GASKARTH, Leliana Aria

[leliana aria gaskarth]

LELIANA ARIA GASKARTH

FULL NAME: Leliana Aria Gaskarth.
NICKNAMES: Lee.
AGE: thirty-one
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Widowed.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Freelance Ghostwriter.

HAIR: Brown, naturally wavy and she tends to keep it around her shoulders.
EYES: Green.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: Her back has four deep scars from the same torture that cost her the man she loved and the family she dreamt of. There are also two on her abdomen.
TATTOOS: She has a crucifix behind her ear.
PIERCINGS: Ears once.
PLAY-BY: Stana Katic.

LIKES: hoodies and leggings combo, bourbon, Bovril, kickboxing, meditation, green, hiking, being alone, fog, men's shirts, cologne, Nighttime markets, grilled sandwiches, moths, camping, November, her father's side of the family, baseball – specifically The Mets, dogs, late night walks, stargazing, chocolate covered raisins, milky oats.
DISLIKES: Sleeping pills, silence, having too much to do, white walls, hospitals, chewy toffee, long movies, bad dreams, wine, being fussed over, construction work, forcing herself to work, cleaning, turquoise, lilies, when her hands shake, paperweights (they’re pointless and take up space), Mexican food, running (but she’ll still do it until everything burns).
FEARS: Falling in love with Niall and losing him, waking up in a hospital bed again, going back to Chicago.
SECRETS: She’s started developing feelings for her brother-in-law which she’s trying to ignore.
PERSONALITY: Leliana has lost everything she once held dear. This has left her angry and often defensive. Someone might say she’s defined by her rage, but in truth she’s simply still coming to terms with a lot of the stuff she’s been through. She’s keeping closed off, pretending that everything’s fine even when it’s not. Leliana is stubborn and strong, but unwilling to ask for help. Her kind heart is lost to her pain. Leliana is trapped behind her fear right now; she’s a brave, daring person, but in recent years that has vanished. Instead she’s isolated, and does her best to push people away because she believes it’s the best way to stop herself from feeling anymore kind of pain. She’s smart enough to know that’s stupid, but her heart is broken. Her anger pushes her into careless behaviour, such as drinking for hours on end, or forgoing sleep to go and run all night through the city. Thankfully, loving her family stops her from doing anything too stupid, and she’s often back to as close to normal as she can be before they notice anything. Her heart is a passionate thing, but right now it’s shattered and barely holding together. Honestly, Leliana thinks it’s all over for her. She’s done the marriage and the happily ever after and evil won. It’s getting complicated now and if it was easy enough to walk away from feelings she would have put on her gym shoes and ran until the soles were worn out. She’s terrified and so very confused by what her heart is reaching out for.

MOTHER: Joyce Helena Maine, 55.
FATHER: Harvey Walter Riley, 59.
SIBLINGS: None.
OTHERS: Keir James Gaskarth, deceased, husband
Brody Daniel Gaskarth, deceased, son
Niall Cian Gaskarth, 34, brother-in-law
George Riley, 78, "pops" 
PETS: Webster, a lab-collie cross of three!
HOMETOWN: Newburgh, New York.
HISTORY: Harvey and Joyce liked to say that they fell in love under the mirror ball at a high school dance. The truth was a lot more complicated than that. It was true that they did get hit with cupid’s arrow that fateful night, but when it happened Harvey broke the heart of his girlfriend of six months and Joyce could only stand back and watch as the man she would go on to marry and have a daughter with got a black eye and suspension for knocking out the jock who threatened her after she rejected him. If either of them could see the future they might have done everything differently.

By the time Leliana was born, the two were wed, living comfortably in Newburgh suburbia, with Harvey secure in his job as a high school biology teacher. Joyce was a nurse at a local care home for the elderly. During the work days, Leliana was left in the care of her paternal grandfather, George Riley. He had her playing with toy soldiers and neglecting her dolls. He made sure she knew all about baseball and had her supporting the Mets before she even knew what was happening on the diamond. Leliana loved her pops more than anyone and that never changed as she grew up. He was the one she went to for help and when her parents divorced when she was fourteen, she stayed with George during all the fights and court proceedings because it was so stressful to be around. It was made worse when Leliana was asked who she would prefer to live with and she chose her father. She was a daddy’s girl, mostly because he encouraged her choices, allowed her to try things and make mistakes and learn from them. He took her to baseball games with his dad, and was proud when she beat the boys in races and tried out for track and field. Her mother loved her, but they clashed a lot over things. Small things, but it was heated when Leliana was a teenager and the little things seemed like big things; stuff like getting new jeans dirty, choosing to skip out on a dance to go to a sports game.

