Disclaimer: Regular disclaimer really

Disclaimer: Regular disclaimer really. I am only writing this piece of fan fiction to practise my writing skills and to raise the awareness of certain deeds that should never be repeated through another medium. I own none of the rights to anything mentioned in the story following this disclaimer save for my OCs and the mobile suit the Z1 Respite.

Notice: Finally gotten rid of the warning. My guess is that if you've gotten this far you either don't care or think it's a valid part of the story.

See without seeing

Tom walked through the corridors towards the colony's bridge with Cagali by his side and six rifles pointed at his back. He smiled slightly as he thought of the guns. He couldn't really say he blamed them for not trusting him. He held out his hand and Cagali took it, wrapping her own fingers around his. She looked up at him with a smile that Tom found impossible not to return. He stopped walking for a moment and leaned down to her. He smiled and softly kissed her cheek,

"We made it Cagali. We made it to the resistance." He said before straightening up again. Cagali smiled and they both started walking again,

"Let's just hope Lacus has agreed to see us…" she said with a sigh. Tom chuckled and put his arm round her shoulders,

"She'd see us even if she just wanted to execute me on the spot." He said with a smile, something not often associated with execution, especially when you were the most likely participant. Cagali raised an eyebrow,

"Taking the potential execution rather well aren't you?" she observed. Tom winked at her,

"Yeah but that's because the damned man gets one last night with his lover. So it ain't all bad." He said with the same smile. Cagali punched him in the ribs,

"Oh get over yourself. You're not going to be executed." She said with a smile that wavered the more she thought about their situation. Tom saw her concern and smiled down at her,

"Don't worry Cagali. We'll take it as it comes, and not worry about it until it does come. I mean we're still not certain it will happen." He said and he kissed her on the head, "We'll live through this war and live together in peace one day Cagali. I promise."

Cagali looked up at Tom with tears in her eyes,

"Are you sure?" she asked, trying to hide the true extent of her emotions at the prospect of living with Tom in peace. Tom smiled as they reached the door to the bridge; the guards stopped in front of it and gestured inside,

"Well one of the people who has a major roll in making that dream come true is behind these doors." He smiled and walked through the door, Cagali following just a step behind him.

The bridge was just like every other colony bridge that Tom had ever been on except there were three commander's chairs in the centre of the room. In one sat a very fat man who'd just managed to squeeze himself into a uniform it seemed. In the other two seats sat two teenage girls who were completely identical, from their eye colour to their pink hair and pink dresses. The only thing to tell them apart was the fact that there was a boy wearing a green vest talking with one of them and not the other. Tom coughed and they all looked up at him and Cagali. The boy in the green vest reached for his pistol but Tom raised his hands in peace,

"I mean no harm. Heero Yuy isn't it? The pilot of the strange suit… the wing zero?" he addressed the teenager in the vest. The boy nodded,

"You remembered my name Commander Grayson." Heero said evenly, his hand still resting on his pistol. The girl nearest Heero, one with a star shaped hair clip, giggled and hit Heero playfully in the stomach,

"Heero you big dummy! He's a prisoner. He and his friends surrendered when they docked." She said and smiled up at Heero a bit too long for the other girl's liking,

"Please leave the lovey dovey stiff until after we've spoken to our guests. Thank you for waiting so patiently." The other pink haired girl said politely. Cagali smiled,

"It's alright Lacus. We don't mind as long as we are granted the same privilege." She said with a grin, knowing that the comment had made Tom sweat under the collar subconsciously. Lacus nodded seriously,

"Well it is time we began the discussions about the freedom of one Tom Grayson." She said, looking down her nose at Tom. She gestured to another door, "Shall we continue this conversation somewhere more private?"

Tom nodded with a nervous grin,

"That would probably be best…"

Andrew sat in the captain's chair on the bridge of the Traverse and he stared down at the young pilot in front of him. He was wearing a baseball cap with the lip pulled down so far that it always covered his eyes. His jaw was half flesh and half metal it seemed. The mouth had been replaced with a metal grill in the middle of the plain strip of metal that covered half of the boy's lower face. Needless to say the pilot's appearance was something of a shock to both Andrew and Murrue, not to mention the crew. When she'd first seen him Murrue had almost fainted and the crew had subconsciously made the sign of the cross. Andrew, it seemed, was the most respectful,

"Welcome aboard the Traverse. You are now one of her pilot's. Your current rank is ensign." He smiled a little, "Does the ensign have a name?"

