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rex_sunTitle: Nothing in Yourself
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Code Geass
Characters: Shirley-pov. Lelouch, Suzaku.
Summary: (Kinkmeme request.) Shirley tries to understand Lelouch. She really, really tries. But as Suzaku says: Lelouch doesn't want to be liked. He doesn't even want to like. And Shirley has to wonder if either of her friends hold any kind of hope in their hearts at all.
Notes: This is the final chapter. Thanks for sticking with the story, everyone! I was really pumped and excited today and sat down and wrote this entire chapter. This was the same as reactions with Decayed! It seems I always sprint when I can see the finish line. If you're reading, I would appreciate feedback. This story gave me a lot of trouble at times
The door opens to Shirley’s touch; it is unlocked, and Shirley knows it is unlocked for her. She feels a smile stretching across her face and a fluttering in her heart.
—“I swear to god, Clovis! You just do what you’re told, and you sit in your mediocrity and—“
Shirley runs around the corner, startled and angry. Lelouch is already raising his voice?
She freezes. Lelouch is speaking to someone on the phone while Suzaku sits back in the armchair, glaring with disgust—not at Lelouch, but also at the phone. But Suzaku looks worried as well, and slightly guilty. It’s a very odd expression.
…what was that name Lelouch just said?
Lelouch immediately spots her and growls in frustration. He had obviously not planned on this phone call, or else he would have locked the door. He turns slightly away from Shirley and hisses into the phone. “No, you listen to me—don’t you dare come here. Don’t come anywhere near me. I swear you will be sorry. If you—if you come near—I won’t be as easily persuaded as last time!”
“Lelouch!” Suzaku suddenly barks. “Lelouch, hang up the phone!”
Lelouch does so and violently chucks the phone across the room where it shatters against the wall. But his anger at the phone call seemingly drains all the energy he had amassed in the hospital, and he falls heavily onto the couch, shaking, one hand resting over his eyes.
“Lelouch?” Shirley asks gently. The plea goes ignored by both boys.
Suzaku, eyes not leaving the spot where the phone busted, says gruffly, “He’s worried for you, Lelouch.”
“Bullshit!” Lelouch growls, and there, that really is the last of his strength. He collapses over onto the pillows and curls tiredly. “He’s after something. I won’t play their game. Never again…”
And Shirley has learned by now to keep her tongue, so she goes to sit by Lelouch’s side, on the edge of the couch in the bowl of his curled body, so very intimately she feels. She reaches out a hand slowly and rests it on Lelouch’s unwashed hair and doesn’t even care. She strokes his hair and he doesn’t shy away and when she looks up, hand still moving, she meets Suzaku’s rapidly warming eyes, his growing smile.
“Welcome home, Lelouch,” Shirley says as if nothing happened.
He lifts his head and blinks, and they meet eyes. His gaze is not so dark as it had been when she saw him a week ago. He looks at her with bright, violet—beautiful –eyes and she smiles down. He says in a tone of surprise,
“Thank you… I’m happy to be back.”
Lelouch comes back to class by the next week, but this time, no one rushes to greet him. The feelings of the student body had soured in his time away. Now no one doubts, suddenly, that Lelouch is a cracked up madman who, in drunken-high rages, pushes people off of towers. The once all-popular king of the school, the charming and handsome student council vice-president, is now a taboo subject and persona non grata. He is approached from nowhere, by his (bored) report, by drug users and dealers, but—and he glances over his shoulder into the kitchen on one of Shirley’s lunch-time visits—he suspects that Suzaku and Milly might have instructed Suzaku’s new nurse-maid Sayoko to keep an eye on him, because she is suddenly all around the school, delivering messages for teachers and cleaning the school like a regular janitor and delivering forgotten homework assignments to Lelouch in the hall.
Lelouch is incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing—or, rather, that’s what everyone but his friends see. His friends see a frustrated boredom, and something that amounts to Lelouch’s equivalent of apologetic guilt. His friends see his anger still deep within him tempered by a desolate sadness. They see a new tenderness borne from self-imposed penance.
Not that he needs to punish himself. Now every day he is confined to the school, and Ashford employees are seen lurking about the perimeters to catch delinquents. Lelouch’s room is searched on a weekly basis; Sayoko sleeps within the building, and so on and so forth. Shirley can only sit back and really wonder at just how dedicated the Ashford family is to keeping their charge safe. She ventures to ask once if he is related to the Ashfords somehow. He says, “Distantly” and leaves it at that.
In front of most people he is the epitome of self-control. He does his homework, he keeps a smooth face, and he answers questions politely — as he always has. But whenever Shirley visits—which is now every day without fail—he lets himself go in the safety of his own home, and he shakes and gulps over the dryness in his mouth. He twitches and rocks and moans quietly into his hands and he curls into himself over ripping stomachaches and flaming migraines.
“He’s going to enter rehab as soon as the school year is over,” Suzaku whispers to her at the beginning of May. His effects of his concussion have faded but his limbs are still bound in casts. He has not worked since his accident. “That’s the plan, anyway. He doesn’t want to go at all and just barely managed to convince the Ashfords to let him finish the school year. He should be there now in my opinion.” Suzaku sighs impatiently. “He’s having a really rough time with his withdrawals. It’s hard to—well… it’s not like he can get any more when he’s being watched so closely. But he wants it so bad. So bad… He can’t think of anything else, hardly… And when he’s not thinking about that, he’s thinking about some other dark thing. He’s so—“
Suzaku leans back and throws his good arm over his face. Shirley sits so close to him on the couch that when he hunkers down and stretches his legs, their knees touch. Neither of them shies away from this contact. “Difficult,” Shirley finishes for him, and she takes his hand. Unlike Lelouch, Suzaku squeezes back, and Shirley, emboldened, says, “But that’s why we love him, right?”
And she only meant ‘love’ in a teasing way, but still a blush makes its way to her cheeks and Suzaku says very seriously, as if it weren’t a joke at all, “Yeah.”
On one of his good days, Lelouch manages to drag himself out of bed and he only runs to the bathroom three times before noon, and he even brings himself to text Milly on his new phone. “They’re coming over,” he calls from the kitchen, and there is a sudden cacophony of banging pots and pans. Shirley and Suzaku exchange surprised glances and Shirley rushes into the kitchen to check.
“Milly,” Lelouch extrapolates. “And Kallen and Nina and Rivalz. They’re going to come over for a late lunch. Would you mind helping me prepare?”
For some reason Shirley feels a large, surging happiness overtake her heart.
Lelouch obsessively cleans his hands after every step in the preparations—perhaps rightly so, as he often has to run to the bathroom or wipe the unexplained sweat from his forehead. Every now and then he stops what he’s doing and hunches over, clutching some aching part of his body and having a fit of undirected, unprovoked rage. He’s almost pitiful in how badly his body is wrecked by his addiction.
Shirley is more of a hindrance than a help—she spills many things, comes close twice to adding the disastrously wrong ingredient, and almost burns the pan she’s supposed to be looking over because she doesn’t know how it’s supposed to look when it’s done. Even when Lelouch, fed up, has her go to set the table, she manages to break the topmost plate of the pile she tries to balance. After that, Shirley’s duty is to place napkins while Sayoko cleverly mixes one type of plate, white, with the other set of plates, green, that are in storage in another part of the building.
