Chapter 16: The Interrogation

The walk back from the archives to Pieck’s office felt like traversing a different building entirely, honestly. The same stone corridors, the same worn carpet, the same bureaucrats nodding as they passed—but the air between her and Stefan was charged now with a warm, buzzing energy that had nothing to do with diplomacy. Their hands brushed as they walked, a deliberate point of contact that felt both wildly public and profoundly intimate. The echo of Connie’s whoop still seemed to bounce off the marble wainscoting, mixing with the memory of Reiner’s booming laugh. Her cheeks still held a faint, stubborn heat from being caught, though the embarrassment had already transmuted into something closer to giddy relief.

Stefan pushed open her office door for her, holding it just long enough for her to pass through before following. The room welcomed them back with its familiar scent of polished wood and old paper, the afternoon sun now slanting across the floor in a long, lazy rectangle. It felt like a stage after the curtain call, empty and quiet but still vibrating with the energy of the performance.

Without a word, Stefan moved to his desk by the window, placing the heavy leather-bound treaty volume he’d been carrying onto the cleared space beside his typewriter. He opened it with careful hands, the spine cracking softly. Pieck watched him for a moment as she rounded her own desk. His movements were methodical and calm, already shifting back into the efficient rhythm of work, but there was a new ease in his shoulders that hadn’t been there this morning. The line of tension that usually bracketed his mouth when he played the part of her aide was gone, smoothed away by laughter and acceptance.

She sank into her high-backed chair, the leather giving its familiar creak. A soft, settled smile touched her lips before she could think to stop it. She just let it sit there, watching him sort through the supplementary charts Armin had thoughtfully included. Stefan extracted a folded coastal map, smoothing it flat with the edge of his hand before reaching for a set of colored pencils from his drawer. He began making tiny, precise notations in the margins, his head bent in concentration.

The sight was so ordinary, so deeply theirs, that it squeezed something tight in her chest. This was what peace looked like, apparently. Not grand treaties or soaring speeches, but this: Stefan at his desk in a patch of sunlight, doing meticulous work that supported hers, while the ghost of their friends’ laughter still warmed the room. She had spent seventeen days in Odiha feeling like a ghost in her own skin, and now, suddenly, she was fully inhabited again. The feeling was so solid it was almost physical.

She pulled the Hizuru trade analysis toward her, picking up her pen. The dense columns of numbers and tariff codes finally began to resolve into meaning. Her mind, usually split between the task at hand and monitoring a dozen political undercurrents, felt singular and clear. She could focus on agricultural subsidies because Stefan was handling the coastal charts. She could think about timber imports because he would cross-reference the shipping lanes. It was a partnership, simple and functional, and now it was a partnership their closest friends had not just acknowledged but celebrated. The weight of the double life didn’t feel lighter, exactly—it was still there, a leaden fact—but it felt shared by more shoulders now. Distributed.

The comfortable quiet lasted perhaps ten minutes, long enough for Pieck to annotate three pages and for Stefan to finish correlating two major ports.

Then the office door swung open.

It wasn’t a hesitant knock or the polite tap of a junior clerk. The door just pushed inward, hinges whispering, and Annie Leonhart leaned against the frame.

She stood there with her typical casual insolence, one shoulder propped against the wood, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. The afternoon light from the hall backlit her pale hair, putting her face in shadow for a second before she stepped fully into the room. Her posture was relaxed, almost lazy, but her eyes—those sharp, assessing eyes—were fixed on Pieck with a look of faint amusement. It was the same look she’d worn in the archives, the look of someone who had predicted an outcome and taken quiet satisfaction in being proven right.

Pieck’s pen stilled above the paper. The warm, settled feeling in her chest didn’t vanish, but it tightened slightly, coiling into a flicker of instinctive suspicion. Annie’s visits were rare and never without purpose, even if that purpose was often just checking in. But showing up alone, minutes after the group ambush? That felt deliberate.

“Annie,” Pieck said, her voice carefully neutral. The ambassador’s mask didn’t slam down—that would have been an overreaction—but it settled over her features like a familiar, lighter veil. She gestured toward one of the chairs facing her desk. “Come in.”

Annie pushed off from the doorframe and stepped inside, letting the door swing mostly closed behind her. She didn’t take the offered chair. Instead, she wandered a few steps into the room, her gaze doing a slow sweep that took in Pieck at her desk, Stefan at his, the treaty volume open between them. Her expression didn’t change.

“I’m here about the Paradisian guard rotation,” Annie announced. Her voice was its usual flat monotone, dry as dust. “For the harbor ceremony next week.”

She said it like she was reading from a script she found mildly boring. Her eyes, however, lingered on Pieck’s face for a beat too long before sliding over to Stefan, who had looked up from his map at her entrance. The faint smirk playing at the corner of Annie’s mouth made the professional excuse utterly transparent. They all knew Reiner had already used that exact pretext earlier in the day when the group first invaded. For Annie to trot it out again now, alone, was so blatantly a cover story that it bordered on parody.

