And She Was Good
Chapter 5: All About the Cat
Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon or Gundam Wing
It was late. Like, really late. Usagi knew that much.
She'd moved from crying in her cell to crying in a windowless room that reminded her of a torture chamber mixed with a hospital ward. Her wrists had been chained to the table maybe an hour ago by some young officer, the metal biting into her tender, uncalloused flesh. She couldn't help the incessant wobble in her lip or the silent leakage of tears from her eyes. At least they hadn't put her in one of those orange jumpsuits or whatever—she hated those things…they looked like carrots.
Her nose began to run and Usagi lifted the back of her hand to wipe it. An unprecedented amount of snot smeared her chilly flesh and she looked at it with a surprised, disgusted guffaw.
"Ew," she muttered, awkwardly trying to flip over her hand and wipe the mess on the silver table. It was hard though, with her hands being chained and all. Usagi stood and contorted her body, trying to twist her torso so that her chained wrists could turn and she could free the back of her hand of its mess. She lifted her knee and put it on top of the table as if she were about to climb on top and grunted with the effort it took to twist her hand.
"Ahem."
Usagi's head jerked up so quickly that her pigtails lurched like jump ropes. In her hasty move to scramble off of the table she ended up kicking her chair behind her and falling unceremoniously to the floor. Her hands dangled above her, still stuck in their chains.
Her crying started anew.
Une rolled her eyes as she stepped behind the girl and righted the chair, grabbing Usagi's thin arm and lifting her. Not bothering to help her into the seat, thinking the blonde could figure that out on her own, Une positioned herself in the small chair across from her.
Usagi plopped down and looked to her knees like a shamed child ready to be berated by her mother. Little tears dripped from her eyes to her legs.
"Tsukino-san," Une began gently, causing Usagi to look up slowly. Her cheeks were red with apprehension as she waited for Une to continue. "Why don't you tell me about what happened last night?"
A small dam of words was released that immediately startled Une.
"WellGenevievewasbeingabitchatworkbecauseyoucannevertrustaredheadwithcarrotsandSetsunawasjusttryingtobeagoodfriendandwalkingmehomeandsomeonebrokeintomyapartment—"
"—Tsukino-san please slow—"
"—Buttheydidn'ttakeanythingfrommeandluckilymycatsurvivedotherwiseiwouldhavebeenhystericalilovemycatsomuchandthenijustwantedtogethammeredbecauseofthosecarrotsandmyapartmentandwewerejustdrinkingbeerandbeinghobbits—"
"—Please, I cannot understand what you're—"
"—ThenSetsunawantedtodosomethingillegalandwenttothisbuildingandsprayedsomethingonitandtoldmetolightamatchandIWASSETUPWHYWOULDSHEDOTHATITHOUGHTWEWEREFRIENDSWAAAHHHH!"
Une placed the tips of her fingers to her temples and rubbed vigorously as Usagi's wails filled the room with a sharp din.
The desperation in Usagi's voice was palpable. "Please don't send me to jail, I'm such a cupcake I'll never survive, they'll eat me alive—by the way I'm so hungry—you have to believe me—"
"I believe you!"
"Please don't—!" Usagi's eyes flashed opened, red and raw. She steadied her vision on Une. "Wait, huh?"
"I believe you," Une growled lowly, trying to calm the wild blonde.
Usagi's mouth hung open, briefly disgusting Une with how far back into her throat she could see. "Y-you do?" She sniffled, her eyes glistening with a sweet, honeyed relief.
Une was suddenly taken with her innocent and childish expression. Though her reaction bordered on a personality shift, Une abruptly felt the very need to care for the younger girl. She smiled gently.
"Yes, I do. And we'll let you go, too. All we need from you, Tsukino-san, is a detailed history of your friendship with Setsuna Meioh." Une watched carefully as the baffled expression waned on Usagi's face. The young blonde looked to the ceiling, indicating she was trying to recall the required information.
"Well," she began slowly, suddenly calm, "I met Setsuna when I started working for the Kingdom Observer."
Une flipped open one of the folders before her. "That's the…national magazine, correct?"
Usagi nodded. "Right." She swallowed deeply before continuing. "I felt a little out of place at work but Setsuna took me under her wing, I suppose."
"Were you alike in many ways?" Une prodded.
