Sophie felt like she was a shattered toy…floating in something wet. And cold. And warm. All at once. Her eyes felt heavy and her mouth felt glued shut. She lay there on her back for a while, trying to get her bearings—trying to remember something, anything…
Her fingers twitched slightly and she realized she was laying on grass. The world around her seemed deathly silent. She opened her mouth suddenly and inhaled, a rattling gasp that seemed to take in the entire world around her, and she felt like she was inhaling smoke and ashes and fire and death. Her mouth felt cottony and she could taste the crash in her mouth. The crash. Their plane. They'd gone down. Their plane had crashed. And they'd…jumped out.
She pried her eyes open and then flinched, shutting them against the powerful daylight. It had been a long time since she'd been out in proper daylight. She opened her eyes a slit and allowed the milky, grayish morning light to filter in, allowed her eyes to adjust. Once she felt like she'd adjusted well enough, she slowly opened them all the way. She lay there, spread-eagle, for a while, staring up at the milky sky. Pale blue and gray and white, like the veins on the inner arms of a dead person.
She winced. Morbid, Sophie. Everything around her was silent and still and she wondered what had happened to the world. She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position and took inventory of her body. No missing body parts. Miraculously, nothing seemed to be broken. Everything hurt and ached and felt sore—some deep gashes that were sticky and matted with blood—but otherwise…she was in tip-top shape.
And you have him to thank for that. You'd be dead if it weren't for him.
Where was he anyway?
She looked around slowly and was startled to see that he was laying ten feet away from her on the grassy slope. He lay on his stomach, his head turned away from her, completely still. She froze and stared at him, unable to properly comprehend. "Hello?" she called. Her voice was raspy and came out as barely a whisper. She coughed and swallowed her spit, trying to lubricate her dry throat, and tried again. "Winter…um, Winter Soldier? Hello? Are you…"
Dead?
She couldn't tell if she'd be relieved if he were dead or terrified for her own safety. As much as she hated him, she also had a feeling she needed him now, to survive (until he delivered her to those who would inevitably kill her).
She slowly scooted closer to him and delicately reached a foot out, holding her breath, and nudged the back of his head with her toe. He didn't move. She slowly crawled around to her other side and knelt near him, pressing her cheek against the grass and staring into his face. She sucked in a deep breath as she realized she was looking at his actual face.
His mask and goggles seemed to have been ripped off somewhere in the fall and she was looking at his face.
His real face.
Finally, the silent man behind the mask had features to him.
His eyes were closed and his face was pale, devoid of any color that would suggest he was alive. He had dark brown, thick eyebrows and a straight, strong nose with slightly thin pink lips that were ever-so-slightly open. He had stubble on his face, that I-haven't-shaved-in-a-week look Sophie normally found attractive when it wasn't on a psychotic kidnapper with a metal arm. Black soot or ash from the crash was smeared across his face, making him look like he had war paint on his face. Sophie touched a finger to her own face and rubbed. Her fingertips came away black. So she had it on her face too.
She slowly reached out and gingerly lifted an eyelid.
A blueish-green eye stared blankly at her.
She let out a startled cry and involuntarily jerked back a bit. This was all too much—seeing his face and his eye—his possibly very dead eye—all in one day? She pressed shaking hands to her mouth and moved away from a him bit, but she couldn't stop staring at him, heart racing. Seeing him like this without the horrible mask and goggles…he looked like a normal, slightly disheveled man in his twenties. Handsome features. Innocent expression, as if he had just gone for a light afternoon nap. How could this man be the one who had been abusing her so well? Not that Sophie was an idiot. She knew young, handsome men could be dangerous and disgusting and cruel. Not every villain had a hooked nose and yellow teeth. But still—trying to reconcile this face with the brutal monster who'd been throwing her around like she was a sack of flour…
She didn't get it.
Once she was positive he wasn't going to suddenly come alive and begin choking the life out of her, she moved closer to him and listened for a heartbeat. She tried to feel for a pulse on his human wrist but either there wasn't one or she was just being clumsy and nervous and looking in the wrong place. She dropped his cold wrist and very slowly, very gently brushed his hair away from his neck and leaned in, feeling very much like a vampire. She pressed two fingers to his neck where his carotid artery was supposed to be and closed her eyes to concentrate.
