Author's Note: hi, everyone! Sorry I'm a bit late updating. I thought I warned you guys I was going on hiatus for a bit, but maybe I didn't...My bad. Sorry. :( But here we are with the next chapter! And fyi, since I have 3 main fics running right now, I only update once a month. Sometimes I'll do it sooner if I have incentive but that's not a given because I don't update until my beta has proofed my upcoming chapter so it depends on her, too. But she finally finished chapter 8 last night so here we go! Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think, okay? Huggles!

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Chapter Eight

In the Dark of the Night

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8 months ago…

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The world was nothing but pain, the taste of blood on the back of his tongue, the smears of shadow and light filling his vision, the pulse of his heart throbbing deep through his wounds. Jack staggered out of the shadows toward the glowing windows of the bakery, wondering how much longer he could keep going before he bled to death. A half-dozen gunshot wounds didn't heal fast enough even with the super soldier serum trying to seal the injuries.

He'd driven until his vision had gotten to blurry to see the road. He'd known then that he had to get somewhere safe, somewhere someone could help him. His first thought had been Steve, but Steve was in New York and he'd been coming from North Carolina. His next thought was Sally, who'd been less than two hours away.

He hadn't realized how much blood could fill two hours. How many corpses had he left in his wake? How much death had followed him? He'd been careless in Charleston, and he'd nearly died. If he didn't get up those steps, he'd still probably die. But the closer he'd come to Whistle-Stop, the more care he'd taken to elude anyone who might have been hunting him. He couldn't lead the enemy back to Sally. He couldn't betray her that way. Her…the kids…Who knew what HYDRA would do to them? Whatever Sally's limited mutant abilities, she couldn't protect her family from HYDRA.

Two months. He'd managed to stay off the radar for two months while he'd stayed away from Whistle-Stop. But he'd slipped up when he'd tried to call Steve from a burn phone in Charleston. It had been a mistake, giving in to the gentle flickers of memories in his skull, the whispering breath that murmured of maybe and possibly and friendship and brother in the middle of the night when the darkness pressed in on him with the promise of nightmares. The ghosts of two boys had hovered at the edges of his thoughts, playing catch in a park, wrestling with a friendly dog, scraping knuckles and blacking eyes—their own, and the bullies'—in trash-strewn alleys, struggling with geometry in front of a fire and an old-fashioned radio.

It had been a choice between calling Steve and calling Sally…but he'd chosen Steve, even with all the baggage that came with that choice. Sally was the past. Steve was past, present, and future. Steve was memory and truth. Steve was his friend and his captain. So he'd chosen.

He'd chosen wrong.

Maybe HYDRA had Steve's phone tapped. Maybe SHIELD had been the one to send their dogs after him. It didn't matter. Within an hour of making that call—getting voicemail and floundering through two minutes of silence while the machine waited in vain for some sort of message—the hunters had found him. He'd taken six shots to the torso, one to the chest. He'd removed the bullets but he needed time to lay low, stop moving, just rest somewhere so his muscles could take the time to knit back together, so the blood could stop dripping with every step.

Sally. Sally would help him. She didn't ask questions, and she'd said Whistle-Stop was safe. Something about it made it safe. He'd never figured out what, but she'd been so sure…And, he realized with a jolt that sent everything throbbing afresh, he trusted her instincts.

He nearly tripped at the top of the stairs. His fist thumped weakly against the door. She had to be there. She had to hear him. If she didn't, she'd find his corpse out here on the stoop in the morning. He didn't think he could get up again unless it was to crawl into some hole and hide for a while. He sank to his knees and let himself rest against the doorframe. He just needed to rest…

The door opened. Light lanced across his vision, and his muscles spasmed as his body tried instinctively to flinch and decades of HYDRA training stopped him just in time.

There was a familiar gasp. Gentle hands gripping his shoulders before wrenching back, smeared with his blood. A slow exhalation of understanding and sharp fear. A shadow knelt beside him, all warmth and careful grip and concern. He looked up into honey-gold eyes behind coke-bottle glasses and offered a weak smile.

"I was…in the neighborhood."

