The Fixer

That One Time Bucky Drank A Liquor Store

LaGuardia Airport was one of the worst places on earth. Not only did it seem like it was run by a nine year old, but it was also the slowest possible place to land. Over the city, they circled. Again, and Again, until finally, thirty minutes after their official landing time, they began their final descent. At least the city was pretty from above. Bucky could look down at those buildings for hours. Since it was night, the ground was lit like stars. Every window, every streetlight, they all gave merit to the illusion. Even the way they reflected off of the Hudson blurred the line between high risers and sky.

After getting through customs with some sanity left in their bodies, Steve, Bucky and Natasha broke off from Sam. He said something about having to do human things, like sleep, unlike them.

"So, hotel?" Natsha yawned against the window, using her fist to muffle the sound as she curled up.

"No," Bucky leaned foreword to give the cabbie instructions. "Get on 278, East."

"Where to?" The older, Middle Eastern man asked.

"Columbia Presbyterian. Steve, what time is it?" Bucky answered before the man could finish asking.

Steve was wearing his worn, brown leather jacket. He looked almost as tired as Natasha. But he couldn't hold his friend's anxiety against him. They were away for four months. Not once did they receive news on Katie. Bucky didn't let this affect him until late in the game, it wasn't until they landed that he became jittery. He looked at his watch. "Ten to ten."

"Damn." Bucky cursed and sat back into the old, bouncy cab seat. Steve was giving him a side eye from the front seat, so Bucky answered before he could ask. "Visiting hours end at ten."

Steve just nodded and looked over at the cabbie who accelerated with a jolly little grin as he maneuvered around every other car on the road.

...

"I'm sorry sir but we don't have a patient by that name."

"Look again!"

"Bucky." Steve hand gripped Bucky's arm, pulling him away from the visitor's desk, leaving two dents in the side where his hands were clamped.

Steve could see his friend slowly losing his grip on control. It was a bit unsettling after the calm he experienced over in Europe. But that calm was also a little freakish. For a few weeks Steve was afraid Bucky might be settling back into a dangerous routine. A routine that involved killing to avoid his own suffering, as if ending other people's lives might stop him from feeling anything but rage. Rage wasn't a good coping mechanism for Bucky; he needed something else to keep him from losing his cool. Like right now, how he bounced his leg quickly, rhythmically, aggravating Natasha, who was trying to sleep on the armrest.

When they found out that Katie wasn't in the hospital, or, that she wasn't even a registered patient there, it set Bucky into a strange place. This could either be terrible, or wonderful news. Bucky couldn't stop the flow of cold dread in his veins. He knew that this wasn't right. Steve suggested that it meant that she was cured, home and sleeping like the rest of the world.

Suddenly the three of them were standing before a set of gnarly red clay steps. Bucky was at the top of the stairs, ringing E2 before Steve could even wake Natasha up to get her out of the cab.

No one answered the buzzer, so Bucky picked the lock. An alarm screamed above their heads, but was cut off when Natasha tore a wire from the wall with this look like she might kill Bucky if he made another sound. The walk up those creaking, old, stairs was longer than Bucky remembered. There were windows at every turn with a lovely view into the dark alley below.

E2 was still barely hanging on the door with cracked gold paint flaking off. Bucky knocked lightly first, tensing every muscle to keep from appearing as nervous as he felt. If Katie was here, she was going to get a piece of his mind for ignoring his calls for the past few months. Kyle was going to get it way worse, though. He was supposed to be their point of contact. He failed miserably.

There were a few beats of silence before Bucky lost his patience and dropped to a knee, sticking two pins into the lock and turning them in sync to open the door.

Inside it was quiet as a morgue. And dark, very dark. Even with the streetlight outside of the balcony window, it was too dark to see much. Steve and Natasha stayed back a little to let Bucky go inside and find what he needed to find. His steps and breaths were all of the sound in the dark apartment. Bucky walked through the living room, passed the back of the couch, running his metal hand over it as he went. First he went left down another hall to check Kyle's room. It was, of course, empty. His bed was there, and it appeared 'lived-in' but it was absent of its owner. The next door was Katie's. The door was ajar, all he had to do was push with his fingertips. The same furnishings were there, but Katie's bed was made. He knew better than to think she would do that. All of her photos were hanging on the walls, so was her little stitching of "America the Beautiful". He was surprised to find Jade curled into a perfect circle on Katie's mismatched bed. Alone. She growled lowly until he glided closer. Holding his hand out, she began to recognize him. Her tail wagged in long, slow swings.

