"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..." crooned the woman who had the microphone, the small band playing sweetly behind her on the small stage at the front of the hall. Bing Crosby had released that record just the year before, but it was already a standard for the season, and being sung by just about everybody who could get their hands on Irving Berlin's original score.
As far as Bucky was concerned, despite the fact that the world was still at war and he was stuck in the middle of it, the Christmas of nineteen-forty-three was the best he'd ever had. He'd had both arms again as of a week earlier, and he had Evangeline Potter pressed up against him as they swayed gently on the dance floor, and just for that day, the war didn't matter.
There was a ceasefire for Christmas, and Bucky had been lucky enough to get leave all the way off in London for the holiday. Of course, where he went, Evangeline went too. As she was still technically a civilian (women couldn't be drafted, they had to volunteer for service, and Evangeline lacked certain vital pieces of paperwork for her to be processed like that), no one could tell her what to do if she didn't let them.
When they'd surfaced from the bunker in the small town where Bucky had gone through the procedure, Colonel Philips had been forced to endure the same tirade Evangeline had treated Howard to. The Colonel had looked Bucky up and down in that considering way he had, then he'd nodded and set aside the bereavement letters in favour of filing paperwork for a promotion and a slew of medals. Colonel Philips must have actually honestly agreed with her. He wasn't a man who let himself be brow-beaten by anybody, but he'd agreed to the medals, the promotion, and had even thrown in some leave. No one who didn't know already would find out until he returned to base camp after Christmas.
Bucky didn't think he needed the medals. He'd gone that long without them, after all. Evangeline had opinions on that sort of thing though – on people getting due and proper recognition – and the only reason she hadn't made a noise about it sooner was because she was so distracted with Erskine's formula and the Russian blueprints.
She'd insisted on similar decorations for all of the Howling Commandos, actually. Falsworth and Dernier, being British and French respectively, were under different army codes which meant different medals, but Evangeline still saw to it that they all got appropriate decorations and ribbons and medals added to their uniforms.
The song ended, and Evangeline lifted her head from where it had been resting on his chest as they danced, the top of her head roughly level with his collar-bone. White Christmas became I'll be Home for Christmas.
For the occasion, Evangeline had pulled out some make-up, though from where, Bucky had no idea – and he'd had the time and opportunity to explore her tent and all its hiding places fairly extensively since he'd met her. She had also done up her long, red, naturally curly hair into a few pin-curls around her face, a clearly complicated bun just back from her crown, and left a few smooth ringlets fall down to lightly kiss her shoulders.
Her dress was a warm, light brown. The same colour as the tie that was part of Bucky's dress uniform, in fact, and whatever it was made of, it was softer than anything Bucky had ever touched before in his life. Brown might not seem like a colour for a fancy dress, but Evangeline made it work for her. The light brown was trimmed with dark brown around the sweetheart neckline and the hem, and there were little twinkles of gold in a sweep around the skirt of it. The dress clung in the right places, it draped in the right places, and it swished softly and smoothly around her stockinged legs.
Vaguely, Bucky could remember that night in the bar when Steve had asked him to join a special squad, thinking he'd never seen a woman as put-together as Agent Carter in that red dress of hers, and with eyes only for his best friend. Evangeline on his arm now definitely trumped Agent Carter in the pub back then.
"Merry Christmas, Lieutenant Barnes," she said softly.
"Merry Christmas, Doctor Potter," he answered. "You know, I managed to get my hands on a Christmas present for you. It wasn't easy. There's the way everything is rationed these days, and the fact that you've got pretty much everything you could want already, made it hard to even come up with an idea for what to give you. I figured it out though, and I think you'll like it. At least, I hope you will."
"I have something for you too," Evangeline admitted.
"Doll, you already gave me this," Bucky said, and flexed his left arm a bit, gently squeezed the fingers of the hand he was holding.
"And I intend to make sure you keep it," Evangeline returned, voice low so they wouldn't be overheard, but firm all the same. "The formula will help you heal faster, will make it harder to hurt you in general, but you're not invulnerable. If you lose another limb, that's it. It was the activation process that sparked the regeneration. It won't work a second time."
"I get it," Bucky soothed, and tugged her back close to him again. "I'll be careful."
"Good, because while no one minds me when I up-sticks and follow you from base camp to HQ in town, or across the channel to London, not even Agent Carter would let me onto the battle-field proper until after the fighting is mostly done," Evangeline stated, and nestled in under his chin.
