come summertime.