Sigh.

It was late. Even for a world traveling detective, with constant jet lag and with a day off waiting for her in the morning, to be wide awake at 3 in the morning was not exactly normal nor was it favorable. But there she was, looking at the uniform dorm ceiling of apartment 424, no lights to be had except for the pale glow of city lights out her window and the digital readout of her bedside alarm clock.

Taking a deep breath she turned onto her side, cuddling up to her pillow as her eyes looked to the night table beside her which held her communicator, a glass of water, the alarm clock and a picture of 4 people. The pale blue lcd glow of the clock lit up the aged image of a small family sitting together in formalwear; a mother, a father, a teenaged boy and a slightly younger and chunkier girl with dark red hair and plastic rimmed glasses a bit too large for her face. It was the girl who her eyes were drawn to. It had been the focus of a number of sleepless nights, not that she had ever consciously intended it to be.

Melissa Wayward, the blond agent which now lay in bed, heavy eyes still staring blankly, knew this girl all too well. The girl\'s name was Eleanor Catherine Mayhem.

Eleanor had been born and raised in Gary, IN, the daughter of a school secretary and a research scientist. She\'d gone to college at the University of Illinois and interned with the Chicago Police Department\'s 26th precinct before graduating and becoming an ACME Agent in Boston. Eventually she\'d gained status within the company, working across the world with various agents from various branches but particularly the company\'s HQ in San Francisco, CA. Being given an oppertunity for advancement back in the Boston branch Eleanor had taken it and become a Case Director. However the decreased exposure to the field and increased desk work seemed immediately to her disliking and, find very few favorable options she applied to the company\'s Special Operations program. Her reputation for being passionate but foolhardy was, she believed, a factor that could work against her acceptance into the program, especially given her past work with Special Operations Director Chase Devineaux. Because of this she had requested that she be given a new persona for the ACME Detective Agency. A new name to cover the reputation of her past.

The persona had been Melissa Wayward.

The change of name had first been a pleasure to have - it was a brand new start in the company. She\'d bleached her hair, she\'d changed her accent, dropped weight, traded her glasses for color contacts. She\'d adopted a story about being a mechanic and throughout her training had hidden from the watchful eye of Chase Devineaux, leaving her reputation to be that of the stained grease monkey with an office and a laptop. Her change had been so convincing that Chase never knew and ACME had taken advantage of that in certain ways. Eventually the head of SO figured it out but the magic had already started to wear off by then.

For months now she\'d been simply staring at things that reminded her of herself, her old self. Staring at old pictures, Looking up her old profile.

Missy rose from her bed and walked to the bathroom, turning on the light and not being able to help squinting at its sudden brightness. In a well memorized move she opened the bathroom closet and reached back behind the bottles of contact fluid and boxes of root touchup to a tissue box which held a pair of wire rimmed glasses. At first looking of them had always made her smile, the feeling somewhere between a pleasure in getting away with no one knowing who she was and a relief in giving up her former self. Now they seemed to only make her remember everything she\'d given up.

Her hands gently placed the glasses onto her face and she looked into the mirror, giving a small and sad smile. While before they had been seen as only an emergency pair of glasses or an occasional way to remember her old look now seeing herself with the blond hair and the glasses only reminded her of how different she looked and felt now. How she presented herself to the world was different too.

Melissa gave an auditable sigh and leaned against the sink as she continued to stare at herself. She WASN\'T Melissa Wayward. She\'d thought the change would do her good but now... it didn\'t feel like she was even in her own life anymore.

\"I can\'t believe I asked for this.\" she muttered softly to herself, glaring at the mirror. \"I don\'t want this anymore.\" The glasses no longer helped to make her feel a little normal anymore. Now they were almost like grasping at the coattails of what she had been.

What had been so wrong with being Eleanor Mayhem?

Perhaps the disguise had been useful to get her into the Special Operations program but even then that was only a maybe. She\'d trained hard, she\'d dropped weight, she had the abilities to back up her actions now. She\'d been accepted into Special Operations. Eleanor Mayhem saved people. She helped people, she put people behind bars. Eleanor Mayhem was worth being. Why, when she was doing the best in her life, did she want to abandon everything that helped her become great?

There was a long pause. She stared at herself in the mirror, silent.

\"Tomorrow.\" she finally said to herself and pulled the glasses off of her face. Instead of putting them back into their hiding place she brought them with her back to the bed, placing them on the night table next to her bed before setting her alarm. Tomorrow she was going to change again.

With the decision made Melissa slid into bed and closed her eyes for the last time. Tomorrow Melissa Wayward would cease to exist.

