Songbirds and Bombshells

by BouncingKappa

World War II brought all kinds of people together. Bucky Barnes was a sharpshooter with no big plans for himself except to live through the war and reunite with his best friend, Steve Rogers. But he hadn't planned on Nurse Sadie Reid, a stick of dynamite disguised by red lipstick. Falling in love in the middle of a war wasn't ideal, but it was the best they had. Follows CA:TFA.

35. Vows and Broken Hearts

A/N: It's a semi-regular update. This chapter was really difficult to write but I'm mostly happy with how it came out. Thank you so, so, so much for the follows, faves, and reviews. Seriously, it all means the world to me.

Extra special thanks to Not Enough Answers who helped ease my mind about the early material and to the truly wonderful Stencil Your Heart, beta-extraordinaire who is a master at talking me off all sorts of ledges.

Warnings for language apply.

Disclaimer – I don't own Cap.

Chapter 35 – Vows and Broken Hearts

From a young age Bucky discovered he had a knack for good aim. One of his earliest memories involved his mother leaving an open egg box just a fraction too close to his inquisitive hands and a cat creeping in the window box just outside of the kitchen. Bucky fisted an egg and screwed his eyes and face up in concentration, focusing on the orange and white tabby's mean-looking mug. Cocking his little arm back, Bucky hurled the egg with all of his might at the closed window. The egg hit the window with an almighty splat, right where the cat's head had been in the millisecond before it scattered off the window box with an offended yowl that Bucky might have heard if not for his mother's surprised shriek. In Bucky's memory the egg created a grandiose mess of shell fragments stuck to the window, the walls and his mother's prized curtains and the broken yolk ran down the window to puddle on the pristine white sill. His father came bursting into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about and, far from disciplining his confused son at his wife's behest, he took one look at his hysterical wife and Bucky's confused face and burst into laughter.

Bucky's experiments and exploits with his aim flourished well into childhood. He soon graduated from throwing pebbles down the docks with Steve to shooting spitballs at the boys in class who liked to torment his best friend. Bucky could always land a punch when he needed to break up one of Steve's fights while the discovery of his strong throwing arm meant he left spitballs behind for baseballs, playing any position necessary for the pickup games he and his friends played in the abandoned lot a few blocks away from school. Brooklyn's unofficial record for the most home runs and balls hit into the unattended portion of the outfield probably still belonged to him. Baseballs soon gave way to darts and the same boys Bucky shot with spitballs grew into the same men he hustled at the local pub for free beer, a few dollars, and the adulation of any pretty girls who happened to be watching.

So when Bucky enlisted, it stood to reason that he was a natural shot and was soon recognized as the best in all of F Company. At first the guns he took up unnerved him. Looking through a scope downfield wasn't the same as closing one eye to line up his shot on the dart board. The mechanics of throwing a good curveball were smooth, quite unlike the harsh push-pull of the bolt action rifle he carried. Moreover, the worst injury Bucky could inflict with a spitball was hitting someone in the eye. Nobody ever dropped dead from a spitball or even an errant fastball. But taking up a gun knowing that he would be using it to kill other human beings unsettled Bucky, though not nearly as much as how simple killing turned out to be. In the heat of a firefight he never allowed himself the time to stop and think, not even for a millisecond, about the consequences of each shot fired. After all, he'd been conditioned to believe the enemy would kill him without mercy or remorse so why should he feel any different?

After over a year in the field and encountering numerous variations of the enemy, Bucky knew this to be only a half-truth. He'd met enough German prisoners of war to know that regular infantrymen were just average Joes, born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. The real danger lay in other places, not in the hands and hearts of young men who didn't want to be at war any more than he did. Bucky didn't want to put any more of those lives in his crosshairs and he was glad for the opportunity to leave the 107th and turn the full force of his attention to those who really would kill him and everyone he loved without mercy or remorse.

HYDRA had been a thorn in Bucky's side since the bastards rolled onto the battlefield at Azzano with tanks, obliterating anyone in their path without so much as a second's hesitation. That he survived at all sometimes still surprised him when flashes of blue light or the faces of his dead friends woke him in the middle of the night. In the birdcages Bucky learned what true hatred felt like, the fire ignited in his veins that bubbled in the pit of his stomach until it boiled over in a cascade of ugliness he never knew existed within him. He hated HYDRA and Schmidt and every last mindless drone who donned the black uniform and Bucky never once gave a second thought to the dozens of HYDRA soldiers he killed in the line of duty. They were ants he wanted to crush beneath his boot as payback for each and every person who died at their hands, be it innocent civilians, other soldiers, or especially his friends. One by one factories tumbled, burning in effigy while the central focus of Bucky's hatred continued to slip away time and again. But now Arnim Zola was within reach, an elusive ghost no more and Bucky would be happy to put him back in the crosshairs if only to escort him to a prison cell where he could rot for all Bucky cared.

However, the agreement to bring Zola into custody alive didn't stop Bucky from imagining Zola's face every time he lined up his sights down the long lane of the SSR's shooting range. Just picturing the man's head snap back beneath a puff of red mist gave Bucky a sick sort of satisfaction and the A1911 never felt more comfortable in his hands than when he conjured the mental image and fired again and again and again.

The range was blissfully empty, located at a secure SSR facility just outside of London. Bucky appropriated a motorcycle almost as soon as the mission briefing ended, determined to get away from the stifling bunker and every set of eyes that inevitably drifted toward him during the painful three hour breakdown of the coming mission. He needed some time to clear his head and the bike practically steered itself to the shooting range.

Down on the far end he could see a tight cluster of holes marking his paper target. His whole body itched to settle down with his rifle and take up a still position, popping off long distance shots one after another like firecrackers pinging on the Fourth of July. But this mission wasn't made for rifles and scopes. Working in such close quarters as a HYDRA train meant he would be stuck with his .45 and a light submachine gun, easily portable weapons that were good for close quarters and that didn't require much in the way of skill.

"Fighting on a train," he muttered to himself, putting the safety back on his handgun and checking the chamber before he discharged the empty magazine. "What'll they think of next?"

Bucky rolled out his neck, feeling a couple of pops in his spine where a knot of tension rested, growing with the passing hours to grasp at his shoulders and reach up to the base of his skull. His whole back felt tense and his stomach perched on the edge of a cliff, ready to drop out of his body just thinking about what he was going to have to do to get on board the train to get to Zola and the cache of weapons and parts allegedly moving to one final stronghold. Roller coasters and thrill rides at Coney Island were one thing but this plan - using a zip line to board the train - was like trying to catch a speeding bullet with his fingers and praying that he only cut his fingers in the process. Whatever genius moved Steve to convince Colonel Phillips and Peggy that this was a good idea should have been enough to get the man locked up for good.

Blowing out a hard sigh, he turned away from his spot on the range and retreated to a table behind him, carrying three empty magazines in one hand. Reaching into an open ammunition locker, he plucked his cartridges and pushed them into the magazines one at a time, eight to a magazine before moving on to the next. There was something therapeutic and methodical about the work that helped Bucky clear his head for just a handful of moments before a voice drifted from the open doorway.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Bucky didn't glance up to acknowledge Steve; instead he snorted in humorless laughter. "What gave me away?"

"Ah, nothing much. You had that look on your face when you left the bunker."

"What look?"

"The same one you got before you went and beat the hell out of Jimmy McKinley after he tried to get fresh with Rebecca."

"He deserved it," Bucky argued, head snapping up to glare at Steve.

Steve held up his hands in defense. "I'm not saying he didn't. You just looked like you were ready to blow off some steam and when I didn't find you with the punching bags I figured you'd be here."

"I'm fine," Bucky promised, though in the midst of his bold-faced lie he tried to force a bullet into the magazine just a fraction too hard. The smooth bullet slipped from beneath his thumb and shot across the room, rolling to a stop at the toe of Steve's boot. He stooped down and picked it up, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Now, see that's something I'm usually saying to you."

"Yeah right!" Bucky scoffed. "Not since before I left."

Steve couldn't argue with Bucky on that score. Their role reversal over the last year still chafed at Bucky in ways that he would never, ever admit out loud, owing to the incredible shame he felt any time he tried to compare himself to Steve. He wasn't jealous of Steve per se so much as he wasn't accustomed to coming in second to him in anything. Perhaps it was wrong to feel so out of place next to his best friend but sometimes Bucky couldn't help it. Here Steve was, ready and willing to leap feet first into danger and Bucky couldn't seem to stop second-guessing himself.

The bullet reappeared in Bucky's line of sight. He took it back from Steve who leaned against the table, looking out over the shooting range. "I know it's a crazy idea."

