born in boston, to a wealthy business man and a socialite wife, camilla was given all the best the world had to offer. she was taught to play the piano from an early age, given tutoring in french so that during travel she would seem well rounded, she was put in the best schools the city had to offer and wanted for nothing. when her mother, juliette, died in a horrefic car accident when camilla was only thirteen years old, the teen didn't know how to handle it. being the only child meant she didn't have anyone to lean on. as such, she began acting out. by the time she was in high school her father was getting all sorts of calls about her behavior. the school was ready to kick her out, when her father made the decision to send her to boarding school. he had hopes that by sending her away, she would be forced to get in line. what camilla didn't know at the time was that her father sent her away because he didn't know how to handle her, how to handle the loss and raise a daughter who was hurting.
at the age of sixteen, just after winter break, camilla got the call that her father had been in an accident. she was granted leave from school and immediately went home to boston, where he was in the icu of one of the top hospitals in the city. she sat by his side for nearly a week when he took his last breath. the funeral was difficult and while she was given the opportunity to stay home longer, she chose to go back to school. her life was in trust, her father and mother had left her everything and she would get it on her twenty-first birthday. until then, she would get a small monthly sum and her tuition would be covered. she went silent at school, finishing her junior and then senior years without uttering a word to anyone. no one could get her to talk, the school psych tried to talk to her, but all they could gather was it was how she coped with so much loss in such a small amount of time. it was also in her senior year that she started showing a death wish of sorts. she found a gym where she started kick boxing and learning mix martial arts, she started racing cars in the middle of the night on the winding roads, no one could get through to her.
her skill in the practice ring brought her to the attention of one of the other fighters. he was a marine who had been stationed in the area as a recruiter for while and while she wouldn't talk to him, she had a natural skill for reading her opponent, for anticipating their next move. as she grew closer to 18, the man decided to talk to her about the military, if she wanted a place that could be good for her, a place to train her even more. she still wasn't talking just yet, but she listened. just after high school graduation she came to the man at the gym and she spoke to him for the first time. she spoke for the first time in nearly two years. she asked him if she could join now. she was seventeen but she had no parents, she was done with high school. she'd be eighteen in october. could she join and could she leave, now. they finalized all the paperwork and got her on a bus to parris island within a week.
after spending three months in what most would call hell, for the first time camilla felt like she was herself. she felt whole. she went to occupational training, where she learned what she would do in the military. it was also where she would get her first location she'd be living in for the next few years. at eighteen, camilla cain was finally feeling like she was a person again and this time she had a purpose. what she hadn't planned on was the world being at war when she got out of basic. while she might not be sent to the front line, she was deployed almost immediately. her unit was gone for almost a year, before she made it back to us soil. she was given a bit of time off, but she had no one to visit so she stayed in san diego where she was stationed. she volunteered for another mission, to go back. she spoke to her commanding officer about becoming a sniper, which he promptly informed her that women weren't allowed to be in infantry units. so she remained where she was. after her next depolyment, she again asked about a job change, this time to become an mp, a military police officer. she was told only if she went to college, as she'd already been trained.
as soon as she could, she enrolled in college. she picked university california, san diego as she was already living there and could easily attend class. after graduating, she was sent to officer training where she focused on becoming a military police officer. the first time camilla actually looked back and looked at the life she'd been living she was twenty-six years old. she'd been a marine for nearly ten years. she was currently living in japan, and had been deployed so many times she'd stopped counting. she wasn't sure if she'd ever get out of the corps, sometimes she thought she'd live a normal life, but she wasn't sure what normal was anymore.
after japan she was sent back to the states, moving to virginia where she would end up meeting the person who changed everything. as she worked at the naval yard, often with ncis, she met an agent who had been in law enforcement as long as she'd been a marine. they fell in love rapidly but she was scared and she pushed him away at every turn. but he stuck around and after a year they were enaged. it was the first time she'd let herself open up to anyone after her parents and she was glad she had. they had a wedding date, february 20, 2014. but little did she know, they'd never make it to the wedding. a late dinner in january found camilla waking up in a hospital with no memory of what had happened. when the doctors finally spoke to her, they told her she'd died four times on the table, each time for longer than the first. they weren't sure they'd be able to bring her back. when they finally got her stable and into a room, they weren't even sure if she'd wake up. when she asked about her fiance they told her he had died before he ever made it to the hospital. it was then, january 2014, that she made her choice, she wasn't ever leaving the military and she'd probably never have a truly normal life.
a year after the death of her fiance, camilla made the decision to leave active duty. she switched to reserve status and moved back to boston. it was the first time she'd been back since she was seventeen years old. she found her key still worked in the front door of her childhood home, a brownstone in beacon hill. she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep it, sell it or remold it, but for now she had a place to live. it was covered in dust, the food in the fridge was beyond bad and she hadn't even realized that the trust set up for her was still paying the mortgage and the utilities. it had been twelve years and her home didn't feel like her home anymore.
returning to boston was hard, and the first thing camilla did was find a gym. she found a place that wasn't your average 24hr fitness and threw herself into it. she trained hard, she was in top physical condition from the military but she wanted to keep it up. she had monthly training, she knew she'd have to do pt each time, but this was for her. when she wasn't at the gym she was cleaning the home she felt like a stranger in. she got rid of most of everything, no reason to keep it. it had no memory for her. she kept things like photoes, things that did hold a semblance of memory. she got a job as a bartender, before breaking up a fight and being switched to pseudo bouncer. the owner of the bar liked that she blended in but also handled business.
now, at thirty-two, camilla found herself working the front security desk of some fortune 500 company in boston, where she knows she's not being used to her full skill. she's not sure what she wants to do with life now that she's making her own choices. part of her thinks about joining a police department, maybe becoming a fed. she knows she's got the military points for both. but she's not sure if she wants that, she could just reup her active duty status. for now she's happy where she is, having a normal 9-5 job, where she can spend her free time working out, running and otherwise planning for what she'll do once she hits 37 and is officially able to retire out of the marine corps.