Chapter 23: Truth or Truth

October 22, 1943

"...and that's how I got arrested the first time." Bucky finished. He leaned up against the wall of bars separating his cage from Lu's, his head resting between two of them. Lu mirrored his position, her shoulder barely touching his through the space. They'd been sitting here for a few days (how many, they weren't sure) with no interruption besides for the minimal food they were given, and had resorted to playing whatever games they could. It had taken Lu a little longer to recover from the serum than Bucky, but now she almost felt back to normal. The only thing that seemed common between all of them now was frequent night sweats.

"So it was all Steve's fault?" she asked. It had been a long and funny story, and he'd seemed so happy telling it that she wanted to see him relive it for just a little longer. Technically it counted as a follow up question and against the rules of the game, but he would allow it this time.

"Absolutely. Everyone thought Steve was as straight-laced as they came, but he was an avid trouble maker. Spent most of my childhood trying to get us out of the messes he got us into." he explained. It was a bit of an exaggeration, but he figured there was no harm in it. "Alright, Doc. Your turn. Truth or truth?"

"God, can you two idiots shut up?" Mullens grumbled from the other side of Lu's cage. Neither one of them honored him with a verbal response - Bucky just raised a hand to flip him the bird without looking at him. If they were going to be stuck here waiting for the Nazis to decide whether to kill them or do more weird experiments on them, then they were going to have to make the best of it.

"Hmm, tough choice." Lu said, tapping her chin in thought. "Guess I'll go with truth."

"Where are you from?" he asked. He'd been saving that question for a while, trying to lull her into a false sense of security until she was in a situation where she had to answer. She sent a glare his way before sighing deeply, settling back against the bars.

"I can guarantee you've never heard of it." she said, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"That's not an answer." he replied, giving her a look even though she refused to meet his eyes. Finally she grumbled and sighed again.

"Hemmingsburg. Virginia." she admitted, as if that meant anything to him.

"You're right, I've never heard of it." he admitted, unable to hide his grin. She pursed her lips, as if annoyed that she had to think about her hometown.

"It's a small place with a small population of people with small ideas." she said, her tone scathing. He raised his eyebrows, surprised that he was getting such a response from such a simple question.

"What made you leave?" he asked. His parents had told him about the smaller town he'd been born in, back in Indiana. They'd left because no one ever seemed to, and they didn't want to subject their family to that.

"Ah ah, that's another question." she said, wagging her finger at him reproachfully. He hmphed in frustration, rolling his eyes as she smiled triumphantly. "Truth or truth?"

"Ah, fuck, uh," he pretended to think about it for a long time. They heard Mullens make another annoyed noise, but once again they ignored it. "Truth. No wait, truth."

"What's something you regret?" she asked, and for a second the question startled him. Then he remembered where they were, and the situation they were in. This wasn't some girl at a party trying to pretend to be philosophical, or one of his friends with their drunk thoughts.

"The last night I was in New York," he started, pausing to try and gather his thoughts. "I got my papers early afternoon. If I'd hopped on a train right then, I could've gotten upstate in time to see my sister one more time. But instead I wanted to go out with Steve and a couple of girls."

"It's important to say goodbye to your friends too." she offered, trying to make him feel better. He gave a dry laugh, shaking his head.

"Yea, well, Steve ended up ditching to try and enlist again, so it kinda took the wind out of my sails." he explained. That had stung for a long time, but he got over it around the time he landed over on this side of the Atlantic. It was hard to say goodbye, especially when the person was living the life you thought you wanted.

"And the girls?" she said, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye to find her grinning.

"That's another question." he replied. He was certainly not going to tell her that while one girl had left at a decent hour, the brunette had stayed at his apartment quite a bit later. "And a gentleman does not kiss and tell." It was a cheap shot, he knew. But it was worth it for the brief look of jealousy on her face at the thought. She tried to school her face back to neutral but didn't quite succeed, which only served to amuse him further. She didn't care for the grin on his face then.

"Alright, Romeo, whatever you say." she said, if only to have the last word. The statement had a little more bite than she meant for it to, but he laughed it off. He very rarely felt like he won their little moments like this, and he relished in the victory.

"Your turn. Truth or truth?" he said, continuing on with the game. She hummed, suspicious of his transition but letting it slide.