There it is. A pulse. She pulled away quickly and sat on her haunches, trying to figure out if she felt disappointed or relieved. He would live to abuse and terrorize another day. But at least she wasn't alone in…wherever the hell she was.
She looked up and took the landscape around her in for the first time. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart seemed to stop. She'd been so busy figuring out if they were both dead or alive that she hadn't really taken in where they were until now.
They were on a steep, green mountainside. On either side of them rose huge craggy snow-capped mountains, a green, lush valley far below them, a small river or stream or something running through it. They were high up and surrounded by grass and boulders and trees. It was very cold and she couldn't help but shiver in the morning air. All she could see as far as her vision went were mountains and more mountains, green mountainsides, green valleys, trees, streams…
This could be a great number of places. South America, Europe, Asia… She had no idea how fast the plane had been going. There wasn't nearly enough ice or snow for this to be the Himalayas so she privately tried to rule that one out. Unfortunately, she had no other knowledge about mountains so she really couldn't guess where they were. Wherever it was, it was chilly and beautiful and very remote. She didn't see a person or a man-made road or a village in sight at all, no matter how far into the distance she squinted.
This felt very disconcerting.
Despite not being very good at surviving in it, Sophie did like the outdoors. She had her whole life. There was less technology in the wilderness. Less opportunities for her to mess up—hurt someone else or hurt herself. But she'd never been so fully immersed in the wilderness before. Her day walks at arboretums and parks with park rangers always at hand and other people on the pathway definitely did not compare to being launched into some strange mountain chain alone…except for her kidnapper.
A man Sophie wasn't sure if she wanted to remain alive or not. She looked back down at him. The pale skin of his neck was exposed beautifully to her. Sharp rocks and pieces of metal wreckage from the plane littered the ground all around them. As if in a dream, she reached over and slowly picked up a piece of scrap metal, deadly sharp and jagged around the corners. Some bit of the plane that had been ripped off. She balanced it in her hand, trying to get a feel for it, and then clutched it like a dagger, ignoring how its sharp edges cut into her palm and fingers. She held it over his neck and closed her eyes. Imagined bringing it down as hard as she could. She wasn't as strong as him but the skin of his neck was just as soft as any humans. She would slice through it like it was butter. Stab him straight through the neck. He wouldn't even wake. Dark red blood would trickle out, leak out like a dying fountain, and he would perhaps gurgle a little or make a small sound—stir slightly—and then he'd bleed out in a matter of minutes.
She'd be rid of him. She could go off on her own and find some villagers to help her figure out where she was and how she could get home. They weren't supposed to crash here—whoever he was working for, if he was working for someone, would never know what had happened to them. Of course…when she was found and returned home safely, they'd realize she'd done something to him and come after her again.
So she'd be able to go home only to see her parents really quickly and assure them she was safe before anonymously taking off for some other country to start a new life. The thought of never being able to return to the cozy, isolated comfort of her tiny apartment terrified and depressed her—but at the same time, a bit of her spirit lifted at the thought. She would essentially be forced to seek out a new life and hadn't she promised herself that she would do everything that terrified her if she survived this? That included starting a new life in a strange place. She could go to the French countryside. She could live in a crowded, busy Asian hub. She could disappear off to Turkey. With her looks, she wouldn't stand out much. Many Arabs were pale-skinned and dark-haired, weren't they?
She could do all of this if she murdered him right now, before he had a chance to wake up and overpower her.
Her eyes were still closed.
Come on, Sophie, you'll never get another chance like this.
He's a brute. You've tried to befriend him—humanize him—he won't fall for it. Saving his life won't make him grateful toward you. You can't make him your friend.
If he wakes up, he'll take control of the situation again.
You'll never see your parents again.
Her hand trembled, sweaty, clutching the sharp piece so hard that it cut into her skin and thin droplets of blood splattered onto his neck.
