It is hard to remember exactly how this all started.
Trowa and I were investigating a hostile group that supported L1 becoming independent from the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. I recall being … distracted by Sai Lei's behavior. Over the years of working with her, she has managed to influence me more than she knows, and in the process, she has managed to prove her worth, not only as an ally and a soldier and a coworker, all these titles are somehow secondary to her worth as a person, as Po Sai Lei.
After Meiran, I had thought…
The door opens, and my internal clock tells me that it has not been the same interval between visits that it was the last time. My stomach complains, reminding me that I have not eaten in a recent while. It will perhaps be after the next visit that they decide to feed me again.
Being interrogated is a lot like sitting in a room with a cat, at times. Especially with the straight forward, hands' off approach that are being employed here. The interrogator wants you to be dependent and needy of him, to feel insecure, but tries his hardest not to let on that he, or she, I must remember, needs something that you are required to supply.
Like a cat. A domesticated animal retaining enough of its original instincts to be largely independent. A cat may walk into a room in order to be noticed, and yet completely ignore the person it is being noticed by.
This time the man, the same one I have seen every 'day' of my captivity, wears a clean cut suit. He steps over to the table in the room and sits down, calmly. His expression is empty, and as he looks across at me from behind his glasses, I am reminded of Lady Une. I wonder who this man is when he takes off his glasses. Thinking of Lady Une reminds me, invariably, of Sai Lei. I have often wondered why she allows people to slur her name to the English one she uses, but I have not said anything of this to her. It is not my place to do so.
Along with her worth as a person, I recently discovered a glaring fact I have been overlooking. Most likely something I have been overlooking for years now. I love her.
When in this environment, where someone else holds control over your space, it is important to remain objective. I recall there was once a phrase forgiving personality disorders as a 'sane reaction to an insane world'. It is very important not to have such sane reactions in this type of a situation.
The room itself is unremarkable. It reminds me of several such places I visited during the Eve Wars, and one that I recall quite vividly from after the Mariemaia Incident. I was in such a room with Sai Lei, at the time. Perhaps it was the preoccupation with that fact that made me so distracted on this mission. Perhaps it was the distracted nature that caused me to be captured by the group. Although I would prefer to be elsewhere, I cannot honestly say that I am angry with Sai Lei for sharing some part of the blame for my current captivity. I expected it to be long after Trowa was captured, if he was captured, before I was informed of his whereabouts, however, the news came quicker than I had assumed it would. And when I was told this, the expression on the man informing me seemed far too calm. I know he was agitated by something about Trowa. An easy thing for someone who has not adjusted to him, I will openly admit, however, something seems off. I have since written that off as an attempt to lure me into a mindset that will yield from them what they wish of me. I have no idea what that is at the moment, and so I concentrate on things that keep me from falling so easily into the grip of that mindset. My thoughts turn to Sai Lei.
The man seated at the table appears to be loosing his patience with my silence, and yet I remain seated on the floor in the corner, legs crossed, eyes only open halfway. I shift slightly, relaxing my arms and resting the weight of the manacles against the floor between my legs. If there were one thing I could change, it would be that I could have handcuffs instead of these blasted manacles. The only one of us… two, I correct myself, these were ever truly necessary on were Duo and Heero. Heero because no pair of handcuffs has been made strong enough to keep him from breaking them, and Duo because he always manages to get out of them. I've seen him do it. During his short, token stay at the Preventers after the Incident, he made a point of giving demonstrations to our coworkers.
I recall Heero staring at him with eyes more observant than I can describe, and admiring glances from the other uniformed young men and, occasionally, women he had grouped around him. Oddly, it was Heero who left the Preventers first.
When I close my eyes, as I am now, I can see her smiling at me, the bland, dirty walls of this room, the smell of my own sweat fades from my senses, and I can forget. I can picture her sitting in her office, working over some report, the sunlight coming through the window behind her desk and making her hair shine a little. Perhaps she's wearing her glasses.
