(no subject)

[abyssum_invocat]

The approximately eight-year-old child that was sitting outside Alexander Waverly's office door had been there for nearly an hour. She was quiet, unobtrusive at best and somewhat scarily good at blending into her surroundings at worst; Sinthia had never been talkative. She knew she was going to be interrogated--though the words everyone had used were purposefully less punitive than that--and knew that the odds were not in her favor having come from a facility so closely aligned with the former Nazi cause. She could have explained that HYDRA was not exactly part of said political ideology, but there was no point. People were all too keen to disavow anything that reeked of Hitler and his ways.

The fact that Sinthia had no legal documentation to her name wasn't proving to make anything easier save for her being young excused her from many of the more venomous glances; she hadn't taken to parading the knowledge that she had been in suspended animation, in essence frozen, since before the end of the war. It would have explained an awful lot about her outward personality being so eerily absent.

As it stood, she just waited and listened for someone to summon her.

Comments

[mrwaverly]

Waverly had been observing the young lady parked in his outer office while she waited. She was very interesting indeed. She had been found only a few days ago in a Hydra facility on a tiny isolated island in the Berents Sea.

Considering his options, the new Director of the fledgling agency, turned off the observation screen. What to do with her? First things first, however, he needed to know about her before it was decided what to do with her.

He opened the door. It was amazing how still she could be. If you didn't know she was sitting there, you could easily pass right by her without even noticing.

"Thank you for waiting, Miss. Please come in," he said, and patiently waited for her to respond.

[abyssum_invocat]

The moment the door opened he had her full attention, though Sinthia didn't move until he invited her in; it was as good as a command to her, not being overly well acquainted with more polite forms of speech. The fact that she could understand his English was no small feat either.

She slid out of the chair, smoothing out the skirts of her jumper before making her way to the door with footsteps that looked steadier than they felt. She was no stranger to fear or its responses in the body, but she was extraordinarily good at hiding them. It didn't mean she felt nothing, though. She didn't fidget, to the point of anachronism, not even playing with her hair or moving her fingers from where they rested over her dress pockets.

"Hello, Director."

[mrwaverly]

"Do have a seat," he said moving back around to his own side of the desk. He couldn't help being overly polite. Alexander Waverly was indeed, English. He sat down at the desk, tenting his fingers while observing her.

Despite being the director of a fledgling agency, and a very experienced in war and the spy trade, Waverly wasn't exactly well versed in interrogating children.

"We've come to a bit of a conundrum," he paused a moment. She did so look like an innocent child. "What to do with you." Alexander looked at her apologetically, but didn't refrain from questioning her. "Can you tell me what you were doing at the Hydra base?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'd been sent there when the Allies were approaching the base where I lived in Austria. Where the Valkyrie was," she says, belatedly clarifying. "I was put to sleep. What year is it now?" Sinthia asks, head gently cocked and eyes clear. She's unafraid, but wary.

For now.

[mrwaverly]

"The Allies? This... This was in World War Two?" he looked at her, not wanting to lie, but not sure what to say. "It's 1964, that would have been about twenty years ago." Waverly said calmly. "They put you to sleep? What's the Valkyrie?"

It was only bad timing that there was a sharp knock on the door and his secretary came in the office without waiting to be told to come in.

[abyssum_invocat]

For a moment Sinthia's brow only creased gently in confusion, but she said nothing to answer his questions yet. She wasn't sure what to say to him telling her it had been twenty years--at most she was only ever supposed to be asleep a year.

So deep in thought was she that the knock startled her; she jerked, surprised, and vanished in the next breath, simply gone until she reappeared stepping out of the corner of the room from behind the drapes covering the window.

[mrwaverly]

The secretary gasped, when the girl disappeared and then stepped out from behind the curtain. Waverly gave a little jump ans started when she stepped out from the curtain behind him to his right.

"Oh goodness," he said, seeing her fear. "Elaine, thanks, please leave and don't let anyone else disturb us." Waverly watched her leave and then turned back to the little girl. "Cynthia, it's alright. You're safe. Come have a seat back in the chair."

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia shook her head, not moving from her spot. Her face was stern, silently watching as Waverly spoke, eyes darting back and forth between him and the secretary.

Once she'd left, Sinthia whispered a reply. "Is it really 1964?" she asked. "Has it been that long?"

[mrwaverly]

"It is. It has," He should know it. "It's alright. Come back and sit down. No one's going to hurt you." Waverly knew she most probably wouldn't believe him. But he needed her cooperation and some answers.

[abyssum_invocat]

On shaky, unsteady feet she slowly came back to her chair, pointedly keeping her line of sight to Waverly open the whole time. "You can't promise that," she said slowly, unblinking.

"You were in the war. But not where I was."

[mrwaverly]

He watched her move out from behind the curtain and back over to the chair. "Perhaps not. But I can promise that I will not hurt you." He blinked in surprise. "Yes, that's right. I served in Naval Intelligence."

[abyssum_invocat]

"You didn't fight," she said, watching him as if she were trying to look through him. "Not in this war. But you know how to kill."

