FALLEN ─ marvel

V. The Possibility Of Happiness

Chapter Five
Soroya

Sharon got back to me very quickly. She finished repairing the damage done to the pentagon and has spent the last year and a half in the counter terrorism division in the CIA. This means she has access to an extensive database on the most dangerous people in the world, which includes Analiese. According to the file Sharon sent me, Analiese and Julian have a great uncle that's still alive. I asked Analiese about him and she said that he's a narcissist and her parents hated him. She barely knows him.

They must have really hated him, because this great uncle lives in Saratov, just a few miles away from where her parents used to live. It was a short drive to get to his house, and when we got there, the house was empty. Analiese and I searched the whole house and couldn't find anything, but what we did find were keys to a storage room. After looking through the file Sharon gave me, I find a storage facility listed under his properties. The facility is another few miles away.

Analiese and I 'borrowed' her great uncle's car and are currently driving to the facility. Analiese has been very silent the past several minutes, so I attempt to start a conversation.

"Did you enjoy growing up here? Saratov is beautiful, I can imagine Julian really loving it here."

Analiese has her feet resting on the dash, her head resting against the seat, her eyes trailing the road beneath us. "We loved it here. We once considered leaving HYDRA and moving back home...but then our parents died. I still wonder if things would have gone differently if we had gone back home."

I know exactly what she's talking about. I wonder the same thing all the time about my own parents. Could I have saved them if I had done things differently? Could I have prevented their deaths?

But I tell her what I've told myself for eleven years: "There's nothing you could have done. Some things are just out of our control."

I expect Analiese not to say anything, but instead she asks me: "How did your parents die?"

"They were captured by HYDRA when my brother was. Becker gave all of them the serum, but it only worked on my brother. HYDRA decided to keep him and Becker took my parents hostage and used them for experiments. When she was captured by S.H.I.E.L.D, she and my parents were both put in a prison in America. After I found Alex, we went to go rescue them...but we failed. My mother was shot in the heart, and my father sacrificed himself to buy Alex, Bucky, and I time to escape."

I keep my eyes on the road as I tell her this, but when she doesn't say anything, I briefly glance her way, finding her expression sympathetic.

"I'm sorry," She tells me. "That must have been hard watching your parents die."

I nod, feeling my throat grow tight. "Julian, my parents, Alex, Bucky, I watched all of them die. There's nothing worse then standing there helpless as you lose everything you care about."

"That's how I felt after Julian died: helpless."

I'm incredibly shocked by her openness to telling me these things, which prompts me to ask: "Usually when I start conversations like this you shut me out. Why the sudden change?"

Analiese shrugs, letting out a sigh. "Your friend Rosales said something to me today that's made me reevaluate some things."