and we fall in line

But Division was not existant anymore. There was no reason to question, to doubt; all Valentina needed now were some answers, preferably quick. She followed as the other brunette took turns and lead her into an alley, sure that while she still avoided contact with any kind of physical violence, she could react quickly and defend herself - she was still well-trained, and still a quick thinker. To people that didn’t know about her past, it was wiped out. Along with all evidence … but to Ashley, she would have to explain.

Leaning against the rough wall as she dug her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, she nodded. “Well, they said you were murdered, to be needlessly accurate, but yeah.” Considering that to the outside world, all of them had been declared dead as soon as they had been recruited for Division, it only made sense that Ashley was stil going by a new identity, if she even had gotten one. Valentina figured that when she got out she must have kept herself hidden for a while, knowing how efficient the agency’s so-called Cleaners had been. Find someone, go in, bury their bodies respectfully in acid. ”You … triggered a pretty big wave to come crashing down on us, you know. Riots, mainly.”

“You’re serious?”, she crossed her arms in front of her chest as the weight of it hit her. Riots. She’d seen enough about those in the recent political struggles of the country. In a place like Division it would’ve been contained to the facility but that wasn’t exactly reassuring her. People she knew might have died in those riots. Ashley took in a sharp breath of air when she felt the edge of panic getting close. She wouldn’t fall off that edge, she never has and she wouldn’t now. Instead she relaxed her composure, calmed her breath. It wasn’t her fault. It had all been completely out of her control. I can’t be blamed for the actions of other people.

Valentina felt herself gasping again, with something she felt to be relief. Relief that someone else had gotten through Division without being completely destroyed, physically and mentally. Since the fall of the agency, the brunette had not seen another one of the agents or recruits; she had no idea where her former allies were, still refusing to accept what was probably fact - that they all died.

After some time you spent with people, you begin to read their facial expressions, the way they handle themselves, their body language; but in this situation it was extremely difficult to do so. Sure, Valentina had always liked to disguise herself and prevent patterns that would reveal what she really felt under the mask she wore, but the more she had opened herself up to certain people and actually, overall, that disguise had slipped and even she had gotten easier to read. At least she thought that of herself and still, Ashley seemed to be rather confused by her actions. Two years was a long time, especially for these two. Valentina had by no means wanted to come across as menancing whatsoever in that situation, and so she tried for the smallest of smiles, even if she wasn’t fully able to control her facial features yet; still in shock, still studying the other young woman.

The two women walked towards a more private place to talk than a store with too many curious ears, eyes and surveillance cameras. Of course you couldn’t really escape being seen by the cameras in a city like New York, but Ashley had always known how to keep her head down and not attract attention. She’d never thought that one day she’s be where she was now but the time she’d spent living among the rats of the streets was still coming in handy. After they had turned a few corners they landed in an alleyway, where the chances of being seen or overheard were reduced to a minimum.

“So…”, she started but couldn’t look at her opposite directly, so instead she focused on a spot to the left of Valentina, “They told you I was dead.” It really made sense to her in a way. Admitting that one of the recruits had managed to escape would only infuse the will to rebel in others and Olivia Steele wouldn’t let it come to that. Ashley didn’t know what kind of tell had been spun to explain the disaster of what happened but she was curious to know.

Never once in the last years had she looked back and hoped to return to the life she’d had. At least she hadn’t dwelled on it for too long. It was either too painful or just didn’t matter at all. She knew that she was dead should any member of Division recognise her, so she kept her head down and went to a school in the countryside for a while. That had kept her too busy to dwell since she was missing years in proper school education. Street kids didn’t go to school usually unless a social worker with a hero complex forced them to, in her experience.

Until she saw Ashley. Valentina had stuck to her method of pushing memories back and trying to forget about them for as long as she could, but she had come to realize that in the end, it was no option. All the hurt, the deaths, the loss and the pain that the fall of the agency had brought with it; she had looked into its eye and withstood it. Still - it was appealing to do so and she still caught herself using that method. Step by step … right?

But how had she gotten out? How was she still alive? Painful memories rushed through her mind from when the word had gotten out that a fellow recruit had killed the agency’s own psychiatrist and another recruit - her. Had she used this opportunity, everyone thinking she was dead, to flee the bunker? Or had the Division made up the entire story just to keep the recruits down? Valentina had known that she had been lied to over and over, that she had lived their lies willingly - but for some reason, she had never doubted Ryan was a murderer. Maybe that was because he had not taken lives, but also, he had unleashed an aftermath that … she could not let herself think about what had followed. That is in the past now.

The chuckle that preceded the question was unsettling her even more, unsure if it was a sign of sudden madness – clearly this wasn’t a joke – or simply her way of coping with the stressfulness of the situation. She feared that maybe there was a bit of both in it. After all the other woman had spent more time working for Division than she had and Ashley knew how that place could turn around people’s heads.

