"Do you know this man?" he asks calmly.
I tell him that I do.
"Do you remember how you knew him?"
It takes me a minute, but I eventually respond. "I think I killed him." I say softly.
He nods and holds up another picture. This process continues for a couple of hours. The doctor shows me a picture and I tell him how I knew them. The answers range from 'I sabotaged them,' 'I helped blackmail them,' to 'I killed them.' Once Dr. Watson finished with his questions he looked me in the eye.
"You did very well today. If you continue this progress, in a couple of weeks you might get a place in the Tower." I look at him with a blank expression, as I'm still not entirely sure which emotions are appropriate in different situations.
"Thank you." I respond.
"We'll have another session tomorrow afternoon, focusing on adjusting back to civilian life. I'll see you then." He gets up to leave with the rest of his team following him.
After he leaves, I'm left alone. I felt more things in the last few days than I have in seventy years. All I feel now is crushing guilt. I've just been reminded of every atrocious thing I've done for Hydra over the years. I couldn't feel guilt at the time, so now it's engulfing me.
The lights flicker off, as they do every night at this time. I lay down on the bed, and stare up at the white ceiling. The darkness only serves to amplify how sorry I feel. A small tear, the first I've shed in decades, run down my face. I lay there in the dark until sleep comes to me.
A nurse wakes me up in the morning, bringing a tray bearing some kind of cereal. I sit up and nod in thanks before she scurries out of the room. Everyone in this place is afraid of me. Well, almost everyone. The doctor doesn't seem scared. I feel as though he thinks of me as a rather intriguing puzzle, not as a killing machine. Bucky is the other exception. He can relate, I suppose, which must make me less frightening. I'm not really offended by the actions of the others though. I would be scared of me too.
As I'm shoveling the slightly soggy cereal into my mouth, the door opens. Bucky walks quietly into my room. I down the rest of my breakfast, and set the empty bowl on the tray, shoving it to the end of the bed.
"Where are your friends?" I ask him.
He shrugs. "Probably still asleep. I thought I'd come here by myself today." He walks closer and sits next to me on the bed. "So, how's it going?" he asks in that voice he has that sounds like how I'd expect happy would feel. It's weird hearing him like that. I've only known him to speak in a cold monotone when he was the Winter Soldier.
"I feel like I don't exist." I respond.
A troubled expression crosses his face. "What do you mean?"
"I only know myself as Shadow. I don't know who Katherine is. I don't know what she likes, what she hates, what kind of person she is. I'm not Shadow, but I'm not Katherine either."
"I felt the same way when I first started trying to figure everything out. I understand."
"No you don't. You had a life to come back to. You can remember, and even if you don't, you have someone to help you. You said Steve was your friend before, right? He can tell you everything about yourself you need to know. I have nothing but a couple of facts HYDRA put together in my file."
"You think that having someone to tell you all about yourself makes it easier?" He asks with a strain in his voice. "It doesn't. Sometimes Steve tells me things about myself that don't seem true to me. He told me that I was one of the smartest people in my class in high school. There are times when I can't remember how to tie my own shoes. He constantly makes me spaghetti for dinner because she says it was my favorite food before. Now, it makes me sick. I eat it just to make him feel better."
I look down at the floor for a couple of seconds. "I'm sorry for thinking you had it easy."
"It's fine, just forget about it." Bucky says with a smile. "Look, we're the only ones who know what it's like, so I just think we should try to help each other out a bit. If you need someone to talk to, or to help you out in any way, I'll be there."
I smile back awkwardly at him. "Okay. Same goes for you too."