Bucky snorted in humorless laughter. Loading the bullet into the magazine, he pushed it back into the handgun. "We left crazy behind a long time ago."

Steve couldn't disagree with Bucky's assessment. For a moment they moved in silence; Bucky to take his place at the range again and Steve to move off to the side, arms draped casually over his chest while he watched. Once more, Bucky imagined Zola's face on the target downrange, took the safety off his gun and let loose. Eight shots zipped down the range and pierced the target with near-perfect accuracy. Bucky checked the chamber and ejected the empty magazine, trading it out for another.

"You know," Steve's drawl carried with it a hesitation, announcing words Bucky knew he was going to say before he even said them. "You don't have to do this. Nobody's gonna blame you if you sit this one out. We both know Dum Dum will take your place if you want."

"I can't ask him to do that."

A sharp snap echoed in the silent room when the fresh magazine slid into place. Bucky pulled the slide back and took aim again.

"It wouldn't be you asking, I'd make a recommendation and Phillips would make the call. Everyone knows how personal this is for you; maybe it's too personal."

Rather than answer right away, Bucky emptied the second magazine, grimacing when he realized his aim was all over the place. "I'm not some kid who can't stop himself from punching a schoolyard bully, Steve. When I signed on for this three ring circus I knew what I was getting myself into. Besides," the next magazine clicked into place, "if anyone is gonna capture that bastard it should be me. I want to end this and I want to do it on my terms."

"Alright, alright, I believe you. I just wanted to make sure."

Unbidden to him, a half-laugh escaped Bucky's lungs. He set the A1911 down and shook his head, trying his hardest not to let the dark humor get the better of him.

"What is it?"

"I'm thinking about all those damn enlistment forms you faked to try and get into the Army. If someone told me two years ago that we'd be getting ready to drop onto a speeding train and you'd be leading the charge I'd have probably died laughing."

Steve's laughter mingled with his, considering the absurdity of their situation. Brooklyn felt like a million miles away, a distant memory along with his old life. In all reality, they hadn't been away from home that long but that world still seemed like a dream, hazy and filled with fragments of images from a distant life. Bucky was so used to Steve as he was now that he struggled to picture his scrawny best friend. Bucky wished he could go back even if for only a day to laugh until he cried when Steve nearly choked on his first sip of beer or to see Rebecca chasing after them when they ran off to join a snowball fight. The longing for childish things swept over him as he ached for the days that they ditched school to watch the Dodgers play when the spring weather was particularly fine. Maybe their lives weren't perfect but Bucky supposed that that was what made their brotherhood so strong.

"It's been a hell of a ride," Steve admitted, emerging from his own walk down memory lane.

Bucky smiled and nodded, thinking of a question he never really considered before. "What it worth it?"

"Yeah," Steve replied slowly, still considering the question even as he answered. "At least, I think it was. I really won't know until Zola's caught and Schmidt is dead."

For the first time since embarking on this long-winded mission, Bucky could see a path to the ending, to victory. He clapped Steve on the shoulder. "We're almost there, pal. Just do me a favor, will you? Don't go getting yourself killed or maimed along the way."

"No problem. Why?"

Bucky shrugged. "Nothing big, it'd just be real awkward if my best man didn't show up for my wedding."

Steve opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, eyes wide and tongue tripping over the words he couldn't piece together. Rather than wait for him to get around to the point, Bucky took up his gun one more time and realigned his aim, taking a moment to clear his mind. He started to imagine Zola and then brushed the image aside. What did he need that bastard for anyway? In just a couple of days he would be caught and would either be finding an inventive way to off himself or, better yet, singing like a canary. One way or another, the battle was almost over and Bucky felt as though he could breathe for the first time in months. When he looked down the range all he saw was the riddled paper target and nothing more. Lining up his sight he inhaled and on an exhale sent a straight line of eight bullets screaming down, nestling themselves in the dead center, right where they belonged.

"I'm honored, Buck. Of course I'll be there."

"Good," he pronounced and held out the magazines for Steve. "Now do yourself a favor and get some practice in. I'm not jumping onto this moving tin can with a second-rate shot, alright?"

X X X

Letters from home were often the highlight of any soldier's day. Words scrawled across a page, no matter how eloquent or neatly written, carried with them a fortifying quality, bringing hope and comfort that nothing else could bring. A mother's loving phrases did well in place of her warm embrace while lovers bore their longing in rambling sentences filled with a hundred promises for a better future. Sadie loved to pour over letters from home, reading and rereading the news that her mother and aunt sent and on occasion her friends from Little Rock. When she closed her eyes while holding her mother's crisp eggshell stationery she could picture the goings on at home, the charity events her mother planned, the hasty weddings she attended before young men went marching off to war, and the beautiful flower arrangements she put together in the front room of the house.

On a particularly rainy evening three nights before the Commandos and aid team were due to ship out on their next mission, Sadie found herself lost in the latest news from home. She sat on one corner of her sofa, legs folded off to one side and a steaming cup of tea on the coffee table before her. With Evelyn out on a shift and Bucky still stuck in a briefing, Sadie was able to enjoy a few rare moments of solace and solitude to soak up her mother's vivid description of the latest scandal to rock her circle of friends, an unexpected hiccup for planning an annual spring debutante event. Only her mother could paint a fascinating picture of middle-aged women squabbling over the theme for the gala and whether or not to include a grand staircase entrance for the young women. She caged a small smile with her fingers. It was hard to believe that she'd been one of those debutantes once; that part of her world felt almost like a dream now.

Absently she reached for her tea and narrowly missed spilling it in her lap

All around her there were signs of the coming mission. New cold-weather gear lay on the sofa table behind her, the latest material contrived by Howard Stark that was supposed to keep both Sadie and Evelyn warm without constricting their movement. Extra pairs of socks lay folded on top of brand new field jackets that bore American flags on one shoulder and the aide team's insignia on the other. On the other side of the room Sadie's pack and musette sat on the floor, emptied, cleaned out and repacked with everything she might possibly need from extra K-rations to a flashlight to medical supplies that went beyond the basic field kit. Her combat boots were just inside the open closet, polished in an effort to buff away the worst of the scuffs and cracks in the leather. More than once Howard offered to replace the boots but Sadie loathed the idea of breaking in a new pair. Her field uniform hung up next to her pristine white nursing uniforms, each one having seen a fair slice of action over the past year. Soon she would be donning the drab uniform, her lived-in boots, and hauling her gear back into the unknown for a mission that turned her stomach whenever she thought about it.

But for just a little while Sadie was able to stuff the coming mission into a vacant corner of her mind while she wrapped herself in the trappings of her mother's letter, drinking up the beautiful cursive handwriting that stretched in perfectly straight lines across the expensive stationery. Sadie bit the tip of her thumb while her mother relayed the latest big gossip including Darlene Harris leaving her husband for a local man who came home still recovering from his injuries at Normandy. Her eyebrows rose higher and higher as the juicy details came to life on the page, the weeks of flirtatious glances followed by an unceremonious divorce filing only to discover that Darlene had gone and gotten pregnant with her new lover. Sadie shook her head, lamenting the poor timing and thinking of Lou Harris still somewhere over in the Pacific, having to contend with fighting a war and heartbreak all at the same time. She couldn't fathom what would cause Darlene to do something so hurtful but Sadie supposed that Lou had been gone a long time and loneliness drove people to do stupid, crazy things.

Her mother's letter continued on until she reached a rather excited passage relaying the fact that her mother was already drawing up ideas for Sadie's wedding dress and making yet another not-so-subtle attempt to convince Sadie to change her mind and get married in Little Rock instead of Brooklyn. If she and Bucky were patient enough to wait until they got home then what was another few months to plan a beautiful southern wedding that would put all others to shame?

There were few things Sadie found less appealing than being thrust back into that world again and having to put on airs for a bunch of people she didn't care about in the first place. All she wanted was to marry Bucky and then start living her life. She made a note to gently remind her mother in her reply that the wedding was just one day and she was in it for everything that came after. Besides, she thought as she examined her engagement ring fondly, there was something appealing about rushing to the chapel as soon as they reached American soil. Waiting out the war was one thing but Sadie didn't want to wait any longer than she had to after that to build a home and a life with Bucky.

A knock on the door startled Sadie out of her reverie. Rising to her feet she padded across the hardwood floor and opened it to reveal Bucky on the other side, grinning at her as though he'd heard her thoughts walking down the hall to her room. He held up a hand, revealing two envelopes pinched between his fingers.

"What do you wanna bet Rebecca's already picked out the color for your bridesmaids dresses?"

