♕ Born in Los Angeles to a half-Brazilian, half-Puerto Rican mother, and an absent Portuguese-Italian father, Ana was shipped off to her paternal uncle in New York at an early age. Manuel Ayala raised Ana as one of his own, not far from where he and his sister were raised in Queens. It was a relatively happy and loving childhood, until the age of thirteen, when Ana's mother came back into her life.
♕ Camilia Ayala was a relatively selfish woman, Ana would come to realize, whose sole purpose of reclaiming her daughter was to acquire more welfare benefits. At thirteen, Ana was a smart girl who loved science, and reading mystery/suspense novels. She often dreamed of becoming a crimefighter -- either as a police detective, or perhaps something in the field of forensics.
♕ Even though Ana was estranged from her 'real' family, she visited Manuel Ayala, and his wife and children, as much as she possibly could. Weekends were spent pouring over biology and forensics books she had checked out of the library, while her auntie sewed, or shouted at Ana's cousins for one thing or another. It was her uncle who encouraged her to apply for scholarships to the 'fancy' private high schools in Manhattan. She was accepted to Trinity Falls High School during her sophomore year.
♕ The unfortunate reality was that, while Ana excelled in her studies at the (mostly) white private school, her cousin Jamie, who was practically her brother, struggled to keep his head above water. After Jamie's girlfriend pressured him into joining a neighborhood gang in order to make enough money to pamper her the way she felt she deserved, he and Ana's relationship became strained. By the time they had turned seventeen, the two barely spoke. While Ana applied to every college on her wish list, and a few others, Jamie had been in and out of prison twice.
♕ In the summer of 1997, three weeks before his eighteenth birthday, Jamie Ayala was involved in a drive-by shooting of a rival gang member. While he was not the shooter, the murder weapon was found in Jamie's car, with his finger prints on the gun. Arrested, and held in custody awaiting trial, he refused to talk to anyone but his lawyer and Ana. Understandably devestated, Ana delayed her start date at Columbia so that she could remain by her cousin's side. No one was especially surprised by the guilty verdict, though the twenty-five year sentence nearly leveled the Ayala family. Unable to face spending the next two and a half decades of his life in prison, Jamie took the service weapon of one of the guards as he was being transferred back to holding. Firing a shot above the guards' heads, they responded in kind, shooting him without hesitation. Jamie died in the ambulance en route to the hospital.
♕ Losing her cousin in such a way left its mark on Ana. Entering Columbia University in the fall of 1997, she changed her major from Biology to Forensics, deciding that she wanted to enter into the field of law enforcement. While persuing her bachelor's degree, Ana remained focused on her studies, rarely distracted by social commitments and the like. She dated sparingly, preferring friends-with-benefits or one-night-stand arrangements. She didn't have the time, nor the desire, to commit herself to a relationship she couldn't maintain.
♕ Being accepted into the NYPD Police Academy in the spring of 2001, Ana put her master's degree on hold in order to get a jump-start on her career. She had nearly completed her training at the academy when the events of 9/11 occured. Like all New Yorkers, and people world-wide, Ana was shaken to her core. Within a matter of a day, terrorism had become a new reality, and a very real threat. Completing her training was bittersweet, but she pushed on and looked ahead to the future. Enrolling in the Criminology master's program at St. John's University, Ana was more determined than ever to become a cop.
♕ However, things never really go as planned in Ana's life, this being no exception. After a year at St. John's, and six months working with the NYPD, Ana was recruited by the local office of the FBI. The thought of working with some of the best law enforcement officers in the country was too tempting of an opportunity to pass up. By January of 2004, Ana was immersed in training at Quantico, and showed a keen interest in counter-terrorism. Applying to the Hostage Retrieval Team, Ana was rejected several times over the course of a three-year period. Remaining undeterred, she continued to train and become one of the better field agents in her class.
♕ Finally, in March 2007, Ana was brought on board with three other agents to the HRT. Training was gruelling: sleep deprivation, torture resistance training, restrictive diets -- they were trained like Navy Seals. Indeed, two of her commanding officers had once been in the program. Upon graduation from training, Ana was sent to her birthplace -- Los Angeles. Paired with a young agent who appeared to be more surfer dude than federal law enforcement, Ana wasn't particularly impressed with Dylan Peone upon their first meeting.
♕ It would take several months for Ana to realise that their superiors had paired she and Dylan because they complimented one another, both in personality and professionally. Over the next six years, they became close, sometimes too close in their supervisors' estimation. They both swore that their relationship never crossed the line of professional propriety, no matter what either might have felt privately. Ana stood for him at his wedding, and Dylan supported and encouraged her eventual plans to pull back from work and start a family -- with or without a romantic partner. Neither could have anticipated what the future might hold.
♕ When Dylan was fatally wounded during a hostage situation in 2013, Ana's world seemed to turn on its ear. Taking the mandatory time off to grieve, she spent the time to reprioritise and completely upend her life. Requesting a transfer to the Boston field office, she couldn't say why she picked that city in particular. It was close enough to her family, yet foreign enough that she wouldn't have to be reminded of her past. Settling into a new home and a new city, Ana began to find herself again.
♕ The first pregnancy had been a surprise. The result of a blind date, turned one night stand, Ana took it as a sign from God, or her late partner, that now was the time to start her family. Mateo Manuel Ayala Branco was born in May of 2014, already the love of his mother's life. Strangely enough, having a child only galvanised her already strong work ethic. She had a revolving door of partners, all of whom were trained and paired up with other agents. Ana loved being a mother, perhaps even more than she loved being a federal agent.
♕ When Ana approached Mateo's biological father to donate his sperm to father a second child, she was met with trepidation, but eventual compliance. On Halloween 2015, she received two doses of good news. The first was that she was indeed pregnant, the second being that her initiative to train local police in counter-terrorism measures had been approved. She would spend a year, starting in January of 2016, training the Boston Police Department's SWAT team in counter-terrorism and hostage retrieval and negotiation measures, as well as hold workshops periodically for other BPD officers and staff.
♕ Estephan Jamie Ayala Branco was born in July 2016, rounding out Ana's little family. She has fallen completely in love with her sons, as well as the city of Boston, and gained a newfound passion in her work. She's determined to make her tiny part of the world a better place, come what may.
