Firstly, news.

I recently received an unconditional offer from University to study a Bsc in Chemistry, which I've accepted, so IM GOING TO UNI BABY YEAH IM GONNA GET A CHEM DEGREE im one step closer to being a mad scientist

Secondly, I hope you all liked the last Chapter. This one is coming out way sooner than I thought it would but I have 2 weeks off work so my motivation is at a high

ALSO if anyone reading this also read much ado about vulcan there is an easter egg near the end of the chapter for you :)

FOUR DAYS LATER

Erin was warm. Slightly too warm, but not enough to make her uncomfortable. Through her closed eyelids she could see the red-orange glow of what she knew to be sunlight hitting her face. As she surfaced towards consciousness, she began to hear a steady beeping sound near her, quiet and high pitched. There was also a pressure on her left hand. It was that more than anything that made her open her eyes.

She blinked twice, hard. The light streaming in was too bright and it burnt her sensitive retinas. Before she had a chance to even make a noise, the pressure on her hand increased to such a level that it was almost painful. She looked down, confused, and saw Bucky sat beside the clean, crisp bed she was led on, holding onto her hand with such a grip that his knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"Erin? Can you hear me?"

She wrinkled her eyebrows and blinked again, trying to get used to her surroundings. It was clean, too clean. Almost clinical.

"Where am I?" Her voice was a lot croakier than she had anticipated, and her hand unclasped from Bucky's and raised to her throat in surprise. She felt a small tug from her forearm and looked at it in confusion. There was a cannula attached to a vein in her arm, from which a long plastic tube was connected to a bag of what looked like water, hanging from a hook next to her bed.

"What the f-"

"You're in hospital, Erin. You've been out for four days."

Four days? It had really been four days since Bucky had rescued her from HYDRA, since he'd tried to kill her? Since-

Since she had shot a man in cold blood.

Erin tried to sit up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the uncomfortable feeling of the IV saline drip in her arm. She felt odd, unbalanced somehow. Bucky got up immediately and moved with her, helping her get into a comfortable position.

"Pine?"

"Dead." Bucky responded. She didn't miss the note of satisfaction in his deep voice. After all this time, everything that she had been through, it was over. Pine was dead. She expected Bucky to look happy, relieved. He didn't.

"What's wrong?"

He broke off eye contact with her for the first time since she had woken up, his bright blue eyes moving from her face to his fingernails.

"Bucky," Her voice had turned serious now, "What's happened. Is everyone alright? Are you alright?"

He let out a humourless laugh and looked back at her.

"You always worry about everyone else, Erin. That's your problem. You always consider other people before you consider yourself." His voice was low.

"You're scaring me. What's wrong?" Erin's feeling of warmth and contentment had left her, covering her instead in a cold sweat. He brought his eyes back up to hers and this time they were filled with an expression she hadn't seen for a while. It was the same expression that had been on his face the night that he had remembered. The night that she had brought back the memories of what had happened to her in Poland the first time.

It was a look of guilt.

"They tell me the bullet to your shoulder hit the brachial plexus." His voice was monotonous. He noticed her look of confusion and carried on without interruption, "It controls the function of the muscles in your arm, it's basically a bundle of nerves."

Erin's heart dropped, that feeling of uneasiness had returned. Her eyes were trained on Bucky.

"And?"

"We spoke to the doctors and they told us-."

Bucky cut off and sighed, he rubbed his brow with his metal hand, pushing the soft strands of dark hair out of his face. Erin was still, unmoving. A feeling of numbness had crept up her body.

"They told us you'd lost the use of your right arm completely, that it would be best to amputate."

Erin blinked once. Twice. Three times.

"Say something. Please."

She squeezed her fingers on her left hand, the hand that Bucky was holding. She felt him squeeze back. Then she squeezed her fingers on her right hand.

Squeezed them again.

Nothing.

She broke off her eye contact with Bucky and looked instead at the thick wad of bandages wrapped clinically around her right shoulder. Her arm had gone. It was almost like she was in a dream. That was why she felt unbalanced, why she felt slightly sick when she awoke.

"Brachial plexus?" She pronounced the words, sounding them out loud. Bucky nodded and pushed back a strand of hair from her face. He got up off his chair and leant forwards to kiss her forehead, his lips on her skin for a fraction of a second, but enough to reassure her, make her feel a little better.

