Omg, it's SO good to be back ! Long story short, I lost my phone as I moved into a new place without electricity – or wifi (difficult circumstances and all) and I've had access for the first time to both only up to recently, thanks to visiting a friend. So yeah, sorry for the long wait – I'm back and ready to continue writing !
This chapter is a lot longer than most and will hopefully satisfy the eager readers who've been waiting hehe. I'm so grateful people are still reading – and re-reading, as well as following my story. With that said, let's get back into it !
Chapter 11. Questioning
Turns out, the white room was really just a copy of the last "containment chamber", aside from the furniture and facilities – or lack thereof, in this case. Instead of a cot-like bed, a sink, a shitty toilet, and a curtain to separate the three, this room just had a rectangular table with two chairs facing each other. The door was different too – instead of fading into the wall, it actually had a knob. Whether it could be turned from the inside was debatable, though.
Ashley, Leon, and Emily filed into the room, while Sheppard and Simmons stayed on the other side of the window – which was only one-way, of course. "Please sit." Emily gestured to the chair. When Ashley did, the scientist stepped forward with a strange-looking device, like a skeletal helmet twisted with cables and blinking lights.
"Wait." Leon placed himself between his protégée and the thing. "What's that ?"
"Don't worry, Mr. Kennedy." Emily smiled. "This device will only read Ashley's brain activity while I ask some questions."
Big shocker, he didn't seem convinced despite her 'reassurances'. "I'll see that for myself." He said, reaching out towards.
Ashley couldn't tell if the woman was offended as she pursed her lips, handing the machine in wordless silence. Leon turned it this way and that, frown deepning as he scanned every bit and piece. Ashley leaned over, whispering, "Do you know what you're looking at ?"
He glanced at her, then back at the helmet. There was a pause. "Not at all." She chortled at his response – clamping a hand over her mouth too late. Emily raised a brow at her, but didn't comment. Leon handed the device back to Emily, but as he returned to his post behind Ashley – she was sure she caught a secret smile on his lips, reserved just for her eyes before it faded again. The little moment had her limbs relax, not realizing how tense she'd been.
"Are you ready ?" Emily asked, holding the helmet up. Ashley nodded with newfound energy. She sat still as Emily placed it on her head and added those round little circles to her skin, connecting her brain and the device together; thinking of it like that, it was kind of creepy.
The woman then looked at the window – or mirror, from this side, her gaze blank as she stared at her own reflection. Ashley looked back at Leon as the seconds passed, to find he seemed just as perplexed as her. Then, as if she'd gotten some signal no one else had seen or heard, Emily sat down – grinning wide, once more. "So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to ask you a series of question, some random and some specific, to which you will answer as honestly as possible. Understood ?" She asked, too cheerful.
"Got it."
"How did you feel before and after Saddler took you against your will ?"
Going right down to the nitty gritty, apparently, Ashley thought sardonically. Though her heart accelerated at the mention of her nemesis, she felt…unexpectedly in control. "Terrified before. Terrified after. But…"
"But ?"
"After, I wasn't as scared."
Emily glanced down at the fancy tablet she'd whipped out. Was it to check her list of questions, or Ashley's brain activity ? "Was that before or after you were injected with the Plaga egg ?"
"Um…after, I suppose."
"What do you see when I show you this ?" Emily spun the tablet around, a black and white image displayed across the glowing screen.
"A…cloud, I think ?"
"Hm." Was all the scientist said before shooting off the next question. "Did you feel any different upon your return home ?"
"No, not at first. It was good to be back. It's later that I realized I'd been changed, and I wasn't sure there would be any returning from that."
"Change ?" Emily perked up at the word, leaning towards Ashley with uncomfortably wide eyes. "How so ?"
The latter tried not to cringe at the woman's proximity, instead focusing on the presence at her back. "Just…some things scar you beyond repair. I didn't know how to pretend everything was normal, or how I'd ever be again."
