video | c.fraser

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Is this not about a medical thing, this time? Seems so. Claire's a bit more relaxed than she usually is when using the network, and it might have something to do with that glass of wine in front of her.]

It's my fifty-first birthday this weekend. Do I win the award for most elderly amongst us refugees?

It's hard to believe I was in my late twenties when I first came to Olympia. Stasis is... strange, to say the least, but I'm sure any of us here for an amount of time realize that.

[Now, let's see who's going to be a smartass and make a grandma comment. She's waiting. It's there, in her smile. Do it.]

Comments

[nineteenfortyfive]

If you don't mind. I'm just making conversation. [She offers him a small smile.] I don't mean to pry.

[deadthenred]

No, it's fine, I don't mind. [ He has tried to keep his own policy of openness, his own personal glasnost, but in his experience beginning with a long list of all the things he feels guilty for doesn't go over well for anyone. ] I've been all over, really. Sorta the nature of the service. [ As true of the KGB as it is of the US Army and SHIELD. ]

But I was living in New York, I guess, most recently.

How about you? [ Conversation. He can do this. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She can understand any apprehension. She's seen it before, and she's not one to share too much about those days, either.]

A similar story here. After the war I [time] traveled, and then I settled in Boston for twenty years. Went from a combat nurse to a surgeon and a mother.

[deadthenred]

Boston, huh? The Sox finally won it in 2004. [ This was one of the very important things he researched when he was finally himself again. ]

Being a surgeon and a mother are both… real accomplishments. [ For a real life. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

2004. I'd be 86. Had things turned out differently, I might still be around.

[Not that Claire had much interest in sports. Being a surgeon and a mother took most of her time--the former, unfortunately, more than the latter. She built a good life for Bree, but the price she paid for it was time with her daughter.]

I can only imagine there are plenty more women practicing medicine in 2004.

[deadthenred]

Yeah. It isn't— perfect. But it's a lot better. [ Bucky means it. He met a lot of extremely capable women during the war— nurses and soldiers both, and it flipped his teenage perspective quite a bit. ]

Anyway, 86, huh? So you are older than me after all.

[nineteenfortyfive]

It's what I've been hearing. It's good to keep hearing it.

[That next comment coaxes a laugh out of her.]

Oh, you're welcome, then. I was born in 1918, if the math's too hard for you.

[deadthenred]

[ He laughs a little, too. ]

I'll have you know I was the fastest cashier at Milton's corner grocer when before they got computers that let a person cheat. [ Also before he picked a fight with the stockboy, whoops. ]

1925. When I got here I was twenty.

[nineteenfortyfive]

Cheat? Now you sound your age.

[1925? Good lord.]

Practically an infant, if you were twenty before, even when I wasn't yet thirty.

[Nevermind her daughter is twenty, currently.]

[deadthenred]

I felt old.

[ Doesn't everyone at twenty? ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

My daughter is twenty.

And now we all feel old.

[deadthenred]

My kid sister has children who're older than you know. [ He's never met them, never introduced himself, but he's done his creepy spy homework. ] I don't know how that makes me feel.

[ So, moving on. ]

Do you miss her?

[ Her daughter, he means. He hasn't put together that she's here, because most people's families aren't. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

Not so much these days. I'm lucky that she and my boy are awake, too.

[She can't be bothered to specify that Fergus is adopted. He looks enough like her, and he has the Fraser name while Bree doesn't. It's a complicated household.]

[deadthenred]

Oh. [ Whoops. ] I'm happy for you.

Though this is a hell of a place to grow up.

[nineteenfortyfive]

She's done most of the growing up already, at twenty. Thank God. I wouldn't want a fourteen year old in my care here.

[deadthenred]

Has anyone woke up that young?

[ He was twenty, too, and really, far from a kid. But younger than that… ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

I've met a few that seem to be that young. I don't know factually, however.

[She adopts enough without knowing exactly how young they are.]

[deadthenred]

It's odd. More people live to see five than eight-five. There oughta be more kids here, unless there's something in the programming.

[ Or however they're fishing them out of the time stream. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

I've wondered that, too. As well as a notable lack of people producing children among us.

[deadthenred]

[ He has to run a hand through his hair, at that. ]

Not all of us are tryin'.

[ But as he thinks about it more, he agrees that it's odd. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

I suspect most people don't try for children. As for... the rest of it, even if only a small portion of the population were engaging in baby making activities... it's been over a year. Life finds a way, you know.

[Except not here.]

Must be the Storm.

[deadthenred]

[ Despite being 93, Bucky hasn't had much of a life

Huh. You think it's deliberate?

[nineteenfortyfive]

I'm not sure. A part of me hopes so. Imagine, going back into stasis while pregnant? That's a nightmare.

[deadthenred]

[ He blinks. ]

I'm pretty sure I can't.

[ Imagine, that is. But the Natha must have, right? ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[She laughs a little at that reaction. Sorry, Bucky.]

My apologies.