just because she's on a mission...

Chapter 7

Dottie's sleep was restless in the days that Peggy was gone. Her dreams seemed to increase in intensity. They were never clear; it was always a sense memory, a sound, a shape, a sensation, hurling itself against the dark of her sleep as if trying to reach her through a thick, black curtain. Or they were moments too brief to know if they were real or imagined. But she remembered the feel of the Siberian snow on her bare arms, the face of a tiger. She remembered the echo of Peggy's voice in her ear. It was all still obscured for her, just out of reach, but they hurled themselves more insistently than they had been.

Dottie knew where Peggy was.

Everything was moving forward just as Ivchenko had told her it would. She knew Peggy was in Russia, that she was going to be visiting the Red Room. She had a strange feeling about that; Peggy tromping around in the place that made Dottie who and what she was, the only place she had real memories of at all. It felt oddly intimate, in a way that Peggy herself would probably never appreciate.

Dottie found herself hoping that Peggy made it out of Russia alive. She didn't think it was right for anyone else to kill Peggy except her. She felt a peculiar, unpleasant sickness in her gut at the thought. Peggy was like her; fierce and strong, tough and intelligent. But Peggy was also not like her; she loved, she grieved, she felt loneliness, she felt pleasure at being touched by another human being. It might be that those things made Peggy weaker, but Dottie also knew that Peggy might be the only chance she would have to feel those feelings herself. Still, Dottie was an Agent of the Red Room, and she would do what she was made for.

But not without feeling those things that had nagged at her mind for so long.

******

Peggy returned to her room late at night, feeling some satisfaction at the job she'd done in Russia, and the recognition she'd gotten from the men around her for it. For once. But even after the drinks they'd had to celebrate the success of their mission, she was still left feeling uncomfortable at the realization of what was going on in that place. The girl that had attacked them was shockingly young; what had she been put through in order to be turned into such an effective killer? And those cuffs, those small handcuffs on all of the beds... it gave her a chill just to think of it, that these girls were enslaved, and put through god only knew what, at such a young age. The girl that attacked them couldn't have been more than ten, but she fought with the skill of someone who had been training for at least that long. You don't get performance like that out of a girl by offering her a lollipop as an incentive.

And surprisingly (or not), she thought of Dottie, too. Whatever had happened to her couldn't have been that, but she reflected that some damage had been done to her that was unspeakable in its own way, and that she needed to do more to make herself a safe place for Dottie.

She was too tightly wound to sleep. She sat brooding in her bed for a while, still awake and dressed, when a knock came at the door. At this late hour, it could only be Dottie. "Peggy?" her voice came through the door, sounding hopeful and perhaps a bit wistful.

Peggy got up and opened the door. She was wearing a pink dressing gown, and by the look of things, not much underneath. She smiled and stood aside, letting her in.

"Sorry, Peggy," she immediately apologized, "i know it's real late and you're probably tired. I couldn't sleep. I thought I heard you come in and-"

Peggy interrupted her with a gentle kiss. "It's alright, Dottie. I'm glad to see you."

Dottie stopped talking and smiled, but there was a sad, haunted quality to it.

"Are you alright?"

Dottie nodded. "I'm fine, Peg, I just missed you a whole lot."  Peggy melted a little at this.