"The world was on fire, and no-one could save me but you. Strange what desire will make foolish people do. I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you. I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you." -Chris Isaak

Lee can feel her crying before she is even at the same block as the apartment. Her sister's sadness mingling with the constant chatter in her head. She tries to push it out, give Lenore her privacy, but the sadness is too strong… It's always too strong…always the same. She heads up the stairs, unlocking the door with her mind, because floating groceries usually attracted more attention. She steps inside to see a sight she sees every few days. Lenore sitting on the floor in the corner of the main room, her elbows on her knees and hands over her face, sobbing to herself. Surrounded by sketches and paintings….sketches of blood. Of guns. Of doctors. Of the people she killed. The pain she felt. The things she regrets. Mostly pictures of him. His eyes. Sketches somehow portraying the sadness she remembers in them. Handwritten sheet music thrown in the mix, lyrics of regret and sorrow scribbled down. The ripped spots in the paper where her tears weakened it and the pen went through.

"Don't say a Goddamn word." Lenore sobs, hearing Lee enter the apartment.

"Wasn't going to." Lee sits the groceries down on the kitchen counter.

"You don't have to. I can feel your pity. I don't need it. I don't want it!"

"It's not pity. It's concern. It's love." Lee says, not looking towards Lenore, but putting the groceries away.

"I don't deserve it."

"The pain?"

"The love..."

Lee closes the fridge, abandoning the groceries and returning to her sister, scooting the papers away and kneeling amongst them. "Len… you know there is nothing we could do for him. You did what you had to do… you didn't have a choice."

Lenore removes her hands from her face, and grips her knees. "Yes I did, I could have saved him! He was just standing there, Lee, I could have easily knocked him out and escaped him with too."

"And then what? We have covered this, he wouldn't let me in his mind, he would have been our prisoner. It would have never worked. It was hopeless, Lenore."

"I could have tried! I should have tried!" Lenore begins to cry again. "He begged me to stay, and I just left him there! Left him alone with them!"

"You can't blame yourself. You made the right choice."

"I made the selfish choice! I chose the guarantee of my freedom over the chance for his. That choice is all on me. The first choice of my freedom, and I chose to be selfish. All the blood on my hands, I was forced to do that. But his pain? That is all on me. I don't deserve freedom. I don't deserve love." She stands up, smoothing her dress and grabbing her gloves and guitar from the table.

"Where are you going?"

"I need someone to hear me, Lee." She looks over her shoulder at her. "Someone who isn't already in my head." She slides her gloves on, and slings the guitar case over her shoulder as she heads out of the door.

Lee picks up one of the pictures of him. Rubbing her fingers over the teardrops smearing the ink. I wish you knew how much she rips herself apart over you. How much she loves you. I wish you could tell her you don't blame her. I wish you could convince her not to hate herself, that she is worthy of love. Lord knows I have tried. She won't listen to me. Maybe she would listen to you. I hate having to be the strong one.

Back in the jet, Natasha sets the autopilot to their base back in the states. "I set the flight path to take us back to the base, maybe these files I took from the base can give us a lead on where to find Emily. But it will take me a little while to sort through them all." Natasha says, exiting the cockpit and returning to the rest of the group in the main part of the jet.

Lenore looks at the hodge-podge group of people sitting around her. Including him. His name is Bucky …of all the names I imagined for him… that wasn't one of them. She looks over to Captain America. Damn, still can't get used to that. He looks like he has a thousand questions floating around his mind. She smiles. "Go ahead and ask me anything you want. I'll let you know if you hit a subject I don't wanna talk about." She puts her arms behind her head and leans back in her seat.

Steve asks the most important question first, "Can you fix Bucky's mind?"

"I can't, but Lee should be able to. Once the first wall is down, and he wants to remember, she will be able to go in and help him break down the walls that Hydra put in his mind."

"The first wall?" Steve asks, leaning forward.

"That's what Lee called it. It's basically like Hydra put so many things into the brain by force, the brain puts up a wall to try to defend itself from further damage. The person has to invite Lee into their mind to remove the Hydra bullshit." She sees Steve twitch slightly, "Sorry, I curse. You'll just have to get used to it." She smiles. "But anyways, the easiest way to break that wall is through the subconscious. Hydra can't block that. They may block the memory of someone, but they can't block feelings. Someone you knew before; you are going to still feel like you know them, but have no idea why." She looks over at Bucky, "So who broke through?"

Bucky looks up, "Steve. He was my best friend…before…" Lenore gives a sympathetic smile.

"I got lucky. The person who could fix me was also the closest person to me. I didn't have to let her in, she was already there because of our connection."

"If the first wall wasn't a problem for you, how do you know all of this? Has she fixed someone else?" Steve asks.

"No. She hasn't fixed anyone. But we sure as hell tried." She steals a glance at Bucky. I begged her to try. We tried like hell to save you too.

"I thought I remembered everything. I remembered my past…my…assignments." Bucky leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"You don't remember all of them. Some memories are blocked better than others. The dangerous or the emotionally damaging, and the programming for all the triggers. Those are the hardest to access."

"Is that why I don't remember you?" Bucky asks, his blue eyes piercing into her.

She feels her stomach fluttering. Stay cool, Goddamnit. "Yeah, They probably wanted to make sure the incident that happened when I escaped didn't happen again. Made sure your memories of me were buried deep."

"What incident?" Steve asks before Bucky can respond.

