Reminisce: Dear O,

September 27th, 2015

September 27th, 2015

       "I've been thinking a lot about her, the version of her that HYDRA created. They must have planted that evil, the same thing they did with me, but it stuck with me a lot deeper than it did with her. She told me how many times she couldn't do what they wanted her to do, back when she was young. She was willing to suffer the 'treatment' of shock therapy than kill someone, to maim someone, and in one case, to even find someone. When she linked with this person, she just couldn't give the coordinates, even though she knew that they would be found sooner or later, with or without her. She said she can't remember anything else, because of what they did to her after that. When she tells me these things, I can only ball my hands into fists and shut my eyes; I can't yell, I can't hit anything, I can't kill anyone. As much as I wish I could, nothing I can do will change her past.

       But there came a point where she no longer held back. She did what she was told, she became an almost perfect Huntress. I wonder when she snapped, when she finally caved in to the pain. She doesn't remember the moment, the day, or even the year, but she remembers when she felt so weak. Frail, like she was about to turn to dust. Wondering what her point of existence was, and began to believe it was to serve HYDRA. She knew nothing else, how else could she begin to process her own reason for living? People don't blame her for it, not the way they blame me. I truly believe that the only people who would forgive me entirely would be O and Steve, the only two people in the world that would accept me.

        But everyone would accept her; she was the abandoned child, thrown into a world of pain and violence, she knew nothing else. Even then she still fought it, even then she still had humanity even without being taught it. Nature versus nurture, they both play an important role. I sometimes wonder who her biological parents were; I don't entirely care, because they mean less than nothing to me and certainly less to Ophelia. Some of life's unsolved mysteries.

        She always came back. I wonder, if it wasn't for her, would I eventually have come back? If I had acted upon one of those desires to skip heading to the rendezvous point, take a train to somewhere else, would I have eventually remembered? It took a few days with Ophelia inside my head to remember the bulk of it, even longer without her in there to filter out all the rest. Without her, would I still be tangled in my thoughts, lost? Would I have killed myself? I imagine I would have; all that torment without anyone to tell me it was going to be okay... I have no doubt in my mind I wouldn't be here. I'll never tell her that, she'd begin to panic that I wanted to kill myself, which I don't. I don't. Even if she left me now, I'd survive. It's an awful thought, but I'd survive."