Disclaimer: Code Geass – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. I own nothing, though you know – I would if I could.

Author's Notes: I've been sitting on this request for some time, and it's from an old friend of mine. She asked me to write (her words, not mine) something prompted by this: 'how about: seven years post-R2, Requiem had succeeded, and then fallen apart. Suzaku's mind is broken, Lelouch is weary and needs reparation, and small house on the prairie; in four acts representing four suits of cards.'

In short, a darker execution of the 'Lelouch lives!' premise, in which basically Zero Requiem failed. That's…what this is, and what this will be.

Warnings: General weirdness (italics: totally justified) and 'boatloads of angst.' Also, spoilers for everything up to the end of R2, so if you haven't finished the series you may want to click away right about now.

Enjoy.

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full house

act i

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And he finally understood, years after the fact, why his platoon leader would often stop at the door to the barracks, carefully inserting an ace of spades into his helmet. Spades are the suit of war. In some countries they represent swords; in others, shields. But they always signify conflict, pain, vivid visions in his mind of a charred playing card fused into scalp while the rest of the city went up in flames.

Suzaku was sixteen, then.

Swords - there have been many of them throughout the years, each entitled to a cut of his life. He remembers the first time Tohdoh lowered the bokuto onto his hands - the older man warned him not to underestimate its power, and spoke as well of other things (of balance, of trust) that were all blotted out by how the weapon weighed so much more than it looked. He remembers the press of the tip of his blade onto his shoulders and head, how Euphemia's handling of the ceremonial sword was gentler even than her kisses were – it was the same sword Charles used less than a year later, although the steel was heavy and threatened to cut through all the regalia as his new title was practically sneered at him: Knight of Seven, of His Majesty, of Britannia. He remembers the sword he ran through Lelouch, the way it cut through blood and tissue somehow translating up his hands, the way neither of them said goodbye.

(Shields - It isn't until 2025 that C.C. finally returns. A pretty smile on her lips, a handkerchief holding up her hair and hiding the sigil on her forehead, she saunters into his room in a carefully-hidden hallway of the Imperial Palace at half-past midnight. She closes the door behind her and is already lounging on his bed by the time he remembers to breathe. "Hello, boya.")

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The world was indeed a better place after Lelouch died. Removing 'the enemy' brought people closer in exactly the way Lelouch had predicted, solving their problems through dialogue and open-mindedness. It was an encouraging sight: Nunnally and Kaguya and all the leaders past and present showing grace and empathy, the sincere desire to make everything better. Suzaku often stood behind the Empress as she spoke words of encouragement to nations battered by war, and although he didn't speak often, he told himself many times that he wouldn't mind fighting to protect this as long as he lived.

Those were the first five years.

By the sixth, this perfect portrait of a world at peace was beginning to crack. Perhaps Charles was onto something, after all, since nothing – not even FLEIJA, not even Lelouch, not even Zero – could change some facts. Such as: how people were not born equal, and countries were not made equal, and how earlier blunders were easy to forget and thus just as easy to make again. Peace could not stop famine, or droughts, or earthquakes that rocked entire nations and flooded others with the ensuing tsunamis. It was no-one's fault that these disasters struck, or that aid could not be delivered fast enough. But the latter was a tricky sell.

The need to rebuild after the Demon Emperor's reign was gone; that chapter had passed, and people moved on. What they moved on to was a world that was imperfect from the start, and it wasn't long before news of this president hoarding this, those corporate heads plotting that, began to trickle down the public's consciousness. Rhetoric and ideals were ephemeral, Lelouch had told him before, but surely this was better than Ragnarok? Surely they made the right choice?

The first night that question began to plague him, Zero excused himself early from an international conference and retreated to his room. That the thought even made it to his mind carried more implications with it than he thought he could bear, and so...

Well.

Perhaps it was a number of things, really. There was desperation, and panic, the sickening realization that everything he'd worked for and fought for and legally died for may have been for naught, and there was no-one to tell him otherwise...in any case, before he could rationalize it further he'd already locked the door and withdrawn the box, and the prick of the needle was no match for the burning in his veins.

(The first time Suzaku used Refrain, its effect lasted a full four hours - just enough to relive most of that night he killed his father.)

The next morning, he threw the applicator angrily against the wall, swearing the whole time, and couldn't believe he'd ever considered forcing it on Kallen.

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(But he gave it a second chance, and perhaps that was his mistake.)

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Time marches on, because it can do nothing else. It's now been a little over seven years since the death of Lelouch vi Britannia, Demon Emperor.

Seventy-two hours ago, a former viscount was assassinated in Belarus.