"Where's your mommy?" He asked as if talking to a baby, not really expecting an answer. He gently tugged one of the dog's black ears and sat on the edge of the bed as Jade nudged her way onto his lap. This room didn't smell like Katie and her melon scented shampoo.

Bucky didn't say anything when he passed his teammates in the kitchen, Jade's nails clacking against the wood in a slow trot as she followed. He quietly made his way out to the veranda and leaned against the railing over the side. Jade wasn't so calm toward the strangers. Her hackles rose and growled quietly.

"Shush, Jade." Bucky muttered quietly outside, only loud enough for Jade to hear. She lowered her head and trotted outside to sit next to Bucky. Someone had to be living here. Otherwise, how else would Jade be alive? Bucky seemed to remember Katie once saying that she was going to leave Jade to him if she died. Bucky scoffed at the idea at the time. Now he might have to take the offer. Jade rubbed her cold, wet nose to his right hand.

"Hey! Buck, is this her? She's cute." Natasha called outside, holding a picture in a frame. Her sleeves were pulled over her hands to keep warm when she came outside and leaned up next to Bucky on the railing. She held the photo out in front of him.

The picture was of a striking girl with a very straight nose and small green eyes, crinkled with a bright smile. Blonde hair was long and curled under the flat, red brim of her cap. Katie looked young in her over-sized graduation gown. She held a tied diploma in one hand, the other hand held a man around the waist.

Natasha smirked and bumped Bucky with her shoulder. "Is that her brother? He's smokin'."

No. That was not her brother. That was Katie's ex husband: the head of Hydra's medical presence.

Bucky managed to keep it together for all of twenty seconds when Natasha brought the picture outside. He threw it across the street and watched the frame shatter in the street, lips pressed tightly together, back teeth clenched, all to keep from panicking. She couldn't be dead. Not yet, she was supposed to be here waiting. He was depending on it. Steve's arm reached around his back to pull him into a hug.

Natasha stood in the doorway with a smirk. "You know, lovebirds, you might want to come inside for a second." Steve shot her the nastiest look she ever received from him. She put up her hands defensively. "Jeez, relax. I just wanted to point out that there's someone trying to open the door."

Bucky froze, eyes wide, he turned to face the intruder. There was the thump of boots against the top stair before the clatter of keys as someone flipped through to find the right one. The door handle jingled a little before turning. There was a creak of unoiled hinges as the door opened. A pair of feet began making their way down the short entrance hallway. Jade perked up, Bucky's heart jumped, a small smirk pulling at the edge of his miserable lips.

"She was cute." A very deep voice echoed through the apartment from the front hallway. Kyle appeared in ratty, grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, drinking from a brown paper bag wrapped bottle as he eyed the new red haired girl unabashedly, one brow raised. Natasha grimaced and he shrugged then made his way to the back door. "Heard ya from the street, you might want to keep your voices down." He took another swig and pointed the bottom edge of the bottle in Bucky's direction. "Tried calling, damn phone wouldn't connect."

"It's been months." Steve started to say, but Kyle held up a finger.

"Telling you just would have fucked things up." Kyle leaned heavily against the doorway, drunkenly. "Kate's dead."

"Oh man." Natasha breathed quietly, only, in this silence, it was all anyone could hear. She covered her lips with her fingertips, looking to Steve for help. He would know that to say, he always did. A disbelieving "No" could be heard, whispered, like a cry for help. Bucky's eyes were dull, staring behind Kyle, unable to look at him. All of the anger flooded from him, replaced with nothingness. Natasha eyed him nervously, a hand sliding over the gun tucked into her sweatshirt's front pocket. Steve waved a hand at her urgently. A gun would only make this already mentally unstable super soldier lose it.

Steve felt his own pang of sadness at his friend's loss as he waited for Bucky's real reaction. Bucky had a few unhealthy ways of dealing with stress. His most infamous was burying it all, laughing and joking rather than dealing with it. It was what he did when Steve's parents died and it was what he did to cover the guilt he felt about being the Winter Soldier. All of Bucky's tremendous progress toward getting better was going to falter, Steve knew. He was doing so well. There were no more nightmares, no more switching between personalities. Katie was the reason the former amnesiac came to Steve instead of hunting Hydra on his own. He was indebted to her for that.