"Truth." she said, steeling herself.

"Why did you leave Hemmingsburg?" he asked immediately. She groaned, closing her eyes for a moment before resigning herself. She'd accepted the game, after all. She couldn't punk out now.

"Because everyone wanted me to get married, and I had just turned eighteen and...did not want to do that." she said. She spoke in a way that he knew she wasn't giving him the whole story.

"So you just split, day after your birthday?" he tried to lead her to divulge whatever she was hiding. Even in the low light, he could tell she was blushing.

"Day after that." she said shortly. "Because the day after my birthday is when George decided to propose."

"Holy shit!" Bucky couldn't help but exclaim, though if he was honest the thought of someone getting down on one knee and presenting a ring to her made the jealousy bug bite his ass as well. Turnaround is fair play, he supposed. "You didn't tell me you'd been engaged, Doc."

"I wasn't engaged! I was just proposed to!" she said quickly, clearly not enjoying this walk down memory lane. "I left the ring on the nightstand and went to enlist in the Navy the next day."

"Hell of a way to turn a guy down." he said, laughing and pretending he wasn't jealous that someone had bought her a ring before he'd had a chance to.

"Oh, I said no from the beginning. He asked me to sleep on it." she said, very matter-of-fact. "I did, and I stood by my decision."

"How did you end up in the Army, if you started in the Navy?" he continued, wincing and groaning as he realized his mistake. Lu smiled then, happy to have the upper hand.

"That's another question." she teased. "It's your turn to pick between Truth or Truth."

"He's gonna pick fuckin' truth! Jesus!" Mullens yelled, quieting the cages within hearing distance. They all looked at him oddly - first, for raising his voice, and second because he was raising it at a woman. Normally the way men spoke to her tended to rub Lu the wrong way, but every once in a while she used it to her advantage.

"Leave it, Mullens." Bucky snapped over his shoulder. He then turned back to Lu with a pleasant smile. "I'll go with truth." he said sweetly, really layering it on just to annoy Mullens further.

"What's the first thing you wanna do when we get out of here?" she asked, her voice a bit quieter. He could barely keep his thoughts from spilling out - hold you, kiss you, run away with you. Really, he was just glad that she was being positive. He'd promised her they'd escape, now he just had to live up to it.

"Eat." It wasn't a complete lie, but he chose to keep the gutter thoughts to himself. "Eat a huge plate of whatever they've got, but preferably pasta and meat and bread and enough wine to knock me on my ass for a week."

"Whiskey would hit harder and faster." she offered her opinion, and he gracefully shook it off.

"True, but I want to savor my downward descent into a drunken mess. I don't even care about the hangover right now." he sighed wistfully, thinking of days gone by. For just a moment, he wasn't there in a Nazi dungeon. He was back in New York, maybe at the Stork Club. And Lu was right there with him.

"Good plan." she replied. The conversation lulled for just a moment, and in their silence they heard the men in the other cages moaning or crying softly. There was no such thing as manly here; they were all suffering, and doing their best just to survive.

"Truth or truth?" he murmured, his voice barely reaching her ears.

"Can I take a dare?"

"That's not the name of the game."

"Fine. Truth."

"What made you switch from Navy to Army?" Immediately he knew it was not a good question to ask. She'd been hoping, praying, that he'd forget. She already relived it too often in her nightmares. "Wait, no, never mind. What - um -"

"It's fine." she said quietly, her voice tight. She wasn't looking at him; instead, she'd pulled her knees closer, tucking her arms close as if she was trying to protect herself. She took a few steadying breaths, and when she spoke again her voice was even, though her face still gave away her strain. "I was there. In Hawaii."

"At Pearl?" he asked, incredulous. He'd had an inkling, but never followed up on it. Now it made sense that she was terrified of planes and small spaces, but that gunfire and tanks didn't faze her one bit. But he'd never dreamed that she'd been at Pearl Harbor.

"Yea. It was where I was training." she said. He couldn't tell if she wanted to say more, or if she was simply trying to get through whatever was in her head at that moment. "After the seventh, I requested a transfer. I didn't care if I got sent to the front lines over here, I just wanted to be as far from the water and Japan as possible."

