'Broken angel you've got to learn to fly
Get up and earn your wings tonight'
~Hansen (Broken Angel)
She felt like a princess when she was younger. Everything she ever wanted she got. All except a puppy. And then one day, when she was walking home from school, she even got that. He was a golden retriever, his brown eyes begging her to take him home.
She did, but later she wished she hadn't.
Ashley would never forget the look in her father's eyes when he saw the little dog. Anger danced with them, along with frustration. It was a long time until she realised what this meant.
Aged eighteen was when she first met Aaron Hotchner and David Rossi. It was a day she often visited in her mind, analysing it from all angles, trying to convince herself it was all a hoax, a cruel trick that Fate decided to play on her. It wasn't a lie, however, and she found herself being restrained by one of the agents - Hotchner she thought - as she tried to get to her father, to run up to him as he was being led away and ask why, why he had done this to them.
She never knew it at the time, but this would prompt her to join the FBI herself. Follow in the footsteps of the agents that she had for so long hated. They ripped apart her life, showed her the truth, and now she just wanted to be that little girl again. The one who felt like a princess. The one who had a family.
Her mother had never been the same. She turned to drink, anything to separate herself from reality. From the fact that she had married a murderer. To this day, Ashley never knew if she had known all along, and part of her never wanted to know the answer anyway.
She excelled in the training program. Her tutors threw around words such as 'driven' and 'determined'. They never knew the broken young woman who so desperately wanted to repent for the sins of her father. The young woman who felt a crippling guilt every time she recalled the faces of her father's victims. She wanted to distance herself from it, become the opposite of him. Just because she was the daughter of a serial killer did not mean she was destined to follow in his footsteps. All they saw, however, was the trainee, the pawn that they could mould as they wished. They never cared for the reasons her grades were so high, they only cared that she got results.
And then it came. The opportunity she had wanted since Reality had came knocking at her family's door. David Rossi entered her life again, but this time, instead of destroying it, he gave it meaning. She knew she was only helping the Behavioural Analysis Unit as a consult, however, maybe now she could pay back some of her debt. Since her father was unable to, it was up to her to relieve the family of their burden.
It went wrong, horribly wrong. Instead she found herself trapped with their unsub, the cold metal of a knife pressed against her throat. She felt scared. Now she knew what her father's victims felt like, shortly before their life was extinguished. However, today she wasn't meant to die. Her saviour came in the form of Aaron Hotchner. Livid though he may be, he saved her life, and that was something she wouldn't forget.
She found it odd how the two men that had turned her world upside down were slowly righting it. With their help she was closer to understanding, closer to healing. She knew it would take time, but as she sat in the SUV, tears streaming down her face, she felt hopeful.
A/N: This is my one-shot for the theme song challenge on Chit Chat on Author's Corner. I received the song Broken Angel by Hansen (see the quote above) and the character Ashley Seaver from HansonFanGermany. I apologise if this is awful, I haven't seen many episodes with Seaver in them - I live in Britain and so we've only just reached With Friends Like These. It isn't as long as I would have liked but I hope it suffices :)
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Criminal Minds... but I do own Hotch... wait a minute how is that illegal?... oh right, kidnapping is a crime, I did not know this *runs*
I apologise for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes contained within this story.
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