"You want to maybe tell me why I had to knock on your tent-flap like it was a door?" Colonel Philips demanded by way of greeting.

"Perhaps it's because I'm a paranoid little bird living among a whole lot of alley cats that are at war with each other?" Evangeline suggested. "This isn't my first war, Colonel. I covered my tent in so many protective spells – yes, Colonel, I'm giving you a word for what I do. It's magic. I'm a witch. I am also from an alternate dimension and year. It's not something I advertise, and I'd appreciate you keeping it under your hat. As I was saying, I've layered my tent in so many protective spells, it will stand undisturbed against bombs that haven't even been invented yet."

At least, she didn't think they'd been invented yet. When was the Atomic Bomb invented? When had nuclear warheads become a thing?

"But those protections do me no good if people can just walk in," she pointed out. At the moment, the wards were keyed to herself and Bucky. And Hermione, but Hermione's ability to appear in Evangeline's tent was frankly moot when there were roughly seventy years and a different dimension separating them.

Colonel Philips gave her a long, measuring look. Then he shifted his gaze to her tent.

"No, I can't make every tent in camp bomb-proof," Evangeline denied before he even opened his mouth to make the request. "Those kind of spells need a specially made magical anchor, which are very, very difficult to make. I have exactly one, and it's holding the spells for my tent. I cannot add more spells for other tents to it."

"Damn," the colonel muttered.

"I assume you had a reason for knocking on my tent?" Evangeline prompted.

"We're bugging out," Colonel Philips informed her plainly. "We leave in two hours. Be ready."

"No problem," she agreed easily. Two hours was plenty of time. She'd had to bug out in five minutes in the past. Hell, there had been times where she'd had to bug out in five seconds and proceed to run for her life. Two hours at least meant that she could pack properly, rather than just sending everything flying into her trunk and leaving there in a jumble until she unpacked again – and okay, yes, her trunk had a sorting charm on it, but with the amounts of stuff she owned, it took time for it to sort itself out if she just tossed everything in at random.

Evangeline stared at her tent's living room for a while after Philips gave the order though. So much for not packing up the tree until Bucky got back and they'd had Christmas. It was a week passed Easter now though, so perhaps it was time, even if she had been perfectly willing to have Christmas in July, just so long as she could have it with him.

Fleur would likely approve the sentiment, the French witch was very much a romantic. She was as practical as she was passionate though, and would understand the necessity of wishes going unfulfilled now and then. Evangeline hadn't thought of Fleur for a while, and suddenly couldn't help but wonder how she was doing.

She'd married Bill Weasley, right smack in the middle of the war. They'd had a daughter when Evangeline had left (better to think of it that way than 'the accident', really), and another child due to join the family any day. The eldest was probably at Hogwarts by now, or would be soon, and the one Evangeline had never met should be toddling about and getting into mischief.

At the time, a part of Evangeline had thought Bill and Fleur were crazy for wanting to get married while the war was going on. She'd recognised the desperation to get as much of their lives in as they could. To live each second, each minute, each hour to the fullest, when there was a chance the next day wouldn't come at all.

She saw that same quiet desperation all around her. During that war, and this one. The chief difference seemed to be that, in this war, people were skipping over marriage in favour of a single night of comfort. It didn't always work out so well for the young women who were left behind, but the shame of having a child out of wedlock (which had still existed in the new millennium, whatever people might say otherwise) had to be compared to the fear of becoming a widow who barely got a wedding night.

Especially when there were no guarantees one way or the other about the possibility of children being brought into the world right now. Evangeline never expected to suddenly question when the modern condom had been invented and using them had become accepted practice.

She shook the thoughts out of her head. She had things that needed to be done. Evangeline got changed first. She couldn't very well ride a big black motorcycle in a knee-length grey skirt, after all. Once she was suitably dressed for bugging out and moving on, Evangeline drew her wand and set to packing everything into her trunk. When the tent was empty, she recalled the wards, pulled her trunk out through the tent flap, and collapsed the canvas construct with another flick of her wand. Poles were tied, the tent folded, and the lot was packed away. The large red trunk became a little red trinket once more, and was reattached to charm bracelet.

"That's quite a trick," Peggy declared softly, eyes wide and staring at the empty space where a tent had been moments before.

"Are you finished packing?" Evangeline asked.

"Just have to get the tent down," Peggy confirmed, still staring at where Evangeline's tent no longer was.

Evangeline flicked her wand at her friend's tent, just as she'd done for her own. Five seconds later, it was a neat little bundle, with the tent-poles jammed through the middle and the ropes wrapped around the outside holding it all secure.

"Have you been told where we're going?" Evangeline asked hopefully.

Her words jarred Peggy out of her slightly stunned stupor. She wasn't nearly used to Evangeline waving a stick and the impossible happening. Apart from the day that Evangeline had first showed up with Bucky, when they'd gone after Schmitt and Evangeline had done the impossible several dozen times over (and exhausted herself doing it), Evangeline had actually been very private or very subtle about her use of magic.

The Statute of Secrecy wasn't going to be an issue for her here, but there was exactly no reason at all to go around advertising all of her capabilities to all and sundry.

"We're going to join up with the Howling Commandos," Peggy answered, a warm, content smile on her face. It might have been a prospect of moving closer to the front lines, but that was where Rogers was, so Peggy was glad to be going to him.

Evangeline would be a liar if she were to say she didn't feel the same way, but because Bucky, rather than because Rogers.

"Do they know we're coming?" she tremulously enquired.

"Not exactly," Peggy denied with a shake of her head. "They know the designated rendezvous point and time, that they'll be meeting with 'a company' there, and whichever of us gets there first is to secure a perimeter."

