Days past, and Ala had kept up with the regular check-ups and telling the man fairy tales or singing a little song during the night.
The owner of the apartment returned from a short grocery run. She hadn't suspected that North would wake up just then, but she left him a written note that he was in safety there, that South was doing good and that she would be back shortly just in case.
Upon returning, she put the things away in the kitchen that she had bought and went directly to check on the soldier.
His facial color looked much better than it had a few days ago. He wasn't as deathly pale anymore as he had been back when her and South had brought him over to her apartment.
Feeling satisfied with what she saw, she returned to the kitchen and started putting things away.
Speaking of South, she was doing extremely well now too. Her bruises were healing up well and the minor scratches she'd received had all closed up. All in all, she was doing great.
Ala thought that was great news, but the other woman hadn't gotten much more agreeable since she had started healing.
It was around four in the afternoon and the remaining people living in the block were out working. Due to that, it was almost deadly silent in the apartment save for the steps drawing closer to the apartment door.
Alarmed, Ala grabbed the pistol which she had stuffed away in one of the cabinets and pointed towards the entrance with it.
The person now entering the apartment was the last person she would have expected to do so.
Anger flared up in her veins.
"South, what the fucking hell!?" she stuffed the pistol in her waistband and took two steps towards her, her posture showing clearly that she was pissed.
"First you steal all my money from me and disappear, and now you show up like nothing happened!?"
South shot her a devastating glare while reaching into her pocked and throwing the black haired woman a bundle of money. Even more than South had initially stolen from her.
"Calm down, bitch. Don't get your panties in a bunch." She growled while walking to the office.
Ala followed suit while South continued, "I just needed some money to buy shit in order to take up some missions."
"And how about telling me?! I would have given you the money and even would have given you some of my contacts to help you! What do you think I do to live here?" she shot back, clearly done with South.
The woman turned around, glaring at her. "Oh, I thought you were knitting shit like an old lady or doing some kind of life-advice-service-shit!"
Alaska growled, clearly pissed. "Yeah, because I look like an old granny." She couldn't hold back her sarcasm, but then sighed deeply, "I only want to help you and your brother. I am not going to rat you out to the UNSC."
Dragging her hands over her face, she heard a snort from South.
"Oh yeah, and for the great Samaritan you are you would have done everything for a stranger you picked up somewhere in the middle of the night in the pouring rain. Don't shit with me. People aren't that selfless." She growled, slamming the door shut mere centimeters before Ala's nose and locking it for good measure.
The owner of the apartment growled bac, "Stop being so fucking suspicious! Not everyone is after you, there are people out there who honestly want to help without asking for anything in return!"
She hadn't known the woman for long, but she was sure that South was giving her the finger through the closed door.
Ala sighed, "Seriously, South. Next time just say something. I can even set up some missions for you if you want to get out." She waited some seconds before she added, "I only hope that you will be able to trust me."
This last statement was answered by a boot being thrown at the door with a loud bang.
While massaging her temples with her hands, she returned to the kitchen to finish putting the groceries away.
With South having retreated to her room and obviously lying on the makeshift bed there, it was silent again which made it possible for the young woman to hear the low groan coming from her sleeping room.
Almost dropping the tin can with carrots in it that she had been in the process of putting away, she hurried to stuff it in the cabinet and leave the kitchen to check on North.
Since he had come here he hadn't made a sound, so this groan maybe meant that he was about to wake up.
Hope welled up in her chest. Hope that he had been able to pull through that rough crash and all of the injuries, that he would be okay again.
It might sound strange, but she had formed some kind of interpersonal bond with the soldier lying there on the bed by telling him about her daily tasks and telling him fairy tales that she knew.
Sure, she was well aware that she didn't know anything about him. Not even his real name, only his agent name.
But aside from that, she somewhat felt connected with him and stemming from that feeling she wanted the man to be okay and survive. She had found him out in the rain and brought him to her apartment, looked after him and cared for him during these days after all.
Entering the room, she could see how his body started to move, although it was still a bit uncoordinated and not a lot of movement—maybe a finger or a foot, but he was definitely moving his body. The low groans and the fluttering eyelids made it clear that he indeed was about to wake up.
She shortly checked his pulse and breathing, both having increased now that he had woken up. The breathing was slightly out of rhythm, which was a sign of him having woken up too.
Immediately, she turned on her heel and returned to her office.
"Get lost, asshole!" was the growled out answer when she knocked at the door.
"North is about to wake up, I thought you might want to know that." She replied coolly, leaving the door and returning to the bedroom.
South could make out of that information whatever she wanted the fuck to do. The black haired woman still was pissed and didn't really care about what South would do next.
