trans_9 | An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

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Marco didn't know what to expect when he arrived at the brig. He'd come as soon as he could, after getting bombarded with people talking about what his mother might or might not have done on the comms. He still felt on edge, jittering with anger.

And fear. Most of the stuff people were saying was obviously complete crap, but the few things he had managed to figure out had really happened was her turning herself in, and that she'd resigned from her job. And it didn't make sense! Why the hell would she decide she wanted to get locked up? Leave her job? Something had to have happened, and Marco was scared to know what that might be.

He stepped into the area outside the cells, and stopped. She looked like a mess. He felt like they'd gone back to the Yeerk pool, back to when she was just the container for the Yeerks to execute Visser One in.

"Mom?" he said, hoping his voice didn't sound as freaked out as he felt as he came forward to hold onto the bars of her cell. He felt like he should say something else. One of the millions of questions swarming around in his head. Anything. But he found he just didn't have anything to say at all.

Though he does a good job tamping down the fear in his voice, she knows him. She can tell. And even if he hid it entirely, she'd still know what must be going through his head.

It's a conversation she's been dreading having, as much as she's wanted to see him.

"Hey, sweetheart." She gets up off the cot and kicks the blanket off, trying to make a convincing smile appear.

He knew her too, and that smile wasn't convincing enough. Though even if he hadn't been able to see through that, the fact that she was a complete wreck would have clued him into the fact that something was seriously wrong here.

"What the hell happened?" he said, his grip on the bar tightening. "Do you know what the hell they're saying about you?"

"Oh, that," she says, lightening up a bit. "Don't worry, I didn't kill anyone, I'm not sleeping with Kang, I didn't steal anything and...I think that's the majority of the rumors, right?"

Maybe she can stall a little longer by telling him the relieving news before the unpleasant news. They never have been all that good at talking to each other about real issues.

Marco wasn't going to buy the 'everything alright!' pretense. Not this time. Ignoring their issues what just what they did in their family, but with most of them Marco at least had an inkling, even if he pretended they weren't there as often as his mother did. But this time, he didn't even have a clue as to what was going on at all.

"So you didn't kill anyone, but you just decided to go and get yourself thrown in here? For what, a holiday? And then just to top it all off, you go and resign from the Quarter? Mom, just tell me what the hell is going on!"

She cringes almost as if he's yelling at her. "Calm down a minute, will you? I didn't do this to confuse or hurt you when you returned. I did this because I was out of line during the Lirath battle and had enough integrity to turn myself in."

She gestures to the floor next to the bars, and sits down there herself. "Now can you sit down so we can talk instead of interrogate?"

"What do you expect, Mom? You seriously think that I can hear that you're in here, and not worry?" Marco said, moving to sit down on the floor. "Especially when no one can even give me a decent answer about why?"

"I didn't say not to worry. I meant handle your worrying in a way that lets me explain before you get all worked up at me." She runs her hands over her face. "And I didn't want news getting out all over the place that I lost my temper on a hostage."

She knows full well that that won't be enough to keep him from asking more, but she hopes for it anyway.

Marco was silent for a moment, watching her closely. "People don't get brigged for just losing their tempter," he said slowly.

"They do if they lose it the right way," she says, voice grim. "I'm only in here for two weeks, give or take with Stacy time. So it wasn't anything you haven't seen before, probably."

And that thought hangs heavy in her chest.

"And what way is the right way?" Marco said, getting frustrated again. And just a little more freaked out. The longer she stalled, the more that sinking feeling that there was something seriously wrong grew. "Will you just stop avoiding the question and just tell me what the hell landed you in here?"

"Language," she says, then swallows. Her throat feels dry. She finds she can't look him in the eye. "I used torture to interrogate a terrorist."

Marco went still. He'd always been the one that was ruthless, the one who understood that sometimes you had to had to do things that weren't nice and moral in order to reach the end goal. But he'd still never tortured anyone. The only one of them who'd ever come close was Ax, although Marco didn't really know much about what he thought about it. He hadn't exactly been talkative about it. And for a moment Tobias flashed into his head; in that box, alone, and the way he was never the same again afterwards.

But his Mom wasn't Taylor. She understood war, but she didn't seek out inflicting pain for the sake of pain. She was like him - she did what was necessary, because someone had to do it. And even if the idea of his mother torturing someone was unsettling...she wouldn't do that unless she had to, right?

...Right?

"But that would be because you needed to, right?" Marco said, his voice tinged with just a little bit of desperation. "I mean, if you didn't have any other choice..."

She would love to say 'of course'. Ruthless she can handle. Ruthless is who she is, who her son is, a deeply-ingrained understanding of the world that she accepts as a part of herself. Ruthless is ugly sometimes, but it's also necessary, cold, passionless, justifiable and even righteous.

What she did was unnecessary and full of passionate hot hatred. And it's indefensible.

"He wasn't giving us answers fast enough," she mumbles. She can't outright deny his hopes, but the way she bites her lip should speak volumes.

Marco went silent. This was...this was his Mom. Even after everything that had happened, she was still his mother, the one who'd looked after him, raised him, told him off for not doing his chores. And for all that Marco had lived through the war himself, knew just how much hell she had gone through, knew that she wasn't the same as when he was a kid and never would be, he still couldn't help but see her largely that way. She was his Mom, and she wasn't meant to be bloodthirsty, or crazed, or unhinged.