Two things merged into her mind at the same time, mixing and crossing in the tumultuous sea of her mind: I need him to survive and I can never be who he is.
Her hands felt stiff, frozen to the shape of the piece. Her eyes flew open. She jerkily snapped her hand open and then metal piece fell to the ground next to him, its edges covered in a thin layer of her already-drying blood. She felt lightheaded and dizzy and didn't know if it was the monumental decision she'd just made—So this is who I am; am I brave or a coward?—or the high altitude they were at.
She crawled away from him to prevent any more temptation to commit an attempt on his life and then looked around at the mountains and valley around them. The valley had more dense forest and a stream winding its way through it. Would it be safer to move into the valley? Either way, she definitely couldn't do it until he woke up. He was far too heavy for her to carry and if she tried to drag him down the sloping mountainside, she'd probably end up tumbling them both over a cliff edge and killing them both.
She shivered at the cold and decided that she would at least build a fire. She'd never done it before but how hard could it be? She slowly stood up, shaking the achiness and stiffness out of her body, blowing on the thin slices in her palm and fingers, and set off. She didn't stray far from their landing site but did explore the area a bit. The mountainside was steep but not so steep that she couldn't walk and she had to admit, as she slowly picked her way down the slope, the view was breathtaking. She'd never seen such a postcard-perfect picture in real life before. Never had the urge to throw her arms out and yell, scream at the top of her lungs, really let it out in such a silent, secluded, pristine place. If she weren't freezing and in this awful situation, she might have enjoyed being here. But of course, she'd have needed her tea and copious books and a sofa and a blanket. She was a creature of comfort, in the end.
She spent a good hour gathering various twigs and branches and bits of wood from the ground, even ripping some small branches off of trees, and carrying them back to him. When she was satisfied that she had a large enough pile, she began slowly checking his pockets to see if he had a lighter. It felt extremely odd, gently going through his pockets, fingers brushing against his various weapons, almost patting him down. It felt…invasive and far too personal and she couldn't help but blush to herself, even if no one else could see her and she was doing this for a completely legitimate reason.
Calm down, she told herself sternly. You're not molesting him. You're looking for a lighter. Heat is essential. You'll both freeze to death at some point if you don't start a fire. The only other way to keep warm—Sophie had read this in a book about men lost in some national park for days—was to basically have as much skin-to-skin contact with the other person, because the body heat radiated between the two people. That would require the Winter Soldier to strip off his shirt and Sophie to strip down to her barest clothing and essentially cuddle with him.
When hell freezes over, pigs fly, Zeus reveals he's actually my dad, I get my letter to Hogwarts, and all other manner of impossibilities, she thought to herself with clenched teeth.
After touching an alarming number of weapons—half of which she didn't understand what they even were—she finally found a lighter in one of his pockets. Some of the pieces of wood were still green so they didn't burn very well, and it took her at least twenty tries (by the end of which she was cursing him, herself, the mountains, and the entire world), but she finally got a tiny little flame started which grew to a medium sized fire. It was small, it wouldn't warm a whole crowd, but it was enough for the two of them.
Sophie really was not well-versed in surviving in the wild and she wondered for a moment if starting a fire had been a bad move. It could signal to others where they were—a good or bad thing, depending on who came to get them. And could it attract mountain lions or bears or whatever vicious beast lurked in the forests below them? She swallowed at the thought and prayed that nothing bad came from this decision. She was feeling pretty proud of herself for taking charge and not sitting back and wailing, so she would feel pretty stupid if they both got eaten because of her decision.
The fire burned out in an hour because she hadn't gotten enough wood so she had to start the whole process all over again. This time it took her two full hours to hunt down enough wood and start a decent sized fire. He didn't stir this entire time. She knew he was alive—she checked his pulse periodically and it was there—but she wondered if he was brain dead or something. What if he'd turned into a vegetable on her? What would she do? Leave him as dinner for the wild animals, of course. The thought made her smile slightly. She couldn't help but pinch him on the neck a little, feeling a little bit of vicious satisfaction at the thought of every bruise she was leaving. This wasn't even a third of what he deserved.
