[i]The bedroom was small. Light filtered in through the slats of partially opened blinds, illuminating walls of faded and dingy paint, a twin bed with rumbled sheets and mens clothing strewn about a hard, packed down dirt red carpet that resembled cardboard.

The view shifted to a pair of men’s hands busily stuffing rifle magazines into a nondescript black backpack. Once the task was complete, the hands zipped up the bag.

In a rush of green and shadows, the surroundings had changed to a winding mountain road. The car navigating the road drove smoothly, there were few jostles as it drove past scenic trees and mountain views. 

Up ahead was a sign, a simple wooden structure that read “Welcome to-” with the name of town or city strangely obscured from view. The words were blurred away, as though a hand had passed through wet paint and smeared the name away into obscurity. 

The eerie silence of these disjointed images was suddenly broken by a gunshot.[/i]

>FAIRFIELD, VIRGINIA
>MOORE RESIDENCE
>03OCT2019
>1045…///

Ava jerked awake, sitting up straight with a gasp and grasping tightly onto the arms of her desk chair. She quickly looked around her home office, her heart beating in her chest as she looked for signs of a gunman or a bullet hole in her wall. 

There was nothing. No shadowy figure in her doorway, no bullet holes in her wall and even the window behind her was still intact. She could hear birds merrily chirping through the glass. 

“Mrow.” The rumbling meow made Ava look down, seeing Thor approaching her chair.

“Hey buddy.” Ava sighed, her eyes glancing nervously around her office again. She reached down and stroked his head, finding a measure of calm hearing him purr and feeling his soft fur beneath her fingers.

She opened a drawer beside her desk and removed her handgun she had stashed there. Ignoring the discomfort in her eyes from falling asleep in her contacts, she cautiously left her office to patrol around her home; making sure that it was empty.

Finding everything as she left it, she breathed a little easier, despite the faint tremor she still felt in her hands. She returned to her office, set her pistol on her desk and collapsed back into her desk chair.

Thor jumped into her lap a moment later, purring like a lawn mower and tapping his paw on one of her hands. Ava started to absentmindedly pet him, stroking his fur and bringing herself down from the rush of adrenaline and paranoia. 

After a few minutes, she felt collected enough to sit up straight and turn her attention to her computer. She pulled up the Dream Syndicate website and read through some of the recent posts. 

They all described the same dream she had just had. 

Ava leaned back into her chair, Thor curled up in her lap and rubbed her hand over her face as her mind raced. 

Were the dreams happening more frequently? There was that vision she had in Alaska and then another in Anchorage.

What did that mean?

She needed to talk to someone, but both Dave and Laine were gone on their camping trip. She reached over, picked up her phone and called Donnelley. 

The phone only gave her the quiet trills of her call for a few moments. It was only after a time wondering if he would pick up that he did, “Ava?” Donnelley asked, his voice somewhere between worry and confusion until he spoke again in a more friendly tone, “What’s up?”

“Hey, uh, how are things?” Ava found herself asking, grimacing as she fought the urge to tell him everything right away. 

“Things are, uh,” Donnelley paused, sighed. The mental image of him rubbing his tired face and eyes wouldn’t be that far off, “Things are goin’ alright.”

He sniffled, “Just called to catch up? Haven’t talked to you or Dave in a bit.”

“Not...really.” Ava answered hesitantly. “I had another dream-vision...thing.”

Donnelley’s voice seemed to perk up and any traces of tiredness were long gone, replaced with firm seriousness, “Am I the first person you called about this?”

“Yeah.” She said with a frown, petting Thor with her free hand. “I just woke up from it.”

“Okay, good.” He sounded a bit relieved, “Listen, I was wrappin’ up some work, I can swing by.” He offered.

“If you’d like.” He added, “Bring some beer or somethin’. Watch a movie, help you calm down?”

She blinked but smiled slightly at the offer. “Yeah, that sounds nice. I can’t really...drink beer, so you can have it all to yourself.” She scratched Thor’s back as the smile slipped from her face. “Should I...not tell anyone else about it?”

“Ah, shoot, I’m sorry.” Surely Donnelley was rolling his eyes at himself in his office, “I forgot drinkin’s not your thing.”

He chuckled a bit before he addressed Ava, “You just…” he sighed, “I know how hard it is to keep secrets from everyone around you, I’m sorry about that, Ava.”

Little did Ava know that Donnelley knew all too intimately the art of concealing things about his true self from everyone in a room, everyone in his life. Not just about his employment at the CIA, or the Program, but to the very feelings he’d been born with that so many in his line of work looked down upon. “Nobody but you, me, and our Workin’ Group need to know about your condition. We’re a team, us against the world.”

She relaxed a little. “Okay, I can handle that.” Thor suddenly jumped off her lap and she rolled her eyes at the cat’s fickle nature. “When can I expect you? I can order us something to eat.”

“Ah,” Donnelley paused, “Probably an hour. Order whatever, I’ll eat it.”

