Disclaimer: Code Geass – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. In other words, yeah, it's not mine, and I'm not making money out of this. Enjoy the fic; author's note at the very end.

Trial and Error

. : 3 : .

He was well aware that he had stumbled upon information worth a pile of gold, but not until the next day did he get the opportunity to use it. Still, Luciano Bradley pounced upon it the moment realization hit - never mind if it was too soon, or horribly inappropriate; he saw his chance delivered to him as though by an act of providence, and it would be rude of him to let it pass.

He entered the Knights' common lounge after a particulary long day of fighting down insurgents on the other side of the Atlantic. Upon glancing properly around the room, the first thing he noted was the curious fact that everyone seemed to be present; this didn't happen often, and he wondered if everyone besides him had been given (or, inexplicably decided to take) a day off. Deciding that mulling over this would neither advance his goals nor give him personal pleasure in the slightest, he immediately whisked the thought out of his mind; just like that, it was gone.

"Did I miss anything?" he called out in a bored voice.

Anya merely pointed to the wide screen. "Another uprising in Area 18. Five Britannian soldiers dead," she replied in monotone, before bringing up her electronic diary to eye-level. "Recorded," she announced after a short flash. She was soon studying the image she had just taken of the television screen, frowning at the horizontal bars in the photo.

"How troublesome." The Knight of Nine, Nonette Enneagram, was reclining rather languidly on a loveseat off to the side, of the same pattern and material as the long couch. "And I thought Cornelia had taken care of that problem early last year."

"It seems to be a recurring issue," Bismarck admitted begrudgingly. "Resistance movements would lay low for one or two months, before springing up again. The losses are minor when each case is isolated, but taken as a whole it does begin to add up."

"Then send us out to finish it once and for all." Gino had snuck up behind the couch and draped his arm over Suzaku's shoulder as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The boy merely stared at him for a moment, before turning his attention back to the news. "I'm sure Tristan and Lancelot can take them out, no problem. Anya! Want to come?"

"That shouldn't have to be necessary," Bismarck interrupted and shook his head before the conversation could proceed any more. "Sending in three Knights of the Rounds would give the impression that we are considerably intimidated by them, which would only fuel their ambitions."

"We should send Lord Guilford there again," Monica mused out loud. "After all, they dealt with them the first time around; it only makes sense that they go back and finish the job properly."

"The Glaston Knights would probably not refuse a chance to return to that Area. And now that he's no longer the acting Viceroy of Area 11, I'm sure that's opened up a lot of free time for him," Nonette nodded her agreement, before turning to the Knight of One. "What do you think?"

"Speaking of Area 11, I have a better idea," Luciano cut into the conversation, figuring there was no time like the present. He waited until all eyes - including (especially) a particular pair of very green ones - were on him expectantly, before he continued with a sinister grin: "Let's just pull a Princess Euphemia on them!"

The tension filled the room so quickly, so immediately, it was almost as amusing as it was suffocating. There was only one reaction he cared for, though, and seeing it pleased him: the Knight of Seven nailed his gaze to the floor in an instant, avoiding several subtle glances that had been thrown his way.

It was awhile before anyone broke the silence, and it took Bismarck to do so. "Explain yourself, Lord Bradley."

He laughed; this was much too easy. "Well obviously they're not staying down from traditional, honorable tactics, so let's be more imaginative." He ignored the uncharacteristic scowl on Gino Weinberg's face as he approached the couch leisurely; Suzaku still refused to look up, and his hands were balled into tight fists on his thighs. "Give them the idea that we've acknowledged their resistance. Say to them that we'll form a Special Administrative Zone of..." He racked his brains for the name of the country. "Saudi Arabia."

And then he paused, so that his next words would have even more impact: "Just like in Area 11!"

He had to give credit to the boy; despite all his baiting, Suzaku just sat there, his lips pressed together in a thin line, his gaze still lost in the many fibers of the carpet at his feet. But by now his face had lost a bit of its color, and Luciano felt a victorious rush upon seeing this. At this rate, it would only take a little more, perhaps a tiny push...