"Holy smokes, Jack," Sally whispered. Her eyes darted all over his body. "What happened? We have to get you to a hospital—"

"No hospital," he groaned as she slid herself under his arm and helped him get back to his feet. He felt the bizarre, steely strength in her muscles as she took his weight. "I'll be okay." He bit back another groan as she turned them to head through the door, careful to keep him from bumping the doorframe. They started to inch across the entryway. "I just need…to lay down for a bit. Lay low. It'll heal."

The click of a gun cocking behind them sent ice water crashing through his veins, chilling him to the marrow. Sweat beaded his forehead. The enemy. They'd found him. He'd been so careful, but they'd found him. How? He'd tossed the burn phone. He'd taken back roads. He'd been so careful and yet…yet here they were. The enemy had found Sally. Her home.

They'd never let Sally or the kids live.

Low, smug laughter sent hatred slicing through him. The HYDRA grunt was laughing at him. That son of a—

But then the grunt said, "'Down by the Sally Gardens my true love and I did meet.'"

Sally stiffened further. The breath caught in her throat. She shifted to glance over her shoulder and it had to have been a trick of the light—or maybe the blood loss—because her eyes were the same sulfurous yellow they'd been when he'd said goodbye on the beach two months ago. Her lips looked strange, too. Her whole face looked just so subtly different. Off. Feral, almost. She glared over her shoulder and he remembered suddenly that at one point she'd actually killed someone before.

"I thought I killed you already," the grunt said. Sally's smile turned sharp, predatory, even without teeth. "Apparently you're a lot harder to kill than my boss originally thought."

"You've already tried twice," Sally replied, and it was then that Jack sluggishly realized that the assassin wasn't there for him. The killer wanted Sally. She added coldly, "I'm a little busy right now. I'm surprised you even had the guts to try attacking me here. I wouldn't suggest trying again. Shoo."

"Did you just shoo someone holding a gun on us?" Jack mumbled while his mind raced, trying to find a way out. He could kill the guy but if he did, he might tear something. Speed up the bleeding. Possibly—probably—kill himself. But Sally didn't seem worried. Why wasn't she worried about the maniac with a gun? She wasn't expecting Jack to save them in the condition he'd showed up in, did she? Or was she having some kind of a hunch? Was the sheriff nearby? That friend of hers, King?

Sally carefully moved out from beneath his arm and pressed him against the doorframe for support. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll make this quick, and then I'll take care of you, okay? You'll be alright. Just hang on, Jack." And in one fluid motion, she drew a black-painted pistol from the back of her jeans and aimed it with all the grace of a dancer at the person holding a gun on them. A silencer sat sleek and menacing against the barrel.

The enemy scoffed. "You've got their poison in your blood, traitor. You're no match for one of us hand to hand. And those pathetic bullets can't do anything to me."

Her smile transformed into a savage grin that showed incredibly white teeth. Teeth that seemed strange, different from when she'd always smiled at him before. Jack slid slowly to the floor as Sally took a step toward the assassin. Everything was blurring badly now. He squinted at Sally as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"One thing, Westenra," Sally hissed. "These are special. A present from Somerfield."

She shot the would-be killer in the chest. The pistol's silencer turned the concussive bang to a soft shhp! sound. The bullet punched through the grunt's chest and he took a single step back as red mist puffed up from his shirt, just visible in the overhead porch light. He didn't go down. Barely faltered. He had to be some kind of mutant. One of HYDRA's psychotic super-soldier washouts. Jack swallowed and grabbed the doorframe. He had to get on his feet, get steady, if he was going to help her. It didn't matter if death breathed icy and seductive down the back of his neck, setting his teeth on edge. He refused to just lie down and die while Sally and her kids were in danger.

The guy—Westenra, that's what Sally had called him—Westenra took a step. Laughed. It was almost a giggle. Jack tried to push away from the door and nearly hit the cement. A white-knuckled grip on the doorframe kept him from falling as Westenra took another step.

