DeLongpré, Charlotte [WIP]

He hated boats. There was no way about it. Of course the prison was best located on an island, but ever since that mass break out that had happened all of those years ago they had placed anti-apparation charms the whole path and enforced security in ways that even he wasn't allowed to know. He wouldn't be surprised if only the Minister himself knew exactly how well it was guarded now. It seemed like only yesterday he had been making this exact same trip, of course that had been a far more professional matter, with only slightly personal inflections, this one was all personal. He was going to use his badge to get his way for personal gain, something that he hadn't ever done before and knew that he shouldn't be doing now. He just couldn't stop himself. He had to go there, he had to see her, there was no other way around it. He needed to be there whenever she stepped off of the grounds and into the salty sea air. He needed to see her hair whipping about her face and the angry look on her face. He needed her to know that it was him who was the one to get her out early. The ministry had wanted to let her stew in there for months, with no permanent release date. They had just figured, that the longer that she had in there, the better. They wanted to alienate all of Darren's family from him, even if Ashton knew from personal experience with the man that he wouldn't have cared in the least that she was wasting away in a prison. He could see the tips of the triangular prison poking up out of the clouds in the distance, it wouldn't be too long before he was able to see her face again. Things had been left, on less than favorable circumstances. Of course, he didn't feel like he was wholly in the wrong about the whole thing, but he was willing to put worth the first efforts, for the first time in his life. She had almost killed him after all, anger like that wasn't so easy to let go of. He knew that very well. Of course, he was banking on the fact that she was going to take a good look at him, and reconsider a few things. He knew that she was stubborn and pig headed, just like he was at times but even Ashton could see reason.

There was no way to even imagine what she had to of been going through this past couple of days. It was likely the longest 48 hours of her life. Of course, that wasn't counting the booking times and the time that it was going to take for them to clear her out of her cell and escort her down into the holding tank to release her into his personal custody. Ashton found himself standing in the far too small bathroom on the charter boat that was closing the small distance between him and the prison. He was almost nervous as to what he was going to see whenever he arrived. He knew that the same cold would overcome him, and the nerves that were keeping his mouth constantly dry were only going to intensify. His hands gripped the porcelain bowl of the sink until his knuckles were starting to turn white. His head bowed, stray pieces of hair falling down in front of his eyes and his chest was moving at an irregular rhythm as he attempted to keep from getting sick. He wasn't sure why he felt so awful, dread chewing at the insides of him body. He couldn't explain it. She was just as much at fault here, he was coming out of his way to make a gesture to her, to attempt to clear the air and put everything behind him. Exhaling slowly through parted lips he released his grasp and turned on the cold water faucet, dipping his hands below the stream and allowing them to become covered in liquid and brought them to his face. He let the cold shrink his heated skin back into place and turned off the faucet with one hand, running his hand down his face with the other before reaching for the small off white towel that was sitting next to the small bar of soap and drying his hands and face. Pushing his still slightly damp hands back through his hair and righted himself. The bathroom was cramped, he was far too tall for something like this, if he were to put his elbows out on either side of his body, he wouldn't even be able to stick them out fully. He pressed himself up against the far wall opposite the door as bed as he could, his head backing into the tiny circular window as he pried the door open and squeezed out of the restroom. Glancing once more into the mirror at the reflection of a man that he didn't recognize. His hair felt strange, it was stuck down for the first time that he could recall. Not even on his wedding did he attempt to tame his hair. That had to mean something, right?

Holding onto the railing of the boat he made his way toward the bow of the boat, where a couple of the armed escorts were playing a rather heated game of poker at a small square metal table that was bolted down to the floor. Their chairs weren't bolted, and Ashton wasn't really sure where they had even come from but the weight of the escorts were keeping them in place. Thankful for the extra chair that she had weighted down with a large rock and a couple of their tranquilizer guns he moved forward to them, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it along the way. They moved their guns and left Ashton to move the rock, never stopping their game for even a second lest the other get a chance to look at the cards. He imagined them to have some sort of magical adhesive or else he had no clue how they managed to get the cards to stay in place whenever the wind was whipping about so. He had no intentions of joining them, not that he didn't enjoy a good round of cards every now and then, but he needed to focus, he needed to steady his nerves. Listening to them argue and issue petty threats was just the thing to do the trick until they arrived and judging by the fact that the boat was starting to slow, he imagined that was going to be very soon indeed. He felt like a fool, his head felt hot and he had this strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was something that he had never felt before, and he didn't care for it, he could never feel this way again and it would be too soon. Up until this very moment he had been too focused on not allowing the Ministry officials to make an example out of Kaydence that he hadn't even stopped to focus on his motivations, or what he was going to do once she was free again. Something that he should have through about a long time ago, he should have just let her serve her sentence and then be done with it.

The men started to wrap up their game and Ashton gathered his small things onto his person. Tucking his wand into his back pants pocket, making sure that his badge was shining from his neck and putting his coins and cigarettes into the inside pocket of his jacket. Everybody was filing off. Last time there had been the whole process of checking everybody into the building, but they didn't have to worry about that this time since it was a pick up, and not a drop off. They had checked Ashton before they had left and since he had been making fairly frequent visits to the prison as of late, they were all almost on first name basis with one another. He had been visiting Isis every week, asking her for information, and he felt that she was starting to get worn down, but who could really know what was going on inside the twisted inner workings of her mind. The escorts would walk him to the door, talk more about Quidditch and poker until Ashton was done, and then they would escort him back. Basically, they just kept him dementor free, which was a wonderful thing and he doubted that they got paid enough for what they did. Having to work in such a miserable local all the time had to be thankless. At least they had each other, and their poker games. Stopping on the small patch of grass leading into the walk way he just had to focus on allowing his feet to carry him into the building and not over think it. Flicking the butt of his cigarette off of the edge of this miserable rock and into the ocean as it lapped up at the sides of the shore he once again smoothed down the top of his hair. Nodding to the escorts as they grew closer to the door. He could hear every single footstep resounding ten fold inside of his head, the steady thumping was keeping him from turning around and running to hide on the boat until they docked, she wouldn't even have to really know that he had been there in the first place. In his free hand, he held a special package for her, wrapped in plain brown packing paper, the type that butchers were apt to use.