Shirley pops her head into the kitchen she is supposedly lifetime-banned from and grins. Lelouch has had to pull up a kitchen stool to the stove because of the pain ravaging his body, but he in no way lets that slow him down. He has vegetables on sticks, chicken breasts in pans, bacon frying, and now he is expertly dicing tomatoes, and somehow he manages to keep them from being squashed—an act of god, surely, because Shirley has never managed such a feat in her life. He is also quite clever, she realizes—there were only four breasts in the pack of chicken, but he cuts them in such a way that it looks like gourmet portions.
Then Shirley comes next to him to hover and watch, and he doesn’t send her away. If she’s looking at him right, it almost seems, even, as if there’s a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. She watches him put it all together, tomatoes on cheese on bacon on chicken, and a large stack of vegetables to the side, perfectly—as she picks a hot piece and throws it in her mouth and pants around it—perfectly shaped and seasoned and mmm—and Lelouch smiles, actually smiles, and asks her to show Suzaku to his seat.
By two-fifteen the lot of them—Lelouch and Suzaku and Shirley and Milly and Rivalz and Nina and Kallen and even Sayoko, whom Lelouch had insisted join them—sit around the dining table, passing rolls and complimenting Lelouch, who looks pleased and a little smug—
but mostly pleased. Very much so. Shirley sees his eyes shining brightly, the smile twisting his lips and him fighting it from becoming what he would consider ‘embarrassingly large’. He dabs his face discreetly with a handkerchief and hides his pain—or, possibly, it has even lessened with his mind so full of other things. He even looks healthier, she thinks as she observes him—more color to his cheeks, as impeccably groomed as he used to be.
“Do we need more lemonade? Let me—“ He stands quickly and scoops up the jug, and when Sayoko protests, he protests right back and kindly orders her to sit down. “I need to check on the desert anyway.”
Lelouch is only too happy to have his home full of people. Shirley would never have expected this of Lelouch—she would have thought he would consider it a burden—but he is flitting busily about, in his element, chatting and making sure everyone is fed and keeping things clean as they go along and promptly refilling empty servers until it seems almost like a magic trick. Shirley has never seen him so alive—so happy—
“He’ll make someone a great wife someday, won’t he?” Suzaku jokes quietly next to her. Shirley starts and blushes, realizing she’s had her eyes on him for some time.
“He likes taking care of people,” Shirley covers quickly.
“He does,” Suzaku confirms. “You know he actually hates being alone. He has to convince himself he’s doing things for other people.”
“I see…”
Suzaku smirks again and nods—“I’m betting on Milly, myself.”
Shirley looks over uncomprehendingly. Milly is laughing loudly and leaning toward Lelouch, having taken a seat next to the head of the table as soon as arriving, correctly predicting that would be Lelouch’s seat. Shirley fights down her smile and turns to Suzaku, hiking on a cool look.
“Oh really?” she says loftily. “And what if I’m betting on me to make Lelouch my wife?”
Suzaku immediately opens his mouth, blushing and looking defiant—then he freezes, considering her entire sentence. She busts out giggling and he shakes his head and grins, realizing she’s joking in more ways than one.
“Well,” Suzaku says quietly, a little bit too late when she’s already turned—but he keeps speaking anyway, and Shirley listens anyway, too—“I don’t think I’d like that much myself…”
Lelouch bustles over before either of them can say more and takes away their plates. They keep silent even after Lelouch has served them all with chocolate pudding topped with chocolate shavings (from a huge chocolate bar Rivalz had gifted him with ages ago).
And Shirley’s finally beginning to understand. Once she felt anger towards Suzaku for daring to allow Lelouch to use Refrain. But now she understands that Suzaku has worked to keep Lelouch alive more than anything else. Lelouch, after all, is a very difficult person to say no to; he’s a whirlwind, a hurricane, full of energy and raw power and undeniable emotion. When he hates he hates with all his heart. And when he loves—Shirley meets Suzaku’s eyes in a dead stare.
She’s finally beginning to understand that his love comes in equal measures.
“Oh, Milly!” some students are beginning to whine by the beginning of June. “I can’t believe you’re going to be graduating!”
Milly looks contrite and glances away from them all. Shirley happens to know and is still astounded by the fact that Milly purposefully failed her exams. Milly made Shirley promise not to tell, and she hasn’t, but even so—she feels such incredible pity that Milly’s reason was ‘because if I stay here at school, I can put off marrying Earl Asplund’.
“Did you hear?” Paulene shouts as she comes into the room. “I can’t believe it! Prince Schneizel, Princess Cornelia, and Princess Euphemia—they’re all on their way to Area 11! Isn’t that crazy? Why are they all coming?”
She looks around at the unhappy faces staring back at her. “What?”
Later in life, Shirley thinks that that lunch—that gathering of all of her best friends, that moment of Lelouch’s happiness and Shirley’s in turn—that was ‘the’ last great memory. When Shirley reads books fiction books for teenagers, some of them talk about high school as this one great long suffering leading up to ‘THE’ one shining moment, the great memory that simultaneously defines and waves goodbye to every good childhood memory. So yes, that lunch was it. Shirley realizes this as Lelouch pushes past her, face contorted in fury and that green-haired woman on his tail—pushes past Shirley as she opens the door to his apartment for lunch on some hot June high-noon—runs from the apartment, from the clubhouse, a bag slung over his shoulder—runs away from the angry, pained screams of Suzaku—
Shirley knows instinctively that it’s the end. She doesn’t know how she knows, but as she reflects later on while huddled with the other girls in the dorm, she feels a sort of certainty that things have changed somehow. Like some new step has been taking much farther than anything else. She thinks that woman—that lioness woman, the predator with the golden eyes—has something to do with it and she just can’t place why.
All the girls discuss Lelouch Lamperouge’s great escape—his disappearance without going through any main entrance of the school—“He must know a secret passageway out of the school!”—but Shirley keeps thinking of Suzaku, poor, pitiful Suzaku.
(Sobbing on the floor, trying to drag himself up, arm healed but leg still cast-bound, unable to chase after Lelouch, just screaming—screaming, “Lelouch, come back! Don’t do it! Lelouch, stay, please! Help! Help!” –but though Shirley had turned around and ran for Suzaku’s sake, she never found Lelouch—he was gone in the blink of an eye. Disappeared like a grand illusionist. )
He’s gone.
That thought is a full sentence in her brain instead of the mass of images and key words she usually thinks with. He’s gone, and this time, he’s not coming back. Why does she know this?
Then one of the girls screams and leaps up. As everyone jumps and turns to face her, she rips her headphones off and says, “Screw Lelouch! It’s Prince Clovis! The radio says Prince Clovis is dead!”
Paulene pales and dives for her tablet computer, aghast that someone knows the news before she does. There is a confused scuffle for the remote and then the community TV pops on and flicks to the news. A woman reporter speaks smoothly to all the viewers, a genuine distress hinting in her features.
Prince Clovis is dead. He was murdered while in transport to an unknown destination. The murder has not been identified or caught. Prince Schneizel, Princess Cornelia, and Princess Euphemia’s arrival in Area 11 is subsequently delayed while investigations are being conducted.
Many of the girls are crying uncontrollably. Clovis, Clovis, but who cares of Clovis? Shirley thinks bitterly.
Lelouch is gone and he will not come back and she will never see him again.
“What are you going to do?” Shirley asks Suzaku the next day when all classes have been cancelled in the prince’s honor.
