felicity carrow, [three]. fin

Baines is the one who breaks the news to you.

It's 2AM and the moment the knock comes at the door, you know it can't be anything good. You bolted out of your cot quickly; you'd always been a light sleeper. Your feet are already shoved in your boots a second later, and you're ripping your hair back into a bun when you yank open the door.

"What's going on?" Scalp firing off protests, your hair is sticking in a million directions, but focus depends your attention elsewhere. "Is the base compromised?"

You look up and down the hall, ready to start pushing past Baines out into the hallway. You're surprised to see it quiet when you peer past her. It takes a harrowing second for you to realize she'd been trying to catch your eye.

"Let's talk, Carrow."

You walk away from the conversation with a train ticket, and a deep understanding of the fact that Abraham is a no good, money-whipped rat bastard, with no loyalties and one day he's going to pay. He plucked your out of obscurity, little girl with too much potential untapped at the tips of her fingers. Brain running on constant overdrive as if someone had hotwired it and added backup batteries you were siphoning from on top of what was already supposed to be there. He told you that you were capable of anything, gave you a mentor and a mission and made you feel mighty, and in the end he spat you out without a thought, without a care. He didn't fight for you. Then he didn't even have the courage to say it to your face.

You expect violence. Someone angry. Something gone wrong. But in the end there's only a man growing old, a mind that goes in the middle of the night, and a curious neighbor with a well-trained nose. 

Your father dies alone in his bed, and lays there for two days. Name's spiral from there, Keepers collecting Felicity from one neighbor. A nice man named Abraham, from another. Your mom is nowhere to be found apparently, hasn't been heard from in two years, and your only next of kin is a Carrow in Three who you've never met. Your Dad's sister, Baines tells you. Fuck her, she doesn't know me.

Doesn't matter though. If the wrong deep pockets come sniffing around the operation, if someone finds out what the team doing with those mech parts, everything you've worked for goes up in smoke. 

You might've sold you out, too, in their positions. 

But you're not them, and you're the one on the outside now. 

"Fucking cowards," is the last thing you say to Baines before she closes the door to the van that's taking you to the train station. "I was going to be the best pilot this program would ever see."

You hadn't the faintest idea how to read the expression on her face. Whatever. Good riddance. If they don't need you, then fuck 'em.

Viktor Carrow gets buried in the cemetery the rest of his family inhabits, and you move in with his sister who resents you from the second you step in the front door. A part of you is grateful she doesn't seem interested in knowing you, just lets you take the spare room in the loft above her apartment. She tells you that technically it's off-limits because not everything is up to code in there, but she owns the building so no need to worry about a nosy landlord coming to snoop and kick you out at least.

Stepping out of the train car had been disorienting to say the least. The Peacekeeper escort with you kept trying to make small talk about your father and how much he remembered about your dad from his active duty days. Something about being surprised he settled in Six, that he hadn't known he had a daughter. You couldn't pay much attention to what he had to say though. Your focus stayed on the horizon, watching as home got smaller and smaller in the distance, wondering if your mother knew you were gone. By the time hours pass and the countryside is replaced with looming buildings, taller than any you've ever seen before, you're battling a splitting migraine. Feet on asphalt, the sounds and smells of Three had made you nauseous immediately, toxic something collecting in your nose hairs and making you scrunch your face up.

"Shit, you look just like Viktor," the brunette leaning against a wall on the platform pushes off the brick, crossing her arms as she stepped towards you. She gives you a slow look up and down, cataloging your boots, the scuffs and mud that's ruined them. The callouses on your hands, and the scars on the back of your knuckles. The scowl, unhidden. "You gonna cause me as much trouble?"

"Depends on your definition."

"Fuck," exasperation, an eye roll. "That's a yes."

She puts an arm around your shoulder for the first and last time, guiding you away from the train station.

"Let's get to it then."