>...///

Donnelley’s bike came to a stop next to Ava’s driveway. His cautious eyes scanned up and down the block, as well as the front of the house. He push-checked his .40 and stuffed it in the holster in his waistband, shutting off the somewhat subdued rumble of his Indian Chief. His footsteps brought him to the front door, knocking a couple times and casting another few glances about for any suspicious cars.

Program CI had to be close by. He’d have to be careful with what he and Ava talked about, even inside her own house. They were relentless, fucking parasites whose jobs were keeping the Program’s secrets with the Program, but too many brushes with them had made them nothing but power hungry coattail riders that dug their fingers into everything they could to make themselves seem more important than they were. He looked down at the beers in his hand, unable to keep from at least buying something for himself.

And then he shrugged the shoulder the book bag’s strap rested on. Inside of it were the files. He didn’t trust them in his office, so he kept them close at all times, constantly paranoid of someone knowing somehow, if he wasn’t careful enough. Every glance an accusation. He knocked again, wondering if Ava had a gun on the door as she looked through the peephole. Couldn’t really blame her, “Just me!” He said, just in case.

There was a beat of silence and then the door opened, revealing a slightly flustered Ava dressed in a long grey shirt with blue and pink gradient yoga pants. “Hi! Sorry! Thor was trying to eat the food I ordered.” She said, stepping to the side and opening the door wider to let him in. 

However, for the first time since Donnelley had known her, Ava’s hair was not a chaotic cloud of curling red waves and copper corkscrews. Instead, her hair now fell in a perfectly flat sheet down from her head, like a curtain of ruby with the occasional fleck of amber.

“I see you.” She said to the cat, the large feline perched on the back of the couch and staring intently toward the kitchen where a plain white bag with grease spots on the paper sat. She turned back to Donnelley with a smile, holding her arms out to hug him. “How are you?”

“Feelin’ a little overdressed...” He said, looking down at his black polo and tan slacks. He looked at Ava like he’d seen a ghost, or a long lost friend. His heart picked up and he didn’t expect to see Ava so… different looking. His blue ID Badge was still clipped to his pants and he fidgeted with it for a second before he cleared his throat, “…For the occasion… uh, other’n that? Pretty good.”

Tentatively, he reciprocated the hug and then stepped back from Ava again. He was unused to gestures like that, funny, since he’d gotten real used to the gestures he and Laine shared a few nights. A hug should’ve been a handshake to him. He nodded to the food that Thor seemed so preoccupied with, “What’d you get?”

“Sandwiches and fries.” She said, shutting the door behind him once he stepped in, her eyes going curiously toward his backpack. “I got you a rib meat sandwich, I hope that’s alright.” She walked over to the kitchen and started digging out the food while keeping an eye on Thor.

Donnelley’s eyes lit up at the prospect of food in front of him. Working double time at the Company office almost erased his human needs, a machine-like single-mindedness took him over and it was seeping away the further he got from that office chair. “Where from?” He asked, “I got a hankerin’ for most anythin’.”

He smiled at Ava, “I hope you’re doin’ a little better.”

She smiled back, a flicker of exhaustion dancing across her eyes. 

Donnelley kept his smile as he crossed to the living room and took a seat, setting his book bag down in front of him. He gestured to one of the couches in the living room, “Well, come on, let’s break bread. Talk about whatever you want to.”

“Yeah, okay.” She said, her smile brightening for a brief moment before she fetched the food from the kitchen counter and brought it over to her coffee table. “You look like you’re coming back from the office.” She noted, sitting down and pulling over her container with her grilled chicken sandwich. “I thought we were all on leave, they let you go to work?”

“Yeah, kinda.” He shrugged, watching Ava set the food on the coffee table, “I can look, but I can’t touch, you know. At least they’re still payin’ me. I just had to, uh, pick up a few things from my desk.”

He smiled, reaching over and sliding the styrofoam container closer to himself and shoving a steak fry in his mouth. He took a second to chew and swallow before he spoke again, “So,” he smiled awkwardly, “We can completely bypass the elephant in the room and just hang out like a couple of besties or we can, um, pounce on the thing and dissect it.”

He shrugged, “I’m cool with anythin’.”

Thor jumped up onto the couch next to Donnelley, the large Norwegian cat sitting down and staring at him as his long fluffy tail flicked back and forth.

Ava took in a breath and looked down at her food. “Probably should get it out of the way.” She smiled tiredly and looked down at her untouched food. “I was seeing out of someone else’s eyes again. Like when Tom...and you were…” She trailed off and sighed heavily. “But it wasn’t as violent as those times. I was seeing through the eyes of a man, I could tell by the hands. I was in his room, a dark and dingy place, not a lot of decoration or personalization anywhere. He was packing up a bunch of rifle magazines into a backpack. Then the dream changed and I or he was riding in a car down a mountain road. The radio wasn’t on, no one was talking, it was very quiet. I saw one of those ‘welcome to’ signs on the side of the road but I couldn’t make out the name of where they were driving into.”