Suzaku is pale and, to her knowledge, has not gotten out of bed all day. He is now occupying Lelouch’s empty bed. Shirley sits on the unoccupied side and wonders why Lelouch needed such a large bed in the first place and whether or not he ever felt lonely at night. The sheer curtains are drawn and the room glows a peaceful yellow that sort of matches the empty, calm feeling inside of her.
Suzaku stares at the ceiling, looking sick. “I don’t know,” he whispers.
“Do you hate him?” Shirley asks. “I think I hate him.”
“I don’t think you know what hate is,” Suzaku says firmly.
“Probably not.”
Suzaku breathes slowly, and eventually he dozes off. Shirley doesn’t leave; she stays by his side, leaning against the headboard, thinking. She wonders where Lelouch is now. What’s he doing. Why’d he leave. No answer is forthcoming, and she feels nothing in response. She can’t bring herself to be excited or frightened or angry or anything. That’s okay for now.
Eventually Suzaku wakes again and he takes her hand as he becomes alert. Then he spends some time thinking and he says finally, “Lelouch’s mother was murdered when he was ten. His father sent him away to Japan. You know, the old country.”
Shirley shifts and turns to him, looks down to where he still lies. Suzaku continues,
“He and his little sister came to live with my family. His little sister had been hurt in the attack that killed his mother. She was wheelchair-bound and blind. A really sweet girl. Even after everything that happened to her, she managed to keep her head up. Strong will. Lelouch absolutely adored her with all of his heart. He felt that she was the only person he could ever trust. Lelouch was adamant that only he should take care of her. He was very protective of her. Her name was Nunally.
“Then Britannia invaded Japan… My father lost his life… Lelouch, Nunally, and I were on our own, right in the middle of Tokyo, the capital. No adults or anything to look after us. Nunally, though… she got killed. It was really stupid… nothing dramatic… Like, why that? Why? I asked every god I used to pray to, Lelouch asked his one, but we couldn’t come up with any answer. It was just that the cities were all torn up, and sometimes to progress we had to walk over tumbled buildings. Lelouch was carrying Nunally on his back, and I think he was tired or something because we’d been walking for a while and he wasn’t really athletic…
“Anyway… He fell backwards and tumbled down the rubble pile. Nunally hit her head a lot. By the time they got to the bottom and they stopped falling and Lelouch got off of her, she was bleeding all over the place. Much worse than I bled when I fell off that tower… I mean, all over the place, so much blood.
“I don’t even think it was the fall that killed her. I think she just bled to death. There weren’t any doctors or anything; they were all fled from the city or out helping Japanese soldiers. And she just bled out right there in Lelouch’s arms. It was so stupid… Lelouch has been angry ever since. Like, he was mad that he just couldn’t understand why something like that had to happen. Especially since the Ashfords found us a day later. He was—is—mad at his father for even sending him. He’s mad that his mother was murdered. He’s mad that we had to be alone during that war. He’s mad that Nunally died because he slipped. He’s just never gotten over any of it.”
Suzaku gulps and stares at the ceiling again, having turned sometime during the story to talk to her. Shirley sighs shakily and wipes her wet face. She fights down a sob and Suzaku takes a deep breath and continues.
“The Ashfords found us, though… Lelouch had used a payphone to call them before Nunally died and we were going to the rendezvous point. And they were going to take Lelouch awake, and Lelouch only—but Lelouch refused.”
“But—“ Shirley starts, surprised.
“Yeah. They refused to take me at first—because of my family, because they were afraid of helping a Japanese during that war. I told Lelouch that I would be okay, that I had somewhere to go, but Lelouch went berserk. If Nunally were still alive, I think he would have given in to the Ashfords’ just to make sure Nunally was safe. I think he would have said goodbye and sorry but ‘I have to do it for her sake’. But Nunally was dead, and Lelouch… I can’t say he ever was very careful with his own life. I think without her, he would stay with me, in danger, than go alone into safety. He didn’t want to be alone… He’d already lost everyone he’d ever loved…
“So he yelled and screamed and he started walking away and dragging me with him. And when one of the adults grabbed him, he bit and kicked and finally they just said ‘fine’ and took me too.
“I don’t think either of us could ever be the same after that. We hurt each other, and we hurt ourselves, too… Lelouch does it with Refrain. I do it—…I just hurt myself. I don’t even realize I’m doing it most of the time. I feel guilty, too. I feel sometimes like I shouldn’t be alive…”
“Like throwing yourself off of a three-story tower?”
Suzaku shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore… Did I throw myself off? I don’t have any memory of consciously thinking about it. Did I just fall? I’m not usually that clumsy, but it’s possible. Did Lelouch push me? It could be, I have to admit. It was something like powerful guilt that made him overdose the way he did.
“But the fact is that… it doesn’t even matter anymore. I don’t think so.”
Suzaku closes his eyes and sighs. Shirley finds a tissue box on Lelouch’s bedside table, fussily neat, with the tissue sticking out in just the perfect little triangle. She takes it, and the next tissue pops out in a weird crumple, and she blows her nose. Then Suzaku finishes it all off:
“I love him.”
And Shirley, thinking of the one time he described all the different words for ‘love’ in other languages, laments that he says it in English, because she doesn’t know exactly what he means.
The summer holidays begin and the campus slowly empties out. The student council holds a very weak-hearted going-away party in the council room, after the bigger, crazier one for the entire school has ended.
Rivalz is more miserable than Shirley has ever seen him. Without Lelouch, he’s just that dorky kid with the sidecar for no one. He leaves to stay with his mother, and one of the last things he says is, “I’m tired. I don’t even want to think about Lelouch anymore. I’m just tired.”
Milly leaves, too. “I’m going to spend the summer with my fiancée,” she says without pride or excitement. “My mom is coming, too. He has a mansion near the sea. We’re probably going to live there once we’re married.”
Kallen has been sick for a while now and hasn’t come to school at all. Milly says she’ll call if she hears from her. Then it is only Nina, Shirley, and Suzaku left in the council room. Suzaku’s leg has finally healed. Nina sighs and stands up and hugs Shirley. She even stutters out a “Bye, Zack” and Suzaku raises a hand in farewell. She hesitates once more at the door and then leaves quietly with not another word.
“What about you?” Suzaku says after a moment when they are alone in the council room.
“I’m staying at Ashford for another couple of days with the principal’s permission. Daddy and mom are going to come when he can get away from his work at Narita and pick me up. They’ll take me to the airport, and we’re going to the homeland for the summer.”
Suzaku nods and again they are silent. They sit side by side despite all the plenty of other seats in the room.
Shirley says, “What about you?”
Suzaku sighs without looking at her and replies, “The Ashfords say I can stay. They said I might have to move into the servants quarters if they can’t find Lelouch. If Lelouch doesn’t come back, they want to remodel the club house and use the apartment space for better things. Lelouch made the chess team popular, for instance, and they’re going to need to expand it.”
“…oh.” It’s weird to think of the apartment, the place of so many memories, good and bad—the place that had been the home of her very best friends—filled with people, strangers, she may or may not like or even know.
Suzaku smiles grimly. “And I don’t think I’ll be taking them up on the offer.”
“Why not?” Shirley gasps.
“Well,” Suzaku says seriously, finally looking at her with his warm, sad green eyes. “I was going to call Lelouch.”
“Going to—oh!”
Suzaku pulls out his cell phone and says bitterly, “For some reason neither the Ashfords nor the police considered that maybe he would answer my call rather than theirs.”
