Her little apartment had offered comforts the palace could not afford. The round, yellow light in the kitchen, spotted with the dead flies that met their ends there, flickered and hummed at night. The faucets were generous with cold water and only blessed Kallen's skin with heat on special occasions. The tile floor was cracked. Silence was always present. Even when she turned on the television to watch the evening news, the apartment seemed quiet. Her little apartment offered her quiet, spotted mind a symmetry not to be found in the pristine apartment in the palace.

The bed was soft enough to sink into, but firm enough to support her spine somehow. Some nights she dreamed of drowning in the thick white duvet and down pillows. The sofas and armchairs and wardrobes were all painted white and detailed with gold leaves and petals. Large mirrors in heavy gilded frames hung from the walls in between floor-to-ceiling windows which all opened out onto the wide balcony with a balustrade of bronze and handrail that didn't seem to absorb any of the sun's heat. Winged armchairs were arranged on either side of a curling low-backed sofa that faced a gaping fireplace in her private study. Books filled the mahogany shelves on the other walls. Sometimes Kallen was quick enough to catch a maid or a footman tending to the fire or dusting a chandelier.

After moving into her set of rooms at the palace, Kallen's good days dimmed to mediocre and her bad days swooped low into stretches of gloomy, sluggish periods of depression. Her ladies' maid was never far, but always quiet. Her name was Helen and she was a few years older than Kallen. She was rather pretty with round, rosy cheeks and straight teeth and golden hair swept into a nest of curls at the base of her skull. She did not seem to like Kallen very much and always seemed to stare too long at the white lines of scar tissue on Kallen's body while helping her dress.

The palace itself made Kallen feel dizzy and small. The ribbed ceilings bearing small coats of arms of the royal houses soared overhead. The throne room was downright cavernous with hidden galleries tucked high above, which Kallen thought was dreadfully unsafe. Anyone could be lurking up there. The drawing rooms were each assigned one color, it seemed. Even though they were designed for comfort, they were still too large, with mirrors strategically placed to give the appearance of more room. The library was four stories high with spiraling staircases and a dome ceiling painted with the depiction of heaven. Kallen felt queasy when she tried to imagine the poor artist suspended up there with brush in hand.

Her job was remarkably easy since the others on the Imperial Council felt entitled to ignore her. In her first two weeks, she had only attended one meeting. All three sentences she spoke were brushed off. Kallen's lip curled into a distant version of her old snarl when she thought on it. Perhaps she was spoiled by the Black Knights. Britannian men had no respect to spare for a woman- especially a "mixed" one. Her anger was the only thing that made her feel like her old self.

The stone colonnade that split the northern garden of roses and lilies was the only place Kallen felt comfortable. Sunset and sunrise often found her there, slowly pacing and trying to breathe deeply through the oppressive feeling of not belonging. Suzaku- Zero, she reminded herself- had conveniently found a diplomatic meeting to attend in the north. Besides Nunnally, he was the only one she felt like talking to. To the others she was either Kallen the war heroine or Kozuki Kallen the ruthless terrorist who happened to end on the winning side. Suzaku was the only one who understood the girl who started as a survivor and ended a cynic with just enough loyalty to the cause to stay alive. Suzaku, though she was loath to admit it, understood the misfit war veteran trying not to flinch at loud noises. Used to grenades, she couldn't muster love for fireworks.

Suzaku's return was not a quiet affair. A banquet was held, though he could hardly partake of it. Kallen's stomach twisted itself into bows while she sat between a red-faced, white-haired baron in a tuxedo and a lady in a beaded gold gown. Kallen felt almost pretty in her white dress. The bodice was detailed with small crystals and hugged her chest tightly with no straps or sleeves to support it. The skirt was slender and trailed behind her satin-slippered feet when she walked. "It's almost like a wedding dress," Nunnally had commented earlier. Kallen was not amused.

