Adding one more chapter today because this is a little one and it ties right in to the last one. I don't know if it makes anything better, though. Sorry.


They'd been lucky, Jim supposed, though he'd never really stopped to appreciate it. Two years the Howling Commandos had been together. Two years of staring death and Hydra in the face, and two years of coming out of it in mostly one piece, never damaged beyond repair. They were the only team that had never lost anyone. For two years, they'd been lucky.

And now, they weren't. Now they'd lost someone. Now Jim was standing in the bottom of an icy, frozen ravine, trying to find the body of one of his best friends. If there was anything to find. Jim swallowed hard and looked up, the side of the mountain where the train tracks ran lost in the distant haze. Bucky Barnes had survived so many things that he never should have, but that fall… Even Steve wasn't pretending they were going to find him alive.

Dugan and Monty had taken Zola back to Hogsmeade. S.S.R. people were climbing all over the train that was now stopped on the tracks, poring through the contents that, no matter how much they were worth, would never be worth this. And Jim was down in the bottom of the ravine with Gabe, Jacques, and Steve, looking for Bucky's body.

Jim had lost all feeling in his hands and feet hours ago, but neither he nor any of the others had suggested giving up. Bucky deserved to be brought home. His parents and his sister deserved the chance to put him to rest. His sister. God help him. Jim swallowed down the bile rising in his throat at the thought of Becky Barnes waiting back at Hogwarts. She was probably sitting on the steps of the main entrance, holding hands with Esther as they both watched the front gates, getting more nervous with each passing hour. The team should have been home hours ago, but they would be there, waiting for their brothers. And Becky's big brother was never coming home.

He dashed away the tears prickling in his eyes before they could freeze to his face. They'd been down here for hours, searching and finding nothing. They'd started by apparating down to the spot below where Bucky had fallen, then started looking up and down the ravine, going out farther and farther when their search turned up nothing. Though it was a long shot, Jim had been casting Revealing spells every few minutes as they searched. They never turned up anything but the four of them. It had started snowing, and they all realized that at the rate the snow was falling, wherever Bucky's body had fallen, it would quickly be buried. No one acknowledged that out loud, but they all started using their wands to melt any pile of snow they came across that looked deep enough for a body to be underneath.

It was starting to get dark now, the snow falling faster. Though there were any number of factors that would have kept Bucky from falling exactly straight down, they'd now been two miles out in either direction, up one side of the river and down the other. The brown, rocky earth below them, damp with melted snow, was a testament to how thoroughly they'd been searching. But there was nothing here.

Grief welled up in Jim's chest and he shoved it back down. This wasn't the time. As much as Bucky deserved a proper burial, they weren't going to find him. Not now. There was nothing more Jim could do for his friend. But there was still something he could do for Steve.

He caught up with his Captain, laying a gentle hand on his arm. Steve's face was red, both from crying and from the cold, and Jim's heart broke even more than it already was at the pain in his eyes. Becky wasn't the only one who'd lost a brother today.

"Steve," he said gently. "We need to go."

Steve shook his head. "No. Not until we find him."

Jim looked back to Gabe and Jacques for help. "Steve," Gabe said sadly. "He's not…" He swallowed hard. "I don't think we're going to."

"We have to," Steve insisted. "He has to be here somewhere. There—there's nowhere else for him to have gone, I—"

"Steve, we've been farther in either direction than he could have fallen," Jim said, as gently as he could. He swallowed down the nausea in his throat at the thought that had gotten harder and harder to push down the more ground they'd covered. "I think…" He swallowed again. "I think he hit the river."

All of their eyes darted to the Rhine, flowing swiftly down the middle of the gorge. It was easy enough to hop across with magic, but it was wide and deep and flowing fast, roaring with the snow that was melting somewhere upstream. They hadn't found any blood, any tracks, any…pieces…of anything. Not a shoe, not a scrap of fabric, not a watch or a button. If he'd hit the ground, they would have found something. But if he'd hit the water, everything would be gone.

"No," Steve said again. "It's too far out, it—"

"It isn't," Gabe said softly. The ravine was narrow and the river was wide. It would have been far too easy for him to have hit the water.

"Then we have to go in there," Steve said.

"If you go in there, you'll drown," Jim said. Not even super-soldier strength could hold up to the force of the current. "He's not going to be there anyway," he added quietly, nodding at the stretch of river in front of them. It had been hours, and with as fast as the water was moving, he could be as far away as Germany.

"I have to find him," Steve said. "I have to try."

"You have tried," Jim said gently. "I'm sorry, Steve, I really am," he said, his voice cracking. "He's not here."

Steve's face twisted up, his eyes staring desolately at the water, and Jim knew he was imagining Bucky's body floating downstream, tossed by the waves and battered by the rocks. "I can't leave him," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," Jim said again, wishing there was something else he could say. Steve's knees started to give out, and Jim slid an arm over his shoulders as he dropped to the ground.

"I tried, Jim," Steve whispered, sinking down to sit in the freezing mud. "I couldn't reach him, I—" He swallowed down a sob and his shoulders heaved under Jim's arm. "I couldn't reach him and I watched him fall. He was so scared. His arms were still reaching up, like I could still save him, but I couldn't—" He choked down another sob and drew his knees up, hiding his face. "He was always there for me," he whispered. "He always saved me. And I couldn't save him."

Jim couldn't stop himself from crying now either. Bucky had always been there for all of them. He sat down beside Steve, his arm still over his shoulder. Gabe sat down on Steve's other side, wrapping an arm across his back as well, and Jacques sat down in front of him. The four of them huddled together in the mud, crying for their teammate, for their friend that they'd lost, even as the river roared in front of them, the rushing of its waves mocking their grief.

They sat there until it was completely dark, the snow still falling, and Jim reined in his tears and sat up. He was still the team medic, and his team needed taking care of. He'd already lost one friend today, and maybe the last thing he could do for Bucky was to make sure Steve didn't sit out here until he froze to death.

"Come on, Steve," he said gently. "It's time to go home."


There's no way to sugarcoat these last two chapters, but I'm still sorry.

I'll see you Friday.