"I really don't think that's what - "

"And!" Without further ado he plopped himself onto the empty space beside Suzaku, his gaze set on the TV screen but all the while minding the boy out of the corner of his eye; the best was still yet to come, after all. "Once we gain their trust and gather a big enough crowd at a huge outdoor event commemorating the zone...massacre them all!"

(At this point, he would be lying if he said the thought didn't excite him, even a little bit - perhaps Euphemia had been the original Homicide Genius, after all. He decided he would pay his respects to her, begrudgingly, but only after he was done slandering her name.)

"That would teach them not to cross Britannia again, right Lord Kururugi?" he finished with mock innocence, the foreign name rolling softly, easily off his tongue as though they were old, old friends. Suzaku had his fists clenched so tightly that they began to tremble, but other than that he was absolutely still, ignoring the world around him, as though it took every ounce of concentration he had just to breathe.

"That's definitely not how it works!" A loud voice shattered into his observations, and briefly he wondered how the house of Weinberg, a family known for its prim and proper nobles and aristocrats, could have ever produced a son so brash. "The whole country would be up in arms over it! Remember the Black Rebellion came right after the SAZ incident!"

"A Rebellion that failed miserably," he waved his hand in the space between himself and the agitated Knight of Three, as though he could temporarily erase the latter's existence by doing so. "Therefore it is a moot point. Although...come to think of it, perhaps it wasn't such a failure in the long run, as Zero seems to have returned after all. Not only that..." He took a moment to laugh, as though in afterthought: "I heard many more Zero-impostors have risen up...a million, if I recall correctly?"

This seemed to be the final straw, and he watched with growing excitement as Suzaku broke out of his trance (a soundless gasp, eyes widening as his gaze snapped, upward). If he had pressed all the right buttons - and he was quite certain this was so, he had not held back in the slightest - he would be in for quite a show right about now.

Would Suzaku become livid with anger? The boy had to know he was being baited; would he challenge him to a duel and pour it all out then? Would he forego that courtesy altogether and lash out right here, right now?

The possibilities excited him, he wanted...he craved to see this Eleven lose his composure, even once, because he always had too much of it (even in the most inappropriate situations). He sensed that Suzaku, for the first time in perhaps a very long time, was about to come undone - and he was more than pleased to bear witness.

...Which was why he barely kept his surprise in check when the boy stood up stiffly and spoke in a voice that was, albeit steady, barely loud enough to be heard. "Lord Waldstein, if I may..."

"You're excused, Lord Kururugi." The look Bismarck gave him was unreadable. "This is not a formal meeting, after all."

"Thank you," Suzaku muttered, and with a slight nod he turned on his heel and (quickly, far more quickly than necessary) strode out of the room.

Luciano felt the high, the excitement that had filled him just seconds ago, dissolve into something far more unpleasant. That was it?! He had dredged up the scandal that plagued his precious dead princess, insulted his country, and thrown into question his competence as a soldier, as a Knight...and the only answer he had was to walk away?

"Suzaku, wait!" Gino took one last moment to glower at him before breaking into a run to catch up to the brunette, Anya following at a more leisurely pace. It didn't matter; he didn't care if the other Knights gave him hell for this. He did care that despite all his provocation, Suzaku had merely walked away from him.

And yet, this was all too familiar - after both his attempts to kill him, Suzaku never bothered to press on or even fight back. He only did the bare minimum needed to escape, and then, quite literally, walked away.

Luciano snarled as the verbal onslaught from the other Knights began. (Was it Nonette or Monica who began berating him? He didn't know, because he wasn't listening, and his sour mood was for a wholly different reason.) Did Suzaku think that just by ignoring him, he would go away? Did he foolishly believe that his refusal to respond would make him lose interest and move on?

This would not do.

Oh no, this would certainly not do.

The winds caressing his face were gentle, as though trying to comfort him. 'It's all right,' they seemed to be saying. 'This will pass.'

