Author's Note: This chapter title comes from The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Chapter Ten - It's the loneliness of it (memories need to be shared)

After eight days of silence—eight days of seeing no one but the brainwashed Bucky Barnes and the masked guard that silently brought their meals—Danielle used up the last of the pencils scattered about the room and found herself on her knees in the stall as she desperately tried to free the knob from the cabinet. She's cracked her nails and scratched open her fingertips in her struggle to unscrew it. "Come on," she muttered, wiping the blood off on her pants in an attempt to dry of her fingers. She gripped the screw and gave it one last desperate twist. The screw groaned and freed itself.

Danielle let out a sigh of relief, gripping the screw in one hand and the knob in the other. She fell back against the wall with a shuddering sob. She was painfully aware of the cold eyes watching her from the main area. She bit down on her lip until she tasted iron and forced herself to her feet. She walked right past the man sitting against the wall to reclaim her spot on her bed. Back to him, she eyed the wall and found a section untouched by pencil lead. She set the knob down by her knee and pinched the screw in her fist.

She set the point of the screw against the wall and closed her eyes, trying to bring up her memory of home. It was difficult and fuzzy and she couldn't quite picture it. Biting her lip again, she opened her eyes and dug the screw into the wall. She spent the new few hours etching her home into the wall, working straight through the time when the guard came and left lunch and again when he came and left dinner.

She scratched out DUM-E and U and Butterfingers and the workshop's messy tables. Her fingers ached and shook by the time she etched her father's figure into the wall. When she reached his face, she hesitated and tried to recall what he looked like. But here brain was fuzzy with exhaustion, physical and emotional, and all she could see was Pierce's sharp, false smile.

"Who is that?"

She stilled at the gravelly voice, pale with disuse. The shorn hair on the back of her neck stood up on end. "My father," she said hoarsely, he first words in over a week that went beyond ordering him to eat or shower. She dropped the screw to her bed and rubbed her sore fingers.

"Where is it?"

"Home." She turned to find him standing by the bed, studying the wall. She shuffled past him and pushed herself to her feet. She frowned at the four untouched trays. "You haven't eaten."

"You haven't eaten."

For a moment, it sounded like he was repeating her. But when she turned to squint at him, he was looking at her pointedly. She gave him a wry smile. "Touché," she murmured, sitting down and reaching for one of the trays. "Eat," she directed. He immediately moved to do so and she watched him over her cold turkey sandwich. Then she scoffed. "So, how long do they plan to keep you in here until I get 'attached?'"

His icy gaze flicked to her. "I was not given the full mission parameters."

She growled a little at that and winced at the tightness the action dragged through her throat. She scratched at her collar. "I know what Pierce is planning. You being here won't change my answer."

Bucky didn't answer.

On the fifteenth day, Danielle was tempted to bite off her own tongue to keep herself from talking when the door opened. She whipped her gaze away from the silent assassin to glare at the guard that was entering. But it wasn't a guard there at all. Pierce smiled. "Danielle. Have you considered my request?"

"Answer hasn't changed," she said firmly.

"Hmm . . . . That's what I thought." He held out a hand to one of the guards and they put a handgun on his palm. Danielle stiffened. He shook his head. "Don't worry, my dear. This isn't for you." Then he aimed and fired.

There was a hoarse cry behind her, immediately cut off with a grunt. Danielle's eyes widened but she couldn't look behind her. She couldn't move at all. She could only stare, wide-eyed, as Pierce handed the gun back and dusted off his hands. Pierce turned to her. "I hope you understand that the consequences of your continued stubbornness no longer apply to just you. This is where you are now, darling. It's time for you to understand that."

He glanced back and nodded. The guard outside the door shoved in a box with his foot and it came to a stop against Danielle's toes. She looked down at it, absolutely lost to the world. Then the sound of the door slamming jolted her back to reality.

"Oh my god," she mumbled shakily, knees weakening. She lowered herself to the floor, gripping at the plastic box. The red cross on the top swam in her vision and she couldn't figure out for the life of her why it was there. Red cross, red cross. Why was there—

Oh.

Danielle fumbled to open it and then she slid it around. At first glance, Bucky looked exactly the same. But his jaw was tight and his metal hand was clamped down over his left thigh with red leaking between the joints of the machine. He was leaning mildly against the wall, though he straightened when he saw her watching him. She swallowed thickly. "Um, did it . . . did it go all the way through?"