She used a twig to aimlessly write things in the dirt at her feet: SOPHIE. She scratched it out. HELP ME.Scratched it out. S O S. Scratched it out. Wondered what day it was. She thought they landed at Cuba on Tuesday morning…and spent all day there…and then moved out on Tuesday night…it couldn't possibly be Wednesday right now… It was either Thursday or Friday, depending on how long they'd been passed out for.
Almost a full week since she'd been taken and yet it felt like two lifetimes. She couldn't even think back to the early days—running from him while he played a dangerous, lazy game of hide-and-seek with her, hiding in an abandoned factory—without feeling shocked that it had only been a few days ago.
She saw the Winter Soldier stir out of the corner of her eyes and turned, tensing immediately, hand lowering to her foot in case she needed her blade for any reason. She wasn't an idiot—she'd taken advantage of him being knocked out and had stolen one of his smallest blades and slipped it down her Converse. Then she'd hidden another small blade buried beneath a large rock a few feet away. She'd considered stealing one of his guns but figured that would be much more noticeable to him. Besides, she had absolutely no idea how to shoot a gun.
She watched him stir, his face turned away from her, wavy dark hair thrown every which way. He let out a groan and then slowly rolled over so he was facing the sky. He blinked a few times at the sky and rubbed at his face very slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he slowly turned his head and looked directly at Sophie. He had dark shadows under his eyes and his gaze seemed blank, as if he hadn't yet realized that Sophie could see his face.
"Hi," she said.
His mouth opened slightly and his eyes narrowed in confusion. Then he sat up, more fluidly than Sophie had done, and cracked his neck, looking all around them and pushing his long dark hair away from his face. He didn't have any emotion on his face but Sophie was startled to see that he didn't exactly look robotic—more like a confused little boy who'd just woken up from sleeping and had no idea what was going on.
"Wh—" He suddenly coughed, the words clearly stuck in his throat. Going through the same thing she'd gone through when she'd first woken up.
"We're in some mountains," she said casually, trying to sound very blasé. "You—you jumped out of the plane with us."
"The plane…" he repeated slowly. A question. She pointed up, at the mountain rising above them in the distance. One half of the plane stuck out from a rocky ledge very far from them.
"My…" He seemed to be muttering to himself. He began patting himself down, silently mouthing things to himself, looking for things Sophie was unaware of. He pulled out a gun and started loading it but then it clattered from his hand and he bent over, pressing his hands to his forehead and letting out a groan.
She frowned and leaned forward slightly, still a good few feet from him, on the opposite side of the fire from him. "What?"
He shook his head once, twice, and then she saw him viciously biting his lower lip. He let out a snarling noise to himself and then closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, total blankness returning to his face. Sophie watched him, fascinated. Is he, like, meditating the pain out of himself? She couldn't stop looking at his face. After so long with just the mask and goggles, she felt like she was with someone else completely. Not the man who'd kidnapped her and attacked her. Would he still act the same toward her? It would feel much stranger being attacked by a man when they could look each other directly in the eyes as he hurt her.
He finally opened his eyes and fixed his gaze directly at Sophie. She jerked back, alarmed, and she felt like she was frozen to the spot as they locked eyes—blue-green with sage-green—and they stared at each other for what felt like an impossibly long amount of time. He didn't have any particular expression; he just stared at her as if trying to place who exactly she was. He seemed so much more human and vulnerable without his mask but Sophie kept trying to remind herself not to underestimate him.
Finally he reached up and touched the exposed skin of his neck and spoke, his voice low and hoarse: "You didn't kill me."
"I didn't kill you," she agreed.
"You could have."
"I could have," she agreed.
"Why?"
She thought for a long time. Half-formed answers rose to the tip of her tongue. I'm not like you. I can't just hurt and kill people. I need you to survive, I think.
"I don't know," she finally said.
And they kept looking at each other, wary, guarded, trying to figure out the rules and lines of their new situation.
A/N: There we go! The mask is finally off. I know a few of you were waiting for that moment and wondering how it would happen. Hope you liked how it happened! Drop a review in the review box below and let me know!
