"What's your name?"

Ellie sighed dramatically, already dreading where this was going for what felt like the millionth time since they left New York. "Elisha Mercedes, but I prefer to be called Ellie."

One of the Marshal's assigned to her, Bianca Walker, gave her a silent and disapproving look from the corner of her eye. Ellie rolled her eyes, bringing her gaze back to the woman from the window she'd been looking out of. "I already have to start a whole new life with a whole new name," she complained. "The least you all can do is let me go by my nickname. Especially since the name you gave me makes perfect sense with it."

"You realize that Witness Protection means you don't have anything to negotiate, right? Things are the way they are and you just have to accept it to survive."

"Something tells me that a nickname isn't going to be my cause of death."

The car pulled to a stop at a red light and Bianca turned to glare at her. "What's your name?"

Ellie's nose flared angrily while she turned to look back out the window. "Elisha Mercedes."

"Where are you moving from?"

"Maryland."

"What brings you to LA?"

"An unfortunate failed attempt on my life," Ellie mumbled under her breath.

"Elisha," Bianca reprimanded, pointedly using the new name. Ellie's eye twitched, still not used to it despite all the drilling she'd been receiving from both Bianca and her partner, Lucas Kane. It felt like a slapping reminder every time that her life as she knew it was over.

It wasn't anything to brag about before but at least it was hers.

"I was originally born out here before my family moved east, and now I'm moving back to fully appreciate it."

"Speaking of family, where are they now? Are you close?"

"No," Ellie answered, the first truth she'd spoken so far. "My father died when I was a kid, my younger brother went off to the marines the second he was old enough and my mother stopped talking to me when he did because she blamed me for it." In reality, her father had gone to prison when she was a child, she was an only child and she was the one who stopped talking to her mother. When Ellie was twenty, they'd gotten into an argument about her choice in boyfriend and said things that they could never take back. At least that's the way Ellie felt about it; it was one of the biggest regrets of her life.

Bianca turned the car onto one of the less busier avenues, sighing when it appeared to be more backed up than she'd been expecting. Further ahead, Ellie could see a fire truck cut across an intersection and blocking off any traffic progression. "As long as you remember those basics, you'll be fine," Bianca said absently, looking annoyed across the cars ahead.

"Well it's hard to forget something when you ask me every day," Ellie said bitterly.

Bianca turned to look at her with a new expression upon her face, one that Ellie hated more than the rest; pity. "I know this isn't where you saw your life going," she said kindly. "And I know it must be hard to give up your identity to become someone new. It sucks and shouldn't need to be necessary but for some situations it is. Unfortunately, for yours, it is."

Her situation. It seemed like too calm a word to express the nosedive that Ellie's life had taken two months ago. She'd describe the time she got drunk and texted her ex that she was in love with his roommate the entire time they dated, as a situation. The time when she was thirteen and she bleached her friends hair so bad that she had to wear a wig for a year and a half to hide the bald spots was a situation.

Witnessing a double homicide and almost becoming the third victim of a notorious Mob boss was a signed and sealed death certificate.

Bianca's phone trilled in its holder at the dash and both women turned to see a FaceTime call from Lucas. Bianca opened the call before the second ring could finish, bringing his scruffy, chiseled face into frame. "Is everything okay? You've been in the same spot awhile," he inquired. Ellie rolled her eyes; of course even when she was with a Marshal, she was being tracked.

"Yeah, everything is fine. Just got caught in some traffic behind a fire truck." As the words left Bianca's mouth, the line before them started lurching forward. Ellie squinted into the distance to see traffic being directed away by a couple of fire fighters. Looking back at the phone screen she caught the concerned cut of Lucas' brows before Bianca went on. "It's starting to move so if we're lucky we'll be there in about fifteen."

"Good. Keep me posted." The call ended almost as quickly as it'd begun.

The car lapsed into silence again as the traffic ahead moved forward and paused periodically. Ellie continued to stare out the window, watching as the fire fighters she'd seen before became more clear in detail.

It was two dark haired men conversing and laughing as they led traffic along, as if they didn't have a care in the world. Behind them, their truck was being restocked by other fire fighters doing the same. Ellie couldn't help but wonder what they'd been called in for that didn't seem to concern them at all. Not that far ahead of them was a single police car, lights still cycling on top of the roof.

Ellie's chest tightened as it instantly brought her back to that night that changed everything.