Kyle closed the large gap between them. "She passed peacefully under anesthesia two months back. Sorry."

The way Bucky ceased to move made everyone in the room very nervous.

Two months. Two months?! Bucky couldn't move, he was afraid he might choke the life out of Kyle. There was probably a funeral, a wake, a burial; things he should have attended. He should have been there! Kyle robbed him of those things. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have let him come back to the states for something like that, right?

No, Kyle was right. It would have just been another distraction. Another thing that Bucky couldn't change. It would have sent him flying into the abyss. He already knew he was on that knife's edge, one side was reality, the other was rage. Rage would drive him toward revenge, and revenge wouldn't bring her back to life. Jade whined and nudged at his hand, bringing him back to the situation at hand.

"I need a bottle of Jack." Bucky gave big fake smirk that only solidified the pain reflected in his eyes. Steve sighed lightly, knowing exactly where this was going. Natasha rolled her head back across her shoulders, still exhausted. Kyle edged away a little, afraid that the super soldier might kill him with a grin on his face.

After a few seconds to make sure Bucky wasn't going to crack, Kyle raised his own brown bottle to his lips and fell into one of the balcony chairs. "Check the freezer, I think there's a bottle of Goose."

...

Every time Bucky reached the bottom of one bottle of liquor, Kyle would just point to a cabinet behind them in the kitchen. Of course, it was located right next to the fridge where there was a picture of Katie holding Jade as a puppy. It was held up with a heart shaped magnet. And, each time Bucky saw it, he wanted to cry. Instead of falling apart like some untrained child, he opened the cabinet door, grabbed the fullest bottle of whatever he could find and downed it before his metabolism could catch up. Dealing with emotions like an adult.

Natasha and Steve just watched, horrified, as Bucky drank every bottle of liquor in the apartment. Which was: a bottle of vodka, a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of spiced rum, and two smaller bottles of Jaegermeister. The balcony smelled like a bar. Kyle found this strangely amusing as he shakily lit another cigarette to suck down. Bucky stared at the lit windows across the street, teeth grit hard together, the neck of some fruity spirit in his fist, lips pressed into a hard line. All was meant to keep his nostrils from flaring, eyes from fogging, and lips from twitching. He was an adult man, he would not cry.

"I can't get drunk enough." Bucky said with a jilted tone. Steve gave a lame smile at his friend. Natasha looked to the street and Kyle stared at the rim of his beer with a deep frown.

"I can't drink enough to make her go away." Bucky clarified to no one in particular, voice straining hard not to waiver.

Steve sighed, leaning back on the railing. Bucky didn't look sober, exactly. But he wasn't drunk enough to feel numb quite yet. There were varying degrees of Bucky's sobriety that Steve learned to identify over their incredibly long lifetime. There was the first level where he was just happy to be alive, joking and laughing about anything and everything. Then there was the buzzed level. That was when he would slow down and become mopey, sappy, even. He would tell everyone in the room that he loved them and that they were the best thing that ever happened to him, even if they only met that night. The last level was his fighting level, a level he couldn't reach anymore.

Right now he was stuck between the first and second, so he was just laughing about his own infernal suffering, trying his hardest not to crumple under the weight.

Natasha was perfectly happy to secretly poke at Kyle, she was still mission ready. Even when the world was being brought down by an alien, Natasha always seemed to keep her mind on target. If she was given an order, you could always count on her to follow it. That wasn't always the same for Steve or Bucky.

Kyle's red eyes told one story, but Natasha was reading something totally different. The tall, bald man did a good job of feigning his loss, but there was one person he could not fool. Bucky's girlfriend was not dead. Hell, she was probably somewhere drinking martinis the way this guy spoke about her. Natasha was not going to be the one to say something about it. Not yet, at least. She needed to know the whole story before letting that cat out of the bag.

"...and then she married that asshole."

"Forscythe?"

"Yeah, he's a twat. If he died tomorrow, I'd dance at his funeral." Kyle smirked at Natasha, gaining curious glances from Bucky and Steve.

Steve finally jumped in, "Why do you hate the guy so much? She thought you liked him."

"There's a lot of shit she doesn't know." He coughed, "Didn't. That she didn't know." Kyle finished a rum and coke in one deep swig. "Where you guys off to next?"