And he stands, tall, proud, and straight-backed, and hits a single number. The speed dial reaches out to Lelouch.
Suzaku moves to stand next to the window and he stays there for a long, long time. The phone rings and rings and finally a muffled, unintelligible voice says what Shirley assumes is “Hello?” and Suzaku says,
“It’s me.”
There ensues a short silence and then Lelouch and Suzaku speak, except Shirley can only hear Suzaku’s half of the conversation.
“No, I’m not… That’s not what I’m trying to do… Lelouch, it was you, wasn’t it? You did—it. …only Shirley, I swear on my life. …is Kallen with you? … C.C.? … … … … I understand. My answer is still no. I don’t agree with it one single bit. You won’t change me in that regard. But Lelouch—don’t hang up—…thank you. Lelouch. I’m not angry. I don’t think that—I don’t think you’re a bad person, in the end, or—or what you’re doing is wrong. Not exactly—not really. I just—I just don’t agree with the way you’re doing it.
“…no, I get it, really I do… Hey, I—… no, I—… Listen to me! …thank you! Now—I just wanted to say—“
Suzaku finally hesitates. Shirley can’t see his expression from this angle. There is silence on the other end; Lelouch is waiting for what Suzaku has to say.
“I miss you.”
No answer from the other end.
“I love you.”
No answer.
“Please, I just want to see you. I’ll go with you. Please, let me be by your side, the way it’s always been.”
A pause, and Lelouch’s voice answers curtly. Suzaku says,
“Thank you. Goodbye. …very well then, I’ll see you.”
Two days later, again at high-noon, Shirley meets Suzaku and they set off together. Suzaku’s bag is packed to bulging. He really isn’t ever going back to Ashford.
“It’ll be lonely without you,” Shirley says sadly as they leave campus grounds.
“I’m sorry,” Suzaku says gently.
They speak again when they’ve reached the train platform. Suzaku says, “I’ve left a letter for the Ashfords, saying goodbye and thanks for everything. But I’m not explaining anything.”
“I understand,” Shirley says.
They board a train and take it to the edge of the settlement. They enter what is undoubtedly the ghetto, but Shirley is not afraid. She is with Suzaku.
They find a place that was once the corner of two streets. Shirley can’t read the names on the sign. It’s not very deep into the ghetto, though—just far enough to be away from the Britannians and too early to meet any of the Elevens. They stand there at the corner, side by side, sad and serious. Shirley’s heart hurts.
“Can’t I come with you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She thinks Suzaku’s heart hurts too.
At long last a car pulls up. It is not old or new but rather nondescript. The windows are tinted, but when the car stops they all roll down. Lelouch steps out from the back seat in a prim, boring black shirt that he must be sweating under. He tips his head and removes his sunglasses smoothly so he can squint at Suzaku in the full blast of summer sun, and he crosses his arms imposingly.
The three of them are very quiet for a moment. Shirley’s eye is caught by a flash of color from the car. She dips down and looks into the driver’s window. To her surprise, it is Kallen at the wheel, looking healthy and bold and assured of herself. It doesn’t even seem like the girl she knew. In the front passenger seat beside her is the lioness woman, the girl in green hair: she stares back at Shirley with disinterest, her chin in hand, elbow propped on the curve of her car door. Shirley says, “Hello.” The girl says, “Hello.” Kallen tips the brim of her hat in greeting to Shirley.
Shirley straightens up and looks at the two boys. They both ignored the happenings beside them, but neither of them has said a word. Finally Suzaku says,
“I don’t want to struggle against you. I can’t. Let me go with you.”
Lelouch sneers. “And everything that’s happened between us, you’ll…?”
“…I forgive you,” Suzaku says.
Lelouch makes an ugly face. He’s angry. “I can’t believe you. After all that…”
Suzaku smiles weakly. “I wouldn’t forgive myself if I never forgave you. I can’t forgive myself anyway…”
Lelouch stares at him, hard and challenging and dangerous. Then he laughs without mirth, a sharp sound. “There’s a saying like that, I think. Some Greek philosopher or whatnot?”
Suzaku is grinning now, albeit with a hint of confusion. “What do you mean?”
Lelouch tilts his head. “Forgive many things in others, but nothing in yourself.”
Suzaku considers that. “I suppose.”
Lelouch huffs and finally breaks eye contact. He looks to the side and leans back against the car. “A poor philosophy to live by, if you ask me. A breeding ground for compassion, sure, but also enormous guilt. And what’s the point of compassion if it’s made impotent by guilt?”
“I need the guilt to make up for your lack.” Suzaku doesn’t look away.
Lelouch whips his head around and glares severely. Then he finally relaxes and drops his arms, hands sliding into his pocket and face lightening with an easy smile. “Heh. Fine then. Throw your bag in the trunk.”
Lelouch taps the trunk and Kallen reaches down to pull the release lever. Suzaku grins again and goes to load his luggage. In the moments that Suzaku is fiddling with his bag, Lelouch meets Shirley’s eyes. She may be imagining it—didn’t Suzaku just say that Lelouch lacks guilt?—but she thinks she sees a hint or remorse in his eyes when he looks at her. She gives him a simple smile and hopes she understands the meaning—
she’s already forgiven him, too.
Suzaku slams the lid of the trunk and comes back around. He looks between Lelouch and Shirley and then chuckles lowly. He turns to her and comes forward, enveloping her in a searing-hot embrace. She brings her hands around his back and rests them on his broad shoulders. He smiles into her hair; she smiles into his neck. At length he pulls back and holds her at the ends of his arms. She gives his hands a squeeze.
“This is goodbye,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” she says softly. There’s nothing else to say but—“Goodbye, Suzaku.”
He blinks away tears and kisses her on the forehead, and then turns abruptly and slides into the car. Lelouch ducks and looks at him and says, “I have to do it now.” Suzaku sighs through his nose, gives Shirley one last sad look, and then nods to Lelouch.
Lelouch straightens and approaches her. He gives her his own brief hug, but a more lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth. He pulls away with the smallest amount of hesitation, and for that brief moment she is afraid that maybe he’ll show weakness and ruin this perfectly good farewell. But his face when she sees it is strong and confident. He looks powerful to her.
As she watches his eyes, one of them suddenly shifts, and he gives a command, and it sinks into her being.
The car pulls away, and the young girl turns around and walks back to where she came from. The occupants of the car are mostly silent. Suzaku turns in his seat and watches her for as long as he is able, but he is the only one; no one else has any regret in seeing her go or saying goodbye. They turn a corner and she is gone.
C.C. twists in her seat to look back at the two of them. She addresses Lelouch first.
“Did you love her?”
Lelouch doesn’t turn from where he is gazing thoughtfully out of the car window. He mutters, “I don’t know.”
“Did you hate her?” C.C. pushes.
“I don’t know,” Lelouch says more clearly, voice edged with irritation.
C.C. considers his answer then turns to Suzaku. “What about you?”
Suzaku looks down at his folded hands and smiles. His voice is heavy with some emotion he won’t identify within himself. “There are more important things,” he says simply.
C.C. gives a tiny smile, satisfied, and turns back to the front. Kallen, listening all the while, gives off a tired sigh in their place and drives on.
When Shirley Fenette begins her final year at Ashford Academy, she is jovial and untroubled. No one dares speak anymore of Lelouch Lamperouge, not even the kids who had once been his friends. And that’s a good thing, because if they ever did, she wouldn’t remember who in the world they were talking about.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Code Geass
Characters: Shirley-pov. Lelouch, Suzaku.