Fifty-eight hours ago, the words 'pre-emptive strike' were used for the first time in recent memory. Nunnally was firm in her condemnation as she shot down the idea, but the chaos in the board room took away from that.

Thirty-six hours ago, the Empress of Britannia gave a much-awaited press conference to an agitated public. Minutes after it ended, she grasped his hand as he pushed her wheelchair through an empty hallway, and her voice wavered as she made a request. She made him promise.

Five hours ago – because this was a weekly occurrence that did not stop for death or protests or an impending war – he took an unmarked box from Schneizel's hands.

And it's now been seven seconds since C.C. rolled onto her stomach atop his mattress, greeting him – "It's been awhile, Kururugi Suzaku" – in Japanese.

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The Knave of Spades was Ogier the Dane. In all the legends, he was a man driven by revenge, because when is 'an eye for an eye' easier on the heart than when the blood of a beloved is spilled by the hands of another?

It was his to have. He slew Charlot, son of Charlemagne, and would have taken his revenge further had fate (or was it something else?) not intervened.

For seven years hatred continued to fester.

But seven years is not forever, and sometimes neither is hatred. Ogier eventually made peace with Charlemagne. And so perhaps it is only fitting that to this day, he is often remembered not as the king's enemy, but rather as his knight.

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"You don't look entirely surprised."

Suzaku watches mutely as C.C. puts away slice after slice of pizza – 'Gods, how I've missed this,' she said as soon as it arrived, delivered from one of the kitchen staff who was too polite to ask how Zero could be hungry at such an unholy hour. He feels as though maybe she expects the revelation she just made – over a mouthful of cheese, no less – to have more of an effect on him than it does. But as it is... "I'm not." He swallows and avoids her pointed stare, choosing instead to address the carpet. "Not really, anyway."

Because he remembers, in the weeks leading up to Requiem, when the wounds from his final battle with Kallen had healed and there was nothing else waiting for him but this: how Lelouch assured him, coaxed him down from the rooftop, glared at him with a roll of eyes across the chessboard, or held him close as he woke up shivering and unable to breathe in the middle of the night. 'There's no other way,' Lelouch had said, each of those times. 'There's no backup plan.'

Two days before his death he'd stopped at the first sentence. Suzaku smiled weakly and tried to pre-empt the second one, but his attempt was met only with a close-lipped smile.

That, and after twenty-five years he isn't sure anything can surprise him anymore.

"How long?" he finally asks.

C.C. laughs at him as she pops a bit of crust into her mouth, reaching for yet another slice. "Can that question be any more vague?" she muses idly. "How long has it been since I've had pizza? How long will it be before I finish this pizza? How long is the trip from Pendragon to – ?"

"How long has he been alive?"

She hums thoughtfully. A string of cheese bridges her lips and the bite mark at the end of the slice in her hands. "Since the very day you killed him. It doesn't take much, you know. He had Charles' code when we left C's World. The only thing he needed was a trigger."

Suzaku looks at his hands. It doesn't take much. It certainly doesn't, not to recall the blood leaking onto his gloves, crusting dry on the surface of the mask. He hears Nunnally sobbing against the cheers of the crowd in the back of his head...and then he sees C.C. here, now, daintily plucking at olives and nibbling off the cheese before setting them aside. A shift threatens to upset his stomach, and something (not his heart, no – something lower) aches. Is this what betrayal feels like?

Stupid question. Betrayal is holding a dying Euphy in his arms, or watching a million people dressed as Zero walk free, or – he knows it, executed it, well enough. This: he doesn't even know what this is. He doesn't want to believe it might be hope.

"How is he?" It's a dangerous question to ask, he knows, but it's already been said. He asks another one, equally dangerous, and realizes there isn't going to be a learning curve to this conversation. "What does he want?"

"He's doing just fine. Perpetually bored, but otherwise..." She trails off, picking at crumbs on the empty tray before placing it unceremoniously onto his side-table. "He wants," C.C. smacks her lips and rolls back onto the bed, releasing a contented little sigh. "What does he want. He wants to see you."

That surprises him, although it probably shouldn't.

"I...I can't," he stammers, after a long pause. He tries not to dwell on thoughts that begin with 'what if' and 'how soon'. "He knows I can't...Zero – "

"Oh come on now, the timing is perfect. Wasn't it just yesterday morning that Her Majesty asked if perhaps Zero could maintain a low profile for a little while? Something about his image possibly being associated with revolution and unrest. Yes?"

Suzaku looks at her for a long time. At that moment, the chaotic mess of emotion stirring within him (not-betrayal, and not-hope, he convinces himself) changes into something else. "How...how do you know about that?"