North's limbs were still moving uncoordinatedly and his eyelids didn't seem to follow his mental order of opening up, but he seemed to become more coherent and coordinated by every passing second.
Just when Ala wanted to take her place on the chair standing beside the bed, South literally waltzed in wearing black jogging trousers and a black shirt. She flopped down on the chair and, crossing her arms, she shortly shot Ala a pointed glare before turning her head to stare at her brother. Probably to give him an earful when he woke up completely.
Alaska sighed, turning around to get some water from the kitchen and brought it back to the room to put it on the night stand. North still wasn't completely in the here and now and, picking up on the angry glare his sister threw him, she decided against staying here and left the room to sit on the couch.
She could understand South's reaction for once pretty well.
Alaska McCormick was unknown to North. He hadn't met her before and didn't know her. It is frightening enough to wake up in a foreign place and feel nothing but pain and disorientation.
An unknown face thrown into the mix definitely doesn't help you feel relaxed. It was better for him to see a known face, like the one of his sister, and get a hold of the situation before she made an appearance.
Sitting on the couch in the living room, she decided to shortly shoot a text to her old CO from pre-Elbon times. Sargent Hollaway.
He had been the best leader she ever had and he was the only one who knew that she was still alive. He helped her in setting up camp here and organized someone to tend to her wounds when she wasn't able to look after herself. He had also helped her in setting her life up here and in getting work after she had recovered.
Checking the clock, she supposed that he soon would have finished his daily routine and would write her back.
The text read nothing special for people not knowing the codes. It sounded like a normal conversation between friends, both carefully making sure that they wouldn't give away her location or her identity. The messages went over several proxy servers all scattered across the galaxy to diffuse her location.
Sure, this often caused the message to take longer to arrive at the receiver, but it was better that way.
The text was written about a friend having woken up from a sleepover and that he now was having breakfast with his sister. That they both were doing well and would probably stay a little bit longer until returning since they had such a long journey to arrive at her place and the transport back was delayed due to needing repairs.
Hollaway knew about her picking up some soldiers from a crashed ship. He had wished her luck and hoped that they would have a great sleepover, which meant nothing more than that he hoped that the injured one would get well soon.
It must be a relief for Hollaway too that the guy had finally woken up.
Shutting down and closing the laptop, she saw South appearing in the doorway with a sour expression on her face.
"My dear brother of mine wants to see the noble Samaritan who rescued us."
Her foul mood was palpable even from Ala's space on the couch. She didn't comment on it, just wordlessly got up and walked over to the bedroom.
South, for her part, returned to the office and again locked it for good measure.
When arriving at the door, she knocked against the door frame before entering.
"You wanted to see me?" she asked, waiting for North to focus on her and give his okay to enter.
When he did so, she slowly approached and sat down on the chair South had been on previously.
"South told me that you helped us?" his voice must sound gentle usually, now it just sounded raspy and coarse due to not having been used for days.
Alaska only nodded before answering. "Yes, that's true."
A smile appeared on his lips.
"Thank you." He coughed shortly, his face contorting in pain from his broken ribs, "I know that South is grateful too. She just can't show it that well. Please, don't hold it against her."
"It's okay, don't worry." Ala muttered, deciding against ratting the woman out about what she had done while he was out cold.
South certainly had her reasons for that and North had enough on his plate as it was, she didn't want to worry him anymore than necessary.
It was silent for a while, in which she was asking herself how twins could be so completely different.
South was hostile and angry, and North seemed gentle and docile. From what she could see, they both were the complete opposites of each other.
However, she only knew them for a short time. North even less than South.
"She had a rough youth…" North rasped, as if he had read her thoughts.
"Sorry…" Alaska muttered with a caught expression on her face.
"Don't worry. She's a good person at heart, she just has her own ways of coping with the shit going on around her and what happened in the past." He started coughing violently and the black haired woman took it as a cue to get him some water.
Getting up, she sat down on the edge of the bed and carefully lifted his head with her hand before taking the glass and putting it to his lips.
He wasn't drinking greedily as she suspected he might, more pacing himself to not overburden his stomach and puke. It looked as though he already had experience with waking up after a long period of unconsciousness—sadly.
When he had enough, she carefully laid him back down, regarding him quickly.
"You want some painkillers or are you okay?"
"Not now, maybe later," the blond man replied at length after obviously assessing the level of the pain he was in, "I am too beaten and will fall back asleep soon anywasy."
Well, that made sense, Ala supposed.
Sitting back on the chair, she regarded the man lying on her bed.
"I'm afraid I haven't gotten your name yet."
Ala jolted on the chair. Oh fucking shit!
"I'm sorry that I didn't introduce myself. My name is Alaska McCormick," immediately she added more information, remembering the hostile reaction of his sister to her name, "Alaska is my birth name, not an agent name."