Pieck leaned back in her chair slowly, setting her pen down on the blotter with a soft click. The suspicion bloomed a little wider. This wasn’t a social call about security logistics; they both knew Armin handled those details with Paradis directly. This was something else.

“The guard rotation,” Pieck repeated evenly. I thought Armin was finalizing that with Paradis directly.”

“He is.” Annie shrugged one shoulder, a minute gesture. “There’s a discrepancy in the posted schedules for the Marleyan side. Reiner said you’d have the updated roster.” She finally moved to lean against the front of Pieck’s desk instead of sitting, crossing her ankles. Her pose was casual, but her attention was fixed and unwavering. “He also mentioned you two were hiding in the archives. I figured I’d track you down myself.”

The subtext hung in the sunlit air between them, almost audible. I figured I’d find you alone. Or rather, not quite alone.

Stefan had gone very still at his desk, his hands resting on either side of the open map. He was watching Annie with a careful neutrality, though Pieck could see the slight tension return to his jaw. He was waiting, reading the room just as she was.

Pieck held Annie’s gaze for a long moment. The buzz of warmth from before was still there underneath everything, but now it was threaded with this new, taut wire of anticipation. Annie wasn’t here for guard rotations. She was here for answers.

“The updated Marleyan roster should be with Logistics,” Pieck said finally, deciding to play along with the thin pretext for now. “But I can have Stefan pull a copy for you.” She glanced toward him, giving a small nod.

Stefan moved immediately, rising from his chair to go to one of the grey filing cabinets against the wall. His movements were efficient and silent as he located the correct drawer.

Annie watched him go, then turned her pale blue eyes back to Pieck. Her smirk deepened just a fraction.

Pieck watched Annie watch Stefan, that flicker of suspicion hardening into a certainty. She was still riding the gentle high from the archives, from the uncomplicated joy of being seen and accepted, but the ambassador’s instincts were too deeply ingrained to switch off completely. Annie’s presence here, alone, after the group spectacle, felt like a deliberate follow-up. A quieter, more focused interrogation. Pieck kept her expression politely interested, the professional mask settled comfortably over the private woman beneath. She could play this game; she played versions of it every day.

“Thank you,” Annie said as Stefan returned with a thin manila folder. He handed it to her without a word, his eyes meeting hers for a brief, assessing moment before he returned to his desk. He didn’t sit down immediately, though. He busied himself with realigning the pencils beside his blotter, then slowly lowered himself back into his chair. His presence was a quiet anchor in the room, a stabilizing point Pieck could feel without looking. He was waiting, just as she was, to see where this would go.

Annie took the folder, glanced at the first page without really seeing it, and then tossed it onto Pieck’s desk with a soft thump. The sound was dismissive, a period at the end of the pretense. She straightened up from her lean against the desk, uncrossing her ankles, and fixed Pieck with a direct, knowing look. All traces of vague amusement were gone, replaced by a stark clarity that was uniquely Annie.

The guard rotation was forgotten. The office, with its treaties and maps and bureaucratic hum, seemed to recede. It was just the three of them now in a pocket of charged quiet.

“So,” Annie said. Her voice was still dry, pared down to its essentials, but it wasn’t unkind. It was just blunt, the way she’d always been. “How long have you actually had him wrapped around your little finger?”

The question landed in the room without preamble, sharp and specific. It wasn’t about if or why, but how long. Annie was operating from a position of confirmed fact, which was honestly refreshing after a year of secrecy. There was no judgment in the phrasing, just a flat curiosity that acknowledged the power dynamic for what it was.

Pieck didn’t flinch. The ambassador’s mask didn’t crack; it simply became irrelevant. This wasn’t a diplomatic inquiry. This was Annie. She felt the last vestiges of defensive strategy drain away, leaving behind a surprising lightness. She could lie, of course. She could deflect or offer a vague non-answer. But what was the point? Annie had seen them in the archives. She’d been part of the laughing, jostling group that had escorted them back here. The secret, with this particular audience, was already over.

A slow, genuine smile spread across Pieck’s face, one that reached her eyes and softened the careful planes of her features. She glanced over at Stefan. He was looking back at her, a faint, resigned smile tugging at his own mouth. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug—well, go on then.

“Officially?” Pieck said, turning her gaze back to Annie. “About 16 months. Since the spring after the Eldian Status Commission was dissolved.” She leaned back in her chair, the leather creaking softly. “Unofficially… he started bringing me reports from the Liberio precinct that were suspiciously well-summarized about six months before that. I thought he was just a very thorough officer.”