C.C. shrugs and nonchalantly peels off her clothes, tossing the garments onto a chair and tucking herself beneath his sheets until only her face is visible. He's too surprised to look away. "It would only be a week," she informs him. "And before you ask, the answer is 'whenever your stubbornness runs out and you realize this is for your own good.' He told me to stay until then." She rolls to her side, showing him her back. "His words, by the way."

He stands up. "C.C. - "

"A gentleman would sleep on the floor," she cuts in. "We can argue in the morning." And that ends that.

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But C.C. shows no promise of leaving his bed until noon, and so Suzaku dresses mutely, set to prowl the palace until he can get some clarity of mind. He winces as the stiff material of the suit jacket scrapes against the skin on the inside of his elbow. It goes unseen, because by now it's become routine that the mask always goes on first.

(Last night's reprieve, a good hour after he was certain C.C. had drifted off to sleep, revolved around Lelouch: memories of Ashford, mostly, those few moments as Euphemia's knight and fewer still as Knight of Seven that he'd burned into his mind and kept tucked into a corner of his psyche.)

The day begins to unravel when he sees Jeremiah in one of the dining rooms.

"Lord Zero." He rises from his seat at the table and nods. "It has been awhile."

Seven years of being in the constant presence of politicians and diplomats, not to mention several enlightening conversations with Kaguya on how to survive this strange and complicated system, enable Suzaku to return the greeting before blurting out the question of the hour. They trade pleasantries over eggs benedict and flavored croissants: the orange farm, last season's harvest, Anya and how she's been doing. Jeremiah looks as though he hasn't aged a day, although his skin has been somewhat browned by the constant sunlight. He still sports the familiar, bright orange accessory framing his eye, and at least once Suzaku finds himself staring at that eye – the mechanical one, the one with the canceller – and he thinks, but just as soon he forgets.

"So what brings you here?" It's been well over half an hour by now, and they've about run out of minutiae to discuss. Suzaku fiddles with a teaspoon from the setting in front of him, but he doesn't eat. Not even if they're alone. "The press conference yesterday defused some of the tension, and most of it's been contained within the E.U. regardless."

"That's true." Jeremiah flashes him a small smile, but when he takes a sip of his coffee there is a furrow in his brows that gives him away. "And that's fortunate, since these first few days after the tragedy are key. But I haven't come to serve as a soldier in a war that has yet to break, no."

"Then why have you come?"

Jeremiah nudges something at the foot of the table with his shoe, and only now does Suzaku spy the pair of bags sitting propped against the leg of his chair. "I am merely here as a guest of the palace. I could not refuse, given Her Majesty's insistence, and the fact that it's been truly awhile since I've been in Pendragon."

"That's wonderful," tumbles out of his mouth, automatically. But there's something about the timing that nags at him. "How long will you be staying?"

The man shrugs slightly, and finishes the rest of his coffee. "Seven days. After which I have to return to the farm. Anya is becoming very skilled, but I don't want to leave her alone for too long..."

Suzaku returns to his room not long after that. He rushes up the stairs so fast the walls become a blur, and he throws open the door with such force that it slams into the adjacent wall. But the green-haired witch is nowhere to be seen.

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So he doesn't get his answers from C.C., not yet. In hindsight, he doesn't quite know what possessed him to think he ever would. Although the months he'd spent with that strange woman (after stopping Ragnarok, and before...) were few, they were enough.

It isn't so much the fact that Lelouch is alive, he tells himself. That he died once for the world was all that was important for Zero Requiem, and so it doesn't change the outcome, or his punishment, if Lelouch was – (his mind stalls and takes a moment before settling on the word 'reborn'). It isn't that in itself that bothers him. What does: seven years of silence, and now this. If Lelouch truly hadn't been dead a day, then why did he wait this long before making contact? Was he even planning to at all, or did something happen? And why now, when –

"...So I hope you aren't offended or anything." Nunnally's voice cuts into his thoughts, not unlike a knife in its precision. "People haven't been asking for Zero yet, so that's a good sign so far. I'm just sorry you have to stay hidden like this."

"It's all right," Suzaku answers. His grip tightens just a bit on the handles of her wheelchair as he spots the entrance to the indoor garden fast approaching, but he doesn't falter in his steps. When she returned to the palace he told her, after much deliberation, about C.C. returning. And she hadn't seemed surprised at all; she simply glanced once over her shoulder, where Sayoko bowed graciously, turned back to him and smiled. 'Perhaps we can visit the gardens today, Lord Zero?' had been her reply to that.