"What time and where, exactly?" Evangeline near-demanded as she pulled Sirius' bike off her charm bracelet and re-sized it so that it was fit to ride.

"Roughly eight hours," Peggy supplied as she eyed the motorcycle – which had very little in common with the motorcycles being used by either side of the war effort at the moment, though it was clearly recognisable as a motorcycle. "... Please tell me you're not thinking of heading to the site alone."

"Can't do that," Evangeline stated plainly. "I don't mind withholding information, letting people assume things, but I never outright lie if I can help it. That would be a lie."

"I refuse to help you get yourself killed," Peggy denied. "Barnes would never forgive me, and Steve..."

"I'll go dig it out of Colonel Philips' head then," Evangeline declared with an easy shrug.

Peggy's jaw worked helplessly as she watched her friend go.

Evangeline was gone by the time Peggy had managed to kick her brain into gear enough to come up with a potentially convincing protestation. Colonel Philips was left swearing in her wake.

~oOo~

Building a house wasn't the simplest of things, of course, that depended on how complicated a house a person was building, and what materials were being used. In Evangeline's case, she was building a very, very basic shelter (really more like a picnic gazebo than a house) that would seat seven men in the middle of a war, and she was building it out of trees.

Trees that she cut down with magic, cut to the right length with magic, and set into place in a nice big square with, you guessed it, magic. It wasn't anything fancy, not really. These men had been eating field rations out of tins while they sat on the ground. Maybe a rock or a fallen log to serve as a chair if they were lucky.

While the gazebo would be rustic and basic (a floor, which was the real luxury for this structure, a few posts around the outside, and a roof), the chairs and table would be proper chairs and a proper table. Transfiguration had been her father's speciality, but Evangeline was no slouch at it either. It was particularly easy when she was keeping things simple. A proper table and set of chairs to seat ten (seven Howling Commandos, herself, Peggy, and Colonel Philips, it would be eleven but Howard wasn't coming with for this leg of the war) didn't have to be fabulously fancy to be luxurious in this setting. The chairs were sturdy, comfortable, and polished smooth. The table-top shone almost mirror-bright.

And she may have conjured up a few quick cushions for the chairs as well.

Probably the best part of the gazebo was the runes she'd burned into each post. Runes that made the air within the gazebo a toasty, cosy, constant warm, and that kept out things like wind, rain, and bugs.

Satisfied with the first structure she'd raised at the rendezvous point, Evangeline set her trunk down, spelled her tent up, set her wards around it, and got cooking. After all, Bucky and the lads would be hungry when they arrived in six hours' time.

Probably thirsty as well.

Evangeline wondered if it would be reasonable to build a still and get it running in time for their arrival. Did she even have the things needed for one? For that matter, did she have the ingredients to make beer? What was she thinking?! She had a massive cellar's worth of all sorts of alcohol in her trunk! A few she'd even bought herself because she'd liked the taste when she went out to dinner with her fellow med students. An approximate third had been inherited.

Sirius might have looked like a man in deep need of a bottle, but he hadn't once touched the stuff once he'd escaped from Azkaban. He'd been very fond of drinking (though not to excess or alcoholism) before, so that was one regular cellar's worth she'd inherited. Remus had admitted to hitting the bottle when he'd thought two of his best friends were dead at the (metaphorical) hands of the third. He'd buy in bulk, drink himself insensible, and then go sober and work until he could afford another case. The year he'd taught at Hogwarts, he'd gone straight, but he'd been buying a bottle of Odgen's Finest every other week, stocking up in preparation for the day he would be forced out. Because Remus was never an optimist, and had been sure he'd be sacked on any given day.

There had also been the large, old collection of bottles that had been in the Potter Cellar. Most of the bottles had been gifts though. Odgen's had gifted her shares in their company, which meant a new bottle every week. Evangeline wasn't a big drinker, not really, but she was a believer in Murphy's Law, and when (not if, she'd firmly believed in when) she somehow ended up stranded on a deserted island, millions of miles from anywhere and with anti-portkey and anti-apparition wards all around her, she knew she'd want the option of all the alcohol then.

It was for the exact same reason that she also had three bottomless boxes, all covered in stasis spells, as well as a regular (magical, slightly-bigger-on-the-inside) refrigerator. All of them very, very well stocked. She had anticipated possibly ending up on that deserted island with the entire Weasley clan, and that was a lot of people to feed.

Especially with the way Ron could stuff his face. He wasn't a 'growing boy' any more, but his appetite hadn't slowed down at all. Then there were the kids to consider, because they were still growing, and growing in number last she'd known.

Evangeline surveyed her kitchen, reviewed the menu she had mentally started planning as she flew over the battle lines on her motorcycle, rolled up her sleeves, and pulled on an apron. She had cooking to be doing.

She'd have to make something for the soldiers as well. It would be cruel and unusual to make a gorgeous dinner for the Howling Commandos, serving it to them in full view of the men, and the men not be allowed to have any. It wouldn't be good for morale either.

Evangeline added a quadruple-batch of chocolate chip biscuits to the things she had to cook in the space of six hours, and turned to eye her oven. Would it be big enough for everything, or should she dig a fire-pit? She could spit-roast the larger meat outside, that would free up some oven space, and eight men (two of them Super Soldiers) would certainly be able to demolish a whole two-year-old bovine between them. Even with soup before-hand, roast vegetables with, and five different dessert options (chocolate cake, treacle tart, apple crumble, blueberry pie, and vanilla ice cream, which could be served alongside any of the previous four options).