Sadie's heart leapt in delight; she loved hearing from Rebecca almost as much as hearing from her mother. Bucky didn't even mind when she snatched the letters from his hand as a way of greeting, spinning on heel to draw back into her room. He shoved his hands in his pockets and followed her, gently kicking the door shut behind him.

"How was the briefing?" She asked absently as she slipped her finger beneath the flap of the envelope that bore Rebecca's tidy script.

"Boring as sin." Bucky divested himself of his Class A jacket, folding it at the shoulders to lay over the back of a small armchair that neither Sadie nor Evelyn ever used. "You'd think what we were doing was every day stuff the way Peggy gives mission details. I'm pretty sure I saw Morita sleeping at one point."

Sadie's lips twitched but she barely heard his response, too engrossed in unfolding Rebecca's letter to reveal paragraph after paragraph of effusive prose. Lately Rebecca had taken to addressing her letters to both her brother and to Sadie, often writing to them as though they were a unit or splitting her letters into separate sections depending on what news she had to relay or what questions she was begging to be answered. This edition contained more news about her participation in a school art fair, the promise that she was keeping her grades up and carefully muted excitement about an upcoming Valentine's day social at the church community center. Sooner or later the letter would turn to them but Sadie enjoyed the descriptions of Brooklyn and the daily life there. Often Sadie wondered if Rebecca was purposely packing her letters with additional detail to help prepare her future sister-in-law for life in the big city.

In an unconscious coordinated dance, Sadie sank down onto the sofa right into Bucky's side. She leaned forward mid-sentence so he could drape his arm around her shoulder and draw her against him. A small giggle popped out of her lips as she reached the part about a second date gone horribly awry over a spilled malt and a ruined pair of slacks.

"I swear your sister has the worst luck with dates," she muttered, still grinning.

"Good, maybe that'll keep her from following us down the aisle for a few more years," Bucky joked, turning his head to kiss her temple.

"Hmm, I don't think it works like that, buck sergeant. Afterall, it only takes one good date."

"Don't remind me."

"Would it be so awful for Rebecca to meet someone?"

"Maybe," he groused, peering over her shoulder at the letter. "Depends on the guy, I guess."

"Well, I hate to break it to you but I don't think you're going to get much of a say in who Rebecca ends up with."

A look of long-suffering pulled at Bucky's face and Sadie had to bite back a giggle over his dramatics. "Don't remind me."

For a few minutes they soaked up the sweet silence. Bucky casually read over Sadie's shoulder, absently drawing his fingers up and down her arm. Sure enough, Rebecca had an entire battery of questions for the pair of them, mostly related to the wedding and to the limited progress they'd made so far. Putting together a whole wedding proved to be difficult when there was no end in sight to the war and no end to their mission with the SSR. Sadie realized she could draw sketches of wedding dresses on the corners of napkins or imagine bouquets to her heart's content but there wasn't much point in placing orders until she knew when she'd be coming home. At length they came to the close of Rebecca's letter and she carefully folded it and set it on the coffee table. When she settled back into Bucky he tightened his arm around her and she turned her face to the side, pillowing her cheek on his collar.

The steady rise and fall of his chest accompanied the strong beat of his heart. Sadie listened to the constant thumping and felt like she was listening to her favorite song over and over again. She couldn't quite pinpoint the exact reason why but Bucky's heartbeat possessed a funny sort of power over her. On nights that nightmares woke her in the middle of the night she would lay on his chest and listen to the rhythm until it lulled her back to sleep, cradled in the safety of his arms. She liked to press her hand to his chest while they danced, feeling out the beat with her fingertips and palm. And in moments of quiet, the rare times they could just enjoy each other's company and the easy silence that flowed between them, Sadie tried to count the beats, imagining that she could align her heart to his, dreaming up a childish fantasy that perhaps their hearts were cut of the same material, two halves of a whole that came together at just the right time.

Her eyes fluttered shut, eyelashes coming to rest on her cheeks and sleep might have taken her if not for Bucky's soft voice slipping through the warm air to her ears.

"It's going to be me, Steve, and Gabe."

Sadie chose to keep her eyes closed. She nodded. "Gabe's got a solid, level head; he's a good third to take."

"Yeah," Bucky's voice sounded tight, almost as tight as her stomach. "He's also the only one who'll know how to stop the train."

For a moment Sadie wondered if she never opened her eyes she could dream away the coming mission and all of the dangers it presented. When Peggy first presented the details in a briefing, Sadie had to bite her tongue to stop herself from laughing out loud. Bucky was right that Peggy sometimes tended to blithely present mission details with no pause for the incredible nature of some of those details. It took everything Sadie had to not point out that using a zipline to drop onto a speeding train was just about the most idiotic, risky, death-defying thing she could think of. When she realized that Bucky would be one of the braindead morons boarding the train she'd gone through bout after bout of nausea that just wouldn't quite leave her.

"You okay?" He asked softly, reading even the tiniest change in her body.

Sadie lifted her head and allowed her eyes to open, confronting reality once more. Biting her lower lip, she considered all of the lies she could tell along with all of the worries that she could dump on him. But neither lies nor worries would help Bucky prepare for the coming challenge. The best she could do was be honest and reserved in her thoughts; the last thing Bucky needed was for Sadie to overload his mind with all of her concerns, especially when she already knew he shared every last one.

She touched his cheek, brushing her thumb over the slight hollow beneath the strong bone. "I'll be much happier when this mission is over."

Bucky nodded, taking a turn for an unusually sober mood. "Me too. But it's almost over, Sade. We're so close. Soon we'll have Zola and he'll lead us to Schmidt and this whole thing will be like a bad dream. Then we can get on with our lives."

Sadie couldn't think of anything to say in response to his optimism; he'd said everything she dared to hope. Fingers still on his cheek, she guided him down to her. Their lips met in a soft kiss that ended to meet in another and another after that. Bucky brought his other arm around her, stroking a long line down her spine while she continued to kiss him, pouring all of her hopes and dreams into the quiet reverie they shared. Bucky returned her muted zeal, soaking up the warmth of her body and the comfort that only she could give him. His tongue darted out to meet hers, deepening the kiss and raising it to a new experience altogether. Sadie let herself get lost in the moment.

There wasn't much she could do to allay her nerves; those would ease themselves in time with the ending of the mission. In the meantime Sadie drew on the strength of their bond and the unshakeable confidence she had in the man cradling her close, drinking from her lips as though she were ambrosia itself. His promise that they would get on with their lives held so much more than those simple words could convey and she held onto that almost as tightly as she clung to him, fingers pressed into his shoulders and back. What began as a simple kiss in lieu of an answer transformed into something deeper, a confirmation of the love that they'd both been fighting for, the same love that carried them through every high and low of the war.

When they parted Bucky stayed close, his nose brushing past hers. He exhaled into the scant space between their mouths, his breath coming to mingle with hers.

"I love you, Sade. You know that, right?"

"You know, I think I heard a rumor," she teased. Bucky dug a finger into her side, prompting her to try and squirm away but he locked back up and gave her an imploring gaze, begging for a serious answer. "I do know that. I love you, too."

Bucky nodded and Sadie realized that just like she often needed to listen to his heartbeat to calm her frayed nerves, Bucky needed to hear the words and to hear her soft southern drawl to soothe his. Slipping her fingers into his hair, she pressed herself close and drew his mouth back into another kiss, whispering sweet nothings into the seconds in-between. Mission details and plans of all kinds could wait for a while.

Those quiet hours were theirs, untouchable by anything - not duty, not rules, not even the war itself.

X X X

Fat flakes of snow fell down from the grey sky, coming to rest on the shoulders of Bucky's blue jacket. The snow clung to his hair and he pushed his fingers through it to scatter the annoying hangers-on even as he stood beneath the boughs of a large pine tree. His gear lay strewn across the hood of a jeep, separated into two rough piles: necessities and everything else. The goal was to travel light and carry only what he would absolutely need on board the train. There wouldn't be much of a need for the usual field gear and certain weapons were downright useless. Bucky couldn't very well set up a position to take out targets with his rifle and scope just as he couldn't throw grenades in such a confined space.

A frown tugged at his lips. If he was being honest, that was the most concerning detail of the entire mission to come. It wasn't the arduous climb he would have to make to get to the ledge where Falsworth and Dernier set up the zipline nor was it the biting cold weather. Bucky wasn't even all that concerned with the act of zipping down onto the train. No, it was the idea of fighting in such tight quarters. Trapped inside a speeding metal tube, the margin for error was razor thin and there was one tiny detail that no amount of briefing could answer: what kind of soldiers HYDRA had lined up to protect Zola, one of their most important leaders. There was no telling what kind of and how much cover Bucky could expect and whether he would be forced to rely on pistols or, even worse, hand-to-hand combat. Walking into a combat situation blind was something Steve found exhilarating but Bucky couldn't think of anything worse.

