[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"] 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"] 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"] "It is?"

[break][break] A Ranger-temp HQ, huh?

[break][break] Mila didn't know whether to believe it or not, but it suited her goals so it wasn't like she was going to complain about it either way.

[break][break] She cocked a smile. "I guess I should've gone to the last meeting, then."

[break][break] Then again, she'd missed a million and one meetings, getting recently wrapped in Gunner Graves like she did.

[break][break] She blinked.

[break][break] "What? Runaway?" She frowned, pressing pen to pad. "We just got here."

[break][break] Much like with everything else, Mila didn't seem to be in a rush.

[break][break] Either ignoring or being wholly unaware of the imminent danger that obviously existed here.

[attr="class","ooc"] june sleigh

☉

[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"] 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"] Shit. Shit. Shit!

[break][break] Mila wasn't a battler. She never pretended to be. But she was also not someone who would let anyone tell her what she could or couldn't do — and it was the way that Gunner Graves had looked at PENELOPE LIVY, had talked about PENELOPE LIVY, that made rage boil through her veins. The fact that she didn't quite know what it was that he did for work, not anything more than what he wanted to tell her, annoyed her to no end.

[break][break] And then, of course, there was the fact that he'd gotten injured. The fact that she hadn't known about it. The fact that she'd had to hear second hand from GIDEON GRAVES — who didn't even seem to want to tell her in the first place. She realized that she couldn't trust that nerd to tell her anything, even if she threatened breaking down his door and destroying all his stupid bug sculptures.

[break][break] "I'm sorry! I wasn't - I didn't mean to - I - !"

[break][break] The cry died in her throat when she noticed an attack split through the air, eyes widening as it was aimed — not for her pokemon, but for her.

[break][break] Mila had found some bunker in the middle of Area Zero, similar to the one that she'd traversed with june sleigh, but somehow very very different. Everything had told her that she should've run away, that she should've given this farfetched mission of hers, but — she couldn't. She didn't. And then she'd gotten into deep shit.

[break][break] Shadows eclipsed around her, and her throat squeezed in a panic.

[break][break] "Vin!"

[break][break] Her Alolan Ninetales leaped in the way between her and the DRK Triad agents, mouth yawning to reveal a gleaming sphere of blue.

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

Ugh.

[break][break] Moments later, Mila lay in the frostbitten grass. Her leg had a knife imbedded deep into it, making it impossible to move unless she wanted to lose her limb in the process. Somewhere in the scuffle, she'd lost her phone. The sketches she made with june sleigh also lay strewn around her from when they'd ransacked her bag and belongings.

[break][break] She gripped her ankle, frustration seeping through her. Or maybe it was blood. She didn't know. Oh god, was she going to die here? She couldn't die here.

[break][break] "Vin," she said, her breath growing short. "I don't know if we're gonna make it."

[break][break] The Alolan Ninetales looked at his master, also fatigued. He whimpered. A cold breeze blasted past them, threatening to freeze them into ice.

[break][break]

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

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] "Wow. That was - wow."

[break][break] Battling was not Mila's strongsuit. In fact, it was why she was barely a trainer at all, except for the times that she had to complete her regular check-ins with Raziel Beckett just to make sure that she was fulfilling her quota. Though she'd technically graduated from the program, there were still details and regulations she had to comply with to complete her registration.

[break][break] And there was just something about the Ranger name that opened doors. Or proved to be a convenient lie, like this one.

[break][break] "That was pretty impressive," she said, trying not to sound too much like it. "But let's clean you up, shall we? Dior, will you?"

[break][break] The HATTERENE jingled with purple-blue light, before a PSYCHIC aimed to tug the wetness from both girls' outfits, making them perfectly dry for when they walked through the rest of the facility.

[break][break] Thanks to June Fair's heroic intervention (read: June being in the wrong spot at the wrong time and not her), Mila escaped the ordeal that was whatever was going on with June's outfit.

[break][break] "Mm," she clicked the roof of her mouth. "I think it's a start."

[break][break] Reaching into her sidebag, Mila was quick to pull out a small notebook. She flipped open to a page in the middle, taking a fuschia-pink colored pen and beginning to sketch an idea — a flowering, watery dress that looked like a much more eloquent version of what she believed to be June's outfit.

[break][break] "Thanks a lot for this, by the way," she said off-handedly, trying to make idle conversation, but at the same time trying to figure out if she could find anything else out. "What is this place anyway?"

[break]

[attr="class","ooc"] june sleigh

☉

[attr="class","mila2"] Her father. Mila's past was a ghost she rarely summoned, buried so deep by her relentless will. She spoke of her father even less, almost as if she feared that the mere mention of even his name might summon the monster that she had tried so desperately to forget.

[break][break] Gunner's lips brushed gently against her hair, and she closed her eyes, savoring the moment, as if his touch could calm the anxieties that threatened to tear her apart.

[break][break] She wanted to believe him. She did. And yet, somehow, some deep part of her remained unable to —

[break][break] "I know that," she mumbled. You don't know that. You can't. You don't know what he did. "I know that, but it's just ... "

[break][break] Whatever confession she had been about to make remained unspoken as they were abruptly interrupted. At the sudden sound, Mila's head snapped toward the hospital room's entrance, where she found a very unhappy nurse. Seeing the woman's displeased expression, Mila felt a surge of anger rising within her. She opened her mouth for a sharp rebuttal, but it was Gunner, gently disentangling himself and speaking in a calm voice, that made her pause.

[break][break] Reluctantly, she agreed. Gunner needed his rest, after all. This could wait later.

[break][break] "Fine," she said briskly, sliding off the bed and then smoothing her hands against her clothes so that she was presentable.

[break][break] Mila sent a pointed glare at the nurse before moving to exit the room. Before she did, though, a manicured hand rested against the doorframe.

[break][break] "I'll send you a text later. To give you something to look forward to before your next visitation."

[attr="class","ooc"] Gunner Graves [break]
POST-TSDT

☉