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-“With mountain chains and rivers ahead, I thought there was no way through.”-
Isobel woke up from her hospital bed, the hospital bedpan stiffening her back, no matter how many layers of mattresses were underneath. Agents were always regular visitors to hospitals, and she was no exception.
But for her, as she was lying on the cold asphalt, her partner pressing down on the wounds on Isobel's right arm and abdomen, the physical pain of the agony putting her in a trance, she had a feeling that this time was different. Isobel no longer held back the bitter tears, letting them run rampant and as the rain dampened her lapel, she ignored her partner's desperate call of staying awake and closed her eyes.
Spring slowly creeps up the branches, and flowers bloom outside the hospital room. Isobel stared blankly out the window, silently weeping as she welcomed the cold winter of her life. The doctor's words echoed in her ears, "With the nerve damage in the arm, there is a certain probability that most of the function can be restored, but with high precision work...it may be more difficult." She knew what he was referring to, she hadn't been prepared to watch fate take away a field agent's essential skill, the one that had made her proud and stood out from the rest.
She might never be able to hold a gun again. She'd envisioned many possibilities, never envisioning a dream now in vain.
The light in Isobel's eyes went out. She felt a part of her heart shatter. Her doctors had come and gone, her partner had come and gone, her superiors had come and gone, her friends had come and gone, and those words of "there's still hope" and "it's going to be okay" had drifted in and out without leaving a speck of dust or thought in her.
She couldn't wait to escape the hospital and try to get her life back on track. She couldn’t give up this easily. Rehab, she was on of the most consistent ones according to staffs. The mandatory psychotherapy, inevitable for every agent, she didn't like it, but she gritted her teeth and participated, facing her demon. She was at the range from morning until night, but no matter what, she could never get back to the accuracy she had back then, she couldn't go out in the field. She had to face that reality.
-“Why, shady willow trees and brilliant flowers keep one more village out of sight.”-
She's good at paperwork, but she's not familiar with office work, and she's not yet a well polished political animal.
Dana visited Isobel in the hospital, and despite her saying of that she was fine, the teardrops on her eyelashes that she couldn’t manage to wipe off thoroughly glisten in the light, betraying her clumsily.Dana's heart ached for the girl whose eyes once sparkled. She admired Isobel’s perseverance, but she also saw potential in her. She had ambition, but in this new and unfamiliar territory, Isobel was still a little lost and not quite ready to realize her talents, and Dana was willing to walk her through the process and show her the ropes. Growth can be slow, but as you watched her step-by-step, from panic to mastery, you wouldn’t realise how time flew by and Isobel now became a leader in her own right, and Dana became her second mother, her second family.
When she and Isobel in the weekend garden chat, Dana can no longer see this lady in front of her, holding the freshly brewed tea and talking to her about the anecdotes of life is that the girl shed silent tears to the window of the flowers, but she knows in Isobel deep inside there will always be a piece of softness. Her eyes are no longer holding the apparent passion of the profession before, but being wrapped with the hardened determination honed over the years,
Years later, on those nights when the rain pounds on the glass, she still recalls that night lying on the cold asphalt. Just when you think fate is playing tricks on you, maybe she's showing you the way.