While she ate, she wondered if Suzaku was looking her way. She really hated that mask sometimes. Her heart felt floaty and weird and her head was light. The wine made her lips tingle and her belly warm. Perhaps the alcohol was what amplified a single desire in her mind: I want him to notice me. Ironically, this was a desire she had felt with the old Zero, but tonight it presented itself with a fluttering in her stomach and an offbeat pulse. When Lelouch wore the mask, her competitive spirit drove her to speak louder, hold her head higher, show off.

She frightened herself with her desire to be noticed as a woman. Plenty of men had taken notice of her in the past, but this one man's gaze she craved above everything. She wanted to see that flash of hungry attraction that he was never able to hide when they got close.

The memory of being held against his bare chest, his arms tight around her back, brought a hot flush to her cheeks. Stop it, she scolded herself.

Dinner ended hours later and dancing began. Kallen's legs felt stiff, her back ached, and her stomach was full. She watched the couples take to the open floor as music swelled into a merry tune. With careful control, Kallen did not look at Suzaku.

"Hey, pretty lady," said a familiar voice. Kallen's eyes popped wide as her head snapped to her right. Gino had taken the vacant seat, beaming and handsome as ever in his uniform.

"I didn't know you were here," she said bluntly.

He put a hand over his heart and feigned injury. "Now I feel so much worse about staring at you all night."

"Your fault, not mine," she teased. "How long have you been in the city? I thought you were going to the beach to surf or drown or stare off into the distance to make girls think you're deep."

"It's been a couple months since I felt pathetic so I decided to get dolled up and try to flirt with you again."

Kallen gave a genuine laugh. Smiling and joking felt strange and wrong in a way. "I'm shocked you went more than a week without feeling pathetic."

Gino flicked her forehead and she let him. He gestured to the dancing couples and asked, "Do you want to take me out for a spin or-?" His silence was suggestive.

"I don't think I can move. That slice of spongecake was a mistake." She patted her belly. "I'm just going to go back to my room and no, you're not invited."

Gino pouted as she walked away, but he was dancing with the daughter of someone important by the time she reached the top of the steps. Before she rounded the corner, she glanced back at Zero. He still stood at Nunnally's side, facing forward.

The ache in her chest was silly and she gave herself a good mental scolding that would have made her brother proud while she walked to her private apartment. Of course Suzaku wouldn't leave his post to flirt. Wanting his attention was pointless. Still, a small part of her tried to replace Gino with Suzaku at the table. She wanted to imagine a normal evening with shy glances and tentative brushes of fingers and knees. Unfortunately, it was easier to imagine wrestling Suzaku for a gun while she bled from her shoulder than it was to imagine anything resembling a normal date.

Helen was thankfully absent when Kallen made it to her dressing room. In the dark, she undid the buttons and clasps of her dress and let it pool around her feet. The fancy undergarments followed. She left her earrings and ruby necklace on the vanity table before she padded to her bathroom. Under the hot spray of the shower she washed off the perfume and all the shit Helen had put in her hair.

After twenty minutes or so, she toweled herself dry and dressed in a camisole and cotton panties. She rubbed at her hair with a towel until it was just damp before crawling into bed and going to sleep.

Perhaps it was her glum mood that brought on the nightmare of the war. It wasn't so much a vision as a memory. The spray of gunfire filled the air. Blood misted in the smoky air. People screamed. This memory was from before her days as a pilot and she was left with only a gun and a dead wire in her ear. A child's body lay at her feet. It started as a battle just outside the ghetto, but quickly unraveled into a massacre. Then, out of the smoke emerged a figure with familiar brown curls and fierce eyes. His lips, lips she'd kissed, curled into a sadistic smile as he lifted the syringe of poison.

Her eyes snapped open and the harsh sound of her own breathing filled her ears. Hot tears leaked from her eyes into the hair at her temples, dripping into her ears.

The dirty, clawed thing awoke in her chest. It was guilt and anger and sorrow. It was unfortunate statistics of lives taken and friends not saved. It was flashes of dead children and dead brothers and Lelouch across the forefront of her mind. Her heart was wound tight. Her lungs were squished beneath her heavy anguish. Her mind spun. Desperately, she grabbed at blankets and the wood of her bed frame until she landed heavily in a tangle of sheets.

