Allison had taken a while to get used to people in New York not knowing her. Sure, in Chicago there were always people who hadn’t met her yet, but there were also always people who’d known her all their lives to fill them in. People there knew who her family was, and knew what she’d been like before she started being cheerful (and kind of ditzy, too, but that was fun, and it made being cheerful easier, and it made people around her happy too, so what was wrong with that?), and so knew that that wasn’t all there was to her. It was kind of annoying, having people always curious-wary-concerned watching her to see what was beneath the cheerfulness, and apparently completely incapable of understanding that what was beneath wasn’t worth bothering with. Unless you made her mad, anyway, but without killing anyone that was pretty hard to do.

It was often even more annoying, though, for people not to know. Allison was becoming a bit irritated with the constant underestimation and (admittedly, amused, but still) patronization her neighbors and classmates generally showed. So, when a classmate (the girl swore she was Allison’s friend; Allison was less sure. The constant patronization and weeks of silence when Allison wasn’t useful for homework or entertainment purposes were less than convincing) sent an IM out of nowhere complaining about the basic psychology class she was taking over the summer, Allison kindly offered to help.

Two days later, Allison met Mariah outside a coffee-shop-with-a-stage called The Closet--Really? How old is this place that no one found any innuendo in that? And who is either lazy or determined enough to make a point not to change it?--with an entire backpack full of psychology books and magazines. Mariah wouldn’t need more than one or two of the books, and definitely none of the magazines, but Allison had a point to prove.

Correcting Mariah’s misunderstandings and proving Allison’s point took most of an hour and a half. Really, Mariah hadn’t seemed to even read her textbook; all her ideas on psychology seemed to have come from movies and TV shows. Maybe the occasional dramatic news report. Hypnosis, anyway, was definitely not a common psychiatric treatment, and certainly not the main method that Mariah thought it was. Allison didn't even want to guess where she'd gotten some of her other ideas.

Of course, in proving her point, Allison had been reading some of her magazines while Mariah worked. Which meant she’d found something interesting. Which meant she had to check other magazines and books on the same subject. And crosscheck the dates and authors.

Which meant that, six hours after Mariah had left and well after it became dark, Allison was still sitting at a small, three-person table in a coffee-shop-with-a-stage called The Closet, nose and all attention buried in a book, with seven magazines and four more books spread out over the table’s surface. And, for all her time there, half a cup of hot chocolate was still all she drank.

She felt like shit.

It's been weeks since her break up with Agnes, and the hurt wasn't gone. She thought it would be. It was like this when she trained and hurt her fist or knees. The pain would throb, but it would eventually fade into memory. For some reason, this pain persisted, and Ashley hated it. She didn't like feeling weak in this way. Pain was something she could shrug off easily in fights, why not now? How could one person make her feel so damn weak and vulnerable? Ashley gritted her teeth tightly as she walked down the sidewalk before letting up the tension and sighing.

She'd taking to wearing looser clothing now, though she didn't know why...easier, more comfortable she guessed. Low, hip hugging jeans adorned her lower half and a simple sports bra and black wife beater her top. Her fiery halo of hair was pulled up in a ponytail, it's color brighter because she had taken a shower that morning and it was actually dry by nightfall, something it rarely did without the aid of a hairdryer.

Her guitar case hung off her back as she walked towards The Closet, her favorite haunt for playing music. Already, a block away from the place, people began to greet her, though some gave her thoughtful and sometimes fearful looks. She didn't know why and, quite frankly, didn't care. After trying everything to dull the pain in her chest, Ashley figured that maybe playing music was probably her best bet in distracting herself, and with a childish huff, picked up her case and headed to The Closet without giving herself a chance to change her mind.

If that made any sense.

Sisko greeted her at the door as soon as he saw her, glaring at several customers who dared tried to bother him while he greeted the redheaded musician and escorted her to the back room. This normally didn't happen, and Ashley blinked. She usually just went up and sang, but she was here on a day she didn't normally come, so that may have accounted for it. Still, when Sisko shut the door and stalked up to her, she drew back at the look on his face.

“What are you doing here?!” he hissed angrily. “Your face is all over the news and net and you think you can just waltz in here and think no one will notice? What's the matter with you girlie, you got rocks in yer brain?!”

Ashley's blank look and rapid blinking was all the answer he needed.

“Aw shit...you don't know, huh?” Sisko sighed, taking a step back and crossing his arms. “It's a wonder you haven't been caught. Weeks after whatever you did pissed the cops off...you'd think they'd be out in droves searching for ya.”

More blinking.

“Look here girl.” Sisko sighed and sat down in a chair, exhaling a long breath. “You and some other chicky-poo busted up a precinct and a museum. Any of this ringin' a bell?”

Her expression, like many before it, told Sisko all he needed to know.

“Coming back to you, then? Yeah. You didn't think you could just walk away from that, did you?” He shook his head. “You're on the Most Wanted list, girly. Along with a lot of other bad people, you're in the Top Five. Capital letters. And they're gonna find you, one way or another. They always do. So come on...get outta here. I love ya girly, but I can't have the police, ATF and who knows how many other people bustin' up the place to get ya. And...hey, whatcha doing girly?”

Ashley turned towards Sisko and gave him a bright smile...one of the first she'd given in weeks.

“To play.”

She came back out into The Closet, jumping up on stage and unpacking her guitar as much applause greeted her. She noticed many more cameras and cell phones out this night, and she now knew why. Evidence, maybe? Capture her last performance before she had to leave and figure out how to get back on the good side of the law? At the moment, she didn't care. The pain that had been plaguing her was ebbing away, replaced by something...more. She was one of the most wanted people on the city, and now she was playing her guitar out on the open, and at any moment she could get caught and live out the rest of her days rotting in jail.

Maybe this was freedom, freedom like she had it before she got caught up with Isabel, Bentley...Agnes, or any of the dozen of different women she'd taken to bed after Agnes ripped her heart of her chest, Indiana Jones style. Whatever.

She sat down, and after quick sound check, put all those emotions into her guitar.

The first commotion that moved toward the door and then away was very dimly noted in the back of Allison’s mind, on a similar level to such thoughts as ‘maybe they’d want me to buy something after eight hours sitting here’ and ‘when did I eat last anyway?’ where she could probably recall them later that day if she was reminded, but wasn’t disturbed at all at the time they occurred.

The music, when it started, was relegated to the same level of inattention, but as it continued it began to filter more and more into her conscious mind, so that when someone bumped her chair as they hurried past she looked up, hissed quietly at them, and blinked as some of what was around her was suddenly part of her awareness again.

She shook her head, giving the window that looked out on what was obviously night time a bewildered look, and tried to go back to reading. Then tried again, and again, and after five attempts to read the same paragraph failed, gave up.

Allison shredded the napkin that must have come with her no-longer-hot chocolate, dropping pieces into various pages to mark spots in her books and magazines, then closed and stacked them and spent twenty minutes rearranging before managing to fit them all back into her backpack. That done she dropped the backpack in one of the two chairs at her table, and leaned forward to rest her chin on a hand, idly tapping the half a cup of not-hot chocolate, wondering if it would still be worth drinking. Probably. It is chocolate. She leaned back in her chair, letting her eyes drift around the room and eventually up to the girl playing on stage.