She finally picked up a french fry and stared at it. “Then there was a gunshot and I woke up.” She popped the fry into her mouth and chewed through it mechanically, hardly noticing the taste.  “It feels like...these are starting to happen more frequently.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is.” Donnelley gave Ava a consoling smile, remembering how she’d cried into his chest during one of their many stays at a cheap motel. “I’m sorry. But Sobel probably has some sort of… fix. I promise we’ll find somethin’.”

Ava shivered at the mention of Sobel, her mind flashing back to the barn in Alaska. “I guess we can ask, Ipiktok gave me those berries…” She trailed off, thinking about the strangely sad shaman, what he had said to her before everything went wrong. “I’d like a more sustainable solution though, those berries will only help me a certain number of times and I doubt I can grow a new plant from the seeds in them.” She picked up her soda and played with the straw. “Maybe something I can pass on to others…”

Donnelley nodded sullenly at first, reaching over to grab another steak fry before freezing just short of getting one. He looked at Ava, “Others?”

She nodded, furrowing her brow at him. “Yeah, there’s a website for a bunch of kids that have dreams like I do. After I woke up, I pulled it up and they all had the same vision that I did.” She frowned. “Foster didn’t tell you?”

Donnelley didn’t move, just stared at Ava for a second before grabbing a fry and sitting back. He shook his head, “There’s a [i]website?[/i]”

“Yeah, uh, hang on, I can show you.” She said, shutting her container of food before getting up. “Make sure he doesn’t eat any people food.” She said, pointing to Thor, laying down next to Donnelley and staring at him expectantly. “I mean it.” She told Donnelley, giving him a narrowed eye look before walking out of the room to get her laptop.

Donnelley had his hands up and eyebrows raised, “Yes, miss’m.”

When Ava left the room, he looked down at Thor. The two of them shared a moment then, staring at each other. Thor started a low purr that vibrated Donnelley’s leg as the big cat nuzzled against it, then looked back up at Donnelley. A long, slow blink was all it took after that. Donnelley sighed, ripping a piece off his steak fry and setting it down in front of Thor, who destroyed the evidence like a good accomplice, “Don’t be a snitch, neither, a’right?”

While Thor cozied up to Donnelley in hopes of getting more contraband treats, Ava returned with her laptop tucked under her arm. She sat down next to Donnelley on the couch and opened the computer, the screen turning on to show the Dream Syndicate website.

“Here, this is it.” She said, passing the laptop over to him. “When we got back I checked to see if anyone had visions like I did in Alaska, but it looked like those nightmares were just for me.”

“How the hell…” Donnelley muttered as he read the different post titles, some mentioning events that he recognized. And some he was in, like the dream Ava had about him when he was in Iraq, though through the language and eyes of someone not privy to what he and Ava were- [i]I THINK I HAD A DREAM ABOUT ISIS PRISON[/i], “Jesus… Foster told you about this?”

“Yeah,” She said with a sigh, staring at the screen. “He told me about it after what happened with Tom. I think he thought it would make me feel better to know I wasn’t alone and while that’s nice...There’s nothing I can do. Nothing to help me or these kids.”

“Stop.” Donnelley said, trying to look into Ava’s eyes, voice quiet in the silence of the room that had enveloped them after Ava voiced her anxiety, “We’re doin’ everythin’ we can. None of us understand anythin’ about this… magic shit, but…”

Donnelley frowned, “I still blame myself for so much, Ava.” Donnelley swallowed a lump in his throat remembering the fate of Wetwork Team GRANTOR in Chechnya, and watching the woman in front of him die in Alaska because he wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t fast enough for any of them. He shook his head, “You can’t help them if you don’t know how to help yourself, and if you put that responsibility on yourself it’s goin’ to crush you.”

“I’ve got my team to worry about, and that means you too. We’ll find a way for you.” Donnelley promised, “Okay?”

Ava looked into his eyes, blue like her own, and sighed, brushing her hair out of her face. “Okay.” She said with a small, albeit tired, smile. 

She put a hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Try...Not to blame yourself so much either, okay?” 

Donnelley looked down at Ava’s small hand on his arm and then smiled at her. He nodded once and said, “I’ll try.” He lay his hand on Ava’s for a moment and then looked to the food, “I would blame myself if we let these sandwiches get too cold.”

He chuckled, “You got a movie in mind for us to watch?”

“You’re the guest, you can pick.” Ava said, happy to get off the topic, for now at least. “I have all the streaming services so you can pick whatever.” She opened up her box of food and fished out a steak. It wasn’t as hot as it was, but still fairly warm with a nice crunch to the outside. 

“I’m thinkin’ somethin’ lighthearted after all the bullshit we been through.” Donnelley snorted as he turned on the TV and navigated to Netflix. As was expected from Ava, her watchlist and continue-watching section was filled with Disney movies and other shows and films you’d usually find in a woman’s Netflix account. “Won’t be too hard to find somethin’ lighthearted in this, I guess.”