Lenore looks over at Steve, partially grateful she can break the agonizing eye-contact with Bucky for this. "He let me live… Let me escape. He had orders to subdue me or kill me, and he didn't. He fought his programming for long enough for me to get away with my sister. Hydra didn't like that I am sure." She can feel Bucky's eyes on her, but she can't bring herself to look at him. Until he forces her to.

"What will it be like?" Bucky asks, and she knows he is asking if taking it out is going to hurt as much as when it went in.

She sighs, "I wish I could tell you it will be rainbows and butterflies, but that would be a lie. The process won't hurt. But the memories will. As bad as you think the ones you have are, the ones they suppressed are worse. But…after it is all unlocked, they no longer have any control over you. You don't have to fear hearing a string of ten words and losing yourself anymore." Bucky nods almost imperceptibly and looks at the ground.

Lenore looks at Sam who seems to be in a mental debate with himself. She raises an eyebrow, inviting his question.

"Can I ask about the arm?" Sam asks, rather quickly.

"Sure." She lifts her right arm, showing the room her metal prosthetic, stopping just below the elbow. "It's basically the same thing as …Bucky's…sorry, still not used to you not just being Soldat" She pauses, gauging his reaction, but there isn't any reaction. "Except I don't get the whole arm. As for how it happened…well. Not long after we were taken, my sister underestimated the mind control… Tried to get through to me, rather publicly. As a way for Hydra to get her to comply, they showed her what would happen if she didn't cooperate. They made me use my full power without her. Without her controlling the energy, I quickly lost track of how much matter I was burning. Ended up vaporizing my lower arm rather than just body fat. Russia was more than happy to claim the resulting explosion as a nuclear weapons test, and I got a new heat resistant arm."

"Wait, was this 1962?" Natasha chimes in.

"Yup. You know your history." Lenore smiles.

"Tsar Bomba was you?" Natasha replies, and Lenore nods. "Tsar Bomba was thought to be the largest nuclear weapons test in human history." Natasha explains for the confused faces about the room.

"And that was just half my arm…" Lenore sighs, waiting for them to realize the monster she is.

"How does your power work, exactly? You mentioned burning body fat and you lost me." Sam asks, jumping back into the conversation.

Lenore chuckles, "Well I take matter, and convert it into its constituent energy waves. I can vary the wave's energy from infrared up to gamma rays. Infrared, or heat, is all I can use without Lee, because I can center it in my metal arm and it just conducts through it. Organic matter is the easiest to break down, I guess because it's easiest to use my own body as fuel. Hell, at first I didn't even know I was burning my own fat, until I burned my own arm off, and then the always being hungry made it all make sense."

"Do you think that is how mine works?" Wanda asked, looking at Lenore. "I was…enhanced in a Hydra program that was a spin off from yours. That is how we found out about you."

"Could be. You probably wouldn't even realize you are doing it." She pauses, "So you are like me?"

"Kind of. I think I am a mix of you and your sister. I generate and control red energy, and I can mess with minds."

"Just red?" Lenore inquires, and Wanda nods. "They probably lowered the strength of the serum, so that it could be handled by one person. You and I should talk about this more later." Lenore gives Wanda a large grin, and she returns it.

"You were free for five years, if the two of you are so powerful together, how did Hydra re-capture you?" Sam comes in, always asking the tricky questions.

Shit, shit, fuck. "It wasn't a fair fight… they threatened someone." Lenore manages to reply, trying not to let her nervousness seep into her words.

"Someone you care about?" Natasha asks, looking for a response.

"It doesn't matter. Just that they had someone and they threatened to hurt him even more." Lenore refuses to look in the direction of Bucky, keeping her eyes on Natasha, and she knows she has given her more information than she would like, "This is a subject I am not interested in talking about." She stands up, "Is there any food around here? I haven't eaten anything in…" She looks around. "What year is it?"

"2017" Steve answers.

"Twelve years."

"There are rations in the crate in the back, I will get you something." Steve replies, standing up to walk with her to the back of the jet. "Listen, I am sorry about that. We didn't mean to upset you. Natasha shouldn't have pushed. You are here as our guest, here to help out my best friend, and I am going to do my best to make you feel welcome." He grabs some rations, adding the water and putting them in the re-hydrator.

"I would still be in a Hydra freezer if it weren't for you, and I owe Bucky my life several times over. You don't owe me anything." Lenore responds, just as the re-hydrator dings.

"So you really did know Bucky?" Steve asks, removing the food and sitting it on the nearby table with a bottle of water. He then sits at the table across from the food, and Lenore joins him, beginning to eat.

"Yeah. I mean…Kind of. I don't know him like you do… I didn't know him before… I knew him during. It was always like, we were in it together… it's… complicated…" She looks towards the front of the jet, seeing Bucky still in his seat, unmoving. "Especially since he doesn't seem to remember me at all."

"I thought you said the feeling of knowing someone doesn't go away?" Steve asks.

"Yeah. Exactly. So I must not have made a big impression" It means that it was all one sided. It wasn't that he couldn't kiss me back… but that he didn't want to. She takes a bite of her food, trying not to let herself get emotional on this cramped plane in front of everyone…in front of him.

"I don't know…He seemed pretty comfortable around you back at the base. And when I first saw him after Hydra, he just…looked right through me. So I know how you feel. But when we find your sister, and she helps him get everything back. Then he will remember everything that you do."

Lenore softly smiles. That is exactly what I am afraid of.