[ 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

[from_the_outside]

"Yeah."

There's no hiding from that, either. "We're going to have to figure out how to deal with that."

[nerves_of_ice]

"We," he starts, and stops before he gets any further. He doesn't even know how to say it, where to begin.

"We. You." He swallows hard, trying to feel his way with each word. "You don't... have to."

[from_the_outside]

"I know." Her lips turn up in a soft, crooked smile.

"But I'm gonna do it anyway."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Why?" It bursts out of him before he can keep it locked behind his teeth. He adjusts as fast as he can manage to provide some explanation. She deserves that.

"It's not - I mean. Of course you would. You're - you're that kind of person. I ... I know that. I remember that. Mostly. Now."

He flattens his right hand against the arm of the chair he's in, feeling the wood under his fingers, trying to ground himself in the present.

"But. But. Sharon. I hurt you. I scared you. I still do. You - you don't have to, to hurt yourself by doing this. I was gone. You had a life."

[from_the_outside]

The awful thing is, he's not wrong. He'd been gone. She'd mourned him. And even if she hadn't quite been to the point of moving on, she'd been nearing it. He wouldn't have wanted her to be alone and grieving forever, and neither would she. If she made herself, she's pretty sure she could even see what that life would have looked like.

And he had scared her. Hurt her. There's a part of her even now that's wary and ready to spring away from any attack.

But that life that could have been is gone now, and she's been hurt and scared before. "You were gone," she murmurs. "But you're back. And that changes everything. Bucky, there's no way I could ever do anything but help you."

[nerves_of_ice]

He buries his face in his right hand, unable to look at her, afraid of what he might see in her eyes.

He's not entirely conscious of what he's saying as he whispers, "A guardian angel."

[from_the_outside]

Her heart squeezes, hard and painful, and her stomach lurches abruptly to the right. Of all the things she might have expected him to say...

"That's right," she murmurs, her throat thick. "Your guardian angel."

[nerves_of_ice]

A shiver runs over his skin as flickers of memory flash through his mind like flipping through pages of a book that he can't quite read.

Blue light overhead. Falling (through the air) to the ground. Moonlight. Music.

He pushes himself clumsily out of his chair and lands on his knees on the deck, his head hanging forward as he tries to make himself breathe.

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky!"

She's up and out of her chair in the next second, kneeling in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. "Breathe."

Though her heart is hammering, she tries to keep her voice low and calm. "You're okay. Just breathe."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's not - I'm not - don't worry," he manages. He doesn't pull back from her, as he's not sure he could, but he twists slowly to his right so that he can put his left arm as far away from her as possible. As he does he shifts, until he's sitting on the wooden plank flooring instead of kneeling.

Her hand is still on his right shoulder. He tips his head toward it, his hair falling over her wrist.

[from_the_outside]

Her right hand falls away from his shoulder, but her left stays where it is. When he tips his head toward her touch, his hair brushes over her wrist and the back of her hand, and she can't keep herself from turning her hand to touch the ends with her fingertips. "Your hair is so long."

What an inane thing to say. But she just can't quite get used to it.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Nobody's cut it in a while," he murmurs, holding very still under her touch. "There was no reason to, I guess."

After a second, he tilts his head just a little further, trying to let her know he doesn't mind that she's playing with his hair, and catches the barest whiff of scent.

"You're wearing perfume." It's out before he thinks about it, although hesitant and uncertain. "Is that - new?"

[from_the_outside]

"Not new. I just didn't have it on me when I fell through the portal."

He tips his head a little further, and she pauses, then allows herself to push his hair back and over his ear. He hasn't been taking care of it, clearly, but it's clean and silky and when she pushes it out of his face, she can see him. Bucky. This face she never thought she'd see again. "Does it smell nice?"

[nerves_of_ice]

A frisson of sensation runs through him at the feel of her fingers in his hair, against his ear. He looks up at her, eyes dark in the dim light, searching her face as though he's memorizing it; memorizing her.

Maybe he is. He's not sure. "Yes," he says, finally.

[from_the_outside]

"Good." He used to study her like this, before; back when he thought he'd be the one losing her, and not the other way around. Her heart stutters and aches, but she doesn't pull away. A few measures of Moonlight Serenade float idly through her head.

"We used to sit out and watch the stars a lot together."

[nerves_of_ice]

"That's why it feels so familiar." He sounds certain of that much, at least, as his glance traces over the lines and angles and curves of her face and hair.

[from_the_outside]

"Yep." She smiles, then runs her hand down his arm and takes his hand in hers, tugging lightly. "Come on. Let's see if we can make it feel more familiar."

[nerves_of_ice]

Surprise flickers in his eyes, but he curls his fingers around hers and lets her draw him up to his feet. He's still careful to keep himself slightly angled with his left arm away from her, though. "Where are we going?"

[from_the_outside]

"Just out here."

She leads him off the porch and into the backyard, where the grass whispers around their feet and the trees smudge shadows around them. It isn't that field in France, but it's the closest facsimile she can offer here in Virginia. "Sometimes we'd walk hand in hand, like this – "

Her fingers curl a little more firmly around his. "Sometimes arm in arm."

[nerves_of_ice]

The grass is cool and soft under his feet, and he glances down at their hands as she holds on to him, then at her feet - which are also bare, he notices, as are her legs beneath her robe.

"Are you cold?"

[from_the_outside]

"I'm fine," she promises. The grass is a little damp, dew sticking blades of it to her feet, but it isn't uncomfortable. "I should have brought a blanket or something to sit on. You used to keep a ground cloth in a tree near the field, so I wouldn't get my clothes dirty."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Smart of me, it sounds like." He considers that for only a second before starting to shrug out of the light hooded jacket he's wearing.

[from_the_outside]

She has to let go of his hand for him to get the jacket off, so she does, but she doesn't move away, only stands there, amused.

"What're you doing?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He slips the jacket the rest of the way off and holds it out to her in his right hand.

"Something to sit on."

[from_the_outside]

She takes the jacket in her right hand and holds out her left for him to hold, smiling.

"Still got it, Barnes."