Emily almost seemed disappointed at her anticlimatic answer, but nodded as she typed away on the tablet. "How did you feel when spending time around your family ?"
Her brows drew together in confusion. "I just told you."
"No, I mean how did you feel around them specifically. Did you notice anything ?"
Ashley then realized what she meant. Emily wasn't asking how she'd been coping – but if her body had felt any different, as in…was she still a bomb ready to detonate as soon as she came into contact with her father, the President ? "No." Ashley gritted her teeth as she replied.
"What about you, Mr. Kennedy ? Did you notice anything different about your charge ?"
She looked over her shoulder at her bidyguard, whose mouth had opened and closed in close succession. He then met her gaze, as if asking a question. He was asking for permission to speak – to talk about her. She nodded, as equally curious as she was stressed to see what he knew.
"I did notice something was different, but not in the way you're thinking. As I got to know Ashley, I saw she was a person with a bright countenance – always cheerful and as positive as can be, if not a bit sarcastic at times." He glanced at her as he said this, making the girl in question blush. "So when she started behaving oddly – like she was hiding something, I noticed right away. Not that she could hide the nightmares, which were typical of a person who had experienced something traumatic."
"Ah, yes, thank you for bringing that up. Ashley, Mr. Bancroft mentioned you were having these nightmares. Can you elaborate on them, please ?"
"You're in contact with my therapist ?" Ashley asked with a cross of her arms.
"That's right. Don't worry, we haven't accessed any of the confidential information. We've merely asked a few questions." That, by itself, already seemed like a violation of boundaries, but Ashley and Leon were too far in to worry about that now.
"…fine. My nightmares were about three different things. First, they were normal – or as normal as I expect them to be, having PTSD. For the first few weeks, I dreamed that I was being chased by the Ganados. No matter what I did, how fast I ran or where I hid, they'd find me. I usually woke up when they did, right before they hurt me."
Emily's fingers were typing furiously. "And how often did you dream about this ?"
"It wasn't too bad in the beginning. I'd only have nightmares once in a while, but as my PTSD worsened, I grew more scared – and as my fear increased, so did the nightmares." She was talking about it so easily now. Ashley didn't even feel the coming of anxiety…maybe it was delayed ?
"You said you had three things you dreamed about. What's the second thing ?"
"The nightmares progressed from me being chased by monsters…to being the monster myself." She swallowed hard. "I'd see myself from a third person perspective, and I had red eyes like the Ganados. But it almost seems like…they were afraid of me ?"
"Interesting…" Emily mutters, eyes glued to the blue screen. She looks up. "What did you do in those dreams, as a monster ?"
"I was the one who did the chasing. Sometimes I'd look normal – except for the eyes, and sometimes I'd sprout tentacles and…"
"And who did you chase ?"
Ashley tensed. She resisted the impulse to glance at the silent bodyguard behind her. "Depends. Mostly people I didn't know, but sometimes I'd see my old friends, or…my mother." And Leon.
"And the President ?"
This again ? She frowned at the woman, balling her hands to avoid flinging them in the air. "…no. But sometimes I'd also dream about Luis. I was the one who…"
"Luis Sera, you mean ?"
"Yes."
It didn't seem Emily was very interested in the man, as she moved on to the next question. Meanwhile, Ashley's chest tightened at the memory.
…
The 'questioning' went on for another two hours. This is what she's been going through, he thought as he listened to her every word. The extent of her nightmares, her 'episodes' as she called them, where she'd struggle to breathe – this he had witnessed just the other day – or throw up, and at last the two nightmares she'd had just a few days ago.
Emily snapped up her artificial grin, going from blank to overly cheerful. She asked her a bunch of questions concerning the last part of her dream sequence, until another hour passed. "Okay, that's enough." Said Leon as he watched Ashley's hunched back. "She needs a break."
"Mr. Kennedy, there are still quite a bit of –"
"Ms. Stanford." Sheppard's voice crackled into the room over a speaker – but where ? The walls were completely smooth. "That's enough for now. We're done with the questions."
