Each swallow felt laborious in these moments, when she didn’t know what was next. Her heart pounded as she carefully watched Linnys reaction, but she set her jaw hard, determined to not allow herself tears. No, when owning up to ones mistake, the soldier had been taught to stand straight, take whatever came her way for it. Ava’s respect for Linnea was too great to give her anything less. Once she asked the question, ava shook her head.
“Nothing on me, other than I fought for my country before and was called to do it again,” the sentence was bitter sounding. Regret tinged Ava’s every action nowadays, and this was just the beginning of the consequences she had to face, “I… Didn’t give you or Haley in. I couldn’t,” she knows that doesn’t help much. She looked down for just a moment, shaking her head as she tried to string the proper words together.
“I’m sorry, Lin,” there is no lie in her words, for she is sorry. However, sometimes sorry wasn’t enough. Grappling with whether to speak more, she gave in and tried to articulate what she was thinking, “I… I Wasn’t in a good place when they found me– and I’m not trying to make excuses,” she puts a hand up and shakes her head, “I… I have a lot coming to me. I know… But it was before I found my family again. Before all of this,” another swallow. No tears, not here, “and I’d been silent for too long. They were taking me back to DC when you showed up,” a pause, and she repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
linnea gave ninety percent of her attention and focus to analyzing ava’s
response, ( the other ten percent used for being aware of their environment.)
eyes scanned the other woman’s face, trying to make sense of her body language
in addition to the words coming from her mouth. at first it felt like a slap in the face
to hear that they didn’t have to blackmail ava to get her to take on this mission, but
the more she thought about it the more it made sense. ( in a sick and twisted way,
but this was ava.) still linnea was silent again for a while, processing all of the new
information. and then the apologies came and snapped linnea out of her thoughts.
“ hey, ava, you don’t have to keep apologizing. you made a huge mistake,
but you’re owning up to it. you realized it and couldn’t give up hals and me.” she
took a step forward, trying to maintain eye contact with the older woman. “ if you
really want out of all of this, i’ll help you. i’m still here for you , okay?”