Vivian Lionhurst is meant to emulate Alice Paul, a suffragette without actually being her because I don't know Alice Paul as a person and I don't think its my place to try and characterize her as anything. In case you couldn't tell I'm running along the 1920s spectrum of time as a suffragette.

If anything written here isn't historically accurate or even offensive (outside of the sudden soldier serum and break in timelines), please do speak up! I'm running off of Wikipedia and being a general feminist.

WARNING:

VIOLENT SCENES ARE CLOSE BY

In case you're wondering what kind, just look up the night of terror. You'll understand.

"Vivian...I'm afraid." I was whispering for fear the guards would hear us talking in our confinements. There was talk that we were to be let free soon but not enough to truly change our plan. I curled farther into myself on the single mattress and blanket we were given on the floor. Dark cement walls rolled up into the ceiling with a single, barred, window.

Vivian Lionhurst had organized our picketing on suffrage in front of the White house six days a week as of January, 1917. She was exactly as her name alluded, a lioness. She'd been in a position quite like this before but in England, where she'd broken into a Lord Mayor's hall and screamed votes for woman at the top of her lungs with shoes and broken glass. She was someone to be admired. Admired enough that I'd been apart of the Silent Sentinels for a good long while now, since I'd met Vivian.

"Nonsense. We'll be too weak, they'll take us to the hospital and there we shall begin the true protest." Her voice whispered back through the damp stones. We were here for obstructing traffic for now and Mr President Woodrow Wilson had only lengthened our jail time as we kept picketing and choosing the jail over the fines. It'd started with a pardon that we refused, then it went to a 10 dollar fine, then 25 dollar fine and now we were here for 60 days. I heard a key turn in the door near by and assumed it was time to begin our plan as it was almost time to be released again into the rest of the workhouse.

I looked across at Vivian and nodded, I could do this. This was for us. For all of us. Vivian felt the time in jail brought legitimacy to our cause that we did not have otherwise. No one took us at our word, of course. Everyone thought of us as disloyal traitors, protesting in the middle of a war.

"Supper time, ladies." Our warden came along, looking utterly put out with this news as he fished out keys from his pocket.

"Lionhurst. Get. Up. Now." He opened the door to Vivian's cell first, banging on the bars before he walked in. She did not move for she couldn't bring herself to do so anymore. We'd been fed strictly bread and water for days now in solitary confinement and it seemed it'd finally taken it's toll like she'd wanted.

"Prooms?" He spun around, heading for my cell next as I closed my eyes quickly, feigning sleep and begging that nothing could be given away. He banged on the rails but I did not stir. He seemed to growl like a frustrated beast before yelling two more men's names to come take us to the hospital of the Occoquan Workhouse. I was thrown roughly over a man's shoulder as though I was nothing more than a sack of potatoes. If they'd hoped this confinement and diet would break our spirit, they were wrong. We would prevail, there was strength in numbers.

We were carried roughly and tossed onto a cot in the hospital. This was the second phase of the plan, we would now go on hunger strike. Vivian waited until the guards had walked away before she sat up slowly, looking around at all the woman near her.

"Today we continue the fight for women's rights!" She began rallying the other weak women from their slumber as she spoke. These were some that were just like us, fighting the good fight. Many saw us disloyal considering here we were fighting and protesting whilst the men were at war.

"Democracy should begin at home but here, we shall start again!" She continued, even trying to move her arm in some action. She really hadn't a need to as the other women were now rallying together, nodding to each other.

"We shall not eat their food until the fight is won! We will continue!" She'd gained the weak applause that came with a diet of bread and water for so long.

"We will continue!" I joined her, though weak as I felt, this was a cause that was larger than me or any of us.

"They cannot ignore us!" She yelled, gaining power from the spirit in the plain room. It was a world wide cause, worth all the pain so that others could live on with liberty and freedom. This strike lasted for perhaps a a day or two before tubes were shoved down our throats and we were forced to eat. But that did not stop us. No, it was in the following months that truly stopped me for a while, November 14th, 1917.

"MR PRESIDENT. HOW LONG MUST WE WAIT FOR DEMOCRACY?" We stood outside the white house again, picketing...again. I was in charge of the group of women, Vivian was needed by her grandfather at this time.

"Miss Prooms. You and you group of men here are being put under arrest." An officer came close, as we picketed, he was joined by 5 others that I'd assumed were here to take all 33 of us to jail for obstructing traffic yet again.

"On what charge?" I raised a brow, dropping another page of Wilson's speeches into the fire in front of me. We all knew that it was simply for the picketing but that went against the freedoms we still had.

"You are obstructing traffic." He tightened his lips as he watched me burn each page. He reached for me as I took a step back into another man's grasp. I wrestled until they locked the shackles on me and pulled me along.