"Oh…"
"Please step over so we may discuss the next course of action."
"Ah. It seems we're done with the questions. Feel free to use this time for a break." She said as if she was doing them a favor, before striding out of the room.
As soon as she was out, Leon stepped closer to Ashley, peering down at her face. "Are you okay ?"
Her yellow head snapped up and she smiled at him. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You're…okay, talking about all of this ?" He remembered one of the nights he'd had to wake her up from a nightmare. You cope by relying on the people who care about them – you lean on them. That's what he'd told her, but at the time, she'd been so reluctant to share what troubled her. He knew a thing or two about that, but now…
"Surprisingly…yes. But I think I know."
"Why ?" Leon asked when she didn't elaborate.
She removed the device from her head, placing it on the table with a grimace. "Last time I saw Mr. Bancroft, he told me to find a silver-lining, though at the time I couldn't see anything positive about…you know, what happened. But then…"
"You found it ? The silver-lining ?"
Ashley turned to him fully, grinning wide – not like Emily, but genuinely, excluding so much happiness that it seemed to spread over Leon, enveloping him in warmth. "Yep ! I did."
He smiled, raising a questioning brow. "Well, aren't you going to tell me what it is ?"
She puckered her lips in thought, and Leon's gaze – like a magnet, was drawn to them. Something forgotten tried to break through the surface of his mind, a feeling of softness…what was it ? "I'll tell you soon. Promise."
But her promise only served to make him more curious – and impatient. "Come on, can't you give me a hint ? You never know, maybe I could use the advice." He said as he walked around her to lean on the table's side, crossing his arms.
She chuckled. "I mean, if you insist…"
"I do."
"Well…I guess you hang on to the things that matter." Why did that sound familiar ?
How do you make it enough ?
You make it enough by hanging on to the things that matter.
The new words echoed inside Leon's head, and suddenly…he remembered. "Leon ? You okay ?" Ashley tilted her head as she looked up into his frozen face, her sweet scent causing the barrier in his mind to crumble down.
He remembered everything, from the way he'd held her like his life depended on it, to the way she'd kissed him – and the way he'd kissed her again, with need and desperation, after revealing his innermost thoughts. He'd never told anyone the things he'd said to her.
"Why didn't you –" He started saying, but his sentence was interrupted midway as the door opened. He retook his spot behind her.
Emily was back, and she was saying something as she sat down, but frankly Leon's mind was racing – too jumbled to pay attention. They'd kissed. How could he have forgotten ? And the way he'd behaved – touching her like that…he'd crossed the line, but truth be told, he'd already crossed many lines when it came to Ashley.
His eyes fell to the back of her head, where the helmet was being fastened once more. For some reason, the fact that Ashley hadn't said anything – hadn't mentioned anything at all about that night, made him more anxious than it should've.
He forced himself to focus, listening to the flow of random questions. The last part of Ashley's dream sequence wasn't mentioned again, which Leon found strange.
And just like that, another hour passed. "All right. I think we're done for today." Emily smiled, standing up. "Thank you for your cooperation, Ashley."
"What about tomorrow ?"
"We'll be moving to physical tests next."
Physical tests ? Leon recalled the torture chair; if they knew what was good for them, they would come up with something less barbaric than that.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow. You comin' ?" Said Ashley, turning to Leon.
He nodded. "Let's go." He was more eager to leave than expected. The room had become stuffy, and his joints were starting to ache – but most importantly, he just wanted Ashley out of this wasp's next.
"Huh…" She said as Emily led them back into the room. A group of scientists – the same one he'd seen the first time he came here, were moving between the machines, paying no mind to them. Sheppard was amongst them, but Simmons was nowhere to be seen. Ashley must've noticed the same thing, because she then asked, "where's Dr. Simmons ?"
"He went to attend to separate business." Replied Sheppard, walking towards them.
"I thought Ashley's case was of the utmost urgency ?" Leon piped in. "Shouldn't that take priority."