“Any cheesy action movies? I prefer my vintage in the 80’s, but I’m down for anythin’.” Donnelley smiled.

“Oh I don’t know any action movies off the top of my head, especially from the 80s.” Ava said with a shrug, eating another fry and chewing thoughtfully. “Isn’t there one with Arnold Schwarzenegger and he basically puns his way through killing a bunch of baddies?”

Donnelley rose his brows at Ava, “I believe you’re talkin’ about one of the greatest movies of all time, yes. It is named Commando, and it will live on as a masterpiece of cinema.”

She grinned. “I’ve never seen it and clearly, it’s one of your favorites, so why don’t we watch it?”

He went to searching for it on Netflix and smacked his knee when he found it, “You won’t regret this.”

Ava smiled, happy to see the life return to him. “It’s puns, I never regret puns.”

>...///

Ava picked up the now empty food boxes as the end credits for Commando rolled across the screen. “Alright, I can see why you say that was the greatest movie of all time.” She grinned at Donnelley, heading to the kitchen to dump the boxes in the trash. “I particularly liked the sound track. Are there any other 80s classics I’ve been missing out on?” She asked, glancing out the window in the kitchen and noting that the sun was starting to set. 

Feeling a craving set in, she opened up a cupboard and pulled down a sauce pan.

Donnelley followed Ava to the kitchen, not feeling comfortable shouting in her house, and instead stood leaning against the wall and watching her with some curiosity as to what she was doing, “Well, you ever seen Predator?” He asked, “What’cha makin’?”

“I have not seen Predator.” She said with a bit of a shiver. “I always thought it was too...scary, I guess? But it’s over 30 years old now, so, I guess it wouldn’t look as scary.” She looked down as Thor came trotting into the kitchen, but perched himself up on the bench of the breakfast nook so he could be properly aloof. “And I thought I’d make some London Fogs, do you want one?” She asked brightly, turning to an electric kettle on the counter and removing it from it’s little electric base to fill with water. 

Donnelley quirked a brow, “London Fog?”

She gave him an equally confused look before realization clicked. “Oh, right, you don’t obsess over tea like I do.” She laughed awkwardly. “It’s an Earl Grey tea latte. So you steep Earl Grey in water, then you fill up the mugs with hot foamy milk, usually mixing in vanilla in some way. Sometimes I boil in dried lavender buds, I call that a Lazy London Fog. And if you make it with espresso it’s called a Dirty London Fog or a London Smog.” 

“Oh,” Donnelley’s eyebrows rose and he nodded his head at what he imagined it to taste like, it sounded good enough for him and he wasn’t much of a tea person, “That sounds pretty good. I didn’t know you were a tea person. I mean, it don’t really surprise me, but still.”

He chuckled, “I guess there’s a lot we don’t know about each other.” He trailed off as he watched her work, “So, twenty questions? Who first?”

Ava looked at him, surprised. “Really? Uh,” She scratched her head as she opened the pantry and started collecting things in her arms. A tin of Earl Grey tea, a jar of dried lavender buds, a mason jar labeled ‘vanilla sugar’ and a tin of dark chocolate coco powder. “Well, aside from Commando, what’s your favorite movie?” She set down her ingredients and picked up the lavender. “Do you want to try a regular London or a Lazy London?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Donnelley chuckled, before putting his thinking face on, looking off and away, “Actually, would you accept ‘79? Apocalypse Now. Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen is pretty good too, but that’s ‘90.”

He snapped his fingers, “[i]Conan the Barbarian[/i]. Another Schwarzenegger classic.” He nodded, “But, uh, yeah. I like Apocalypse Now. Fun fact, it’s based on an old novel, Heart of Darkness. Never been a [i]huge[/i] literature person, but I’ve read a few books. I’ll try this Lazy London, by the way.”

“My taste in books is kinda dark, like my music.” He said, “What about you? What’s Ava’s music tastes?”

Ava furrowed her brow in thought as she set the tea kettle to brew at the appropriate temperature for Earl Grey. “I’m pretty all over the place and it depends on what I’m doing. If I’m working or doing something that needs my focus then I like listening to lofi or video game soundtracks. If I’m exercising or driving then, uh, I usually like...I guess it’d be alternative rock? Probably lame bands by comparison to what you listen too. I’ve been getting into K-Pop lately and, um,” She flushed and rubbed the back of her neck. “I like metal covers of Disney songs. They’re fun.” 

She cleared her throat and went to the fridge to fetch a carton of milk. “What about you? What are these dark music tastes?”

“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.” He chuckled, “Mostly punk and metal. I like me some gangster rap too, a lot of Southern artists. What kinda alt-rock we talkin’ about?”

Ava eyed him as she set the milk on the counter. “...I don’t want to say. You’ll make fun of me or judge me, probably both.”

Donnelley smirked, folding his arms and turning his head up at Ava, “Try me.”