Doing his best to shove that concern into a dusty corner of his mind, Bucky forced himself to focus on the things he could control. Some of the best tacticians in the world had calculated this mission, from the placement of the zipline to the exact timing of the jump, all the way down to the likely distance the train would travel before Gabe managed to stop it. Howard Stark outfitted him with the the best gear that any soldier anywhere could wear and he provided the Commandos with the highest quality weapons available. There was a lot to be said for being well outfitted and armed. And when Bucky brushed aside his anxiety and fears, he found a fire in him that burned white hot, driving him toward revenge, pushing him to take this calculated risk in order to capture the man who tortured him and bring HYDRA to its knees. Bucky surveyed his gear and reminded himself that he was ready to finish this quest and ready to pursue everything that lay on the other side of revenge.

He considered the second knife yet to be sorted and grabbed it, flipping it over in his hand with practiced ease. Yes, the knife would definitely come along with his first aid kit and all the spare ammunition he could feasibly carry.

"You ready to do this?"

Dum Dum's booming voice brought Bucky to a pause. He considered his allotted gear as the man joined him at the jeep.

"Ready as I'll ever be. I still think this is one of the dumbest ideas Steve's ever had."

Bucky glanced at Dum Dum and took comfort in the cheery smile that never seemed to fade away from his face. "Anything to get that bastard though, right?"

"Yeah," Bucky stowed the knife away in his belt. "Anything."

For a moment Dum Dum stood next to him, thumbs tucked into his belt even as his cigar balanced between his lips at one corner of his mouth. He managed to inhale and exhale the smoke without the cigar so much as even bobbing up and down. A thick plume of smoke escaped into the frigid air, swirling and rising higher to disseminate in wisps that disappeared only to be replaced by more snowflakes. Dum Dum watched Bucky finish sorting his gear and snorted laughter.

"You remember in basic when O'Connell's rifle went off during a night march?"

"And Captain Bratton made us hit the deck?" He grinned at Dum Dum whose eyes twinkled with mirth.

"That bastard rolled into that ditch like it was the goddamn invasion."

Both men chuckled at the memory and Bucky thought of O'Connell rushing to get his weapon under control while everyone else was on the ground. Their Captain, a man universally disliked and whose transfer was universally celebrated, dropped onto the edge of the slightly muddy dirt road only to lose his balance and fall into the roadside ditch and an even larger mud puddle. Even now Bucky had to work hard not to laugh hard at the mental image of Bratton slipping and sliding to get out of the ditch, falling twice before ordering the two closest privates to help haul him out.

"Man, he gave O'Connell hell for that. You remember all those extra marches he had to do?"

"In full gear," Dum Dum added. Bucky exhaled as a different, less pleasant memory surfaced. A heavy hand came down on his shoulder. "He was a good guy."

Bucky nodded. There was more than one reason to take on this mission and more than one wrong to try and right. For the first time in a long time he allowed himself to think about the faces he'd hidden away to spare himself the grief. But Frank O'Connell came to the forefront of his mind as did John Nixon and Gerald Meyers, all victims of HYDRA in one way or another. A pang of grief touched his heart, vestiges of his friends who would never see home again. They were among the secrets he carried, the names etched on his heart He shared an understanding look with Dum Dum and nodded.

"Anyway," Dum Dum broke the tension and jerked his head toward the clearing where a couple members of the unit already lingered. "Get your shit together. Cap wants to move out in ten."

While Dum Dum wandered off to continue mustering the troops, Bucky stored the gear he would be leaving behind in his pack. The rest went on his person, stored in various pockets on his pants and belt. When he had everything in place he dropped his pack off in the tent he shared with Steve, still thinking about Frank O'Connell and basic training. From across the clearing, a figure emerged from the small medical tent.

Bucky wondered if there would ever be a time when his heart didn't leap at the sight of Sadie though he sincerely hoped not. He surveyed her dark hair twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, revealing her clear face and full mouth drawn into a smile as she turned back to say something to Morita even as he stuffed extra supplies into his musette. She patted Morita's arm once, sending him on his way to finish his mission preparations and paused, staring out past the clearing and down the road that would take the Commandos to their first position. When she placed her hands on her hips and drew in a deep breath, the easy expression on her face slipped just a fraction, betraying the concern that Bucky knew she'd been holding at bay for his benefit.

Sadie's voluntary silence came as a result of a particular talent of hers. Perhaps it was her southern upbringing or even perhaps an innate ability but Sadie always seemed to know exactly what to say, when to say it and, even more beneficial, she knew when silence was best. There was no need for her to communicate her fears of this particular mission; all she had to do was linger at his side a little too long or wake him in the middle of the night just to kiss him for Bucky to know that Sadie was worried. She didn't let her worry show in public and she knew that laying the words on him was akin to throwing more weight onto his back, compounding the issue until he would second-guess his every move, ultimately endangering himself. As it was, she held herself together remarkably well and when she turned back from the road her stormy eyes found his and her lips drew into a small smile that she reserved for him alone, a gesture inviting him to drop field formalities, if only for a moment or two.

He started across the clearing as she ducked back into the medical tent. When he entered she already stood on the other side, laying out medical supplies. Evelyn passed him, nodding her head in greeting while she bit off the corner of a fruit bar from a K-Ration. The redhead sashayed out of the tent with some flighty excuse about talking to Doctor Dunn. Though Bucky didn't buy her excuse for a second, he was glad for the temporary reprieve from company.

Next to him Sadie was a livewire, quivering slightly. An almost imperceptible tremor held her hands while she pushed three boxes of morphine off to the side with other medications, separate from bandages, gauze, and tourniquets. Bucky couldn't help but smile a little at her trepidation and the way she quietly revealed to him a side of herself she hid from the rest of the world. He considered their early meetings and struggled to reconcile the cool, professional woman then with the one standing next to him now, full of life and overflowing with a dozen silent emotions. She readily turned into him when he placed a hand at the small of her back, grasping the lapels of his jacket before smoothing them out in a funny, almost compulsive motion.

"We've been doing this for over a year and watching you go is never easy."

Bucky tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, skimming the tips of his fingers down her cold cheek. "This one won't take long; I'll be back before you know it."

"With that bastard in tow," she prompted and he drew her in close, smiling into the top of her head.

"With that bastard in tow," he affirmed.

"Promise me you'll be careful?"

"I will."

Sadie pulled back just enough to allow Bucky to smile down into her beautiful face. Her dark brows drew together slightly before easing under his confident air. He wanted to count the freckles dusting the bridge of her nose but settled instead for pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, chasing away the lines forming there.

"Take care of yourself, too."

She nodded and started to say something when Dum Dum poked his head in the tent. "C'mon, Buck, we gotta go."

"Yeah, one second!"

Bucky framed her face with his hands. "I'll be back soon, love you."

"Love you too, buck sergeant."

Sadie rose up to the tips of her toes, hands clutching his sides to meet him in a brief, sweet kiss. Bucky tasted coffee and wanted to hold on just a second longer but outside of the tent an engine roared to life and duty called them both away. They parted and his hand immediately founds hers, holding on for the few steps they took outside of the tent. Her fingers brushed past his palm as they separated and Bucky turned back to give her a hearty wink, earning a small smile while she stood at the entrance to the medical tent.

Ahead of him Gabe and Falsworth pulled two jeeps into line, laden with gear. Gabe sat up in his seat and signalled for Bucky to join him. He fell into step with a hulking figure in blue. Steve adjusted the straps of his shield holster, hitching them higher into place. The men shared a brief glance, both of them shifting gears into soldier-mode and as Bucky hauled himself over the side of the jeep he glanced back once more to the base camp. Sadie stood with Evelyn and while the redhead surveyed the general chaos of the Commandos moving out, Sadie's piercing grey gaze remained locked on him, her fingers wrapped around her necklace containing her engagement ring and her father's wedding band, soon to be his. Bucky grinned at her one final time before turning back around and settling into his seat just behind Steve. Reaching forward, he clapped Steve on the shoulders and gave him a single, firm shake.

"C'mon, Rogers, let's get this over with."

X X X

"I swear to God if I never see snow again it'll be too soon."

Dum Dum Dugan raised an eyebrow beneath his bowler hat. "Could be worse."

Morita frowned, staring up at the grey sky and then at the snow-covered rendezvous point they'd taken up. Though Dum Dum wanted nothing more than to prop his feet up, tip his hat over his face and try to catch a fast nap, he resigned himself to scanning either side of the road, looking for any sign of Steve or the enemy. Though SSR intelligence didn't expect HYDRA to be roaming the woods or surrounding area near the railway, that wasn't a sure thing and nobody wanted to risk an easily avoidable mishap. So he shifted on his feet, turning a slow circle near the back of one of the jeeps where he could duck for cover should the need arise.