Suzaku grit his teeth, feeling the first crack in the mask he had been wearing for over a year now. 'This' - whatever 'this' was, whatever that had been in the lounge and whatever emotions had been stirred up within him now - 'this' would not pass for quite a while, he knew.

And he was not so naive to think that anything could ever be all right anymore.

(He wondered if he could make a game out of it - see how long he could last without punching a hole through the wall, or crying. Or both.)

Euphemia li Britannia - Euphie, he corrected himself in his head, almost hearing her gentle voice calling him out whenever he addressed her too formally. He'd had no illusions that, after what happened at the SAZ, Euphie's name would not go down in the history books with praise and admiration. No, they would not speak of her kindness or her uncanny strength of will, nor would they tell of her lofty dreams of a peaceful, gentle world. No, none of that mattered because at the end of her life, she had ordered a massacre of civilians after promising them a home, and that was not something that could ever be downplayed, much less forgotten.

Until that strange boy had explained Geass to him, he'd been bewildered by the sudden reversal in her character. (And at this point Suzaku promptly pushed all thoughts of V.V, Geass, and of course Le- no, he would not think of his name, not yet, not yet - aside, into a corner of his brain to deal with later, because he was thinking of Euphie now, and he wanted to finish this train of thought first because damn it, no matter how much it hurt it was still nowhere near as painful as where that thought was going).

And then it had all made perfect sense - he had been with her as she lay dying, he had held her hand as though doing so would not make him as utterly useless as he felt then, the sole witness to her final words. Even on her deathbed, she had asked him: the Japanese people - were they happy? Had she done well? Would he go back to school, finish it, for her if not for anything else?

That was Euphie's true nature - kind, caring, selfless until the very end. And yet she would be remembered only for those two hours she had been not-Euphie, because Euphie would never order the deaths of civilians, of his people, she would never....

He crossed his arms over the balustrade and buried his face into the darkness there, fighting back the telltale prickle in his eyes through sheer force of will. He always realized things too late - the way Euphie had clarified, dazed, that he was Japanese - before panicking in an instant ("I mustn't think like that!") She had fought it. She had fought the Geass, for him.

Nobody knew that. Nobody saw that side of her. (And nobody cared).

Suzaku sighed, and it came out shaky, like a shudder, despite all his efforts.

It was rather cold up here, after all.

He allowed a small ghost of a smile to grace his lips, unseen. Gino had caught up to him barely five steps into the hallway, and he and Anya had refused to leave his side until he convinced them he was all right. That had taken awhile, and thus between then and now he had found himself whisked every which way - the rec room, the mini-bar (not that any of them had anything except juice and cola, as they were all quite under-aged), the gardens - all random ideas the Knight of Three came up with on the spot to get him to cheer up. By then the sun had begun to set, and the cogs in Gino's brain had been turning more furiously than before ("Do you want to go out for sushi? Will that help?") and Suzaku decided he had to end it right then and there; with much difficulty, he'd plastered a smile on his face, and assured them that their efforts to lift his spirits were successful (not really true) and appreciated (very true).

And so an understanding Anya had dragged Gino away, and Suzaku had made his way to the rooftop of the Knights' residential complex, hoping that some time alone with his thoughts would do him good.

He lifted up his head and watched the dying reds and purples that painted the horizon. And, absently, he raised a hand to the collar of his uniform, tucked two fingers in just so, and tugged downward sharply.

There. He had given the signal. What were the chances Lelouch would show up and answer a year's worth of silent questions that had been plaguing him every time his old friend crossed his mind?

Of course it wouldn't happen, and Suzaku wanted to laugh at himself for even considering it. But his throat was tight, and even if he forced himself to laugh he didn't trust himself to not end up crying anyway, so he decided against it.

'Have you regained your memories? Are you Zero again?' The 'one-million-Zeroes' gambit, after all, would have failed if Suzaku had ordered his men to shoot. But he didn't; he couldn't, and Zero knew that. Zero used that, and now he was a soft-hearted fool to the Britannians ("once an Eleven, always an Eleven!") and...still a deserter to his countrymen, no matter that he had saved a million of their lives.