"We'll be in the area for a while." Natasha cut Steve off before he could do something stupid, like tell him where they were really going.

"You guys can stay here as long as you need, by the way. Mi casa es su casa." The Hydra operative started to say, but then changed the topic. "I hear Madrid is gorgeous this time of year, Kate always wanted to go there..."

...

'Breakthrough technology saves hundreds so far'

It was the eye catching front-page news. The large grey scale photo below the headline looks terribly similar to a certain radiology ward Bucky visited an unforgivably small number of times. There were a few people in the background; one was Katie's doctor with a big grin as he injected a patient with this life saving medication. Developed just a little too late to save someone Bucky loved. The pain and disorientation wasn't fading the way everyone said it would.

People, friends, all told him that mourning is just a phase and that he would feel better one day. It was looking more and more like they were all lying. Everything had some kind of correlation with her memory. He couldn't pass a green field without remembering how much Katie loved the smell of cut grass, or, the time they went to pick strawberries and argued over who Jade loved more. That debilitating disease erased her vibrant light.

He knew that nothing could have been done for her, but that didn't make him blame everyone any less. He blamed the doctors at first, but Steve was the first to explain that chemotherapy wasn't an exact science, neither was anesthesia or heart surgery. Then, once that option proved warrantless, he blamed her family. Why couldn't they put her on that drug trial any sooner? Would it have changed anything? Even if they were all pure evil, that stupid drug was successful. Bucky couldn't help but think it could have saved her.

But, in the end, all of the blame fell on Peter Forscythe. Bucky blamed him for making Katie give up on her own life. He made her hate herself to the point that she stopped trying to live. Bucky was the one to pick up the pieces and get her back to a point where she could die with dignity, but that wasn't good enough. She was supposed to be here when he came back, she was the glue holding him together. It grew a little weaker every day. He was still waiting for that big explosion, the one day that he would wake up and become totally inconsolable. But he couldn't, because there was no closure. Kyle didn't even tell him where to find her grave. There were times he could feel himself slipping. He would calculate the cold ways he could kill Forscythe. It was the Winter Soldier laying in wait, deep in the back of his mind. Not only did that bastard steal years from Bucky's own life, he stole Katie's as well. Forscythe took everything from Bucky and he knew what had to be done.

Steve was reading the paper and Natasha was in her hotel room on 104th not sleeping with her lover. She tried to be so sneaky, but Bucky wasn't as unobservant as Steve. The pit of his stomach twisted when he thought about them together. They were so ridiculous, fighting all of the time. Bickering like an old married couple. And then, there was that look. It was always brief and hidden, like a secret kept between them. A quiet understanding that they belonged to each other, entirely. It reminded him of the way he was with-

No. No more of that. He found out Katie passed away two weeks ago. She died almost three months back. It was time to stop dwelling on something that could never be fixed. Sometimes, looking back, it was almost better to have his mind wiped.

Caught somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. It was like swimming in the changing tide, taken down by rolling waves over and over again. The only reality was settled between the dark ocean floor and bright white sky. Reality was sea foam, just between breathing and drowning.

Life in the light was too much. It was bright and intense. It immersed Katie in a world of travel and pure health with her big brother. They saw Shanghai, and Rome, and Athens. Katie threw a coin over her shoulder at the Trevi Fountain. Supposedly it meant good luck. Luck was a tough commodity to come by, especially so when one defeats terminal diagnoses.

It was only when Katie slept that anything felt real. It was then that she would be haunted by violent nightmares. In these terrors, she was the star.

Just last night, she dreamed about killing about twelve people. With her bare hands, she gouged out a man's eye to use it as a biometric print for a door's lock. Once through the door she killed four more people, gunning them down like vermin. She wasn't alone; she was speaking with a team of three who followed her expressed orders, cutting off the fingertips of the fallen.

Those nightmares tainted the light of her perfect days. They grayed and hazed her delightful travels. Kyle reassured her that they were a side effect from the chemicals that saved her life.

But... that damned sea foam. That area right between the light and dark, wedged just before sleep, yet, after wakefulness. It was that delicate twilight that gave her true clarity. The realization that she wasn't alone in her head. Someone else resided there with her, waiting just below the still, glassy surface of consciousness. That person orchestrated these nightmares. Katie tried to reason with this entity, telling her that she didn't belong in her head. But the entity never answered. She never answered. Pompous bitch.

