I Will Always Find You
by Sara, the Lady Dalian
Brooklyn, New York, February 1945
One day a pretty, brunette English woman by the name of Peggy Carter came to Brooklyn. This wasn't a duty she normally performed, but she was going to be in New York anyway having meetings and she told Steve she would come and deliver the news herself, as a favor. Steve didn't want his best friend's parents to find out their son was dead in a telegram. Mrs. Barnes couldn't believe that her son was dead, certainly not without proof. And with that need, she took Peggy Carter's hand, she walked out the door and down the block.
Kowalski's bakery was just closing down the front of the store for the day when Mrs. Barnes and Peggy walked in. It was warm and humid from the proofing ovens but at this time of day, there was no one in the front of the store. When Mrs. Barnes asked about speaking to Ali, her boss gave her the rest of the afternoon off, and permission to use his office. "I hope you can help, Mrs. Barnes. Ali hasn't been right these last couple of weeks. Som'ins wrong." He led the women to the back room, where a young black-haired woman was washing out long pans in a sink.
"Ali?" The young woman turned at the sound of her name and saw the others waiting for her. The women could see what Mr. Kowalski meant about something being wrong with Ali. Her eyes were red and puffy, it looked like she hadn't slept in a long time and she was practically gaunt. "Oh, child, come here." Mrs. Barnes held out her hand to Ali, and the young turned into her arms. They held each other for a few minutes, the older muttering loving, mother things to the young woman. She knew that Ali had loved her oldest son for a long time, and the separation from him was likely causing these problems. "Ali, this is Agent Carter, from the army. She has news of Bucky."
When Mrs. Barnes asks Peggy to tell Ali about Bucky, Ali won't hear of it. "My Jamie isn't dead. I know…" She was wild-eyed, not believing. "I don't know who you are, or what you think you know, but Jamie isn't… he's in too much pain to be dead." The young woman kept shaking her head, her eyes wide. She was rubbing her left arm, right at the shoulder, as if trying to rub out an ache that had settled in the bone.
"Do you know where my boy is, Ali?"
Ali looked from her Jamie's mother to the statuesque woman in Army uniform, then she closed her eyes and turned to the east, rotating until she was looking slightly northeast. Tears started rolling down her face. "Always. He's afraid, Mrs. Barnes. I've never felt him like this. It's cold, he's in pain, and scared. There's something wrong with his arm." She looked back at Peggy and then turned back the same direction. "Your people need to find him. Please! Jamie shouldn't be afraid. He's there and has been there for too long. I don't know how far away, but there," the young woman pointed off in the same direction she had faced before.
Peggy looked back at the young woman. She looked like all the others who had lost men they loved. It was why these notices were usually telegraphed. There were too many, and it was simply exhausting to tell people that their loved one wasn't coming home. "I'm sorry for your loss, both of you."
The young woman looked back at her, tears drying up. "You're not going to tell them are you?"
"There's nothing to tell. He fell over the Danube river. The fall would have killed him, even if the weather didn't. I'm sorry." The young woman and her Jamie's mother didn't think she looked too sorry. They held each other as Agent Carter walked out of the back room and from the shop. It was a more than two decades before Peggy Carter saw that young woman again.
The next morning, before sunrise, Ali knocked on the Barnes' tenement door. Mrs. Barnes opens the door to find Ali with a knapsack on her back, rough men's clothes on her body and steel in her eyes. She brought the young woman into the apartment and drew her into a hug. "I know why you're here, girl. Come on, I've packed some things for you." Ali leaves with some extra some food, some of Jamie's old heavy work clothes and a little money for her to stash in her knapsack. "Where will you go?"
"Wherever I have to go to find him." And, with that, Alianna left Brooklyn heading to a war-torn Europe. The war would be officially over soon, but she still had a long journey ahead of her. While she never saw Mrs. Barnes again, she sent postcards whenever she could. Fortunately one day, one finally came with the message, "I've found him."
A/N: I'm putting my disclaimer down here so as not to interrupt the flow of the story. Here's the one and only. I do not own Marvel or any other recognizable market. And FYI – even though I don't own them, either, there's a Kowalski's market in Minneapolis that sells baked goods.
Let me know what you all think. I've got this all planned out and about half written. Right now, the plan calls for the bare bones of the story, but there's room for more if I can work it in. The story will make everything after CW: WS obsolete. So – Infinity Wars isn't a problem. Here's hoping Endgame will make that movie much easier to watch. James Buchanan Barnes deserves to live. And be happy.