I Will Always Find You

by Sara, the Lady Dalian

Somewhere in Russia, 1965

She hadn't realized until she saw the building where Jamie was being kept that her first impression of the place through her tether to Jamie was correct. The place is slimy. As she waited for someone to open the door that went into the building, she tried to keep still, even in the cold. It was May and, though the ground was clear, still bloody freezing.

Finally, a group of loud men pulled open the door and tromped in with enough time for her to slip in. She thanked the powers that be, one more time, for the ability to become unseen. She knew there wouldn't be any way for her to get into here without it. Each room she came upon was filled with people, but not anything that looked like it would lead her to where they were keeping Jamie. Besides, she didn't think she'd be lucky enough to find him in the first room on the right off the main corridor. As she passed different doors, she saw the emblems and lettering on the walls. While she had picked up German pretty quickly as it was spoken by some of her neighbors back home, she had learned very little Russian, and that was a situation she would have to remedy soon.

Hallway after hallway, door after door, smelly man after smelly man, she looked. Through the rooms she visited Ali looked for any sign of her Jamie, but there was nothing. The men working on these levels shivered as she passed by, unnoticed, but didn't speak any word she recognized. She would have to keep searching.

And, finally, six levels down she found what she was looking for. In the basement of the building, cliched but true, she found a laboratory with several workstations facing a giant glass tube-like coffin. Around her, men were relaying readings on "soldat." She recognized that word, Jamie had used it before. Passing behind the men sitting in chairs before control boards of some such, she looked to see what they were monitoring. Bending over the boards so she could see what they were, she brushed a man in a white lab coat and caused him to flinch, seemingly at nothing. Moving towards the glass tube, as there was nothing else that could be connected to the instruments, she saw frost on the glass. Inside was a figure she could barely make out. His eyes were closed and his hair had fallen over part of his face, but he looked like Jamie.

She hadn't known what to expect, but this would certainly explain the constant cold she got between the periods of intense movement. She had no idea if ghosting would work through the glass and cold, though Ali had never had trouble been able to move somewhere before. But she didn't know if the instruments would detect her presence in the tube. Deciding to wait to see if there was a time that the tube was not quite so monitored, she hunched down in a corner where she was out of the way and could watch Jamie's tube.

A few hours later most of the men had left, complaining about something but not what exactly. Damned language barrier again. The two that were still in the chamber were not at the instruments that seemed to monitor Jamie. Figuring this was as good a time as any, she moved back towards the tube and slipped through. Pausing, she listened for the instruments but didn't hear any changes. Remembering what had happened the few times she had someone pass right through her as she was ghosting, she slid right on top of Jamie and sank in.

At first, she had a hard time finding her way in his mind. Being in another's mind was much like the between that she inhabited and moved in when she ghosted from one place to another, unseen; the experience also had overtones of a dream state. There was a little light being given off, surprisingly by a very small group of memories mixed throughout his mind, but it was just enough. As she pushed through the clouds of memories, she found they were red and raw on the edges and wanted to find a way to soothe them, certain that they were damaged. As she moved closer, she found that, even if the memory was harsh and violent, if she thought about how much Jamie meant to her, how much she wanted him to be safe and cared for, the redness eased and the angry vibrancy calmed. She moved more and more through his mind and memories, soothing and calming where she could.

His memories seemed to be grouped in a Before and After he fell from the train, the labels almost vibrant in his mind. Most of the memories Before were still calm and didn't need much healing. The memories After were another story. They were all red and swollen, much as flesh that's been sliced with a dull, dirty blade was ragged and has festered, unhealed. Since she was sure that all of the memories Before his fall were those that would be most distinctly those of her Jamie, she moved them to one side and separated them from the ones that were in various stages of festering. The only ones she didn't recognize were the ones giving off the light. They seemed to want to intertwine with both the Before and After, but didn't cause any damage, so she left them be, still wondering what they were.

Time had no meaning for her there in Jamie's mind. She sorted through his memories, not watching any, just healing. When she had healed as many as she could, she saw that the memories that had been infected were trying to mix back in with the Before memories. As they did, she saw the After memories begin to get red and swollen again, as if the Before memories were making them angry. Deciding it would be best to somehow separate these two groups, she formed a barrier between the Before and the After. This allowed the After to swarm and flow without being affected by the Before. This kept them from getting that red and angry tinge around the edges.

Once the memories were sorted, corralled and healed, she looked back over the landscape in Jamie's mind. As she payed more and more attention, she began to see the neighborhood they grew up in emerge. She walked through the town, looking for things she remembered. The Barnes' and Rogers' apartments were covered in the white light that was causing Jamie's mind to be illuminated. It felt familiar, but as she didn't want to intrude, she moved on. Kowalski's was full of warmth and sweet smells. It was down by the docks that she noticed angry red words written across the water, almost as if there were neon lights placed just under the surface of the water. It looked eerie and foreboding. She felt Jamie's mind shiver and shrink away from those words as if they terrified him. Deciding that she had done enough for that moment, she let herself drift in Jamie's presence. To soothe the disturbance that she felt from the angry words and harsh lights she projected memories she had of Jamie and Steve on the sky of his mind, as if they were all laying on the roof of their apartment building, watching the fireworks in the summer. When they had run through her favorite memories, she played some of the memories she had of her journey to find Jamie. It was after that she realized that Jamie had started playing some of his memories for her. Smiling, she leaned back and watched the picture show, feeling as if she were wrapped up in a familiar blanket.

When she awoke, she recognized the increased activity around Jamie's tube and thought it would be better to get out and make her way somewhere else. She sent a mental message to Jamie, telling him to take care and be well before she left.

As she left the cold room at the bottom of the building, she passed a door that was slightly open with busy sounds coming from it, and the smell of cooking. Curiously, she poked her head in the door. Men in tall chefs hats were preparing what looked like breakfast. There were vast pots of porridge cooking on the hopper and Ali grinned wickedly.

Slipping out the door, she looked around until she found a cleaning closet. There she found a small, familiar box. Taking the box back to the kitchen, she waited until the cooks were occupied in other tasks and poured the entire box of arsenic in the porridge. Smiling, she silently wished the HYDRA men a good meal.

The building was still slimy as she left, still very cold. As she passed out of the building, she read the lettering on the doors she passed, trying to remember so she would be able to find him more easily next time. As she slipped out of the building, she noticed the snow piled nearly a meter high next to the building, she had been gone much longer than she had believed.

AN: As always, I own nothing that you found familiar. Hope you are all having a great weekend.