He saw nothing but pine trees, a snow-covered road, and the rocky rise of the mountains.

"Yeah well, you're from Boston. We don't get this shit in Fresno," Morita grumbled under his breath. "I'd kill for a cup of joe right about now."

"And I'd kill for you to shut your trap but you don't see me complaining about it, do you?"

"Look, all I'm saying is that we wouldn't have to put up with this shit in the Pacific."

"Oh yes, I'm certain the soldiers serving there are thoroughly enjoying the suffocating heat and humidity," Falsworth said from where he sat on the ground next to Dum Dum, reviewing points drawn on a map.

Dum Dum grinned; it wasn't often that Falsworth waded into the little spats that broke out among the men but when he did, he always brought a particular brand of acidity that Dum Dum appreciated. Taking one hand off his rifle for just a second he gestured down to the Brit to confirm an argument he hadn't really even made.

"I hear Malaria is all the rage right now. You should ask Sadie and Evelyn what it's like to treat those patients."

Morita rolled his eyes but conceded with a grouchy "yeah, yeah, yeah" that only heightened Dum Dum's amusement. Glancing down at Falsworth, his grin only grew when he noticed the man's mustache twitching to fight off a smile of his own. And though Dum Dum would rather die than admit it to Morita, he often found himself searching for the signs of spring and the end to the bitter cold that had been an unwelcome companion for a busy, difficult winter.

A beat of silence blanketed their position. Dernier stifled a yawn. The sound of rustling paper pierced the heavy air as Falsworth folded his map and stowed it in one of his pockets along with a small compass. Dum Dum shifted on his tired feet and checked his watch, lips turning down in a frown.

"They should be back by now," he said under his breath so only Falsworth could hear him.

Falsworth's brows knit together. "I know. Something must have gone wrong."

The urge to fire back with a sarcastic response was so strong that Dum Dum had to bite the tip of his tongue to hold it in. On any given mission they ran, a hundred things could go wrong and those missions never involved scaling mountains, ziplines, or fighting inside a speeding train. Dum Dum was certain that he could come up with a list of a thousand possible worst-case scenarios and moreover, he desperately wanted to point out that they seldom ran a mission where something didn't go awry.

"Maybe Gabe couldn't figure out how to stop the damn thing and Rogers decided to just keep going all the way to Schmidt," he suggested, though Falsworth didn't see the humor in his suggestion. "I could take Dernier on a quick patrol, see if we can't find them a ways down the road."

Falsworth shook his head. "There's no point in splitting up now. If something happened we're better off together."

Dum Dum didn't have a counter to that and as the command in Steve's absence, what Falsworth said went. There wasn't much of a difference running into Steve half a mile down the road as opposed to the rendezvous point anyway. Squinting out into the distance, he thought maybe he saw movement but it turned out to be nothing more than a gust of wind blowing the falling snow into swirls that tumbled headlong into the rocks shooting up on the far side of the road. The flurries that accompanied them all afternoon intensified over the next twenty minutes until the fat flakes created a white haze that obscured their vision and absorbed the sounds around them.

Morita muffled a cough with his fist. "Goddamn snow."

Ahead of them, Dernier held up a hand to silence him and began to crouch lower behind the side of the second jeep. Dum Dum stayed low and jogged around to join him, setting up his rifle to point down the road in the direction that Dernier faced. His shoulders drew tightly together even as he lowered his head to line up his eye with the sight of his rifle while his legs protested the deep squat that kept him mostly protected by the jeep. Through the heavy curtain of snow he could see blurred shapes, trudging along the road at a slow clip.

"You think it's them?"

Dernier shrugged.

"Fat load of help you are," Dum Dum muttered.

Slowly the figures took shape into three people. Two tall men walked on either side of a shorter man who walked in an ungainly fashion; Dum Dum couldn't see his arms swinging back and forth. Rising up a little higher on his toes he squinted, desperate to determine whether the oddly broad shoulders of the tallest of the three figures was a shield or not. Through the haze, the blue of Steve's uniform began to stand out along with the shape of Gabe's helmet on his head.

"It's them!" He announced and drew himself out of cover. Away from his shrouded position he ignored Falsworth's barking command to return to cover and instead walked a few steps ahead. The third person in the middle wasn't wearing a military uniform; Dum Dum could just make out the cut of a suit and ghostly pale skin. His heart leapt into his throat, a jolt of excitement shooting through him like lightning. "They've got Zola!"

At long last Steve, Gabe, and Zola were close enough that Dum Dum could make out the finer details.

His heart dropped from his throat through his stomach. "They-it's-"

Dum Dum's tongue tripped over a sentence he couldn't even fathom saying. All at once the joy he felt at the sight of an incarcerated Arnim Zola vanished. "Dum Dum, what is it?"

He turned back to Falsworth, mouth wooden as he tried to form a coherent sentence. "Bucky's not with them."

Falsworth and Morita's mouths fell open in the same shock that rocked Dum Dum. Whirling back around to Steve and Gabe, he thought of the questions he wanted to ask but the expressions on their faces said it all. Dum Dum had seen enough of the war both in the field and in and out of Army hospitals to recognize the trauma that went with losing a comrade to the heat of battle. Gabe's steps were leaden, each one falling hard and heavy while he maintained such a tight grip on Zola's shoulder that the veins at his neck popped out. His eyes remained straight forward, as stony and expressionless as his mouth that parted slightly as though he couldn't quite get over the nasty surprise. But his expression and posture were nothing compared to Steve who looked like he'd crawled out of hell just to bring Zola into custody.

"You're fucking kidding me," Morita whispered, coming to stand next to Dum Dum, slinging his rifle on his back.

Steve's whole body shook as though each step he took threatened to rip him apart. He seemed to be moving against a great current that pulled him backward in a bid to get him to turn around and go back but for what, Dum Dum didn't know. As he came within a few feet, Dum Dum observed his red eyes and the tears that wetted the deep circles bruising either side of his nose. Otherwise his whole face remained slack, too overcome with a truth too horrible, too unfathomable to even reckon with. He walked right past them without a single word or even a glance that he even recognized anyone else was there.

Dum Dum spun on his heel. Gabe marched Zola past everyone else and, still keeping him in a death grip, wrenched the door of one jeep open.

"Get in," he growled and all but shoved Zola into the seat.

The harrassed, openly terrified expression on Zola's face was enough to make Dum Dum want to shoot him, valuable intelligence be damned.

But for the moment Zola would have to wait. Steeling himself for any possible reaction, Dum Dum approached Steve. He started to reach out to pat his shoulder but stopped himself.

"What happened?"

His question sounded odd in the oppressive quiet. The words hung uncomfortable in the air, seeking confirmation for something that Dum Dum already knew to be true, and yet he still needed to hear it. He needed audible confirmation that Bucky Barnes was dead. Steve remained silent for so long that Dum Dum wasn't even sure he heard the question.

"He fell."

Dum Dum's heart dropped out of his body and his stomach followed immediately after. There, buried in Steve's hollow, stunned response was everything he needed to know. Morita wiped his face with a shaking hand and he turned away, spitting out a colorful string of curses that Dum Dum couldn't even bring himself to say.

For half a second Dum Dum expected Steve's face to crack into a laugh and for Bucky to jump out from behind a tree, shouting 'boo' at the top of his lungs just for a laugh. But that was never to be. Instead Steve just stood like a statue, boring holes into the back of Zola's head. Dum Dum's eyes flickered down to Steve's hands that twitched at his sides, fingers flicking back and forth toward the pistol at his hip. He didn't register reaching out until his hand closed over Steve's wrist, jerking it away from the gun.

"Don't," he said, fighting against his every impulse to let Steve go through with it.

"He deserves it."

"I know he does, but you kill him now and this whole exercise was worthless."

"It already was." Steve's voice rang hollow, echoing from an empty place in his chest.

Pulling his wrist free of Dum Dum's hold, Steve stalked away from the group, hands on his hips and back rigid. Dum Dum felt rooted to the ground, at a complete and total loss for how to even begin processing the news. Gabe and Dernier spoke to each other in rapid French even as they kept Zola in their sights, both of them crestfallen and stealing furtive, livid glances at their prisoner. Falsworth hovered between action and confusion, his head moving between Gabe and Dernier to Steve to Dum Dum back to Steve and back again before coming to Dum Dum's side.

"We should get moving."

