She felt so. Stupid.

The lack of information on Delphine had been getting to her. It had taken time to get into Paris, and even then the obstacles were challenging. There had been times they hadn't slept, hiding all night. There had been times they were sure they were about to be questioned, to be taken. People looked at them suspiciously, police and German soldiers were everywhere, and more than once they had to show their faked papers and hold their breath until the forgeries proved convincing enough and they were allowed to move on.

Cosima was persistent, she was intelligent, and she was persuasive. But it wasn't easy to figure out who was safe to speak with, and who would be willing to trust newcomers with mediocre skills in French, limited connections and a surprising amount of money to pass around. Holding her tongue was not always easy for her, even for the purpose of self-preservation, but after some stops and starts, they were eventually able to rendez-vous with a message runner who had been working with a British agent before the agent had snuck his way into Belgium. She was a bit suspicious of the runner, but he had finally been able to get them in with a group of resistance fighters. Their boss, Pascal, had listened carefully and, after some checking, had agreed to allow them to work with his group, as long as they pulled their weight.

After sorting through other goals and knowledge, Cosima had been overjoyed when she found out the scuttlebutt that her Swan had escaped. The story that she had been captured, tortured, and loaded on a train to a prison camp, however, was enough to incapacitate her for a full night. She was both devastated and amazed, thinking of what Delphine must have suffered, and then processing the incredible news of her disappearance from the train under the guidance of a quick-witted journalist who had been aiding the cause. And then there had been the news of how mercilessly von Leekie had punished both his own people and the other prisoners on the train… She had trembled so assimilating this information that she sunk into Scott's friendly hug when he offered it, the simple warmth of a human embrace grounding her enough to briefly stop her emotional spin. When it came down to it, Scott was one of the most caring people she'd ever met, and a good friend.

However, since then, Pascal and the others kept telling her that they couldn't find where Delphine ended up. There were almost no limits to what Cosima's imagination could do with this lack of evidence. Her… charge, the person who had been the reason Cosima had flung herself, not to mention Scott, into this potentially deadly mission, could be safe, knitting in a cottage in the country, she could be dead in the street, she could be halfway to China right now, and Cosima just didn't know.

So she threw herself into helping the French as best she could, given her talents. Once she discovered the lack of appropriate medicines, she used her knowledge in biology and chemistry to devise ways to begin getting them made, with Scott's and a French professor's help. Pascal provided the space, hands and means to produce them, and soon they were contributing something good to the city.

But she was still restless. She couldn't find Delphine, she didn't have contact with the SOE and she felt increasingly that she should be doing something, anything, to help the push against the Germans. More and more, rebellion was breaking out in Paris. There were work stoppages and transportation system strikes, sabotage and destruction of Nazi equipment and goods. There wasn't much actual battle — the French didn't have enough weapons for that, and calmer heads dissuaded them from bringing a devastating payback from the Germans upon themselves, at least most of the time. But the feel, the energy of the city was changing. People knew the Allies were not far away, and it emboldened them.

So maybe her plan had been a little crazy.

She'd timed guard schedules exactly, of course. She'd had some compatriots set a diversion. She was as sneaky as she could be. But still, they nearly got caught.

Of course, it was a brilliant idea, in theory. Block the German's radio transmissions via the Eiffel Tower, she'd proposed, use the tower radio equipment to send out a message to the Allies. Brilliant, but far too dangerous.

The thing was, they thought she'd failed. Yes, she'd managed a disruption, but it was all too brief. It wasn't like suspicious activity could go on for long in such a busy, populated, central hub. And when they'd been actually discovered, when they had to scatter in all directions, the others thought she had been unable to contact the Allies, that there hadn't been time.

But she had. She had spoken with an agent from the OSS. And what she learned chilled her.

It turned out they had no plans to liberate the city soon. Casualties and losses of equipment would be too high, would take too many resources and too much time away from their push eastward across Europe. What was more, they predicted that Hitler would order the Germans to raze the city, kill the citizens, commit mass atrocities. It wouldn't be the first time he did it.

So, the Allies would draw closer to the city, nearly to its edges. And then they'd simply go around it.

She'd been so stunned, so horrified, she nearly didn't pull out in time. She'd barely avoided capture. It had been just her, running, then. She'd had to ditch most of her equipment. She didn't know where the others had gone, and she'd need help if she was going to get back to the correct part of the catacombs or another base. She'd stopped in an alleyway, clutching a stitch in her side as she got back her breath. She'd thought, sure, it makes practical, military sense. It may even be the wiser thing to do. But the Parisians… all those people… they'd finally been feeling hope amidst their desperation. And they're about to get passed by, avoided… left in the hands of an increasingly anxious occupying army. It just, it just…

It just didn't seem right.

She was lost. Not just physically, as in she didn't know where in the city she was, but she felt emotionally spent, motivationally adrift. She felt like she could stand in that alleyway for the next hours, days, weeks, and it wouldn't make a difference. The only news she could bring Pascal and his friends would just make everything worse. Unless she just kept lying, glossing over. But she was having trouble imagining doing any of that, at that moment.

And what about the others? She remembered the look of fear on Scott's face when the guard's light found them. Jesus, what had she done? What if any of them got caught? What if it was Scott?

Her body made the decision to move while her mind finally took a rare, stress-induced break. Perhaps the machinery of her brain, after going in overdrive for so long, simply needed to shut down. She wandered. And she ended up in a café, nursing a glass of wine. And she overheard a voice, speaking with a very odd accent. The accent of a Basque inflecting mediocre French with an already rough Spanish accent. Her brain switched back on.

She introduced herself. His name was Garaile. He was a friend of Gaizka's.