It wasn't often that Melissa 'Missy' Wayward got the opportunity to work at her desk. Most who knew her through her grease covered volunteer position in the agency's garages forgot or never even knew that she was training to be a special agent. But she knew. Who and what she wanted to be never left her psyche. So there she sat, at her desk at 11:30 at night, the light of her office an oddity among the darkened rooms along the rest of the hallway. From behind her chair a radio played softly on a local rock station. There was nothing particularly memorable about the songs, it was really more there for some sort of background noise to cut through the silence that would only be broken occasionally by the sounds of the nighttime cleaning crew coming to empty waste paper baskets and properly dispose of classified information.

Her elbow leaned on the desk as the other hand worked a mouse and keyboard, her eyes scanning over words upon words of a report she'd promised to have ready by tomorrow morning. Fighting fatigue and itchy eyes Missy finally reached the end of her report and, content with her editting, submitted it to those who had requested it via ACME's heavily secured intranet. With a loud groan she stretched upward in her seat, one arm grabbing the other and pulling it to the side before repeating the process in the other direction.

"Time for bed." she groaned to herself, her hand taking the mouse to close down her intraoffice messaging system. As the larger window closed she was left looking at another page.

A dossier. The dossier of an agent on personal leave to be exact. Missy placed her chin back onto her open hand and read over the information with a small smile. The agent in question was young but well decorated. She'd started work in the Boston branch of ACME before transferring to the San Francisco branch. After a number of cases an offer had opened to become a case director back in the Boston branch which she accepted. That was 7 months ago. Said agent took a leave of absence quickly after with no noted date of return. Missy's mouse clicked on a sidebar, opening a picture. Auburn haired female with blue eyes hiding behind a pair of gold wirerimmed glasses. Her name was Eleanor Ma-

Before she could continue her reading a voice came from the doorway and she clicked on the X in the upper right hand corner of the window, removing the access to ACME's dossiers. Missy looked up and sighed. A janitor.

"You scared me half to death." she said softly, her hand over her heart. The janitor, an elderly gent, smiled and chuckled, offering his apologies. Waving it off Missy closed down her computer, waiting for him to empty her waste paper bucket before turning off the lights and locking up her office for the night.

It was time for her to go to bed anyway. She was due in the garage at 8 tomorrow morning and her contacts were itching her anyway. Slowly she made her way to her apartment on the 4th floor of ACME's dorms, wishing the security and cleaning crew she saw on her way up a fond goodnight before locking herself in her room. Within moments she was at the bathroom mirror to wash the grease from her face and remove her itchy contacts, the amber colored lenses revealing a pair of blue irises beneath. Once done with her nightly ritual she reached into a toiletries box in the bathroom closet where she hid a pair of gold wire rimmed glasses.

Missy looked at herself in the mirror, a small smile left to linger on her face.

[ I apologize in advance for any errors in this.  I'll fix anything wrong with it tomorrow, I promise.  :)  ]

"Awwwww... no..."

Missy stared into the mirror over her bathroom sink, groaning lowly to herself. It was early in the morning and she was still in an oversized men's shirt and underwear. Her straight dirty blonde hair was still mussed from tossing and turning on her pillow the night before, there was still a bit of 'sand' in her eyes from sleeping however neither fact was the reason for complaint. It was her eyebrows.

She turned her head from side to side, looking at them from different angles, as if to ask if maybe she was just seeing things. Maybe she was wrong? Missy sighed and shook her head, frowning. No, she had been right the first time. Her eyebrows were going back to their natural color. They were such small things, eyebrows, yet such an easy tell tale of not being a natural blonde. Stomping out of the bathroom like a five year old during a light temper tantrum she grabbed an elastic and pulled her hair up into a half assed ponytail. Were there any roots showing too? She inspected her scalp carefully... no, not enough showed to have to touch up her roots yet. Just those damned eyebrows.

Turning she opened the bathroom closet and, after a moment of searching past boxes of amber colored contacts and concealer, removed the facial hair bleaching kit given to her. Having been obviously present the first few times they'd done it she knew the routine. Mix the two parts. Rub into the hair. Wait for the burning to begin. 'Burn' wasn't exactly a fair term for the sensation, as it was really somewhere between a painful burn and intense itchiness. However touching up her roots never gave her the same troubles. Troubles or not her fingers tore open the packaging and, after checking the instructions to make sure her memories were as right as they thought they were she started to make the batch.

She looked back into the mirror again, gazing at amber eyes which questioned her need for this. Was it worth it? Was being a special agent worth this? Answering her own question she placed a latex glove on one hand and, taking a dollop of thick white goo on one finger, began to rub it into the red hair. Her teeth gritted in anticipation as her skin already started the familiar routine by feeling warm at the contact site. 

Yeah, that had been a stupid question. 

( A gentle reminder to our RP players:  This is a third person account of events.  Feel free to post a comment, even in character if you like, however all information read in this post should be considered OOC (out of character).  Since no one was in her room with her no one would know anything that happened here.  I know most of you understand that, hence why this is a gentle reminder.  Thank you!)