Ch 3
The beginning of his trip was a bewildering blur. First using technology he only vaguely understood to navigate to a seemingly random spot in the ocean, he waited for an entire day, which of course is when he realized he had left his Icha Icha at home. Then to be picked up in an enormous iron boat and stuck with countless needles, which he was assured were for his own protection. After the sixth needle, he stopped questioning which inoculations he was being given and simply gave up his arm as a pin cushion, forcing himself to stop counting as well. He spent a week holed up in his tiny cabin with only training to keep him occupied. There was no point in over-thinking any particular aspect of his mission, so he kept his body tired and on the point of exhaustion, which incidentally would take all day to accomplish.
He arrived at the dock early in the morning hours, only to be quickly ushered into a giant metal thing on wheels. He knew from his scrolls it was called a car, but he was honestly too exhausted from training and too grateful to be off the damned boat to care about checking out his surroundings. All he wanted was a bed to sleep in that didn't rock on its' own. When he was awoken some time later, he wanted to laugh at the fact that the motion of the car has lulled him to sleep. Groggy and sore, he let the driver of the car guide him into a motel room, where he crashed on to the bed, clothes and all.
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Unfamiliar sounds awoke his brain, and he was awake and aware in an instant, his ears fighting to recognize the noises that had disturbed his sleep. Looking around, he noticed the man from the night before sleeping on the bed next to his, and a quick look at a clock showed it was six in the morning. Habits long ingrained kicked in, spurring him to quickly check the room for signs of anyone other than themselves, and was relieved to find none. Starting his daily routine in the bathroom, he quickly cleaned up and changed into some clothes that had been left for him. Stepping out, and feeling so much cleaner to not smell like salt air, he noticed his roommate had finally woken up and was drinking coffee.
"Good morning. I'm sorry for not properly introducing myself last night, but it looked like the long trip took a lot out of you. I'm Gary. I'll be your escort. Hopefully you'll be outta here in about two weeks or less, but it's kinda hard to tell with this particular target." Gary made another cup of coffee as he spoke, handing it to Kakashi when he was done.
"So, basically the plan is to get you to the area, show you where she lives, the places she frequents, the people she talks to. Her work takes her all over the area, so on the weekdays we'll watch her from places we've acquired in all the towns she has worked in. We pretty much won't know where she's going until she gets there, because she has developed this habit of making a schedule and then changing it at the last minute. We don't know if she is doing this intentionally, or it's merely part of her trying to deal with the death of her fiancée by acting like some crazy lady. Now I've been told to remind you that you are to keep your focus and not look out the window when we're in the car, because the less you see of everything, the better. So once you're ready we'll grab some breakfast and head out to watch her work."
Gary watched Kakashi pull on his vest, he not needing to check the pockets to know everything he needed was already there. Gary held open the door and locked it behind them, noting with satisfaction over his shoulder that the only thing his assignment was looking at were his shoes.
"We've bugged a piece of technology she has on her person almost constantly, even when she's not working, so you will be able to listen to her. She sometimes talks to herself out loud, and she doesn't have too bad of a singing voice, but I doubt you'll really learn a whole about her from that." He didn't see the smug smirk on his assignment's face.
Two hours later that Kakashi had spent reviewing the files on his target, they had finally arrived at a gray building. Careful to keep his eyes on the ground, he followed Gary up stairs, through doors, and stopped at a window with a chair in front of it. A pair of binoculars and headphones sat on the chair, both of which he had read about. Taking a quick look around the room, he watched Gary head for another room.
"I'll be killing time in here. Yell if you need anything."
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Mission Report:
Relevant Day 1 - Target sighted. She appears to wash boats for a living, and it is clear that it is a physically strenuous profession. She often works from sunrise to sunset, which here is between 15 – 16 hours. She rarely stops, and then it is only to smoke and snack. She does not appear to eat very much – certainly not enough to maintain the pace she is working at. Possible chakra use to keep her stamina up? She rarely comes into contact with other people on the boats she is cleaning, and when she does she seems to be very personable, often talking to them far longer than necessary if she was only being polite. Target is quick to smile, but it is quick to disappear once people are gone. She is a hard worker, and appears to take pride in her quality of work, often smiling to herself and nodding her head. She listens to music the entire time she is working, often the same list of songs over and over. Only some of them will she sing to, but her voice is thankfully pleasant, as she knows the limits of her range. Note – Target appears to be naturally shy, as she will immediately stop singing if she knows someone is around to hear her. Also, while she has the volume of her music up very high, target has shown she is very capable of hearing well over the noise, and often can hear things at the very top of the human hearing range - which is interesting, as her profile shows she is partially deaf in her right ear.