The flashing lights of the police cars parked outside the club as the EMTs rushed to get her limp, bloodied body into the ambulance and to the hospital. The jagged pain that lanced through her every time she tried to breathe. The ice cold that seemed to weigh her down as if trying to drown her in a frozen lake. The voice telling her to just let it all go...

The prolonged honking of a horn ahead of them broke into her memory, bringing Ellie back to the present. She blinked a few times before her brain could comprehend the swerving of a car around one of the firemen who threw his arms up in disgust.

"Great to see road rage is universal," Bianca sighed, moving them forward in the line. When they paused she turned to look at Ellie, immediately making her wish the drive was over already. "How'd those driving lessons with Lucas go? Ready for that test?"

Ellie groaned, burying her face into the sweater in her lap and letting out a muffled scream.

* * * * *

"I'm just saying, I've seen crazier things on the job than a rerun of Ripley's Believe it or Not," Buck insisted from Eddie's passenger seat. It'd been a relatively quiet shift, the cooking class gone wrong being the most eventful of the day which only brought about a new conversation for the 118.

What was the craziest thing they'd ever seen.

"Chimney's accident with the pipe through his head is still in my top for most insane," he went on. "I mean, you'd think with something like that that the most anyone could hope for would be just surviving. But he not only did that, but without brain damage too."

"You had the truck fall on your leg and didn't need it amputated. You were literally hit with the tsunami at the pier and you survived," Eddie pointed out. "I was buried under mud."

"Pipe through his head, Eddie," Buck insisted. "Skull, brain, all of it. With no brain damage and barely a scar."

"That is pretty insane," Eddie laughed, pulling up to Buck's building. "I wouldn't say it would be in my top moments—"

"Yeah, well, you didn't see it."

"You remember I went to war, right?" Buck turned red for a moment and Eddie tried not to laugh at his expression. "Relax, Buck. I was just pointing out I've seen some insane things too."

"Well, to each their own right?" Buck said lightly, preparing to step out the car. He watched a tall, scruffy faced man he'd never seen before walk into the building holding a moving box.

"New neighbor?" Eddie asked, noticing the man too. Something about the way he walked and carried himself reminded him of a high commanding officer, immediately thinking they must've served at some time.

"Looks like it."

"Looks like you have some new competition then," Eddie added with a smirk. "You may not be the building's most eligible bachelor anymore."

Buck turned to him with a look of annoyance. "I'm on a journey of self discovery and happiness, remember. Couch, no girlfriends."

"Right," Eddie laughed. "No girlfriends."

"See you tomorrow." Buck left the car, heading in a few feet behind the man they'd been talking about. 

In the lobby, the man was met by two women holding open one of the elevators, several other boxes and bags surrounding them. The man looked over his shoulder at Buck, assessing him, and then continued on ignoring him. One of the women, with caramel skin and braids tied up behind her head, took the box from the man and noticed Buck.

She smiled kindly at him, putting the box down beside her in the elevator. "Sorry, we kind of took this one out of commission."

"It's no problem," he smiled back. "I'll just take the other one..." His words trailed off as he looked to their left, noticing the out of order sign on the second elevator's doors. "Or I can take the stairs," he sighed under his breath before speaking up. "Welcome to the building."

The woman nodded, with that same kind smile, and the man gave him a kurt nod, standing himself between the elevator doors and lobby as if waiting for something.

Okay, weird, Buck thought to himself as he moved towards the stairs. He couldn't help his curiosity in looking inside the elevator behind them, again noticing the other woman with them. She looked about his age, maybe a bit younger with pale almost glowing skin and dark hair and eyes contrasting beautifully against it. Looking at her, he couldn't help the mental comparison of her to Snow White.

If Snow White looked a cross between angry, annoyed and tired.

Their eyes met and he saw her stiffen, bracing herself as if waiting for something bad to happen. He tried to give her a reassuring smile as he passed, but the man stepped to the side, blocking their view of each other. Buck's eyebrows drew down but he continued on to the stairs, mentally filing it away for later.

He wasn't sure what was going on there just yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time before one of his nosey neighbors knew. And once they did, he'd know within a single elevator trip.

What he didn't know, was why he couldn't seem to get that look in her eyes out of his head while headed up to his floor.

Hey guys! I know this chapter is eh but I've been crazy busy with life and I just need to kind of push through a bit more before I can get to the good stuff. Trust me, I'm doing my best to make sure I keep true to these characters which means extra careful pacing for now.

Hopefully more soon!