"That's terrible, Doc." Bucky breathed, unsure of what else to say. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged, not looking at him. "Not your fault." she said automatically. Now he could see why she hid the fact of Pearl from people: she didn't want the pity. She never meant to be part of a historical event - even if she actively enlisted, she'd been dragged into this war, just like him.

"Well, I'm glad you're still here." he said, reaching through the bars to rest a hand on her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against it; she didn't say anything, but he thought he could feel a bit of moisture coming from her eyes. They sat like that for a long time, finally giving Mullens some blessed silence.

The door to the dungeon (it was the best word for their predicament) opened, and most of the men quieted and looked to it. They hadn't seen the hazmats or Dr. Becker since they'd been moved over here, and at this point they really just expected the guy with the bag of food. But today, it was more soldiers with handcuffs, their electric batons already out and crackling. Everyone was silent then, holding their breath as they waited to see who would be the first to be pulled.

Lu's heart was in her throat as they approached her and Mullens' cage. She immediately scrambled to the back corner, as if that would help her, and held onto the bars there. Mullens followed her lead, but the soldiers didn't seem surprised. If anything, they seemed put out. The key sank into the lock with a deafening noise; the hinges probably squeaked loudly, but she couldn't hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in her ears. Bucky put his arm through the bars, wrapping it around her in an attempt to keep her there.

"Leave her alone!" he said over and over in German. "No! Leave her!"

The men didn't listen. They roughly pulled his arm away and shocked him through the bars. He willed himself to stay conscious this time, trying to push through his spasming muscles and ignoring the heart palpitations as he crawled towards the bars again. Lu screeched and kicked and scratched at the soldiers, but they didn't care. She was smaller, and malnourished, and easily bested. Mullens was fighting back too, but had about as much success as she did. Not that it mattered in the end. The soldiers pulled out syringes and sunk them into whatever skin they could find, and by the time it was empty both Lu and Mullens were unconscious.

"No! No!" Bucky yelled, angry that once again he wasn't able to protect her. Part of him knew it was unrealistic, that there was no way for him alone to prevent what was happening. But that didn't make it any easier to watch them drag Lu's unconscious body back to the elevator.

December 7, 1941

Honolulu, Hawaii

The sun rose early in Hawaii, earlier than it ever did in Virginia or any of the states she'd visited in between. Lu found she liked it, cause it made the night shift that much shorter and made her feel like the day somehow lasted longer. And when the sun was rising over the beautiful beaches with shirtless soldiers jogging for early morning training instead of the endless acres of corn fields, that made the day a little better too.

"Lucy? Hellooo, Lucy." Daphne, the other nurse on the unit floor that morning, waved her hand in front of Lu's face. She snapped back to herself, dropping her daydream about the breakfast she was going to enjoy on the front porch of the nurses' house before a long sleep.

"Sorry Daph, I was taking one of those open-eyed naps you're always on about." Lu said. She still had a bit of a twang in her voice, some of her 'Southern Belle' accent stubbornly holding on.

"Well you better wake up, sleepyhead. The General's wife's water just broke." she said with a grin. That definitely got Lu to sit up at attention, her eyes wide.

"Already? But she's not due for another two weeks." she said, getting up and following Daphne back to the linens room. The barracks were not far from the hospital - the lady was probably going to get here any minute and the room needed to be ready. They wiped down all the surfaces with bleach rags then set to making the bed, getting a clean gown and socks ready. They heard a commotion in the hall and started working faster; they could hear the low timbre of the general, and the high, frantic voice of the intake coordinator, her heels clacking as she tried to keep up with her short steps. Daphne poked her head out the door.

"In here please!" she said, cool as a cucumber. This was not her first rodeo; she was about five years older than Lu, and had been working labor and delivery on the base since she joined at nineteen. When Lu showed up the first day, fresh faced and barely old enough for the enlistment papers, she'd immediately taken to her and made sure she was trained correctly.

The orderly wheeled in the General's wife, looking more afraid of the big man next to him than the woman in labor that he was transporting. The General looked right at Daphne, his gaze firm and unyielding and entirely terrifying to Lu's untrained eye. But Daphne didn't seem scared at all.

"You'll be the ones taking care of her?" he asked. His voice was so deep Lu thought she could feel it reverberate in her chest. Her voice didn't seem to want to work, so instead she just nodded while Daphne took the reins.