"Doctors are generally kept away from where the explosions happen, even the ones that were soldiers before they learned how to doctor," Bucky pointed out gently, aware that his dame was no fragile little flower, but a fighter, and a strong one. At the same time though, that didn't mean she didn't like being taken care of by someone who actually cared about her. "Especially doctors that successfully recreated the miracle serum that the Allied forces feared Erskine had taken with him to his grave," he added, his tone more teasing.
"Kind of a short list, that one," Evangeline pointed out with an amused hum.
"You're all of it," Bucky agreed with a chuckle of his own.
There was a smattering of applause around the floor as the song finished. All but a very few soldiers on the floor in heartfelt agreement with the sentiment expressed in the song. None of them would be home for Christmas that year, but they could hope for next year. Evangeline knew that, if history ran roughly the same way as it had in her dimension of origin, then it would be just a bit more than a year-and-a-half before the war finally ended, roughly. She couldn't remember the exact dates, but she was pretty sure the war had ended in the second half of forty-five.
The pair, couple really, parted to join in the applause, and when the band started up again with O Holy Night, Bucky gently tugged Evangeline off the dance floor and over to their table. He wanted to give her the gift that had been burning a hole in his pocket all night. Besides, that was a song for church, or carolling in the old folk's homes and the kids wards of hospitals. He didn't mind slow-dancing to White Christmas or I'll be Home for Christmas, but he didn't dance to church songs. It felt vaguely sacrilegious.
Evangeline picked up her purse from her chair as she sat down, and pulled out a small square wrapped up in white paper, tied with a bit of green ribbon.
Bucky produced his own little parcel from his pocket, wrapped up just the same way.
With shy, slightly nervous smiles, they exchanged gifts. They pulled the ribbons free, peeled back the paper, and opened the little card boxes that were inside.
James Buchanan Barnes couldn't fight the grin that spread over his face, didn't bother to stifle his chuckles as he shook his head in amusement. There, staring up at him from within the little box, was a medallion with a deer – a buck, antlers and all – stamped out in detail upon it. There was a loop of ball-chain through the hole at the top, just like the chain that held his dog-tags. The shiny little medallion was clearly meant to hang from the chain that was around his neck already, and like that chain, not be taken off.
Bucky frowned slightly as he examined the details of the medallion he'd been gifted – and there were more details on it than there were on the coins that used to jingle in his pockets. There was strange writing around the outside and on the back as well. Not German or Russian – he was well and truly familiar with both by now, what with helping out in the strategic division and packing away the notes Evangeline worked on each day, just so that she would be forced to stop and eat – but while some of the characters looked familiar, the words they spelled (if they spelled words at all) were completely foreign to him.
"What language is this?" he asked curiously. "Wait, is there more than one? Because this doesn't look like that..." he mused as he turned the medallion over a couple of times in his fingers.
"There's some Norse runes, and some Latin," Evangeline supplied. "They're protection charms."
"Will they even work for me?" Bucky questioned, not doubting, but curious. "I know my not having a magical core made a difference to how you were approaching the prosthetic before it was confirmed that the serum worked."
"You can still get hurt," Evangeline explained, worry for him clear in her bright green eyes, "but in the event of a bomb, you'll be blown back whole, for sure, rather than blown into little pieces. You won't have to worry about gas attacks, or drowning, or even choking on smoke while you wear that either. Most magicals back in my old world would use charms for these things, but you can't. I had to figure out how to make those wand spells into runic protections so that they would work for you, but I did it."
Bucky shook his head again.
"When?" he asked, stunned by the amount of work that had clearly gone into this.
"After you went back to your tent with Rogers in the evenings," Evangeline admitted with a sheepish little smile. "Do you like it?"
"I love it, Doll," he assured her. "I'd put it on right now, but my tags are underneath everything right now. First chance I get though," he promised with a grin.
"Good," Evangeline breathed in relief. "Now tell me about this," she begged sweetly, eagerly, and picked up the shining little trinket that had been Bucky's choice of a gift to her between forefinger and thumb.
Bucky chuckled, shook his head, and took it from her. He also wrapped his hand around her wrist, and pulled it towards him. It was just a small silver locket, about an inch long and the shape of a heart, with angel wings carefully detailed on the front of it, and the date etched on the back. Bucky smiled to himself as he clicked the locket onto Evangeline's charm bracelet between her tiny Rod of Asclepius medallion and her shrunken trunk.
"I actually asked Stark to make it for me," Bucky admitted, just a little ruefully as he ran a finger over the locket, and his thumb over Evangeline's pulse. "Since I couldn't really get to a jewellery store, you know?"