"It's right at the top of your shoulder, near your neck."

She nodded again, her body still in shock. It was taking her a while to comprehend what had happened. She had been shot in the shoulder and it had damaged a bundle of nerves, a bundle of nerves so important that she could not use her arm without them.

"How do you feel?"

She let out a humourless laugh. How did she feel? She'd woken up missing a limb after having killed a man. Her first kill. Hopefully her last. She didn't know how to put into words everything that was flying around her mind, all the fears and emotions. Eventually she settled on:

"Tired,"

He nodded, "They've pumped you full of so many painkillers I'm surprised you're awake at all. I've been speaking to Tony."

She looked at him in confusion. Tony?

"Why?"

"He said he could make you a prosthetic. A good prosthetic."

"You mean like one of those bad boys?" She gestured to his metal arm, and he let out a snort of laughter.

"Not quite," She could tell that he was slightly reassured by her attempt at a joke, even if it was half-arsed. "Maybe you can get a picture of a red moon on the shoulder, we can match," He looked down at the gaudy red star that had been painted onto the side of his metal arm. She rolled her eyes at his comment, but couldn't help the way the left corner of her mouth tilted up into something resembling a smile. As soon as Bucky saw it he moved forward from his seat and pressed his lips against the side of her mouth. He looked at her, face inches from hers, with something akin to wonder.

"You're so strong, Erin. Stronger than anyone. I don't deserve you."

She smiled again, looked him in the eyes. Blue on brown. She lifted up her arm and placed it on the side of his face, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. His stubble had grown out, making his sharp jawline even rougher than usual. It looked like he hadn't shaved in five days. When she thought about it, he probably hadn't.

"You need to stop saying that," she muttered, almost to herself, "You are deserving of so much more than you believe."

She threaded her hand through his hair and brought his face down to hers for a kiss, this time, on the lips. He put his hands on each side of her face, just touching her neck, cold on one side warm on the other. He tilted her head slightly to get a better access to her mouth, noses bumping. Erin moved her hand from his hair down the back of his clean white shirt. The pair were interrupted by a loud beeping noise, and Bucky pulled away, his lips red and wet, startled.

Erin was just as confused as him until a young female doctor ran into the room, her black hair tied high above her head in a ponytail.

"Is everything okay, the monitor started beeping. Her heart rate is rising rapidly-" Her accent was, to Erin's surprise, Southern English. She stopped half way through her sentence as she took in the position of Bucky and Erin, their faces a few inches from each other. Bucky gave an embarrassed chuckle and sat back down, hands raised.

"Sorry. Won't happen again."

The doctor smiled at him and walked around the bed, perching casually on the side of it. She looked at Erin with concern.

"I'm Dr. Birchwood, I've been overseeing your progression," she hopped off the bed and picked up a chart from the foot of it, turning it over in her hands and having a look, "Your vitals are looking good, we've got you on saline and morphine," She gestured to the drip in her forearm, "All in all you're pretty stable."

"Apart from the missing arm," Erin interjected. She felt Bucky stiffen beside her and put her hand over his in something that was an attempt at comfort.

"Apart from the missing arm," Dr. Birchwood agreed. She put the folder back down and looked straight at Erin, "You were hit in the subclavian artery. It busted open your brachial plexus, basically fried all the nerve endings in your arm. You're pretty lucky not to have died from blood-loss. This one," She gestured to Bucky with her head, "Carried you in here four days ago and hasn't moved from your bedside once."

Erin looked at Bucky in surprise but he averted her gaze, embarrassed.

"We'll keep you for another twenty-four hours just to monitor all your functions, but I see no reason why you can't go home tomorrow. Your body responded incredibly well to the surgery and treatment."

Erin nodded and shuffled her position in the bed slightly. "Thank you,"

The doctor nodded and spun on her heel, walking out of the room. She turned at the door, and gave Erin a dazzling smile, showing a thick set of straight teeth slightly too big for her mouth.

"I'd keep a hold of him if I were you," She gestured to Bucky.

Erin squeezed his hand tighter, the simple contact between them enough to calm her nerves slightly.

"I have every intention of it."

REVIEW ANd SUCHLIke yes I chopped Erin's arm off I'm horrible and also very sorry. Sometimes the characters dont do what i plan them doing.

Slightly shorter chapter as it came out so soon after the last one which was a super long-un