"She's in good hands, General. Now, you get yourself a cup of coffee and station yourself in the waiting room. We've got it from here." she said with a smile, holding a hand out and helping the woman to her feet. She was young, younger than Lu thought she would be, and readily accepted the assistance. The General, for what it was worth, looked very concerned and didn't actually move from the doorway, looking pained as his wife grimaced with every movement. Lu helped her change behind a partition before she got her settled on the bed, resting a hand on her lower abdomen to see if she could feel a contraction. Daphne shooed the General away. "Go on, we'll come get you when you have a healthy new baby."

"What's your name?" Lu asked the woman quietly. She felt as her muscles tensed and a contraction started; Lu looked at her watch, starting the time whenever she relaxed again.

"Emily." she said with a gasp. The General gave her one last look and she gave him as encouraging a smile as she could muster before he finally heeded Daphne and left.

"Trust me, it's going to be much easier if it's just us girls." Lu said with a smile, still keeping her eye on the watch. "Men like to think they're tough, but there's a reason we're supposed to handle all this."

"You should have seen when my water broke. I thought he was going to be the one to faint." Emily said with a breathy laugh. She shifted on the bed, her discomfort evident. Even if she was two weeks early, she was still immensely pregnant, and Lu knew that there was no way she was going to find a comfortable position until the baby was delivered and clean up was done.

"And that's why you have us." Daphne said, pulling on some gloves and gently laying her hands on Emily's knees. "Open up, doll. We gotta check how dilated you are." she said. Emily nodded and did as she was asked; she knew what was coming, and what to expect, even if this was her first child. She let out a whine as another contraction hit, and Lu stopped the counting, holding her hand to get her through it.

"Three minutes." she said to Daphne, whose eyebrows rose in response. She turned to Emily with a smile.

"This little one is coming quick. Three minutes apart and eight centimeters dilated? This one is gonna be a sprint, not a marathon." she said, her voice sounding like she was telling the woman the best news ever. Emily let out a breath and nodded, shifting up in the bed. Lu unlatched the mechanism, allowing the head of the bed to come up a bit and let her rest in a better position.

"But the baby's okay, right? Everything's fine?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly from the pain and the anxiety. Sweat was starting to bead along her forehead, and her hands gripped the side rails. Daphne smiled sweetly and nodded.

"Based on what I see, you have nothing to worry about." she said, sending a wink towards Lu. Lu also took a deep breath, knowing now that Daphne was actually being truthful.

It was a flurry of activity after that, preparing the station to clean the baby and all the instruments they would need to sever the umbilical cord and deliver the placenta. Emily did her part, taking measured breaths and not bothering to hide when another contraction hit. They were getting closer and closer together now, which meant that it was nearly time. The nurses could feel the shift in the air and the way Emily sat when they reached the point of no return, and they moved to help things along.

"Alright, doll." Daphne said with a smile. "You ready to be a mother?"

"As ready as I'm going to be." Emily admitted, trying to seem brave. Daphne's smile only grew, and she gestured for Lu to move to the foot of the bed.

"Alright. Lucy here's gonna catch your baby, and I'm gonna be right here with you, okay?" she said, moving to grip her hand. Lu went into business mode, setting the sheets just the way she liked them and putting Emily's feet in the right places.

"Okay." Emily said, gasping as another contraction hit. Lu gave her an encouraging smile over the swell of her belly.

"You're gonna do great, darlin'." she said. So far, everything was going smoothly. "Now, when the next one hits, it's time to push, okay?"

"Yea, yea okay." she said. Her hair was sticking to her face now, but her fear was starting to wane. Pain and excitement usually overwhelmed those at this point. Lu saw as her abdomen quivered, her muscles starting to tense.

"Here we go!" she sang, making sure Emily kept her knees apart. She pushed without any cuing, following her body's cues. Daphne reminded her to breathe, holding her hand and letting her squeeze it. As the contraction ended, Lu could see the head of the baby. "We're crowning!" she added, still keeping the mood upbeat and positive. Emily nodded, taking a few quick breaths before pushing again.

A deep boom sounded from outside, making the room go quiet. Lu looked to Daphne, who shook her head. It was probably just an exhibit, or a training drill. But then another boom came, and then another, shaking the walls of the hospital. "The shoulders are out!" she said, trying to focus herself and the woman in front of her.