The tense relationship between Joyce and Leliana wouldn’t be fixed for many years. Not until the time when they both realised that life was too short for tiny disputes and unkind words.

As lively as she was, Leliana had dreams that required a decent education. She worked hard in school even though her loud attitude was capable of landing her in plenty of detentions. She was something of a troublemaker when she wanted to be, but Harvey knew his daughter always came to her senses eventually. What he hadn’t expected was the day Leliana came home and expressed her desire to join the army. That took him and George by surprise. She explained, over dinner, that growing up listening to George’s old military tales had filled her with this sense of ambition. She didn’t want to play hero so much, but he had this pride from serving that she wanted to feel for herself. She wanted to know that she was doing something to help, and meet people who could be like the brothers and sisters she never had. There was never any talking Leliana out of something once her mind was set to it, so her dad supported her choice, but told her that she was going to be held accountable for every grey hair he developed in the years to come.

Leliana enlisted and found her calling as a Civil Affairs Specialist within the US Army. Before that though she had to get through basic training. Pushing herself to prove herself as equal to the men in her combat unit, Leliana put her stubborn ambition to good use. Shortly before their first deployment, the group decided to go for a night out. Sort of a ‘congratulations and good luck’ thing. It was a nervous goodbye for some of them who were being deployed elsewhere, and a last hooray for them all after coming so far together – because training had not been easy. They could all deny that they had broken down at least once, but everyone knew they were lying about it.

They were several secret drinks too many into their night when trouble in a bar led to them helping the owner kick out some troublemakers. The only problem – at first – was that they too looked like they were causing grief because a few of them were swaying and slurring a little when they blocked the doors, stopping the actual troublemakers from getting back inside. This was the moment when Leliana met Keir Gaskarth. He was an officer on duty that night, called by a patron before the soldiers stepped in. He confronted the mouthy Leliana who explained what was actually happening with the aid of one of her soon to be brothers-in-arms. It was a mess, but Leliana liked the young officer’s intense eyes, and somewhere between being professional and being drunk, her phone number slipped into his pocket and then there were wolf whistles and a hand dragged her away before she could make a bigger fool of herself. Plus, a line of free drinks were waiting for them at the bar, and her fellow soldiers were not about to miss those just because she had beer goggles on.

Hungover, Leliana planned to spend the next day hidden in her bed, but fate had different ideas. It was around lunchtime when her phone pinged with a message from an unknown number. Blinking through the pain in her head, Leliana read enough to remember the NYPD officer from the night before and how she had embarrassingly left him with her phone number. Well, Keir had text her that very next day to ask how she was feeling after ‘putting the blankity blank blanks in their place – legally.’ Shamefully, Leliana replied to him with a sincere apology, and a conversation started from there. He called her terrifying and strangely attractive at the same time, and they made plans to go to see a movie together before Leliana was actually deployed. She told him after the movie that whilst she had a great time, she wasn’t expecting him to hang around and wait for her to come back from Iraq. Keir told her that some things are worth waiting for.

She thought they were just words. A lot could happen when someone was so far away. Still, when she came home on her first planned leave, Keir was there. He took her to dinner, treated her to a day out at the fair, and took her to meet his family right before she had to fly back out again. He was that serious about Leliana that he wanted her to meet them. He joked that he was just glad his older brother Niall wouldn’t be there because he would steal her in a heartbeat and Keir didn’t want to lose her. Leliana laughed and said it couldn’t happen. They had a nice family dinner, talked about her ambitions and shared stories of Keir’s family and childhood. She enjoyed it, and realised just how happy she was that he had waited for her, even though it was the last thing she had expected.