"You were always a lousy shot, Sally. You think any of your little human friends could ever make that teeny problem just go away? Haha…" Westenra jerked to a halt as Sally lowered the gun…but he wasn't looking at Sally anymore. He was staring at the spot where his trapezius muscle met the rest of his chest. He touched sluggishly bleeding the hole as something flickered against his black shirt. "What…? It's tingling. What did you do? Coat the thing in poison?" Westenra giggled again. "You should know that won't work, either, Sally…"

He trailed off again as the flickering thing grew brighter. One black-gloved hand stole up to his face as he staggered back. He stared at Sally in dawning horror. "What…what did you? What have you done? What is this?" He coughed, a deep retching cough that seemed to tear through his chest like talons. He sank to his knees as black lines crept up from the neck of his shirt, up over his carotid and jugular, unfurling along his cheeks. He gagged. Glittering black ocher spilled from his lips. "What is this?!"

Westenra's words gurgled in his throat, drowning in the sludge dripping from his mouth, but apparently Sally could understand him. She murmured, "A micro-bot engine pumping silver nitrate through your system faster than you can get rid of it. You really should've left when I gave you the chance."

Sally slid the gun into a cleverly concealed holster at her back and turned to catch Jack just as he lost his battle with gravity. Hefting him up, she helped him stumble into the bakery. She kicked the door closed as Westenra sank to the ground.

"Come on, let's get you upstairs and look at your injuries."

"Aren't you worried about someone finding him?"

She shook her head. Glanced once at the door before fixing her gaze on the staircase leading to the second floor. "He'll be ash in a few minutes. That stuff will burn him to nothing pretty fast. Now stop talking, I need to concentrate."

Jack felt her trembling as she halted at the foot of the staircase. He tried to straighten up, realizing she probably couldn't bear his weight all the way up to the top of the stairs. He was just too heavy, especially with his cybernetic arm. But Sally tightened her grip. Drew a deep breath in through her nose and then out slowly through her mouth. Her lips looked strange again. Like she could barely keep them together. As if something other than breath was trying to push its way out of her mouth. But then she tightened the arm she had wrapped around his torso and set her foot on the bottom stair.

"This might hurt a bit," she murmured, and lunged forward. Jack felt a sharp yank through his arm and enough pressure against his back to make his bruised ribs yelp in protest and his bullet wounds ooze fresh spurts of blood. Vertigo slammed into him like a freight train. When he managed to shake his head clear, they were at the top of the stairs. Sally shook so hard her teeth chattered as she helped him move toward the couch. "Just…" She managed to suck in enough air to speak. "Just give me a second."

He noticed her knees wobbling as she headed to a linen closet in the hall close to the living room. She pulled out several dark towels and managed to stumble back to the couch as Jack sank onto it with a muffled groan. Were the kids awake? He didn't want them to see this; it would scare them to death.

Sally sank to the floor and draped a couple of the larger towels over the couch seats. Jack shifted a little, wincing, to sit on one of the thick, terrycloth towels. Sally took his hands.

"I have to strip you down a bit," she murmured. Was that a blush spreading across her cheeks? "So I can get to your injuries. How bad is it?" When he raised an eyebrow, she added, "I know you know enough to accurately diagnose yourself. Anything damaged below the belt?"

The Winter Soldier shook his head and peeled off his black gloves. They were caked in dried blood. He dropped them on a towel Sally had set on the floor. His knuckles were slightly swollen with a little purple bruising, the only sign that he'd broken a few of them punching out some of the killers that had picked up his trail. When he reached for his shirt, he winced. Fire blazed under his ribs. Definitely cracked. Not broken, though. They'd be okay in a few hours. Twelve, tops.

"Here," Sally said. "Let me." She grabbed the hem of his black turtleneck and helped ease it slowly up his torso. Her eyes widened at the sight of the myriad scars carved across his torso. Her fingertips brushed one just above the waistband of his black jeans where a mark had sliced him with a Bowie knife; the touch left a strange tingling sensation behind, even though he usually couldn't feel much when something touched his scars. How was he feeling that?

He knew most of the marks without even having to look in a mirror, faint though they were. It took a lot to leave a scar on a super-soldier, and even then, they didn't show up as vividly as scars on other people. Most of the time you couldn't see them at all, only feel them, slicker than regular skin. How could Sally see them in this dim light?

