i'm making these chapters faster than i'd like to admit, I'm committed.

Ela wakes up the next morning stone-cold sober and dehydrated as all hell. The first thing she does is run to the bathroom and drink as many cups of water as her body will let her, bloating her stomach out until she finally feels hydrated enough to continue with her day.

She leaves the room about five minutes later, hungry as all hell. The housing facility that everyone stays at has a dining hall on the bottom floor. She only has to pay $100 a day for food and housing and she knows that her mom will cover it. Even if she doesn't want to.

With that, Ela turns from her bed to open the door, but as soon as the hall is revealed, she sees Ying swiping her keycard in her door. Ela gazes at her for a moment, the tight bun holding her hair in place, the jacket covering her medium frame, and drooping over her thighs.

"Hi," Ela says without a second thought. Almost immediately, she regrets it, unsure of what the hell she's starting a conversation for. She knows Ying, they used to hang out quite a bit, but over the last few months, they stopping talking and Ela isn't sure what happened between them. She always figured it was her fault or because she made one too many jokes about them fucking, but she ended up just dealing with it and leaving it be. If Ying didn't want to talk to her, she didn't have to.

They used to along well, though, and Ela talking to her like this is huge. They haven't talked in months. They didn't have to at work so this is the first time in a long time.

Ying turns to Ela and after a moment of processing what's going on, she smiles softly and replies with a short, "Hey," back. Ela's eyes dart from her door to the floor back to Ying.

"How are you doing?" Ela asks, "With the whole... rainbow disbanding."

"It's alright." Ying scratches the back of her neck, "You?"

Ela's slightly frustrated with how dry Ying's acting, but she guesses she just doesn't want to be in the conversation and replies just as dry, "Same here. No clue where to go."

"I get that." Ying replies, pushing her door open slightly more. There's a long, awkward silence between them. It feels like an eternity. Ela doesn't know how she feels about Ying anymore, she just wishes that things were at least slightly different. She acknowledges she may have made some inappropriate comments at work, but Ying never seemed to translate it badly and it was all just lighthearted. The last thing Ela wanted was to make her uncomfortable.

Before she can say anything else, though, Ying's door is shutting and Ela is stuck outside staring at it. The silence was too much to bear. Ela wasn't worth the time.

She sighs, double checks that she has her keycard on her, and without further ado, she pulls herself away from Ying's door down the hall to the elevators.

It's exactly 6:58 pm that night and Ela's spent the whole day looking into different squadrons and organizations who either invited her to join or she could easily apply for. She's been scrolling for hours, either hating the idea of going through specialized training for whatever they want her for or just hating the idea of being back in another team like this.

She realizes, as she's searching, that no matter how hard she tries to fit herself back into this, she can't. She's being pulled into another dip, another break and she can't control how she feels about it. The last time she left anything militarized, it was to work on her art. Part of her wants to return to that. She's done a lot of work. She was on a great team, she got to join the very group that her father served in and paid her respects for him as well as she could. She tried, hard, and no matter what she does deep down she feels as though nothing can live up to Zof.

These issues aren't something she's really focused on. Ela tries her best to just ignore it and focus on anything, genuinely /anything/, else. She doesn't want to be stuck back in this cycle and have to get back with her therapist and go back on her 200-fucking-milligram dose of Zoloft and feel numb to everything and anything. That's a bad place to be. That's the worst place she'd ever been in her entire life, right after her dad died and she'd already been struggling with favoritism. She can't go back to that. It stresses her the fuck out.

Anyways, joining another force like Rainbow, despite how bad she wants to live up to her father, isn't what she needs. She knows that if she keeps pulling herself back into the military over and over again, she'll just be stuck, exhausted. It's draining work and she knows deep down no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears she puts in it will never be enough. She will never get those words from him. "I'm so proud of you."

It's not like he didn't say it, but when she realized she wasn't the favored one between her and her sister, it wrecked her and all those compliments went to shit. There was no more belief in her father's words. She'd been put into a place that there's no recovering from. Even if he were here today, she doubts that anything he'd say would ever make up for that.