Target has excellent balance on the water, only injuring herself a few times by stubbing her toes. Target has a very diverse vocabulary of 'colorful language', and seems to do so in several languages. Great dexterity with fingers, and surprisingly toes, has been exhibited with hand tools.
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He had been escorted back into the car before she had finished her last boat, as he was told he needed a chance to scope out her property and determine where he wanted to position himself to watch her. After showing him where they would pick him up and at what time, he was left to trudge through the thick woods at the back of her property. The property itself was long and narrow, with a house practically in the road at the bottom of the property. With nothing on the other side of the road except for beach and ocean, it afforded a beautiful view of the surrounding coastline, a large island that was a national park, and what little could be seen of the city across the water that wasn't blocked by the park. It was quiet, peaceful, and with the steady wind from the ocean the air smelled pure. That house, however, felt like a museum. He inspected it carefully, looking at the family pictures, noting that his target was only in a few of them. It was obviously the mom's house, and while it was neither dusty nor dirty, it had the air of neglect. He doubted she ever set foot in the house unless it was to clean. He remembered a small note in her file mentioning weekly family dinners the three of them had faithfully participated in, which would partially explain her hesitance to be there. Even after inspecting the garage downstairs and the small studio building hidden to the side of the house, he found nothing of interest regarding his target, as everything had been the mother's. He quickly let himself into her house, curious to see how she lived. The target had inherited much after the death of her fiancée, financially and possession-wise, but she seemed to live like a bachelor. The building she lived in looked more like a huge garage, with half of the two-story building actually being a garage, complete with twin car lifts. The top floor had a modeler's dream train set built into the walls, mountains and tiny fake trees everywhere, several towns with buildings and people in the middle of frozen actions, and several train lines running at various elevations. The set had obviously taken years, perhaps decades, to build, and it was clear that it was nowhere near finished. Just as the fledgling layer of dust told him that it probably never would be. Stacked tightly underneath the layout were boxes, taking up every inch of possible storage space and hidden by simple fabric curtain that fell to the floor. Every single box was labeled, most with the single word of 'Allen'. This led him downstairs, where the rooms were nearly bare. A narrow room was empty but for empty shelves and counters, and an oven that looked like it had never been used. The refrigerator was empty as well, that chilled, stale smell offending his nose when he opened it. He could only assume that room had been their make-shift kitchen, it being in-between the main room and the garage. With the kitchen and the room upstairs (which had a bed and a dresser that were the only dust-free items that appeared to be in use - and she was not the kind of person to make her bed, apparently), it stood to reason that the main room downstairs was where he would find out more about her.
The main room, which was sort of like a living room, did not disappoint, although he was curious what to make of it. Half of the room was bare except for an empty corner desk top, a large cabinet with a TV and DVD player, and at the back of the room, half of the shelves were empty. It was as though someone had drawn an imaginary line down the long room and made everything disappear. Her side of the room was in use. There was a drawing table cluttered with pictures she had drawn and was in the process of drawing that he would save for another day. Built in shelves took up most of the long side of the room, with a computer and various objects she used to decorate. Her half of the bookshelves were filled with movies and antique books, some appearing to be almost two hundred years old. He took a few out to look at them, and the printing date confirmed that many of them were well over a century old. Beach shells, antique beer signs, and a few pictures were spread out among the shelves quite skillfully. A few fake plants on her desk showed her preference for the organic, and while her side of the room may have appeared to be cluttered, it gave off the feeling of comfort. A 'tree', the only word he could use to describe it, was twined together out of beach wood and littered with jewelry, none of it expensive. It also appeared to be where she kept her bras, as they hung off the edge of half of the limbs. The Icha Icha part of his mind couldn't help but observe that she appeared to be moderately well-endowed, if those bras were any indication. There was a large map on the wall in front of her computer, an old map of the state he was now in, and pictures had been stuck between the glass protecting the map and the frame. He carefully looked at the pictures, noting that she was in half of them, including one that was only of her. She was obvious much younger in the picture. She was standing in the middle of a snow-covered dirt road, her body in profile. She was only wearing a bra from the waist up, and her bra was nearly see-through. Wondering idly why she was half-naked in such cold weather, he noted the toned but well-padded torso before concentrating on her face. A mischievous, almost gleeful, grin adorned her face, as though she knew she shouldn't be so unclothed in the snow and didn't care. Pulling his gaze away from the picture, he gave the others a glance before disregarding them. A quick scan of the desk showed him where a few photo albums had been stashed, heavily covered in dust, and he decided to look at them after she had retired for the night.