(And perhaps in this way, he and Euphie were similar. But she had died at peace, while he...)

Ah. That was another one: 'Why did you cast that Geass on me? Why did you ask me to 'live on'?'

And, of course, the most painful one to even think of, let alone ask aloud: 'Why did you cast that Geass on her? What kind of an order was that?!'

He sighed again; he felt so exhausted all of a sudden, and he wished he could stop time, halt the world's progress around him for just a few hours so he could collect himself and put on a stronger front. Luciano's backhanded (possibly deliberate) comments in the lounge had gotten to him more effectively than he'd let on; he was actually surprised he'd managed to stand up and walk without his legs betraying him.

For this was how Suzaku had chosen to deal with all these issues - Euphemia, Lelouch, Geass, now Zero's revival and this whole clusterfuck he'd managed to find himself in - over the past year: he'd pushed them aside. Granted, it was hard: sometimes he woke from fitful dreams with Euphie's name on his lips; otherwise, it was not hard for his thoughts to wander to Lelouch every time he saw Zero's face on-screen, or was reminded of the Black Knights and the chaos that never seemed to leave his motherland at peace. And then his mind would be filled with questions again, and to remedy this he would either subject himself to the most difficult simulations the Lancelot was compatible with, or pick up his bokuto and imagine he was training with the unforgiving Tohdoh all over again...anything to keep his brain occupied. And he would keep at this until his body gave out and he was near collapse, because on the brink of passing out he wouldn't have to deal with those thoughts anymore; they couldn't hurt him anymore.

But now, those very thoughts that he had tried his best to avoid had been shoved in his face, forcefully, from the outside, and he hadn't been ready for that.

"Aha. I thought I might find you up here."

Suzaku was barely even surprised to hear that voice anymore; perhaps long ago, the world had decided that it hated him, so of course this had to happen. "What do you want, Lord Bradley," he mumbled, barely remembering to tack on some semblance of politeness as he continued staring at the sunset.

"The other Knights told me I owe you an apology for the things I said back at the lounge." He heard footsteps, and when they stopped the Knight of Ten was standing beside him; however, he faced away from the view and propped his elbows lazily against the railing. "Which things exactly, they didn't specify, but I don't think that was the point of this exercise."

There were several ways he could have responded to that, but he wasn't in the mood to sift through each one and pick out the most appropriate; he settled for the first thing that had come to mind. "Are you even going to?"

"To what? Apologize? No!" Luciano laughed as though the mere thought of doing so made no sense.

"I thought so."

"Does that bother you though, me not apologizing? I'm not sorry for what I said, Lord Kururugi, not at all." He leaned in closer, a wicked smile on his face as he hushed his voice down to a whisper. "Does that anger you?"

"No," Suzaku answered, and it was an honest reply - there were so many things going on in his head right now, he simply did not have the strength to feel anything other than confused, stressed, and tired, so tired. He thought this must all be a joke to the other man, and he waited for the punch line - another insult, perhaps a dagger at his throat again? He did not want to guess anymore, and simply waited for it to come.

After a while though, Luciano was still there - and he was watching him, unsubtly so, in an eerie way that unnerved him.

"May I ask why you're still here?"

"You want me to leave?" Luciano's grin widened by an inch, and his eyebrows danced with amusement. "But I've just gotten here. Surely you realize it's impolite to send me away at this point, even if you are just a Number without lineage or proper breeding."

Suzaku let the familiar (minor, by now) jolt of pain subside without a single word, and realized he simply could not do this right now.

"I can see why you chose this place though," the other man continued at his silence. "The view is so nice here after all."

"It's all yours," he offered immediately, and pushed himself away from the railing that suddenly seemed so cold. "If you'll excuse me."

He had to cross Luciano's path to get to the stairwell, and he'd been ready for any number of things - a taunt, a mocking peal of laughter, maybe even a trip-up if the other Knight was in the mood for juvenile humor.

He definitely did not expect the long arm that had extended and snaked around his shoulders from behind, stopping him in his tracks.

