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Entry tags:	abbyl, fic

Integration, Chapter 2
Wow, two chapters in one day! I'm back to my old tricks! Tomorrow I have a paper to write, so I decided to sit down and write this out tonight, now that I sorta have an idea what I'm doing. Hope everyone enjoys it.

I know the last chapter made people cry... Well, I did warn ya. ;)

Comments are love! Let me know what you think. PLEASE!


Integration
Chapter 2

She was dreaming of a man lifting her up and a woman smiling as she laughed. The same dream she'd had for years. It was one of the most pleasant times of the day. Or night, depending on how you wanted to look at it. It was an interesting time.

She normally didn't remember her dreams...except for these. It had caused her to come to a conclusion some time ago that these weren't dreams, they were memories - memories of her parents.

She was about to see the man's face when suddenly a voice cut through the laughter.

"Alena, время проснуться." (Alena, time to awake.)

She tried to ignore the voice, concentrating on the laughter.

"Зазноба, вы имеете школу." (Sweetheart, you have school.)

She felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. The girl looked up and glared at the grey-haired man.

"Grandfather..."

"No. You need get up," her grandfather spoke well but in slightly broken English. It had always been this way. "School today."

Alena Fedorova, or Lena Fredrick, looked at her grandfather, Nikolas with a frown. She was not a morning person and hated getting up early. Unfortunately it was the only way she could get to class on time.

"I don't want to go," she said pouting before giving a fake cough. "I-I'm not feeling well."

She grabbed the sheets and pulled them back up over her head, but her grandfather wasn't buying it.

"Отсутствие ребенка. Вы должны поднять." he said firmly looking at her, pulling the sheet down to her shoulders so he could see her face. "Breakfast on table. Move little one." (No child. You must rise.)

She looked back at her grandfather as he walked out of the room. The old man's limp made him move a bit slower than people her age.

She grumbled a profanity under her breath, one very much inappropriate for one her age. It was lucky for her the man didn’t hear it... she would have gotten a severe punishment for it..
~~~~~~~~~~

The sunlight drifted in through the curtains on her window. Every morning it was the same thing. The sun would stream in waking her up half an hour too early, and by the time she finally found herself dreaming again, she'd find herself rudely jarred by the sounds of her ever loud and ever annoying alarm clock. On a daily basis she swore to herself that the clock sounded like the music from Psycho, but no one else seemed interested in that factoid.

There was something odd in this situation. Not only the fact that she was living here of all places... but that it seemed to be right. Something about it was so normal that she was almost bored out of her mind. That fact in itself made her wonder exactly what had happened to her in these past years. How she had become this way...

Looking around she saw that he wasn't in bed.

Shaking her head, she swung her legs over the side of the mattress, randomly hitting the top of her alarm clock. Without meaning to, she turned the radio on, causing her to jump.

She took a moment to calm down, before getting into a shower, hoping that the water would help sooth her back to a normal state. The successful completion of the task led to her getting ready for the day and her final emergence from her bedroom.

He hadn't been there when she'd woken up, thus she'd have to find him.

"Matthew?"

There was no answer.

She shook her head, pulling her hair back with a clip. She didn't have time for his games this morning.

"Matt, this isn't funny. I have to go."

Still nothing. She knew he was here though. She'd heard him moving around in the kitchen earlier. But she was afraid that she was going to be late...she didn't have time for this.

"Fine, Matthew, you're on your own for breakfast." Of course she always left something for him if she was leaving.

She loved him. She really did, but at times she wondered if it was worth it.

She picked up her bag and the supplies needed for the day, calling, "I'm leaving!" behind her, as she shook her head.

She then saw him stick his head around the doorway leading to the dining room... she could have sworn he had a twinkle in his eyes.

As she closed the door and locked it she rolled her eyes, mumbling to herself.

"...stupid cat."
~~~~~

The drive from 421 Willan Place to the school where she worked had been peaceful enough. Her coffee cup didn't spill. The coffee inside it hadn't gotten all of her car, and she hadn't had to curse whatever deity was causing this to happen to her... no that was last week.

If there was one thing that she wished for, it was that she could go back and do it all over again. Well, maybe not all of it. Her childhood could stay...and her teen years, but college would be different.

How she had gone from political science to that she still couldn't quite grasp, but it had happened, and now she was here.

It didn't seem right.

Death was a constant. He was a shadow that seemed to take pleasure in taunting her. In bed, he brought the past to her. During the day he'd stand behind her, watching for his next victim...even now.

Valencia was a nice place...well nice enough. It was still a suburb of LA. Some days she cursed herself for not getting farther away. She could have gone anywhere: New York. Paris. Hell, she could have even gone back to Washington. In truth she'd wanted to go home...back to Arizona or Henderson, Nevada. She'd thought maybe she'd buy the house she grew up in (which was on the market, she'd checked) and move back in. But in the end she'd found herself without a choice...

~~~~~
"Who is going to look for you back where you were supposed to have willingly lived?" Audrey asked.

She looked at her handler for a moment blankly. "Raines, that is the stupidest, most idiotic idea I think I've ever heard from you."

Audrey couldn't help but shake her head at her friend... well she liked to think that this woman was her friend. Some days she wasn't so certain. There was a constant hostility between them, one that she didn't always understand but it was there...

"I'm going to assume that that means you love the idea, Chloe." she said rolling her eyes.

"Why?" Chloe asked looking at her handler questioningly.

Audrey Raines just shrugged, as if nothing was wrong. "The department already found you a place out there."

Chloe's eyes widened as she watched her handler walk away! "AUDREY! You come back here!" she yelled after the woman, running after her down the hall.
~~~~~

She stepped out of her vehicle with a sigh. Taking her mug with her, and balancing it on the hood of her car momentarily, she straightened her skirt.

Life went on... didn't it? That thought stopped her cold. She was always thinking about the past and the future simultaneously. It wasn't good for her psyche, she was told, but then again when had her psyche ever been stable... But the kids brought her peace. They surrounded her with the innocence that she'd long ago become a stranger to...

Taking her coffee mug from atop her car, she closed the door and put the alarm on. As she approached the main door to the building she let her mind wander.

She had, in move uncharacteristic of Chloe Agatha O'Brian and her new identity, forgotten to assign the pages for her class to read the previous Friday. In truth, she just wanted to have a peaceful weekend herself.

She'd spent time with a colleague, and as much as she had wanted to relax, had wound up grading papers. The very last thing she wanted to do, but her students would be happy. The 7th graders had been eager to get their projects back. They'd been bugging her about it all last week.

"Ms. Burger, are they done yet?"

"Ms. Burger, you promised."

Ms. Burger, Ms. Burger, Ms. Burger... sometimes she convinced herself that that was her name... and as her handler kept reminding her, for now and until she was told otherwise, it was her name...

She walked down the hallways of the school and made her way to room 306. Opening the door, just as the bell ending homeroom sounded, she found her students awaiting her. It was time for class.

"Good morning everyone. I do hope you all had a good weekend," she said placing her mug on her desk and turning to the class and leaning on the desk behind her as she rifled through her papers. "I have some news that I'm certain will make everyone very happy," she smiled, looking around the room at her students.

They were eager, the children were, and their faces lit up as she held the stack of projects in front of her and just shot them look. The projects were ready.