She stares at the clock on her laptop, her mood dropped from thinking on it. It's 6:58 and she wants to smoke. So bad. She wonders if Echo or Dokkaebi would mind her visiting. She's more than happy to pay for whatever she needs to, she has cash.

It's that thought, that need to get away from her father that drags her out of bed that night and through the halls of the housing center. She hadn't seen Ying since that morning and didn't really want to. Things seemed way too awkward for Ela's comfort. She figures Ying's just one of those people that will go down as a lost friendship. That's it.

Ela hits the button for the elevator and stands there for a moment. She's definitely anxious about seeing Echo, but she figures if she offers up sex, he won't argue. Maybe that's just their relationship at this point. Sex and drugs and unspoken issues that will eventually break them off and force their lives so far apart that nothing will pull them together again. Or maybe Ela's just feeling a special kind of melancholy tonight.

When the elevator stops, Fuze is standing there, tall and menacing. He definitely looks much scarier than he really is.

"Hey." Ela nods, "Where are you headed?"

Fuze replies, "I'm going to Bandit's to..."

He gestures smoking, Ela realizes this is the opportunity she was looking for. Her luck's struck.

"Shit, can I join you? I have money, I can chip in if you need." Ela asks, digging through her pockets for the $30 she brought. Fuze chuckles deeply as the elevator dings at the floor between hers and the bottom.

"I can ask him, don't be upset if he says no, though. Generally, he's very closed off about it. I'll see if I can charm him." Fuze jokes.

"Thank you, it means a lot," Ela says, trying to keep up with the taller man. He stops about 3 doors down and knocks harshly.

"Dominic?" Fuze announces, "It's me. And Ela."

There's silence for a long moment. Long enough that Ela doubts Bandit will even show up, but that's when the door unlocks with a click and Bandit peers out. He looks Ela up and down before turning to Fuze.

"Is it alright if she joins us?" Fuze asks gently, "She's not here for trouble, she's simply looking to smoke and she has money."

Bandit looks back to Ela for a moment, examining her, looking her up and down before he nods, "Not a problem."

Ela knows Fuze much better than she knows Bandit. She's heard that they're very similar from several people, but she isn't sure why or how. Even Fuze has told her in the past that they're similar. Ela's talked to Bandit maybe half a dozen times outside of work, and it was simply just to be friendly.

"What do you smoke, Bosak?" Bandit asks, returning to his singular bed, "Or eat?"

Ela blinks, unsure of what he means by the second half, "Just... just weed and cigarettes."

Bandit nods, pulling a tray of flower from behind him onto his lap. He's rolling a massive blunt, four sweet wrappers bound with nothing but spit. It's two sweets thick and two sweets long and Ela has no clue at all how it's holding its form. Bandit is much more experienced than she thinks she ever will be.

"Thank you for letting me smoking with you, Bandit," Ela says, cautious about what she says. He seems on edge. Despite this, when he raises his head and looks Ela in the eye, he simply smiles. It's slightly forced, but not so much so that Ela's uncomfortable.

"Please, call me Dominic. And no worries, Elżbieta. A friend of Fuze is a friend of mine. You just have to watch out for those who will rat, you understand?" Dominic says, still very focused on rolling the smoke.

Nobody calls Ela Elżbieta besides her own family, and it's still almost always Ela because it's been her nickname for so long. The last person who called her Elżbieta was her father. She doesn't know how to feel about that. There's a sense of discomfort, a pang of unsettlement, but on the other hand, she almost welcomes it. It feels good to return to that identity. Hearing it off of Dominic's lips feels different.

"I get it," Ela replies, watching as Fuze locks the door behind himself. He stands against the wall again, just like last time while Ela takes a seat in a chair by a desk beside the door.

"I've lost my lighter," Dominic says as he moves the tray off his lap, searching the bed and his pockets. Fuze provides him with a lighter from his front pocket, "No worries, I always bring backup."