Overall, the room was clean, and with the exception of the smell of cats, which he had still not seen even though he knew she had one, he could only imagine how comfortable the room had been when it had been whole. She was clearly prone to decorating in darker, earthy tones, with things placed to give it a lived in, almost antique feel. It did disturb him that she had banished everything from his side of the room to boxes upstairs, but he was the first person to admit that those in mourning never followed a set pattern or predictable rules, especially in her case when it had only been three months since he had been killed. He would admit to being surprised that she had not appeared to do anything with her newly bestowed money or possessions, as usually people would use it as a crutch to distract them from their grief. Either she was in denial, hiding anything that would remind her of her losses, or she had moved on fairly quickly. Neither seemed likely, but further judgments would have to wait until he could observe her. Mindful that she would be arriving home soon, he quickly placed his cameras around the living room and adjoining bathroom before retreating upstairs to arrange a hiding spot amongst the boxes stacked under the train layout.
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Inspection of the target's house shows she has boxed away almost everything belonging to the fiancée. Only a few pictures of him remain as part of her décor. The target appears to be well suited for solitude, present circumstances taken into account. She is not prone to talking to herself, which is unusual. Over an hour was spent affectionately with the cat, which shows considerable patience, considering how demanding the animal was.
Target shows considerable stamina by exercising and stretching for over an hour after working for nearly 16 hours. Not yet known the motivation behind it, but target seems used to pushing her body to exhaustion on a daily basis. Target received a call from her employer, Josh, during which he seemed to question whether she wanted to continue working. It was obvious this is not the first time she had been asked that. She made it very clear, almost to the point of begging, that she needed something to take up her time during the day. Not known how close she is to her employer, but there is definitely enough respect between the two for him to show concern for her reason behind wanting to continue working when she is not in need financially. She was quite skilled in letting him believe that he is doing her a favor and possibly helping her deal with her loss by giving her time to 'not have to worry about anything except making sure shit is clean.' While there was some truth to her statement, the target is most likely in avoidance still.
Target went to bed long after sun went down. She ate a very generous dinner, assumedly to make up for her lack of calories during the day. While she fell asleep almost immediately, it was interesting that she does not appear to get restful sleep. Her dreams were apparently disturbing, at one point waking her up. She retrieved a shirt from one of her dressers and held onto it, which somehow enabled her to sleep without issue for the rest of the night.
Relevant Day 2 – Target was awake after six hours of sleep. She has a strict schedule that she is used to, probably necessary considering the chronic lack of sleep. Time is spent with the cat before an hour is used to stretch and exercise in the same manner as in the evening. She appears to use yoga and meditation.
Note: The shirt she slept with during the night is a man's shirt, smelling very faintly of beer and peppermint.
Her work day shows no variation of any kind, save for location. She works alone, eats alone, and appears to prefer the lack of human interaction. The target only shows signs of exhaustion when taking her quick break in-between boats, and there is no sign of it once she begins work again. As it is the last work day of the week for her, it will be interesting to see if she is prone to such weakness during the beginning of the week, or if it is accumulative. Again, target appears to unknowingly use chakra to minimize the effects of exhaustion and malnutrition.
Target is prone to random acts of kindness, such as feeding birds food she doesn't like, holding doors open for other women, and even taking earthworms from parking lots to deposit them on grassy areas. It is evident that these acts are habit and require no thought on her part. She goes out of her way to take spiders off of the boats she is cleaning so they are not rinsed into the ocean.
The end of her day is exactly like the day before. She spends time with the cat, who was outside all day, performs an hour of yoga, eats, and goes to bed. Her sleeping habit was slightly different, as the cat fell asleep on her chest, and she did not move the entire time.
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He had personally thought it was funny to watch her wake up and startle over the pair of feline eyes that were less than an inch away from her own, but he noticed that she had enough control over her body not to flinch enough to disturb the cat. The smile that he saw on her face as she said good morning and gave him a good scratch behind the ears was what he could only describe as heartbroken, and once the cat began purring she couldn't even maintain that much. He knew then that the cat was heavily tied to her memories of Allen, and it was both comforting and torturous to have the cat around. He was also very curious as to why a male cat was named Gwen.