Then, the hospital blew up.

Concrete and wood went flying following a catastrophic crash, throwing the walls inwards towards them. It was so fast that Lu didn't have time to see anything or react, and could only let the blast knock her to the ground. The world went dark, and when it finally started to lighten, Lu wondered if she was dead. She didn't think that she'd end up in Heaven, but if she wasn't there, then what was this bright light? But also...what was with the loud sounds of crying?

She came back to herself then. The light was sunlight, blinding her from the massive space where the wall used to be. She pushed herself up, the world spinning as she did so, and tried to survey the damage. Her stomach rolled as she saw Emily, her upper half covered and crushed by concrete. Her baby, mercifully, seemed to have been hit with nothing but dust as it settled. She made herself get up; any dust in the baby's new lungs could be disastrous, and she needed to cover the mouth and nose. She could barely breathe herself, but she needed to save the little one. A strip of sheet became a baby's face covering, and with a noise that Lu could never forget she pulled the baby from her place in the womb. She was full on crying now, demanding that the world take notice of her.

"What...what's going on?" Lu asked, looking around the room. The surgical instruments they needed to cut the cord were gone, lost in the rubble. "Daphne? Daph, there's no - how do I -" she looked around the room, then her blood went cold as she saw her friend. Daphne was still breathing and conscious, but red was appearing on her white uniform at an alarming rate. She gave Lu a bloody smile.

"You saved the baby. Good job." she said weakly, coughing a bit as she tried to speak.

"Stay - stay right there. I'll just take her to the nursery and come back to you - but the cord -" Lu was stammering, trying to organize her thoughts. The sounds of planes reached her ears, and she couldn't stop herself from screaming as more booms and shots echoed from other parts of the harbor. The baby screamed with her, but Daphne did not.

"Listen." Daphne said, getting her attention as the silence descended again.

"Don't talk, you need to save your strength-" Lu tried to tell her, making her shaking hands clean the baby. Everything was wrong. She could hear the sirens now; the base was under attack. Thanks to the opening in the wall, she could see the planes flying over, the red circles under their wings staring at her from the sky.

"Listen!" she said sharply, making Lu stop what she was doing and look back down at her. She reached into her pocket, pulling out a little pocket knife that was surprisingly clean given the situation. "Cut the cord. Take her to the nursery. Then you need to go outside and help."

"But you-"

"I'm not long for this world. We both know that." she said. She was getting paler as she spoke, and Lu found herself nodding. It was a fact, and nurses always clung to the facts. "Save the baby, then save as many as you can."

Lu knew one day she would have a breakdown about this. But Daphne was right - she had a job to do. She took the knife, wiping it as best she could before cutting the cord and bundling the baby girl. She went to hand the knife back to Daphne, not thinking. She gave a gurgling laugh. "Keep it, I think you'll have better use of it." she said. Lu paused, then put it into her own pocket.

"Thank you." she said. She didn't mean for the knife; she meant for the help, the mentorship, the friendship. Lu hadn't really had a best friend before this, and it would be a long time before she had another one. "For everything."

"Go get 'em, kid. They need you." Daphne said, her lungs filling more and more with blood. Lu knew she needed to move, needed to follow the sounds of screaming and help with those injured in the attack. But she stayed a few moments longer, holding Daphne's hand as she passed from this world to the next. The baby was quiet now, nestled in her dusty blankets, and for a moment Lu was taken aback by how closely death and life could pass each other.

She gently laid down Daphne's limp hand and got up, squaring her shoulders and steeling herself. She wanted to lay down and cry, but she couldn't, because Daphne wouldn't. Daphne would be better for this situation, but she wasn't here anymore. Lu looked down at the little baby, so pretty and pristine in the chaos.

Daphne wasn't here, but Lu was. And she had work to do.

So there was some nice stuff, right? Not just all angst? I promise I don't mean for things to be this alarming...though I guess it comes with the territory with this story. I hope y'all liked the look into Pearl Harbor, I debated including it but honestly I just really wanted to!

Your reviews are all amazing! I cherish them so much! And they fuel me to keep writing! Side note, how are we already at 23 chapters? Damn!

Thank you SO MUCH for reading, please let me know what you thought!

-XM