Summary: (Kinkmeme request.) Shirley tries to understand Lelouch. She really, really tries. But as Suzaku says: Lelouch doesn't want to be liked. He doesn't even want to like. And Shirley has to wonder if either of her friends hold any kind of hope in their hearts at all.
Notes: This is the final chapter. Thanks for sticking with the story, everyone! I was really pumped and excited today and sat down and wrote this entire chapter. This was the same as reactions with Decayed! It seems I always sprint when I can see the finish line. If you're reading, I would appreciate feedback. This story gave me a lot of trouble at times
The door opens to Shirley’s touch; it is unlocked, and Shirley knows it is unlocked for her. She feels a smile stretching across her face and a fluttering in her heart.
—“I swear to god, Clovis! You just do what you’re told, and you sit in your mediocrity and—“
Shirley runs around the corner, startled and angry. Lelouch is already raising his voice?
She freezes. Lelouch is speaking to someone on the phone while Suzaku sits back in the armchair, glaring with disgust—not at Lelouch, but also at the phone. But Suzaku looks worried as well, and slightly guilty. It’s a very odd expression.
…what was that name Lelouch just said?
Lelouch immediately spots her and growls in frustration. He had obviously not planned on this phone call, or else he would have locked the door. He turns slightly away from Shirley and hisses into the phone. “No, you listen to me—don’t you dare come here. Don’t come anywhere near me. I swear you will be sorry. If you—if you come near—I won’t be as easily persuaded as last time!”
“Lelouch!” Suzaku suddenly barks. “Lelouch, hang up the phone!”
Lelouch does so and violently chucks the phone across the room where it shatters against the wall. But his anger at the phone call seemingly drains all the energy he had amassed in the hospital, and he falls heavily onto the couch, shaking, one hand resting over his eyes.
“Lelouch?” Shirley asks gently. The plea goes ignored by both boys.
Suzaku, eyes not leaving the spot where the phone busted, says gruffly, “He’s worried for you, Lelouch.”
“Bullshit!” Lelouch growls, and there, that really is the last of his strength. He collapses over onto the pillows and curls tiredly. “He’s after something. I won’t play their game. Never again…”
And Shirley has learned by now to keep her tongue, so she goes to sit by Lelouch’s side, on the edge of the couch in the bowl of his curled body, so very intimately she feels. She reaches out a hand slowly and rests it on Lelouch’s unwashed hair and doesn’t even care. She strokes his hair and he doesn’t shy away and when she looks up, hand still moving, she meets Suzaku’s rapidly warming eyes, his growing smile.
“Welcome home, Lelouch,” Shirley says as if nothing happened.
He lifts his head and blinks, and they meet eyes. His gaze is not so dark as it had been when she saw him a week ago. He looks at her with bright, violet—beautiful –eyes and she smiles down. He says in a tone of surprise,
“Thank you… I’m happy to be back.”
Lelouch comes back to class by the next week, but this time, no one rushes to greet him. The feelings of the student body had soured in his time away. Now no one doubts, suddenly, that Lelouch is a cracked up madman who, in drunken-high rages, pushes people off of towers. The once all-popular king of the school, the charming and handsome student council vice-president, is now a taboo subject and persona non grata. He is approached from nowhere, by his (bored) report, by drug users and dealers, but—and he glances over his shoulder into the kitchen on one of Shirley’s lunch-time visits—he suspects that Suzaku and Milly might have instructed Suzaku’s new nurse-maid Sayoko to keep an eye on him, because she is suddenly all around the school, delivering messages for teachers and cleaning the school like a regular janitor and delivering forgotten homework assignments to Lelouch in the hall.
Lelouch is incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing—or, rather, that’s what everyone but his friends see. His friends see a frustrated boredom, and something that amounts to Lelouch’s equivalent of apologetic guilt. His friends see his anger still deep within him tempered by a desolate sadness. They see a new tenderness borne from self-imposed penance.
Not that he needs to punish himself. Now every day he is confined to the school, and Ashford employees are seen lurking about the perimeters to catch delinquents. Lelouch’s room is searched on a weekly basis; Sayoko sleeps within the building, and so on and so forth. Shirley can only sit back and really wonder at just how dedicated the Ashford family is to keeping their charge safe. She ventures to ask once if he is related to the Ashfords somehow. He says, “Distantly” and leaves it at that.
In front of most people he is the epitome of self-control. He does his homework, he keeps a smooth face, and he answers questions politely — as he always has. But whenever Shirley visits—which is now every day without fail—he lets himself go in the safety of his own home, and he shakes and gulps over the dryness in his mouth. He twitches and rocks and moans quietly into his hands and he curls into himself over ripping stomachaches and flaming migraines.
“He’s going to enter rehab as soon as the school year is over,” Suzaku whispers to her at the beginning of May. His effects of his concussion have faded but his limbs are still bound in casts. He has not worked since his accident. “That’s the plan, anyway. He doesn’t want to go at all and just barely managed to convince the Ashfords to let him finish the school year. He should be there now in my opinion.” Suzaku sighs impatiently. “He’s having a really rough time with his withdrawals. It’s hard to—well… it’s not like he can get any more when he’s being watched so closely. But he wants it so bad. So bad… He can’t think of anything else, hardly… And when he’s not thinking about that, he’s thinking about some other dark thing. He’s so—“
Suzaku leans back and throws his good arm over his face. Shirley sits so close to him on the couch that when he hunkers down and stretches his legs, their knees touch. Neither of them shies away from this contact. “Difficult,” Shirley finishes for him, and she takes his hand. Unlike Lelouch, Suzaku squeezes back, and Shirley, emboldened, says, “But that’s why we love him, right?”
And she only meant ‘love’ in a teasing way, but still a blush makes its way to her cheeks and Suzaku says very seriously, as if it weren’t a joke at all, “Yeah.”
On one of his good days, Lelouch manages to drag himself out of bed and he only runs to the bathroom three times before noon, and he even brings himself to text Milly on his new phone. “They’re coming over,” he calls from the kitchen, and there is a sudden cacophony of banging pots and pans. Shirley and Suzaku exchange surprised glances and Shirley rushes into the kitchen to check.
“Milly,” Lelouch extrapolates. “And Kallen and Nina and Rivalz. They’re going to come over for a late lunch. Would you mind helping me prepare?”
For some reason Shirley feels a large, surging happiness overtake her heart.
Lelouch obsessively cleans his hands after every step in the preparations—perhaps rightly so, as he often has to run to the bathroom or wipe the unexplained sweat from his forehead. Every now and then he stops what he’s doing and hunches over, clutching some aching part of his body and having a fit of undirected, unprovoked rage. He’s almost pitiful in how badly his body is wrecked by his addiction.
Shirley is more of a hindrance than a help—she spills many things, comes close twice to adding the disastrously wrong ingredient, and almost burns the pan she’s supposed to be looking over because she doesn’t know how it’s supposed to look when it’s done. Even when Lelouch, fed up, has her go to set the table, she manages to break the topmost plate of the pile she tries to balance. After that, Shirley’s duty is to place napkins while Sayoko cleverly mixes one type of plate, white, with the other set of plates, green, that are in storage in another part of the building.