The glass doors slide open before they cross the threshold. While Lelouch's secret code with Suzaku was a formidable thing, with hundreds of hand-signals, it isn't the only one he's come to know. 'Let's go to the garden': 'I'd like to speak with you alone.'

It's here, among roses and carnations and scores of other flowers with all names, shapes, and colors, that he first removed Zero's mask in front of another person. Nunnally hadn't seemed surprised then either, only giving him a curious eye...which was when he remembered and, flushing at his stupidity, took her hand in his and called her by name without the voice-changer.

And even after that, she still didn't seem surprised.

"You don't mind, though, do you?"

"I don't." The doors hiss shut behind them. There's a fountain in the center of the sprawling room, and some of it feeds the koi pond spanned by a tiny bridge. Nunnally likes it here best, where the air always smells fresh and clean. "Not really, anyway. I understand what Zero meant to the people before."

She nods. "They probably know you're not the same person. But Zero did stand for rebellion and chaos. I'm sure they remember, and the last thing we need right now is for that memory to trigger something. Symbols can be powerful things."

"Of course." He's never said it aloud, but Nunnally has grown up gracefully. At twenty-one, she speaks with confidence and pride that resemble Lelouch, but also a quiet elegance that echoes Euphy's. Memories can be powerful things too, can't they? He supposes he knows this all too well. "I can see why it's necessary, Your Majesty – "

"Nunnally," she corrects, the slightest hint of a song in her voice.

" – and if it will help keep the situation under control, I'll stay." Suzaku injects a grin into his words, but the voice-changer botches it somewhat. "If nothing else, I can keep Lord Jeremiah company."

"Well." She switches the controls on the arm of her wheelchair, and maneuvers it slowly so that she is now facing him, her back to the pond. "I didn't say you had to stay. Just that Zero couldn't be seen."

It's the nuance in her tone that gives her away. He takes far too many breaths before coming up with a reply, and even then, he winds up only with the same (stupid, dangerous) question he's been repeating in one form or another since this all began. "For how long?"

"Until people have had time to calm down. The EU is trying to sort things out within these first few days, so it will take time."

Suzaku shuts his eyes. "How. Long."

She looks up at him and offers an uncertain smile. "A week."

No, he decides, this is what betrayal feels like: two words that make him feel as though he had the wind knocked out of him, C.C.'s toneless drawl and Jeremiah's polite smile, now Nunnally and the realization that this was all planned, this was all staged and he played the part of the fool to perfection. "You...you knew?" he breathes, somehow. He manages.

"I'm sorry, Suzaku." And when she says this she really does look like it, her sorrowful gaze nothing if not sincere. If not regretful. "He told me not to tell you. He thought – "

"And you followed him." His eyes burn, and there's a tightness in his throat that he cannot will away. He wants to add to that, ask how long she's known, but at this point he finds he'd sooner drown himself than say those words again. "You followed him and just led me along to be blindsided. Who else knew? Lord Jeremiah? Prince Schneizel? Lloyd?"

"Suzaku," she cuts in as soon as she can. "Take off your mask."

"What?"

"If you're going to yell at me," she says quietly, speaking to her hands. She has them folded across her lap in a way that reminds him of Euphy, once more. "Then I want to hear you. So, please..."

But her voice calms him the same way Lelouch's had, those too-few, too-short days before Requiem. He acquiesces, placing the mask atop the railing (if only because: it's become rather difficult to breathe), but he doesn't speak. He finds he can't seem to string together an apology to save his life; what more an actual tirade?

"It wasn't that I wanted to deceive you," she says, and her voice is not much more than a whisper. "But he said it was for the best and I...I trusted him. Because he always knew best, and..." When he finally meets her stare – because he can't not, not even out of spite – her eyes are pleading. "I'm sorry. I am. But you would have done the same, right?"

He truly, honestly doesn't know the answer to that anymore.

"Why does he want to see me?" At the end of the day, a part of him is beginning to admit that perhaps this is what it's about. "Why did he never say anything, until – ?"

"Neither of those," Nunnally cuts in gently, "is a question that I can answer."

She takes his hand, hesitant, and he kneels at her feet when she pulls, suddenly feeling exhausted. He imagines this is how Nunnally must have felt in the minutes after Requiem, but he can't quite put a name to the emotion. "Come with me," he murmurs, clinging to her hand; his is gloved, but hers is so much warmer. "If I go...that is...wouldn't you want to see him too?"

"More than anything else in the world," she answers softly. "But I can't. For the very same reasons Zero has to disappear for awhile, I have to stay behind. He knows that. And you know that."

