Fitz first noticed her in a lecture on photovoltaics. He'd done some work on the topic during his Physics PhD, so his mind had wandered a little. He'd scanned the crowd, automatically looking for anomalies, the way he'd been taught. Then he'd seen her; or at least, the curve of her neck. The way a brown tendril of hair fell upon her shoulder. Then the cadet behind her shifted in his seat, and she was hidden. She must have left the theatre through a different doorway, because he didn't see her pass him by.
The second time was when he was introduced to the Boiler Room by Milton, his roommate. The Cadets at Shield Academy had started meeting up in the Boiler Room years ago, as a way to relax, a way to meet up away from all the cameras. Now it was like a private bar, although Fitz thought they were kidding themselves if Shield – or Hydra – hadn't installed secret cameras and microphones there a dozen times over. It looked fun, though. Music, drinks, even darts. For a moment Fitz felt a pang of homesickness, remembering the pub in the village at home. But then another door swung upon, and his eyes were drawn to it. A crowd of girls leaving, and he recognised the way the light illuminated the pale skin of her neck. That was all he could see; they crowded together; they had gone.
It was like that each time. He'd come into a room, and she would leave. He heard a laugh, once, and turned to see someone flip a phone closed; he was convinced it was her voice on the other end. In self-defence he was pushed to the ground, and at that moment someone ran past. He knew the way her foot met the ground.
There was no one to ask, because there was nothing to ask. No name, no real description except extreme familiarity. It would be like holding up his own palm, and asking for its address. Someone was there, someone he knew better than the face reflected in his own mirror. The only answer anyone could ever give to that was that he wasn't himself. Well, he knew that.
It didn't matter. He slogged away at the Shield Academy, gorging himself on the knowledge and skills they generously provided. During semester breaks and summers, he attended all the Hydra intensives that his father set up, pushing himself to become stronger, become better, to please the only parent he had left. His mother had died suddenly, one day when he'd been at school; she'd been weak, his father told him later. And he wasn't to be weak.
Ophelia helped, a bit. He'd met her on his first day at the Academy; she'd held out a welcoming hand, had introduced him to people, important people. Had laughed at Milton's sycophantic ways. Her smile was broad, spread ear to ear, but her look of distress tugged at him. There was something in him that couldn't bear her anxious face; it triggered an alarm, and he knew he had to do whatever he could to calm her, please her. It seemed to be the way love was; working harder and harder to make someone else happy. If he was strong enough, he could do it.
The feeling he had about the strange girl was different. Not about pleasing or struggling or doing anything at all. It was more like a quiet voice inside him, that spoke if he saw a hand slip inside a doorway, heard a particular scratch of a pen against an exam paper. It said that it was all right. That it would be all right. That he was fine, just as he was.
On the day Hydra activated and Shield was destroyed, on the day that Ophelia revealed herself as Madame Hydra and showered him with honours, as the Doctor; on that day, the feeling disappeared. He told himself that it showed he had grown up, finally. That he had to work harder, now, to keep pleasing his father, Ophelia. That he had to be stronger.
But somewhere inside he knew it meant that she was dead, and that, in fact, he too had died.
