Having what some would call a business meeting with two people who were the entire definition of a head ache called for Toni to pull out a few bottles of beer from her fridge, all popped open together and lined up on her kitchen counter. A hard glance shot across the room at both of her guests, letting them know that all of those bottles belonged to her, and only her. If they wanted one, they could get into the fridge and grab one for themselves. "Okay, let's lay this all out on the table." She said as she walked back into the living room with a cold one in hand, tipping it up to empty a mouthful down her throat. The bitterness of it honestly tasted rather terrible, but she put up with it, because being drunk was a feeling she knew was real.

"Awesome!" Sentinel smiled, looking between the two women who had quite the glum expressionon their faces. "Seriously, cheer up. This is big news, little target here becoming the huntress herself. Man, that's some movie shit right there."

"Honestly, what choice do I have?" Valeriya shot at him, a bit of bite to her words. Her eyes passed over Toni briefly before settling back down to stare at her hands in her lap.

Toni stayed silent as she drank her beer, looking between the two in thought. Sentinel watched her closely, recognizing when something was brewing up in that big brain of hers. She had always been clever, but sometimes situations were dropped into her lap that she had trouble deciphering. Especially this one. What the hell was she supposed to do with a sheltered, rich girl like Valeriya? She didn't even know where to start, luckily Sentinel was here with them both, because he was good at those sort of things. She was clever, and usually quick, and he was brawny and book smart. Those factors are the reason they were an unstoppable team, and perhaps adding a third would only make them stronger.

"Okay, so since Toni is being a hermit, I'll start us off." He interrupted her thoughts, looking towards Valeriya who instinctively curled into herself. It was obvious that she didn't trust either of them in the least.

"Yes, do that." Toni interjected, taking another swig of the harsh liquid. She could feel herself practically itch with the ferocity of the way Valeriya stared at her, the anger that she experienced just a few days ago almost fully returning. This may not turn out that great after all, she considered.

"You're both so cheery..." He said sarcastically, standing up and straightening out his shirt before turning towards Valeriya. "All right, if you're really serious about doing this we're, and by we I mean primarily me, are going to evaluate you based on your strengths and weaknesses physically. This will tell us what kind of..." He paused to think of the right phrase, not wanting to send Valeriya into an anxious frenzy. "Hired help you'll be. Sound good?"

Valeriya stared at him, still unsure of all of this, but despite her lingering anger towards the both of them she had to admit that something deep down inside of her told her that this was exciting, even if just a little. She considered what he said concerning her strengths and weaknesses physically, but truthfully she had never really been the sporty type. During her teen and young adult years she worked out constantly to stay in shape, so her stamina and endurance were up to par, but there wasn't much more to it than that. She was an average woman by her definition. "I'm not sure what you could find out by looking at me that I couldn't already tell you."

"Well, look at it like this." Sentinel said as he linked his hands together in front of him. "Body language can tell you a Hell of a lot more than words can express. Are you familiar with psychological studies concerning such research?"

"I'm not, sorry. I can figure out the basics on my own, I'm sure, but I've never taken the time out of my day to look into it." She shrugged nonchalantly. "I had more important things to do."

A small smirk played on Sentinel's face at the way Valeriya spoke and acted towards not only him, but Toni, too. "See, I can tell by the way you present yourself to us that you dislike both of us more than a little bit, which is fine. I completely understand why, and you're validated in your feelings, but there has to be a level of compromise between the three of us, especially between you two, if this is going to work. Get what I mean?"

Toni sighed audibly and looked at him. "I'm willing to work with her if she is, that's all I have to say on the matter. I told her I'd let her live, and I intend to do that, but damn I didn't expect her to become my, like, apprentice or whatever."

"I don't much like this set up, either. I feel as though it was my only valid option in the end. That chair was becoming uncomfortable, and it if it was up to her I'm sure she wouldn't have let me out of it so willingly." Valeriya gritted, locking her jaw. She stared at nothing in particular, but the vibe she was giving off read that she was trying not to lash out at them.

"Both of you stop, now. This isn't why we're here." Sentinel barked, his voice booming out a lot louder than each of the girls could reach with theirs. It was enough to make them straighten up and drop their catty attitudes.

"All right... What do you need me to do then?" The younger woman asked him in a softer voice, lifting her eyes to look at him.

"First," A grin spread wide across his face. "Tell me where you're originally from, because your accent is Russian, but your dialect isn't native. Spill."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at him, admittedly shocked and impressed that he got that from her. Many people never picked that up. "How did you figure that out? No one's ever caught on before."

"Because it's my job to know, half of our pay comes from us being overly observant and providing information. Part of the job description of doing this kind of work." Sentinel shrugged and then tilted his head off to the side. "Now, quit beating around the bush and tell me where you're from, and why you're here instead of there."

"Does it really matter?! I live in Russia, and I have for many years. I adopted the accent over that stretch of time and no one has been able to tell the difference since, and if they have they've never said anything about it." She said all in one breath, trying to regulate her lungs after she went on her mini rant.