His gaze flicked down to his leg then back to her. "No."

"Shit. Um, okay." She shook out the trembling in her hands. "Uh, pants off. We'll have to get it out and, and bandaged." As he obediently did so, she searched through the box and came up with forceps. She turned back and hissed at the sight of the bullet wound. "Hold still," she muttered. She pulled on a pair of gloves and picked up the forceps. She spread the wound with the tool and held it that way. She took a deep breath and then plunged her fingers inside.

He was absolutely silent but she had to grit her teeth to keep from making a sound. She felt the bullet and struggled to grip it. She pulled it out and let it clatter to the ground. The forceps were close behind. "Um, right, right, right." She fumbled for gauze and pressed it against the injury while she eyed the rest of the box. "Um, sutures or bandage?"

"Sutures will require less attention long term," he said simply.

"Right, right, right."

"Have you done sutures before?"

It was the first question he'd asked and she jerked her head up in surprise to stare at him. "Um . . . . Yeah," she said hoarsely. "My dad is—" She swallowed. "My dad was injury prone." She ducked her head again and stripped off her gloves before retrieving the suture kit. She prepped the needle and held it in one hand while retrieving a wipe with the other. While she cleaned the skin, she mumbled, "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to get you shot."

He didn't answer.

She pulled the needle through and secured the first stitch. She clipped it and prepped the needle again. "I . . . ." Danielle took a deep breath. "I thought I'd be able to keep saying no, you know? Thought that I wouldn't care. But . . . ." She cut off that stitch and started another. "You don't deserve this." She finished off the last stitch. Then she cleaned the area with another wipe before gathering up her bloody supplies. She dumped them in the trash can in the stall and began cleaning her hands.

She glanced to the side to find that Bucky had gotten his pants back on and followed her. Danielle eyed the bullet hole in his clothes. She shook her head to reorient and dried her hands off. "Um, are they gonna take you away?" she mumbled.

He stared at her for a long, long moment. Then he shook his head. "I doubt it. Leverage works best as a constant."

"Comforting," she said softly, glancing down. She studied the red staining his metal hand. "Um, here." She took his hand and moved it under the faucet. She turned the water on and started cleaning the blood off. "Winter, please don't leave me alone."

"I don't make those decisions."

She stared up at him. Then with a sigh, she toweled off his metal hand. "Get some sleep," she mumbled. "You need rest to heal that leg up."

She stayed up all night, tossing and turning on her hard bed and feeling her etching of her father's workshop through the darkness. She ran her fingers over his blank face before drawing her hand back with a shudder. Danielle rolled over and stared across the room at where she knew Bucky's spot was. "Winter?" she whispered. "Are you awake?"

"Yes."

She licked her dry lips. "Did you sleep?"

"Yes. You woke me a while ago."

"I'm sorry." She sat up and shuffled to the edge of the bed, gripping her blanket tightly. She couldn't see a thing, and so she flinched in surprise when her bare feel touched the cold floor. She stood and stepped carefully forward with a hand out. Her knuckles hit against the wall and she stopped, lowering herself to her knees. "Winter?" she asked quietly. "Can I sit with you?"

"Yes."

She turned her head towards the voice and reached out again until this time her knuckles hit metal. Danielle crawled towards him and leaned against his arm. "Blanket?" she asked, awkwardly struggling with spreading it across them. She smiled a little when she felt him pull on it and adjust it for her. "Thank you." She leaned her head down on his shoulder. "What are they going to do to me?"

He was silent for a long, long time. And then he said, "They're going to turn you into me."

And someone, after that, she finally managed to fall asleep.

It was the loud slam of the door a while later that make her jerk awake to the sight of Pierce in the doorway. She scrambled up so quickly that her legs gave out, still half asleep, and her knees hit the floor. She rubbed at her cheek where she could feel the imprint of Bucky's metal plating. Danielle leveled a glare at the doorway. "What do you want?" she rasped.

"Have you learned your lesson, my dear? Do you understand the consequences you face?"

She was painfully aware of Bucky getting to his feet behind her. But she couldn't stand from where she was on her knees. "Yes."

"Good. Excellent, in fact. Then let's get started." He stepped aside so that the doorway was clear. "Come with me."

Danielle eyed him for a long moment. She pushed herself up and stepped through the doorway, nervously eying the guards even though they made no move to grab her. She glanced back to find Bucky following her, though his steps were absolutely silent. "Where are we going?"

