"John Frasier did not commit suicide. I killed him." The words were soft, barely above a whisper, but Bucky heard them all the same and the impact was like an explosion.

It wasn't possible. Melody, a woman devoted to saving lives-had blood on her hands. Bucky drew away, lifting his head to look at her, a silent question in his eyes. He couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe. Everything she was telling him, it couldn't be true.

Melody didn't look away from his gaze. "I killed him," she said again, her voice a bit stronger as more tears streamed down her red face. "I stole his gun out of the safe and shot him with it. I wore gloves so my finger prints wouldn't show up when the police came, I put the barrel underneath his chin so it would look like he did it. I threw the gloves into the fire place while his body thrashed around and started screaming for Moria."

Her words became agitated and quick, like water bursting from a dam. "The police never even questioned that it was a suicide. Or at least I think they didn't, they never tried to charge me with anything at least."

She took a shuttering breath, wiping at her eyes again which were red and swollen.

Bucky wanted to reject her words, reject the idea that Melody was capable of murder, but he couldn't. Despite it going against everything she was, it still made sense. The way she'd reacted when he'd left the front closet open. The nightmare that had ended with her stabbing him. What she'd said, "I was trying to save my life...Not all wounds bleed...People are better at remembering things that hurt us." It all fit. Then, unbidden and without conscious thought a hundred horrifying images came to life in his mind that showed him Melody's past.

Melody as a young child with gaps between her teeth, thrown to the floor while her father stood over her with a belt and an angry scowl on his face. A knife running down her arm as a larger hand held her in place while she screamed, then pitch black sutures weaving in and out of her skin as he repaired the same damage he'd created...Melody again, a child standing at the side of a large bed, tears running down her face as she pressed a gun underneath the chin of the sleeping man. The man who should have been her protector. The man who instead was her jailer and her monster.

"Melody," he whispered, rubbing his thumb across her cheek to wipe away her tears. "It's alright." The blood on her hands didn't matter. Who was he to judge that when he'd killed hundreds? Hundreds of strangers who'd done nothing wrong. But Melody? The one life she'd taken was one she'd taken out of need. A life who would have ended hers if given the chance. Bucky was sure of it.

Whatever she'd done, it had been to stay alive. Bucky knew that. The murder wasn't her. The surgeon who saved lives was. The woman who gave up sleep to talk the Winter Solider down from his nightmares was her. Nothing she had done in her past was going to change Bucky's mind on that.

"Are you kidding me?" she said, her voice weak as she laughed a watery laugh. "I just told you I murdered someone and you're telling me that things are 'alright'? Are you crazy?"

"You didn't have a choice," he said instantly. "You were backed into a corner. It was your life or his." Though the situation was horrible and conflicted with his own image of who Melody was and her past-it didn't change one vital thing-Melody was not a killer. She didn't take lives for the hell of it. She was devoted to protecting life. To preserving it, whatever she'd done, it hadn't been for kicks, it had been to survive.

Melody shoved him away, startling him and Bucky stumbled back into the end table. "No James," she said, veins popping in her throat and eyes narrowing into silts. "I was not backed into a corner. Not right then. He was asleep. He was not attacking me. I was not being hit or stabbed right then. He was asleep, unarmed and had no way to defend himself. My life was not in danger in that moment. I had a choice and I chose to kill." She fell back against the couch, burying her face in her hands. "No one told me to do it, no one pressured me, no one brainwashed me into doing anything. Everything I did was my own choice."

Suddenly, something else clicked into place. Melody's insistence that she wasn't afraid of him, that she only feared people who'd had a choice and chosen something evil. She'd been talking about herself. "Easy," Bucky said, taking one small step closer and holding out his hands in what he hoped she would read as a calming gesture. "I'm not going to judge you. I don't have the right. I've killed more people than you ever will."

Melody curled her knees to her chest and glanced up at him for a moment. "You never had a choice James. I did-that's the difference here."

"Melody-."

"Don't," she said flatly. "I know you mean well, but there is no way to make this better. Whatever John was, he was a human being and I murdered him. I chose to take his life. I turned off any empathy and emotions I had and I murdered him and I lied about it. Not amount of reasoning will ever change that."

"Do you regret it then?" Bucky asked softly. "You feel guilty about it?" He was well acquainted with that feeling. All the people he'd killed, whether he'd chosen it or not, he'd still done it and he had to live with it.

"That's what scares me the most," Melody said softly, hiding her face again. "Because all I feel guilty is about is how callous I was when I killed him. I don't feel any guilt over his death. I don't regret it. I know I should, but I can't, not even a little."

Bucky reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You might have had a choice then, but you really didn't have any good ones open to you. If you hadn't done what you did, he might have killed you."