Getting leave to London wasn't something that happened a lot for the Howling Commandos, even when one of them had been injured, and the small town where HQ was bunkered down might have had a pub and a couple of good places to go dancing, but it didn't have a jeweller.
"Is there anything in it already?" Evangeline asked, but she didn't take her wrist back to pop the locket open and check for herself.
"No," Bucky denied with a shake of his head. "I talked Stark into leaving the inside plain. I wasn't sure what to put in it, and I didn't want any of his hare-brained ideas thrown in either."
"Then I'll think about it," Evangeline decided softly, but with that distant, speculative tone in her voice, like she already had a vague idea. "Thank you, Bucky. It's perfect."
~oOo~
"Doctor Potter?"
Evangeline looked up from the papers she'd been going over for Colonel Philips. She and Bucky had proven that Erskine's formula was even more of a miracle than had been previously supposed, and he wanted at least a squad-worth of Super Soldiers. They weren't going to be kept as a squad though. Based on how effective Rogers had proven to be in the field up until this point, the new Super Soldiers would be handed over to other officers in various different strategic points throughout the war-front. Bucky was the only Super Soldier who wasn't being sent off on his own to a different regiment.
In any event, she'd been passed a pile of personnel files and medical reports with the instructions to please pick out at least five men by the end of the month who she thought would be compatible with the program. They'd get transfer orders, she'd get to meet them, they'd serve with the division for a while so that she could get a proper, personal feel for them – and reports on them from people she knew and trusted as well.
Then she'd have to pick someone. Colonel Philips wanted at least one new Super Soldier shipped out to a different part of the war every two months, but he'd take what he could get. He was (finally) beginning to understand how not-exactly-consistent the serum was, even if it was complete and had produced very impressive results. Of course, there was also the issue of the process burning out the stolen generators, so they had to be either fixed or replaced before they could put another person through the process.
Personnel files didn't leave the administrative tent though, so she was, for once, doing her important reading where everybody and anybody could walk up and interrupt her. And someone had.
"Captain Rogers," she answered, and tucked her pencil behind her ear. "What can I do for you? You're just recently back from a lengthy reconnaissance mission, aren't you? I hope you and the men weren't injured."
"We all came through it just fine, Ma'am. Actually, I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you," Rogers said with a truly boyish, hopeful little smile. "I want to thank you somehow, for all that you've done for Bucky."
Evangeline's work on Erskine's formula had been kept strictly confidential while she was working on it. Bucky had been the only one to know she was working on it at all until she'd approached Philips and Stark. Rogers hadn't been told. Bucky had managed to ask his friend about the procedure without letting on that he'd been in line to go through it himself.
Rogers hadn't known about the project, certainly hadn't known about the success of the project, until Bucky had come back from his leave. At which point, with barely enough time for a round of congratulatory claps on the back (and certainly no time for celebratory drinks) they'd been straight off on another mission.
"I didn't do it for you, Captain Rogers," Evangeline pointed out. "I don't even particularly care about what the formula can do for the war. It's playing at being God, and the first step down a slippery slope if not very strictly and very carefully regulated. This formula is essentially telling the human race at large that we aren't good enough. Hitler is building his master race through the elimination of those who don't fit his mould. The formula is like an answer to that, only we're altering people instead of eliminating them."
"I understand that Ma'am," Rogers assured her, though the concept she'd laid out before him clearly also discomforted him. "My point stands though. You gave Bucky his arm back. His own arm, rather than just some fancy prosthetic."
"I'm still working on that fancy prosthetic," Evangeline pointed out. "Not every amputee is going to get the serum, after all," she added with a significant gesture to the files spread around about her on the table. She even, very deliberately, set the file she'd still been holding down on the 'rejected' pile.
"I understand that too, Ma'am," Rogers said. "But Bucky... He's my best friend, Ma'am. I can never thank you enough for what you did, but I'd really like to try. Please."
Evangeline considered him for a moment, and considered what she might want that he, and he alone, could do for her. When the answer occurred to her, she smiled.
"Captain Rogers, do you recall the day I said that I could play back Zola's life from his perspective, projected like a movie onto a screen?" she asked him.
Rogers nodded hesitantly, not sure where she was going with this and apparently suddenly nervous.
"I want to borrow a couple of memories from you," Evangeline declared softly. "I know what he looked like when I fished his broken body out of a frozen river. I know what he looks like after the serum. I don't know what he looked like before that, and black-and-white photographs don't really do justice to him, I think."
Rogers nodded. He was only a little less nervous, but he was no less willing than he had been when he walked into the administrative tent in the first place.