He expected horror. He expected discomfort at the least. Most people flinched away from the evidence of old wounds like these. Instead she nodded her head when he thanked her and then helped him ease out of the turtleneck completely, without saying a word, revealing the gunshot wounds like dark gaping mouths in his body and the knife wound that had skittered across two ribs—the only reason he wasn't dead. Only then did she speak.

"Oh, my…goodness," she breathed. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth despite the pain. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard someone say that. She touched the two he'd managed to bandage himself. Touched the scarred-looking skin where his prosthetic arm attached to his body. "Jack…" She pressed her lips together. Sucked in a breath. "Let me go get the first-aid kit. Wait here."

Jack counted his heartbeats, sluggish and aching, while he waited for her to come back. She probably didn't have what he needed to pry the last three bullets out of his shoulder, back, and side. But he'd check out her supplies before he went scrounging in the kitchen. If worst came to worst, he'd have to try to see if he could get the flesh and muscle to re-grow around the bullets. He wasn't sure if even his super-soldier healing abilities were up to the task.

Steve had survived being beaten by the Winter Soldier inside one of SHIELD's helicarriers. He'd survived four gunshot wounds, a concussion, broken ribs, and a plunge into the icy waters of the Potomac. Jack knew that, because he'd checked on the other man in the hospital after his world-shattering visit to the Smithsonian. If Steve could do it, could he?

Except Steve had had a hospital. There was that. But Jack had Sally. That would have to be enough.

"Mommy?"

Jack stiffened and Sally nearly tripped coming back into the living room at the sound of the plaintive, sleepy child's voice. Jack didn't even have to turn around to see who had come out of their room. He'd know that voice immediately—little Will. The kid was a pretty light sleeper for a five-year-old. Jack should've remembered that.

Sally hurriedly set the first-aid kit—and it was a pretty big one, the super-soldier noted with no little surprise—on the floor next to the couch and then rushed toward the hallway again. "What's the matter, Will? Did you have a bad dream?"

"I thought I heard Jack."

Even though moving even a little sent the world spinning, Jack reached down and snatched up one of the black towels, throwing it around his shoulders to hide the worst of his injuries in case the kid ran out to see if he'd heard right. Didn't want to scare the kid. But Sally was hustling Will back to his room, saying, "Yes, Jack's here. You can talk to him in the morning. He's not going anywhere. Right now we have some grown-up talk to talk about, okay?"

"Hi, Jack!" Will called from his doorway. Sally shushed him and shut his bedroom door before running back out.

"Sorry," she mumbled, coming around the couch to kneel next to him. "Sorry. The kids have really missed you."

He tried to ignore the stab of guilt at her words. "What about Peter?" He thought of the skinny college kid with the curly hair who'd been Sally's counter-guy. He'd always acted like he had something to hide, but somehow had never even registered as a blip on Sally's radar. "Why couldn't they play with him?"

Sally shrugged as she pulled out what Jack realized were forceps in a sealed, sterilized bag. Apparently she did have the proper tools to remove bullets from people. "He had to go back to New York," she replied softly, opening the bag. She held the forceps with practiced ease and pushed the towel off his shoulders. "Turn around if you can," she added.

It was easier to move—though it still left his vision blurry and his lungs spasming—now that he wasn't standing or trying to move swiftly. He shifted until Sally could get a good look at his back. He'd been lucky, he knew. The bullets weren't meant to kill him. Just incapacitate him. The enemy hadn't counted on having to shoot him so many times in order to preserve their own lives. His metabolism burned through sedatives and tranquilizers almost as fast as the Hulk, which meant tranq darts were out of the question. So there were no shattered bones or anything else. Just ripped muscle and blood vessels pumping blood into the night.

"I don't have any topical to numb this," she murmured. "Can you keep from screaming?"

He nodded. "I've been through worse."

"I don't doubt it," she muttered, and set to work.

The Winter Soldier had to hand it to her—most of the HYDRA doctors who patched him up were butchers compared to her deft touch and gentle manner. Despite the low light, she found each bullet without difficulty and plucked it out, dropping it onto a towel. She seemed to have a hard time with the sight and smell of blood, though. She had to stop frequently to go and stick her head out the window, gasping for air. A wave of guilt tugged at him.

