Archive of Our Own ^beta

They looked at her with pity.  "Are you all right?"  "How are you doing?" "How's your dad doing? "

 "I'm fine," she said. Over and over again because what else was she supposed to tell them? "No, I'm not fine and my father hasn't spoken to me in days."

 She couldn't say that.

He was always at the computer. Typing away furiously, line after line of code.

 "What are you doing?" She had asked him. He didn't even acknowledge her.

She didn't ask again.

She told herself she was giving him space. Time to process. Time to grieve. But it had been months and he couldn't ignore her forever. She wanted to scream at him. Yell at him that she was still here. That she needed him.

But she didn't think he would listen. 

So she let her mind wander. Back to the good old days of only a few years ago. When they were happy and together. 

At least more so then they were now.

A particular memory surfaced. She was six years old, running a race. She had been winning the whole way through until she tripped and fell and another kid sped right past her. 

She had made second place and her mother had been proud. But her father had just looked at her and said that she could do better. 

So she did do better. She ran the next race and won and the look of approval on her father's face had meant everything to her. 

So she, Carolina Church, age 8, would have to be the best. She would have to get her name on every trophy, and then maybe, just maybe, her father would give her that look again. 

She went to school every day. She packed her own lunch and made her own breakfast and did her own homework and walked herself home from school. She raised her hand for ever question and ran faster than anyone else during gym. 

She brought her report card home, filled with all A's because she couldn't let herself get anything less. She brought it home and showed it to her father because he would notice her now wouldn't he?

 "Dad?" She slammed the paper on his desk. He took the paper silently, not meeting her eyes. 

 "Dad," she said again, more forcefully this time. "Leonard." He looked up and she saw his eyes for the first time in a while, the piercing green meeting hers. 

 "Well done," he said, disinterested. He turned back to the computer screen and she left, feeling satisfied. He had noticed her, it had worked. 

The next time she spoke to him was two weeks later. They were going on a field trip, and she needed a signature and she hadn't yet figured out how to forge it. 

She put the paper on his desk. "Sign it," she said. He did, without a word. She didn't make him speak . It wasn't worth it. She just left. 

The next time she needed something signed she did it herself. No one noticed. 

Armed with his signature, she proceeded to sign herself up for everything she could. Soccer, track, the spelling bee. She would win, she would be the best, she told herself. 

The day before her first soccer game someone asked her if her father was coming. He wouldn't, she knew he wouldn't, but she couldn't say that. Besides, it couldn't hurt to try, right?

So she walked into his office and squared her shoulders, prepared for him to say no. 

"Mom would come." She said it without thinking. He turned around and stared at her and she suddenly regretted saying it. He would get mad at her, maybe. Or he would just be sad. She wasn't sure which was worse. 

But what she wasn't expecting was for him to say yes. That he'd come. 

So she walked onto the field with her head held high. She would win. She had to because her dad was here and she couldn't disappoint him. 

She kicked the ball, its path straight and clear as it went right past the goalie. There was cheering in the crowd of parents, and she searched for her father. He was sitting, watching her with that cold, emotionless stare of his. But at least he was looking at her.

She snapped back to the game, stealing the ball from the kid who made the unfortunate mistake of running past her. 

They won the game easily and the parents rushed out to greet their children. To hug them and tell them they did great and that they were the best. But Carolina knew that she was the best, that her team would be nothing without her. 

She walked through the crowd of people, some smiling at her and telling her she did great. But she didn't need their approval. 

She found her father easily. "I won," she said. 

 "So you did," he responded. 

Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she thought that she detected a hint of a smile on his face. 

Over the years she began to fall into a rhythm. She became entirely self-sufficient, and her father occasionally came to her games or meet or competitions. 

She didn't have any friends. She couldn't afford to be distracted from school or sports or any of her extra curriculars. 

Her teachers became worried that she would burn herself out. She was fine, she told them. She was more than just fine, she was the best, she was perfect. 

But whenever she walked by a park and saw parents laughing with their children, whenever she saw her teammates get a hug after a game, she felt a pang in her chest and she remembered when her mother would do that. 

The truth was right in front of her, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. Her father didn't care about her. 

When she was seventeen years old she graduated from high school early. Top of her class, top of everything. 

 "See? I didn't burn out." she wanted to tell her teachers.  They had underestimated her. She was strong. She had done it. 

(Except for the three times she had come in second place. The two times she had gotten a B. The one time she had been late to class)

She filled out applications to all the best colleges, and was accepted to all of them. She wasn't going, of course. She was going to join the military just like her mother and she was going to do her fucking best to win the war.

She sped through basic, impressing everyone around her. She did what was expected. She was the best. She fought. She followed orders. She killed aliens. 

But then she was given leave, a break, sent back down to earth and she realized for the first time that she was completely and utterly alone. 

So she went to a bar because that's what you did, when you wanted to meet someone or drown away your feelings in alcohol. 

She ordered a drink, and then another until she had the confidence to walk right up and pluck the lighter out of the hand of the man in the corner. 

 "That's fucking annoying," she said. "I'm Carolina."

A pause

 "York."

He said it in a way that made it sound like he had just come up with it on the spot. 

York was the only friend Carolina had had in a long time. The only person who didn’t care when she messed up a little. Who didn’t notice the dart slightly off to the left. The only person who cared about her and not just what she could be, who she could be better than. And she loved him. She really, genuinely loved him but she was scared to say it because she didn’t want him to go away.

But he didn't go away. Not when she got an email from her father, which strange for two reasons. First, no one used email anymore. Second, her father never contacted her. The email was about project freelancer, a new military organization that he was the director of. It would help win the war , he promised, but it would also do more than that. He didn’t elaborate.

It was the first indication she’d had in years that her father even thought about her.

How could she say no? How could she say no to finally being noticed by her father, to finally gaining his favor.

So she joined and York followed.

Because he wanted to end the war, he said. Because he wanted to make sure she wasn’t alone. That she had someone she could trust, someone to watch her back.

And so there they were, Agents Carolina and New York of Project: Freelancer. More and more agents came, all with one goal. Make it to the top. But none of them could beat Agent Carolina. Because she was the best. Because she was perfect and she would make the Director proud.