She stared at him before sighing. “I like the stuff I listened to back in college, when I was a teenager. Linkin Park, 3 Days Grace, even and especially, My Chemical Romance. I even went through a bit of a punk emo phase,” She flushed in embarrassment. “I was in college and I thought it made me seem more grown up. Don’t judge me or you aren’t getting any tea!”

“Oh, no London Fog for Donnelley? Kinda wanted one of those.” He feigned pouting and then chuckled, “Did you have the whole ensemble? Dressin’ like an edgy teen? I had that phase, but [i]my[/i] pictures ain’t at hand.”

He clucked his tongue, smirking, “Yours are.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her own pout threatening to poke out her bottom lip. “What do I get out of this deal?”

Donnelley rolled his jaw, looking up and away for a moment before his eyes settled back on Ava, “Name your price.” Donnelley floated, then his smirk grew to a grin, and he thrust his thumb over his shoulder towards the neighborhood street, “I’ll let you [i]ride my bike.[/i]”

Her eyes brightened. “Deal!” She said, sticking out her hand for him to shake. 

He gave a big old nod, just once and took Ava’s hand. They shook. Donnelley nodded towards her front door, “We’ll take a ride come sun-up.” He smiled, “How’s that?”

“Sounds good to me.” She beamed, stepping away from the kitchen counter and waving to him to follow her. “Come on, it's in my home office.” She said, heading for the hallway with Thor jumping down from his perch to trot along behind her.

Ava lead them down a short hallway where there was a cracked door revealing a guest bathroom to one side and two doors parallel to each other towards the end of the hallway. One door was open, clearly leading to Ava’s bedroom where there was a neatly made bed with an assortment of adorable plushies arranged on it. Including the large cat pillow Laine had gotten her so many weeks ago.

The other door was shut and she opened it to reveal a spacious office. An L shaped desk sat towards the back corner of the room, one side flush to the wall while the other faced the door so the chair behind the desk had a good view of the door. Two monitors sat on the desk along with a number of small knick knacks, including a few succulent plants in decorative pots.

There was a window at the back of the room and noticeably the desk was as far from the window as it could be. 

This left the room fairly open, a small grey couch covered in pillows, a blanket was pushed against one wall. Sitting on the couch was Chunk, the fox plushie she won back in Seattle. In one corner of the room was clearly an adult sized bean bag chair, complete with a little stand to place one’s coffee or tea. 

Pressed against the other wall was a bookcase filled with different flavors of fiction and non-fiction as well as what appeared to be a normal white dresser. Save from the random smudges and stains of dried paint and other pigments. A jar of paint brushes sat on top of the dresser among an array of framed family pictures. An oil painting of pink peonies in a jar of water was resting on the floor on a small paint covered hand towel, leaning back against the dresser.

Ava walked over to the collection of pictures and selected one from the back. “Alright, here it is.” She said, turning to him with a grimace on her face as she looked at the picture. “Oh, Mid-2000s, why weren’t you cooler?” She asked with a sigh as she handed the frame to Donnelley. “Don’t be too harsh.”

Donnelley took the picture from Ava and then his eyes went to scanning all the details of young Ava. His lip quivered in a smile and he chuckled, “Oh, shit.” He laughed a bit and covered his mouth, wiping at his eye for effect, “Oh, [i]shit.[/i] Wow, you were not lyin’.”

“It was the mid-2000s!” Ava exclaimed, her face flushing. “Tim Burton was very popular! And I was 15 and in college, I thought it made me look more mature!”

In the picture, doing her best to look as severe as possible was a teenaged Ava. Her red hair was cut short in a layered pixie cut and looked like it had been straightened, the natural curls and waves already making their return. Her makeup was mainly a thick ring of eyeliner and dark blue eyeshadow.

Her outfit consisted of a bandana around her neck, a pair of striped fingerless gloves that went to her elbows and was layered with beaded bracelets. She also wore a black shirt of the purple Cheshire cat from the Disney Alice in Wonderland animated movie with the quote ‘We’re All Mad Here’ on it. Completing the look was a red pleated, plaid skirt accessorized with a studded and chain covered belt as well as a pair of knee high converse shoes over a pair of striped stockings.

“God, how the hell d’you even get them shoes on?” Donnelley chuckled at the picture, “It’s like Doc Martens, but worse.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Ava huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Suffice to say, it wasn’t gracefully.” She held her hand out for the picture. “There, I held up my side of the bargain.”

Donnelley pushed his bottom lip out, “Oh, did I upset you?” Donnelley asked, “You looked [i]very[/i] serious and intense. [i]Very[/i] mature.”

He handed the picture back, then nodded at the art supplies, “Didn’t know you painted.”

Ava looked at the brushes as she set the picture back on the dresser. “Oh, yeah.” She smiled, looking down at the painting on the floor while brushing her hair behind her ear. “I haven’t touched paints in awhile and I’ve kinda been neglecting my drawing lately.” She motioned to the room. “Dave actually moved stuff around and made this into a bit of an art studio too.” She smiled, looking back down at the painting of pink peonies. “I had been talking about doing it and then he put it together for me. It’s nice to have a space for creating something pretty.”