He pushed it away. He'd had no choice but to come here. While everyone hunting him would expect him to run and hide in DC where Captain America made his home base, that was the last place he could go. But no one knew about Sally and his time here. Whistle-Stop was safe, she'd said. He was really starting to believe that, because somehow he'd managed to make it here okay.

"You gonna be all right?" Jack murmured when she'd taken out every bullet he couldn't reach and begun cleaning the wounds with peroxide. The astringent burned in the wounds, sizzling where it met any beginnings of infection his own body hadn't had time to deal with yet.

Sally nodded. "I don't do well with blood," she said. She ducked to place a curtain of auburn hair between them. "But we're almost done."

"I'm surprised, for someone who doesn't handle blood very well, how good you are at this," he said. A probing question hidden in a blandly delivered statement. Her lips quirked into a wry smile, just visible through her hair.

"Necessity is the mother of strength. Are you going to need stitches?"

He shook his head, unsurprised she'd asked. She was used to dealing with mutants with weird powers. No doubt she'd met a few who could heal the way he could. "Just bandages."

She really was a soft touch, he thought as she carefully pressed folded gauze pads to each wound and wrapped them carefully with rolls of bandage. It should've hurt, even with his healing ability—and it did, but nowhere near as much as he'd thought it would. When it was over, Sally smoothed her fingers over the bandage on his shoulder almost in a caress. Jack clenched his jaw and forced himself not to react. He hadn't been touched this much by anyone since the last time he'd been here, and before that…

The force of Pierce's backhand still cracked through his memory from time to time. Jack could still smell the metal and disinfectant that hung so oppressive in the room where they'd wiped his memories again and again. If he didn't push the flashback away, he could still taste the coppery flavor of his own blood pouring into his mouth from Pierce's blow.

It was nice to be touched so gently. So intimately, as if the fingertips resting against his skin acknowledged that this wasn't an object they touched, but a person. He lived, he breathed, he bled. Better than the cold, impersonal hands of his handlers at HYDRA. Sally's touch was anything but cold.

"I really missed you," she whispered so softly he wasn't sure she expected him to hear her.

He swallowed. Met her eyes, so wide behind her coke-bottle glasses. He sighed. If there had been any other choice, he wouldn't have come back here. This wasn't fair to her. She needed help, someone she could depend on. Her kids needed stability. His life was anything but stable.

"I'm sorry I dropped in on you like this," he said.

She shrugged. "You're always welcome here, Jack. You should know that by now. How long are you staying this time?"

He had to bite his tongue before he said something ridiculous, like, "As long as you want me to." She'd want him to stay forever. She needed a handyman and counter-guy now that Peter was gone. She had kids to raise and a business to run. Of course she'd want the help. And this was the safest, nicest place he'd been in a long, long time. He'd gotten used to waking up to the scent of fresh-baked muffins and cake while he'd been here.

Instead of saying something stupid, he said in as toneless a voice as he could manage, "Just until I'm healed up. Don't want to be a burden."

Her hand fell on his shoulder, light as gossamer, warm as an ember in winter. "Jack…you're not a burden. We love having you here. And the guest house is empty. You could stay there as long as you want, just like before. The children would be so happy."

Suddenly he wanted to. He was so tired of running. The only time he hadn't been running in the last few months had been when he'd been here, at Whistle-Stop, in Sally's guest house. But he knew he couldn't stay. Not again. "That wouldn't be a good idea, Sally."

She sighed. Nodded. "Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to." She started to get to her feet. Her joints popped and she mumbled something about being old as she started to straight up.

"Sally…" Jack trailed off. She paused, half-risen from her spot. "I…I missed you, too." He blinked. That wasn't what he'd intended to say. Pressing his lips together to keep from saying anything else incredibly stupid, he turned his head away so he wouldn't have to see the light that flickered in her eyes. Sally had to be lonely here in Whistle-Stop, surrounded by people who tormented her children and treated her differently because she was a mutant. Even one with only mild prescience. He cleared his throat. Tried to remember how Bucky Barnes would've played the situation back in the forties. "No one else makes panzerotti like you," he added with a light smile.