Dum Dum jerked his chin towards Steve who continued to stand away from the others, head bowed while he attempted to put himself back together. "Give him another minute."

Falsworth blew out a hard sigh but didn't fight Dum Dum's assessment. "I just-I don't believe it."

Dum Dum started to reach for the cigar tucked behind his ear only to realize his hands were shaking. Disbelief was a good description for the shock that started to spear through the clarity he'd managed to retain. Bucky wasn't some scared draftee who lost his head the second shit hit the fan. He was a battle-hardened, whip-smart soldier who kept cool in combat and more than once saved them all thanks to his enviable aim. The reality that Bucky could die in battle was unfathomable; he was just too good to die, too talented, too invincible. In Dum Dum's head they were all invincible, walking away from scrape after scrape with a few stitches at the worst and a great story to tell at the best. Bucky dying just didn't make sense. It defied everything that Dum Dum believed to be true.

That truth crumbled around him, dissolving to dust at his feet. He wiped his face with his trembling hands and came back with wet fingers. The tears that brimmed on his lower eyelids and spilled over, plinking onto his cheeks. Falsworth clapped him on the shoulder.

Bucky was one of the first men he'd met at basic training and one of the few guys who had his head screwed on straight. They bonded over cheap beer and darts, often teaming up to hustle unsuspecting guys out of their hard earned cash. Through the highs and lows of basic they supported each other, celebrated each other's promotions, played endless games of poker and were glad to know that they would have each other's backs marching into war. Together they endured the Queen Victoria, the unbearable heat in Africa, the mortars in Sicily and stormed the beach at Salerno. Even then Bucky seemed above reproach, above the baseness that was war and Dum Dum pegged him as one of those guys who was going to sail through like it was nothing. There was just something about him that defied the odds.

But the odds had won out and Bucky was dead.

Even now Dum Dum felt the odd emptiness among them, the absence of a presence that he'd come to take for granted.

He stood with Falsworth, not even realizing that the man silently cried with him.

Steve straightened and spun around on his heel, startling everyone. "Let's move out."

Nobody dared question his hard order, nor his decision to order Falsworth and Gabe to oversee Zola's jeep. Dum Dum clambered into the same jeep as Steve, sliding into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life, drowning out the deafening silence the snow brought.

Glad to have something to do with his hands, he pulled out onto the road, following Falsworth back to base camp. All the while a new thought took root in his mind, festering and growing until it was all he could consider. He drove on autopilot, seeing where he was going but not really registering it while he considered one question that he never wanted to have to answer, a question he regretted ever thinking at all.

How on earth were they going to tell Sadie?

The miles seemed too short now and Dum Dum dreaded being the harbinger of news that wouldn't just break her heart, it would shatter her entire world.

"What are we going to tell-" he started to ask Steve but out of the corner of his eye he caught Steve shaking his head.

"I can't do it."

Dum Dum thought that words likely wouldn't be entirely necessary, though he didn't blame Steve in the slightest for not wanting to be responsible for bringing poor Sadie Reid's whole world crashing down. In the end Dum Dum didn't have much time to ruminate because within fifteen minutes, the base camp came into view. The sound of the jeeps trundling to a halt in the clearing brought a handful of figures out of the medical tent, including Doctor Dunn and Evelyn.

Though he dreaded the coming minutes with all of his heart, Dum Dum found himself scrambling to get out of the jeep as quickly as possible. Some strange force, perhaps the pull of his moral compass, told him that he needed to be the one to approach Sadie. They'd endured so much together and in many ways Dum Dum knew he was closer to Sadie than Steve was. It should be him. Deep down he just knew that it should be him.

Sadie emerged from the tent right after Evelyn, coming into full view just as his boots hit the ground and he hurried around the front of the jeep. She was still grinning about something and wiping her hands off with a rag. Dum Dum's heart began to hammer away at his breast bone, a painful thud accompanying each of his heavy steps towards his friend. He caught the last second of her smile, of the glow that lit up her skin from within. Youth and vitality poured off of her but the smile faded away as her stormy eyes that scanned the two jeeps. Her lips parted softly as she glossed over each face until the realization that Bucky wasn't there dawned on her. The rag fell out of her limp hands, falling to her toes as her arms dropped to her sides.

"Sadie," his voice broke over her name. "Sadie, I am so, so sorry."

She didn't move. Not a single muscle twitched. Her gaze remained locked on the ground a few feet in front of her. Evelyn's small gasp of understanding reached Dum Dum's ears just as he reached Sadie and started to put his arms around her, ready to take on the brunt of any crying, of any outburst that might go hand-in-hand with the weight of the news. Dum Dum waited for her to lock her arms around him or even push him away but neither happened. She just stood catatonic in his hold, her face half covered by his shoulder. Hugging her felt like hugging a marble statue, cold and hard.

"Sadie?"

Dum Dum pulled back just enough to get a good look at her blank face. Slowly, she raised a single hand to cover her mouth, not quite muffling the hitch in her breath. Evelyn was with them now along with Doctor Dunn and yet neither of them could find anything to say in the face of Sadie's complete and utter lack of reaction. Evelyn rubbed a hand up and down Sadie's back but the woman just swayed slightly. The hand covering her mouth drew downward to rest over her breastbone.

"Sadie?"

Evelyn's plea fell on deaf ears. Dum Dum turned his head as best as he could, looking for Steve so he could call in extra support but Sadie pulled away before he could do anything more. She took a single, tremulous breath and stared past the Commandos toward the empty road before she silently freed herself from her friends and walked back into the medical tent.

Dum Dum was certain that the sharp pain he felt in his chest in the wake of her departure was his own heart breaking.

X X X

"It's been over an hour, don't you think she should have said something or...I don't know...moved by now?"

"I think she's just in shock. Give her some time and she'll come out of it on her own."

"Aren't you worried though?"

"Of course I'm worried but what can I do? Short of slapping her across the face, I don't think she's going to respond to anything right now."

"I just don't think this is natural, what she's doing."

"What do you expect? She just had her whole world taken out from underneath her."

Sadie drew in a measured breath, wishing that she had a pair of earmuffs to block out Evelyn's tiresome discourse with Dum Dum and Gabe. The duo started showing up every few minutes to check on her only to discover time and again that she still hadn't moved off a supply crate, the closest sturdy thing she could find before her legs gave out and she had to sit down. She supposed the only benefit of overhearing Evelyn telling them off yet again was she now knew it had been at least an hour since she'd come inside.

One hour. One hour since learning the news. One hour since feeling a funny pop in her chest. One hour since the world came crashing down all around her, leaving her unscathed in the center of a ring of hellacious damage. One less hour she had to live without the love of her life.

But while all of the carnage continued to unfold in all directions around her, Sadie found she couldn't stop thinking about the moment she found out her father had been killed. The news came to her through the administrators at the nursing school, the easiest people her aunt could reach on short notice to pass along the dreadful news. Not only had the United States been attacked by the Japanese but her father ended up caught in the crossfire. Sadie recalled with astonishing clarity where she had been, what she had been wearing, and who she was with when the school administrators gently took her aside to tell her before sending her back to her dormitory to pack her belongings and make the trip home. She'd been crying so hard that someone had to drive her home and help her pack before taking her to the train station. For days afterward Sadie often caught herself wondering if she would ever stop crying and if there would be any end to the parade of sorrow that continued marching through her chest, trampling her heart and leaving her feeling raw and ragged.

Sadie expected to feel that way now but she didn't.

Tilting her head slightly to the side, she realized that she didn't feel much of anything except a jarring clarity. Just as she was painfully aware of every tiny movement she made and of the conversations about her occurring mere feet away, Sadie was acutely aware that she felt absolutely nothing. She wouldn't characterize the nothing as numbness so much as emptiness, akin to a pumpkin scooped out in preparation to carve for Halloween. Empty and hollow, such that every beat of her heart pounded against her breastbone and echoed throughout every corner of the shell of her body.

A laundry list of questions began to force themselves through her memories as her brain tried to make sense of her new reality. Why did she feel so empty? Why wasn't she crying or wailing? Were these eery, otherworldly moments of crystal clear calmness just a temporary reprieve? If so, how long did she have until she broke down? Would it really be so awful if she didn't snap out of this trance? Was Bucky alone when he died? How did it happen? Had he been in pain?

Sadie flinched.

"Sadie?"

It was only a matter of time before Evelyn turned the full force of her attention back onto Sadie. Though she'd stopped crying sometime earlier, she still sniffled and the vestiges of her tears remained in the form of puffy red eyes. Sadie wanted to tell Evelyn to follow her own advice to Dum Dum and Gabe and leave her alone but she found she lacked the energy. It was easier to let Evelyn kneel in front of her and implore Sadie to talk to her than it was to fight off her caring advances.

