005 | ALL THESE YEARS
( all these years — camilla cabello )
❝ your hairs grown a little longer,
your arms look a little stronger,
your eyes just as i remember, your smile's just a little softer
and i, yeah i never prepared
for a moment like that,
yeah in a second— it all came back ❞
ATTICA CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
( MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON )
— NEW YORK
____________________________
"STILINSKI, you got a meetin' with your attorney."
Stiles' head only snapped up from his cheap, thin grey pillow when he heard the buzzing sound, indicating his cell door was being unlocked. He clenched his jaw as he sat up, running a hand through his thick hair.
His hair was a lot longer now, he hadn't gotten it cut in a while. He also had some scruffy facial hair which he hadn't been bothered to shave, and his build was a lot stronger and muscular than it was five years ago.
Stiles let out a sigh as he glanced at his cell door, seeing the green light above it telling him it was open and he was free to step outside—except, he wasn't— he knew there was one if not two guards waiting outside to handcuff him and escort him to the visitation centre.
He slowly stood up off of his uncomfortable, springless mattress and slid on his orange prison slip-shoes that matched his entire get-up. From head to toe he was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, and as he stood up and was about to walk out of his cell as per the order, he took a second to glance at his reflection in the small mirror inside his cell.
He got a good look at himself— and wondered when exactly his life turned into this.
"Hey Stilinski!" one of the guards yelled, "We haven't got all day!"
Stiles' jaw hardened irritably at the sound of the guard's impatience, as he walked over to the door of his cell and walked outside.
The second he was out his cell, one of the two guards immediately took to install the handcuffs around his wrists in front of him, and then both of them grabbed him harshly by the shoulders, forcibly guiding him through the cafeteria and to the visitor rooms.
He didn't put up any fight.
His long strands of hair began to fall in front of his forehead and eyes as he looked down at his feet as he was escorted to the meeting with his attorney he didn't even know he had.
He was finally taken to a steel door where the guards finally let go of him, but the handcuffs remained on.
One of the guards then took out a key from his belt and inserted it into the door, opening it up as the Stilinski man let out another sigh, just wanting to get this over with.
"You got twenty minutes." the guard said.
The guard opened up the door and basically pushed Stiles inside the room, slamming the steel door shut behind him.
Stiles thought his eyes were deceiving him when he saw who was sat at that table.
Aspen's eyes shot up at the sound of the door slamming shut, her heart beating what felt like a thousand times a minute.
And then for the first time in all these years, their eyes met.
Even after one second of seeing each other again—everything came back. The pain, the tears, the fighting, the arguing, the bargaining, and the heartbreak.
Stiles blinked, as if he was going to re-open his eyes and find the room to be empty, that this was all some hallucination his mind had concocted to torture him even more.
But as he remained frozen still stood by the door, staring into her eyes for the first time in five years— he was rendered speechless.
His mouth fell open to speak, but no words came out of it.
So did hers.
And when Stiles finally found his voice, all he could say was— "You're my attorney?"
Aspen took in his appearance, feeling every hair on her body prick with the tension that filled this room.
She took in the fact he really was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. She noticed his build— his shoulders were a lot broader now. She noticed his hair— it was a lot longer and messier since she last saw him. He had facial hair now too, that was new.
Stiles was taking in her appearance too. She was dressed in very formal business wear— that was new. Her hair was shorter, back to it's natural dark brown with some caramel highlights. Last time he saw her, it was a lot blonder, and she'd clearly gotten it cut quite a bit too.
"You—" Aspen's voice came out hesitant and a little shaky as her stomach was consumed with nerves, "You didn't know?"
Stiles finally snapped himself out of his frozen trance, blinking as he took a few very slow steps forward and sat himself down in the seat in front of her on the other side of the steel table.
The two couldn't take their eyes off of each other's stares, both of them still processing this was real.
They were finally in a room together again after all of this time apart, they could only wish it was under better circumstances.
