She was Captain America, smashing through a window and punching Hitler in the face.
"I told you we could get 'em with mono-methylamine nitrate, Bucky," Cosima crowed at Scott, whose glasses were incongruously over his sidekick mask.
"You bet, Captain!"
Cosima whirled around, something was amiss. She looked out the window.
"We're in France, and they're taking the Eiffel tower!"
A huge dirigible, larger than any she'd ever seen, had cables attached to the landmark and was rising.
"That's no Santos-Dumont No. 6," she exclaimed, "that's a Zeppelin!"
Before she knew it she was leaping from a high story and running across the cityscape almost like flying. The Red Skull was behind all this, she knew it. With a mighty heave she flung her shield into the sky, where it easily bisected one of the cables, causing the airship to pitch.
But there was a problem. She could see Delphine in the gondola through its walls, wrists tied and sliding from the sudden tilt down the incline of the control car floor toward a hole in the back. Cosima grunted as her shield returned to her arm like a boomerang, grinding her teeth in frustration.
With a herculean effort, she ran toward the blimp and leapt, catching the double agent close to the ground.
"Delphine, are you okay?" She cradled the Swan in her arms.
"You're my special agent," Delphine told her warmly, then seemed sad, "but they always seem to get us." Her face was impossibly close, and Cosima could smell the scent of her perfect hair.
Cosima felt a sudden blow to the top of her head. The Red Skull had jumped down and pounded on her. He grabbed Delphine by the arm and she rose.
Cosima suddenly realized that her costume was torn, long swaths of her naked flesh revealed. A sense of shame worked to overwhelm her.
Delphine shrugged as she looked down at her.
"What could you expect?" she asked, and walked away with the enemy. Cosima couldn't understand it. Delphine didn't seem to care. Was she even a little resigned, or was it just that she would rather follow her seemingly inevitable path? Cosima had found her, but her rescue seemed as unwanted as it was unsuccessful, in the end.
Captain America went to find her childhood house, to get to the roof. Gazing at the stars always made her feel better, but it was so very far to get there, now.
Cosima woke with a jolt. A booted foot was nudging her in the leg.
"Oi, mystery boffin," Manning was grumbling at her, "that godawful sound you're makin' grindin' your teeth is gonna draw ev'ry Jerry in the Euro theatre. Give it a rest, 'ey?"
Cosima looked around, remembering where she was. It was the dim, interior office of a warehouse, dusty with neglect. There weren't a lot of wares to house in France at this time, at least not for the French, themselves.
She slid sideways to sit up without bonking her head on the table she was under.
"Cos?" Scott's soft voice came to her from the doorway, checking in.
"Yeah, yeah, okay," she nodded, and felt around until she found her canteen, then took a long pull of tepid water. Scott moved back to his lookout duty in the hallway.
Gaizka was safe, or, at least, safer than he had been from dying of his injuries. How long he would remain undiscovered in the doctor's brother's fishing cabin was another story altogether.
Cosima sighed and wiped her face. Manning was curled away from her, asleep or just trying to, she couldn't tell. She must have been wiped out from the driving, coaxing the unwieldy ambulance through uneven terrain, sometimes at speeds that were highly inadvisable — or at least Cosima wouldn't advise them, between what she understood of physics and the way she got tossed around in the cab like a single kernel in a popcorn pan. When night fell, they'd have to send Sarah Manning back with their directions and a coded message for the higher ups. They had promised, and it was only fair. One of Gaizka's compatriots was to serve as her guide and gunman. He assured them that he had worked out ways to travel relatively safely at night, during his months of smuggling under the German's noses. Cosima could tell that Manning felt relieved to meet him, despite his rudimentary English. What did it say about Cosima and Scott's chances when someone felt safer trying to sneak through enemy territory back toward the battle zone in an obviously British ambulance than to continue on with them into Paris? Doesn't matter, we've all got our duties, and our motivations, she told herself, and capped her bottle.
Delphine hadn't laughed at her when she told her how she liked to read comics.
"I used to read stories and comics with my second cousins," she had said. "Some of them still make an enjoyable escape — more so than medical texts, I can tell you. Also, my favourite cousin, who is almost like a brother, reads some bandes dessinées." Cosima didn't think that Delphine quite got it, how it was even more satisfying to see the enemies defeated with exaggerated characters than it could be watching a film, how it could be a simple rest for her brain to regress from its constant churning over formulas and ciphers to view a world that, for all its bright colours, portrayed good and evil in plain black and white. But then Delphine had said "that is, I think, rather cute," and Cosima had… what? Nearly swooned?
