Memento (Part Twenty)
Awkward silences were never a problem for him, mostly because silence was a soothing escape from the rigors of everyday life. When in a room with another person, he believed that it was not necessary to start idle conversations because long-winded talks usually lead nowhere. Speaking was a gift many recklessly used. That was his belief, the same belief that kept him silent; the same belief that made people believe that he was either mute or just plain rude.
"You took him away from me," he said after having considered saying anything at all. Multitudes of emotions were assaulting him, many words fighting their way out of his mouth, but this had been the only successful phrase to have made it. The only reason it did make it was because it was not thoroughly considered beforehand. Otherwise, he would never have said it at all.
"You say it like I did it myself."
Trowa closed his eyes, knowing very well that he was accusing a person who might have been innocent. Still, something about the charming, petite woman sitting in front of him put him on edge. It was intuition, he presumed. That and a detailed flowchart Quatre himself had constructed before giving way to exhaustion.
"He led me to you," Trowa said, making sure to keep everything short and simple. His opening statement already gave away too much of an advantage to his suspect.
He knew that he should have been the last person questioning her, but he was there by Quatre's request. It was hard to keep a straight head because being rational was the last concern in his mind. Lack of sleep combined with years of worry did that to him.
"I'd suspect as much since we're very good friends."
"Dr. Lara Barton," he said while examining the file on his hand. There was no need to go around in circles. If he wanted to find out something, he knew he had to go directly to the point. The case had gone on long enough and all parties involved were drained and very close to defeat.
"Yes, that's my name."
"Dr. Barton, if you don't already know, Trowa Barton had only one sister. Her name was Lea. He had no other surviving female relatives aside from his niece."
"That's a lie! He is also my brother," was the indignant shout from his current suspect as she stood up. She attempted to grab the file off his hands but was unsuccessful. Trowa was fast enough to block her before sending her an icy glare that commanded that she sit down at once. The woman reluctantly complied.
"You're a lie too, you know," Lara said haughtily after having settled down on her seat. She crossed her legs allowing her slip-on high heels to dangle on one elegant foot. Her positioning alone gave away the fact that the situation was unbearable for her. Trowa filed away the information for later use.
From what she was wearing, it could be gathered that she was arrested during work hours. Her white coat was still atop her shoulders. A doctor, he did remember her mentioning that and her records proved that she was in fact legitimate.
"That name of yours was stolen," his current suspect taunted him while sending him a look that said that she could easily provoke him if need be.
Trowa did not answer, refusing to react to the derision. There were very few people who knew the origins of his name so she was already a sound suspect.
"You'll never be Trowa. You'll always be nameless."
"You worked as a mechanic for the Barton family, am I correct?" Trowa asked instead. If she wanted to have a discussion about his choice of names then they had a lot of time to talk about it later. There were more important issues to discuss at the moment.
"I won't answer your questions."
Trowa looked at her, his eyes not giving away what he was thinking. It was not after a few moments of scrutinizing that he realized that she looked familiar. In fact, it may have been those familiarities that lead him to dislike her the first time around. Although he had been with her and Quatre on a few occasions, he had never really tried to figure out what was off about her.
"You were there," he said, imagining the same woman in a mechanic's uniform attending to Heavyarm's weaponry system. "You saw it happen."
"You killed my brother!" she snarled, but kept in control as she tucked her arms securely before her. Whatever rage she must have been feeling was radiating off her body in tremors. She could have probably broken the table between them in half if Trowa's warning look did not stop her from doing so.
Her emotions were genuine, Trowa could tell, but there still remained the fact that the real Trowa had only one sister and that sister died together with the destruction of many others from L3. All that remained of Trowa's original family was Marimeia who was under Une's care. Trowa's only conclusion was that the woman was delusional.
"Who do you work with or who do you work for?"
It was all business, but Trowa was sure that he too would fall apart when all was said and done. It was no longer a matter of finding Quatre. It was now only a matter of putting all their minds at peace.
"I suppose it would no longer serve me any purpose to hide certain facts from you," she answered, smiling all of a sudden. The malicious upward turn of her lips could have easily identified her as guilty, but Trowa tried his best to takes things in perspective. He was, after all, still a professional.
"What is the name of your organization?"
"We have no name. The only thing we have in common is a hatred for you."
Trowa was not surprised and his lack of reaction said so. He merely shifted his feet while continuing to level his steady gaze at her. He'd already known he was the target and from what he heard so far, he already knew why.
"It was obvious from the way you planted surveillance devices all over my residence and place of work," he said, not letting his suspect know how he felt about it. He had been outraged, especially at the invasion of his more private moments with his husband, but he was not about to give that information away.
He took the moment of silence to sit down on the chair opposite Lara's before continuing to look at the file on his hands. He looked to be inspecting it, but in truth, he was merely taking his time just in case the woman before him would decide to blurt out all the necessary information, not that she wasn't already.
"I won't answer until you ask me a question," she said, seeming to have picked up on his methods. Trowa had no choice but to ask.
