It was too good to be true. Surely any minute she would awaken back in East Berlin. Gaby Teller had been waiting for this to happen for years. It wasn't that she hated cars, or being dirty. It was that she wanted so much more. All her life her family had pushed her to marry, have some children, settle down. She dreamed of adventure, music, color, bright noisy cities full of mystery, untold stories and unknown people. Wide open green fields full of crisp blue flowers, cold clear streams full of fish and frogs. Lazy warm sunny afternoons by a clean pool, and most of all, the ocean. Everything that life in East Berlin was not.
Now was her chance. Solo had done the impossible and rescued her from East Berlin. She had a work to do for Waverly, she knew this mission wouldn't be a picnic, but whatever the future held for her. She intended to enjoy it while she could. Back in East Berlin she had scrounged around for abandoned records using her fathers abandoned record player to play them in the garage while she worked on the cars, and then once she was done she would pour some of her uncle's liquor and dance to the music all on her own. Had anyone been there they would have thought she was a lunatic, dancing to the music with the abandon of an American girl in a dark, abandoned car shop. But it was those nights that kept her sane, helped her forget that she was just a mechanic in East Berlin with no future, and no escape.
But that was then and this was now. The clothing shop Napoeon brought her to was phenomenal. Clean, bright and everything was expensive. When the American started pulling out clothes for her to try on her nose had wrinkled before she could rearrange it. The clothes were old fashioned and ugly, she had dreamed of slim and attractive clothing that would make her look like a woman rather than her normal teenage grease monkey look. It had been years since she had worn a dress, and while she enjoyed possessing skills that most women didn't, she also enjoyed feeling feminine and clean. In his calm, collected, and almost too charming way, Napoleon soothed her disappointment by explaining that for the cover it was necessary that she dress the part of a typical woman beyond the iron curtain. Or at least what Americans thought a woman behind the iron curtain dressed like.
She was disappointed that she wouldn't get to dress in beautiful clothes, and instead would be dressing like…well she didn't know who dressed like that, but she looked fat, ancient, and felt like she must have gained years while she was dressed in the blue dress that looked as if it had been fitted for a giant puppet. Things could be worse she decided, there was no reason she still couldn't enjoy her newfound freedom and see the sights, she looked into her reflection in the mirror, not at the clothes, but at her face. Smiling back at herself she decided that nothing would ruin her newfound freedom.
A deep, thickly accented man's voice spoke right behind her: "My woman would never wear something like that". Gaby felt like a herd of icy footed ants were charging up her back into the roots of her hair. Why was there a Russian man standing right behind her scoffing at her clothes? She felt insulted even though she had already turned up her nose at them herself. Spinning around she found herself face to face with the KGB. It was the man from East Berlin who had chased her and Napoleon all through East Berlin. His tearing the back off her car was top of her list of why she found the man terrifying. The way he moved during the chase made her think of the super soldier stories the old ladies had told about the war, men who were impervious to bullets, could run faster than normal men, and had the strength of 10 men. If he did that to her metal car, she didn't stand a chance against him. A fact that made her furious. "What's he doing here?" she asked Napoleon while glaring at the too calm Russian towering over her. "I am your fiancé" the blond Russian responded, not bothering to wait for Napoleon to answer her. His eyes did not move as he stared directly at her, they were the same cold blue eyes that had followed her in East Berlin. Either he was still trying to capture her, or the intense glare was just how he looked at people. Holding his iron gaze for just a moment longer Gaby thought to herself in frustration "is the man incapable of blinking?!" She was seething at this new development. For years she had been desperately ready to get away from the KGB which had somehow wormed its way across the Berlin Wall and back into her life. Tearing off the jewelry Napoleon had put on her she tossed them into a chair as she stormed from the room. As she pushed the door open she heard Napoleon tell the Russian "smoothly done", his voice dripping in sarcasm.
Napoleon followed her into the street. The morning sun was shining brightly on the sidewalk. It didn't take long for Napoleon to get her back inside. In reality, she already had her orders from Waverly, she was to go along with whatever the American proposed. All the while hiding her true cover. The Russian she had not counted on. After escaping over the wall she had felt safe from him. The wall was built to keep people in even more than to keep them out. The KGB belonged in Russia and once out, she hadn't given the Russian a second thought, other than to shudder over his abnormal size and strength after a flashback. This was, however, her job and assessing her behavior she felt that her reaction actually seemed like the most natural, which was of course what Waverly would have wanted.