Passing through the doors he held up his badge for the man at the counter to see. He was a rather portly fellow, obviously had been sitting behind that desk for far too long. That, or the prolonged exposure to the dementors had caused him to abandon any need to take care of himself a long time ago. The man acted like he recognized Ashton, like they ought to be old friends. Of course, working a job like this for who knows how long was bound to kill a person's social life since there was no good conversation to be had, and It looked like a lot of lunches spent alone. Forcing a half smile he approached the desk and pulled the clip board with the inmate release form over to his frame. Kaydence would have no idea how long she was going to be incarcerated, and he had pulled a lot of strings to get her released this early. She was going to be released into his custody. Of course, he knew that given how angry she was bound to be with him it wasn't going to mean very much because she would want to just be on her angsty way without so much as a word to him. Yet, here he was anyway. He placed the package on the counter without a word, and allowed the man behind the desk to pass him the clipboard full of forms. Ashton was far too impatient to sit down and fill them out, and it wasn't like he had other people that he needed to get to. He started to fill out the various lines as the man behind the counter started to lift all of Kaydence's possessions up and over the counter, the same damned purple pumps that she had been wearing whenever she had been taken into custody, no doubt whenever they brought her down she would have been given the same cloths to change into. Personally, he wouldn't have minded seeing her in the black and white pinstripes for just a moment before she glared him down. Her being barefoot on this floor would just have to suffice though, her shoes could easily have been used as a weapon, not against the dementors of course but against himself so he would just hold onto them until he saw what state of mind she was in. They pulled up the contents of her pocket and then the transcripts of her visit. The profanities that she had used whenever she threatened the dementors, her sleeping habits while she had been here as well as her list of visitors. That was the only thing out of the lot that had interested Ashton at all. He hadn't been expecting anybody to have come and visited her, it wasn't an easy thing to do. The person must have been somebody with connections in order to get here at all. He was going to have to ask the guards about it since they were the ones that would have been forced to escort the person. There was only four of them, and these two were the only ones that worked on the weekends, which was how long that she had been here.

Finishing the form he pulled the transcripts toward him, noting that she hadn't been eating too much. He couldn't blame her, feeling that miserable was hardly conducive to food. Plus it was likely the same thing every day and her highness wouldn't have stood for that. If nothing else, it should have been a humbling experience for her. Moving to the visitors he only saw one name. Maverick Dresner. His eyes widened, it was a man? She hadn't called for Ashton, but she had summoned this other person to come and see her in this short time frame? How else would he have even known that she had been incarcerated at all? No, it couldn't be right. Who the hell was Maverick Dresner? Was there even more secrets that he didn't know about? Ashton flipped to the next page in the log which was the form that Maverick had filled out to be permitted into the holding cells, under relation, he had just put 'personal' what the hell was that supposed to mean? Suddenly he felt even more daft for bothering to put his neck out for her sake in the first place. He had almost even jeopardized Rutherford's opinion of him, something that he wouldn't have been able to get back no matter how he had apologized and she was here consorting with other men. He knew that the next page in the list would have been the transcript of every word that had been spoken between them during visitation, and while modestly curious, he couldn't bring himself to turn the page. He gripped onto the pages, causing them to crinkle and he slammed them back down next to her shoes. “Let her out. I'll be outside” he barked at the man who didn't deserve it and marched back out the doors, ignoring the questions that the two men standing outside were asking him. Ripping the brown paper from around the bouquet of flowers he tossed it to the ground and the wind instantly carried it away. Ashton threw the assortment of colorful flowers on the ground save one, not wanting to bother with even letting her see them. The first time that he had ever bought something for a women other than a ring and it was for nothing. He extracted another cigarette and ignited it. He could feel himself starting to hyperventilate. Putting the stick between his two fingers he bent in half, placing his hands on his knees as he heaved, breath becoming more and more ragged with every moment. This man must have been the reason that she had been refusing him this whole time. The level of her betrayal went far deeper than he had ever realized. She had made him care for her, really care for her despite all of this and for nothing.

Standing up he began to take rapid puffs from his cigarette to calm himself, hardly allowing himself to properly exhale before moving onto the next drag. Tossing the spare plume to the ground he felt moderately better as he heard the petals crunch underneath the heel of his boot. He ground the thing into the ground to make him feel better, all the while keeping his back turned on the guards who were no doubt looking at him with pity. He knew that they had to be whispering about him, and he knew that if he were to hear any of it, he was going to want to harm them so it was best to just ignore them all together. He was going to just have to head back to the boat. They could wait for Kaydence and escort her, he knew the long and narrow path well enough not to go staggering off the edges. Even if he did feel that doing just that might make him feel infinitely better. Staggering away from the lot of flowers he walked at a slow, but determined pace. He heard the giant steel doors open behind him, good. Let her look at nothing but his retreating back. She would have had to know that he had seen the transcripts, she was too smart not too. He was the fool here, again.