I’m face to face with the one who claimed responsibility for everything. The one who launched an attack on the academy I was at, and lived to tell the tale.
Alicia Rivera, famed terrorist, is in that doorway. — I’ve expected to get used to it. But as of yet, I didn’t. It still overwhelms me. A room of new recruits, falling silent, staring at me with huge eyes. Some of them have been taught to fear me half their lives, some have hoped for me to come and save them. Some even both.
It’s worse this time, though. I’m not the athletic, heroic fighter they expect to see. I’ve been limping down the stairs outside, forced to stop twice when the pain in my hip has become unbearable. Now, there’s an artificial smile on my face, encouraging and welcoming.
Years in front of cameras have made me fluent in the language of facial expressions. I stand straight, my hand that is clutching at the doorframe for stability hidden from their eyes. I’m here as the hero who freed them. There’s a responsibility to this.
I don’t know them, save for the boy who carried me out. Grayson. I greet him with a grin. He decided to stick around. Good news.
“Hey guys”, I say to nobody in particular, my voice more even than I expected. “I’m Alicia. Glad you’re sticking around. Welcome to the third shittiest Resistance safe house we got.” I lift a hand, fighting to keep it steady, and point at the kitchenette. “At least this one has booze.”
The couch is right in front of me, and I take a huge step towards it with my good leg. At least my muscles are mostly intact. I bite back a whine, as I settle on the blueish thing, but at least I made it to sitting without embarrassing myself.
“Lilly Atwood”, I say. “Nice to finally meet you.”
I commissioned this piece a while ago from @shepscapades for the wonderful @cirianne! Featuring her Alicia, my Lilly, and @writingonesdreams‘s Grayson on the night Lilly met Alicia for the first time!
Thanks again @shepscapades! It’s truly a pleasure to see your hard work like this!
Alicia, aaahh! I love this picture, the idea three of them meeting, the importance this holds to all of them!
But right now, all of them just slightly awkward sitting on that couch together, it’s all been captured so well!!
Future Alicia is so sad and so strong both, this is such a blast from the past.
(Re: Blast, that’s what’s ging to happen very shortly after, rip, blue-ish couch…)
Thank you so much for this lovely gift, Abi, and for everything, really!
I wrote this a while ago, for @kosmosian-quills - I forgot why, but somehow I keep thinking about it.
So have little snippet on Alicia, the farthest in her timeline we’ve ever been, after the war is over, Jimmy is prime minister, and Alicia is living a reclusive life with her nephew Oscar, who is around 15 or 16 here.
The Council is history, and their fighters are imprisoned. Including Eve, whose existence is canon here.
-
It’s late at night, when Jimmy’s phone rings. He thinks about not answering. After a long day of cabinet meetings, all he wants to do is fall asleep while watching soccer. But it’s his private phone, the very private one, and it’s not like he hears of his old friends often.
The caller ID is hidden, and he sighs. Alicia, then. Somehow, she never got used to the new world they’re living in now.
“Hey”, he says.
“It’s me”, she replies. “Is… Is Oscar with you?”
Jimmy frowns. They’re living several states apart. Kind of an odd question. “No?”, he says carefully. “Why?”
“He’s not home. Left a message on his bed to call you.”
A pang of grief flashes through Jimmy’s guts. He had somewhat hoped she’d call him without any reason, eventually. But somehow, this has never been her.
“He…” Jimmy pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to remember the details of his last call with the boy. “Didn’t you want to go the East Coast this weekend? I prepared everything for your visit at East Point.”
“East Point?”, Alicia repeats. “The… the prison? For the… Council people?”
They technically call them war criminals, now. Just like Jimmy and Alicia had been called themselves, a few years ago. He understands, how she still can’t say it.
“He hasn’t told you? Fuck.” Jimmy hits the wall with his flat hand. “Do you think he went alone then?”
“Jimmy.” Her voice is cold and dangerous, as she emphasizes every single word. “What does he want there?”
With a groan, Jimmy sinks into a chair and covers his face with a hand. “I’m sorry, Ali, I didn’t know, I -”
“Is it her?”
He swallows. “Yes. Eve Reynolds.”
“Fuckers should have given her a different last name at least.”
He hears her breathe, controlled, steady, one of the techniques she must’ve learned in therapy.
“I don’t want him there”, she says then. “She’s…” Her voice drifts off.
Too much, Jimmy thinks. She’s just too much. Fuck. He should have known Alicia would never approve of this.
“I’ll try and reach someone there. Ask them if he showed up, okay? Don’t worry about him. He’s a big boy. He’ll manage.”
He won a war with us, he thinks.
“Yeah”, Alicia says. He thinks he hears her sob, but it might have been the phone line. “Yeah, okay, please do that. And then get him home, okay?”
