"Morning," Bucky greeted Mel same as every morning and despite his tiredness, he felt cheerful. She'd been right, the reflections had come after getting in the habit of writing in the journal all the time. Whether or not it was actually going to help him deal with everything in his head was yet to be determined, but Mel had been right once. Who's to say she wouldn't be again?

"Morning," her own reply was much stiffer, almost irritated and it didn't go unnoticed by Bucky as she handed him a cup of coffee.

"You alright?" Bucky asked, but even as he looked up at her, he realized how truly stupid that question was.

Mel looked terrible. Her hair was thrown haphazardly into a messy twist. She'd missed several strands and they were falling into her very pale face. Her eyes were glossy and she had bags underneath her eyes that suggested she hadn't slept all night.

"Are you feeling okay? You look sick."

The doctor ran a shaking hand down her face. "I'm fine."

"Did you sleep last night? After I woke you up I mean."

"I told you I was awake before that." Her voice was sharp, irritated.

"Yeah, I know," Bucky said, not believing a word of it. Her crazy hours at work and the stress of it were physically and mentally wearing. The idea she'd be unable to sleep after all of that made no sense to him. "But I mean after I saw you last, when I came downstairs, did you ever get up to bed?"

Melody yawned. "No."

"Why not?"

"I told you before, I couldn't sleep."

Bucky regarded her skeptically. "Why?"

"Because I couldn't sleep, not really much of an answer," she shrugged. "But I don't have anything else to offer."

Bucky still wasn't sure she was being honest but he let it go. She already seemed annoyed for whatever reason and he wasn't eager to be the one to flip the switch from annoyed to enraged.

"Is Sharon coming over today?" he asked. "She hasn't been around for awhile."

Melody shrugged. "I don't know-I just hope she doesn't show up with a bullet in her shoulder like last time."

Bucky choked on his coffee. "What now?"

"Last time I had a day off and Sharon made a surprise visit she was injured and I got to patch her up."

"So even on your day off you were a doctor huh?"

"I might not wear my scrubs all the time," Mel replied. "But I never stop being a doctor."

"Isn't it bad not to have a separation?" Bucky asked, recalling Sharon's words to him when she told him about Mel's father. Sharon had said she was a doctor all day long, watching people die or struggle with a crippling wound of some kind. According to Sharon, she needed a place to just be Mel. He agreed with that, Bucky knew nothing about medicine, but he had no doubt it was stressful.

She needed a place to get away from that stress and part of that, Bucky was sure, was turning in the scrubs for a while and just being a person instead of a doctor.

"If there was an operation to remove that doctor bit from me I'd perform it or find someone that could. But there isn't so here I sit." Mel took another long drink of coffee.

"Don't they teach you how to do that? Separate your work life from your personal life?"

"Yeah but I don't have a personal life. Just ask my scrub nurses."

"Scrub nurses?"

"They're part of my surgical team," Mel explained. "We're pretty close I guess. Becky's life's ambition is get to go to Hoppers and join some of the others for bowling night."

"That sounds like fun," Bucky commented. "So why don't you go with?"

Mel ran her index finger around the rim of her cup and her tired eyes were far off and unfocused. "I don't really do that kind of stuff."

"Why not? You're young, you should be out doing that kind of stuff, enjoying life and everything that comes with it."

Mel began laughing, the sound like a bell and it startled Bucky. Though he'd been living with her for nearly a month he had never heard the sound before. Her sleepy eyes sparkled like emeralds as she laughed and it took a few moments before she had control of herself again.

"What's so funny?" Bucky asked.

"You just reminded me of someone is all."

"Who?"

"A patient I had back when I was an intern," she answered, eyes still sparkling with an echo of laughter. "It was Christmas, six o'clock or a bit after, I don't remember, but it was icy outside. This old woman, she broke her hip walking along the sidewalk, she caught herself on a pole, or she tried to and sliced open her hand. My resident charged me with taking care of her."

"So I remind you of an old lady because I sliced open my hand?" Bucky teased, wondering if he could get her to laugh again.

It worked and Bucky felt something warm stir inside his chest. He liked her laugh. It made her "No, it's just, while I was working, she asked me what a young thing like me was doing at a hospital when I should have been out celebrating."

"What'd you tell her?"

"That I, well that I had no family to celebrate with."

Bucky heard Sharon's story echo back in his mind. Her father was dead and though her mother was still living, they had stopped being a family. Suddenly, Bucky wondered just how many Christmases Melody had passed by herself.

"Why not?" he asked, wondering if she'd opt to tell him what happened. Though he already knew the truth, Bucky wanted to hear it from her. He wanted...he wanted her to trust him with her painful past.

Mel didn't answer at first, but instead drew out a long breath. "I don't have parents."

"They're dead?" Bucky asked, playing dumb and letting an expression of confusion and sorrow flicker across his face.

"My father is."

"So your mother is alive then?"

"I assume so," Mel said. "I haven't seen an obituary in the newspaper yet."

"Assume?" Bucky didn't like the way she said that either. Something about it seemed heavy, as though there was a great deal more to the word that what the dictionary said.

"She and I don't talk."

"Why not?"

"We don't get along," Mel said with another shrug of her tiny shoulders. "So it makes both of our lives a lot easier if we don't talk." There was a pause and then she spoke again. "Do you remember your mother Bucky?"

"No," he shook his head. "She died when I was a kid."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," Bucky said with a shrug of his own. He took another sip of his coffee which was now stone cold, grit his teeth and gathered up whatever courage he had left. He wanted Mel to tell him the truth, he wanted that very much, but she would need the chance to do it. She needed an invitation to open up.

"Do you remember your father?"

Mel shaking hands curled around her coffee mug, like she was warding off a chill. "There isn't much to remember."

"You were young when he died then?" Bucky pressed, not sure if it was the right thing to do, but unable to stop all the same. Please, he thought. Let me try to help you be Mel.

"No, I wasn't that young, I was twelve, nearly thirteen. I just don't have many good memories of him. He wasn't home that often so I rarely saw him." She sighed and stood up, hands trembling as she slid her stool back against the island. "I'm going to go out for a bit alright? Run some errands. I'll be back soon."

Melody tugged on a jacket as she spoke, pausing only to switch her coffee from one hand to the other and then grabbed her keys.

"Don't you think you might want to change first?" Bucky asked, noting her mussed hair and sweatpants.

"Nah, the clerks are used to me looking awful, they won't say anything."

"You don't look awful," Bucky said instantly, still remembering the way her laugh sounded and the way it made her eyes sparkle. "You look beautiful."

He actually hadn't thought about it before, but now, saying it aloud, Bucky realized it was true. Mel wasn't beautiful in the sense that she made a room stop and stare to get a look at her, but in a way that crept on people.

He hadn't noticed at all until he'd seen her light up and laugh. Now he saw all of it. The bright green of her eyes, the waves in her hair and the graceful proportions of her hands. He felt stupid for taking so long to see it.

Mel's thin mouth flickered. "I'm not beautiful, but thanks anyway." Then she turned around and vanished from view, and Bucky waited to hear the tell-tale sound of the door swinging shut.

He didn't. Instead, he heard a sharp gasp and then the sound of a glass breaking against the floor.

Thanks for reading! :)