Shirley pops her head into the kitchen she is supposedly lifetime-banned from and grins. Lelouch has had to pull up a kitchen stool to the stove because of the pain ravaging his body, but he in no way lets that slow him down. He has vegetables on sticks, chicken breasts in pans, bacon frying, and now he is expertly dicing tomatoes, and somehow he manages to keep them from being squashed—an act of god, surely, because Shirley has never managed such a feat in her life. He is also quite clever, she realizes—there were only four breasts in the pack of chicken, but he cuts them in such a way that it looks like gourmet portions.
Then Shirley comes next to him to hover and watch, and he doesn’t send her away. If she’s looking at him right, it almost seems, even, as if there’s a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. She watches him put it all together, tomatoes on cheese on bacon on chicken, and a large stack of vegetables to the side, perfectly—as she picks a hot piece and throws it in her mouth and pants around it—perfectly shaped and seasoned and mmm—and Lelouch smiles, actually smiles, and asks her to show Suzaku to his seat.
By two-fifteen the lot of them—Lelouch and Suzaku and Shirley and Milly and Rivalz and Nina and Kallen and even Sayoko, whom Lelouch had insisted join them—sit around the dining table, passing rolls and complimenting Lelouch, who looks pleased and a little smug—
but mostly pleased. Very much so. Shirley sees his eyes shining brightly, the smile twisting his lips and him fighting it from becoming what he would consider ‘embarrassingly large’. He dabs his face discreetly with a handkerchief and hides his pain—or, possibly, it has even lessened with his mind so full of other things. He even looks healthier, she thinks as she observes him—more color to his cheeks, as impeccably groomed as he used to be.
“Do we need more lemonade? Let me—“ He stands quickly and scoops up the jug, and when Sayoko protests, he protests right back and kindly orders her to sit down. “I need to check on the desert anyway.”
Lelouch is only too happy to have his home full of people. Shirley would never have expected this of Lelouch—she would have thought he would consider it a burden—but he is flitting busily about, in his element, chatting and making sure everyone is fed and keeping things clean as they go along and promptly refilling empty servers until it seems almost like a magic trick. Shirley has never seen him so alive—so happy—
“He’ll make someone a great wife someday, won’t he?” Suzaku jokes quietly next to her. Shirley starts and blushes, realizing she’s had her eyes on him for some time.
“He likes taking care of people,” Shirley covers quickly.
“He does,” Suzaku confirms. “You know he actually hates being alone. He has to convince himself he’s doing things for other people.”
“I see…”
Suzaku smirks again and nods—“I’m betting on Milly, myself.”
Shirley looks over uncomprehendingly. Milly is laughing loudly and leaning toward Lelouch, having taken a seat next to the head of the table as soon as arriving, correctly predicting that would be Lelouch’s seat. Shirley fights down her smile and turns to Suzaku, hiking on a cool look.
“Oh really?” she says loftily. “And what if I’m betting on me to make Lelouch my wife?”
Suzaku immediately opens his mouth, blushing and looking defiant—then he freezes, considering her entire sentence. She busts out giggling and he shakes his head and grins, realizing she’s joking in more ways than one.
“Well,” Suzaku says quietly, a little bit too late when she’s already turned—but he keeps speaking anyway, and Shirley listens anyway, too—“I don’t think I’d like that much myself…”
Lelouch bustles over before either of them can say more and takes away their plates. They keep silent even after Lelouch has served them all with chocolate pudding topped with chocolate shavings (from a huge chocolate bar Rivalz had gifted him with ages ago).
And Shirley’s finally beginning to understand. Once she felt anger towards Suzaku for daring to allow Lelouch to use Refrain. But now she understands that Suzaku has worked to keep Lelouch alive more than anything else. Lelouch, after all, is a very difficult person to say no to; he’s a whirlwind, a hurricane, full of energy and raw power and undeniable emotion. When he hates he hates with all his heart. And when he loves—Shirley meets Suzaku’s eyes in a dead stare.
She’s finally beginning to understand that his love comes in equal measures.
“Oh, Milly!” some students are beginning to whine by the beginning of June. “I can’t believe you’re going to be graduating!”
Milly looks contrite and glances away from them all. Shirley happens to know and is still astounded by the fact that Milly purposefully failed her exams. Milly made Shirley promise not to tell, and she hasn’t, but even so—she feels such incredible pity that Milly’s reason was ‘because if I stay here at school, I can put off marrying Earl Asplund’.
“Did you hear?” Paulene shouts as she comes into the room. “I can’t believe it! Prince Schneizel, Princess Cornelia, and Princess Euphemia—they’re all on their way to Area 11! Isn’t that crazy? Why are they all coming?”
She looks around at the unhappy faces staring back at her. “What?”
Later in life, Shirley thinks that that lunch—that gathering of all of her best friends, that moment of Lelouch’s happiness and Shirley’s in turn—that was ‘the’ last great memory. When Shirley reads books fiction books for teenagers, some of them talk about high school as this one great long suffering leading up to ‘THE’ one shining moment, the great memory that simultaneously defines and waves goodbye to every good childhood memory. So yes, that lunch was it. Shirley realizes this as Lelouch pushes past her, face contorted in fury and that green-haired woman on his tail—pushes past Shirley as she opens the door to his apartment for lunch on some hot June high-noon—runs from the apartment, from the clubhouse, a bag slung over his shoulder—runs away from the angry, pained screams of Suzaku—
Shirley knows instinctively that it’s the end. She doesn’t know how she knows, but as she reflects later on while huddled with the other girls in the dorm, she feels a sort of certainty that things have changed somehow. Like some new step has been taking much farther than anything else. She thinks that woman—that lioness woman, the predator with the golden eyes—has something to do with it and she just can’t place why.
All the girls discuss Lelouch Lamperouge’s great escape—his disappearance without going through any main entrance of the school—“He must know a secret passageway out of the school!”—but Shirley keeps thinking of Suzaku, poor, pitiful Suzaku.
(Sobbing on the floor, trying to drag himself up, arm healed but leg still cast-bound, unable to chase after Lelouch, just screaming—screaming, “Lelouch, come back! Don’t do it! Lelouch, stay, please! Help! Help!” –but though Shirley had turned around and ran for Suzaku’s sake, she never found Lelouch—he was gone in the blink of an eye. Disappeared like a grand illusionist. )
He’s gone.
That thought is a full sentence in her brain instead of the mass of images and key words she usually thinks with. He’s gone, and this time, he’s not coming back. Why does she know this?
Then one of the girls screams and leaps up. As everyone jumps and turns to face her, she rips her headphones off and says, “Screw Lelouch! It’s Prince Clovis! The radio says Prince Clovis is dead!”
Paulene pales and dives for her tablet computer, aghast that someone knows the news before she does. There is a confused scuffle for the remote and then the community TV pops on and flicks to the news. A woman reporter speaks smoothly to all the viewers, a genuine distress hinting in her features.
Prince Clovis is dead. He was murdered while in transport to an unknown destination. The murder has not been identified or caught. Prince Schneizel, Princess Cornelia, and Princess Euphemia’s arrival in Area 11 is subsequently delayed while investigations are being conducted.
Many of the girls are crying uncontrollably. Clovis, Clovis, but who cares of Clovis? Shirley thinks bitterly.
Lelouch is gone and he will not come back and she will never see him again.
“What are you going to do?” Shirley asks Suzaku the next day when all classes have been cancelled in the prince’s honor.
