For the following twenty-four hours (which, relatively speaking, felt more like a week for Evangeline), shields were made and passed out, men were taken back in time and stood at attention while Evangeline turned their dog-tags into portkeys, orders were given, and men disappeared off to their post around the Hydra base. Men appeared in a clearing just outside of base-camp, pulled back through time, and promptly placed under disillusionment. Not in that order, but Evangeline was doing so much at once she was beginning to get dizzy – if she saw herself busy somewhere, she turned around and went looking for somewhere else to be.
It was Sergeant Barnes that kept track of her movements, surprisingly enough. Or perhaps not, since his injury meant he wouldn't be joining the battle ahead. Apart from the weapons division, he was the only one. Even Agent Carter would be joining the fray for this one.
Sergeant Barnes made sure Doctor Potter slept when she needed to. He made sure she ate when she needed to. He made sure she was on time to get the next lot of troops off and that she had the co-ordinates for their drop-off. He even found the bathroom and laundry she had in her tent (well, she had a stone fireplace and a gas oven, he'd figured having plumbing was a fairly logical step, all things considered) and made sure she had clean clothes and a hot bath waiting for her at the end of her 'day'.
Of course, when she wasn't doing what was needed for the upcoming battle, or catching a break to eat and sleep, Doctor Potter was working on putting together that prosthetic arm that she had promised to Sergeant Barnes. She hadn't gotten hold of anybody else's plans yet, so she was working theoretically, from scratch, and a bit backwards.
He didn't catch her doing that until after he'd waved off the last of the men going out to fight. He'd searched the rest of the camp, just to make sure she wasn't anywhere else, and then gone to check her tent. He'd knocked first of course, called a 'hello' to announce his presence.
In all honesty, he had expected to find her passed out on her couch, too tired to even make it to her bed, and completely dead to the world. Instead, he got an answering 'in here', which he followed into the library (which, like the rest of the tent's interior, should really not have fit but still did anyway despite that).
Four strange men, silvery and only half-there-looking, hovered before her on the other side of the desk she was sitting at. A small line-up of lime-green feathers were standing on their tips on top of an equivalent line-up of note-pads, and there was a box of various precious and semi-precious metals and stones in a box next to the desk.
"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, may I introduced you to my father, James Charlus Potter," the lady presented, and the young man with messy hair and round glasses on the furthest right inclined his head.
Barnes nodded back.
"My godfather, Sirius Orion Black," she continued, and the older, gaunter man with a carefully trimmed moustache and goatee and curly hair down to his shoulders gave him an assessing look and a nod.
Which Barnes again returned.
"Their good friend Remus John Lupin," she persisted, and this man looked more haggard than either of the first two. Still, he mustered a smile for Barnes.
He returned it tentatively.
"And a very recent acquaintance of my own, Doctor Abraham Erskine," she concluded with a grand wave to the eldest-looking of the silvery-shimmering gentlemen.
"The man who invented the Super Soldier Serum," Barnes noted.
"Yes," the silvery-shimmering man agreed.
"Doll, what's going on?" Barnes asked warily, eyes wide as they twitched along the line of... ghosts, he supposed, and back to her.
Potter stretched an arm out to tap a finger at the base of a little thing Barnes had dismissed as a decorative piece on the desk. A simple, circular gold base supported a gold ring (which was welded to the base so that it remained upright), upon which was mounted a little black stone.
"This is the Stone of Resurrection," Potter disclosed, then curled back into her chair drowsily. "It can't bring the dead back to true life, but it allows me to summon the spirits of those passed. I don't do it often, in fact I avoid doing it at all as a rule, but I needed the help."
"You need sleep, Doll," Barnes corrected. "I expected to find you asleep on your couch when I came in, not whatever it is you're doing here."
"He's right, Jelly-Bean," said the man introduced as her father, James Potter. "You need sleep."
Potter shook her head.
"I need to get a start on this prosthetic," she countered.
"And you've made a start," the haggard Remus Lupin insisted.
"You have all the information you got from Zola, you know of the existence of the existing plans, and I'm sure I can continue to speak to this clever quill of yours that writes down whatever I say while you sleep," Doctor Erskine agreed.
Potter shook her head again.
"As the person that summoned you, I've got to be awake to keep you here," she denied, "and knowing that plans exist somewhere in enemy hands doesn't automatically put them into mine."
"So cast your strongest summoning charm for them, then go to bed. No making plans to go sneaking off to the frozen arse-end of Siberia by yourself to find them. There won't be any wards to stop the magic from reaching the files. The work can wait," Sirius Black said firmly. "Sergeant Barnes, you don't mind waiting a bit longer to get a new arm, do you?"
Barnes shook his head at once.
"I'm a draftee, not a volunteer. I stuck around when I was given the option of going home because I needed to keep an eye on Steve. I'm not really in a hurry to be battle-ready again," he assured the four ghosts, as well as Potter. "Especially if it comes at the cost of your health, Doll," he added to the lady doctor specifically.
"Doctors are the worst patients," Doctor Erskine quipped with a faint smile.
"Sergeant Barnes," James Potter spoke up. "Thank you for taking care of my Jelly-Bean."
"Least I could do, Sir," Barnes answered smartly, aware that he was talking to a Father – something he'd never done before, not really. All the girls he'd taken dancing, that had been all it was. Never had he had a meeting with any parental figure of the girl he was going on a date with. It was rare he even met the siblings, unless it was a sister he was trying to set up with Steve.
"Understand though, that if you mistreat her in any way, you've got all of us and her mother waiting for you on the other side," Sirius Black added, his tone light and speculative.
"Yes Sir," Barnes agreed sharply.
Potter sighed, but reached out again and gave the stone on top of the ring a twist within its fitting, and the four ghosts faded away. She didn't move to get up from her chair though.
"Come on, Doll," Barnes urged softly as he wrapped his arm around her and gently tugged her to her feet. "You can't sleep here. Your bed will get jealous that you're sleeping somewhere else."
Potter giggled a little at the joke.
"I must be exhausted," she said as she let herself be guided out of the library. "That was terrible."
"You have every right to be exhausted," Barnes countered easily. "You've done so many impossible things today, not least of which was compressing a week into a single day."
"Mm, yeah, that's not a very healthy thing to do actually," she admitted softly. "No more time-travel for me for a month, minimum. Already locked up the Time Turner after I took back the last squad."
"Good."
Evangeline waited until she was sitting on her bed before she cast the summoning charm to bring her the plans for the prosthetic. A charm that she cast with all the strength and will left to her in that moment. She pushed herself to beyond exhausted from the casting, but she knew that her magic had latched onto the file and was actively working to bring it to her, though with the distance, it would take a while. It was a greater distance than any she had summoned over before, even if, as Sirius had said, there were no wards to bar the way. The spell cast and the magic at work, Evangeline's wand slipped from her fingers as she swayed.
Barnes caught her before she could fall off the bed onto her face, and lay her down properly. He pulled her slippers off, and picked up her wand. It made his fingers tingle to hold it, like his hand had fallen asleep. He set the wand down on the bedside table.