Sally's own smile flickered. Dimmed. Jack realized immediately he'd misstepped. Her small laugh held a strange edge to it. "Nobody cooks like me, Jack. I'm the Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop, Confectionary Mastermind. You should know that by now, too." She started gathering up the detritus from the impromptu surgery. "Let me just clean this up real quick. You go ahead and lay down. I thought you might bleed on the couch, but you haven't yet, so the towels are okay. I'll get you some fresh clothes. Some of my husband's old things might fit you."

He tried to say, "I'm fine." Sally pinned him with a sharp gaze. There was a strange, oddly dangerous light in her eyes now, and they gleamed that strange yellow in the shadowy light from the kitchen. The same color they'd been outside when she'd shot Westenra.

"Stay," she growled, and it almost sounded like a growl. Jack's brows furrowed. "Lie down and rest. You're hurt. You came here for some first-aid? Well, you're going to get it."

Baffled by her sudden vehemence, he pulled his gun out of its holster and set it on the arm-rest for a moment, then pulled off his boots. Slowly, he reclined on the couch. A decorative pillow was soft enough to serve as a real pillow. He slid his gun underneath to make sure the kids didn't get to it. He tried to ignore the cold—from loss of blood as well as lacking a shirt in an air-conditioned room—that raised gooseflesh across his exposed skin. Surreptitiously, he watched Sally as she threw away everything that had his blood on it. She put the used medical supplies in a separate trashcan with a sliding-lock on the lid to keep her kids out.

Then she washed her hands, pouring a dollop of bright, lemon-yellow soap into her cupped hands and scrubbing quickly. Jack realized the blood loss had to be getting to him when he noticed that the bubbles clinging to her skin had the tiniest rainbows dancing across their delicate surfaces. Her hair hung a little in her face, coppery tendrils brushing her cheeks and the shoulders of her cream-colored sweater. He wondered drowsily if that sweater was as soft as it looked.

Definitely being affected by the blood loss, he thought. He only got this stupid when he was drunk—rather, Bucky Barnes had always gotten that stupid when he was drunk—or after he'd been hurt pretty badly on a mission. He closed his eyes. He obviously needed sleep if he was getting slap-happy.

It should have surprised him, how quickly he drifted. But it didn't. He was too tired to care. He barely registered the flumph sound of Sally dropping a pile of clothes onto the back of the couch. He was too tired to change. He'd do it later. For now, rest. Sally would wake him if anything happened.

He scarcely noticed when she drew a blanket over him, soft and warm as her smile. She was careful when she lifted his feet and propped them on the couch's arm-rest. She covered them with the blanket, too. The nearby armchair creaked as she sank into it. She wasn't going to stay next to him all night, was she? He wasn't going to die from this, she didn't need to wait up with him.

But then she started to sing, ever so softly. Her voice wasn't the charming, purring sopranos that had been so popular back in the forties. She had a quiet, average voice. One he could imagine soothed her kids when they were trying to go to sleep. It lulled him further into a mental place where he could let his body relax, let the pain wash away a little so he could sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to just enjoy a woman singing without a thousand other concerns flooding his mind. This was nice.

"'Cause you only need the light when it's burning low;
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow…
Only know you've been high when you're feeling low,
Only hate the road when you're missin' home…"

And the Winter Soldier drifted into sleep, at peace for the first time in two months.

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The present…

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Sally Gardner gritted her teeth against the ache throbbing through her veins and parked her car as deep into the shade as possible, where the light would have a harder time reflecting off windshields and side-mirrors and splintered her skull. She gripped the steering wheel and let her head thunk against the cool leather. She had to focus. She had to think. She had to ignore the burning in her throat and the pounding in her head and think.

They were trapped now. They'd switched vehicles at the last rendezvous point, as per Jack's instructions. But now what? She lifted her head to stare at her hands gripping the steering wheel so tight her fingers ached. Her knuckles and the tops of her fingers weren't the same pale color as the rest of her. They were raw and red. If she wasn't careful, her fingers wouldn't be the only body parts that looked like that.