When she was done with her introduction, she grabbed her braid and began playing with the end of it, feeling ashamed at not having had enough manners to introduce herself properly as you might expect from a stranger.
This drew a small chuckle out of the man, "It's okay. I guess South wasn't so cool with the name?"
Although he was lying on the bed and looked like he would be dozing off any minute now, she noticed him observing her out of the corner of his eyes.
The black haired woman almost asked how the hell he knew that since he had been out cold, but North and South were twins. It was only logical that he would know his sister inside out.
"Yeah, she seemed… Quite concerned when she received that information."
"That's from our work we were just thrown out of. Literally." Although he grinned a bit crookedly, he started coughing violently again—pain flashing across his finely chiseled features, "Our agent names were according to American states. So she might have thought that you were one of those other agents sent to pursue us."
"I figured that much out." Ala replied with a sigh. "Anyways," she got up slowly and again helped North to drink a bit of water, "You should rest now. You're safe here and you guys can stay as long as you want to."
"Thanks." The man replied, his eyelids already starting to drop, "What about my… injuries?" His voice was slurry and heavy with sleep.
"Nothing lethal or worrisome, just get some sleep and we can talk about them when you're feeling a bit better, okay?" Alaska prompted the man to finally give in to what his body was desiring so badly.
"Okay…" North muttered in reply and was fast asleep again moments later.
Turning away with a sigh, she left the bedroom and took up her space on the couch again, shortly shooting off another text to her mission-dealer in the city and asking for a mission for a friend of hers with about the same ability level of Alaska, if not higher.
It didn't take ten minutes for the guy, Kyle, to answer with a list of missions ready for her to apply to.
Printing out the list, she again knocked on the office door. There was no answer from the woman in there, but she was sure that she was still there.
"I printed out a list with missions on the printer in your room. Check it out and make a cross beside the mission you want to take. They pay pretty well and as soon as you prove yourself worthy, he will give you his contact information to get your own missions."
There was no answer, but shuffling inside the office indicated that South had gotten up and was reading the paper.
Moments later, the list was shoved underneath the door.
Ala took up the paper and gasped when she saw that every fucking mission had a cross!
"You really want to take on all of the missions?"
"Would I have marked them with a cross if not, genius!?" South snapped back through the door.
Ala sighed. "Right…"
Maybe it was her way of coping with what had happened. At least that was what her brother had told Alaska.
She decided to let that answer slip and just comply with her wish. For the sake of continued peace in here, she swallowed the sarcastic comment lying on her tongue and sighed again.
"Okay, give me minutes ten to check back when the missions start and in which order my contact wants to have them done."
Going back to the laptop, she replied to Kyle. She needed five full minutes to break it into his head that, yes, her friend who she introduced as South, was taking on all the fucking missions.
Another two minutes later and a priority list of the missions, including the dates and times for them, returned from him.
The first mission would start in two hours and looked like a personal security mission. That was pretty short notice, but she was sure that South wouldn't care. She obviously just wanted to get out of the apartment.
Hitting the print button, she returned to the office. This time, she didn't knock.
"Printed out the list. Get ready, mission start is in two hours at 2200 at the bar 'Shiva' three blocks to the west. No armor, just a combat outfit. You copy?"
There was an annoyed "Copy!" with an "asshole" tagged in afterwards that was muttered more lowly but was still audible by Ala nonetheless. This was replaced by shuffling moments later.
Alaska didn't bother to stay there any longer and decided to take her laptop and disappear to the kitchen to do some work like writing back to Sargent Hollaway who had just answered her.
Indeed, thirty minutes later, South left the room with black combat boots, black cargo boots and a dark violet tank top to.
She had her hair loose on top of her head: it was too short to tie back anyways.
Taking up the leather vest that she must have bought sometime ago in the last couple of hours of being away from the apartment, she left the room with a shouted "Take care of my sorry excuse of a brother!" and then the door was slammed shut.
Alaska winced while stirring her coffee and checked her messages again.
Hollaway obviously thought that it had been enough communication for today and hadn't answered her last message. Checking the clock, she assumed that it probably was lights out in his base anyways.
She only hoped that North wouldn't wake up from his sister's immature behavior.
Considering the lack of moving and grumbling she heard, he hadn't.
Well, his sister wouldn't be back for another two or three days.
Ala was pretty sure that he was used to South's behavior by now. She suspected North and South of being around thirty, so that meant they were almost her age and so had enough time to get used to one another and all of their various quirks and issues by now.
The only task left open to her was to break the information about where the woman had gone to South's twin when he woke up.
He seemed like the protective kind of guy when it came to his sister, given the injuries he had taken up in order to protect her.