That is, unless it was to speak with the other voices. The other voices weren't the same as the deranged murderer. They were the ones telling her what to do, when to do them, and how. They were brutally specific.

One time, Katie woke during a nightmare. It was only for a split second, but it was long enough to know for sure.

She was dead. This was Hell. That had to be what was happening. If not, it meant she was a psychopath who needed to be heavily medicated immediately.

When she woke, there was no heartbeat in her chest. It wasn't something she noticed at first, but as she walked up the Spanish Steps, she realized there was something missing. A rhythm was gone; the dancing pulse in her chest had ceased. She wasn't sure when it happened. It's not something that one thinks about all of the time. When she asked Kyle, he just laughed nervously, giving some bogus reason.

Katie wasn't sure how long she would have to remain in this strange purgatory, but she hoped it wouldn't be long.

She missed Bucky. That was another hint that told her she was really just dead and that she was chilling in Hell. She called, and called, but he never answered. Kyle even took her to Bucky's apartment in DC. Judging by the condition of the place, they were living there, or, hadn't been away for long.

Did he forget about her? Was it the amnesia?

More likely, it was his decision. Katie was the one who pushed him to get help; it was natural that he would want to heal with someone more stable by his side. What right did Katie have to be upset? Who was she? A sick girl who lied to his face and repeatedly toyed with his emotions? He had to know he deserved better. Katie saw it coming; she knew he couldn't sustain what they had. That burning, passionate thing burned out before it could even begin. And that was Katie's fault.

Their current stop was Spain, Madrid, specifically. On the road, Kyle was extremely watchful. He didn't let her out of his sight and set a very strict schedule that typically had her sleeping by ten. Here, in Spain, the sun went down early, so she would end up asleep by eight. One night in January, Katie found herself curious about the bright city.

"I'm gonna go to the bar, want to come?" She asked, slipping a scarf around her neck and a skinny black band over her short brown hair to push it back. It wasn't growing in very evenly so Katie trimmed it just a little every day to keep it the same length all around. The top was the longest. She liked to sweep it foreword most days. She pulled off the tomboy look pretty well. Much of the weight she lost during chemo had returned, though the process was slow going.

From the bed next to hers, Kyle looked from his book with a sarcastically raised brow. "You're not going out."

Katie rolled her eyes, throwing a little mascara on her lashes. She had eyebrows now; it was the eyelashes that gave her issues. They grew in bleach blonde and then fell out. It was a vicious cycle. Wearing just a touch of mascara made her look less like an alien and more like a person with both eyebrows and eyelashes. Even if she only had four or five lashes on either eye.

"I'm not kidding Kate. You can't go out alone here, it's too dangerous."

"Then come with, loser." She smiled at his tired expression. A simple new plan was born instantly. She flopped down onto her bed, channel changer in hand. "Fine. I'll stay in on the condition that we watch a serious Disney marathon. You pick first."

It only took half way through Mulan for Kyle to start snoring. Katie picked up her boots and walked across the cold tile floor in socks as not to make a sound. She closed the door silently behind her and made sure it was locked. Then she zipped up those boots and got running. The bar she wanted to visit was only a block away. She felt eyes watching the back of her head from the moment she stepped out of the front lobby.

That, of course, was ridiculous.

The smoky, hazy bar atmosphere was exactly what she needed. She hated going to bars alone, but she hadn't made a new friend in months and it was getting a little hard to spend every waking moment with her dopey, protective brother. A high top with smooth, but gnarled, wood was available right next to the bar. There was Russian hockey on the screen, which reminded her to check the Devils-Blackhawks game. Her face scrunched up. Damn, the Devs were losing. Out of habit, she always checked the Rangers. Wherever Bucky was, surely he couldn't keep updated on sports. She wondered if they could ever reconcile. Even if they were just friends, she couldn't imagine losing him form her life forever. She missed the laughing. It had been such a long time since she last laughed so hard that she cried. Even if he found someone new, all she wanted was his happiness. If he found that in another woman, then so be it.

Katie waltzed over to the bar and ordered in some of the few Spanish words she knew. "Una cervesa, Red Stripe, por favor?" Realizing this, the bartender held up four fingers to tell her the price. She reached around the guy seated at the bar and gave the man five euro with a smile. He smiled back and put the money into an old fashioned register.