"Aspen, I—" Stiles spoke up, needing to cough to clear his throat as it came out so weakly, "I didn't even know you were a lawyer now..."
Aspen wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she just pursed her lips and forced some kind of awkward smile, nodding as she swallowed a lump in her throat.
She couldn't help but notice even his voice sounded different— it was lower, darker.
She then reached our her hand to grab the file on the desk so she could talk Stiles through the case— that was, after all, why she was even here.
Stiles' eyes caught a glimpse of something that made him feel like he'd just been punched in the gut.
But as she reached her hand out for the file, she noticed the look on Stiles' face as he stared at her hand.
Her engagement ring.
Stiles wasn't expecting the pang of jealousy and pain that washed through him at the sight of the accessory. Maybe it was because he was none the wiser of whether it was an engagement ring or a wedding ring.
He knew that when the two of them walked away from each other, something like this was bound to happen some day— one of them would eventually move on first.
But Aspen was the love of Stiles' life— and now he couldn't get the picture of her marrying another man out of his head.
Aspen wasn't sure why she was flooded with a wave of guilt knowing Stiles was staring at her ring. She hadn't done anything wrong by agreeing to marry Jordan, her and Stiles didn't work out.
So why did she feel so awful when she saw the look on his face?
Aspen then cleared her throat with a cough, as she used her other hand to cover up her ring, which made Stiles suddenly look away from the expensive diamond, and he looked up into her eyes instead.
"Are you happy?" he found himself asking.
Aspen was caught off guard by the question— it was a complicated one at that. Was she happy with her career? Of course she was, she worked her ass off to get to where she was now. Was she happy with the friends she had in her life? Incredibly— she had Josephine, who she'd been close with ever since college— and only last week she was in Paris with Lydia.
And was she happy with Jordan? Yes, she was. It was a happiness she didn't think she'd ever have again after her and Stiles' relationship went south six years ago.
But was she really... happy?
"I think so." she replied with a forced smile, giving him a weak nod.
She didn't bother asking him the same question, seeing as he was sat there in an orange jumpsuit, his wrists in handcuffs.
"Did you do it?" Aspen then suddenly asked, shifting her tone and taking Stiles by a bit of surprise as he tilted his head, frowning and narrowing his eyes as he looked into hers.
The tension in the room could've been cut with a knife.
"Aren't lawyers not supposed to ask that?" Stiles shot back, his handcuffed hands resting on the table's surface in front of him, his fingers clasped together as he kept his gaze on hers.
"I'm not asking as your lawyer."
Stiles bit on the inner corner of his cheek as he leant back in his chair, hesitating to reply.
The silence in the air only added to the immense tension surrounding them.
Stiles licked his lips a bit as he glanced down at the file on the table, finally breaking the eye contact. "No, Aspen— I didn't do this."
Aspen leant forward in her seat, resting her elbows on the table in an interrogating manner.
"You wanna try that again? Maybe look me in the eyes this time?" she said.
Stiles' eyes glanced up at hers, and then began to narrow a bit. His jaw clenched slightly and when he spoke up again—his voice was a cold, low whisper:
"What, you don't believe me?"
Aspen's heart was thumping so rapidly inside her chest in this moment. Not only was just being in a room with him again sending her into a dizzy spiral, but seeing him like this... the cold eyes, the orange jumpsuit.
Nothing would've mentally prepared her for this situation.
"If I didn't— could you really blame me?" she replied, her voice matching his low, cold murmuring tone.
Stiles had been in literal prison for about two weeks now.
But he'd been trapped in a mental prison for the last six years.
He'd learnt how to put up a front, hide behind sarcastic smirks and a cold exterior.
The Stilinski man then couldn't help but smirk a bit as he leant back in his seat again, biting on his cheek to suppress his amusement as he stared at her from across the table.
And then he looked her in the eyes, and said— "I didn't do this, Aspen."
Aspen saw the look in his eyes as he spoke, and not only that, but she listened to his heartbeat just to be sure.
It was steady.
