The black haired woman was woken up by someone shaking her shoulder.
"Hey Ala, wake up. It's time to get up."
She needed a moment for her sleep-addled brain to realize that the person shaking her was North, and that he was doing so because it was time to wake up.
Hadn't she…?
Fuck, the alarm!
Jerking up, she dropped back onto the bed in the next moment.
"Do we always have to meet this way?" she groaned, holding the already abused spot on her forehead.
When shooting up just then, she hadn't considered the fact that North was leaning over her to wake her up and they had again banged their heads together.
"I would also like to find another way to greet one another." North growled out, obviously feeling some pain as well from the second hit they had experienced that day.
"Two fucking times in one day…" she groaned, opening her eyes and blinking her tears away.
Sitting up while rubbing her forehead, she could see that North was sitting on the chair by the bed which was oddly enough still there despite his more or less recovery at this point and holding his head.
"You okay there?" she asked, swinging her legs out of the bed and leaning over to check on North's wound.
Her head still hurt a bit, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge the pain when someone else was hurt because of her.
"Yeah, I'm fine." the blond haired man muttered, slowly letting the hand sink as she insistently tugged at it.
Carefully and gently brushing over the bump on his forehead, she heard him hiss slightly in pain.
"Looks bad." She muttered, before adding, "I'm sorry. I'm impossible sometimes."
"Don't worry, I've had far worse war injuries." He joked half-heartedly, "It'll heal eventually."
"I know, I just feel bad for having inflicted it." She told him self-consciously.
"Don't be. It's okay, seriously." North waved her off, smiling gently despite the pain in his eyes.
They lapsed into silence until she noticed that she was still holding North's hand. Neither of them seemed to want to let go of one another's hold on the other.
Almost a bit surprised by that realization, she drew her hand away reluctantly and felt her cheeks begin to heat up immediately.
"I- uh- What time do we have?" she stuttered, coughing awkwardly.
North seemed as embarrassed as her.
"Around half past five. When you didn't get up after five I decided to check in on you. Have you really been that tired?" He again tried striking up a casual conversation, but failed miserably at it this time.
Ala grinned a bit awkwardly, starting to play with the end of her braid once more, "Well, I kind of forgot to set the alarm." she admitted sheepishly.
This caused North to snort under his breath.
She got up after feeling like she wouldn't collapse from banging her head together with North's for the second time that day, leaving for the bathroom.
"I- uh- I'll get something for your bump. You better… stay here. Yeah…" she muttered, leaving the bedroom and a thoroughly confused North behind.
'See, I told you that she likes you.'
'Theta…' North grumbled, his growling showing that he wasn't really in the mood to talk especially on that particular subject.
'But it's true! Why else would she blush so badly and stutter around?' Theta insisted.
'Because we banged our heads together?' North replied.
'That might be, but she likes you. Really, I'm telling you.'
'Yes, let's wait till tomorrow, okay?' North answered, trying to shut the Fragment up as Ala had just returned.
Sitting down on the bed, she leaned over and squeezed out some of the ointment she had brought back into the room with her.
"Here. This is a pretty good ointment from a local healer. It helps the swelling go down and lessens the pain. I don't want to know what is in here, but it works wonders." Ala rambled on while gently applying the ointment to his forehead.
As for the wet looking forehead that Ala was sporting, North suspected that she had already applied the ointment to her own forehead.
"I'll leave the ointment on the coffee table so you can apply it when you need it." She then got up briskly, again starting to play with the end of her braid.
"I'm going to the kitchen. You want to come too?" she asked then after some moments had passed with North needing a few more to snap out of his daze.
"Yeah, sure. There's fresh coffee waiting for you." He got up too rather carefully in order to avoid any problems with his circulation.
"Sweet!" Ala laughed and left her bedroom with North trailing behind her a bit afterwards.
When he entered the kitchen, she already had her first mug in her hands was savoring the flavor of the coffee in it.