“Sounds smart,” Donnelley nodded, “Maybe I should have one. Get a big house somewhere, make the basement a Judo studio or somethin’.”

Donnelley chuckled and leaned down to take a good look at Ava’s flower painting, trying with every fiber of his artistically stunted mind to understand [i]why[/i] it was good. He already knew that it was, but he stood back up and nodded his acknowledgment that it was, “That’s a really good paintin’.” Donnelley smiled as sincerely as he ever did, though sheepishly, that being the only appraisal he could make of it, “My daughter paints. She draws on her computer too, she’s really good at it.”

He smiled at the memory of her giving him the drawing she’d made as he looked down at Ava’s painting, and the realization that Tilly was more intelligent and talented than he’d ever been. It was astounding, how different she’d become, how she’d grown in his absence. Astounding, but heartbreakingly painful. “Anyways, uh,” Donnelley muttered, swallowing a lump in his throat as he looked back at Ava, “You’re very talented. Got a lot goin’ for you, I see. I’m sure your parents are proud.”

She smiled sheepishly, looking down at the painting. “Thank you and...Yeah, I think they are. I mean, they kind of got lucky with me. Adopting me and it turns out at 5 I could understand math at a high school level.” She chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck as she looked at all the family pictures on her art dresser. “Hard not to be proud of that.”

Donnelley chuckled, “I know I’d be.” He smiled at Ava and then asked, “You don’t mind me askin’, you don’t remember a lot before your adoption, do you?”

Ava frowned and shook her head slowly. “No, I was only two or three at the time. All I know is that someone found me walking down the side of some back road in West Virginia and no one ever, you know...claimed me.” 

She shrugged stiffly, still looking at the pictures of her family and folded her arms over her chest. “I always figured they didn’t want me, my birth parents.” She finally looked at him with a humorless smile. “The fucked up thing? Despite that, I’ve been thinking about trying to find them anyway.”

Donnelley’s face took on a more sympathetic look when Ava admitted her insecurities to him. When she said she’d wanted to find them, he gained back some good humor, “I think anybody in your position would want to know. Before my ma and pa passed they took one of them spit-into-a-tube DNA things.” Donnelley shrugged, “Didn’t really find anythin’ surprisin’ like some Chinese hidin’ in our ancestry. Just Welsh, Irish, little bit of German.”

“My ancestors were coal miners and moonshiners. Go figure where my rebellious streak came from.” He chuckled, “I hope you find some answers. I know you and your computer sleuthin’, won’t be hard to find some.”

“Thanks,” She smiled, some of the warmth returning. “I thought about just doing one of those DNA things honestly, they sometimes help people find lost family members.” She shrugged and grew quiet for a moment.

“You don’t think it’s dumb?” She asked him quietly. “I mean, it’s obvious they didn’t want me, but I thought...With the dreams and the visions...Maybe they would know something.” She shrugged again, her shoulders moving stiffly. “Or they could turn out to be crazy cult people living in the mountains.”

“Well, if they didn’t want you, they really lost out on someone special. Hell, they don’t deserve you anyway.” Donnelley shook his head, then chuckled a little, “I don’t think it’s stupid. Knowin’ where you came from is important, at least tells you what you avoided becomin’. I’m sure Dave said the same, but you ever need any kind of help in your search then I’m here.”

She smiled again, a faint mistiness appearing in her eyes. “Thanks Donnelley, I really appreciate it.” She sniffed and tilted her head to the door. “So, shall we get back to the tea? Maybe put on another 80s classic I completely missed out on.”

Donnelley returned Ava’s smile, slipping his hands into his pockets and nodding, “Tea sounds good.” He said, then looked up and away for a moment before returning his gaze to Ava, “How ‘bout you pick the next one? Any ideas?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, letting her fingers glide through her straightened hair as she pondered the question.

“Well, I’ve got an 80s movie of my own. Have you ever seen any of the Ghibli studio films?”

Donnelley shook his head, “Nope.” He shrugged and smiled, “Why not show me my first?”

She smiled. “I think you might like it. It’s called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.”

“Well, let’s… uh, [i]brew[/i]… some tea and get cozy.” Donnelley smiled, maybe not getting the tea lingo right, but his enthusiasm was admirable. He clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he and Ava left the room to get back to happier, simpler things.

>…///

Donnelley watched the credits roll on the movie. It was late at night by now. Donnelley opened his mouth to say something to Ava until he heard the soft snoring from her on the other couch. He smiled softly at her seemingly dreaming peacefully, no nightmares or visions so far. He knew how hard it was to want to fall asleep when even sleep wasn’t a respite from the world. Even if he couldn’t imagine what it was like to have to see the worst parts of the future, he knew how it was to have to see the worst parts of the past. He’d woken up screaming or crying, sometimes both, more times than he’d care to admit.