Suzaku is pale and, to her knowledge, has not gotten out of bed all day. He is now occupying Lelouch’s empty bed. Shirley sits on the unoccupied side and wonders why Lelouch needed such a large bed in the first place and whether or not he ever felt lonely at night. The sheer curtains are drawn and the room glows a peaceful yellow that sort of matches the empty, calm feeling inside of her.
Suzaku stares at the ceiling, looking sick. “I don’t know,” he whispers.
“Do you hate him?” Shirley asks. “I think I hate him.”
“I don’t think you know what hate is,” Suzaku says firmly.
“Probably not.”
Suzaku breathes slowly, and eventually he dozes off. Shirley doesn’t leave; she stays by his side, leaning against the headboard, thinking. She wonders where Lelouch is now. What’s he doing. Why’d he leave. No answer is forthcoming, and she feels nothing in response. She can’t bring herself to be excited or frightened or angry or anything. That’s okay for now.
Eventually Suzaku wakes again and he takes her hand as he becomes alert. Then he spends some time thinking and he says finally, “Lelouch’s mother was murdered when he was ten. His father sent him away to Japan. You know, the old country.”
Shirley shifts and turns to him, looks down to where he still lies. Suzaku continues,
“He and his little sister came to live with my family. His little sister had been hurt in the attack that killed his mother. She was wheelchair-bound and blind. A really sweet girl. Even after everything that happened to her, she managed to keep her head up. Strong will. Lelouch absolutely adored her with all of his heart. He felt that she was the only person he could ever trust. Lelouch was adamant that only he should take care of her. He was very protective of her. Her name was Nunally.
“Then Britannia invaded Japan… My father lost his life… Lelouch, Nunally, and I were on our own, right in the middle of Tokyo, the capital. No adults or anything to look after us. Nunally, though… she got killed. It was really stupid… nothing dramatic… Like, why that? Why? I asked every god I used to pray to, Lelouch asked his one, but we couldn’t come up with any answer. It was just that the cities were all torn up, and sometimes to progress we had to walk over tumbled buildings. Lelouch was carrying Nunally on his back, and I think he was tired or something because we’d been walking for a while and he wasn’t really athletic…
“Anyway… He fell backwards and tumbled down the rubble pile. Nunally hit her head a lot. By the time they got to the bottom and they stopped falling and Lelouch got off of her, she was bleeding all over the place. Much worse than I bled when I fell off that tower… I mean, all over the place, so much blood.
“I don’t even think it was the fall that killed her. I think she just bled to death. There weren’t any doctors or anything; they were all fled from the city or out helping Japanese soldiers. And she just bled out right there in Lelouch’s arms. It was so stupid… Lelouch has been angry ever since. Like, he was mad that he just couldn’t understand why something like that had to happen. Especially since the Ashfords found us a day later. He was—is—mad at his father for even sending him. He’s mad that his mother was murdered. He’s mad that we had to be alone during that war. He’s mad that Nunally died because he slipped. He’s just never gotten over any of it.”
Suzaku gulps and stares at the ceiling again, having turned sometime during the story to talk to her. Shirley sighs shakily and wipes her wet face. She fights down a sob and Suzaku takes a deep breath and continues.
“The Ashfords found us, though… Lelouch had used a payphone to call them before Nunally died and we were going to the rendezvous point. And they were going to take Lelouch awake, and Lelouch only—but Lelouch refused.”
“But—“ Shirley starts, surprised.
“Yeah. They refused to take me at first—because of my family, because they were afraid of helping a Japanese during that war. I told Lelouch that I would be okay, that I had somewhere to go, but Lelouch went berserk. If Nunally were still alive, I think he would have given in to the Ashfords’ just to make sure Nunally was safe. I think he would have said goodbye and sorry but ‘I have to do it for her sake’. But Nunally was dead, and Lelouch… I can’t say he ever was very careful with his own life. I think without her, he would stay with me, in danger, than go alone into safety. He didn’t want to be alone… He’d already lost everyone he’d ever loved…
“So he yelled and screamed and he started walking away and dragging me with him. And when one of the adults grabbed him, he bit and kicked and finally they just said ‘fine’ and took me too.
“I don’t think either of us could ever be the same after that. We hurt each other, and we hurt ourselves, too… Lelouch does it with Refrain. I do it—…I just hurt myself. I don’t even realize I’m doing it most of the time. I feel guilty, too. I feel sometimes like I shouldn’t be alive…”
“Like throwing yourself off of a three-story tower?”
Suzaku shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore… Did I throw myself off? I don’t have any memory of consciously thinking about it. Did I just fall? I’m not usually that clumsy, but it’s possible. Did Lelouch push me? It could be, I have to admit. It was something like powerful guilt that made him overdose the way he did.
“But the fact is that… it doesn’t even matter anymore. I don’t think so.”
Suzaku closes his eyes and sighs. Shirley finds a tissue box on Lelouch’s bedside table, fussily neat, with the tissue sticking out in just the perfect little triangle. She takes it, and the next tissue pops out in a weird crumple, and she blows her nose. Then Suzaku finishes it all off:
“I love him.”
And Shirley, thinking of the one time he described all the different words for ‘love’ in other languages, laments that he says it in English, because she doesn’t know exactly what he means.
The summer holidays begin and the campus slowly empties out. The student council holds a very weak-hearted going-away party in the council room, after the bigger, crazier one for the entire school has ended.
Rivalz is more miserable than Shirley has ever seen him. Without Lelouch, he’s just that dorky kid with the sidecar for no one. He leaves to stay with his mother, and one of the last things he says is, “I’m tired. I don’t even want to think about Lelouch anymore. I’m just tired.”
Milly leaves, too. “I’m going to spend the summer with my fiancée,” she says without pride or excitement. “My mom is coming, too. He has a mansion near the sea. We’re probably going to live there once we’re married.”
Kallen has been sick for a while now and hasn’t come to school at all. Milly says she’ll call if she hears from her. Then it is only Nina, Shirley, and Suzaku left in the council room. Suzaku’s leg has finally healed. Nina sighs and stands up and hugs Shirley. She even stutters out a “Bye, Zack” and Suzaku raises a hand in farewell. She hesitates once more at the door and then leaves quietly with not another word.
“What about you?” Suzaku says after a moment when they are alone in the council room.
“I’m staying at Ashford for another couple of days with the principal’s permission. Daddy and mom are going to come when he can get away from his work at Narita and pick me up. They’ll take me to the airport, and we’re going to the homeland for the summer.”
Suzaku nods and again they are silent. They sit side by side despite all the plenty of other seats in the room.
Shirley says, “What about you?”
Suzaku sighs without looking at her and replies, “The Ashfords say I can stay. They said I might have to move into the servants quarters if they can’t find Lelouch. If Lelouch doesn’t come back, they want to remodel the club house and use the apartment space for better things. Lelouch made the chess team popular, for instance, and they’re going to need to expand it.”
“…oh.” It’s weird to think of the apartment, the place of so many memories, good and bad—the place that had been the home of her very best friends—filled with people, strangers, she may or may not like or even know.
Suzaku smiles grimly. “And I don’t think I’ll be taking them up on the offer.”
“Why not?” Shirley gasps.
“Well,” Suzaku says seriously, finally looking at her with his warm, sad green eyes. “I was going to call Lelouch.”
“Going to—oh!”
Suzaku pulls out his cell phone and says bitterly, “For some reason neither the Ashfords nor the police considered that maybe he would answer my call rather than theirs.”