The pilot didn't move, not even to breath it seemed,

"No." he said, his voice that of an automated computer, "My Gundam is the Strike Freedom. For practicality you may refer to me as Dom Free or ensign Free."

Andrew nodded slightly,

"Well you'll need to follow Murrue for you medical as she is the ranking medical officer on board." He turned beck to his laptop, "Hop to it ensign."

Murrue motioned with her hand and the pilot followed her through the ship to the medical bay. Without a word the pilot sat down on the examination table. Murrue took a white lap coat off of a hook and put it on. She took a small hammer out of one pocket,

"I'm going to test your reaction speed." She informed him. Again he didn't move,

"Confirmed." He responded in his machine-like voice. Murrue had to shiver at the voice again, so unnatural was the sound. She tapped each of his knees in turn with the hammer, she nodded, and both were perfectly fine. She walked over to a drawer and took out an A3 sized piece of card with letters and number on it in varying sizes. She held it in front of herself, her body blocking it from view as she searched for the blue tack,

"Now… I'll want you to read everything on this sheet when I put it up-"

"E,7,F,Z,6,5,Y,T,3,E,A,D,9,2 and produced on colony 34EZD." He read aloud in his metallic tones. Murrue shivered, she'd felt something touch her heart and a sense of violation had passed through her. She was still blocking the card from view. She swallowed hard and checked the card,

"Flawless…" she remarked before setting the card down on the floor. She slowly turned to face him and her gaze fell upon the lip of the baseball cap, still as far down as possible, "Let me look at your eyes."

The pilot finally moved in his place, pushing the cap's lip further down with his left hand,

"It is not something people like seeing." He warned in the emotionless voice of the machine. Murrue smiled,

"Have you not seen Commander Waltfeld? I've seen people with scars on their eyes before." She said encouragingly, her curiosity peaked by the pair of elusive eyes that the pilot hid behind the cap. The pilot nodded slightly,

"As you wish." He declared before removing his hat.

Murrue backed up against the far wall with an involuntary gasp. She'd heard about minor robotic replacements for co-ordinator but the technology was supposed to be restricted to single things such as hands and mouths. But obviously there had been a leap forwards in the technology, for the pilot was not normal. He had no natural eyes.

In the place of eyes he had two orbs of grey metal, broken into smaller squares by little lines and centred on a small circle of blue light that dominated both orbs. The lines suddenly flashed yellow and the blue light dimmed. Murrue shook her head,

"What happened to you?" she asked, unable to keep the awe and disgust from her voice. The pilot resettled his baseball cap so that the unnatural orbs were covered once again,

"I made a mistake in battle and paid the price."

Duo sighed as he floated down from the Deathscythe's cockpit after spending at least an hour re-testing the new OS that Heero had installed. As he floated down to the floor of the hanger he saw a man wearing a suit examining the Zero and the Deathscythe. Duo's hand flitted to his gun's holster as his feet touched the hanger floor,

"Enjoying the view?" he asked the unknown man. The man nodded without turning around,

"Yes actually. I've seen them both before though and I have to say that both designs are flawed." The man commented. Duo drew his pistol,

"To be perfectly honest I don't usually talk to someone about the Deathscythe Hell when I haven't seen their face." He said, the gun now lined up with the man's head. The man chuckled,

"You're sure I should turn around?" he asked. Duo squeezed the trigger in answer and the bullet passed inches from the man's ear, before embedding itself in the Zero's leg. The man nodded and turned round.

The man didn't have a face. Not in the biological sense anyway. The face was covered by a white mask with a chunk missing from it where the right eye hole would have been. This allowed an observer to look at a small section of the face behind the mask. The skin was black, as if burnt, and the eye had lost its entire colour, bar the blackness of the pupil. The left eye hole was covered by two strips of black tape that overlapped to create an image of a small cross over the eye hole. The mouth of the mask was a tiny slit in the metal lips that had been painted bright red and turned upwards in an eternally mocking smile,

"Enjoying the view?" asked the masked man, his head cocked to one side. Duo shook his head, drawing himself out of his trance,

"That's one hell of a mask you got there…"

"Smiles if you please."