"No tricks.", she said, putting up her hands in a defensive movement. She felt herself pushed into a corner that she had never hoped to find herself in and running away seemed like the most comfortable option. Yet Ashley with all her flaws and cowardice had rarely been one to run away from her problems, knowing that they just came back to haunt her anyway. Seeing Valentina in front of her right now was only proof of that theory.

"And it’s not that easy to explain.", partly because she still wasn’t sure about all the details herself. It had been such a sudden and unexpected opportunity that she hadn’t known which questions to ask and what to do apart from what she was told. She didn’t feel comfortable with discussing this out in the open like this either, since you could never know who would be listening in to a foreign conversation. Would it seem odd to ask the woman she’s known as a recruit to come home with her? Her own four walls always gave her some sense of security like one could penetrate its thin walls.

She was much more of an analyst now than she was an agent, but they kept their options open. Most importantly, they didn’t plan on using her for kill missions, and that was what counted the most. It was a day job, but it used everything she had gone through and turned it into something useful, and by now Valentina understood that she wasn’t a civilian anymore. Really… she didn’t fit in. Or had she ever? She was Valentina Abernathy, no code names or disguises. She lived in an apartment she paid for with the money she earned, she bought her own clothes and food. She didn’t have to go around being alert. Maybe this was freedom.

Maybe it's not her, maybe it's not Valentina, she thought but trying to convice herself of that was as futile as trying to harvest plumb strawberries in winter. Memories came back to her of a swim in the dark of night, of her own muddleheadedness on one of the morning appeals where she had lost her shoe. They weren't unpleasant images but she had almost forgotten about them, in the way you forget things that you push so far back into your mind in order to not make them hurt you. 

Somewhere in that part of her brain Ashley had another thought lingering, a very important one but it had been buried under the debris of the unexpected confrontation, so it took a moment to actually come back to the surface. Division was gone. The group that had gotten her out had told her so and what reason did she have to not believe them. After all the saved her life, when they pulled her out. While she had never been quite that against the idea of working for the secret organisation, she had to admit that the freedom she had now was better than any comfort they could've offered her. 

A sigh slid from Valentina’s lips, long and slurred, as she rolled her eyes at the display of silly costumes on the wall in front of her. Hell, it had been 26 years and she had never dressed up in one of those; all these years and she had never bowed down to the strange habit people had on halloween, when actually … disguise used to be her best friend - and it still was in many ways. Sure, Valentina wasn’t the same. Things had changed, for the better, or so she guessed; not mentioning the things that had been ripped apart from her in the process. It had been a while, at least that was what she told herself - adjusting to a life without Division had taken just about as long as doing to one with the agency, and still sometimes it felt like it hadn’t been enough. Hell, most likely, Valentina had forgiven. But it was impossible to forget.

The Brunette ran a hand through her long, wavy hair and took a few steps down the aisle she was in. It was impossible. She would never spend money on a sexy maid costume. Valentina was just about to turn around and leave the store to boycott this stupid get-together-whatever. Some things stuck to her like glue, features she had trained to stay, like her undying hate of social, silly stuff like this, of opening herself up, of telling her story, of revealing herself. Yeah, they worked on it. But they never got through, still, not like she had let someone through before.

She was still bad at lying, still bad at keeping her fingers to herself, still bad at not getting lost in the rush that the thought of possessing something gave her. What she was good at though was keeping her head down and disappearing in a crowd. Blending in was easy if the people in your company only cared about your past if it suited them - and since most people are too self-absorbed they rarely were interested in knowing.

Today however Ashley was set on indulging herself by getting something to wear for the Halloween Party that a friend was throwing at her parents' club. She liked Dean well enough but she was way more excited about the party itself - including free drinks and loud music - than the people she'd meet. Conversations were meaningless and by the time that it was closer to two in the morning, most of them would be too drunk to recall much more than a blur. 

Her grin grew wider when Valentina agreed to do some sparring later into the day. Sparring with her was one of the best trainings she’d have that didn’t involve looking out for your counterpart to not break your nose, wrist or other bones for that matter. So far she’d been lucky but she had noticed that most recruits sooner or later got hurt quite bad in the training and maybe the pain was also part of what Division wanted to teach then – that you get hurt when fighting and that you need to get hurt sometimes in order to win – but still Ashley wasn’t very keen to experience it herself.  

“Awesome! I’ll see you then!” Steele had finally stopped retelling her speech and the formation was nearing its end. In front of them the recruits started to scatter slowly, the volume level rising considerably while they did. Ashley waved at her favourite sparring partner before quickly slipping away in search for someone eager to lose their shoe to her swift fingers.

“Well that’s something then!”, she went on to lean her arms on the edge of the pool, paddling idly with her feet underwater. “You just need to have a few days of not getting beat up and then you’ll be fine.” Ashley was well aware though that the place they were trapped in was not going to let him – or her for that matter – off the hook that easily. Anyway if she’d wanted to get out just to not be here anymore she could’ve simply killed herself or let herself get killed in the exercise. These thoughts made the smile fade away from her face because she still felt the events weight hard down on her. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to form the words to express the weird mixture of betrayal, fear and confusion she felt. Did he feel even slightly as shaken as she did?