Kallen pulled herself to her feet and stumbled through the lines of moonlight falling through the blinds until she was at the door to the drawing room.

A scream tore through her raw chest when she bumped into a dark figure. Blindly, she threw a right hook, which squarely met a jaw. Hands grabbed her wrists as she struggled and kicked. She was backed against the wall. Her knee rose sharply into the man's gut.

"Oof!" he grunted. "Kallen! Kallen, calm down. It's me."

She stilled at once, hardly believing her ears. The static in her mind cleared enough for her to feel the calloused palms against the knobby bones of her wrists, to smell the familiar musk of soap and sweat, to recognize the shape of strong shoulders and narrow hips and mussed hair.

"Su-Suzaku?" Her voice was wobbly and thick from crying.

He threw his arms around her shoulders and drew her tightly against him. Beneath her cheek was solid muscle and warm, threadbare cotton. His long fingers dug into her back and his cheek rested against her head. "Jeez, your right hook is killer. I'm sorry I scared you."

"You didn't sc-scare me," she said quietly. Her arms finally moved around his middle. "Why are you here anyway?"

"I wanted to talk to you at the banquet but you left early."

"Did it just end? What time is it?"

"Uh, about two, I think."

Knowing she had only slept two hours brought on a wave of fatigue. Her knees buckled and Suzaku was quick to turn and scoop her into his arms.

"Let's get you back into bed."

"Wait, can we turn on the light first?"

He paused mid-stride. "Sure, uh, where-?"

"To the right a little- ouch!" Her ankle bumped against the doorjamb.

"Shit. Sorry. You okay?"

"Yeah, just turn me a bit." Groping at the wall, her fingers found the switch and, with a flick, the room was illuminated. Her eyes squeezed shut against the assault of light. Kallen cupped a hand around her eyes to peek up at Suzaku's face. His cheeks were red and his eyes were cast down at her scantily clad body in his arms.

"You can put me down if you want," she grumbled.

Clearing his throat, he walked on. "No, it's all right. Just... aren't you cold?"

She smiled wryly. "I'm fine."

Once he set her down on top of her bed, she pulled the blankets over her legs. He perched on the side, rubbing awkwardly at his neck. Kallen looked him over now. He was obviously exhausted. Then her eyes fell on his boxer shorts and bare knees and calves, covered in light brown hair, and white socks.

Head tilted, she asked, "Uh, why are you in your underwear?"

"I had to wear my, uh, costume here. I didn't want to freak you out too bad, though, so I left it by the door."

"So you thought you'd strip and jump into bed with me."

A fierce blush burned across his face to the tips of his ears. It gave her a weird satisfaction.

"Uhm..."

"Can I request a thong next time?" she laughed.

He lowered his burning face into his hands and groaned.

"Or something leather," she went on, giggling wickedly. "I bet you'd look hot in leather."

Suzaku gave her an exasperated look. "Are you done?"

"Wait, I might have something actually-"

"Ugh, and to think I was trying to be nice to you." He shook his head, but a small twitch of his lips gave him away.

Her laughter quieted, but the warmth of it remained in her lungs. The dirty grief had shrunk to some corner of her where it could be ignored awhile. It was then that she noticed the small hint of sadness playing on Suzaku's profile. She wondered if he had really only come for her benefit. Perhaps she was not the only one plagued by old demons that night.

"How was your trip?" she asked quietly.

"It was fine," he answered, staring at the carpet.

"Just fine?" She sat up on her knees and leaned to look at his face from a different angle.

His shoulders sagged. "Do you ever wake up feeling like you're on borrowed time? Like you weren't supposed to make it this far and everything just feels wrong and tilted?"

"Yes," she admitted quietly. "We went through hell trying to make it home but now they won't let us in 'cause we got muddy feet."