"That's one hell of a mask you got there Smiles." Finished Duo, who was still holding the gun up. Smiles cocked his head to the other side,

"Still pointing the gun Duo? I find that almost insulting." He said plainly. Duo didn't lower the gun,

"How do you know my name?" asked Duo, already preparing to blast both mask and head to pieces. Smiles cocked his head to the right again,

"I know quite a lot about you Duo. You told me it all after all." Smiles explained. Duo slowly lowered his pistol, his fingers going numb at the tips,

"Kira…?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Smiles cocked his head to the left,

"Kira Yamato is a dead man." He said in a voice that suggested that he was actually smiling underneath the metal mask, "I am Smiles. Just Smiles."

"Total amnesty?" Tom asked, just to make sure he'd heard Lacus correctly. Lacus sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the table from Tom and Cagali, finally stopping her pacing to sit in between Heero and Meer,

"We will forget any wrong doings on your behalf Mr. Grayson, with only a few conditions." She clarified. Tom looked at Cagali by his side with a smile,

"Let me guess… we join the rebellion as pilots in our mobile suits, right?" he asked, placing his hand on top of Cagali's hand on the table. Meer nodded,

"That's one of the conditions but not the main one. The main condition is somewhat different." She said, smiling when Heero got out of his chair to stand behind her. Lacus nodded grimly,

"We want you to tell us everything you know about the leader of the political party Blue Cosmos." She said slowly, as if afraid that if she said it too fast he'd lose the meaning. Cagali looked at Tom as he took a sip from the glass of water in front of him for the first time in an hour of discussion. He put the glass back down carefully,

"The current leader of Blue Cosmos is a hard man to find. He has to be to survive assignation attempts." He said, not answering the question directly. Lacus frowned,

"We've noticed that. We've managed to get a picture of his old face but apparently he made a mistake in a mobile suit battle. Apparently the damage was severe enough to require a new face." She informed him. Tom nodded,

"I remember the accident." He sighed and took another sip from the glass, "His real name is Garth Marco. He went into hiding after becoming the leader of Blue Cosmos as a precautionary measure. Although after the accident it became a lot easier to spot him seeing as parts of his face were removed, replaced or damaged beyond saving at all."

Lacus' expression hardened,

"And your friend in the Freedom has just such a face. As does the man that Duo found in one of the hangers earlier." Her eyes narrowed, "Are you telling me that one of those men is Garth Marco? Are you telling me you brought Garth Marco to this colony?"

Tom sighed,

"One of those men is indeed Garth Marco. But I did not bring him." He straightened up in his chair and took another drink of water, "The man we brought in the Freedom was a man we saved from certain death a few days ago. His name is Kira Yamato."

At the mention of Kira's name all three people on the opposite side of the table were suddenly interested in the conversation. Lacus swallowed hard,

"Are you telling us that Kira Yamato survived the destruction of the Strike long enough to float into your area? And that you saved him?" she asked, the hope in her voice as evident as the scepticism. Tom nodded with a small smile,

"Unfortunately Kira needed a lot of surgery. We left him at a doctor's when we went to retrieve the Freedom and the Z3. When we returned the surgery was complete but he never let us look at him or his replacements. Always wearing a hooded jumper and a hat and mask combination." Tom sighed, "But one of those men is Kira Yamato."

Meer and Heero both stared at Lacus for any indication on how she would react to this news. When Lacus looked up her eyes were steel,

"Detain both men. Put them in the holding cell and begin the interrogation process." She declared. Meer stood up suddenly,

"But one of them is Kira-!"

"And one of them is Garth Marco! The most dangerous human being in the universe!" Lacus shouted, drowning out Meer's argument, "I would rather see both men in the holding cell being interrogated than risk making the wrong choice and releasing Garth Marco into a colony full of innocent civilians."

Heero put his hands on Meer's shoulders and gently pushed her back into her seat. Lacus looked up at Heero,

"Will you be able to carry out the interrogation Heero? We can't afford any bias in this process." She said, her emotions about to break out of her tough outer shell. Heero nodded gravely,

"I shall take up the responsibility for interrogating them. I will find out which one is Kira." He said resolutely before leaving the room. Tom took a gulp of the water in his glass, draining it dry,

"Why do I get the feeling that this 'interrogation' will involve a great deal of physical pain for those two men?" he asked nervously. Lacus stood up and made for the door,

"Because sometimes we need to be monsters to fight monsters."