Ashleigh was lost in a deep sleep, feeling warm, and secure within the covers that twisted around her body. She dreamt.
She stood on the top of the stairs in her childhood home, the phone was ringing. She felt a knot of terror deep in her stomach, which intensified as the phone cut off abruptly. She forced the feeling down, already worrying the thumbnail on her left hand; tasting the soap she had washed her hands with earlier, its citrus taste bitter in her mouth. She knew she should be studying, she had to return to school soon, not crouching trying to snatch broken bits of conversation from her father's study. The terror intensified, her father, her father was dead, and this was it, the moment she was told. Slowly she began to descend down the stairs.
No. Her dreaming self tried to break through, to shake her thirteen year old self by the shoulders. No. This wasn't how it happened. She had been at school when she had received news of her father's death, in the middle of a games lesson, playing hockey. She had remembered glancing over her shoulder, seeing her headmistress approach the pitch, the hurried whispered conversation, the girls paused where they stood. The whistle had blown, piercing in the autumn peace, and Miss Lockley, the games mistress had called Ashleigh over. Later Ashleigh would watch from the window of the Headmistress's office at her class as they continued with the game. The words would glide over her as she studied a smudge of red dust from the hockey pitch on her white socks, still clutching her hockey stick furtively, vulnerable in her gym skirt and the bib denoting her position as right forward. A car crash, terribly sorry, someone was coming to pick her up, so tragic, a horribly tragic accident. And so she had become an orphan, and lost her father. She hadn't been in the hall way listening... no she had been at school. She approached the door to her father's office tentatively, her hand rose to knock, creeping in, seeing her father sitting in his huge leather chair, his head in his hands.
'Daddy?' she had asked, scared by his look of despair. He had reached for her, holding her in his arms, stonily silent, until she had pulled away from his uncomfortably tight embrace, and asked 'what, what is it?'. A man had died, a man he knew, his friend, a car crash, and Ashleigh had listened stunned as she had been told Alec Trevelyan was dead. Her father crushed by the loss of his friend, had withdrawn into his work, refusing to speak the name of the dead man. She had not understood his devastation then, but later she had. The betrayal, 006's betrayal of England, and of his friends, her father. He had betrayed her father, and now she lay in his bed....
With a jolt, the sheets sticking to her sweat soaked skin she awoke, the light was just beginning to creep into the room. It took a moment to focus on the room around her, and the memories of the night before to come flooding back.
She glanced around, and discovered to her relief that she was alone, running her hands along the crumpled sheets she found they were cool to her touch; she had slept alone for some time. But the dented pillow and the cool fresh scent that filled the air confirmed that at some point during the night she had shared this bed.
Shakily she stood, wrapping the sheet around her naked body, trying not to let horror rise too far within her, she needed to stay in control. Pulling open a door she found the bathroom and turned the shower on, scalding hot, letting the water pound her as if it would remove the feel of Alec's hands from her body. His taste was in her mouth, the smell of his cologne filled her nostrils, and her skin tingled where he had touched her. Frantically she scrubbed at her skin, until it was almost raw.
Ashleigh had just finished dressing; avoiding looking at the bed when the door had opened and the pale eyed man had entered. She was almost relieved, grateful that it was not Janus returning. Now they eyed each other with distrust, and the hatred of enemies.
'You're bringing me back to my own room?' she asked as civilly as she could considering the situation.
He almost seemed surprised. 'I am to return you to your hotel.'