"The torso and the butchered cadaver where all the tapes were stowed," Trowa said, taking a different route for the time being. "Whose body is it?"
It was one of the most important questions and Trowa had no doubt that all his friends on the other side of the smoky mirror were waiting with anticipation. He himself was curious, but he'd finally accepted that both were Quatre no matter how illogical it sounded. Somehow, the conclusion that was supposed to help him sleep at night became the burden that kept him awake at ungodly hours.
"Wouldn't you want to know?" was the sassy answer. Trowa could almost imagine Duo's rage while watching the exchange. His suspicions were confirmed when the mirror hiding them shook. He was surprised it didn't already break with the way it was shaking.
"Dr. Winner, the engineer you brought to us for protection, what is he to you?"
"Would you break my neck if I said we were lovers?"
Trowa looked up from the files and froze, unprepared for her answer. It was hard to admit, but that was another reason why he disliked her. It was her whom Quatre had recognized when he'd found him playing the piano during one of his eerier episodes. The claim she just made was something he could not accept no matter what, but it was something on a more personal level that did not belong to that time and place.
"How did you meet?" Trowa followed up his question, unable to break away from the part of him that made him jealous.
"We were roommates. I was finishing my internship at a local hospital and he was in the process of completing his thesis for his doctorate. We became fast friends."
Her statements could have been true. Trowa checked the file before him and found the documents to confirm her statement. He did, in fact, find evidences of her enrollment, her degree, and receipts from the apartment she had rented together with a Mr. Winner. Still, something was suspicious. Quatre's apartment from just after he was assigned to the Preventers' care had burned down taking with it all traces of who he was.
"Facts such as those could be easily fabricated," Trowa said, hoping that she's give him more clues.
"He did acknowledge me before he did you."
She was taunting him again, he was sure, but it was best to ignore those unless he wanted to help her succeed in breaking him. He was the interrogator, not her.
"According to the institution he supposedly attended, his doctorate was awarded in a year's time," he said. "The process usually takes five."
"You'll have to ask the institution that. I don't know their policies."
"You should know them very well. You were part of the institution three years before he was recorded to have attended. You worked in the engineering department for a month before deciding two months later to go into medicine."
He had to thank Quatre later. After all, he had been the person to piece all the information together. They'd stayed up long hours, but it was Quatre who assembled the pieces for 30 hours straight before his head finally dropped on the cold table. It was amazing to say the least. According to the doctors in the Preventer facilities, Quatre was pretty close to loosing his thinking and organizing capabilities by then.
"What relevance does my choice in career change have to do with him?"
"It will make you a likelier suspect based on your answers," Trowa answered, closing one folder and opening up another. They'd promised Quatre that they would do the rest and Trowa intended to fulfill that promise.
"He might have just been lucky to come up with a project that was amazing and that was finished quickly that they decided to award him with the degree earlier than expected."
"On the contrary, Ms. Barton," Trowa said, scanning another file as he referred to the flowchart Quatre had organized not long ago. "Our records indicate that he had been friends with one Marvin Whitfield, creator of the Plow Master 500X."
"And you're telling me this why?"
"Quatre had amassed knowledge from the aforementioned man. Based on previous questionings of Mr. Whitfield, he had met Quatre before the time your records indicated you were rooming with each other and yet he talked profoundly of you. Mr. Whitfield tells us that based on their conversations, it was apparent that the two of you knew each other very well. This brings me back to the question of how you really met. Would you care to reconstruct the flawed account of how you met Quatre?"
Trowa, not being used the line of work he was currently thrust into, hoped that he was questioning her correctly. Duo and Wufei had given him pointers beforehand, the most important of which was to go with his gut instinct. Both had refrained from letting Heero explain his methods, claiming excessive violence whenever he was given the duty of interrogating.
"I already told you how we met. What makes you think I'm lying and that man is not?"
"...Because that man is one of your flaws. Without him in the picture, we wouldn't have found anything suspicious about you. Finding nothing suspicious about you would mean that this Quatre is different from the one who disappeared three years ago."
"How are you sure that this is the one and not the collection of body parts stored in your freezer?"
"They are both him," Trowa said, knowing very well what the reaction would be. Having said what he truly thought to the assembly of Preventers not more than a few hours ago, he knew she would think that it was absurd. He knew he would sound crazy just because his conclusion was impossible.
Instead, Lara's smile was unreadable. Whether she was amused or impressed, Trowa could not tell.
"How did you come up with such a crazy inference?" she asked, surprisingly without the same ridicule he'd experienced from others.
"I know him well," Trowa answered. By that point, it was all a matter of intuition. He'd felt devastated when the remains had been found and he continued to feel the same way every time he thought about it. At the same time, he always found a connection with the other Quatre. It was as if he'd known the other for so long that it was impossible not to be able to identify him no matter how much the change or how long the separation. Quatre was more than just his husband. He was his life and if there was anyone who would be able to identify him, it was him.
"Then where did the body come from?"