Damn it, Cosima stopped herself. There were certain trains of thought you just shouldn't ride to the end.
But their communications had been almost as vivid in her mind as the printed heroes she had held in her hands, Cosima recollected. When she had talked about her work in treating and training dogs and pigeons as messengers, Delphine had shared her enthusiasm, drawing parallels to working with the horse she had when she was younger. When Cosima went on one of her rambling tangets, Delphine, despite being on a wireless in a very real and dangerous situation, surrounded by potential captors, seemed to easily go along, asking questions and sharing her own experiences and knowledge. And Delphine had a lot of knowledge. Clearly she was an advanced student in medicine and biology, as well as being schooled in multiple areas, both by actual teachers and by being precocious and present among the important upper-class family friends she spoke with at gatherings and parties. Cosima had met some smart women, some brave women, in her time, but none rivalled what she had learned of Delphine, and none of them had seemed to click with her in just the same way, despite the distance between them.
There was a sniff beside her, and Manning sat up.
"You're gonna bore a hole in that wall, you keep staring at it," she chided, voice low with the dregs of sleep. She took a sip from her own water bottle and stared at Cosima frankly, as if trying to see inside her head.
"So you're a regular genius, then," she huffed, "but it seems to me this plan of yours isn't the brightest. Mind me for sayin', but this agent you're rescuin', she must be pretty damn important."
Cosima sighed, and a rueful smile briefly passed through her lips.
"Actually, not a lot of people would think she's worth it, I imagine," she admitted, weary enough to be stripped down to honesty. "There was no plan among the higher-ups to get her out. There are actually very few agents they're risking much to extract at all, really. The people who do this, who work undercover with their lives at stake, they know the risks, but they do it anyway. They're trying to preserve something in the world, maybe freedom or just a basic humanity the Nazis seem to want to bury away. In her case, maybe… maybe she got in over her head. Maybe she, and the others, have seen things that make them fatalistic, if not suicidal. But, I dunno…" She ran her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes. "I just feel like… like somebody's got to try, you know? Try to preserve these people who are good, who are fighting… who are living on just their wits, in secret. They must feel so very alone."
Sarah listened, watching her.
"So you know this broad from before, eh? 'Cause it sounds to me like you went after her special."
Cosima shook her head.
"She was my assignment, my responsibility. But she became a friend."
Sarah squinted her eyes. She seemed to be seeing something inside Cosima that made her feel exposed, want to squirm. Maybe she had said too much.
"Well, my job is helping as many wounded as I can," the driver told her, "but I guess…"
The Englishwoman paused, chewing her lip. She twisted for a moment and one of her hands disappeared down her jacket, re-remerging with a metal flask. She uncapped it, took a quick swig, and gave a satisfied grunt as the liquid went down. She looked back at Cosima and held out the flask to her.
Cosima took the flash and smelled the opening.
"Damn," she exclaimed, her eyebrows rising. The small bottle gave off the sting of alcohol, and the peaty, oaky scent of a surprisingly good whiskey. Cosima took a pull and felt the fire burn down her throat and warm her stomach.
Sarah took the flask back.
"Yeah," she nodded, and settled back against the table leg, then picked up her previous thoughts. "I guess I can understand wanting to look out for… one person you feel responsible for. I'd like that, too. It's just…"
Cosima didn't interrupt. She let Sarah stare into the shadows for a moment.
"I kinda made a real mess of things back home," the driver shared. She fiddled with the hair at the back of her head. "I took off for a while. Just… disappeared. And when I got back, my brother was gone and my kid… well, she's at a house out in the country, safe from the bombing, my foster mom says. But she wouldn't let me see her, and I…" She sighed, shrugged. "I had to do something to be useful, to show I can do right."
Cosima thought about the horrors and dangers an ambulance driver on the front must see. She wondered how much Sarah valued her own life.
"Seems like you feel you have a lot to prove," she said softly. Sarah nodded.
"Yeah, you know, a friend of mine back in the states, he had a foster sister…" Cosima began, then ground to a halt. "Wait. No. Whoa… no…"
Sarah cocked her head at her.
"You said your last name was Manning, right? Nothing like a… doesn't begin with an S… or were you called Dawkins at any time?" Cosima babbled.
Sarah's eyes immediately expanded and rounded.
"What the bollocks?" she sputtered, disbelieving. "Dawkins is my foster brother's last name. You can't…"
But her sentence was cut off as Cosima flung herself across the short distance that separated them and pulled her into a strong hug.
