[ WWII AU ] a ghost story

[from_the_outside]

It's been almost two years since she's been home, and little by little, the grief has gotten easier to live with.

It hasn't gone away. But she's able to focus on her job, watch movies, chat with friends, sleep most nights. She still dreams about him, but the dreams are tinged with wistful longing and only sometimes does she wake up with tears on her cheeks. She can't have his picture out in this apartment, Kate's apartment, but it's safe in the mountain house, along with his last letter to her, and she has a scan on her phone to look at when the long day is over and she's in bed, the stars from the lamp he'd given her filling her dark room.

Steve has helped, more than she could ever explain, and she hopes she's helped him in return. Aside from a few deeply classified missions here and there, they haven't worked together all that much, but she still sees him almost every day. In the halls, she's undercover as his mild-mannered neighbor, Kate, but in her secure apartment they can talk over anything, everything.

And it works. Every day is a little easier. They lean on each other when they need to, and they spend hours remembering and reminiscing about Bucky, talking shop, chatting about how Steve's fitting into the future. It's nice. She still misses Bucky, an ache that never really goes away, but they can both breathe through it, work through it, live through it.

She's on her way up from the basement laundry machines when she hears a familiar step in the hall, and has to smile to herself – first her own, then Kate's sweeter, more open one. "Hey, neighbor."

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[nerves_of_ice]

She shivers against him and he freezes, certain that he's done something wrong, scared or alarmed her somehow, only for the breath to rush out of him again all at once as she runs her fingers through his hair.

[from_the_outside]

He's lost and confused but that doesn't change how she feels when he breathes out in a puff of warmth against her throat, against the spot he used to kiss and tease and lavish attention on. She trembles again, harder, and can't keep herself from turning to press a kiss to his hair.

"There you go," she murmurs, just to say something comforting.

[nerves_of_ice]

She shivers again, but her words are soft and the press of her lips gentle. Bucky tips his head back, searching her face in the starlight, uncertain of what he'll find.

[from_the_outside]

She lifts her head as he moves his, and smiles at him. "I could get used to the long hair," she says, gently teasing.

"How do you feel?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"If you like it," he starts, and trails off there, not sure where to go.

Nor does he know how to answer her question. He struggles with it visibly for a few seconds. "I ... it's. Been. I don't -- it's a lot," he settles on, finally. "Not - not bad. Good."

[from_the_outside]

"It definitely is a lot. For all of us." She reaches to tuck a wayward lock of his hair off of his temple, fingers gentle. "I don't want to overwhelm you."

Maybe it would be best to just sit and look at the stars for a while, until he's ready to go back in. "Are you tired at all?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"You aren't. You haven't," he tries to reassure her, only to give the smallest shrug of his right shoulder in response to her question.

"I don't need much sleep."

[from_the_outside]

"But you still need some."

So does she, but she can take a nap tomorrow during the day, if she has to. Somehow she doubts that's something he's likely to do. "Sit with me a little longer before we go back inside? And then, would you try to sleep a little, for me and Steve?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"As long as you want." It's soft, but certain - more certain by far than the way his glance slips to the side at her second request. "I'll try."

[from_the_outside]

"Don't let me keep you out here all night," she teases, gently. "I don't want to let you go."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Then don't. Let go, I mean," he whispers, before he makes himself add, "But you need sleep, too."

[from_the_outside]

It was always a problem then, too. Only a few times did she ever convince him to let her stay for even part of the night, and never did they manage to get a whole night together, where they didn't have to let go of one another until morning.

"Then I'll try, too," she promises. "In a little bit."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay." He still has his arm around her waist, he realizes. As the thought strikes him he shifts a little, turning his left side slightly away but coaxing her to rest her head on his right shoulder if she wants, as he'd been doing with her before.

[from_the_outside]

She unwinds her arms from around him and shifts onto her hip, settling her head there in the curve of his shoulder, where it had always fit so perfectly. Her left arm she puts around the small of his back, holding on.

"I liked watching the stars so much with you that you got me that little lamp," she murmurs. "I still light it. Almost every night."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I saw you looking at it." He looks out at the sky so that he doesn't have to see her reaction as he explains. "That night. I couldn't figure out why. So I went back, after."

[from_the_outside]

"I can see how it would be confusing, without any memories."

He looks up at the sky, and she looks at him, rolling her head on his shoulder to do so. "Those nights back at the camp, and then at the base, and then the last two years... that lamp always made me feel a little better, even though I was sleeping alone."

[nerves_of_ice]

He winces at that, just a little. "I'm sorry I stole it. I didn't mean to. Or I don't think I did, exactly."

[from_the_outside]

"I got it back. It's okay, Bucky."

Or as okay as any of this can be, at least.

[nerves_of_ice]

He looks down at her. "It's not okay, but it's good you have it back." It's lucky that the little ceramic is strong and had been protected enough where he'd stashed it so as not to have broken in the fight.

[from_the_outside]

"Having it back is definitely good."

She leans her head back again, against his shoulder, so she can look at the sky. "I'm glad Aunt Peggy kept it for me, all those years."

[nerves_of_ice]

"She said she gave you my letter," he murmurs. "I guess she gave you other things too."

[from_the_outside]

"Well, she kept them aside for me," Sharon tells him. "Here, actually. In a piece of her old furniture, up in the attic. Steve and I came down to find them after, after I came back."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Oh." He considers that for several seconds. "What else did she keep?"

[from_the_outside]

"The lamp," she tells him, thinking back.

"Howard's files. Letters. My old clothes." She smiles, a little. "The hairclips you got me for Christmas."

[nerves_of_ice]

He flinches violently at the mention of Howard Stark, and hastily attempts to distract from what he knows, despairing, is an all-too-obvious reaction.

"Hairclips," he says. "Do you - do you still wear them?"