"I love coffee. I can't go without it in the morning."
North smiled at that, taking his usual spot at the kitchen table.
"I guess that's something you have in common with about ninety-nine percent of the soldiers I know. Without coffee, they wouldn't survive any of the training or the work they had to do."
"True." With that, she poured herself another cup of coffee that she promptly started drinking then and there.
Lapsing back into another amicable silence, Alaska soon excused herself to have a shower and get ready for the mission.
Indeed, when she came out of her bedroom a bit later, she was wearing black combat boots, black cargo trousers and what looked to be nearly the same blue tank top she wore this morning before the coffee incident, but this one had some white streaks on it. Her hair was tied in a braid as usual.
"I used it for painting." She explained when she noticed North's glance to her shirt. She blushed a bit when she noticed where exactly he had been staring in particular.
North coughed awkwardly while blushing himself, also having noticed by this point that he had been inadvertently staring at her upper chest.
"Right. So blue is your favorite color?" he asked, only to get the subject away from that rather embarrassing incident.
"Yeah, it is. Amongst other colors like violet and red." She explained, flopping down on the couch beside the Freelancer and looking at the screen where a detailed report of the shooting in New Shanghai was being shown, including live reports from there. It looked like some terrorists had some business there.
North noticed the faint smell of her shampoo and how refined her features really looked when seeing her profile up close.
Turning her head and looking straight at the TV, he tried not to stare too much at the dark haired woman's face sitting beside him. She looked beautiful, he had to admit. What with her black hair, fair skin, and icy blue eyes…as well as her character in general.
She was nice and gentle, but had a wild and untamed touch about her all the same. Ala wouldn't shun a dispute or a fight. She had her own opinion on things and would press her point if needed with logical arguments and a fire that was unmatched. This fire was in all she did: in her training, in her gait, in her gestures, in her everything.
Okay… He was in love with her.
He didn't know when it had happened, but it had happened. He finally admitted it to himself.
'Told you so.' Theta snorted with a cocky grin to his voice.
North gave him the mental middle finger, for once not really having the patience to be the nice big brother while getting harassed like that by Theta.
The next few hours went by rather smoothly. At least they went by without North making a complete fool out of himself.
Around half past seven, Alaska got up and got her Sukajan jacket she mostly wore when going outside. It was something like her trademark when going out.
Anyways, North got up too and met up with her at the entrance to the apartment. He regarded her getting ready until she turned around and looked at him questioningly.
"Take care, okay? Have a good night." He said then with a smile, seeing how a smile spread over her lips and her cheeks turned slightly pink at his remark.
"I will do my best. Sleep well. See you tomorrow."
With a pat on his shoulder, she left the apartment and closed the door.
North locked it, knowing that Ala had her key with her. Besides, it was better to do so since there were enough people around who would want to have something of what the Special Ops agent had no doubt acquired over time.
Sighing, North decided to do some training. His thoughts were running in circles and he felt oddly restless.
Besides that, he was getting better with every day passing but was still not up to his old fitness so he would kill two birds with one stone by being able to clear his head and get his body back in shape.
He changed into his training clothes and went over to the little training room they had in the apartment to get a workout in.
It was morning when he woke up from a key scraping in the lock of the apartment.
Immediately the Freelancer was awake and up, alarmed as to who this could be. Checking the clock, he knew that it was probably Alaska but he was on alert nonetheless until the door opened and the owner of the apartment entered.
Without her noticing, or at least North hoped so, he took up a more comfortable stance and smiled at her.
"Good morning." He greeted her, making her look up with a tired but happy smile.
"Good morning to you too." She slipped out of her shoes when she noticed the odd stance of the Freelancer, "Have you seriously been sleeping on the couch?" she asked him a bit incredulously, looking him over with concern.
"I fell asleep somehow. I didn't plan on it, actually." He muttered with an awkward smile.