Sentinel and Toni shared a look before he looked back at Valeriya, taking a shot in the dark at his next line of accusations. "Don't tell me, your family was under some kind of witness protection program, and that's why on the death certificate your last name was Aksakov-Stroud instead of simply Aksakov. Your maiden name was orginally Valeriya Alexandrovich Stroud, wasn't it? Also, knowing that Stroud is Scottish leads me to believe that you were born in Scotland, or somewhere close to it."

Valeriya blinked once, slowly. She looked at Sentinel for a long time before veering her gaze to Toni and swallowing her pride. "Does he always do things like this?"

"All the time." Toni confirmed with a nod, having been staring between them both during the whole exchange. "He makes a good point though, you're stuck with two people who are remarkably good finders. Did you think we wouldn't know, or was it something that you often didn't think about yourself?"

"I never really thought about it, to be honest with you. You're right, for the most part. The woman you killed was my step-mother, my real mother was killed when I was quite young. See, my father, mother, and I lived on the coast of Scotland. They ran a farm that did well, and we lived good. We had enough money to live comfortably and still be able to splurge a little at the end of the month, or so he told me. One day, my mother was attacked coming home from the town we often sold our produce and dairy in. She came home and told my father, they filed a police report together, but her attackers found her and..." Valeriya sighed and shut her eyes, trying to bury the old pain deep down. "Needless to say, my father and I ended up in the witness protection program, he invested the money we had left and ended up remarrying to that woman four years later. I was ten when I came to Russia."

"And you're twenty-three now, correct?" Sentinel wondered out loud, having looked at her file so he already knew, but he wanted to see if she was the lying type.

"Yes, I am." And clearly she wasn't, which was good and bad.

"Okay, now let me interrupt really quick." Toni cut Sentinel off as she could tell that he was about to ask more mundane questions. "Valeriya, I'm really sorry to hear about what happened to your real mom. That's awful, and I'm sorry you had to go through that, but now that you've told us what happened it gives me a little insight as to why you acted the way you did after the killing of your family."

"I thought I reacted pretty normally!" Valeriya shot back with that returning bite as her eyes whipped back over to look at the woman who, for some reason, she kept forgetting was responsible for all of this mess. "You outright flayed them and you... Are you saying I didn't care? What is this?!"

"No! You reacted fine." She defended, bringing up both of her hands in a surrendering gesture. "It's just... You shut down rather than lashed out like normal people would, well in my experience. Like, you already experienced trauma in your life and I think it played into helping you combat the emotional harm of this second traumatic experience."

A silence cut through the three of them at that point, Valeriya leaning over with her hands on the sides of her head. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Was this person, this killer, trying to tell her how she handles trauma in her life? There was too much anger swirling around in her chest to confirm whether Toni was actually right or not, but it bothered her either way. Toni being right meant that it was true, which Valeriya was reluctant to admit, but her being wrong just gave her more reason to hate the woman, which was actually fine.

"Before this gets ugly, let's start with the physical evaluation. We'll continue the psychological one later..." Sentinel said gently, swiveling around in his seat to face Valeriya. "So since you were in a wreck, I need to see you walk around normally. I want you to stand up and walk in a straight line from the couch to the window at the back of the apartment, then back to the couch. Got it?"

She stood up slowly, not inclined to say much else on the subject given that it was getting far too personal too fast. Valeriya did as Sentinel asked and walked as she normally would from the side of the couch onwards to the window that overlooked the alleyway. She could feel him watching her, the way one leg didn't raise properly, or the way her foot came down and she winced. The injury she sustained didn't feel this bad before getting knocked out, but she figured being tied in that sitting position for three consecutive days irritated it. It felt hot and enflamed.

"Good..." He said, watching her as she walked back over to the couch, coming back down to sit with a wave of visible relief. "From the looks of it your leg is bothering you a lot, huh?"

"Yes." Valeriya gritted, and then quickly looked away from him to get Toni's attention. "May I ask you something?"

"It really depends." She replied sarcastically, staring back through ever slightly buzzed eyes.

"It's always worth a try." Valeriya shot back before containing her annoyance enough to ask her question. "If you say your boss will kill me if he sees me then why on Earth are you trying to make me into a killer? It doesn't make any sense."

"You never told her?" Sentinel asked, looking at Toni too.

"Tell me what?"

Toni rolled her eyes and set her empty beer bottle down on the coffee table in front of her. "I was promised my own branch of The Division, which is our agency, if I completed this contract to the letter. Which, I technically did, but then someone managed to report you being alive after I tried to show my boss your death certificate. So... I have some stuff to work out with him."

"So technically I would be working for you, then?" Valeriya raised an eyebrow, admitting to herself that she'd prefer that over working for this boss of theirs, who sounded like a nightmare. Toni wasn't a peach either, but she was definitely a better choice.

"Yes, technically you would be." Toni confirmed with a single nod. "Is that a problem?"

She shook her head gently. "No, I suppose not, but I want you both to understand something. I have no intention of being anything close to either of you. I don't want to be your friend, I don't honestly want a god damn thing to do with you, but if this is the only option I have available to me right now then I will learn from you. I'll accept you as my mentors, but that's where this connection ends."