Usagi's brow furrowed. "Well, no," she admitted, "but where you'd think we'd clash, we totally meshed. It was like we'd known each other for so long, you know? Like we didn't have to figure out what irked or pleased the other, we just knew."
Une's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure you'd never met Meioh-san before?"
Usagi shook her head vigorously. "No, never." She then smiled a little bit. "Everyone remembers Setsuna after they meet her, she's that kind of woman. If I'd met her before I definitely would have remembered."
Une leaned back in her chair. "How did you find your job?"
Usagi looked slightly worried for a moment as she tried to remember. "Well, it was kind of weird actually. I was at this party where a couple of the Observer staff members were attending—"
"How did you get invited?"
"I have a friend who works for the New Port City Sun, I guess you could call it a kind of "newsy" party. She took me along. Anyway, there I met one of the staff photographers who told me they were looking for another graphic designer. I applied and voila."
"Was Meioh-san at that party?"
Usagi shrugged. "I didn't see her."
Une's lips pursed. "But that doesn't mean she didn't see you."
The sudden seriousness that befell Usagi's face was missed by Une as the door to the interrogation room opened. Sally's body was half in-half out of the door, her head leaning precariously farther in. Her lips quivered, bouncing between a smile and attempting to remain serious, but the flush on her cheeks and the slight giggle in her voice gave the agent away.
"Une, Chang and—" she put her fist to her mouth and huffed a clearly fake cough, poorly trying to hide a smile behind her hand, "—Chang and Maxwell have returned. I think you'll want to talk to them immediately—"
The door to the room burst open with a cartoonish ferocity, causing all of the inhabitants to jump as the metal entrance slammed against the wall. Sally stepped aside and placed her hands over her mouth as Duo and Wufei stomped into the room.
Une's eyes were as wide as saucers when they landed on what hung in Wufei's arms.
"What the hell IS this?!" he growled, holding out the dark cat.
The room fell deathly silent. He held Luna beneath her arms, causing the extent of her belly to hang and her hind legs to simply dangle. Her arms were straight out, stiff as boards, as she looked at the people in the room and blinked. Duo remained behind Wufei with his arms crossed, an equally Popeye-esque look of disgruntlement claiming his features as if he dared Usagi not to answer.
Usagi' wasn't sure if she should smile, a contorted look of confusion and glee coming over her face. "Th…That's my cat," she said. Her expression finally melted into the smile as she hunkered down and puckered her lips. "Hi Luna!" she said in her best baby voice. "How's my sweet little kitty? Yes you are, yes you are!"
Wufei tossed to cat onto the table, earning a startled cry from Une and an angered one from Usagi.
"Hey! Don't treat my cat like that!"
"Chang, what is the meaning of this?!"
Wufei pointed to the feline who, gaining her composure after sliding on Une's files, had crept close to Usagi. "What kind of…" his face was red with anger as his finger shook, accusing Usagi of something she wasn't aware of. "What did you do?"
Usagi, befuddled at his snappy manner, let Luna crawl into her lap and held onto the kitty (with what parts of her arms she could) protectively. "What are you talking about? I didn't do anything!"
"That cat!" Wufei shouted again. "Who the hell are you?!"
"I'm Usagi!" the blonde yelled, tears filling her eyes. "I didn't do anything wrong!"
Une held out her hands, fearing another shriek-like wail from the younger girl. "Agent Chang, I demand you tell me the meaning of this!"
Wufei's lips were pressed tight, his shaking finger still pointing to the dark cat that looked back at him with relatively calm eyes over Usagi's shielding arm. He could swear the cat was sniggering internally. "The cat…the cat…"
"The cat what?!" Une asked impatiently, standing so abruptly that the chair beneath her emitted a hair-raising screech. Duo finally pushed past Wufei, knowing the Chinese man was unwilling to say what they'd both seen.
"The cat talks, man!"
Sally burst into mirthful laughter, unable to hold it in.
Une's expression went from startled to furious in seconds flat. "What the hell is wrong with you two?!" she screamed. "This is no time for stupid jokes!"
"We're not joking, that cat TALKS, dude!"
Une gathered the folders on the table furiously. "This is preposterous," she seethed. "You are completely unprofessional bringing such a ludicrously silly accusation into my interrogation, Maxwell—"
"Me?!" the braided man yelled, pointing to himself in astonishment. "It's Wufei too! I swear to the God of Death, I'm just the only one who has the balls to say it!" He pushed Wufei, who immediately scowled back at him. "Tell her!"