"Now, now, Suzaku." The way the other man said his name sounded wrong, far too sinister and with too much malice and just so wrong, that he had to fight the urge to wrench the offending arm away and bolt. "What's the rush? Sunset's not quite over yet; you'll miss the best part if you leave now."

He was not playing this game, whatever the hell Luciano thought this was; he wouldn't give him the satisfaction of... "Let go," he ground out, and when that had no effect he sighed through his teeth and forced: "Please."

Instead of having the intended effect, however, the Knight of Ten merely chuckled and pulled; Suzaku stumbled backward a bit, so that his back was now pressed against the front of the other man's uniform.

But before he could even process what was going on, Luciano had leaned forward so that his chin almost, almost touched the boy's shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked in a slightly sing-song tone. "You let Lord Weinberg do this to you all the time, right?"

This is different, he wanted to say. While the Knight of Three had an annoying habit of hugging him whenever possible, he always had only good intentions. This was nothing like those innocent, well-meaning hugs, this was unsettling, this was...

His thoughts were cut short once again when Luciano used the grip to whirl him around, clasping his hands onto the boy's shoulders as soon as they were facing one another. "Is he precious to you?" he asked curiously. "Gino Weinberg?"

A small part of Suzaku's mind informed him that it wouldn't be able to take any more of this - again, whatever this was - and he placed his hands on the other man's chest and shoved him away for all he was worth. "What do you want, Lord Bradley??" He failed to keep the exasperation from his voice as he rubbed his temples and shook his head to clear it.

Luciano laughed. "I just want to talk. It fascinates me, really, why Britannia doesn't want to speak of the SAZ incident. What Euphemia did there was brilliant, after all. You'd think we'd be celebrating her name instead of relegating it to a conversation taboo."

"But she didn't..." He trailed off when he realized that he had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence. 'Mean it?' 'Know what she was doing?' 'Remember any of it?'

"Well, it doesn't matter," Luciano picked up without missing a beat. "I still say that was an interesting move, a very clever one. Perhaps that was her true nature, what do you think?"

"No," he hissed. There were many things Suzaku was still unsure of, but this was not one of them. "It wasn't."

"Oho. Wishful thinking, Lord Kururugi?"

"A certainty." And he said it with such conviction as well; when his loyalty to the disgraced third princess had been questioned, after all, this certainty was the only thing that had kept him from breaking apart completely, especially after he found out that Lelouch was -

"You know what I think? I think you've been blinded." Luciano grinned at him cheekily, as though daring him to keep listening to this verbal torture. "You worshipped the ground that woman walked on. So even after performing such a horrible crime - well, to the eyes of the world, at least; I think it's marvelous - you're still in denial."

"No, you're wrong!" Suzaku hated the way his voice cracked at the outburst, and how he could practically feel his self-control slipping from his grasp. "She - "

"Thank you for proving my point!" came the gleeful reply. "See? You'd still defend a woman like that, even after a year. She should definitely know how noble and loyal her precious knight is - but wait. Oh, that's right!" Luciano clapped a hand to his mouth if faux-shock, before breaking into a wave of loud, deriding laughter.

Suzaku merely stood there, stunned at the sight before him. He failed to see how and when any of this had ever been funny. Scraping the last of his resolve from the bottom of the barrel, he willed his feet to move and made his way once more to the stairwell.

But then - "Did you think that by getting close to her you could climb higher in life?" - Luciano called that out, and at least at that very moment Suzaku wished with every fiber of his being that he had been born deaf.

"I have no idea what that means," he said stiffly.

"Of course you do," the other Knight drawled, making his way over to where Suzaku was standing and leaning against the wall near the doorway. "It's one of the oldest tricks in the book - make someone who's rich or powerful fall in love with you, and you're on easy streets."

The mere thought that his relationship with Euphie could even be misconstrued as such made him sick. "That's not - !"