He'd always managed to convince himself that the rage and single-minded drive to kill Edriss even to the exclusion of actually saving herself that he's seen back when they rescued her was just a one off. She'd just experienced the pain of Edriss's Kandrona starvation. She'd just been under a lot of stress, that wasn't how she was normally.

Except now she'd done something violent and senseless, but without the excuse of having just lived through a Yeerk execution. And the idea that maybe she really was the enraged, violent woman that he'd seen on the Yeerk pier terrified him.

"Right," he said finally, his throat tight. What the hell was he supposed to say? That it was alright to go psycho on a prisoner just because she was impatient? That she shouldn't have done it? She was meant to tell him when he was wrong, not the other way around.

The silence dragged on.

For a long while, she doesn't say anything, trying with no success to tune out the awkward, painful silence. What can she say? "I'm okay now." "It won't happen again." "These were exceptional circumstances."

Lies. She knows she'd do it again. That's the sickening part - were she given the chance to do it over, she probably still wouldn't stop. Even knowing that inflicting pain didn't make her feel better. Even knowing she'd have to turn herself in and go to a cell. Something dark and leaden in the pit of her stomach says 'next time will be different, next time will bring you peace'.

Next time you can lose yourself entirely and stop caring about any of it.

She can't look at him, but she does snake an arm through the bars and leave her palm face up, hoping for some contact. She's trying to be an example for him, to raise him well so he can live his life as the best he can be. To be happy. And she is far from the example of happiness. Though then again, so is he.

"Honey-" she stops, realizing she doesn't have an excuse to make. Not one worthy of saying out loud, at least.

"I turned myself in because I'm trying to own my bad decisions."

Marco wasn't really a touchy-feely kinda guy. Even towards his mother, he just wasn't really the kind of person who sought out contact: he liked his distance. Still, after pausing for a moment he reached out to grab her hand.

He still didn't really know what to say. Or even what to think, about all of this. After the war, after he'd saved her things were supposed to go back to normal. Or at least something like normal.

Having to go meet his mother when she's locked in jail for torture was not normal.

"Owning things is overrated," he said, attempting to crack a joke. It ended up just falling flat. "You should totally just sell them on the next planet instead."

"You know, there are certain planets where I could make good money selling intangibles. I think the Iskoort on XaXing would pay their weight in gold for some good vaguely-defined intangibles," she says, trying to elevate the mood a little again. It's difficult. You don't ever really forget you're in a jail cell poking holes in your son's unrealistic hopes.

What did everyone expect from her? What does she expect from herself? What is she supposed to do when she painfully, when she inevitably fails to meet those high standards?

It's been five years. She should be better by now. She should be the mother he wants her to be, the mother he remembers from his childhood.

"I'm sorry about all this."

"The Iskoort? Sure, if you can convince them that your bad decisions are the most unique bad decisions ever. And no offense Mom, but you've still got nothing on Visser Three," Marco said, smiling weakly.

Maybe if Marco had been how he was before the Melting Clock went and zapped away three years of his life, he'd have been better prepared. Then, he'd have had a few years to get used to Eva as she was now. But now it felt to him like she hadn't really been free that long at all, and most of that was when they were still fighting the way, back home. And mentally, he hadn't really gotten past that distant idea that after the war, things would be different.

It didn't help that even now, they were still in a war.

He shifted a little, uncomfortable about having his own mother apologising to him. "Well, you know if you really want to make things up, you could try not going around doing things like resigning from your job. How am I supposed to hold my wild parties at Cassie's house if you're not working?"

"Yes, but I'm a much better salesperson than Visser Three. He's like one of those informercial types - all yelling and repetition and very little substance." She clears her throat and does her best Billy Mays-esque impression. "And if you submit to Yeerk infestation in the next twenty minutes, you get one free decapitation with your next purchase!"

She forgot all about the time he lost. Looking at him now, the subtle shifts in body language, the worry written indelibly on his face, she's amazed that she was so oblivious. How could she be so blind to her own son? How can he be so blind to her?

In a way, it suddenly strikes her how much Peter helped keep them together after the war. For all his weaknesses and pettiness, he kept her grounded. And her grounded was much better than her jailed.

"I'll give you an early notice whenever I'm about to hold an extra-long book club session."

"Ah, so Visser Three is the ShamWow guy. Except he gives you the decaptitations for free anyway, even if you don't sign up," Marco said, shifting again. They were all saying the right words, doing what they usually did and covering up all the awkward with jokes and humour. And yet the air was still a little tense.

His mother had suddenly because a whole lot scarier, and he still didn't know how to deal with that.

"Mom, wild parties aren't probably wild if you know about it beforehand. You're meant to learn when you come home afterwards and find the place totally trashed."

"Well. He's about as loud as the ShamWow guy." She snorts a bit, having made one of the greatest understatements of the day. She'd almost made a joke about two free torture sessions with every purchase, but somehow it seems like the wrong time to make light of such things.

Even if she wants very badly to make light of such things.

"I thought I was supposed to come home right at the height of partying and you were supposed to stammer out that you don't know where all these people came from, and possibly they're robbing our house. With streamers and alcohol."

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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