Une watched angrily but interestedly as Wufei closed his eyes and clenched his fists. His head hung low for a few seconds and Une realized that she'd stopped collecting the files from the table. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Une had a sort of faith in the Chinese man that she didn't quite possess in the other agents of the Preventers. He'd always been about some straight edged notion of justice and was not one to be flippant or foolish. He did nearly everything by the books. Finally he looked to her and Une felt her stomach flop at the surrender that floated in his coal black eyes.
Her eyes, flush with acrimony and disapproval, shifted between the three agents in the room. "All of you, my office. Now." When the occupants began to shuffle out, Une growled. "And somebody grab the damn cat!"
Usagi watched as Une stormed out of the boxy room they held her in. Duo approached her hesitantly, reaching out his arms in an obvious gesture for the feline huddled on her lap.
When Luna's ears pinned back Usagi made a comforting noise and gently rubbed the back of her neck. Then she peered at Duo with a cold glare. "Please do not throw my sweet kitty," she said icily.
"Er, I won't," Duo agreed, nervous about holding the potentially irascible cat.
Usagi murmured something soft and sweet to Luna and her ears slowly perked. The blonde gently unraveled her arms, letting Luna hop from her lap to the cool floor.
Duo, half expecting the cat to say, "I'm ready now", gulped before slowly leaning down and picking her up.
Usagi watched him turn and leave with a tiny hole in her heart. Seeing her cat had been an unfair respite to her lonely captivity. And now she was exactly where she'd started, crying in a windowless room.
"You look like you've been through hell."
Rei didn't answer Minako's sharp-edged quip. She didn't know if the blonde meant to be backhanded, but the remark left a sour taste in her mouth. Hadn't they all? Hadn't they all been through an insurmountable heap of hell? Her years with El Fantasma's cartel had altered the somewhat prudish teen that had insinuated her way into its ranks and left a residual emotionlessness within her. Those walls had been erected through a strict diet of fear, so trying to let them down felt like a process that would require some sort of rehab. So Rei stayed silent.
Ami watched the raven-haired woman, knowing that out of the five of them (Setsuna included), she'd had the most perilous and risky mission. But they felt her the most impregnable all those years ago, which in hindsight had been at the consequence of that invulnerability. Maybe it was not as clear to the others, but it was obvious to Ami that Rei was broken and perhaps broken beyond repair.
"And you look nervous as hell."
"Shut the fuck up, Minako," Makoto snapped back absentmindedly, sick of her tasteless observations. It was true, though. She was nervous—very nervous. She'd messed up, like royally messed up her mission and it was only a matter of time until her mistake affected the lot of them. She chewed thoughtfully on her nail and tried to imagine a way to remedy her blunder as Minako rolled her eyes at the brunette's fastidious behavior.
"God, you're all so messed up," Minako mumbled in annoyance.
"Don't be so cocky, Minako. It's quite obvious that you're hiding your own fears with a misapplication of tactless, lackadaisical mockery," Ami responded flippantly, distractedly pressing her face to her jail cell and looking down the hallway.
Minako, who'd been lazily picking at the ends of her hair, raised a hand as if in praise and in perfect repartee responded, "True, true, boo boo." She then resumed pulling off her split ends.
"Well then I wouldn't be so careless with our emotional decay. After all we still have a job to do and given the fact that within all of us in an unstable ticking time bomb, I would suggest you suppress your cavalier tendencies and substitute them with something of the contrary—Oh I don't know, maybe something with a veneer of teamwork—"
"Oh can it nerd!" Minako yelled, hitting her foot angrily against her cell.
"Be quiet, they're coming. Remember the plan." Ami whispered as she spied three men coming towards them in the shadows. "Today is my day," she whispered again, hastily trying to relay a message before the approaching men could overhear her.
That brought about a spark of life in her three companions, Rei included. They looked to her with a knowing ache, a pity that drove straight into the bluenette's heart. "I'll try to explain everything before it happens but one of you may need to take the lead."