Not that it bothered her; she did too. "You know how messy it is."

[mrwaverly]

"Not personally, no," he admitted. But it wasn't the only war he'd fought in. It did disturb her that she knew these things. She wouldn't have been able to read his file. But if she could do what she had just done, it was possible that she could pull that information directly from him. It was the only way she would know these things. He frowned. "I do indeed." He'd had plenty of blood on his hands in his life time.

"How do you know this? Are you... Are you reading my mind?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Mmm."

She didn't blink, unmoving as she read him and slid through his mind as seamlessly as water around a stone. "It's much harder to lie this way. You favor a kukri. Something light and powerful like your..." she faltered there, snapping out of her near-trance and looking at Alex more normally.

"Who is he? The one with the braid?"

[mrwaverly]

His jaw dropped open and then clamped shut quickly. He shoved the thought of G back out of his head hard.

"Please stop." His voice as a bit more angrily than he would have normally used with a child. "I'm sorry. He is not your business. Let's get back to the topic at hand. Which is you."

Waverly wasn't afraid. But she had reminded him that they were dealing with someone much more sophisticated than any ordinary 8 year old child.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Answer my question," she says slowly, only calm in the face of the angry tone of voice. It's familiar, and the response is too; being snapped at is far more comfortable for her than being treated like glass for being an unknown quantity.

"I've answered yours. Who is he?"

[mrwaverly]

"Not exactly. I'm not obliged to answer your questions," he said with a sigh. "But I'll give you this one. His name is G and he's a very... special friend. That is the end of that subject."

He had treated her respectfully and politely so far. He had not lied to her. Something probably impossible with a telepathic person, he realized.

"Now, we can continue to sit here and have a pleasant conversation. Or I can treat you like anyone else under interrogation, which could get rather unpleasant."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Don't talk to me like I'm unintelligent," she said bluntly, soft-voiced but no less firm for it. She was young, but she wasn't stupid.

"What do you want to know?"

[mrwaverly]

"You're most definitely not unintelligent," he said sitting back and looking at her as if he could almost read her mind. Someone with that talent, specially trained, as she obviously was, and the disarming looks of a young child would make the perfect spy.

"I can see now why Hydra wanted you. I'm afraid we spoiled their plans for you. They lost the war and no one on the Allied side knew that base even existed until a week ago. Which is probably why you'd been frozen for so long." He tapped a pen on the table. "What other gifts do you have? Besides the reading minds and moving incredibly fast? Or was the movement trans-dimensional?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She shook her head slowly. "It wasn't trans-dimensional. It's just...faster." She shrugged slowly, because even she wasn't sure how the ability worked, only knew that it did. Where she went when she wasn't visible was a question she hadn't ever asked, and wasn't entirely sure she wanted the answer to.

"I have telekinesis and the ability to be intangible. That one is difficult to exert control over." Sinthia didn't necessarily like walking through things, but when one was in a hurry--as she had been when woken up a week ago--and in unfamiliar surroundings, teleporting was not a great idea. She didn't want to end up stuck in a bulkhead or a wall.

"They're not gifts," she said after a moment. "Those were simply the results of an experiment."

[mrwaverly]

He took off his glasses and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm afraid to even ask what sorts of experiments they subjected you to."

Alexander put his glasses back on, and looked at her. He couldn't just let her loose on the world nor could he keep her against her will. Especially if she could just walk through a door. "You can probably figure out why I have a conundrum. Whatever do I do with you?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'd like to take a bath," she said lightly.

"I don't know what you should do with me. You could always freeze me again," Sinthia continued, though obviously she wasn't fond of that suggestion. It was an awful feeling of being submerged in icy water until unconsciousness took hold.

[mrwaverly]

"Hmmm. We don't really have those sorts of facilities here," Waverly admitted. Showers in the training gym, but no baths. UNCLE headquarters wasn't the sort of place for a young girl to live in. There were no sleeping quarters or living quarters. Just offices. Training facilities. No this wasn't appropriate at all for a young girl.

"I think I might be able to arrange something... temporarily," He gave her a nervous smile. "How would you like to come stay at my place for a night or two? Just until we can find something a little more permanent?"

[abyssum_invocat]

She thought for a moment, giving Waverly an inscrutable look as he smiled at her.

On one hand, it could be a trap, and she'd have to be careful. But on the other...it was a gesture of kindness, she could tell that much. He wasn't thinking about harming her. "Go home with you?" she asked. "Is that allowed?"

[mrwaverly]

"Well, as I am the agency director, I'm going to say it's allowed." Waverly said jokingly. He didn't like the idea of refreezing her either. There would be no more freezing as far as he was concerned. He wouldn't hear about it.

"We have a perfectly good guest room with it's own bath. It will only be a few days until we can find someone suitable for you to stay with. And you'll get to meet G." Since she seemed so curious about him and G loved children.

"We'll need a cover story for you." He thought for a moment, "If anyone asks you, you're my niece from Bonn. That should explain whatever people think odd." Like having a German accent rather than British one. "You're father's name is Fredrick and your mother's name is Jane. Does that sound alright?"