"Dr. Simmons is a busy man."
"But we assure you, the doctor has got the best people assigned to Ashley's case !" Emily quickly stepped in, smile tense.
"I'm sure. Let's go, Leon. We'll see ourselves out." Ashley tugged at his sleeve, pulling him towards the entrance without a glance back at the scientists.
Neither of them spoke until they were sitting in the car, and still all the way back to the apartment. They couldn't speak with the driver there – at least, not about their secret mission. Even when they were home, Leon made a shushing motion with his finger, to which Ashley nodded, seeming to understand his meaning.
Still without speaking, he raised his hands and kept them just an inch away from touching her shoulders, asking for permission; he needed to check if they'd planted any spying devices on her. Again, she nodded.
Not wasting another second, he ran his palms over her shoulder, down to her arms, slowly as he felt for any bumps that didn't belong…his eyes met hers for a split second before she averted her gaze, and Leon suddenly realized just how closely they were standing…and how intimately he was touching her. His mind flashed back to that night, and his focus dropped to her lips.
Pay attention, he snapped at himself. He shifted his hands to her back, head – running his fingers in her hair, and then knelt down on one knee as he moved to her legs. Ashley muffled a squeak as he touched them, and he hurried in his search. Standing back up, he was about to speak – when Ashley's own hand shot upwards, a finger in front of her mouth. Without waiting for his reaction, she placed her hands on his shoulders and began searching.
Leon went rigid underneath Ashley's touch. He thought about their kiss, the way they'd lain together, and his heart drummed within his chest. Thankfully, she only ran her palms across his shoulders and arms, before moving to his back. A few nerve-wracking seconds later, she was done.
He sighed in relief. "Do you really think they would've bugged us ?" She asked, brows drawn in worry.
"It's possible. Derek Simmons, what was your impression of him ?"
"I think he's definitely hiding something. His expression…there was something wrong with it. With all of them."
"Yeah, I agree. Something's definitely going on, so let's be careful. But in the meantime…you wanna go out ?"
"What ?" She squeaked. " Can we go out ? I thought I was supposed to keep a low profile."
"You are, but it's not like we can stay cooped up in here forever." Besides…he'd go crazy, otherwise. Just the two of them, thinking of that kiss…no, he had to get out before he did something he'd regret. "But you might one to change into something more –"
"Subtle ?" She smirked.
He chuckled. "Yeah."
"'Kay. I'll be right back, then."
…
Ashley was glad to be back out. She was more an outdoors type of person, and the four hours spent in that stuffy underground laboratory had felt like an eternity. She needed to wash off the feeling of that place, and this was just the solution. Helmet on her head – a normal one, this time – she held on to Leon's waist as he artfully sped between cars with his motorcycle. For someone that was a follow-the-rules kind of guy, he sure was daring…she liked it.
In fact, the uncontrollable part of her brain couldn't help thinking about how this felt like a date. It wasn't, of course – hell, he didn't even remember their kiss from the other night ! But still…it was nice to think about it, how her life could've been if only their situation had been different. If she wasn't the President's daughter, and if Leon wasn't some secret agent from an organization whose mission was to protect the world.
But still, this was nice. She tightened her arms around him.
"I couldn't bring you too close to the center, but this is pretty close still." Said Leon as he parked his bike, giving a wary glance around the bustling crowd.
"This is perfect." Replied Ashley as she looked at the cafes and little shops. She even spied a mall in the distance. "So what are we doing ?"
"Well, first of all…" Leon stepped close, reaching over her shoulders – and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to put his arms around her neck – but instead he grabbed her hood and pulled it over her head. "You need to hide your face as much as possible."
"Sorry." She mumbled, tugging at the hood. Why was he so smooth – and without realizing, too ?
"And we can do whatever you want. But I was thinking, maybe we could buy some things – like, do you have anything to entertain yourself with ?"
"Not really, no." Aside from his laptop.
"Let's change that, then. Do you like to read ? There's a bookstore there."