And the Preventers were upon them, opening Ami's cell and slapping a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. They'd been obnoxiously right in their assumptions of their capture, of the system looking to the smartest one to interrogate first, but Ami's admission that it was 'her day' left a slight glitch in their plan. The three girls watched from their cells warily as the suddenly fragile genius was led away.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't fire the both of you!"
Duo held up his hand. "Uh, well Heero is still with Relena debriefing from the Summit in Brussels, Trowa doesn't return from Luxembourg until tonight and Quatre won't get back from Dubai until tomorr—"
"Shut it Maxwell," Wufei growled, turning his attention sharply to Une. "I'm not even going to try to explain to you how we got the information we did because it's a preposterous notion that I don't believe myself." Une's eyebrow quirked as her agent continued. "Meioh gave me an encrypted address, a lead that Duo and I followed to Tsukino-san's apartment. At first glance it seemed as if the place had been broken into but it was staged. And then this cat shows up…" he looked to the furry entanglement still propped up in Duo's arm, "and at the mention of Setsuna she spoke."
Sally put a hand to her forehead. "Ok, let's say for one brief, brief, second we believe you. Why isn't the cat talking now? You've brought it here, presumably that's what it wanted…" She was working hard to keep her face straight.
Duo lifted the cat a little bit and stared deep into Luna's red eyes. She blinked and his eyes narrowed…and then his eyes widened. "Tsukino-san didn't know," he said.
"What do you mean?" Une asked.
"Now, I don't mean to be an ass hole here Une, but this cat talked. There's no doubt in my mind. But our initial thought was to take her to her owner…who was just as baffled as you. Yeah, we took her here but it wasn't Usagi Tsukino that she wanted to be with…"
Wufei's face was serious as he caught on to the braided man's wavelength. "…It was Setsuna Meioh."
Luna purred in Duo's arms and Une witnessed an uncharacteristically human acknowledging glint in the cat's eyes. It was like she was saying "bingo." The head of Preventers suddenly felt very, very uncomfortable.
She felt silly saying it but…"Take the cat to Meioh. Now."
Ohhh sorry, it's pretty short guys but I wanted to get something out. Hope this chapter was somewhat fun! Does anyone have any guesses as to what's going on? Oh and I know the girls seem a little OOC but just truuuuust me, all will be explained in due time. Hehe. ALSO, JUST AN ALERT: I will be posting teaser chapters to the two stories proposed in my profile! I suppose…think of them as a holiday gifts? Hahaha. Feel free to wander from this story to those two, I'd love to hear ya'lls feedback. Both are GW/SM!
Wildelven Pathfinder: Yay! Thanks for your review! I'm so happy that people are enjoying the Wufei/Setsuna interaction! I might make it a thing…hahaha. Things will come together, I promise! It won't be as cryptic as my other stories. Next chapter is basically going to be Ami and Setsuna explaining everything that's going on hahaha.
aquafina rain: Scholarly Wufei! What a gent! He's slowly becoming one of my favorite GW boys…like for real, he's so much fun to play with, so many sides to explore xD. Haha, he will definitely have more interactions with Setsuna. The jacket will be explained later on *hinthintwinkwink* Une will come into her own later, she's just a little out of the loop now. Duo and Wufei are definitely my favorite power couple. I like to think of them as a couple, they go so well together and are so fun to play off of. They'll definitely be pretty tight in this story. A little piece of Rei's Colombia is gonna show up soon! Excited to show that off hehehe. And you definitely got a little snippet of Ami's wit this chapter. She'll unleash a torrent next chapter hahaha. Thank you so much for your review it means le world that they're so thoughtful :)
sweetypie15: Aw thank you so much! Luna is definitely giving them a little bang for their buck. She'll definitely have more of an impact next chapter. Thank you so, so much for your review!
Pixiecropse: I mean we have unmanned drones that drop bombs halfway across the planet and glasses that act as computers and if a cat talked to me I'd freak out. I feel like mechanics can always reach a higher level, we're always figuring more out but something like a talking cat is simply pure magic—nobody will ever expect that because it defies nature. So yeah! They fight with giant robots but they'd definitely freak out at a talking cat :) Thanks for your review!
Nyx Pax: Oh wow, such kind words, thank you so much! I was the same way, I got super frustrated with the sections and just kind of went away with little hope. But I couldn't stay away for too long ^_^ hehe. Thank you so very much for your review, I can't tell you how much it means that you like this so much :D Hope to see you again!
