AUSTRIA: 1943
It was the isolation that was killing her.
The rows of circular cells that stretched along the concrete prison had been empty since her arrival. Charlotte had taken to counting up the days with small marks on the concrete floor of her prison each time he came for her. Fritz is what she had taken to calling him since he refused to tell her his name. Or anything at all. His eyes were cold and unseeing beneath the black mask that covered his eyes. He had thin lips that were constantly drawn into a tight sneer as he dragged her from her cell with a bruising grip on her upper arm.
There would be no escape for her though, not after the last attempt.
Her first bid at freedom came early on in her capture and it had also been her last. A lack of knowledge of the facility combined with any kind of escape know-how made it easy for the guards to find and recapture her. Fritz had easily dragged the blonde back to her cell kicking and screaming before dumping her on the floor and administering lash after lash with his whip at the order of his boss.
Johann Schmidt was not a merciful man.
Charlotte was still unsure of how it had happened, just that it had, and now she found herself trapped in a time she didn't understand, by a man who did unthinkable things, and there was no way out. The young blonde tried her best to conjure up what she knew of Schmidt besides what he had told her. His attempt at bonding with her over nightly dinners often fell flat despite his outward effort. She knew she was nothing more than a simple pawn in his elaborate game of chess.
Charlotte hated chess.
"Do you remember anything from your childhood, Schatzi?" Schmidt questioned, his German accent smearing the words slightly. He had called her little jewel as if she meant something to him. Charlotte had always wondered why her mother had been so adamant about her learning German and over the past few months, it had become increasingly clear as to why. "Your mother must have told you something of me. If not, then your history surely would have."
A rather unladylike snort escaped her at his arrogance earning her a warning glare.
"My mother was rather secretive," The young woman did her best to keep the sneer from her tone. "She only ever mentioned you as a warning. Might have said you were a deadbeat and a monster. Now I know how true her words were."
That earned her a slap.
Not from him of course. Johann Schmidt was above hitting a woman, especially his daughter, but Fritz was not. Charlotte was pretty sure the smug bastard enjoyed her misery. Tears gathered at the edge of her crystalline blue eyes, but she refused to give her father the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
Charlotte hadn't been lying when she told him about her mother. Lina Schmidt rarely talked about the man she had been forced to marry and when she did it was usually in a rare drunken stupor. Charlotte had always thought it odd how her mother talked about her father, stating that he was in the past. The young girl had always taken it for what it was; her mother had put the man behind her.
Never once did she think it meant that he was literally in the past.
Lina Schmidt had always been different. Secretive even. The older Charlotte became, the more she realized how much her mother was holding back from her.
"What of the history books?" Schmidt pushed. "What have they to say of me?"
Charlotte swallowed hard before taking a deep breath and shrugging, trying to appear nonchalant.
"You're mentioned." And it was the truth. Johann Schmidt, the self-proclaimed leader of Hydra, was merely an anecdote in the history books. Even in the Captain America exhibit, he was nothing more than a small cautionary tale. What she didn't mention was how far his influence had spread and the destruction it would one day reap.
Charlotte didn't know a lot about the past, her mother had seen to it that she was homeschooled which left her pretty isolated from the outside world. The young blonde had never questioned it much growing up, but the older she became, the more she wanted to explore the outside world.
The battle of New York is when everything changed.
"I see." Her father seemed to accept this answer, but Charlotte could tell he wasn't pleased. She'd always been purposefully vague whenever he asked her about the future, afraid of some kind of butterfly effect. What if her being here changed something important? As dark as she had seen the future become, there was always something there to right it. One misstep and she could cause it to all come crashing down.
The Man in the High Castle.
She'd watched it one weekend and now she could clearly see the repercussions if something went wrong. A future where her father survives would be disastrous. Catastrophic, even. Charlotte hadn't known much about the experiments Schmidt performed while alive. The Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian was vague about much of anything when it came to what Schmidt actually did. It focused, instead, on the heroics of the great Captain America and the Howling Commandos.
Thinking about what she had seen so far made Charlotte's stomach churn; bilious and sour. His vile methods of torture and experimentation were nothing short of reprehensible. The experiments had begun long before the rise of Hitler or his obsession with the glowing cube he called The Tesseract. He had informed her one night over a dinner just like this one that his original obsession came with her mother, whom some had called a witch in her hometown.
"It is hard to believe you do not remember me, my daughter," He practically cooed at her. "I used to tuck you into bed, my Schatzi, and read you a bedtime story whenever I was home. You used to crawl up on my knee and beg me to let you help with my inventions."
