He has not thought about it before this and he is currently too panicked and tired to string a thought together clearly and - no, actually, that's fine, that's probably the best available avenue to give Leareth bad information. "Maybe he'll try right now, if he's frightened by the evidence you can do things we didn't expect. Maybe it will occur to him he can get some of the numbers he needs by engineering a rash of suicides like this one and blaming them on the terrorists. Maybe he will be dispirited and decide to abandon this project and lie low until you and Vkandis are done slugging it out."

Sigh. :Come back to it, I think, he's worn out and not thinking well at this point: Pause. :He's going to be extremely distressed if you leave, but I suspect it's still better if you leave for now and come back once he's slept and doesn't remember this -  Jisa thinks Quendi have better short-term memory than humans and he might well be able to hold onto the important bits as long as he's awake, even if we try to distract him: 

Right.

"That is all the questions I have for now," he says. Nods curtly. "There is food and water out here if you want it. If you try to refuse to eat or drink, eventually we are going to have to use a compulsion or something, but I will let you decide for now." 

He leaves, slips around behind several tapestried dividing screens that would be confusing even if Maitimo weren't missing his ability to track things spatially, and ducks out through the door. 

"Melody. How is he." 

- too lost in horror and misery to move, because Leareth is gone, everything is lost and Leareth is gone and he will be alone forever, for as long as it takes him to die - and they're going to drag that out, and that's confusing, why, once they have everything they need - Sauron would do it but Leareth's different -

Melody relays this, unhappily. 

Oh no. Well, the hard part is over and they know what they need to know and now it's all right if he can't stay in control of his face - which is good because apparently he is going to cry. 

Melody hesitates and then hugs him. "I know. I'm really sorry." 

"Can you make him sleep now with your Gift?" Telumë asks her, half-desperately. 

"I'll have to go in there, I can't do that one from here. Jisa could project and get him calmed down a bit from here, but - he'd suspect we were doing it, it'd be hostile, right. And it'll upset her. There's a reason I arranged for it to not be her shift when he woke up." 

"You have shields," Telumë points out. "I can go in and cover you, just stay out of sight. Please." 

"...All right. But we can't do this all the time. He's going to be awake and distressed a lot. I'm sorry." 

And Melody follows Telumë back into the spacious underground bunker, which is divided up into sections and has multiple doors and routes between different areas and mirrors and various other tricks to seem bigger than it is. With Telumë covering her from behind the curtain, she tiptoes up to Maitimo's bed. 

He is lying there trying to figure out ways around the block on suicide.

If he's going to be doing that constantly then probably she needs to sit down with Jisa and make sure it's thorough enough. Though it matters less now - but if he dies he's not coming back until after Sauron is defeated, because Mandos can't fix oaths, and - and Telumë would be distraught about it, and it still seems possible they can fix the oaths faster than that, Jisa is certainly very determined about it. 

She touches his shoulder and a second later Maitimo is asleep. She tiptoes out again. They leave. 

"Get some rest," she tells Telumë. "I'll send someone to get you when he's awake again." 

He wakes up in a very pretty room, which would be reassuring except for the fact that it mostly just communicates that they still need him alive, which, of course they do. - shouldn't think about any of that, they'll be listening - 

- honestly the listening feels like more of a constraint than whatever they've done to his head, he seems capable of stringing thoughts together but he shouldn't. Should - what did he do last time, scatter his thoughts to the winds, but he could do that because there were people - 

- safe thoughts, there have got to be some thoughts that are safe to have -

- how did they do it? Jisa and Stef. One of them did a Gate - Jisa did the Gate. Jisa wasn't a mage. She must've figured out how to become a mage, figured out how to conceal that she was a mage, figured out interdimensional Gates, smuggled herself and Stef into Valdemar - Stef could've made them seem less suspicious - very well done, every step of it, and not Leareth's plan, probably because they had guessed how thoroughly Maitimo had defended himself against every avenue he knew Leareth could use. 

Bad luck, over and over - the sign the gods were against you. The Companion god, probably. And the Star-Eyed. And probably soon now - no, he mustn't think about that -

He tries not to consciously think through his plan. It is in one sense easy, because he's thought about it before, and in another very hard, because - why, actually - oh, because he's alone except for Leareth probably reading his thoughts from a distance and he misses him so badly - that doesn't matter right now. - or actually that's a fine place to start. 

He rolls over and sobs. And waits.

"Maitimo." A voice that is slightly familiar even though it isn't familiar at all. "I am here. I have a different body, but - it is me." 

" - I know what you look like. From the pass."

"...That makes sense." He wasn't there but he would have gotten reports. "I wish to speak to you. Or - just see you, for now, I have questions but that can wait a little." 

It's Jisa on shift now. :He hasn't guessed yet: 

- confusion. " - well. I'm here." He stares at him like he can somehow have him back if he memorizes the new face thoroughly enough. "I can - work with you on the questions, I think, I just need to get used to everything you've done to my head first -"

"I missed you. So much. I know we are - not on the same side, currently - but I am still very glad to see you again." Telumë moves closer, sits on the foot of the bed.

Pretty much everyone has pointed out that this is probably a terrible idea and will just give Maitimo an avenue to manipulate him, and it is, but...Maitimo's distress yesterday wasn't faked, even if it was strategic. Sauron wanted him to still love Leareth and so he does. And he won't remember this tomorrow, which limits how badly Telumë can screw up, and he's a mage, and shielded, Maitimo can only really hurt him emotionally. 

"I missed you too." More confusion, some of the questions are time-sensitive, and setting that aside it'd be stupid for Leareth to do this to himself before an interrogation that's going to be very - oh. That already happened, so now he wants to - soothe himself.

Maitimo has no reason to deny him that, and doesn't want to. "Will you hold me?"

:I think he guessed. Seems pretty calm about it. I'll warn you if that changes, but - right now he's not thinking about ways to hurt you: 

"Of course." Telumë shifts closer, holds out his arms. He's kind of awkwardly sized right now to hold Maitimo; his new body is hopefully not done growing yet because he really hopes he's going to end up taller than this. 

Hug. Lean. What does Leareth need to hear - and does he want to give Leareth what he needs to hear or will it just mean this never happens again - no, that doesn't matter. Right now it is not strategically important to accomplish anything. When Leareth has goals he won't come here like this, he will come here cold and guarded and with truth magic - he's not subtle enough to switch it up. So there is nothing at stake, and he can just decide whether he is willing to be unhappy so that Leareth is happier, and he is, it's very precisely the thing none of the oaths touched. So what does Leareth need to hear right now. 

"I was proud of you. The whole time. People kept saying that it sounded like a reasonable set of steps, and I'd think - you don't know him - and miss you - I'm so sorry - I never wanted you to be alone again - have I given you the memories already -"

"I was proud of you too," Telumë admits. "You kept doing things that were - brilliant, and very very inconvenient, and so - you - and understanding me so well... What about memories?"