From his desk, Stefan let out a soft huff of air that might have been a laugh. “They were patrol logs,” he said, his voice mild. “You kept asking for context on harbor district sentiment. Summarizing was the only way to make them readable.”

“See?” Pieck said to Annie, spreading her hands slightly. “Wrapped.”

Annie’s lips quirked. She didn’t smile often, but this was close—a faint tilting at the corners that signaled deep approval. She pulled the visitor’s chair closer to Pieck’s desk and finally sat down, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. The posture was unnervingly focused.

“The logistics must have been a nightmare,” Annie stated, as if commenting on the complexity of a military maneuver. “You’re Ambassador Finger. He was Marleyan police. You live in a fishbowl.”

And just like that, they were in it: a surprisingly light-hearted, frank conversation. The tension evaporated, replaced by a kind of professional curiosity from Annie and a disarmed honesty from Pieck. It felt like debriefing after a successful, if unorthodox, operation.

“They were,” Pieck admitted freely. The relief of talking about it openly, with someone who understood the stakes implicitly, was intoxicating. “The cover story about him being my live-in aide was Armin’s idea, actually. He pointed out that no one questions domestic help if they’re competent and invisible. Stefan just had to become exceptionally competent at being invisible.”

“It helps that people see what they expect to see,” Stefan added quietly from his nook. He wasn’t typing anymore; he was just listening, fully included in the circle of conversation. “A former officer turned civil servant assisting a dignitary is a logical career path. A romantic entanglement is… less so.”

Annie nodded once, a sharp dip of her chin. “So you manage everything here.” She gestured vaguely at the office. “The reports, the schedules.”

“And everything there,” Pieck said, tilting her head toward the window, in the general direction of their apartment. “The meals, the laundry, making sure I don’t work through the night unless it’s critical.” She paused, a more private smile touching her lips. “He folds my socks in thirds.”

Annie blinked slowly. “Why?”

“I have no idea,” Pieck said cheerfully. “But they fit perfectly in the drawer.”

Stefan cleared his throat softly. “It maximizes drawer space and minimizes fabric strain.”

Annie looked from Pieck to Stefan and back again, her expression utterly deadpan. “Right.” She shifted slightly in her chair, her gaze sharpening again. “And when you’re gone for weeks? Odiha, Paradis? What’s the protocol then?”

The questions were pointed, digging into the practical mechanics of their secret life, but they were asked with a dry, almost clinical interest that held no malice. Annie was teasing her, Pieck realized with a start. This was Annie’s version of teasing: forensic analysis of their relationship’s operational security.

“Coded messages in official pouches,” Pieck answered readily enough now that the dam had broken. “Banal updates about household matters that aren’t banal at all. He sends me coastal trade summaries because he knows I like remembering the view from our window.” She didn’t mention the hoodie she’d stolen to Odiha or the breakdown upon her return; those details felt too raw for this clinical dissection, even if Annie would likely understand them best of all.

“And he stays here,” Annie said, not quite a question.

“He holds the fort,” Pieck confirmed softly. Her eyes drifted back to Stefan, who met her look steadily. “He keeps our reality intact so I have something solid to come back to. Otherwise…” She trailed off with a small shrug that encompassed Odiha’s hollow loneliness.

Annie followed her gaze to Stefan, studying him for a long moment with that unnerving directness. He endured it calmly, waiting for whatever assessment was coming next.

“Efficient,” Annie finally pronounced, turning back to Pieck. There was no irony in the word this time; it was simply an observation of fact.

“Efficient,” Annie repeated, and this time a proper smirk did surface, subtle but unmistakable. “It explains the reports, anyway.”

Pieck raised an eyebrow. “The reports?”

“Your post-summit briefings,” Annie said, leaning back in the chair now, her arms crossing again. “They used to take a week to land on Armin’s desk, and they’d be… thorough, but messy. All the pieces were there, but you had to dig.” She gestured toward Stefan with a slight tilt of her head. “For the last year, they show up in two days. Indexed. Cross-referenced. The annexes actually match the citations. Armin mentioned it once—said it was like you’d finally hired a proper archivist. Her pale eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. “Turns out you just moved one in.”

Pieck couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her—a short, genuine sound that felt good in her throat. She looked over at Stefan, who had the decency to look faintly abashed, though a small, proud smile played on his lips. He’d been polishing her work for months, and she’d never consciously registered the systemic improvement. She’d just appreciated the ease of it.

“He has a system,” Pieck said by way of explanation, her tone fond.

“Obviously,” Annie replied, the dryness returning.

