A few days later, Waking up in her bed alone, the sheets were cold and lonely. Though Ashley would get uncomfortable when John was with her in bed at least he made her feel warm and somewhat wanted.
But this was different. She just lays there alone. It should feel freeing, but Ashley felt more trapped than ever.
It was like she couldn't move, she was paralyzed in her own home because she feared that John would walk into the room any moment now and crawl into the bed.
It was that fear, but also wanting.
She almost wanted him to come back, to enter like he always does, unannounced and so sudden. She almost wanted him to crawl into bed and warm her up, bringing her to his chest and holding her there.
Almost. She almost wanted that.
It was obvious she missed him, that she felt bad for him and everyone, that she needed to see him because he had that power over her.
He has that sense over her that made her feel needed by him, that she had to be by him and help him. He had her where he wanted her and it made her miserable.
A small knock on the door made her look over but not move as Danny entered his head into the room.
"Hey, Jack is here to take me home for a few hours. I'll be back later to check up on you. Do you need anything from the store?"
Shaking her head, Danny leaves with a soft sigh as the door clicks and he leaves to meet Jack down stairs. Leaving Ashley alone in the now cold apartment.
Just like her bed, the whole home is cold.
Grabbing her phone to drag her out of the small daze she was in, Ashley scrolls through social media for a bit before getting bored with the phone.
"It's one." Sighing before tossing the sheets and blankets over to the side of the bed, Ashley gets out of the cold bed and steps onto the freezing floor as she starts to get up and wake up.
Seeing that Danny made food, she eats it quickly not even realizing that she was that hungry. Bored and alone in the apartment, Ashley's mind was buzzing and it was killing her slowly.
Thinking was not good.
She didn't want to bug anyone, not by calling or texting because people had their own lives.
Thinking back to the wreckage at the sanctuary, her mind races over and over until she finds herself in a new outfit and in her car on her way down the streets.
Not even thinking about it, Ashley parks In front of Sanctuary and slowly makes her way around the glass and wood everywhere inside.
Looking around, Ashley's hands find their way to her hips as she thinks of how she can help. Even though Gabriel told her to not come here, she wasn't going to let others clean up the mess she was a part of.
Remembering that Danny showed her a closet with cleaning supplies on her first day, Ashley walks around the glass and to the back hallways where everything was neat, clean, and not broken.
Grabbing a broom and dust pan, no one else was here and the cops recognized her from the previous night meaning they would easily let her in the building.
she could clean up before anyone else could, making her happy and content for the moment knowing that she did something helpful.
Starting to sweep the glass away from the hallways, Ashley worked slowly to clean up the dangerous debris that lay around her feet waiting for the garbage.
Not even getting around a fourth of the way through the glass and wood, Ashley grunted as she heaves the broom through the heavy pieces of brokenness, not even aware of the person behind her watching with mixed emotions.
"Ashley. What are you doing here?" Jumping with a yelp, Ashley turns herself around and hides the broom behind her back quickly, not that it would do anything as Gabriel stares her down.
"Nothing." She lied.
"Ashley. I told you not to come in today."
"I'm sorry! I couldn't help it!" Sighing and rolling his eyes at the girl trying to hide the big broom, a small smile wants to make its way onto his mouth as he looks at her.
Dressed in a simple black tee-shirt and ripped jeans that hugged her curvy figure, her sneakers were old and low cut. She was in comfort clothes and he hadn't really ever seen her in comfy clothes while in the sanctuary.
She looked casual and cute, not that Gabriel would admit it. That smile was forced down by the slight disappointment in his mind seeing as he had told her to stay home.
He never liked when people went against his orders and commands, and that was something Ashley had just done.
The sour and blank expression stayed on Gabriel's face as he walked over to Ashley, who was still attempting to hide the broom and act like she wasn't just cleaning a moment ago.
Towering over her, his eyes had stared into her as he held out his hand. Tilting her head at Gaberiel like she had no clue on what he wanted, she partiality didn't, she purses her lips at Gabriel making him want to smile at the face she was making.
But he didn't. Instead he raised a single eyebrow while waiting for the broom. His glare made Ashley start to feel uncomfortable and itchy.
Sighing in defeat, Ashley hands him the broom that was behind her back. Looking down at the ground as Gabriel simply tossed it to the side where it lands somewhat gently on the wall, Ashley bites the inside of her cheek; waiting for Gabriel to yell or give her some speech on how she needs to listen more or behave better to what he says.
But he doesn't. Instead he stands there across from her as he crosses his arms and watches her. Noticing how she twists her left foot and how parts of her cheek slowly gets pulled into her mouth.
Noticing how she is nervous and waiting for something, Gabriel sighs sadly and grabs her arm lightly, but still hard enough to pull her out of the broken glass pieces around her ankles.
"Whoa-?"
"You cut your ankle." Keeping her at his side as he walks her to the back brake room where there is a first aid kit waiting, Gabriel looks down at her as she inspects the door while walking.