He simply looked at her, had to wonder who the hell would pass up a talented genius as a daughter and then looked away from Ava in resignation. He knew someone who did just that. He pulled out his personal phone, the background picture being the one he and Tilly took outside her house, and he smiled. He opened their text messages and sent her a message asking if she liked Studio Ghibli movies and then slipped his phone back into his pocket, looking down at the book bag at his feet. He gulped, throat dry of a sudden at the reminder that he could go to federal prison, or even a black site if it was found out he had unsanitized top secret documents that he was not cleared to view.

Even so, it was a piece of the mystery. An unfinished task in West Virginia. Donnelley didn’t leave things unfinished. He grabbed up the book bag and walked to the room where Ava kept her work desk as quietly as he could. He left the door open, not wanting Ava to think he was snooping through her things. Just the deep state government’s, he thought. And even then, he couldn’t bring himself to open the book bag and view those case files. He simply leaned back in the office chair and stared a hole into the bag as if he could read the documents through the thick canvas. “[i]Fuck…[/i]” he sighed, ripping them out of the canvas bag and slapping them on the desk, in full view of his prying eyes. No matter how much he wanted to look away and burn it all, like his clothes in Alaska, so he could pretend it never happened. He growled, “[i]Fuck…[/i]”

“Donnelley?” Ava’s soft, sleep groggy voice called out before Thor came trotting into the office. A moment later she poked her head in, blinking her eyes blearily at him. Her hair was slightly mussed from sleep, but it was no longer the amber cloud it once was. “Hey.” She greeted with a yawn, Thor circling around Donnelley’s legs before jumping up onto his lap with a loud purr.

She scratched the back of her neck, looking at him in bemusement. “What are you doing in here?”

Donnelley jumped almost entirely out of the chair, scraping his knuckles along a sharp corner of the desk in his startle. He looked at Ava, only Ava, in her doorway and staring at him. The question felt like a noose at the gallows, yawning and hungry for his neck. To tell her, or not. “Sorry,” he chuckled nervously, “Didn’t mean to sneak around.”

“Sneak around?” She asked, still confused and half asleep. She looked between him and then the dual monitors on her desk, her waking brain sluggishly trying to fit pieces together. “Did you need to do something on the computer? It’s password protected, so I’d have to log you in.”

Donnelley looked altogether guilty and anxious as he looked at Ava. The files remained on the desk, but he’d made no move to stuff them back into the book bag. They laid plainly open on the desk, marked out in symbols that Ava would recognize as warnings for proper clearances and Special Access Projects that Donnelley definitely didn’t have any right to be viewing. He sat and looked at her like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He had been, “If anyone asks,” Donnelley began, though his voice wasn’t angry, moreso pleading in a way, “I was never here with these.”

“And you [i]never[/i] saw them.” He lowered his voice to a harsh rasp.

Ava woke up quickly after that, blinking her eyes rapidly and looking at Donnelley to the files sitting on her desk. Her gut began to twist and curl as anxiety rose in her chest. “What’s going on?” She asked him quietly, looking from the folder to Donnelley. “What did you bring here?”

“I didn’t bring anythin’, Ava, and you’ll tell anyone else that asks the same thing.” Donnelley’s anxiety had turned to frustration, less like guilt and more like an animal backed into a corner. “We both know [i]what could happen.[/i]”

Ava took a small step back, surprised by the anger rising from Donnelley. In all the time she had known him, he’d never spoken to her like that. She frowned at him and crossed her arms over her chest, looking away from him. “Just...are we, is UMBRA, in any [i]more[/i] danger from whatever is happening?”

Donnelley looked at Ava as she refused to look at him, standing in the doorway. She was closing off from him and he could tell. He didn’t blame her, the sudden outburst of desperation in getting her to drop the subject was unlike him. And he asked himself how he felt after doing the same to Avery after him acting out. Putting him down and brushing aside his burdens rather than asking what was really going on. Before he died.

If Ava met the same fate, he wouldn’t be able to call himself a leader and mean it ever again. And with what was on her desk, they were closer to that being a reality than Ava truly knew. Donnelley softened, just a hair, “I’m sure us wakin’ up from bein’ killed wasn’t an accident. TRIDENT and those fake NOMADs didn’t all just trip and accidentally shoot us to death.” He said in that same raspy whisper, “The fact is someone already wants us dead because of what we know.”

He looked down at the papers across her desk and frowned deep, growling as he scanned the pages, “Havin’ these files is a treason charge and a death sentence.” Donnelley looked back up at Ava, “We were all in danger the second we said yes to the Program.”

Donnelley looked back at the files, “No goin’ back now.”

Ava’s eyes widened and her head snapped around to look at him. “How did you-no.” She shut her eyes and held up her hands. “No. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything of this. Donnelley, why would you...And you brought it here!?” She shook her head, turning away and running her hands over her hair, as though smoothing down the curls that were no longer there. “Goddamn it, are you trying to get us all black bagged, again!? Because once was enough for me back in Alaska.” She turned back and waved her arm in a general motion of distress. “The Program already blames us for our own deaths back in Alaska, why are you poking the fucking bear?”