There are many ways he can answer that, but the one he ends up choosing involves a pitiful laugh and a crooked smile. "Those are his words, aren't they?"

Nunnally replies to that by returning the smile, though hers is wide and warm and immediately softens her eyes. With her other hand, she fixes some of his sweat-mussed hair before bringing her fingers down to his cheek, where she traces the imprint of cloth. It takes all of his strength not to lean into the touch. "Please go to him, Suzaku," she says, and it's the furthest thing from an order but carries twice as much weight. "If not for him, or for yourself, then, at least..."

He stops waiting for her to finish when her fingers begin to tremble. Bowing his head, he brings up her hand and presses his lips against the back. Acceptance – and also, a promise. He releases her hand and something wavers in her face, but her eyes are dry when he reaches for the mask.

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What can he say to Lelouch?

He imagines seven years ago, he would have thought of plenty of things. Questions and grievances and promises and memories and so much more. Now, however, there is only this lingering emptiness clouding his mind, as though he still isn't entirely sure this recent series of events has been real at all.

(It wouldn't be the first time.)

He imagines seven years ago, as well, he would start by storming into the room, throwing Lelouch up against the wall, and demanding an explanation. Perhaps eight years ago, he would have simply smiled and counted this fortune as a blessing. Now he isn't sure, and he wonders why it is that he's lived through both extremes and can't seem to interpolate in between. Is it because the answer is 'nothing'? But that's an absurd thought.

(That, as well, wouldn't be the first time.)

Regardless, he waits until the very last hour before taking Schneizel aside. There, in a dimly-lit corner of an empty hallway, he wears the mask and doesn't even wait for the familiar red rings to appear around the prince's irises.

"You will guard her with your life," he orders, thrusting the revolver handle-first into the space between them. "Do you understand? If, when I return, I find that she's been hurt in any way..." The mere thought of it almost makes him want to back out entirely, especially with the world in its current state. He sighs. "You know how it is," he says instead. "Don't let anything happen to her."

"Of course, Lord Zero."

Schneizel's footfalls are soundless against the carpet. Suzaku watches him pocket the revolver with such nonchalance that it's almost enviable.

He gives another to Jeremiah that night, who salutes with a smile that needs no words.

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One: this is the number of points on the suit (also: the number of points on a sword, of edges that cut, that matter), and the number tied to the spades.

One: to many, it evokes loneliness, solitude. A man facing the world alone. But also: unity, wholeness, independence. A man facing the world alone, again, but with all of his spirit and none of his despair.

One: the number of vials of Refrain Suzaku packs carefully into the box, stuffing it into the bottom of his duffel bag. He doesn't take it everyday, no (he hasn't quite degenerated to that point yet, although he suspects he's close), but if he is going to be gone for a week then he needs this much.

One: the number of times he sees Nunnally again before leaving. He asks her if there's anything she wants, any message to pass along to Lelouch. At least this, he thinks, he can lead with, if he can think of nothing else to say. But she tells him there's nothing she can say that Lelouch doesn't already know.

One: the number of steps he's taken outside Nunnally's room before C.C. is suddenly standing before him.

"Tch." She's looking at the clock in the hallway, and scowls. "Just after midnight. He knows you a little too well."

Suzaku blinks at her from behind his oversized sunglasses, and it takes awhile for that to sink in. "Sorry to disappoint," he says dryly.

"You were always predictable. It's my fault for humoring him." C.C. kicks idly at the carpet underfoot. "Now I owe him a new chessboard, I suppose."

"You...you were betting on this?"

"Against this," she corrects. "To be fair, I thought you would break sooner." She smiles at him cattily before he can think of a retort. "Come now, let's not keep him waiting. It's a very long flight, after all."

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[ end of act I ]

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More notes: This fic has had many names. It used to be called 'Fold', but also things like 'that poker fic' or 'the other Refrainzaku.' Some of my own christenings are 'the mind-f*ck fic' and the 'death-fourshot-of-deathly-death-death.' As of recently, by some strange consensus over LJ, this fic has been officially declared a cat – yes, a black one, a kitten. She's very friendly to everyone else, but hisses and bites and claws the heck out of me.

…All of these representations, one way or another, are telling.

So this will be a fourshot, that much at least is a given. Suzalulu, yes, and the rating might or might not go up – that remains to be seen. Anyway, I really want this finished before March, and I'll break out every trick in the book to accomplish that. The fact that I've frozen '3-3-3' for this fic probably already says a lot, though. Gah. (Though I will not freeze longfic; I am working on that, I swear.)

One down, three to go, one down, three to go *chants*.

Thanks for reading! Comments would be loved.