She was relieved.
Aspen then pried her eyes away, letting out a deep breath as she slid the navy blue file across the the table to him.
Stiles looked down at it, then looked back up at her, his eyebrows raised.
He held up his hands, showing her the handcuffs with a smug look.
"Would you mind flipping the pages for me?" he murmured, smirking a little, "I'm a little tied up..."
"You need to talk me through exactly what happened," Aspen said, not in the mood for his smug sarcasm or that amused look on his face. "Explain to me how you were even at the warehouse in the first place, why you were the only person at the scene of the crime when the FBI showed up— and why your DNA was found on the gun."
Stiles seemed taken aback by a lot of this. His head tilted as he stared at her, pursing his lips as he let out a pent up sigh.
"I was there on a mission from CIA," Stiles revealed, "they had intel that the target we'd been hunting down for years was about to strike again— at that address."
Stiles quit the FBI all those years ago— to become a CIA agent.
Aspen never exactly approved of it.
"They sent you in there alone?" Aspen interrogated him.
"I do most of my missions alone." Stiles shot back bluntly.
"And what exactly was the mission?" she replied, her hands clasped on the table in front of her as she continued to speak in an interrogating manner.
"Bring down the target— dead or alive." Stiles replied in a casual, monotone voice.
It gave Aspen chills how he spoke like that so casually now.
"Okay..." said Aspen, "that explains why you were there alone... what happened when you got to the warehouse?"
"I got there too late." Stiles sighed as he explained, "I heard the gunshot go off before I'd even laid eyes on the target."
"What does this person look like?" Aspen continued her interrogation of him.
"We don't know."
Aspen frowned with confusion as her eyes narrowed, as she looked into his hazel-brown eyes intensely.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"I mean, no one's ever seen this killer's face." Stiles replied with a shrug. "They've nevet been caught on any CCTV footage, they're completely anonymous, the only we can identify their victims is by the same kill pattern."
"What kill pattern?"
"I don't see how answering this line of questioning helps you bail my ass out of here." Stiles sighed, a strand of long hair falling in front of his eyes as he stared across the table at her through it.
"I need to have all the facts." Aspen answered, "I can't prove your innocence if I get blind sided. Besides, everyone knows the best way to move the target off of one person's back is to point the finger somewhere else."
"That's what this target's doing with me, isn't it?" Stiles replied.
"Most likely, yes." Aspen nodded. "Back to the questions— what's the identifiable kill pattern?"
Stiles let out another sigh, as he began to bounce his knee up and down underneath the table.
"They strike once every three months, they've been doing so for the past seven years." he informed her. "It's always on the seventeenth, never a day earlier and never a day later. They also always lead their victims into a warehouse, and so far, they've all been in New York City."
Aspen's brows began to furrow as she got lost deep in thought, hanging on to his every word.
"Wait..." she said, coming to a thought, "you said this killer's anonymous, right? Never caught of camera?"
Stiles just nodded.
"You're not talking about the anonymous Manhattan Murderer— are you?"
"Uh, yeah," Stiles replied, nodding, "yeah, I am. CIA's been after them for years."
"Yeah, so has the FBI." Aspen shot back, her tone sounding a little digging at the mention of the FBI. "The whole city knows about this anonymous killer, it was in the papers this week."
"What was?" Stiles asked, eyes narrowing.
"Um..." Aspen hesitated a bit as she cleared her throat, "Following your arrest... there was an article in The Times about you potentially being... well y'know...."
"I know—what?" Stiles said back, and when Aspen didn't reply, but just continued to look at him with that look in her eye, he added— "Wait, you're telling me the whole city thinks I'm the Manhattan Murderer? I've been spending the better part of a damn decade trying to catch that killer!"
"I didn't write the damn article, Stiles— calm down." Aspen said, not impressed with him raising his voice at her. "Plus, there's... something else I have to tell you— well, show you..."
Aspen then reached over the table and flicked the navy blue file open to the first page—the same one that flipped her whole life upside down this week.