"I believe it is you who have the answers," Trowa said, hoping that she would just say it. Coming up with a way to trick her into admission was more tedious than it was difficult. It also required him to converse with her more than he was willing to. Perhaps that was the reason he hated the job.
"I don't have all the answers," she responded, seeming to have calmed down. Trowa took note of the fact that his response to her question about Quatre's identity was the turning point of her mood.
"You are acquainted with a Dr. Marion, am I right?"
"Yes."
"He is the same doctor who had been found guilty of providing Quatre with harmful medications. He was also the person who had approached us with news of Quatre's condition, claiming that he was merely a puppet being controlled by an unknown entity. Would you be that entity?"
"If you haven't already noticed, that man is crazy."
Trowa paused, considering what she said. Dr. Marion was, in fact, unwell according to their mental health tests. He'd been found to be a paranoid schizophrenic who believed that he was doing it for the good of his colony. Now all that remained was a question of whether she too was crazy or not. Asking her outright was out of the question, so Trowa had no choice but to take a different route.
"You specialize with diseases of the elderly, is that correct?"
"Yes. Didn't I mention this already?"
Nodding, Trowa checked the newest file on the table before him. She did mention it long ago, but he had been too jealous back then to listen to anything she was saying. He berated himself for being too preoccupied with such childishness that he'd missed honing in on an important clue.
"You specifically work with the elderly suffering from Alzheimer's disease, am I correct?"
"Yes I do."
"And you do research as well."
"That is correct."
"Dementia is closely related to Alzheimer's," he said slowly, just now realizing her connection to the scheme.
Suddenly, Quatre's strange symptoms started to make sense. He knew that he could have figured it out if he paid more attention earlier. She'd given him hints, even with the comment about having to read the news more often. What she said sounded insignificant back then, but now that Trowa thought about it, it was said right before the news of Quatre's body being discovered was all over the news. Dr. Marion had given him hints as well before blatantly admitting what he'd done. Even the agricultural engineer with the strange plowing machine was a clue. They were all set down before him and all he had to do was piece them together. He felt like hitting his head against the table for being so careless.
When Trowa looked up, he noticed Lara rest her elbows on the table before dropping her chin on her cupped hands. She smiled very mischievously as if signaling that Trowa finally figured out part of the puzzle.
"Why, yes it is," she said, condescending. "I'll tell you the rest when you figure out a bit more."
Trowa, a bit shaken by what he'd discovered so far, no longer wanted to go any further. Asking more questions would surely lead to more significant answers from her, but he felt tired. All he wanted to do was check up on Quatre to see how he was doing.
"Your plan, did it achieve its purpose?" he asked, still in a halfway-conscious, halfway-trance state.
"Our plan, you mean," Lara answered, sitting back on her chair and crossing her arms once again. "Of course it did. You're broken aren't you?"
Trowa could no longer force out a glare, so he had no other choice but to stare blankly at her.
"Are you done?" Trowa followed up the answer immediately. Stopping himself from loosing his calm was proving to be difficult. In this case, he was very sure that Wufei would have been more suitable to question her.
"You destroyed L3 together with our hopes of a future. Together with Heavyarms, you took away our only means of rebirth. We will only be done after we have destroyed you completely. Your death is not enough. Only your eternal misery is befitting of your crime."
But to involve Quatre, it was just not right. That was what he kept repeating to himself over and over again inside his head.
"You didn't only attack one person in the process," he said. "You involved others who had nothing to do with your grudge against me."
"In order to destroy one, you must sacrifice another," she responded. "This is just like war. Thousands are sacrificed for the sake of millions of others. You, being a soldier, should understand this concept very well."
"War is never justified," Trowa said automatically.
"But you were one of those who instigated the war," she said, picking imaginary lint off her clothing. "Is it not hypocrisy on your part?"
"I said justified," Trowa made clear. "There is a difference between justified and necessary. Just because something is necessary does not mean that it is justified."
"So you're saying..."
"I am only one man," Trowa interrupted. "What you'd done to Quatre may have been necessary for your purposes, but it is not justified. Attacking just me would have been sufficient. This was not war. It was hatred that had gone too far."
"We stand by our decision," she insisted. "Nothing should be spared for the sake of your ruin."
Trowa did not answer, still wrought with disbelief.
"Imagine that," she said as if it was such as shame. "All this time, he suffered because of you."
Not a minute before Trowa attempted a response did the door open. With it burst in three very infuriated comrades ready to haul him out of there. It was cruel. It was unbearable. He began to wonder why Quatre instructed him to personally question her.
"That is it," he heard Duo's voice from somewhere beside him. "This is going to have to be continued at another time. And you, evil lady, I'll see you in hell."
Trowa did not resist as he was lead out of the room. He could almost feel liberation with every step he took, but was rudely interrupted from his escape when Lara talked again.
"We couldn't have done it alone, you know," she said, her voice a bit louder in order for her voice to reach his foggy mind. "How easy do you think it is to get your hands on Quatre Winner?"
Trowa's mind reeled with possibilities. That was before he shrugged off his friends' hold on him and walked towards where his feet would take him.