"Sadie, I know you can hear me and I know what you're going through is just...just awful but you're really starting to scare us. Will you please talk to me? Say anything."

Sadie kept her stare locked on the same point on the ground between Evelyn's knees. If she was being perfectly honest, she didn't give a damn whether or not she was scaring the unit. Part of her newfound emptiness was her apparent lack of caring one way or the other. In fact, she almost let her chest lift in a humorless, hollow laugh. What she was going through was 'just awful?' Was that the going rate for losing the love of one's life these days? The bitter, acerbic joke would no doubt offend Evelyn and far from caring about that, Sadie found she just didn't have the energy to deal with the fallout.

There were other things she could say to try and appease her friend. There were her old favorite standbys such as 'it's okay' and 'I'm fine' but Sadie wasn't sure she even knew how to form either phrase. Even if she wasn't falling to pieces, she knew that what she was doing and feeling wasn't okay and bordered on horrendously inappropriate. Somewhere in the deep recesses of Sadie's shocked brain she knew that she likely wouldn't ever be fully fine again so what was the point in lying?

"What about some water? Or even something to eat? You might feel more like yourself."

Sadie suspected that she could drink but find no refreshment and eat but experience no taste. Slowly she shook her head, the first response she'd given Evelyn who took it and ran. Rising up higher, she placed her hands on Sadie's knees.

"Okay, that's alright. What do you need? Please, tell me what you need and I will get it for you, I swear."

"I don't need anything."

"Oh Sade, I'm just so sorry."

Sadie couldn't think of anything to say in response. Back when her father died she'd experienced the same confusion over what to do in response to all of the apologies. Was Evelyn sorry that Bucky was dead? Perhaps she was sorry that Sadie was going through this shocking event. A mean, unreasonable voice in the back of Sadie's head suggested that perhaps Evelyn was just searching for validation and comfort that she was doing the right thing as a friend. Sadie brushed the momentary nastiness aside, placing her hands on her face. Evelyn was stepping into her role as Sadie's best friend and doing everything she could to try and manage an unmanageable situation. Sadie moved her hands to cover Evelyn's.

"What-" her throat closed up a little, preventing her from finishing her question at first. The words resting on the tip of her tongue were powerful and Sadie hesitated for fear that the answer would blow her out of the safe haven her shock created. There was an ocean of pain lapping all around her, the waves crashing up against the rocks where she stood, ready to hook her by the ankles and drag her under. But her morbid curiosity won out in the end, opening her throat and allowing her voice to take shape. "What happened?"

Evelyn held onto Sadie's hands tightly. She couldn't meet Sadie's eyes but Sadie knew that Evelyn had the full story. Gabe had been on the train and he most certainly would have told everyone else by now. Sure enough, Evelyn swallowed hard and when she started to speak, her voice was thick and hesitant. "There were heavily armed guards. Bucky and Steve were fighting one when they both got knocked back. The guard blew a hole in the side of one of the cars and Bucky, he-"

"He fell," Sadie whispered, finishing the sentence when Evelyn couldn't.

"Down into the ravine. Steve tried to save him but-"

"Yeah," Sadie cut her off in a short tone, suddenly unable to hear any more.

Evelyn squeezed her hands hard.

As Sadie tried to make sense of the story, she realized she hadn't even given a thought to how Bucky might die. Never, not once in all the missions he ran with the aide team and away, Sadie never considered what might take him out. But in any version she could concoct, his falling hundreds of feet to his death would never cross her mind. Her breath hitched in her chest and the lungs she thought were gone tightened to the point of pain.

She realized then that she wasn't empty at all. Sadie was still full to the brim. The rushing in her ears she had been ignoring was the blood in her veins, sent to every corner of her being by her heart that pounded against her ribcage in hard strokes, each one bringing a new shock of pain that rippled through her. Her insides rolled and twisted in on themselves, turning in a series of knots that pulled harder and harder until she had to let go of Evelyn to cover her stomach, unsure if she was about to throw up or split in two. One breath went in and she exhaled hard in a gasp. When she blinked all she could see was Bucky's face, twisted in terror and all she heard was the echo of a strangled yell that resonated in her chest.

"I know it's a lot to take in."

Sadie barely heard Evelyn's gentle placations over the roaring of her pulse and the ghost of Bucky's shout. She didn't feel her friend brushing the hair from her face or see her move to sit next to her on a second supply crate. In the haze of her visceral realization, she didn't see Doctor Dunn duck into the tent to offer assistance. The brief clarity that possessed her began to waver, splitting at the seams and allowing a parade of horrible thoughts to squeeze to the forefront of her mind.

"When are we leaving?" She asked.

Doctor Dunn started from his perch on a camp stool on the other side of the tent. "I'm not sure but soon, I'd imagine. I suspect Captain Rogers will want to get our prisoner back to London as soon as possible."

Up until then Sadie had completely forgotten about Arnim Zola, the entire reason they were there in the first place. A bitter taste swelled up in her mouth. The sick irony of the situation was not lost on her, that after spending over a year pursuing his captor, the man who tortured him for three weeks, Bucky didn't even live to see Zola be captured. Her sluggish mind reached all the way back to a brief moment during their first mission together, sitting outside of an old house after watching their first HYDRA prisoner slit his throat with Sadie's scalpel.

"It's more than that. It's committing yourself to a cause so completely that you'd die without a second thought. Would you die for what you're doing?"

After that conversation, Sadie tucked Bucky's affirmative answer away until she forgot it completely.

She wished she hadn't, then perhaps she wouldn't be burning up from the inside. Anger brewed in the pit of her stomach, releasing flames that were so cold they burned and stung, warring with the bitterness that poured from her heart, crashing together so violently that her muscles contracted in response. What Sadie originally recognized as emptiness and clarity was nothing more than disbelief run amok. Her mind, bolstered by every time Bucky came back to her, quite simply couldn't believe that he wasn't there, grasping her wrist to pull her behind a tent to steal a passionate kiss upon his return. The defenses she set up to protect herself wouldn't allow her to believe that Bucky wouldn't sit next to her while the unit ate dinner or that he wouldn't convince her to sit up too late in the back of a jeep, staring up at the stars after the snow and clouds moved out. How could there be any reality other than that?

After all it was just laughable that out of all of the Commandos, Bucky was the one to die. He was one of the more cautious men, one of the best fighters and easily the best shot. Bucky knew mission parameters front to back; he could draw maps in his sleep and that was nothing to say of the months of the war he fought before joining the SSR. This was a man who survived three weeks of intense torture, isolation, and experimentation and walked through with only a few cuts and bruises. How on earth could he have died in such a senseless, pedestrian way? How on earth could Sadie be living in a reality where his body lay in a ravine only a few miles away?

Just considering Bucky's body lying still in the snow threatened Sadie's balance, nearly sending her tumbling into the ocean of grief roiling all around her. But a part of her latched onto one fact. There were so many friends and loved ones she'd been forced to leave behind. She'd watched orderlies carrying out the bodies of her dead patients but in many cases she never saw what happened to them after she called the time of death. Gutierrez lay in a shallow grave outside of the wreckage of a farm house in Belgium. There hadn't been enough of Betty left to bury when she died and Sadie had been forced to leave the smoldering hole in the ground where her friend stood in her final seconds. That was nothing to say of her father who drowned, trapped in his sinking ship so far away from his family. There were so many funerals that never happened, so many goodbyes truncated by the war and Sadie couldn't bear to endure another. She couldn't bear the idea of Bucky lying in the snow alone and broken, only to be left behind by his brothers and the two people who loved him most in the world.

Without warning she shot to her feet, upending her supply crate and almost knocking Evelyn over in the process.

"Sadie? What's going on?"

Her mind clouded over with this visceral need, the only thing she could control, the only thing keeping her upright. "I don't know why I didn't think of it right away," she muttered more to herself than anyone else. In a few steps she seized her pack and musette off the ground and started searching around for the blankets that the aide team brought for potential patients.

"Didn't think of what?" Doctor Dunn asked.

"He's all alone and I can't just leave him there."

Sadie closed her hands over the blankets and started for the tent flap even as Evelyn grabbed her wrist. "What on earth are you talking about? You're not actually planning on going out there, are you? Sadie you can't, Bucky's dead."

Evelyn's panicked pronouncement felt like a punch to the stomach but Sadie would not be deterred. "I know that." She wrenched her arm free. "But I can't leave him behind, not if we can bury him properly."

"Nurse Reid, stop!"