"Thanks." He brings the blunt to his lips and sparks the lighter until it works, a steady flicker of light dancing on the metal until embers form from the weed. Ela watches in fascination as the blunt lights and after two long, long strokes, Dominic passes it on to Fuze.

"How much do you want to hit that?" Dominic asks Ela, gesturing to the blunt that's now hanging from Fuze's lips.

"As much as you'll let me," Ela replies, unsure of where the conversation is going.

"Do you have money on you?"

"Of course," Ela pulls out her cash, concealing the numbers until Dominic asks for an amount, "How much do you need?"

"Ten, if it's not too much, weed costs more than I can afford most of the time." Dominic gives a small smile, taking the ten from Ela, "But, I come through stronger than I was before. Entschuldige, I'll be back."

Dominic rises to his feet and exits for the bathroom, shutting the door and turning on the fan. Ela raises her eyebrows at Fuze who simply murmurs, "He's trying to hide it from you. Don't mention it. At all."

Ela understands, nods. She's always been good at keeping information to herself. She can do that. The blunt is passed to her and she immediately takes three good puffs off of it, determined to get as high as she did the night before.

"You're really going to town on that aren't you, Elżbieta?"

"Don't call me that," Ela immediately snaps. It feels wrong coming from Fuze. Something about it is just wrong. She doesn't know how to describe it.

Fuze raises his eyebrows but doesn't question it as he pulls the blunt back from Ela and takes another long drag. The toilet flushes and the door opens a moment later. Dominic's eyes are dilated to all hell, Ela stays mute.

"Sorry for the wait," Dominic says, pulling the blunt from Fuze. He turns to Ela, "Did you get a hit, Elżbieta?"

Ela nods. Fuze gives her a look that's hard to describe but she knows exactly what it's for. Elżbieta. Ela still stays silent.

They stay there for a while, smoke through the blunt, and then one smaller one. By the time they're done, Ela's laying on the floor because "it feels better this way. It's trippy." Fuze has been taking swigs from that same flask, sharing some with Dominic. He didn't offer any of Ela but she doesn't blame him, things are already tense with the whole Elżbieta thing.

But when the clock hits 8 on the wall, Fuze blinks, red in his eyes, and announces to Ela and Dominic, "I think I'm going to go to bed. I will see you tomorrow, moy brat."

"Tomorrow, Shuhrat." Dominic says, nodding Fuze away. Ela tries to stand to leave, figuring her welcome has ended, but when she makes it to her knees, she can barely get up to her feet. Fuze lets out a harsh chortle at her struggle.

"You can stay a little longer if you'd like, Elżbieta." The man on the bed says. Ela immediately falls back to the floor with a soft, "Thank you."

"Anytime."

Ela hears the door shut and after a long moment of silence, Dominic says to Ela, "I used to work very closely with your sister, you know?"

"Did you?" Ela replies, her head fuzzy with the view of the popcorn ceiling above her.

"Yes, she was very... Quiet. She never let me have any sort of conversation with her. She was so unbelievably closed off I could barely get a peep out of her." He says, a fond smile on his thin lips. He's smoking a cigarette now, his blond hair cascading in his face.

"She's like that," Ela says, giggling slightly, "They say we're similar, but we're really not."

"Then tell me about yourself," Dominic says, almost challenging in a way. The smile drops off of Ela's face and suddenly she doesn't want anything to do with him. She doesn't just tell people about herself. She doesn't like to be analyzed. At all.

"No." She says, still staring up at the ceiling a million miles above her.

"Then you are no different than her." Dominic replies, "And you've lied to me."

Ela tilts her head up to look at him, upside down. He's sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette, his legs set firmly to the ground in a man-spread. Ela blinks a couple of times, processing what she's looking at before she sighs and looks up at the ceiling.

"Fine, what do you want to know?"

"Anything. What are you struggling with? Where are you going from here? Do you have a plan yet? What's your family like? There are so many possibilities." Dominic gazes back at Ela, their eyes meet but it's distorted and Ela isn't sure who's looking back for a moment.