And he stands, tall, proud, and straight-backed, and hits a single number. The speed dial reaches out to Lelouch.
Suzaku moves to stand next to the window and he stays there for a long, long time. The phone rings and rings and finally a muffled, unintelligible voice says what Shirley assumes is “Hello?” and Suzaku says,
“It’s me.”
There ensues a short silence and then Lelouch and Suzaku speak, except Shirley can only hear Suzaku’s half of the conversation.
“No, I’m not… That’s not what I’m trying to do… Lelouch, it was you, wasn’t it? You did—it. …only Shirley, I swear on my life. …is Kallen with you? … C.C.? … … … … I understand. My answer is still no. I don’t agree with it one single bit. You won’t change me in that regard. But Lelouch—don’t hang up—…thank you. Lelouch. I’m not angry. I don’t think that—I don’t think you’re a bad person, in the end, or—or what you’re doing is wrong. Not exactly—not really. I just—I just don’t agree with the way you’re doing it.
“…no, I get it, really I do… Hey, I—… no, I—… Listen to me! …thank you! Now—I just wanted to say—“
Suzaku finally hesitates. Shirley can’t see his expression from this angle. There is silence on the other end; Lelouch is waiting for what Suzaku has to say.
“I miss you.”
No answer from the other end.
“I love you.”
No answer.
“Please, I just want to see you. I’ll go with you. Please, let me be by your side, the way it’s always been.”
A pause, and Lelouch’s voice answers curtly. Suzaku says,
“Thank you. Goodbye. …very well then, I’ll see you.”
Two days later, again at high-noon, Shirley meets Suzaku and they set off together. Suzaku’s bag is packed to bulging. He really isn’t ever going back to Ashford.
“It’ll be lonely without you,” Shirley says sadly as they leave campus grounds.
“I’m sorry,” Suzaku says gently.
They speak again when they’ve reached the train platform. Suzaku says, “I’ve left a letter for the Ashfords, saying goodbye and thanks for everything. But I’m not explaining anything.”
“I understand,” Shirley says.
They board a train and take it to the edge of the settlement. They enter what is undoubtedly the ghetto, but Shirley is not afraid. She is with Suzaku.
They find a place that was once the corner of two streets. Shirley can’t read the names on the sign. It’s not very deep into the ghetto, though—just far enough to be away from the Britannians and too early to meet any of the Elevens. They stand there at the corner, side by side, sad and serious. Shirley’s heart hurts.
“Can’t I come with you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She thinks Suzaku’s heart hurts too.
At long last a car pulls up. It is not old or new but rather nondescript. The windows are tinted, but when the car stops they all roll down. Lelouch steps out from the back seat in a prim, boring black shirt that he must be sweating under. He tips his head and removes his sunglasses smoothly so he can squint at Suzaku in the full blast of summer sun, and he crosses his arms imposingly.
The three of them are very quiet for a moment. Shirley’s eye is caught by a flash of color from the car. She dips down and looks into the driver’s window. To her surprise, it is Kallen at the wheel, looking healthy and bold and assured of herself. It doesn’t even seem like the girl she knew. In the front passenger seat beside her is the lioness woman, the girl in green hair: she stares back at Shirley with disinterest, her chin in hand, elbow propped on the curve of her car door. Shirley says, “Hello.” The girl says, “Hello.” Kallen tips the brim of her hat in greeting to Shirley.
Shirley straightens up and looks at the two boys. They both ignored the happenings beside them, but neither of them has said a word. Finally Suzaku says,
“I don’t want to struggle against you. I can’t. Let me go with you.”
Lelouch sneers. “And everything that’s happened between us, you’ll…?”
“…I forgive you,” Suzaku says.
Lelouch makes an ugly face. He’s angry. “I can’t believe you. After all that…”
Suzaku smiles weakly. “I wouldn’t forgive myself if I never forgave you. I can’t forgive myself anyway…”
Lelouch stares at him, hard and challenging and dangerous. Then he laughs without mirth, a sharp sound. “There’s a saying like that, I think. Some Greek philosopher or whatnot?”
Suzaku is grinning now, albeit with a hint of confusion. “What do you mean?”
Lelouch tilts his head. “Forgive many things in others, but nothing in yourself.”
Suzaku considers that. “I suppose.”
Lelouch huffs and finally breaks eye contact. He looks to the side and leans back against the car. “A poor philosophy to live by, if you ask me. A breeding ground for compassion, sure, but also enormous guilt. And what’s the point of compassion if it’s made impotent by guilt?”
“I need the guilt to make up for your lack.” Suzaku doesn’t look away.
Lelouch whips his head around and glares severely. Then he finally relaxes and drops his arms, hands sliding into his pocket and face lightening with an easy smile. “Heh. Fine then. Throw your bag in the trunk.”
Lelouch taps the trunk and Kallen reaches down to pull the release lever. Suzaku grins again and goes to load his luggage. In the moments that Suzaku is fiddling with his bag, Lelouch meets Shirley’s eyes. She may be imagining it—didn’t Suzaku just say that Lelouch lacks guilt?—but she thinks she sees a hint or remorse in his eyes when he looks at her. She gives him a simple smile and hopes she understands the meaning—
she’s already forgiven him, too.
Suzaku slams the lid of the trunk and comes back around. He looks between Lelouch and Shirley and then chuckles lowly. He turns to her and comes forward, enveloping her in a searing-hot embrace. She brings her hands around his back and rests them on his broad shoulders. He smiles into her hair; she smiles into his neck. At length he pulls back and holds her at the ends of his arms. She gives his hands a squeeze.
“This is goodbye,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” she says softly. There’s nothing else to say but—“Goodbye, Suzaku.”
He blinks away tears and kisses her on the forehead, and then turns abruptly and slides into the car. Lelouch ducks and looks at him and says, “I have to do it now.” Suzaku sighs through his nose, gives Shirley one last sad look, and then nods to Lelouch.
Lelouch straightens and approaches her. He gives her his own brief hug, but a more lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth. He pulls away with the smallest amount of hesitation, and for that brief moment she is afraid that maybe he’ll show weakness and ruin this perfectly good farewell. But his face when she sees it is strong and confident. He looks powerful to her.
As she watches his eyes, one of them suddenly shifts, and he gives a command, and it sinks into her being.
The car pulls away, and the young girl turns around and walks back to where she came from. The occupants of the car are mostly silent. Suzaku turns in his seat and watches her for as long as he is able, but he is the only one; no one else has any regret in seeing her go or saying goodbye. They turn a corner and she is gone.
C.C. twists in her seat to look back at the two of them. She addresses Lelouch first.
“Did you love her?”
Lelouch doesn’t turn from where he is gazing thoughtfully out of the car window. He mutters, “I don’t know.”
“Did you hate her?” C.C. pushes.
“I don’t know,” Lelouch says more clearly, voice edged with irritation.
C.C. considers his answer then turns to Suzaku. “What about you?”
Suzaku looks down at his folded hands and smiles. His voice is heavy with some emotion he won’t identify within himself. “There are more important things,” he says simply.
C.C. gives a tiny smile, satisfied, and turns back to the front. Kallen, listening all the while, gives off a tired sigh in their place and drives on.
When Shirley Fenette begins her final year at Ashford Academy, she is jovial and untroubled. No one dares speak anymore of Lelouch Lamperouge, not even the kids who had once been his friends. And that’s a good thing, because if they ever did, she wouldn’t remember who in the world they were talking about.