Spinning on heel she marched out into the open, making a beeline for the first jeep. The path she walked took her past Dum Dum and Gabe, holding vigil outside of the medical tent and past Falsworth who sat with Steve under the boughs of a pine tree. She couldn't have cared less about any of those men, such was her single-minded drive to throw her gear in the back of the jeep.

"Whoa whoa, what are you doing?"

"Dum Dum, move," she said, trying to step around him as he slid in front of her, blocking her access to the jeep. He sidestepped with her.

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

"I'm going back for his body," she said even as she turned away to go toe-to-toe with Dum Dum. "And you can join me or get the hell out of my way."

"No." But it wasn't Dum Dum who spoke. Sadie whirled around to face Steve. She couldn't recall seeing him when the Commandos returned to base camp nor had he tried to speak to her or even sit with her in silence during the hour that followed. At first blush he looked even worse than she felt, though he hastily wiped the tears off his splotchy cheeks and drew his broken shoulders up to assert some semblance of authority. The attempt at dominion over her might have worked under any other circumstance, but Sadie just scoffed and turned around, ready to duke it out with Dum Dum. There wasn't an order that Steve Rogers could give Sadie that she could follow, not right then.

Dum Dum held up his hands in defense, blue eyes pleading with her to reconsider her decision. "Sadie, it's gonna be dark soon and the weather's getting worse."

"So? I have gear, rations, extra gasoline, everything I need to go and if you come with me then I won't have to worry."

Dum Dum looked past her, following Steve as he stalked ahead of her to help block her path. "I said no, Nurse Reid. That's an order."

His words rang in her ears louder than if he'd banged two cymbals together.

"An order?" She repeated in a shaky, dangerously low voice.

"Dum Dum's right, it's too dangerous to go back. You don't even know where you're going and could end up getting seriously hurt or killed."

Sadie bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood, anything to cage the acidic response that maybe she was better off dead. The normally strong iron bars holding her self-composure together were rusting away, leaving nothing more than string keeping the pieces together all while she was drawing ever closer to falling prey to her grief. Already she could feel wave after wave of misery pounding against her defenses and a growing part of her quite simply wanted to lay on the ground and sink into the snow so it might carry her body along to Bucky's where she could lay with him for eternity, free from this pain and free from the war that took everything from her.

"I don't care," she said, shaking her head, feeling herself begin to vibrate in one last desperate bid to keep it together.

Steve started to move toward her, hands reaching out to restrain her. Sadie backed up a step. "Well I do! And if you won't listen then I'll have to have you restrained."

"Oh, like him?" She pointed across the jeeps to the tent erected to house Zola.

"Captain Rogers, please, stop this." Evelyn appeared at Sadie's side. "Sadie, let's just go back in the medical tent. Maybe you should lie down."

"No, I don't want to lie down! I want everyone to just let me go so I can find Bucky and bring him back!"

"It's too dangerous, Sadie. You can't go!" Steve barked and made to grab her again.

"I'M NOT LEAVING HIM!" Her shout echoed loudly through the clearing, rising up from the depths of her stomach, right from the very pit of her anger that was rapidly churning into despair. Both of her hands clutched at her chest, coming to find her necklace. Wrapping a palm around the rings there, she felt something cut into her hand. For a desperate second she stood alone, surrounded by Dum Dum, Steve, and Evelyn, all three of them gobsmacked at her sudden outburst. "I have left everyone else that I love behind and I am not leaving Bucky too." Rounding on Steve, her eyes narrowed down to slits, feeling the brunt of her anger blasting towards him. "He's your best friend and yet you're just going to leave him in that ravine?"

Steve staggered back a step. His wide eyes took in her figure crackling with emotions that started swelling up, eroding her footing and leaving her dangerously unhinged. The first sharp pain of loss lanced through her chest and the sheer agony took her breath away for a moment. While Steve continued to gape at her, Dum Dum cautiously approached. Sadie flinched when he placed a large hand on her shoulder.

"I know you don't want to leave Bucky. None of us do, but it could take us days to find his body and even then-" he swallowed hard. "Sadie, he wouldn't want you to see him like that."

Sadie blinked owlishly at Dum Dum. "What do you mean?"

Evelyn touched her other shoulder. "I think he means that Bucky fell from a long ways up and he might not be, well..." she dropped off uncomfortably.

The realization crashed on top of Sadie's head just as the last of her denial caved beneath her feet. She plunged straight down into the waiting ocean where the waves slammed into her. The hand she raised to her mouth shook uncontrollably. Bucky fell from a great height, right down the jagged side of a mountain. "Pieces," she croaked, staggering back one step and then another. "He's in pieces."

And that was enough to send her screaming into reality. There had been a part of her, no matter how tiny, strong enough to think maybe this was all still a nightmare but it wasn't. Bucky was dead. Her wonderful, funny, loving, supportive, brilliant Bucky, the man she loved with every ounce of her entire being, was truly dead. No amount of her denial or fervent wishing was going to bring him walking down the road apologizing for his lateness and even if she did find his body, he wouldn't look like the man who brought her dinner during her late shifts and loved to wake her up in the middle of the night to make love to her. Sadie would never see his absurdly handsome face light up when she walked into a room. She would never feel his loving touch or the way he held her close when they danced. His warm voice would fade into nothing more than a memory until time reduced it to nothing, the memory of a memory. There would be no wedding, no home, no children. They wouldn't go home together or grow old together and share every happy memory in-between. In the blink of an eye the future she'd so lovingly dreamt of was gone, ripped from her as easily as the man she wanted to share it all with.

The final tenuous strings holding Sadie's composure together snapped. She heard the sound in her ears, an audible crack that coincided with her heart imploding with the force of a bomb. The force of the blow bent her in two. Her knees hit the frozen ground hard while she clutched her chest, struggling for each gasping breath she took while she clawed at her breastbone as though it was possible to reach into her body and rip the ruins of her heart free. Only Dum Dum's quick hands saved her from falling sideways into the snow, steadying her when she slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that wrenched itself free from her blocked throat. Hot tears assaulted her eyes, stinging and blinding her but that was just as well. If Sadie had seen the discomfort and pity on the face of her friends, she might have died from the shame combining with her heartbreak. Instead she let her shoulders bow, collapsing her chest inward as she slumped down, sobbing freely.

A riptide hooked her ankles and dragged her under the waves of her grief. Every worst fear came bursting from the darkest corners of her flooded mind, working through her body and lacing around her ruined heart, seizing her lungs and poisoning her veins. The pain was worse than anything she could have ever imagined, drowning her while simultaneously raking her over hot coals, plunging her in icy cold water, and leaving every nerve ending raw while she felt needles stinging every inch of her skin. Panic rose up in her throat, cutting off her air supply until she couldn't breathe despite gasping for air.

Evelyn dropped down to her side, roughly gathering Sadie into her arms where she grasped her shoulders so hard she left bruises that Sadie would find later. "Let it out, Sade. It's okay, just let it out."

"He's really dead," she cried between whole-body sobs. "I can't breathe-I can't breathe!"

"Sadie, look at me. Look at me right now!" Evelyn yelled, giving Sadie a sharp shake to force her back up for air. "Come on, Sarah Grace, just look at me."

Through the haze of tears, Sadie saw the shock of Evelyn's red hair and her face slowly came into focus, open worry controlling her features. Sadie shook her head because the words quite simply wouldn't come out. The reality was just too much for her broken mind to grasp and the pain too great, a hole punched through her chest. Sadie stared at her, mouth agape as she tried to convey the inexplicable feeling. How was it possible that anyone could survive this kind of pain? It should have been enough to kill her where she knelt but she was still there.

And it was too much. Too much for her wasted heart. Too much for her small body. Too much for her once-level head. "I can't," she whispered, shaking her head through her tears. "Evelyn, I can't live without him. I can't, I can't, I can't," she repeated the words over and over again, falling forward into Evelyn's waiting arms.

"I know," Evelyn replied, cradling her close and stroking a firm hand up and down her back. Tears streamed down Evelyn's face, wetting Sadie's hair but she never let go and for that Sadie would be eternally grateful. Afterall, there was no point in arguing now or even trying to console her. There was just the grief and the cold that sank deep into Sadie's bones. "I know."

Sadie continued to sob, surrounded by the circle of her friends. She never knew how long she stayed in the protective circle of Evelyn's arms. Eventually exhaustion took her, dragging her to calmer waters where she let the darkness consume her. She only learned later that Dum Dum carried her into the medical tent where he sat with Evelyn at her bedside, maintaining constant vigil while she slept. Sadie, for one, hoped that she would never wake up.

A/N: So, here we are. There will be three more chapters plus an epilogue after this.

This chapter took a lot out of me to write and I would really love to know what you think. Much love – Kappa