"What would you like to know first?" Ela asks.

"Let's start with..." Dominic trails off, humming, "Where are you going after this? Where is the world taking the great Elżbieta?"

"Away," Ela replies, "Doesn't matter where just... away. Military life isn't for me. I spent more time than I'd like to admit looking through organizations to join now that Rainbow's over but... nothing. It isn't for me anymore. I'm not sure where I'm going, but it's definitely not home and it's definitely not back to the military."

"And why is that?" Dominic asks, passing over the cigarette, "I thought you wanted to live up to Jan."

Ela cringes slightly at the thought of her dad, "I did. But, I can't do it anymore." She leaves it at that, not wanting to reveal much more. She remembers the years of training she put herself through to take her father's place at GROM. How she'd train until her muscles felt like they'd tear and she'd be crying, breaking down over how no matter how good she did, it wasn't enough. It never would be enough.

"Why not?"

"Where are you going after this?" Ela asks, wanting to avoid the question as well as she can.

"Not sure yet." Dominic replies, "I have no family to go to, my brother's got his own family. I figure I'll just work for GSG 9 again with Elias, but I understand that feeling. Not wanting to return to a dangerous cycle like that."

Ela nods. She's staring up at the ceiling again, "What's your relationship with your brother?"

Dominic smiles, "Good question. We're best friends. We have a strong bond. Stronger than most siblings." Ela isn't sure if that's a prod at her relationship with Zofia or not. "I play with his children when I see them, they're cute and gullible. Being an uncle is nicer than I ever thought it would be."

"Is that where he went? Back home?" Ela asks. Dominic nods in reply.

"What's your relationship with your sister?" He asks.

"I don't want to answer that."

"You asked me." Dominic points out, "It's only fair."

Ela sighs, reluctantly. He's prodding much more than she wishes he would, "Zofia and I have always had a... complicated relationship. We always fought for our father's love, but he very obviously favored her over me."

She ends it there, not wanting to elaborate. Dominic only chuckles, "So you have daddy issues then?"

Ela scrunches up her face, "Daddy issues? Fuck that."

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Dominic replies, "I don't personally have any issues with my parents but I was undercover working for Hell's Angels for four years. That was... intense."

Ela looks up at him, interested now, "What happened?"

Dominic avoids her eyes, "Terrifying. Any day of those four years I could have died. They could have seen one wrong thing about me and killed me. The initiation was the worst part. That..."

He trails off, unable to continue before he looks back to Ela, "It was bad. It was really bad... but it's okay. Because I'm here now. I don't have to go back to that."

Ela doesn't realize she's been hogging the cigarette until she looks down and it's burnt out. She's been so invested in hearing about Dominic that she wasn't paying attention to anything else.

"You're nice, though," Dominic says, "I personally believe you have much more potential than Zofia ever had. I remember when Harry was talking to me about you and how he wanted to see you do well. He never once mentioned Zofia until she asked on her own. We didn't even consider her. I don't know things from her side of the story, obviously, but I'd say you've made yourself out to be a greatly skilled operator and I can genuinely say that I'm happy to have met you, Elżbieta."

Ela's gone sober, staring at Dominic through busy eyes. She's processing everything about that. "Greatly skilled operator," "I'm happy to have met you," "More potential than Zofia." Those are all the things she wished she could have heard from her father, but instead they're being said right here in a dorm by a severely traumatized coke-addict.

"Uh..." Ela trails off, unsure of what to say because honestly right now, she just wants to cry tears of relief. "Th-Thank you." Her voice cracks with it.

Dominic only smiles at her, "What time were you planning on heading back?"

"I don't know if I can," Ela says truthfully, "I can barely walk and I don't want to make you take me all the way up."

"I'm more than happy to bring you up, don't worry about it, Schatz."

"Schatz?" Ela asks as Dominic helps her up, one hand on hers and the other at her waist. She feels her cheeks flush at that.

"Treasure," He replies, "Let's get you back to your room, huh?"

"Okay."