She gasped. "C'mon, let's go !" Ashley grabbed Leon's hand, and he followed her lead as she ran to the front entrance.
"Don't stray too far okay ?" He cautioned as she lifted a basket.
"You got it !" And off she went.
What would she go for ? Romance ? Mystery ? Or maybe science fiction ? She did like thrillers. Hmm…she eyed the stand of the new bestelling books, narrowing her gaze at a horror novel. I'm definitely staying away from that, Ashley thought as she moved away – glancing back at Leon, making sure she wasn't going to far. As usual, he was dedicated to her protection, glancing back and forth as he pretended to read a book. She smiled, shaking her head. This man…
She decided to go for romance, choosing a couple of novels before her attention drifted to a mystery/thriller type, called the Spy That Loved Me. She swallowed, fingers hovering over the spine of the book. "Found something ?"
"Eek !" Ashley yelled as Leon's voice suddenly sounded behind her ear, causing her to drop the basket and the books inside them. She spun around, heart throbbing. "Leon ! Where did you come from ?"
"Over there." He pointed to somewhere behind him, amusement tugging at his lips.
"You know, it's only polite to cough before speaking to a lady – or you might startle her." She joked.
"Huh. Must've missed that in How to be a Gentleman for Dummies." He smirked, making Ashley snicker.
"Shh !" Someone shushed a few meters away from them. "Get a room, why don't you !"
Ashley and Leon exchanged a look, causing the former to laugh some more, while the latter actually grinned – which was such a warming sight. She loved seeing him smile, and laughing with him was even better. "I'll be over there." He said, parting ways with her.
She slid The Spy That Loved Me into the basket. After grabbing books from a few other genres, she met up with Leon again – only to find he had a small pile of his own. One of the books was, Easy Recipes for Beginners.
"You ready to go ?"
"Mhm."
Once they'd paid for the books – or rather Leon paid for them, they stepped back out into the street. Ashley's stomach grumbled then, so loud that he looked down at the noise. "I'm guessing that means you're hungry."
"Famished." She smiled, sheepish. It was one in the afternoon, after all, and neither of them had eaten anything all day.
"Does Italian sound good to you ?" He pointed to the closest restaurant.
"Oh yeah, definitely."
…
Ashley seemed a good deal more happy as she ate her part of the creamy lasagna…but even as he chewed and swallowed, Leon couldn't stop thinking. About the way he'd acted – the way he'd pulled her body against his, and held her in place. He didn't know what rattled him more; the fact that he'd kissed her, or that Ashley had kissed him first. He looked up from his plate to watch her.
She had cream near the corner of her mouth. Before reason could kick in, he reached over the space between them and swiped his finger over her skin. She blinked at him, doe-eyed, before stammering out answer – all flushed. "Oh, uh, thanks." Leon nodded, though he felt his body grow warm in embarrassment. What was he doing ? He frowned at his plate, not hungry anymore.
"Hey. You okay ?" Ashley had paused in her degustation to look at him in concern. Am I ? Leon wondered, not quite sure either.
It's nothing, he should've said. But instead he murmured, "I don't know."
She seemed surprised for a split second, before saying, "Why, what's wrong ? Do you feel sick ?"
If only the reason behind his agitation was so simple. "No, I've just…been thinking."
"About…?"
"About the night I was drunk. Is there something you want to tell me ?" When he looked up, Leon did a double take – shocked, as he saw Ashley's face drain from color remarkably fast, the fork falling from her stiff fingers.
"You remember…?" She whispered.
To Be Continued…
I feel like it's a little silly to make Leon go all heart eyes at Ashley when he should be – and arguably would be in canon, thinking about more important things like the mission they were given from the government, and meeting Derek Simmons for the first time. But noooo, instead I'm like KISS NOW lol. I'm so ready to take their relationship to the next level. I think I've delayed it long enough :P (eleven chapters !!!), though it's going to be messy with the situation they're in. Wonder if they'll pull through…hehehe.