She needed her serum. It would help so much…but if she and the children were caught, it could be their downfall. That medicine kept the worst parts of her chained up, limiting her mutant powers. But it also drained her of most of her speed and strength. If whoever had taken Jamie found her and the other children…

Sally swallowed a sob. Tears burned her eyes. Jamie…her baby boy…Those monsters had her baby. Jack had looked into her tear-filled eyes and sworn he'd get her baby back, but they'd both known HYDRA wouldn't stop with Jamie. They wanted leverage against Jack. They wanted him back, their good little toy soldier, ready to aim, shoot, and kill wherever they decided he should. She'd seen the knowledge of how easily HYDRA could get Jack back when they'd taken Jamie. Jack loved Jamie. Loved Becky and Will and Lori, too. If HYDRA threatened them…if Jack couldn't get her son back…

Then he would have to give himself up. He wouldn't be able to take what HYDRA would do to Jamie if he didn't. They'd kill her son. And he'd sworn to her that he would never let that happen.

Lifting her tired eyes to the rearview mirror, she studied her daughters. Will was with Tony Stark and Captain Steve Rogers, two men Jack had told her she could trust absolutely. Will had been so frightened to go by himself to meet with them. To have to crawl through ventilation shafts and…but Jack had guided him all the way, leaving Becky and Lori in Sally's care. Now the seven-year-old and the three-year-old slept so soundly, Sally didn't think a freight train could wake them up.

Her phone rang. Fear iced through her blood, but it did nothing to dull the hot pain in her veins. Her fingers shook as she dug her phone out. She'd faced down monsters, madmen, and rogue mutants in her life…but her children had never been in danger before. It ripped the rug right out from under her feet. She'd never known real fear until this.

She had to clear her throat twice before she managed, "Hello?"

"Sally," a familiar, warm voice said. "It's me."

"Jack," she breathed. "Jack, we're stuck. The sun's out, and my head is splitting. I don't think I can drive."

There was a beat of silence. She sensed him weighing his words, the options, the outcomes. Finally he asked, "Sally, how long has it been since you've taken your serum?"

She sighed. "Three days." Long enough that not only was the medicine no longer dealing with her symptoms, but she was starting to go through withdrawal—both of which she could handle if she could get Lori and Becky somewhere safe. Once she didn't have to worry about them anymore, she could focus on HYDRA. On letting out what the medicine kept locked inside. Let them see how foolish it had been to target her family.

"Are you okay?" There was nothing but concern in his voice. No condemnation.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I'll be okay, but this headache…There's so much sun, and my hands are starting to get messed up because it's been so long since my last injection."

"Okay. Listen to me, everything's going to be fine, baby. Okay? I have gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, and special sunglasses in the trunk, and the car has a button you can push to add a second layer of tinting to the windows, okay?"

She nodded, trying to ignore the throbbing spots at the edges of her vision. "Okay." That would definitely help. "But Jack…are you sure about all of us going to Stark Enterprises? I mean…you saw what happened to the Stark Mansion a few months back. What if the enemy attacks us there?" She couldn't say HYDRA over the phone. He'd warned her against that. She understood. You couldn't say SENTINEL over the phone, either, without risking the wrong people overhearing.

"I texted Will—"

"Is he okay?" She demanded, heart suddenly beating sharp and hard against her ribs. Will was so young, and they'd asked so much of him…She just wanted her children back where she could protect them.

Jack's voice was gentle and warm when he said, "Will is fine. I made sure. Stark and Captain Rogers know we're coming. It will be okay."

She nodded again. She had to believe that. Will and Jamie would both be all right. Jack would, too. They'd get her baby back, and HYDRA would learn how grave a mistake it had made. And then hopefully she would never have to stop taking her serum again, she could just let it dull all of her edges again, and she could go back to just being a simple baker in a little Virginia coastal town. "I'll see you in New York."

"See you there. Be careful." There was a moment's pause, the soft sound of breathing. Her pulse slowed a little, more a flutter than a pounding now. Jack murmured, "I love you, Sally."

"Right back at ya," she said softly. "Be careful, Jack."

The phone clicked when he hung up, leaving her feeling cold. Gritting her teeth against the wave of pain that would hit her when she got out of the car, she popped the trunk lid and grabbed the pistol Jack had left for her. No one was taking another one of her kids.

She'd kill them first.