"How's it work?" he asked.
Evangeline conjured a glass vial with a flick of her wand. Rogers had already seen her conjure a chair, after all. Not that his having seen her do similar before made his reaction now any less entertaining. The two of them hadn't interacted much, so he wasn't as accustomed to her magic as Bucky was.
"Focus on a memory you're willing to let me see," Evangeline instructed. "Try to recall as much detail as you possibly can... and relax. It's not going to hurt."
"I remember you also said you lobotomised Zola," Rogers countered.
"That was on purpose," Evangeline replied blandly. "I took everything from him and I wasn't wholly gentle about it. I am only going to borrow a single memory from you, and I will return it no later than tomorrow."
Rogers closed his eyes.
"Alright," he said.
Evangeline lightly touched her wand to Rogers' temple, and when she saw silver begin to glow at the tip, she smoothly, gently, slowly pulled her wand from his brow. A glowing silver string followed, flowed out after the wand, until it eventually came completely free. Evangeline dropped the collected memory into the conjured vial, conjured a cork to stopper it safely within, and tucked the vial into a pocket.
"That's it," she said.
Rogers peeked an eye open.
"That's it?" he repeated.
"That's it," she re-confirmed. "Have a nice day, Captain Rogers. I'll see you some time tomorrow to return this to you."
"Er, ah, yes Ma'am."
Evangeline returned to the reports Colonel Philips had given her, but after dinner she retreated to her tent quickly.
Pensieve memory projection wasn't difficult. Not really. The reason that wizards and witches continued to stick their heads into pensieves for so long was that, simply speaking, wizards were lazy and stupid, while witches were not in general permitted to do all that much, usually because of senior male members of the family, but occasionally because of sexist prejudices.
It was a very patriarchal, elitist, prejudiced society, and despite civil wars over a whole lot of matters, not particularly inclined to change. Hence why it was generally called 'the wizarding world', even though wizards were only about a... quarter? Maybe a third? …Probably more like a fifth really... Of the total population of the greater magical community that fell under the general heading previously given.
Enchanting a pensive in the first place, that was more difficult. They were, in a way, the rich-wizard's photo album. Photography was for the common, the masses, and the media. The rich had pensieves and interactive oil paintings that held the knowledge and personalities of those people who sat for them.
Evangeline was really quite glad that Susan Bones had taken the time to figure out how to get pensieves to project the memories placed in them. Her fellow red-head had done it because she wanted to be able to use penseives in the judicial process, and being the niece of the late director of the DMLE (to say nothing of her position as the Last Bones, like Evangeline was the Last Potter) had allowed her that opportunity.
With the memory projected onto a plain white wall, full of colour and life, Evangeline conjured a tripod and set her camera on it. Aim, zoom, and focus had to be adjusted; the framing of the memory she was attempting to photograph had to be taken into account; and even if it would be a 'wizarding' photograph, which moved a little after development, the right moment had to be waited for as well.
Just like regular photography.
She watched the memory that Rogers had given her through twice before she picked the moment she wanted. She bent down behind the camera, watched through the view-finder, and when that moment came, she pressed down on the shutter button, taking the picture with a loud click.
Evangeline collected up the memory from Rogers back into a new vial, one that wasn't conjured this time, just in case he got called out before she could return the memory to him. For a while, she stared at the now-blank wall, then she focused on one of her own memories, pulled it, and set it to play like a movie short. She didn't need to watch this memory play out to know the moment she wanted to photograph.
Developing photographs wasn't something she'd ever done before, in all honesty. Creevey Captures, a new business that had started up after the war, had always been more than willing to serve any and all of her photographic needs. She had the books that explained how it was done, though she could only guess at why Sirius had owned such books. Probably yet another a rebellion against his mother. Whatever the reason, it was fortunate that the ingredients needed to make the required potion were common enough that she had them all stocked in bulk in her potions lab. Thankfully, she also had the skills to make the potion on her own, even if she'd had to hire a tutor to get her through the potions requirements for her Healer studies.
Evangeline cut down the paper she wanted the photographs on so that they'd slot neatly into her locket, then set the papers and the frames of film into individual dishes to develop. An hour later, she levitated the papers out, washed them quickly in a second potion, and watched as the images developed. The papers were washed in a third potion, then had drying charms cast over them both before she slipped them into the locket on her charm bracelet.
For a moment she just gazed down at the two images, faces smiling and shifting comfortably within their small frames. It was probably the least magical item on her charm bracelet, technically speaking, and definitely the most frivolous. Evangeline could honestly say that she didn't care. She loved it.