Crossing Borders

The Ozawa Brothers

"We're going to your home?" Tenshi asks in surprise.

"Yes we are." Astrid cups Tenshi's face, "Just as I promised you."

Tenshi gave her a sad smile, "I'm sure mother is very happy now."

She turns and looked out the window. Astrid stares at her remembering what she had gone through with Mikael.

"If you need to talk, you know I'm always here, right?" Astrid whispers. Tenshi gave her a questioned look. "It helps, before, I thought as long as no one knows, it doesn't matter. That I would eventually forget about it." she stifles a laugh and looked away. "But I was wrong. The more I saw the people I love, the more I was being tormented of my past."

Her thoughts were broken by laughter from the other side of the plane where the others were playing poker.

"I never plan for them to know about me and what I've done, or even of my whereabouts. I thought my years of being a heartless assassin can mask every emotion that I need to hide, but they saw through it all, they saw the pain and my fears." Her gaze now rested on Damien, "He didn't even give me time to run away. He just understood and made everything right."

"He?" Tenshi asks.

At the same moment Damien looks up at her and sent a wink before setting down his cards earning groans and cheers around him. Astrid felt the tears forming in her eyes which she quickly wiped off; she turns to Tenshi and smiled. "He."

Tenshi looks toward where Astrid was looking at, and sees Damien laugh along with the others. "Aren't you scared?"

"Every day." She answered truthfully, "Even before I was at the Duchovny house I brought trouble to them already, but seeing them like this, being with them, I'm willing to take the risk." She says.

Tenshi looked at her closely, Astrid knew what she was thinking. It was the same look on Dimitri's and Kale's face when they arrived, they were thinking of how weak Astrid have become because of her family, but Astrid disagrees. She knows that she is stronger now, simply because she has more to lose now.

"Angel..."

"We're with my real family now Tenshi, which you'll soon be part of, so call me Astrid."

Tenshi smiles back and gave a weak nod. "Astrid."

When they arrived at the States, they went to one of the Johnson's hotels and took a suite, waiting for the hour of their departure to NSA. Astrid sat by the window looking at the view, Tenshi was still asleep and so were the boys who were in their respective rooms.

It was two A.M and Astrid was still up counting sheeps, wishing the old folk tale would help her sleep, only ending up wondering of how many kinds of sheep is there.

Just as she reached her thousandth sheep, she gave up and started planning on how to get Tenshi and Kale in NSA.

There's just no other way. She sighed, I need to speak with grandpa.

A faint beep on the table told her that it was already 4:30 am, and there was no way she'd be able to get any decent sleep even during the ride to NSA. It would be best to wait for the end of school before she even thought of sleeping.

With a shrug she stood up, grabbed the Mikael's palm tap from the table and checked on its emails, Still no news.

She made her way out of the room wearing the pajymas Damien demanded for her to wear, while saying he'd be damned before he lets her sleep half naked with Kale and Dimitri a few doors away. The same goes for Tenshi apparently seeing her sleep in the same pajymas Astrid was waring with only a different colour, but it was probably to keep her safe from Derek.