I went kicking and screaming all the obscenities my lungs could handle though they would no longer be able to do so in a day. We were taken back to the Occoquan Workhouse and separated. Then began the Night of Terror, November 14th. 1917. I heard a thud that sound peculiarly like a body running into something metal, then a feminine scream that sounded like Harriet. Thats when I began to panic.

"No. Nonono." I started to kick, trying to slow down the two men that were dragging me down the hall. I knew this one, I was about to have a tube stuffed down my throat now.

"I REFUSE. I AM NOT GOI-" I was squawking and pulling my arms all around like an antagonized bird. I'd swung myself just enough to force the one on my left to stumble slightly. It only served to make him angry. He caught his balance again and stopped the other, turning to me.

My breath caught in my throat as I stared him in the eyes. "You want to be treated like a man? Then you shall be." I didn't process what he'd meant or the smile that creeped onto his face until I felt myself being flung. I put my hands out a second too late, bouncing off the wall like an old rag-doll. Everything spun in circles as I was taken down the stairs but I could feel my feet dropping then being stopped, over and over again. How far down into cellar were we going? And why?

"What is this?" I whispered as I was still dragged but now into a larger room. My voice would have echoed if it were not for the number of nurses and doctors that were running around.

"Your treatment." The angry one muttered as he pulled me towards a metal seat.

"Y-you can't do this to me." I remembered exactly why I was resisting a little too late, I was already in the seat. I was swarmed by men and women, one pushed down my head as another strapped down my leg, I couldn't process it all at once. I pulled my arm away as four people push it back down and at once everyone stepped away.

"What are you going to do to me?" I tried to force my voice to stay shake free but it wasn't working. I was terrified. This wasn't the same room I'd been forced into before, I didn't recognize these faces.

"Just to run a few tests, don't worry. I'm sure you'll be able to endure it, Lillian Prooms. " The angry one nodded, from his position. I didn't reply, for once. Instead I watched with the feeling of a lack of air starting in my lungs.

"Sir...its not ready quite yet." I watched a younger man in a white coat pass by him carrying a case, everything inside of it clicked together. He spoke with something of an accent but I didn't understand what kind...in fact both of them did.

"Well now you have another subject. Get to it, Mr Erskine." He motioned towards me as I stared wide eyed at the brown haired man. He seemed to sigh but set the box on a table near by. I think I may pass out at this rate. He opened it, revealing a milky blue substance in syringes.

"Please." I was at the level of begging this man when he turned, brandishing a vial. He seemed to only be able to frown as he came closer and closer until he pressed it into my shoulder. It burned as if the devil's hell fire were feeding it into my body, everything blurred for a few seconds. I blinked a bit, just now noticing that I was truly panicking now. Another prick and another burn, and then another, and another, and another until I could feel my heart beginning to skip a beat.

"She's not breathing!" The same man from before, Erskine, was rushing around me but everything had slammed to a halt.

"I told you it was not ready!" He sounded afraid.

"Is there something you can do?!" The angry man was yelling now.

"Well I mean...there is something but it was done with a dog." He seemed to dismiss the idea as my world began to turn blacker and blacker. "W-we could use electricity." He was hesitant but panicked all the same. It dawned on me that they could do this. I was a nobody. I had no husband nor children and my own parents had disowned me for the fight I had chosen.

This was it. I was going to perish at the hands of these men for picketing the white house. Vivian would never know what happened to me, I doubted anyone would know. I could feel my chest convulse and jump, it hurt me even more. It happened again and again as my eyes closed and I went to sleep, for the last time.

I smelled something absolutely awful when I awoke. Something along the lines of formaldehyde and...fire? No. Ash. It smelled like a wood burning fire. I felt cold despite the smell. I sat up quickly, making eye contact with another man, this time wearing a suit. He stared back at me with the same amount of terror that I felt at the moment. I was naked and staring at a man I'd never met in my life.

"Why am I unclothed?" I demanded to know with a sharp voice. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, good grief. I looked around as I stepped off the slab, quickly backing away. I bumped into a desk as I spanned around, other naked bodies were laying on the slabs...I'm in a mortuary. I looked back to the desk at the files scattered across the wood covered in coffee stains. I plucked up a file that read out Lillian A. Prooms and scanned the page.

1. Place of Death: Occoquan Workhouse

City: Occoquan

State: Virginia

Full Name: Lillian Agatha Prooms

2. Sex: Female

3. Race: White

4. Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Blue

Date of birth: May 17th, 1898

Cause of death was as follows:

Heart failure in the left ventricle

Filed: November 19th, 1917

I felt my breath catch in my chest as I stared at the page. How could I possibly have died? I was breathing right now! I was here. I looked back to the man and then to my slab where a red serge dress laid. I had to assume this was the dress I was to be buried in. I needed proper clothes but this would do for now. I could just try to suck in my waist myself.