Disarmed completely now by Annie’s straightforwardness, Pieck found herself answering without any filter at all. The high from the archives merged with this new, quiet candor, leaving her feeling pleasantly transparent. “It’s not just the reports,” she said, her voice dropping into something more contemplative. “It’s… coming home. Actually coming home. Not to an empty apartment or a hotel suite with room service, but to a place where the lights are on and there’s a meal that isn’t banquet food.” She paused, searching for the right words, which seemed to come easier here in this sunlit office than they ever did in a negotiation. “It’s having one person who doesn’t need a performance. Who doesn’t need Ambassador Finger to be charming or strategic or unshakeable. Who just needs… Pieck to be tired. Or quiet. Or hungry.”

She didn’t look at Stefan as she said it, but she could feel his gaze on her, warm and steady. It was an anchor point.

“He makes stew,” she added, as if this were a critical piece of intelligence. “The kind that simmers all day. You can smell it from the hallway.”

Annie listened without interruption, her expression unchanging but her attention absolute. She didn’t offer sympathy or agreement; she just absorbed the information, filing it away with the same efficiency she’d noted in Stefan.

“Stew is practical,” Annie commented after a moment. “It waits.”

“Exactly,” Pieck said, the simplicity of it striking her anew.

From his desk, Stefan spoke up again, his voice a soft rumble in the quiet room. “It also reheats well when summit dinners run three hours overtime.” He said it matter-of-factly, but the underlying truth—that he waited, that he kept things warm—hung in the air between them.

Pieck smiled at him, a private, soft thing before turning back to Annie. “See? Wrapped.”

“Not wrapped,” Stefan corrected gently, a dry note entering his tone. “Invested. There’s a difference.” He was teasing her back now, fully part of the conversation, no longer just the subject of it.

“Semantics,” Pieck shot back, but her smile widened.

Annie watched this small exchange, her sharp eyes missing nothing. She didn’t smile again, but something in her posture relaxed another fraction, a final layer of assessment complete. After another moment of silence, she pushed herself up from the chair with that fluid, economical movement of hers.

“I should go,” she said, though she made no immediate move toward the door. “Armin will probably be missing his girlfriend by now.” A flicker of dry humor crossed her face. “It’ll be good to have another couple around, anyway. So the rest of them won’t just keep teasing us.” She picked up the manila folder from Pieck’s desk, tapping its edge against her palm.

She looked at Stefan first, giving him a single, slow nod. It wasn’t a greeting or a farewell; it was a nod of deep approval, an unspoken transfer of recognition from one person who had chosen a quiet life adjacent to legend to another. Stefan met the look and nodded back once, just as solemnly.

Then Annie turned to Pieck. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and fixed her with that direct blue stare once more.

“He’s good for you,” Annie said quietly. The words weren’t sentimental; they were an observation as factual as her note about the reports. But they carried a weight that sentimentality never could have managed. She searched for the right phrasing, her brow furrowing slightly before it cleared. “Lets you be… just Pieck.”

She said it like it was the most obvious conclusion in the world, and perhaps to Annie Leonhart, it was. Then she pulled the door open and slipped out into the corridor without another word, closing it softly behind her.

The click of the latch seemed unusually loud in the sudden quiet.

Pieck sat very still in her chair, staring at the space where Annie had been standing. The words echoed in the warm, sunlit room. Just Pieck. It was such a simple concept, and yet it felt like the most elusive state of being she knew. For seventeen days in Odiha, she had forgotten what it felt like entirely.

She slowly let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and turned her head to look at Stefan.

He was already looking at her, his expression soft and open in a way he rarely allowed outside their apartment. The professional aide was completely gone. In his place was just Stefan, watching her with a warmth that felt like a physical touch across the space between their desks.

Neither of them spoke for a long minute. The office settled back into its familiar rhythms—the distant clatter of a typewriter from another room, the muffled conversation of clerks passing in the hall, the steady tick of the wall clock above the door. But the quality of the silence inside the room had changed. It was thicker now, richer. It was no longer the quiet of two people maintaining a fiction; it was the quiet of two people inhabiting a shared truth that had just been witnessed and affirmed by perhaps the most discerning judge they knew.

A settled, warm quiet filled the space between them, buzzing softly with the aftermath of confession and acceptance.

Pieck finally moved first, picking up her pen again. She didn’t look at the Hizuru analysis; she just turned the pen over in her fingers, watching the light glint off its silver barrel.

“She’s not wrong,” Pieck said quietly into the comfortable silence.

Stefan didn’t ask what she meant. He simply held her gaze for another heartbeat before turning back to his coastal chart. He picked up a blue pencil and made another tiny notation in the margin.

“No,” he agreed softly, his voice barely above a murmur yet perfectly clear in the still room. “She rarely is.”

And with that, they both returned to their work—not as ambassador and aide playing roles under threat of exposure, but as partners whose reality had just been quietly ratified by a friend who understood the value of peace kept behind closed doors. The sun continued its slow slide across the floorboards, painting everything in gold, and for now, in this room overlooking Liberio’s bureaucratic heart, everything felt exactly as it should be.