She pointed her perfectly manicured finger at one particular section of the document, and Stiles' eyeline followed.
NAME OF OPPOSING COUNCIL / PROSECUTION: ALEXANDER REEVES
Stiles's brows knitted together as his eyes narrowed, while Aspen just watched his reaction unfold in front of her.
Stiles looked up at her, shaking his head— "This has to be a mistake—"
"It's not." Aspen cut him off bluntly. "Lydia said he went to law school pretty soon after you quit the FBI. I had my boss double check with the opposing law firm— it checks out. He's prosecuting you, Stiles."
"No..." Stiles remained in denial as he shook his head, staring down at the name on the document. "No, he was— he was my friend—"
"And I was your fiancé." Aspen said coldly, instantly making him fall quiet as her words hung in the air. "Things change— people change."
Stiles didn't reply straight after that, her words still lingering in the air between them with tension as they both felt their hearts thump as they looked into each other's eyes.
I was your fiancé.
Things change.
People change.
"I know you're not here to talk about— the past, but..." Stiles murmured, leaning back in is chair as he stared into her gaze across the table, feeling his heart grow heavy with ache and longing. "I don't know if I said it enough at the time, but I really am sorry, Aspen."
"I know," Aspen forced a tight-lipped smile, "But you know all those fights had nothing to do with our breakup, right? Our breakup was purely down to—"
"I know." Stiles cut her off, his heart aching enough as it was without actually unlashing the reason for their splitting up. He added in an awkward chuckle— "I know why we broke up, Aspen— I was there."
Aspen forced another awkward smile, nodding her head.
"So, clearly I'm a mess..." Stiles continued, his hazel-eyes meeting hers, "But you— you look good, Asp. How have the last five years been treating you?"
"I've been good," Aspen said with a nod, "Much like you, I had a drastic shift in career path..."
"I can see that," Stiles pursed his lips in a line-like smile, "for my sake, I hope you're good at the whole criminal defence attorney thing..." he added, laughing nervously.
"I've never lost a case." Aspen replied, returning the pursed-lip smile awkwardly.
"Impressive..." Stiles actually smiled genuinely this time, flashing a grinning chuckle that turned Aspen's awkwardly forced smile to a real one too.
"Look, I...." Stiles continued, "I know this whole ordeal is probably going to be awkward as hell, I'm not naive. But even if the circumstances suck— it is nice to see you again, you know— after all these years..."
Aspen's heart ached.
Over the past six years, Aspen had almost wished she could've hated Stiles. Sometimes she would lie in bed at night and wish he had cheated on her, or betrayed her so badly that she'd never be able to forgive him.
Hating him would've been a lot easier than what really happened.
They had to let each other go because there was too much love between them to make any room for resentment.
"I'd say it's nice to see you too," Aspen chuckled a little, "But orange really isn't your colour..."
Then suddenly, interrupting their discussion was a loud, automated buzz from outside the visitation room. It was followed by a knock on the door, and the same guard from earlier yelled— "Times up, Stilinski."
Stiles pursed his lips as he let out a sigh, standing to his feet.
Aspen's eye line followed him as he headed towards the door.
"I know I have no ground to stand on asking you this, but..." Stiles said as he heard the guard begin to unlock the door from the other side, as he looked back at Aspen who was standing up from the table and packing up her file.
Aspen lifted her head up and looked over at him by the door, waiting for him to ask whatever he wanted to ask.
Stiles looked like he was in visible pain and agony as he asked— "What's his name?"
Aspen looked down at her diamond ring, seeing Stiles' gaze had dropped to give it another look.
The steel door then opened up revealing the guard on the other side of it, and Aspen let out a sigh, giving him one last forced smile, and replied.
"Jordan," she said, "His name's Jordan..."
___________________________
the TENSION!!!!
so many hints dropped in this chapter honestly... things will eventually get less vague and teasing as all the flashback chapters start
( first flashback is next chapter! )