He could only assume she woke based on her biological clock, as she seemed to use no alarms, and as she was up as early as she had been during the week, he was curious as to how she would spend her time. Not surprisingly, she began with her customary coffee and yoga, although this time she spent over two hours doing the latter. After a shower (and he was delighted with the fact that she walked naked from the downstairs bathroom to her dressers upstairs to gather her clothes and then back downstairs still naked before getting dressed) she headed out the door for the local coffee shop that was a quarter of a mile down the road. Not having had time to place cameras there yet, he had to settle for the bugs he had placed on all of her coats. He hadn't dared to crawl out of his hiding spot until he felt her chakra was a good distance from the house. With one ear left uncovered to listen for unexpected surprises, the other listened to the sounds around her as he leafed casually through her photo albums. His eyes memorized and dissected every picture, noting how long in life it took her to come into her own. She had not been a fortunate child, her awkward stage long-lasting. Of course, there were reasons for that to take into account, especially when those reasons had been known by only her, so he was inclined to be understanding. While she appeared to be a little on the heavier side her entire life, it did nothing to explain her current obsession with exercise, or why she was still able to maintain a healthy amount of body fat, when her excessive activity and lack of consistent nutrition should have made her either skeletal or looking like a body builder. That was not something chakra could compensate for. He made a note to himself to find out what she ate while she was working.
His hand froze in mid page turning when her voice said something that caught his attention. He absently noted the lack of background noise, which meant the other five or six people he had noted must have left.
"Audrey, can I ask you a weird question?"
"Sure, honey. Anything you want."
"You ever had de ja vu? Like, not just once, but several times in a couple hours?"
"No, I can't say that I have. When did this happen? Last night, because you know all you have to do is come over if you don't want to be alone at night. You know Jeff and I'll always have a place for you to sleep when you want it. You shouldn't be all by yourself all the time. Allen wouldn't want you to, and you know it, Kristen. He'd probably be pissed."
"I know. Just like he'd know that I can only do things when I'm ready, and I have a stubborn streak even worse than his. I'm not as alone as you think, Audrey. Josh calls me every day after work, Brian comes over spur of the moment about once a week, and Cliff calls me all the time. I have lots of people checking up on me, so it's ok. I'm really not ready to be out yet. It's taken this long to be ok being around Cliff and Harper Jim without breaking down. And I know that all I have to do is show up, and I love you guys for the offer.
I was asking because I kept getting de ja vu last night, almost like… I dunno. My dreams're kinda strange lately, and I'm glad it's the weekend because I'm tired. I think I might actually take a nap today, catch up on my sleep."
"Well then you do that, Kristen. You do look like you're only half awake right now, and I want you to take care of yourself. You haven't eaten a muffin in weeks, and you used to be the only reason I had them. I'll let Bill and Judy know they'll see you tomorrow so you don't have to wait for them, and you go home and take a nap. I'll see you in the morning, give me my hug."
He heard the rustle of clothing, assumed there was a hug involved, and what sounded like a kiss on the cheek.
"K. I'll see you in the morning, give Jeff a hug and a kiss from me. I haven't stuck around long enough lately to see him. He gets up so late on the weekends, I miss him."
"I'll let him know. You know he loves you and worries about you, so it'd be good for him to see you and know you're ok. Have a good nap!"
He carefully replaced the photo albums exactly where they had been before retreating to his cramped hiding spot, determined to expand it when she left for coffee the next day. She returned only minutes later, her feet clumping up the stairs. She seemed to be completely exhausted, and her limbs struggled to peel off her clothes. Only when she was down to her bra and boy shorts with rainbows on them did she fall onto the bed crossways. A squeal of pain had her flipping quickly onto her back, her hands instinctively holding the areas that hurt. It surprised him to realize that he had not noticed the fresh and pink scars on her left leg and right side when she had walked around naked earlier. A quick admonishment was all he gave himself before noting that she wasn't necessarily in pain, so more than likely she was feeling the pull of scar tissue on surrounding normal tissue. While not painful, he knew well the sensation was uncomfortable enough for her nerves to interpret it as such. He could see when he zoomed the camera in close enough that her leg seemed to have a white stripe on it around the area of her scar, as though she had kept it wrapped long enough for the lack of a tan to be very obvious. He regretted that her file failed to mention what injuries she had sustained while attempting to protect her fiancée. He doubted that two scars were the extent of it; if her profile was in any way accurate, and her stubbornness near what she claimed, he would have bet good money that 'moderate damage' was an understatement on her government's part. He had to give her respect for working such a strenuous job while also recovering from such inconveniently placed wounds.