"Holy watershed, you're Sarah Sarah," she almost shouted. "Felix's Sarah! I know your brother."
Sarah's face cycled through a quick progression of confusion, rising shock and hope. Her tongue fumbled.
"You know Fee…?" was the only thing that could come out of her mouth.
Cosima leaned back, loosening her embrace so she could look at the gobsmacked woman.
"Yeah, we're friends, back in San Francisco. I knew he had a missing sister, but… holy cow, he never told me her last name, and I just assumed…"
Cosima took in the woman before her. Her hard shell had seemed nearly impenetrable, but now a film of tears was building in her eyes, one spilling over and tracking down her cheek.
"That's not… I can't believe it," the stunned Englishwoman whispered.
"Hey!" Cosima squeezed her shoulders. "Maybe take this as a sign. Maybe, if we can meet each other in all this craziness… maybe you're meant to see your family again."
They stared at each other, eye to eye. Cosima felt tears of wonderment fill her eyes, as well, and offered a half-crumpled smile, snuffling.
"Shite," Sarah murmured, then clutched Cosima's arm. "Does this mean… does this mean you can get a message to him from me? Say I'm sorry? Once we… presumin' we make it outta…" Her eyes moved around, spanning the room, the situation, the war.
"Hell, do you even know the odds of us meeting each other?" Cosima wondered. "Incredible!" Then, "yes, yes, of course. I'd be happy to. And I'll give you both our addresses and my telephone number in town, and you give me whatever you want."
They both had surprised smiles, now, beneath their tears. Cosima cocked her head.
"You know, Felix said a couple times that I reminded him of you. I mean, physically." She pursed her lips. "I guess we're about the same height."
"Huhn," Sarah huffed, wiping a sleeve across her eyes. "Yeah, well… I don't see it," she shrugged, "but maybe he's just desperate to see me, eh?"
"Hmm, maybe," Cosima grinned, "and once we win the war and get out of here, I'll make sure he does."
She shook her head to herself. Sometimes scientific probability and order seemed to take a flight of fancy into what some people called fate. Cosima didn't know when human beings might work all that out, but, in the meantime, she took it as one of nature's miracles, where philosophy and religion crossed with the whorls and patterns of an infinite universe and seemed to align. It gave her an odd, fizzy feeling that couldn't just be explained by the whiskey, and it was glorious. She could interpret it as a confirmation that she was on the right path, or dismiss it as bald coincidence. She decided she would take it for a good sign.
The rest of the light hours were spent sharing stories and information about Felix, post- and pre-flight to the United States. As the sun rose, Sarah was actually hesitant to follow the course of action they had planned and leave Cosima to get back to the front lines. Once won over, Sarah proved herself concerned and generous to a fault, offering her help and any supplies she could furnish from the ambulance or her own private stash of objects, hoarded or stolen. Cosima accepted some refills for their medical kit and some lightweight rations, but urged Sarah to head back toward Normandy as quickly but safely as possible. She knew Sarah might be helpful, in her own way, but if she went missing for too long, the authorities would think the driver was captured or dead, which could lead to complications. What was more, Cosima had seen the look in Sarah's eyes when she talked about assisting the wounded. It might be hard on her, and she may even hate it in her own way, but Cosima had no doubt she would feel guilty, as though she had blown one more promise, if she didn't return to her assignment. Also, Cosima needed heads at least as cool as hers and Scott's around, if they were going to make it into Paris undetected. Sarah seemed a little hair-trigger with her anger and need to act for all that.
Sarah ultimately agreed, but insisted on driving them in a few miles closer to the city, along back roads, when night fell. Scott had found some stained and ragged oilcloths in one room of the warehouse, and they did what they could to drape and secure them to the ambulance, covering the distinguishing cross and other markings as best they could. Anyone with real knowledge would know what the truck really was, but if their luck held, darkness and keeping to less populated areas would protect them a bit longer.
Paris. Once Sarah dropped them off, they'd be almost there. Cosima had to take deep breaths just thinking about it. She had to lose herself, blend into the city, as best she could, but she also had to try to contact whatever allied agents or resistance members she could find, and then she had to find Delphine… presuming she was still alive.
No. Cosima wouldn't think like that. One foot in front of the other, she told herself, going over the papers, maps and money they had and her best French in her mind. She had to be meticulous, but they had to seem casual, just a couple more residents of a city taken and ruled by oppressive conquerors. They'd have to find places to lay low, and, based on the intelligence she'd gathered, Cosima had some ideas about where to go.