After the Incident, Sally was sent to extend me the invitation to join the Preventers. Something I never quite understood coming from Lady Une. I was a party to a group that very nearly destroyed the peace so hard-won in the prior war, and a willing and knowing party to the rebellion.
I shudder to think just how willing I was.
I felt so lost after the battle, losing another cause in my life, and watching Shenlong collapse in on itself, the only reminder I had left of my Nataku… my Meiran… I was willing to follow the smallest twine that could lead me anywhere. Lady Une was smart to send Sally, whom I had trusted before, and not seen her more than twice during the Incident, through luck or chance I don't know which. The meeting, in MO-III, was brief, but it started the crack in my careful fortifications that let me jump ship before the entire scheme fell apart.
The look she gave me in the hallway, when my mind was ready to draw my sword and kill her, and my mouth to defend my actions by revealing her as a spy, caused the essential part to stop.
My heart.
I jerk upright, realizing that I was drifting off to sleep with one of my captors in the room. The man seated at the table, fidgeting, is familiar to me now. He was the one who surprised me when I was slipping through this base's fortifications, and also the one who brought me here. Undoubtedly he was chosen for this position, as my interrogator, because of the small initial connection. They have undoubtedly realized that I have none to the staff here, and am not easy to break. I have gotten, since then, a glimpse of guards outside the door, but he's the only face I will know and recognize when I get out of here. I smile a little, and see his reaction. He knows it as well.
I wonder if he has accepted the inevitable.
He straightens his jacket a little, and clears his throat as he loosens his tie. And the routine sparring match begins. As usual, he is the first to break the silence in the room, the stillness of the air, "Feel like talking yet, Preventer?" he asks lightly.
It is a game of chess we play with one another. But in this room, unlike the routine, it is I who am the cat, and I know that I am slowly breaking down my interrogator. Undoubtedly he will be punished and reprimanded for his failure to master the quick courses they ran him through before shoving him into this assignment.
I do not care.
I do not reply to his question, as usual, and he sighs, reaching up to take his glasses off and setting them on empty table in front of him. He runs a slightly shaky hand through his hair, and for the first time I notice the slight shake in them. He's nervous, anxious… feeling guilty about something.
He sighs, "You must admit, we've been playing fair with you up until now. We've only held you for questioning, mostly because I convinced my superiors that it wouldn't look very good, once we've gained independence, if we had bad relations with your organization."
I stare at him evenly. Even if, by some inconceivable method, L1 does gain independence from ESUN, they will most certainly not have 'good relations' with the Preventers, because they will have used weapons to achieve their goal. And, as misguided as President Peacecraft is, she is right in her opinion that weapons and war solve nothing. It is something that I likewise believe in, because I have seen for myself what comes of such actions. And even if this man's would-be government did achieve 'good relations' with the Preventers, I would forever be opposed to them.
Still, I do not respond, maintaining my carefully folded position on the floor, and he continues after a brief moment of pause. "Unfortunately, you are being most uncooperative," he says, glancing at me to see if his words are achieving the desired affects. My face remains carefully passive. He won't notice the changes in it as I study him. His posture. The slight trickle of sweat from his brow.
This man is an expert guard, a wonderful shot, perhaps as good as Heero when it comes to firing a weapon long range, I wager by the controlled motions of his body, but he will never be the tactical genius Quatre is, or have the patience Trowa has to wait out a prisoner's silent period.
I am not impervious to interrogation. Unlike Heero, I was never trained specifically to fight it. However… the man seated at the table above me is not trained to be an interrogator, and I did learn a few things during my years in the field. And from my comrades.
"So I have been unable to keep my superiors from ordering harsher treatment of you," he concludes finally. I was almost getting bored with his speech, he was being so formal and wordy. Much like Duo can be, except that particular American rarely wastes his breath on worthless topics in the manner that this man is doing. He stands, and steps over to the door, rapping twice sharply.
The guards I have seen only briefly through the door as its opened in the past unlock the doors and hold them open. Two nameless, faceless men step through, and brush past my interrogator, bending slightly to lift me from my shackled seat on the floor.