[ 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."

Comments

[marvel_npc]

"I know you did." He puts sincere certainty and warmth into his words. "I have absolutely no doubt of that. He's probably just trying to figure stuff out--"

Which would make sense, given everything.

"--and figures he has to do it on his own."

Which is ridiculous, but Steve's certain that Bucky's just stubborn enough to try. He searches her face. "How, um... how did your talk go?"

[from_the_outside]

"Not great."

("I don't know who that man is, any more... I can't give him back to you.")

Her throat aches, but at least – thanks to Nat and some sleep, with the stars from his lamp floating overhead – she doesn't tear up. "He blames himself for everything, Steve, I... I couldn't get him to believe anything else."

[marvel_npc]

Steve sighs, long and slow, before his jaw sets in determined lines. "We'll just have to keep trying. I'd guess he's feeling pretty bad about hurting you."

There's a rueful expression in his clear blue eyes as he looks up at her. "I wasn't exactly tracking on all cylinders there on the beach, but he seemed pretty upset."

[from_the_outside]

"Me. You." She runs her thumb over his knuckles, grateful once again for Steve's steadfast determination.

"We'll keep trying, I promise. I'm not giving up on him. We're going to get him back, Steve, I swear."

[marvel_npc]

"You're darn right. We're not losing him again." Not after they've just found him.

He shifts a little in the bed, getting ready to get up so they can get started, and the twinges that ripple through him when he moves remind him. "How was his shoulder?"

[from_the_outside]

"It still hurt, I think."

She sighs, a small, sore sound. "I don't know. He stayed as far away from me as he could, mostly."

[marvel_npc]

"Hey." Steve leaves off standing and leans forward instead to take both her hands between his. "He wouldn't have come if he hadn't wanted to see you."

[from_the_outside]

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, slowly, meeting his eyes. "I don't know," she repeats, soft.

Her voice is a bare whisper. "He barely remembers the man he used to be. Or how he, he used to feel."

[marvel_npc]

"But he does remember," Steve insists. "Now, anyway."

Used to feel, she says, and he realizes something else. He hadn't thought - it's been two years, and Bucky's memory's always been part of their lives and always will, but maybe she wants something different now. He owes it to her to ask.

He tilts his head a little, searching her face. Gently, he asks, "What about what you feel?"

[from_the_outside]

It's not a complicated question. So why does it feel like she's suddenly about to step on a trap door?

She opens her mouth to say it doesn't matter, then shuts it again. That's the last thing Steve would accept from her. "I don't know," she says, finally, and meets his steady gaze. "He died. I mourned him. We mourned him. I would have done anything to get him back again. I still light that lamp he gave me every night and think about what it was like to look at the stars with him."

Steve knows. There were more than a few late nights where he watched those same candlelit stars with her. She swallows, her throat aching. "But I'm... scared of him. And I don't know how to make it stop."

[marvel_npc]

Heart aching, he presses her hands between his as if he could give comfort through touch alone. Could Bucky tell? Is that why he'd stayed across the room from her, like she'd said?

"Then we'll figure that out too," he tells her. "You're not facing any of it alone."

[from_the_outside]

She nods and looks down, away from his sympathetic glance. "I tried not to be," she murmurs. "But there – in my apartment, where he'd come for me before – "

Sharon takes a deep, shaky breath and looks up at him, solemn. "It's not that I think that he did it. He didn't choose to hurt me or, or you. But it was still his hands. His voice. You know?"

[marvel_npc]

"I know." Bucky's face above him, twisted with rage and fear; Bucky's hands delivering bullets and blades and blows until he was left bleeding and broken in the wreckage of his own body and clinging to old memories.

"I understand, Sharon. I do."

[from_the_outside]

"I know you do." He's a better person than she is. He won't let what the Winter Soldier did influence how he reacts to Bucky, she's sure of it.

She takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. "We'll get him back," she promises. "We can figure out everything else later."

[marvel_npc]

"We will," he agrees. "All of it." He presses her hands together one more time, then pushes himself off the side of the bed to standing.

"My shoes have to be around here somewhere." He's just grateful Sam had brought a change of clothes for him.

[from_the_outside]

"Uh – " She gets up to help him look, but his shoes aren't under the bed, or behind the chair. "They must be – "

[marvel_npc]

"Sam," Steve sighs. "Must be."

"Heard my name." He leads the way into the room, to-go cups of coffee in each hand, followed by Nat. Sam tells Sharon, "She has yours," before he offers a cup to Steve. "You should still be in bed 'til they come round to discharge you."

"I'm tired of waiting," Steve says, polite but firm. "Where are my shoes, Sam?"

[from_the_outside]

She accepts her coffee from Nat and goes to stand by her friend while Steve and Sam talk, until she has to interject. "Look at him, Sam."

Her voice is gentle, but it has just as little give as Steve's. "It's okay. He's better."

[marvel_npc]

Sam studies them both, then glances at Nat, who smiles and shrugs. "You get used to it," she says.

"Uh-huh. Good to know." He goes to the wardrobe on the far side of the room and pulls Steve's shoes out from under a spare blanket at the back of the middle shelf.

"Thanks," Steve says, taking his shoes. He borrows the chair just long enough to shove his feet into them, then stands back up. "We'll stop at the nurse's station on the way."

[from_the_outside]

It's unspeakably relieving to see Steve standing and moving around with a minimum of pain. He's still a little stiff, she knows, but he's up and taking charge and that always makes the world feel a little more manageable.

She falls into step with him, then stands aside as they reach the nurse's station and the woman standing there.

[marvel_npc]

"Hi," he says, polite but direct. "I'm checking out. Steve Rogers, from--" He cranes his neck to spot the room number.

"I know who you are, Captain Rogers," the nurse replies. "I'm afraid Doctor Fine needs to clear you first."

[from_the_outside]

"Where is Doctor Fine?" Sharon asks, lightly. "Captain Rogers is ready to check out."

[marvel_npc]

"He's finishing rounds," the nurse says, unmoved. "He'll be here as soon as he can."

"How much longer will that be?" Steve asks.

[from_the_outside]

"Once he's finished rounds," the nurse says, a little more crisply. She stares Steve down exactly the way Nurse Hart used to stare down Howard Stark. "Please, go back to your room, Captain Rogers."

[marvel_npc]

Sam takes a look at Steve's expression and interposes himself. As he does, he catches Nat's eye and tips his head, trying to get her to coax them away.

"Listen," he says, quietly. "Think you can cut him a break? He really does have somewhere he needs to be, after, well, you know. Everything. Maybe just page the doc?"