"No I didn't." Mumbling to him as he sits her at the table and goes for the kit with bandaids and creams, Ashley watches him remove his jacket and set it on the chair, revealing a very toned body that was clearly visible through his basic white shirt.
Gulping slightly as she turns her head away from his body, Ashley curses her brain for thinking of things she shouldn't.
She doesn't even know him.
She doesn't know him.
At all.
Yet that wasn't stopping her brain, which she felt this time she had no control over.
Jumping slightly as Gabriel sets her leg onto his and rolls up her jeans a tad bit, she mumbles as he gets a cotton pad and soaks it in alcohol for a moment.
"Ashley. If you think I can understand you, you are very mistaken. Now speak clearly or don't speak at all." Taken back a bit by his words, Ashley sits for a moment before opening her mouth again. Watching his light eyes fixate themselves on her small cut.
"I said, you don't need to put anything on it. I can put a bandaid on it." Ashley told him, her voice was soft but a bit louder than before.
"Yeah, but who knows what's been on the glass and wood in the past few hours. I highly doubt you want a hospital trip because you didn't take care of a little cut."
"It's not even that bad."
"Are you going to argue and go against everything I say?" Keeping his eyes focused on the cut, Gabriel's tone deepens as he speaks to Ashley, his demeanor changing to the more dominant side of him that demands respect and order. Forgetting that Ashley had just gone through things, he shakes his head as he places the bandaid on her soft skin.
"Sorry." Looking up at her before standing, Gabriel nods to her and puts the kit away. Brushing his dark hair out of his face quickly, he pushes it back into place thanks to the gel in it.
"It's fine Ashley. Why did you come in and start cleaning."
She shrugged, "I was bored."
"I told you to not come in." Leaning against the counter as he speaks, Gabriel's arms cross once again as he glares at Ashley.
"I know. But I was bored and sad and wanted to help." Ashley tells him, playing with her fingers as she avoids his gaze.
"I already have people coming in today to clean everything up and start repairs Ashley. It's just the front of building. You didn't need to come in." Watching her adjust her jeans and pull the little bit back down to her ankle, Gabriel can really only watch the innocent girl not really pay much attention to anything they are talking about.
"I know.....I just thought I could help."
"Go home. There isn't anything for you to do here."
"But-"
"Ashley. Go. Home." Cutting her off once again, Gabriel grows almost irritated with the woman as she sits there patiently, even after being told to go home.
After a few minutes of Ashley staring at Gabriel, she breaks.
"There has to be something I can do here! You're still paying me and I can still do something!" After a moment of silence Gabriel shakes his head and sighs which makes Ashley perk up and smile a tad bit knowing that she can stay and work.
Gabriel runs his hand through his hair, "I guess there is some paperwork upstairs you could help me get through-"
"Yay!" Rolling his eyes to himself once again, he pushes down that smile that beckons to come out again while leading Ashley, who happily smiles and walks proudly behind him, up to his office where paperwork awaits him.
"Most of it just needs to be sorted out and refiled, some of it can be shredded or redone as well." Gabriels explains as he opens his door and lets Ashley walk in, and to her horror at that.
Her face stretches and conforms into odd expressions as she sees the mess of papers everywhere. "What did you do? Dump all of the files out?" Stacks on stacks of papers litter the room, papers were everywhere Ashley looked.
Gabriel cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck, "That's....one way to put it."
"Jeez." Ashley muttered.
"You're the one that wanted to stay and help, you still want to do that?" Gabriel looks down at Ashley, that smile pulling into a smirk instead as he watches her think about the office that was clean and tidy last night.
Between the pens and pencils everywhere, files and papers, empty filing cabinets and logs, Ashley made her way to the center of the room and sat down. Sitting criss-crossed on the furry rug under her as she picked up papers and set them in her lap while she looked over them.
"Are all of these just client lists?" She asked him as she skimmed the papers.
"Partially. Client intel, insurance, records, payments and other things. They haven't been sorted through in at least a year, and mine are not as neat as Tommy's. People come in and out of here, and I keep all of the other Sanctuary clients and records here as well."
"It makes sense, I mean, you do own like...twelve other Sanctuary's. Rather be safe than sorry."
"Precisely. There's more than I can even handle just sitting in your lap, so feel free to get through as much as you can handle. I am sure you'll give up at some point."
"Ha, that's funny. I will not give up on this. I am not leaving this place looking like a cow just ran through it." Ashley tells him.
"If you think that this is funny, I guess I should tell you that this," Motioning to the floor as he walks over to his desk, "is only one cabinet...there are five more up here and eight more in the storage room."
Ashleys eyes widen as Gabriel speaks, looking around for a moment as he sits at his desk and pulls out a pen and folder. "Challenge accepted Gabriel." As Ashley looks down at the paperwork and starts to go through it, organizing it by place, date, and alphabetically, Gabriel goes to work as well.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he keeps a watch on Ashley who happily sits on the floor and sets paper and paper into different piles around her. While filling out insurance papers that never took long, he shoved those into a folder and drawer before sorting through other papers and filling out payments and reports from last night.