Leaving again meant putting the relationship on hold, and this time Leliana saw the hardest things when she was gone. No one ever said it was easy out there, but there was definitely stuff which changed her. Maybe for the better, but some for the worst. However, she came home again, and this time the relationship grew stronger, but it was Keir who had news of his own. A joint task force operation had seen an out of town detective eye him up. He had been offered a job in Chicago. Leliana encouraged him to take it. He didn’t have to wait around for her, and she could easily go to Chicago when she had leave if they survived all this constant distance and time apart. Keir moved to Chicago, and when Leliana came home at the end of her first tour, he proposed. They had an intimate and quick wedding with all of their friends and family. She wanted to be his wife before she was deployed again.

It was a couple of months into her second tour when she discovered she was pregnant with their first child. A short period of leave had been a chance for a mini honeymoon in the mountains and from that their son was conceived. Unexpected, but very much the greatest thing to ever happen. Brody was perfect in every way, but Leliana wanted to finish her second tour before she settled down to civilian work. Keir had pause over this decision, but he understood the woman he fell in love with was a determined, stubborn soul. They made the arrangements for Brody to be cared for while Keir worked his new job as a Vice detective. Leliana found it strange returning to the barracks with her soldiers and friends knowing that while they went home and partied and hooked up with people, she was a wife and a mother, all before she turned twenty-five.

Meanwhile, Keir was trying to make waves in Chicago. It wasn’t as easy as some of the older, wiser detectives made it appear. He found himself being pressured to ‘let things go’ and look the other way when things slipped by. There were powerful players at work in the city, the kind that kept certain things tidy in exchange for having their own business dealings overlooked by the Chicago PD. It was crooked, but it worked, and their hierarchy ran deep and rich. No one really knew how far their reach went, but plenty knew that if they wanted something done then they could do it. Keir ignored the warnings others gave him. He thought that he could stay on the right side of the law always, and bring them down one by one. People told him it would never end well for him if he wasn’t careful, but in his mind the law was the law for everyone. Leliana knew nothing of this because she was away, but when she came home for her leave there was a note in their mail, a warning, and Keir told her not to worry about it. Things were tense for the first few days with Leliana trying to get answers from Keir and Keir not giving her any. Then, his partner came during the day and told her that Keir was putting himself in danger by pissing off the wrong people. He warned her that it might have been too late, but she had to try and talk to him.

Sadly he was right; it was too late. That night when Keir came home they fought about it. Leliana demanded to know why he was risking everything when they had a family. He called her out asking if she would do the same thing she was asking of him. With tension still in the air they went to bed. Leliana slept alone in their bed for the first time since they were married, while Keir slept on a pull out they had in Brody’s room for whenever family visited. Brody thought they were just having a little sleepover and knew nothing of the fight between his mommy and daddy. In the middle of the night, the screams of her little boy woke Leliana up. She heard fighting and banging, and reached for her gun. In the hallway between the two bedrooms, she was knocked to the ground, the gun smacked from her hand after she let off the first shot. She was stabbed in the back and then stepped over so the assailants could return to Keir. Leliana watched them through hazy eyes as they harmed her husband and son. She dragged her body to theirs and that was when the knife came back down through her, this time going right through to the hardwood floor below. She clung to Keir as he died, and folded herself around Brody as best as she could with a knife impaling her to the ground. Left for dead, the attackers didn’t expect anyone to live, and Leliana thought herself dead, too as she slipped into unconsciousness.

However, four days later she awoke in a hospital bed to the news that her boys were gone. Her survival was ironically thanks to the knife holding her in place. It prevented her from bleeding out before the EMTs arrived at the scene. They kept her alive long enough to get her to the hospital where the doctors could give her a blood transfusion and deal with the life threatening wounds she had sustained. When she first woke up Leliana wished that she was dead. Keir was gone and Brody was gone. Everything she loved was gone. She was broken and angry. That anger helped her identify the attackers; two men who Keir had tried to arrest on drugs charges who were ‘untouchable’ according to his old partner. Now things had changed. They had killed a cop, there was a surviving witness and she was a military member. Plus, a child had died, and that wasn’t part of the plan apparently. It all came down to Keir sleeping in his son’s room that night.