He nodded. "I wanted to ask you to dance tonight," he murmured. "I wanted... and then it hit me that I shouldn't want. I shouldn't hope for good things or have good days because the mothers and fathers of people I killed are still out there grieving."

"You did what you had to. We both did. It was either fight or run and we chose to fight. Our generation was doomed from day one. No one got out unscathed," she told him. "But because of you and Lelouch, children can sleep without being woken up by air raid sirens. They can play without keeping a fearful watch for soldiers. They'll search for their friends' names on class lists instead of lists of the dead. There are babies being born now that won't know about rations and labor camps. You and Lelouch put the world back together... you just had to tear it apart first."

"What if I'm ruined?" he asked meekly. "I don't think I can live with this feeling, Kallen. Some days it's all I can do not to throw myself off the roof."

A sharp bolt of sympathy struck her chest and before she was really aware of it, her body moved forward to fold around him. She tucked his head beneath her chin and stroked his hair with one hand while the other cupped his shoulder. Goosebumps tickled her bare legs when his hand brushed against her thigh. Gently, it came up to rest at the small of her back. His chest expanded and contracted sharply with a ragged breath.

"You're a good man, Suzaku," she whispered. "Bad days end. Just hang on a little longer and it'll get better, you'll see."

When she dragged her fingernails lightly over his scalp, he turned his face so that his nose pressed into her collarbone. She scratched again and a low rumble sounded in his chest. Kallen looked down at his messy curls as it occurred to her that she was the only one who had seen his face, touched him, called him by name in over a year.

Suzaku was locked away from the world he would've died to protect, stuffed into Zero's role and forced to live in this limbo of being alive and not living. The boy she'd first met on the battlefields and burning streets had grown into this haunted man on her bed.

She slid her hand down to cup his rough jaw, her thumb just in front of his ear, while the other hand came to rest over his heart. He sighed and relaxed against her. This reaction fascinated her. Did it mean he, too, felt it was easier to breathe when they were pressed close like this?

His finger traced a fat scar just above her knee. "Did I give you this?"

Kallen remembered a knife, a breathless and bloody wrestling match when they were both caught out of their Knightmare Frames.

"Yeah," she said. "I think I gave you a pretty nasty concussion in return."

He hmm-ed in acknowledgment before turning and putting his hands on her hips, guiding her body backwards to lay across the wide bed. Before she could ask why, he pressed his lips to the scar above her knee. The muscles in her thighs tensed. Her stomach knotted. His stubble scratched her skin and his weight rested gently against her shin.

She raised herself onto her elbows, feeling exposed but not entirely uncomfortable with their intimate position. He looked up and met her gaze his own soft expression.

"Any others?" he asked hoarsely. It wasn't desire that left his throat scraped raw, she knew, it was guilt. The same guilt that scooped out her insides.

She wanted to tell him there was no need to kiss away old injuries, but kept quiet when she thought that maybe he needed this.

So, she pointed to the long messy lines over her shoulder. Tame reminders of when her shoulder was shredded after Suzaku in his Lancelot found an opening and tore through her own machine.

Suzaku crawled closer and she lay flat against the bed. He leaned on one elbow, his body resting against but not on top of hers, to brush his lips over the ugly white marks. His hair tickled her throat. Kallen was acutely aware of the way his chest pressed against her breast. Only a few layers of thin cotton separated their skin. This realization made her heart beat oddly. Of its own accord, her hand twisted the hem of his t-shirt at his hip.

He lifted his head and moved carefully to press a kiss into her neck where he once pressed a needle. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. His free hand came up to brush her hair away from her face and his lips caught the teardrops as they slid over her temples.

Staring down at her, he asked, "Do you want me to go?"

Maybe if her mouth hadn't gone dry she could have spat out some retort about it being a little late for that question. Maybe if his eyes hadn't looked sad and almost scared she would have laughed at how they always seemed to end up closer than former enemies should be.

She shook her head. He stayed.

Anyone up for a rating change? Let me know what you think!