Because he was the owner of the building and company, it was a lot more paperwork than most would think.
Ashley on the other hand, forgets that Gabriel is sitting just five feet away from her at his desk and soon goes into her own little world while quickly going through papers and sorting them out, seeing as nothing is sorted at all.
Not really reading through anything, not that a whole lot of information is there for her to read over, she doesn't want to poke at any privacy people have.
Putting papers and files together around her, after some time she builds little walls around her of sorted through papers. It was all she was doing really, and to Gabriel, she looked like she was enjoying it. Like she was enjoying herself for the first time in a while.
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After hours of sorting and putting papers away on Ashley's half and making phone call after phone call and going through papers of his own on Gabriel half, people had come to the Sanctuary to clean up the waiting room and font half of the building.
Ashley was slowly growing tired but didn't want to give up, she had only gotten through one filing Cabinet, she refused to give up on the job at hand.
It made Gabriel laugh inside a bit as he watched Ashley every now and then, her eyes slowly growing tired for her to jump herself awake. Her shoulders were slumped down as she laid against the wall and sorted through more papers, setting them all in folders to be put away.
Because of her, Gabriel's office was somewhat clean again and that made Ashely happy, while Gabriel only found it amusing and funny that she would take up such a daunting task.
A ringing comes from Gabriel's phone making both of them jump a bit as he looks at his, reading the caller ID and then answering soon after. "Hello?...yeah I'll be right down." Hanging up the phone, Gabriel makes his way to the door and looks back at Ashley, "I'll be back."
"Okay..." Watching the tall man leave her alone in his office, Ashley gets up and stretches her body out while looking around. Smiling at her progress, she doesn't bother to do anything else besides sit reach down and grab folders that can be put away.
As soon as she closes a drawer, the door to the office opens again and instead of just one person, two come in.
A lady in a suit and heels enter with Gabriel, her dark skin glowing beautifully as her hair laid over her shoulder. When she saw Ashley her smile widened and her pearly white teeth made Ashley smile back at her.
"Ashley, this in Gina, she's the lawyer I have hired."
"Oh...Hi." Her smile dies down as Gabriel watches her carefully, hoping that she'll just talk to the lawyer about what happened.
"Hi Ashely. I was just here to tell Gabriel a few things, but if you don't mind I would love to talk to you about all of this. Maybe I can help."
"Umm...I-I don't know..." The air became tight and uncomfortable for her as she spoke to the two people in the room who both were hoping she would say yes to talking.
"Gina, do you mind I have a small word with Ashley?"
"Not at all, I'll be in the break room." The woman said before leaving them.
Soon leaving the two alone in the room, Ashley bites her cheek as Gabriel sighs. "Ashley, you don't have to talk to her. But she really does want to help you. We all do, and the best thing that you can do is talk to her about everything that has happened. She could lock that man away for decades."
"I-I know that." Ashley stated, her eyes trained on the ground.
"I want you to know that everyone else has already agreed to talk to Gina about what they know, even if they hardly know anything about the situation you are in. I think the only one who doesn't know what is going on is Tommy at this point." Taking a step closer to Ashley, Gabriel lowers his tone and speaks to her gently, like he was worried she'd close him out.
"I think you should just try, you don't have to tell Gina everything, you can even just answer her question and not speak at all afterwards. But I think this is something that you would benefit from Ashley."
"But...But what if she doesn't help! And then I just tell her everything for nothing. The things that have happened...they aren't good. They aren't things I like to talk about to someone I don't know! It's hard enough having everyone I work with knowing this all, even if they are my friends. And-and I..." Starting to shake as she thinks about spilling the little secrets she's kept over the years, Ashley gets scared all of a sudden.
"Woah, okay. It's okay. You don't have to talk to her. She really was just here to see me about a few things, when I told her that you were here she wanted to see if you were open to talk to her. It's okay, you don't have to tell her anything." Quickly making his way to Ashley who was on the verge of a panic attack for reasons she didn't understand yet, his hands steadied her down, they brought her back to earth when they made contact with her arms.
The warm feeling on his skin made Ashley buzz for some reason, looking up at the man who had genuine worry in his eyes, she was surprised. Anyone would be because he hardly had shown emotion with the few weeks she had worked at Sanctuary.
Gabriel had hardly shown emotion to anyone, but in the past twenty four hours he had shown more emotion to her than he had ever to anyone in the past few years.
It made her feel safe for a reason she couldn't name, it made her want to talk.
"It's okay. As much as I want you to talk to her, I want to you to feel safe. I want you comfortable Ashley. I know that you don't like the idea of so many people knowing, but the people who do know now are going to be there for you for a long time. And Gina just wants to make sure that while you are getting over this and getting better, that you ex is staying prison the entire time."
"I-I'll try..."
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These guys are killing me-anyways....yeah.
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