"You better not have." the black haired woman muttered, slipping out of her jacket and hanging it up.
That was when North noticed something.
"You had trouble?"
"Yeah, just some guy who tried hitting on me." She explained, rolling her shoulders and her head to loosen said shoulders some, "In the end, it was me hitting on him. He ran home with his tail between his legs." She snorted at the thought of the guy trying to put up a strongman act and having to admit defeat in the end.
North snorted at that mental image too, "I know someone who would have probably reacted the same way you did to that."
This caused Ala to raise an eyebrow while grabbing the little paper bag that had been on the ground and walking towards the kitchen with it, "One of your Freelancer fellows?"
"Tex, actually. She had been quiet the femme fatale. Guys often tried to hit on her but she was a badass." He explained, taking out the remaining mug and a glass as well as some dishes and cutlery in order to set them up on the table.
"Let me guess, she wiped the floor with the guys' sorry asses?" Ala asked with a snort while setting up a pot of coffee.
While the coffee was brewing, she arranged the buns in the same little basket she had them in yesterday.
"Exactly." North sat down at the table and waited together with Ala for the coffee to be ready.
"I already like her." Ala stated, looking at the pot and seeing that it was halfway through.
"I don't know about that." North stated then, "She was kind of a tomboy, sometimes even worse than South." He doubted Ala would be able to get along with that kind of femme fatale.
"Believe me, I know how to get along with those types of people. You just never got to know my asshole side up until now." She snorted, suppressing a yawn.
"You can be an asshole?" North asked with barely concealed fake surprise.
"Yep, so it's better for you if you don't provoke it." She returned with a grin when the click of the coffee machine indicated the pot was ready and had finished brewing.
North observed her and how she first filled his glass and then poured herself a cup. After putting the pot back on the stove, she sat down at the table.
"Well then, bon appétit." She said with a slight dull note to her voice and face from tiredness and grabbed one of the buns to start eating.
"Yeah, enjoy." He muttered, taking a bun himself.
Whereas he was a bit dull from sleep, Ala was from tiredness and so they didn't talk much during breakfast.
After having cleaned up, Ala informed him that she would get up around two in the afternoon and that they could start the day after she had gotten up and had one or two coffees.
North said that he probably would sleep too and maybe train a bit.
He then asked with a sly grin, "Are you setting the alarm or should I get you?"
Ala huffed, her cheeks turning strangely pink at that question.
"I'm setting the alarm this time, thanks. Good night." She muttered.
"Good night." North replied, watching the black haired woman retreat through the door to her bedroom.
'You still think that she's blushing because she has a bad conscience?' Theta asked with an amused smile in his tone, appearing after his statement over North's left shoulder.
"No, Theta, I don't think so." North replied lowly, "Although I can't be that sure like you are."
"Why not?" slumping down on the man's shoulder, the Fragment looked up to his partner.
"Humans tend to be difficult beings, you know." He replied, slumping down on the couch and turning on the TV again. He didn't feel like training right now.
Currently there was a documentation about tigers: an old, proud, and beautiful species of big cats.
"For me, it all looks pretty easy. You like her, she likes you." Theta looked rather satisfied, obviously not seeing the problem at all.
"We could be misjudging her signals and interpreting them wrongly." North sighed, massaging his temples.
"What signals could we be interpreting wrongly?"
North leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling again, "I don't know which. It's just… I can't be that confident like you are. I need to talk with her to really be sure what she thinks and feels."
"Then talk to her!" Theta exclaimed, earning a dirty look from the Freelancer.
"I will. I just need to find the right time." He replied after calming his temper a bit.
"Just don't wait too long then." the Fragment replied after a while.
"I won't. I'll try to talk to her sometime soon about things, okay?" North said in an appeasing manner.
"Okay." Theta, obviously satisfied with North's offer, was now concentrating on the TV again.
North took that as a cue to concentrate on the TV again as well, now really watching the documentary about those beautiful animals.