That was why Bucky didn't care what she did. From everything she'd said, to the brutal-looking scar on her arm-they all told Bucky one thing: John Fraiser would have killed her one day.

The fact that she'd prevented that outcome, however grisly the means didn't matter. What mattered was that she was alive and safe. That outcome was more to Bucky than her actions to get there.

"He almost did," Melody said, instantly confirming his instincts. "One night he was angry, wanted to practice his suture again, but this time he wanted to it on a stab wound." One of her harms wound around her stomach, and Bucky's blood went cold when he realized that was where she'd been stabbed. Stab wounds to the abdomen were tricky. They were either extremely deadly as they hit the lungs or other vital organs or they just hit muscle and left painful but not life threatening wounds.

"I couldn't breathe," Melody said, her shoulders hunching up, as though she could still feel the pain. "And I remember Moria shouting to bring me to the hospital. Not that it happened, everyone would have known what he was then. He treated me at home, told everyone I had the flu and though I did recover and heal just fine all I could think afterwards was that he was going to kill me one day. I kept thinking that there was nothing I could do, no rule-book I could follow that would keep him from killing me one day. I'd gotten lucky that time, but it wouldn't hold out forever. I kept thinking that. I kept thinking that no one would protect me, and that was the day I started planning to..."

Her voice trailed off, but Bucky didn't need her to say it aloud. He already knew what was at the end of that sentence.

"You did what you had to do," Bucky said firmly. "You didn't have another way out."

"There were teachers at my school I could have told," said Melody as she ticked them off on her fingertips. "And doctor's at the hospital when John broke my leg, I could have told them and I could have called the police one day when John wasn't home. I had options, I just didn't see how they'd work."

"You were too close to the situation," Bucky reasoned, squeezing her shoulder. "When it's so...personal a problem, you can't see an obvious solution to it. You're just too close." He knew that pretty well. After regaining his memories, the obvious solution would have been to talk with Steve, the one person Bucky was completely sure would help him. But he hadn't been able to do it. He had no idea how to face Steve Rogers after everything he'd done and everything he'd become.

Melody didn't reply and Bucky gathered up whatever courage he had and slid closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

"You keep my secrets," he whispered. "So yours will always be safe with me." He took a deep breath, feeling his heart pick up as he spoke. "And knowing this, it doesn't change how I feel about you-not in a negative way at least." He added the last part hastily.

The feeling was still there, lurking in his heart and he couldn't tell her about it. That unnamed feeling, he knew had great power, the ability to hurt or to heal and he was sure, in this instance it would just leave hurt.

"In fact," he continued. "If anything in just amazed by how strong you are."

She'd endured more horror than he'd believed and survived it. She built a life for herself out of the wreckage of her past and became something of a hero in her own right.

"Have I ever told you that you're crazy?" she asked, laughing weakly and smiling.

"No."

"Well I'm saying it now. You're crazy."

"Ever hear the phrase 'the pot's calling the kettle black'?" Bucky asked. "Or did that die out in the last seventy-years?" She thought he was crazy for not being horrified at the fact that she had taken action to save her own life, but apparently she was sane despite housing an internationally wanted criminal with the second highest body count in Hydra history.

"It is," Melody said, laughing without humor. "It's just not tossed around by young people like me."

"I'll remember that," Bucky said.

"Thanks," Melody yawned and moved closer, her head resting on his chest. The contact made sent a shiver through Bucky. Melody however was too exhausted to notice and said nothing.

"I meant what I said you know," Bucky told her as she nodded off. "Your secret is safe with me."

Melody yawned again and her words were slurred when she spoke. "Thank you James, for everything."

"Anytime," he muttered, but she didn't hear him. Melody had already fallen asleep. Bucky sighed and moved carefully so he could lift her up. He wasn't sure if she was on call tomorrow but he was sure that'd she have a very sore neck if she tried to sleep on the couch all night.

Moving quietly and swiftly, Bucky brought her upstairs and laid her in her bed, careful not to make too much noise and wake her up. As he pulled the duvet over her, Bucky couldn't help but notice how peaceful she looked.

Even with her blotchy cheeks, puffy eyes and tiny cuts on her face, Melody looked at ease, finally at rest. She wasn't fighting a battle anymore. There was no fight to save a life, to save Bucky from his ghosts or to keep her own at bay. She didn't have to fight anymore, at least not right then.

The sight made Bucky's chest tighten as he realized just how long Melody Frasier had been fighting battles.

As Bucky laid down, he reached out to her again, a habit he couldn't shake and he shut his eyes. Imprinted in his mind was the scar on her arm.

I will never let that happen to you, Bucky thought, feeling his injured arm throb hotly. No matter what, no one will ever lay a hand in you again. I promise.

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Thanks for reading! :)