[attr="class","mila2"] There was one and only one thought that mila alexopoulos had as she faced what appeared to be certain death.

[break][break] She was going to die here.

[break][break] She was going to die, and there was going to be no one but Vincenzo by her side.

[break][break] She was going to die, and there would be no one to tell Gunner Graves about it until much later.

[break][break] They'd find her corpse, and it would be just like it had been when he found out Sayori was dead.

[break][break]
[break][break]

Darling. [break][break]

Her vision grew blurry.

[break][break] "Gunner," she slurred, head falling against his warm body. It was warm, too warm.

[break][break] Was that blood on him? What was he doing, bleeding like that?

[break][break] "Honey, what are you doing here?"

[break][break] Her eyes blurred.

[break][break] "You're not... you're not supposed to be here."

[break][break]
[break][break]

And just like that, she fainted.

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] mila alexopoulos had once been a Rocket. She had been born into it, by way of the toxic romance that was Anastasia and Ambrose Alexopoulos. Ambrose, who had wanted nothing more than to rise to power by way of his jilted lover. Anastasia, who had never wanted children, and yet found herself forever stained by both Mila and lykaios athanasia.

[break][break] It would have been wrong to say that all her days as a Rocket were bad ones. It would have painfully untrue — days spent with Lukas and Jackson after missions, sharing seasalt ice creams. Gilded afternoons when she had been able to spend her small allowance gained from said missions on beautiful fabrics and trinkets, which would then later set the stage for the passion that stirred within the young designer's heart. There were good days and bad days, even back then.

[break][break] There were good days and bad days, even now.

[break][break] Today, unmistakably, was a bad day.

[break][break] The sound of cold machines beeped unforgivingly at her as Mila returned back to the real world, her body jolting back to life. Immediately, fear and anxiety surged through her at the unfamiliar setting. Her wires pulled taught as she ripped herself upward, nearly out of her own IV wires, her eyes wide with panic.

[break][break] "Where - " she gasped, not having yet realized that Gunner Graves was by her side. "Where am I?"

[break][break] "I can't - I can't be here - Gunner will - "

[break][break] She blinked, eyes falling upon him.

[break][break] "You're here."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] Gunner was here.

[break][break] She froze like a deer in headlights. Her body was rigid, even as he attempted to push her back into the bed, urging her to lie back down. She should've listened, but for some reason, she found herself unable to focus on anything except those blue, blue eyes and that heartachingly familiar face.

[break][break] Her heartrate was beeping wildly off the monitors, which should have alerted her to the fact that she should calm down. But she couldn't. Gunner was here. He was here, which caused a complicated storm of emotions to race through her.

[break][break] He was here, so he'd known what she was up to. He was here, so she was in trouble. He was here, so she had to run away.

[break][break] But first and foremost, overriding any conflicting emotion that could possible surface, there was the undeniable peace that came with seeing Gunner Graves in front of her in the flesh, knowing that intrinsically that he had been the one here.

[break][break] To save her.

[break][break] She swallowed.

[break][break] "Is everything all right? Oh, you're awake!"

[break][break] Once again, her body jerked with surprise as another man entered the room. This one, however, was unfamiliar. But his uniform made it obvious that he was part of the medical staff — which, yet again, set another alarm bell racing in her head. HOSPITAL. STAFF. RUN.

[break][break] Unwittingly, her fingers clutched tighter from where they were - apparently - gripped around Gunner's biceps, her nails digging in sharply.

[break][break] Her body was tense, like she was expected to spring at any moment, even as the man took her vitals.

[break][break] The only moment that she would release a breath was when the nurse finally left. But she didn't let go from her grip on Gunner's arm.

[break][break] "What - what happened to me?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] Darling.

[break][break] It was as if a soothing balm had rested all over her wounds - both physical and not. A warm feeling washed through her at Gunner's words, at the touch of his hand on her hair, and she felt herself leaning into him, her throat thick with emotion, feeling the urge to sob into his arms but not having the breath nor the energy to.

[break][break] In a daze, she watched the nurse leave, but her attention quickly turned to the rest of what Gunner said — and it was then that her memory came rushing back, setting her aflame.

[break][break] The Giant Chasm.

[break][break] Her wandering after a League-mandated excursion party, unable to help herself, demanding to know the secrets that Gunner Graves kept from her. Masking herself as a part-time Ranger with June Fair, being be allowed into what appeared to be an abandoned laboratory by some secret organization that she was not - and had never been - aware of. The meeting of a nightmare from her past, a Rocket, that had left her terrified. Running through Area Zero alongside a blue-haired woman that she did not remember meeting.

[break][break] Shame washed through her, then guilt.

[break][break] She was stupid. She'd been stupid.

[break][break] "I..."

[break][break] Whatever words had fallen from her mouth went numb at the sight of Gunner Graves's tears, and immediately her hand went up to hold his cheeks, brushing the tears away from his eyes.

[break][break] "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Babe, don't cry."

[break][break] "I'm safe. I'm safe."

[break][break] But her body trembled. As if it was something she was still trying to convince herself.

[break][break] I'd almost died, she thought.

[break][break] "It was a bunch of people in dark gear and masks," she recalled. "I... I stumbled into their base, and they didn't like it."

[break][break] Her expression then was wry, almost bittersweet.

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] He pulled her into his embrace and she inhaled, feeling the comfort of his body against her, and the smell of cedar wood and bergamot.

[break][break] "It wasn't..." she continued, voice thick with emotion. "It wasn't Rocket."

[break][break] It wasn't. She knew Rocket. Disguised or not disguised, it didn't matter. The memory of Chu-e Choi was forever-burned into her memory, side-by-side with the memory of her childhood friend, Jackson.

[break][break] "I don't know who it was, but it wasn't them."

[break][break] Mila had been terrified at the thought of Rocket finding her, but now, it seemed, Rocket was not the only thing that she had to worry about.

[break][break] Her fingers clasped around his biceps tighter at the mention of his vow to her, and she clung tightly to him, trembling, as if she wanted to brand that - too - into her memory.

[break][break] "I hate it," she confessed into his skin. "I hate how much is out there that I don't know. I hate that I almost died. I hate that you could almost die every day."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] "I..."

[break][break] She didn't want to remember. Everything in her body screamed for her to forget.

[break][break] But Gunner had asked.

[break][break] "They had white hair," she said suddenly, recalling the flash of white that peeked out beneath one of their masks before they started chasing her. "And I think, one of them had an Unown."

[break][break] Or several of them. It had been impossible to tell in the dark.

[break][break] "I know it wasn't them because I know Rocket," she said, gazing up at him. Her eyes glistened with tears, reminded of the very thing that she had spent her whole life running from.

[break][break] mila alexopoulos could pretend all she liked that she was no longer beholden to the evil organization that she once called home. But the truth of the matter was —

[break][break] They'd sunken their claws into her a long time ago.

[break][break] "What's going on, Gunner?" she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. "There - there can't be another organization like Rocket out there, can there?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves

☉