Pierce turned and started off down the hallway. "It's time for you to start your journey to perfection." He opened a door and motioned her in. "Lie down on the table. We'll begin the procedure immediately."

She stepped inside and then froze, staring at the medical room full of lab-coated individuals. "Wh-what procedure?"

"Perfection has to start somewhere, doesn't it?" He patted the table. "Clothes off. Lie down."

Danielle threw a glance at Bucky and the guard that was standing just a bit too close to him with a gun in hand. She took a deep breath and stripped off her clothes. Just a body. She climbed onto the table and laid down. One of the people in a lab coat moved forward and fit a mask over her face. Pierce moved to stare down at her and she tried to focus on him, though her mind was going blurry.

He smiled. "Perfection comes with a little pain, my dear."

Danielle woke up to the sound of the new collar clicking into place around her neck. With a gasp, she shoved the person aside and tumbled off the table and to the floor. She tried to catch herself, but everything seemed out of place and she awkwardly hit the floor with her elbows instead. She coughed harshly and her arms shook as she pushed herself up. She looked up and glanced around until she located Pierce. "What did you do to me?"

"A mild version of the super soldier serum." He smiled. "The first step in perfection. How do you feel?"

She stared down at herself and never had anything looked so right and so wrong at the same time. She stumbled to her feet. "Um . . . taller," she mumbled.

"Five foot ten," Pierce said easily. "It's a good thing we kept the serum mild. You could hardly blend in anywhere at over six feet tall."

"I was five three."

"Well, now you're not." He motioned to a guard and the man moved forward with a robe.

Danielle took it and quickly wrapped it around her body. She eyed Pierce. "What now?"

"Now? Well, now we work on that brain of yours. And your body." He nodded to a guard. "Take them back to their room."

Danielle eyed the guard cautiously before moving on her own out the door. The pain in her head was hard to ignore as she stumbled clumsily down the hall, her limbs all the wrong length. She pushed her way into her room. Her shoulder clipped the doorframe and she hissed in pain.

After a moment, the door slammed and the tumblers turned loudly as it locked. She turned to face Bucky, but instead she found herself staring at the piles of books on the bed. She snatched up the papers atop the stack. The sticky note stuck to the top read, "Get reading!" The paper itself was directions for a series of hardcore exercises that could be completed in the small room.

She took a deep breath. "You'll help?"

"Yes."

Her brain was different. She found that out quickly. Before, her brain had been nonstop, but controlled; it had been like having too many tab open in a web browser, but they were alphabetically ordered and color coded. Now, though? Post serum? Her head was a hurricane. Tabs had tripled and jumped to windows and other browsers and half of them were blaring inane music while the other half were allowing all cookies and pop-up ads until her head was full of viruses.

She slammed the book on Russian shut with a growl. A snap of her wrist sent the book spinning across the room. It hit the wall and fell open on the floor. Bucky looked up from the anatomy book he'd selected.

"What's wrong?"

"It's too loud," she whined, grabbing her head in her hands until they hurt. "There's too much!" The sob crawled up her throat and between her lips without her consent. She crumpled in on herself and gave herself over completely to her tears, crying into her bed sheets.

A hand curled around her bicep none-too-gently and yanked her up against something solid. Her next cry choked itself off in her throat. She twisted to look up at him and caught the rather confused expression on his face. A tired smile twitched her lips and she buried herself back into his chest. "Thank you," she mumbled, curling her arms around him.

She felt his arms move in an abortive motion before his hands dropped back to his sides. "I want to help," he admitted hesitantly, as if he wasn't sure what to do with the fact that he wanted something.

"You are helping." She folded her legs beneath herself and leaned heavily into him. "You are. But . . . if you want, you can hug me back."

It took a few moments, but his arms came up around her and held her a little too tight. She didn't mind. The pressure took some of her attention away from her mind. "Can you talk to me in Russian?" she whispered. "The book isn't working. It takes too long to get the words off the page."

"Что ты хочешь, чтобы я сказал?" [What do you want me to say?] he asked.

She was quiet for a long, long moment as she sifted through what she knew to translate those words. Then she shook her head and buried further into him. "Anything."

"Что-нибудь." [Anything.]

"Hey! Jerk!" she said, though it was weak. She looked up at him and pouted. "You're being mean."

"Сожалею." [Sorry.] He tapped her head until she tucked herself down against his chest again. "Я поговорю, если ты этого хочешь." [I'll talk if that's what you want.]

"Thank you."