"Actually you'll be accepting Toni as your mentor, I don't know if she mentioned this to you but after tonight I have to get on a plane to go to Wales. I have a job there that's going to last a couple months." Sentinel said, pointing towards Toni while looking at Valeriya.

With that information given, Valeriya turned away from them both and looked back at the television that was droning on in the background of all their conversation. It was exhausting trying to keep up with the both of them, but perhaps once she started to learn how these things worked it would improve. She didn't even know if she could kill, much less learn the basics of weapon etiquette and that sort of thing. She held a gun only once in her life, and well, look how that turned out. A busted lip and one strange apartment later, and she really didn't know what to do with any of it. Valeriya now had two people in her life that were taking on the obligations of turning her into one of them due to one's monumental fuck up, which when put like that made her feel slightly better. They weren't perfect, and they knew that, and now here Toni was trying to repent for what she did by accepting a proposal that she would otherwise reject wholeheartedly.

It was when Sentinel stood up again and began walking towards the front door that the two women came back to reality, having been buried deep in their own thoughts for much of the time that the three had spent together. He turned around and looked at them both, crossing his arms over his chest and giving them the most convincing smile he could muster. "Listen, this is going to be hard as Hell for the both of you, but in order to improve your lives you have to figure out how to work together. Valeriya, I understand that you have no intention of being friends with us, and that's okay, you have that right, but learn to tolerate Toni because when it comes down to it she's the one who you're going to be answering to. And Toni," His grey eyes landed on her. "I love you more than anything, but be nice to the girl. She doesn't know any better."

Toni stood up and walked over to him, both of them stopping to stand together by the front door. She had her hand on the door knob and held it open while he stopped in the opening and began talking to her in hushed tones.

"Listen to me Toni, she's a person just like you are. Any person has tons of potential to do anything. Teach her like we taught you and it'll be okay. Got it?" He said encouragingly, catching the look of doubt painted across her face.

"I'll try. I've been trying, actually. I've been trying to show her that I'm human, too, and not some monster that gets her rocks off on hurting people. I even patched up her lip." She said, chuckling dryly.

"I noticed that, as a former nurse, I have to say you did good." He laughed, too. "One thing though, try not to stare. You stare and then you get involved, and I think the last thing she needs right now is finding out that her mentor has a thing for her."

"Seriously? She is the last person I would want to..." Toni began making odd hand gestures to emphasize what she meant. "With."

"Okay, okay, but just in case." He bent down and kissed the top of her head. "Be good, I'll be back in a couple months."

"See you then." She smiled up at him, always feeling better after he gave her a pep talk. "Drop by when you get back in, and make sure to call me and update me about your case, you know I get worried."

"I know you do." He rolled his eyes playfully and then leaned in close to her ear to make absolutely sure that Valeriya couldn't hear him. "You need to talk to her about your blood soon, she needs to know what she's in for with your... Uh, problem."

Toni blinked slowly and ended up shutting her eyes, taking in a sharp breath and gripping the side of the door. He was right though, she would have to tell Valeriya eventually, but that was such a hard thing to do when it was the one feature about herself that she hated more than anything, and while it wasn't visible, it was an obvious difference due to how hot she was all the time. It made her different in a bad way. "Yeah, okay. I will."

After that he left, Toni watching him to make sure he got out all right. She licked the underside of her top row of teeth nervously, thinking about how she would tell Valeriya about what made her the killer she was today. It wasn't as if she would be doing this kind of thing if she was normal, because she wouldn't. Toni had her life planned out before this all happened, a career and a family in mind, but it was ripped away violently in a matter of weeks.

"So..." She heard from across the room, turning around to see Valeriya looking at her. "It seems now that we are officially stuck with one another."

"Yeah, it seems that we are." Toni said dryly, swallowing hard. There was a lot going on in her head, so concentrating on the other woman was hard, but she was trying.

"What kinds of weapons do you think I should train with?" Valeriya asked as she watched the way Toni looked lost, or perhaps distracted.

It took several long seconds of Toni fighting with herself before she finally calmed down enough to walk back into the main living area and sit down with Valeriya. She heard what she had asked and considered it, among other things. The subject of her blood was hard to stomach, especially being that she would have to talk about it eventually. So for now, she elected to concentrate on Valeriya's concerns with what and how she would be taught. "Guns mainly. I'll teach you about small caliber glocks and pistols, and eventually move you up to larger calibers."

"Are you sure you want to teach me how to shoot a gun? I mean, my performance with that pistol before was down right awful." She laughed, more so at herself about the situation.

"Beginner mistakes, Valeriya. Those of which can be corrected and smoothed out. I was a beginner once, too, you know?" Toni clarified, looking back at her. She felt a little better when they were alone. Sentinel was a great man, but having him around them both felt a little intrusive, like he was seeing something that she wasn't. Which was entirely possible, he was quite observant.

"How long ago was that?" She wondered out loud.

"Just over five years ago... I had to go through rigorous training very quickly to make up for lost time." Toni sighed and looked down at her hands, turning them over once, and then again in her lap. "Anyway, when would you like to start training, because as you can guess I have quite a few guns stashed away here."

"We'll start tomorrow." Valeriya offered sternly.