Author's Note: Ah, I've been thinking about the scene in this chapter ever since seeing the movie. I hope y'all enjoy it; please review!

. . .

"I cannot thank you enough for all you've done for me," Bucky said as he stood on Daniel's front porch. The sun was just climbing over the horizon, and while Bucky wanted to express his gratitude thoroughly for the pastor's hospitality and willingness to answer countless questions, he was now anxious to find Steve.

"It was no trouble at all," Daniel replied with a friendly smile. "I'll be praying for you."

"Again, I thank you."

"If you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to come to me. I'm always here for you."

Bucky nodded and waved to his friend before setting his face toward the street. He started walking in the direction of the Helicarrier incident, hoping to find Steve in whatever hospital was closest to it. He had shaved his beard and taken a cleansing shower while in Daniel's home. The kind pastor, even after providing a place to sleep, had also given Bucky a set of casual clothes including a ball cap, so hopefully he could blend in well enough.

It took about half an hour of wandering to find the damaged Triskelion building and the wreckage of the Helicarriers. Cops and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were still crawling all over the area, both in the debris field and in a wide perimeter, and Bucky feared that he would be recognized in spite of his makeshift disguise. However, he soon spotted a hospital on a nearby road, pretty near to the place he had pulled Steve onto the river bank, and he made for it without drawing any attention to himself. Once he reached it, he entered the door and waited patiently at the front desk.

"Can I help you with something, sir?" the receptionist asked.

"I am looking for Steve Rogers," Bucky said, only realizing after he had finished his sentence that Cap's location could be classified from the public.

"No walk-in visitors are authorized to see him," the lady said with a hint of suspicion in her voice. "Only those with expressed permission and identification."

Bucky knew he should have expected something like this, but he was at least glad to know that he had found the right place. "Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you for your time."

Bucky walked out of the hospital and sighed. He examined the building closely, noting all the details he could. It was only three stories high, and surely Steve would have been removed to a recovery room by now. That meant that he was probably not on the first floor. Although that still left many rooms to choose from, Bucky did not let that deter him.

He walked across the street to a two-story restaurant and ascended to the highest point. He found a window facing the hospital and drew from a pocket one of the only items he had left besides his blade: a magnifying lens. He waited a few minutes as a couple customers cleared out, and then he utilized his time alone. He held the device up to his eye and gazed through it into each hospital window, hoping that Steve's would be unobstructed by curtains or shutters.

He looked over the entire second floor and did not see anything that would indicate his target was there. Looking up higher still, he at last laid eyes on what he sought. Halfway across the third story, Bucky could see the standing figure of the man who had worn the bird-like flight suit. He seemed to be saying a farewell to someone, and though Bucky could not see the bed or patient, there was good reason to believe it was Steve. He quickly made his way out of the restaurant and toward the alleyway to the hospital's right, hoping there would be a fire escape to take him to his destination.

His hopes were not in vain. Several series of staircases led all the way to the roof, and Bucky was on the building's top in less than a minute. He carefully counted rooms as he passed above them until he came to Steve's. He dropped silently onto the small balcony outside window and remained out of sight. He listened carefully, knowing he could not enter if someone else were there. When he was sure that Steve was alone, he peered around the wall's corner to assess the situation inside.

As he had deduced, no visitors or nurses were in the room. A single hospital bed with its headboard against the wall was in the room's center with a couple chairs at various angles around it. The patient himself was lying peacefully on the bed with his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling softly. He was not asleep, but neither was he giving any attention to his surroundings. Bucky felt his heart beat heavily in his chest.

Now that it came to this moment, Bucky was afraid. He felt the guilt of what he had done weigh upon him again, and he could not think of anything adequate to say to his dearest of friends. Steve was the best person Bucky knew, but could anyone really pass over the pain that Bucky had inflicted? Bucky took in a slow, deep breath and tried to recall all that he had been learning, both from Aragorn and from Daniel. He was doing the right thing here; it did not ultimately matter what Steve did. If Bucky had been forgiven by God, that was enough.

"Steve," Bucky said, his voice coming out in a shaky whisper. He stepped into full view but kept a decent distance from the bed as he waited to see Steve's response to his presence.

Steve's eyes quickly snapped open at the unexpected noise, and he gasped when he saw Bucky standing in the room. Bucky could see in his friend's eyes a calculation of potential courses of action, but more than anything was just the genuine gaze that had been there ever since Steve was a kid.

"Buck?" Steve asked in disbelief.

Bucky stepped nearer to his friend's bed, stopping a few feet from it. His mouth opened but nothing came out. There just wasn't any combination of words in the English language that could express the grief and sorrow Bucky felt when he looked at the wounds he had inflicted. At last he settled for the most unoriginal sentence in the history of repentance.

"I'm so sorry."

That was all he could say before his eyes filled with tears. He hated this outward display of emotions, but Steve had always been the one he could go to when they were young, and there was no holding it all in anymore. The water streamed down his cheeks, and he found himself kneeling beside the hospital bed, his face downward, just crying. It wasn't hysterical, and it wasn't unwarranted; it was the last expression of sorrow that Bucky had left.

It was not more than ten seconds before Bucky felt a warm hand resting on his shoulder, and he didn't have to guess whose it was. He turned to face Steve, and there he saw both pity and a small smile. That was all he could endure before he was truly sobbing, not like a child, but like a soldier.

Steve somehow twisted his still-battered body so that his legs swung over the side of the bed, and he slipped down beside his friend, wrapping him a warm embrace. It was such a long-desired yet unlooked for moment that neither moved for a long time, but then neither wanted to. Friendship, perhaps the most underrated of loves, gave in those minutes one of the most concentrated feelings of contentment either man had ever known.

. . .

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