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TWO | BEYOND THE SEA
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THEY'RE DRAMATISED AND OBSESSED OVER AND EXAGGERATED UNTIL IT'S HARD FOR SOMEONE LIKE HARRIET TO PIECE TOGETHER WHAT'S FACTUAL AND WHAT HOLLYWOOD TOOK LIBERTIES WITH. Time periods were everyone's favourite topic to discuss whenever Harriet Lawrence walked into a room. Granted, yes, technically she lived in two very distinct ones, so she can see the correlation (but it didn't make it any less annoying for her to hear about constantly) (especially when most people who asked silly questions knew she didn't exactly remember the first one to give answers that couldn't be found in history books–like why even waste her time?).
In her five years since waking up in that hospital bed (although did two of those years even count if she was stuck in rehabilitation), she had learnt a lot about both her time periods. From ignorant misconceptions about the early 1900s (which Steve would proudly correct people on, so she'd learnt to do the same) to how modern women were expected to do it all, it was a lot for her brain to wrap its head around sometimes. Migraines were common whenever she had to think about the '40s.
She's developed a pretty robotic, copy and paste answer for anyone who asks: "It isn't that much different to today, really. You guys just have better technology and worse manners." Her statement sounded true enough from the offhand comments Steve made to some of the movies she had watched in an attempt to catch up. She couldn't exactly fact-check it with any of her own memories. And besides, she was usually met with laughter when she delivered that line, which made her swift escape easy.
It's not as if she hates talking about the past–truly. It's just that it's still rather difficult for her to visualise any of her own memories, a fact she didn't like to throw into casual small talk.
One would think that after so much therapy, her mind would stop feeling like it'd caught ablaze anytime she tried to envision her parents' faces or the names of her friends. Most of the things she remembers—if it can be called remembering—were told to her by Steve or lifted from her painfully bare S.H.I.E.L.D. file.
Sometimes she awoke in cold sweat, reaching desperately for the vague flashbacks already slipping through her grasp.
Harriet would love to have actual memories of her own. She'd love to remember the fiancé–God rest his soul–that she supposedly had or the job she fought tooth and nail to get. Hell, she'd even love to have retained some of the knowledge from her college degree.