He was startled from his thoughts when he heard her swear and quickly focused his attention on the laptop screen. He could clearly see the blood covering the palm of her hand, the sounds of her getting up off the bed two feet away from him mirroring what he was watching. He heard her swear again in those foreign languages as she stomped her way to the bathroom, fatigue forgotten in the face of anger.
"Of all the fuckin' places to get stabbed, did it have to be the stomach?! Pinche jotos! This thing's never gonna heal the way I keep rippin' it, 'n Josh'd have a shitfest if he ever found out. Fuck! That fuckin' hurts!! Goddamn putas de madre! Yebsi!"
He watched her tape her slightly torn scar together before covering it with gauze and wrapping up her midsection. He couldn't help but smile over her grumbling about not being able to wear a bikini for a while, noting that her anger seemed to dissolve once she had voiced her complaint. He heard her come back up the stairs and carefully drop back down onto the bed, pulling a stuffed shark to her chest. She pressed her fingers to her stomach one last time before dropping off to sleep. He used the time to silently munch on some food he had stashed up there, curious enough to stick around and see if her nap would be as fitful as when she slept at night. Surprisingly, she slept heavily for two hours, during which he updated his report, before waking up instantly. It only took her a second to leap out of bed, and if the movement hurt her ripped scar she showed no sign of it.
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He woke up a few hours later, disappointed to realize he had fallen asleep. Checking his laptop, he saw she was downstairs at the computer, but not looking at it. She sat slouched in her chair, her feet propped up on the handles of the shelves on either side of her, her head thrown back. While she was completely clothed, her shorts were unzipped and she had one hand buried inside. Professionalism be damned, his mouth instantly watered at the sight of her thighs flexing in a rhythm he knew all too well. His eyes were drawn to where he knew her hand was, watching the fabric move as her fingers circled endlessly. He took in the whole picture of her, saw the bead of sweat that dripped down her neck and slowly made its' way in random weaves and turns before disappearing in-between breasts that shook with her ragged breaths. Her feet moved from the handles to the rung below her seat, her toes flexing around the circle of metal as her hips were lifted off the seat. He watched in fascination as the muscles in her legs actually rippled in their attempt to lift her upper body off of the chair. But it was her face that mesmerized him. He had not bothered to really look at it, as she had enough tattoos to easily identify her, especially as she seemed to hate anything other than tank tops and shorts. He had been with many women, seen the look of rapture on all of them, and he would be the first to admit that women either looked beautiful or scary when they came. But she… she looked like she had just discovered heaven and nirvana all in one moment; he could practically taste it. Only her neck kept her balanced on the backrest of the chair, and while it looked like a very uncomfortable position considering just how unnaturally far she was able to bow her back, none of that mattered when he took in the sight of her desperately trying to give voice to her orgasm and being denied because of it, in the end settling for soundlessly mouthing the name of her fiancée. It took every ounce of will power not to touch himself when she collapsed in the chair, her legs falling as they may, her head lolling back on her neck, eyes unfocused. Her labored breaths were interrupted occasionally by tremors, aftershocks that centered at her pelvis. And then she did the hottest thing he had ever seen by watching her lick her own fingers until they had to have been spotless before getting up and walking away from the computer desk as though nothing had happened.
There was not enough will power in the world to not imagine what it must be like with a woman who would fall apart so completely with only a few fingers touching only one spot on her body, what she would do if he used his vast experience on her, how what he just saw would probably be nothing in comparison. He had always wanted to make a woman faint and she seemed like the type that could if her body was worshiped right. He wiped the perspiration off of his forehead, amazed that ten seconds of watching her had been enough to lose that much control over himself. He realized with a touch of sadness that the man Allen had been one lucky bastard, and it was wrong to completely destroy two people who loved each other so much. While it was not in his power to change what would happen or had already been done, he laughed at himself for the fact that he guessed it wouldn't be the only time he considered the deceased man an extremely lucky son of a bitch.
