Wobbling, Diana moved towards the bathroom. The nurses were changing shifts, so she decided that was the best time to shower. Everyone had left, though begrudgingly.

The nurses had insisted Diana desperately needed her sleep. Which was honestly the last thing she needed, Diana had felt like she was sleep walking for the past five years. 

Turning the doorknob, Diana entered the small private bathroom. It was simple, a sink with weird knobs, a porcelain toilet and an open shower.

She didn't turn on the lights. Passing easily past the light switch, the room was fine in the dark, a bit of faint light ran from beneath the doorframe. However, the cold metal of the shower knob had her recoiling sharply upon first touch. Cradling her fingers for a moment, Diana took a prolonged breath allowing quivering fingertips to turn the blistering metal of the shower knob. Letting the dress fall, Diana slipped beneath the spitting surface of the water.

There was a small circular mirror in the corner of the shower. The reflection obscured with dots of dirt, her mother must've brought it. Diana's fingers wiped against the glass. The calluses on her fingers ran bumps over the smooth surface of the mirror.

In the reflection, she could see herself. Her shallow and sunken eyes. The thick scar across her face.

Stepping backwards, the cold porcelain tile stung her open back. Turning, a hail of freezing water washed over her scars. Pink curled the outside of the wounds.

Taking the teal toothbrush shiv she'd made from the moment she could pull herself upright onto the whining hospital bed. With ragged and ripping cuts, Diana tore through her dark hair in the darkness of the bathroom.

It was ripping and painful, but she didn't stop. Staring into the mirror her face didn't move, perfectly still even as she ripped hair from her follicles.

She didn't stop cutting until she recognized a part of the face in the mirror. Until she saw a version of Diana that she remembered. Her hair didn't touch her lower back anymore, now it stopped just above her shoulders.

Hair matted the bottom of the shower floor and pressed against her open skin. It slowly ran into the drain with each passing moment she stayed beneath the downpour.

She gazed down at the tiled floor, ogling and peering the ugly scars that were briefly illuminated on the edges of her body. She had risen from the swamp with blood filled lungs.

Pressing her toes into the tile she closed her eyes. She couldn't feel damp dirt beneath them. There was no mud soaking the underside of her toenails.

Like a leak in a dam, the memories flooded in. Of the day she was taken.

For a year prior to Chechnya, Diana had found a high up CI in the Chechen terrorist scene. She was going to flip him and then everything went to shit.

In a flash, her comms went out and any access to the world beyond her was gone.

Then the team had grabbed her. Bringing a black bag over her head she'd fought, breaking teeth and nails in the process. She'd screamed until her voice went hoarse and absent because in that moment, Diana Winters thought she was going to die.

She'd managed to take out two of the armed men before they'd shot her in the knee and chest. Then, they'd dragged her to the compound and into the cell where she thought they'd left her to die.

In that moment she knew someone had to have sold her out. Most likely the people attached to the operation. There were only a handful who even knew of the operation's existence.

All she needed to do was figure out who and take them out.

Her knee and shoulder throbbed, she could still feel the agonizing burning sensation in her muscles from when they'd dug out the bullets with a pair of scissors.

Her muscles ached and body trembled. Closing her shaking eyes, Diana tried to steady herself, but the memories didn't leave. The dam kept leaking her red blood.

And then, Diana Winters cried. A heaving, heavy sob that wrought fault lines through her skin and shook her bones until they broke. Engravings from the tiles dug into her knees quivered and fell to the ground.

The air wouldn't reach her lungs, stopping just shy of her lungs. She couldn't breathe. Diana tried to breathe but the tears streaming down her face felt like they clogged every pore on her skin.

She didn't want to feel weak, but as whimpering cries fell from her hoarse lips, Diana felt more than weak. She felt like she was made of glass and that any moment she might crumble into a million pieces and slip down the dark drain and never come back out.

Diana stood murmuring with bloodshot eyes, staring down at the roads that surrounded the hospital with intertwined fingers and a straightened back.

Shining lights passed over the city, it felt weird to stand in the light. Like her skin might burn until she became a skeleton. The dark was better and so much worse because with the light, there was distraction.

Distraction from the aching in her ivory.

The door clicked open making her turn swiftly, her left hand briefly reaching for the shiv before letting it fall at the sight of a nurse. She wore duck scrubs. Each duck was holding different nurse motifs; stethoscope, clipboard, needle.

"Mrs. Winters?" She looked up from the clipboard, "Did you cut your hair?" The nurse had hair like hers in length, short braids that stopped just above her shoulders.

Diana shook her head and smiled. "Nope, not for a while now. Why? Do you like it?"

The nurse nodded sweetly as she came to the right side of her bed. Her eyes scanned the monitors. A steady heartbeat.