It took months of physical therapy for Leliana to regain much of her strength. During that time she was kept doped up on pain medication, anti-depressants, and sat through hours of therapy at the behest of the military and her own doctors. Her family and Keir’s desired her return to New York, which she agreed to. She didn’t want to be in Chicago anymore. She had gone there for Keir and now it was just a city of painful memories. Her husband and son were buried in New York, where everyone could easily go to mourn them. Leliana only returned to Chicago for the trial, where she was a witness, and because she wanted to see justice done. Keir had died for it, so it was going to happen – of that she was sure.

During the trial Leliana’s life changed again. One day when the session was ending for the day, the assailant had the audacity to laugh at the closing testimony being given. She saw red, and when he was being escorted from the court room, Leliana attacked him. For just a moment she had the upperhand because no one was expecting a grieving woman with military training to leap out like she did. All she had was a pen that had been Keir’s favourite – as silly as it seemed – but it had been one of the first things she bought him, engraved with his name. It drove home into the murderer’s eye, and though she never took his life, she took his sight. The only reason charges weren’t pressed against her and she didn’t find herself facing a jury was because she was deemed unfit for trial. Her grief was overwhelming, the army discharged her, and she was asked to keep away from the remainder of the trial. Her testimony was given via video link. The experts said she was broken, fragile, but given the chance, Leliana told her father and pops that she would do the exact same thing, but try to kill the bastard who took her family from her. The killers were sentenced to life without parole, and that was the start of ending the corruption in Chicago. There was no way to hide it anymore.

The family took her home to New York, and it was there that Leliana found an apartment across the street from her brother-in-law. Everyone encouraged her to stay close to someone in case she needed anything. It was a badly kept secret that she still needed help but refused to ask for it. Her dad heard her in the night when she couldn’t sleep, or found her crying when the nightmares stole what precious sleep she did have from her. It was a fresh start a year after the tragedy. Leliana didn’t know what to do with herself. Her career was over and while she was equipped to work with people she didn’t feel up to it. Being around people left her feeling worse. The family she could handle, but strangers were a different matter. Her anger and grief consumed her, and the good moments were fleeting. They came to an end eventually and she was left remembering what had happened. The weight of her wedding ring became as heavy as the guilt she felt for having fun and living when her son and husband no longer had that chance. It was hard to tell her it was allowed, that they’d want that for her. Nothing was easy.

It was her mother who got her into writing. It had started out as a therapy thing supposed to help her, but when Joyce found them, they pushed her to use these skills for a fresh start. One contact led to another and then Leliana sort of just found herself ghost writing articles about civilians in war zones. After that work just sort of floated her way. She never met people, it was always done by e-mail. If Leliana had to write about the great times for someone, she didn’t want to see them gush about it too.

Her pops insisted on getting her a dog shortly after she settled into her apartment, and Leliana gave in and let him do so, not really knowing what to do with the puppy when he brought it to her. Quickly though, she understood how she needed the company, needed something to care for. Webster became her best friend, and the only company she could stand when she was in her lowest mood. Over time she fell into a routine between her writing, visiting the grave, and walking the dog. She was a shadow of the woman she used to be, hiding both her physical and emotional scars; though it was a lot easier to hide the marks on her body than the ones on her heart. Everyone knew how much she hurt when she barely opened her door, or ignored calls. Eventually, Niall began pushing her into going back to kickboxing, joining him down at his father’s bar for a drink or two, making sure she had real food in her stomach and not whatever take out she had picked that week. It was annoying as hell, but in time, Leliana began to find it endearing. It was a terrifying notion, and quickly she supressed her feelings, trying to close herself off more than ever before. She could not have feelings for the brother of her deceased husband.

It's been four years since the night of the murder, and while Leliana is coping as best as many people can expect, it’s clear that she’s a long way gone from the woman she once was. There’s a lot of defences around her, and she’s not excited about life like she used to be. It’s understandable after what was taken from her. Still, there’s still a future for her, but she’s terrified of it, and that is holding her back, keeping her boxed into her dark apartment with the things she’s most comfortable with. Leliana was a woman who once took the most dangerous of risks, and now she won’t even contemplate them. That has to change.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: In the many movie channels I have access to.
SAMPLE:

Send help!

[kim]