Charlotte didn't have any recollection of this. By her reckoning, she would have only been around five or six at the time her mother somehow slid into the future where she had made a home for them. How in the hell she ended back in the 1940s was a mystery; one she wanted desperately to solve so she could blow this popsicle stand. The 1940s wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
"You must be lonely in your cell," Her father gave her an appraising glance as he chewed on his piece of steak. "If only you would participate willingly, I wouldn't have to go to such lengths. Your room still awaits you when you are ready to be a good girl. But worry not, there are others awaiting you now."
The blonde didn't like the sound of that. Prisoners meant Zola was getting closer to figuring out the super serum. It meant that he was one step closer to harnessing the power of that damn cube he wouldn't shut up about. Charlotte knew it was only a matter of time before she too became one of his experiments, just like her mother.
"Yay," Charlotte set down her silverware on her plate, her appetite lost. "Maybe we can all get in our pajamas and paint each other's nails." Her father hated sarcasm, she had come to learn this the hard way, but for some unexplained reason, she couldn't help but want to push his buttons.
Every last one of them.
Another slap. This one sent her reeling from her chair with a small, pained cry as she landed on the harsh stone floor of his office. Yep, definitely didn't like sarcasm. Schmidt tilted his head at the guard and without so much as a goodbye, he swept from the room.
Bastard.
Fritz gave her a moment to regain her bearings, his only kindness, before tugging her harshly to her feet, dragging her out the door. Charlotte hated his silence but watching his jaw clench in irritation whenever she called him Fritz or Fritzy certainly made up for it.
Charlotte remained silent as he dragged her towards the cells on the bottom level. Forget compound, this place was more like a fortress with how well guarded it was. It would need to be with how much her father put into his experiments and inventions. Guns, grenades, tanks…these were just a few of the things he had altered to harness the power of the Tesseract.
"You make such a good lap dog, Fritzy," Charlotte cooed at him as he shoved her into her cell and locked the door. The blonde could hear low rumbling whispers from the cell next to hers, but she ignored them for now. Her focus was on the man who hurt her. "He's got you so well trained that you don't even need words to obey his command anymore. Tell me, are you potty trained as well or does he still have you go outside to pee like the bitch you are?"
The prisoner around her laughed as Fritz lunged at her cell, his club striking the iron bars with such intense force that it nearly snapped. He was sending her a warning. Telling her that she would regret her words the next time he came for her. Charlotte knew she should be worried, but she couldn't find it in her to care.
"Well, that sure was something."
Charlotte turned her attention away from the cell door to the man who had spoken. He stood, hands on the bars that separated their cell, a large toothy grin stretched across his handsome face. His body was built like a powerhouse with broad muscular shoulders and a strong chest that was clearly evident beneath his tight-fitting beige military jacket, but the most amusing thing about his appearance was the bowler hat he wore.
"Nice hat," Charlotte smirked at him. The man laughed, low and deep, and for some reason, the blonde found it soothing. She had spent months alone in this prison, her only interaction coming from her father at their dinners or when she felt like taunting one of the patrolling guards. "I'm Charlotte."
"Dugan," The man held out his large hand and she shook it with a small smile. His name struck a chord in the back of her brain, but it wasn't registering. "Nice place you got here. Hope you don't mind that we crashed." Charlotte laughed, her first real laugh in a long time. She liked this man.
"Not at all," She played along as she eyed the other men in his cell who were beginning to crowd around him to peer at her. "As long as you don't mind that the bathroom sucks, food too, and the landlord is a bit of an asshat." The men behind him chuckled in amusement.
"James Falsworth," A lean man wearing a red beret and sporting an English accent stepped up beside Dugan to shake her hand as well. "Hope you don't' me asking, but how long have you been here?"
Charlotte took a deep breath and worried her bottom lip as she glanced down at the concrete floor of her cell that was littered with small white lines. It had been a minute since she counted them.
"One hundred and eighty-two days," She whispered just loud enough for them to hear, a note of sadness in her tone. The group of men all glanced at one another before turning their gaze back to the young blonde. Charlotte could see the pity laced in their eyes as they stared at her silently. None of them knew what to say to that. "You're the first visitors I've had since I got here. I'd order pizza, but my phone privileges have been revoked."
Another shared glance, this one was somewhat confused.
Right, they didn't have pizza delivery until after the war or cell phones.
It didn't escape her notice that one of them eyed her suspiciously. He stood quietly at the back of the cell, arms crossed against her chest, his piercing blue eyes narrowed at her she conversed with his cellmates.
Barnes is what they called him, and it was then that Charlotte realized just how deep her troubles really were.
A/N: WOuld have had this out sooner but I kept changing how I wanted the plot to go. I hope you like it and thank you, everyone, for the reviews and the follows and the likes! I love love love them! I hope you enjoy it and keep on reviewing!
Till next time