"Well it must have worked remarkably well for you," Luciano continued as though he hadn't even spoken at all. "After all, who ever heard of a Number becoming a personal knight of royalty? Of an Eleven becoming a Major?" The Vampire of Britannia eyed him in a way that reminded him too much of a leer. "She fell hard for you - it's no secret. It's just too bad that she died, and took your meal ticket with her. No wonder you had to go out and do something as dramatic as capturing Zero - "

"Stop it!!" He slammed the side of his fist against the metal door frame, and for maybe a millisecond he felt better by an iota. "You don't know anything about her! Euphie was - " He clamped his mouth shut, killing off the rest of his tirade and wondering how it had gotten to this.

But the other man had picked up on his slip rather easily. "Euphie?" he parroted with an incredulous smile. "She was 'Euphie' to you?"

He didn't even know how to reply to that without digging himself deeper into the hole he was already in, so he chose the safest route available to him: silence.

"Well, maybe this is all so much simpler than it seems, then. But you should know better than anyone that whatever you had was doomed to fail, right?"

Suzaku heard every word, and each one was like a barb that clung to him and bit deep into his flesh.

"After all, did you really think a Number and a Britannian could live happily ever after? Did you really? Or maybe...did you think that was what the Special Zone was for?"

(The Special Zone was for his people first and foremost; if he and Euphie could have achieved any personal happiness from that, it would have just been icing on the cake. But - )

"How selfish of both of you!" Luciano exclaimed, taking his silence as an affirmative. "Lord Kururugi, do you mean to tell me that you and Princess Euphemia put on a huge show and went through who-knows-how-many legal nightmares just so you could - ?"

"Lord Bradley," he cut in tersely. His removed his fist from the imprint it had left on the door and continued in a deathly quiet voice. "If you insist on finishing that sentence I must ask that you throw the first punch as well. Otherwise, I will."

Luciano offered him a close-lipped smile and leaned back with his arms folded across his chest, as though studying him. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief - he had gotten the other man to back off, and could now focus on suppressing all the anger and frustration that were threatening to wrench away his last remnants of self-control.

But that was when Luciano Bradley leaned forward, stopped with his mouth only inches from his right ear, and whispered: " - fuck her?"

(Suzaku saw red, and would later find the next few minutes to have blanked out from his memory. For once, such an encounter was not because of his Geass.)

Less than an hour later, Luciano Bradley was spitting blood into a bucket held by a nurse at the infirmary, while two others worked to treat the bruises and minor fractures he'd sustained. And yet he couldn't remember the last time he felt this high.

Author's Notes:

Many, many thanks to those who left a review for Chapter 2! In addition:

MithLuin: Thinking about the Kallen-Suzaku versus Kallen-Bradley dynamic gave me pause as well, but in the end I went with the notion that Kallen probably wasn't willing to die for Suzaku, especially if it was just for (seemingly) harmless 'story-telling.' But, good catch!

Spunkay Skunk: The only vibes I got from R2 were that Luciano and Suzaku didn't like each other an awful lot (quite the contrary), so I'm hoping to replicate that here. Thanks for pointing that out as well, and I applied it to this chapter whenever I could remember to do so.

seebear: Well, I suppose this chapter answered your question about Euphie, and I hope it didn't disappoint. I'd noticed (from the "stranded-on-an-island" episode onwards) that for some reason Kallen seemed to hold a bit more resentment towards Euphie than was normally healthy, so I hope I got that right. To be honest, the Suzaku-Luciano scene in the hallway was quite difficult to write, so I'm glad it delivered.

I've decided this is going to be a 5-shot, and upon uploading the next chapter I will be changing the rating to 'M.' So...yea, just to let everyone know.

This was really only supposed to be a 4-shot, but then both scenes in this chapter ended up becoming a lot longer than I thought, so I had to split chapter 3 into two (lest it go on forever).

Writing angsty!Suzaku was fun, I'll admit. Once Luciano came on board, though, the whole scene became a tedious endeavor, especially since I wanted to show Suzaku 'losing it' in degrees; I hope it worked out fine nonetheless.

And now that you've read until this point, please don't hesitate to leave a review and tell me how I'm doing. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.