She sat alone watching hockey on her phone, checking the TV on the wall from time to time to keep some peripheral knowledge of what was happening in the KHL. The games ended, and Katie finished her second beer. With a sigh, she waved at the bartender and headed back to her room. It was freezing cold outside; she had her head wrapped up in a scarf to keep her ears from falling off with frostbite.

Just as she got settled into bed, her eyes drifted closed. Sleep was a dangerous subject for Katie. She hated being asleep, but she also hated being awake.

A group six of armed guards suddenly burst through the door, lining it on either side, guns at rest against their shoulders. Katie scrambled and reached for her taser in the bedside table. Kyle didn't look nearly as pissed off as he should have as he stood slowly. In fact, he looked terrified. Katie glared up at him.

A man in a full-length, black leather over coat strode through. Some red insignia was emblazoned on his shoulder. He strode through as if entering his own personal concert hall. The man smiled at Kyle, whose own six-foot height shrunk away fearfully. Kyle couldn't even look the man in the eyes. The man appeared pleased with the resulting fear his presence exuded. A frown tugged at the corners of his thin, tight lips when he looked over the brown haired girl hair on the bed.

Green met cornflower blue eyes defiantly. After all this time being held down, she was not about to be scared into submission by some asshole.

There was the vague cracking sound of leather gloves tightening into fists. The man's posture was tight; he snapped his head to the right to stare Kyle down. "What is she doing here."

Kyle fumbled for his words, explaining with his hands, an anxious habit. "She was dying, I just thought-"

"That was your first mistake, Estrada. You were never told to think for yourself."

Kyle let his eyes fall away to look at his little sister. If looks could kill, her narrowed glare would have dropped his commander right then and there.

"Who the Hell do you think you are?" Katie asked, voice growing louder as she spoke. The man turned his eyes on her before following with his head to give his full attention. He took two strides before he was at the foot of her bed where she could get a better look at him.

He was pale with freckles dotting every visible surface of his skin. She was surprised not to have recognized him from those bright blue eyes alone. One upon a time, those eyes were all she could think about. Especially when she stood up on that alter and vowed to love him for all eternity.

She wanted to throw up.

Pete Forscythe smiled as he watched recognition change the geography of her face. It started in her lips as they trembled and fell open, just enough that she looked utterly helpless. Then came the tightness in her eyes, the muscles around them relaxed until her whole face was slack. But, the most satisfying were her eyes. Once so full of fire and brimstone, they automatically dulled into fear and trepidation. It was an expression he trained into her, whether she knew it or not.

What was better in life than to have a woman so completely your own? It was terrible to find her here. It was exactly the opposite of what he intended. He reached a hand out and watched her throat tighten as she swallowed her fear. "Come, there are a few thing that need clarification between us."

Something snapped then. Katie jumped from the bed. She flattened against the wall, sidling toward the window. Nostrils flaring, doing her best not to pass out from an anxiety attack, Katie spat, "There's nothing to talk about."

The light haired man smiled gently. "I won't let anything happen to you. There are plenty of people who would like to see creatures like you dead. But I'm not one of them." The muscles around her lips tightened as she narrowed her eyes again, confused and furious. Pete didn't realize how much her brother hid from her. He knew he hated Kyle for a reason.

"Ah, no one told you." His eyes jumped to Kyle as he slid toward Katie like a panther to his prey. "Pity." He smiled down at the dark haired girl as she breathed more quickly than a frightened rabbit. A black-gloved fingertip touched the side of her face. She jerked away, flattening against the wall. Pete sighed and rocked back to give some space. "The only reason you're alive is to serve a higher purpose. There are hundreds of others like you, waiting for the next command, the next order. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Her pupils dilated. Yes. Forscythe knew she wasn't completely brainless. Katie must have figured some of it out on her own. He was proud. He lowered his voice so no one in the room could hear beside the woman before him.

"Katie, love. I've heard some unpleasant things that I'd prefer to discuss in private." He paused and ran the back of his index finger down the curve of her cheekbone as she pressed away, closing her eyes. Then, his voice faltered. Those hard sapphire eyes softened into the bright blue of a clear blue sky. He almost looked vulnerable. "Please, Kate. Come with me, I just want to help."

A/N: A great big thank you to my new followers. Every time I see a new person is reading, it inspires me to keep writing and update as quickly as possible. You're the best.