“Because, I’d rather know the [i]truth![/i]” Donnelley stood and sent the office chair clattering back into the wall, “One death might have been enough for you, but do you think it’ll be enough for [i]them?[/i]”

“Do you think you can just lie down and cover your eyes? Pretend that this isn’t [i]real[/i] and live a normal [i]fuckin’ life?[/i]” Donnelley had his hands balled into fists, resting on his knuckles on the desk as he leaned over it towards Ava, “Unless we finish this ourselves, it’ll finish [i]us.[/i]”

Ava’s eyes started to well up with tears. “I’ve never been normal!” Ava shouted, her voice cracking. “There is something [i]different[/i] about me and there’s no goddamn rhyme or reason for it, so excuse fucking me if I dream about having a normal ass life! Excuse me for thinking it might be possible to retire from all of this, move out of here and go live a nice simple life with the man that I love! And excuse me for being upset when my team lead, a man I look up to for guidance, brings around something that can destroy any chances I have of achieving that!” Tears started to fall down her cheeks and she rubbed her hands over them to wipe away the tears. 

“Retire?” Donnelley whispered, reedy, the taste of the word was like a bite of something that was far past its expiration, “[i]Retire?[/i]”

“Is that how you think this works? After twenty years, you get to settle down and you get to live off a [i]fucking pension?[/i]” Donnelley snorted bitterly, “If we could retire, or just quit, hand in a fuckin’ [i]two weeks’ notice[/i] wouldn’t you think I’d have done that by now?”

Donnelley’s voice rose, “Instead of wakin’ up every fuckin’ mornin’ thrashin’ and tryin’ to save friends that are [i]already fuckin’ dead[/i]!?” Spittle flew from his lips to somewhere on the floor, his teeth gritted as his own eyes blurred over with a film of wet, “I’d be with [i]my[/i] daughter and [i]my[/i] wife tryin’ to fix what I fucked up, instead of…”

He looked at his palms, his scarred knuckles, his calluses and burns. All he could hear was the blood pumping in his head and the slamming in his chest. The most obvious scar of all looking at Ava from his cheek down to his neck, “Instead of…” for a second, just a snap of fingers, the time it took for lightning to strike, that little girl in Libya was in Ava’s place and holding her brother’s hand and just staring, just staring and waiting for what would come next, “If it fuckin’ worked like that I wouldn’t have had [i]to lie to my own daughter’s face[/i] if I said I was a good person!”

“If you wanted to retire, you should’ve walked away when you had the chance in Anchorage and stayed a ghost.” Donnelley’s breath quivered in his throat, but his eyes were hard even if they were flowing. “The only ones made it out of this fuckin’ shit is Maui and Avery.”

She stared at him, tears falling from her eyes. She stared at him, opening her mouth as though to speak, before shutting it and looking away. Without saying a word, she turned and walked away, Thor dutifully following along behind her. She went across the hallway to her bedroom, left the door open long enough for Thor to follow her in, then shut the door loudly behind her. 

Donnelley stared at her closed door for a long while after, paralyzed by what had happened in Alaska, and the differences that they had in what its echoes sounded like when they heard it in their dreams and the quiet moments and in the arms of the people they loved, and what it meant for UMBRA to even be in the same room from then on. He swallowed loudly, made louder by his lonesome in that room. He looked down at the files, now wet with drops from his eyes. He frowned, but he knew those files didn’t make him scream at one of the only people on his side.

He wiped at his eyes and grated out, “[i]Fuck…[/i]”

He went to packing up the files one folder of them at a time, feeling wholly like he’d outstayed his welcome. As the last one was picked up off the desk, his eyes strayed to an uneven stack of papers next to the computer. He put the folder away and looked closer, finding a list of all of UMBRA’s names written in beautifully stroked calligraphy from Ava’s own pen. Doodles of cats and other cute animals on the borders, shopping lists, ideas for party games, the works.

Pictures of Dave and Ava that looked like every other couple. Every couple that was just… [i]normal.[/i] Dave sleeping, the two of them in a photobooth, the two of them on the carousel in Seattle, and somewhere on a trail in the Cascades. Scenes of domestic life, life that couldn’t be any further from what life for them was really like. Next to it was a picture of all of them. It was taken what seemed like years ago, but only really a couple months back, standing in the backyard of the Safehouse when they first met Avery, and Jason had brought dinner and drinks for all of them.

All smiles, Donnelley and Laine on opposite ends of the lineup, not quite ready to admit to anyone and not even themselves how close they really were. Which left Ava standing next to him, an arm around his and Dave’s waists and Donnelley’s hand on her shoulder, a beer in the other. Those smiles seemed so genuine, like the ones still feeling the tingle of a fit of hard laughter. Now Donnelley only had a frown as he turned away from the pictures like he couldn’t beat letting them see him like this. He grabbed up the book bag to leave.

It felt like he was running with each step of his downtrodden trudging out of the door. Though, if it was from something or towards something, he couldn’t really tell. Maybe both.