Bucky stealthily crept down the dimly lit hallway. He used the shadows to his advantage and concealed himself even though it appeared that the compound was deserted. A few dozen feet ahead, light peeked out from underneath a door and he headed towards it. With any luck, his target was inside.

Before he reached the closed door, it began to open and Bucky tucked himself into a darkened corner. He watched as a figure left the room and headed in the opposite direction. The door was left open meaning he would return. All Bucky had to do was slip inside the room and silently eliminate the target. Then he would leave the building the same way he came, without leaving a trace.

After making sure there was no one around and being careful to notice any cameras, Bucky moved inside the room careful to not make a sound. To his dismay, it wasn't empty. In the back, facing away from him was another figure with its head bent studying a screen. Bucky had been commanded to leave no witnesses, and he quickly came up behind them, knife in hand, before his target could return. He took a second and looked at the monitor prior to slitting their throat; in that short time of inaction the figure turned around. Bucky found himself looking down into questioning eyes as his knife blade gleamed in the light.

"Bucky? What's the..." Alex asked.

Bucky awoke with start and sat straight up breathing heavily. Although he was perfectly still, his eyes darted around the room; he was… home and alone. He had hoped that the nightmares would've had gotten less recurrent but instead they remained a nightly occurrence and were becoming more intense. Nightmares filled with memories of the victims of the Winter Soldier were bad enough, but now it was worse. He was hunting someone he knew.

Bucky grabbed for his phone and sent Alex a message. He placed the phone down and kept looking towards the screen expecting it to light up with an alert. Instead of the almost instantaneous reply he had received to his previous middle of the night text, this one took a bit longer. When Alex's reply did arrive, Bucky didn't see it. He had fell back into a restless sleep.

Bucky burst through the office door with an angry look on his face. Alex was sunk in the beanbag working on some notes and popped her head up at the sound. He strode across the room shaking his head but not saying anything. Alex surreptitiously glanced at the clock. He paced the length of the couch a few times, occasionally glaring at her. She patiently watched Bucky walk back and forth grumbling incoherently under his breath. When his pacing slowed down, Alex finally spoke. "I'm more than willing to sit here with you in silence but I don't think that's what you need or want right now."

Finally acknowledging her presence with a tilt of his head, Bucky stopped walking and she got out of the chair. "What's going on? Your text didn't say much… and you're late," Alex asked.

"The meeting went late. Someone thinks he knows more than the rest of us."

"Fury?"

"Walker," Bucky said as if it explained everything and settled back into the couch. He looked over at Alex waiting for her response.

She pursed her lips slightly and sat down in the chair across from him. "You didn't text me in the middle of the night because John Walker was keeping you awake."

"Maybe I was hoping we could talk about your questionable life choices."

"Nice try," Alex said in response to his smirk. "How about we talk about your nightmare?"

Underneath the forced relaxed façade, Bucky tensed. Alex watched him shift in his seat and waited. She jotted a few words in her notebook as his eyes narrowed. He started off vehemently denying having a nightmare but soon wilted under her steely gaze.

"Yes, I had a nightmare. It's getting worse."

When Alex pressed him to explain how they had gotten worse, he balked. Bucky looked away and stared out the window.

"You took the first step and asked if we could meet. I can't help if you don't tell me anything," she said. Bucky faced her with a troubled look on his face and stated in a quiet voice that the nightmares had changed.

"When does it get better?" he asked.

"Healing isn't linear," Alex replied. "We're dredging up things you've been holding on to for a long time."

"But... the nightmares... they've always been about the past, things I've done."

"And now?"

"They're not." His distress was evident. Bucky exhaled loudly as he got up and walked towards the window when Alex asked what they now encompassed.

He was torn. Bucky wanted to tell her about the dreams, especially now that they were progressively getting worse, but he hesitated since she was almost the victim. After some additional prodding, Bucky related the dream he had the night before which was still fresh in his mind. He paused before recounting how it had ended and again Alex encouraged him to continue.

"I almost killed you," he summarized.

Alex stiffened and sat straight up. She was more than a bit shaken but she tried to brush it off. "It was a dream."

"It wasn't the first time," Bucky confessed.

Alex was now the one looking out the window. She opened her mouth to say something then closed it again. "If this isn't working for you, I can let Fury know. I'm sure Dr. Raynor would be happy to return and work with you."

"No," he said sharply before fumbling for words. "This... you... it's working fine."

"You need to tell me if that changes."

Bucky nodded and sat back down. His forlorn expression pulled at Alex and she looked away briefly to regain her composure. He wanted to tell her that she had helped more than she realized even if it didn't seem that way but he remained silent on the subject.

"What happened around the time the dreams changed?" she asked.

Alex watched as Bucky looked at the floor and ran his hands over his head. Seconds later, he sat up, looked directly at her and told her about the conversation with Sam. When he mentioned being Fury's right hand, Alex chuckled. She told him that would be Maria Hill, not herself.

"You're not sure you can trust me. I get it," Alex said.

"It's not like that," he said with a troubled expression.

"It's okay. I'm not judging you."

"How can you not?" Bucky asked.

"Why do you judge yourself so harshly?" Alex countered and after a bit of silence, he shrugged. "You've been through a lot."

"Understatement of the decade," he said.

"Yeah, so ease up on yourself a little," she replied, happy to hear the bit of snark returning to his voice. "You also need to start trusting yourself and relying on other people's opinions. You know what's right for you."

The doubt was clear on his face. Alex continued, "You're one hundred five years old and have been trained to observe people and situations to complete missions successfully. I'm pretty sure you know a thing or two."

"It's one hundred six, and I was frozen and dust for most of it."

Alex smiled. "If it makes you feel better, none of the rest of us know what we're doing either."

"Should you be saying that to someone you're counselling?"

"Probably not, but you need to hear it. We're all unsure and figuring it out as we go."

As they sat and talked more, Alex tried to impress the importance of not judging himself for the past he wasn't in control of or his feelings on that past now. She reminded him that he had a support system to fall back on and it was okay to reach out whether it was due to a dream or he was sitting around with nothing to do.

Bucky agreed without much argument and the conversation drifted back to Walker. Alex recommended not taking him too seriously no matter how much he talked. Bucky leaned forward and told her that the former Captain America knew more than what he shared and he was totally behind the whole super soldier serum initiative.

"More people are going to get hurt because of him," Bucky stated.

"Don't you become one of them."

Alex was at home trying to relax when Fury called and asked how things went with Bucky. She balked at saying anything but Fury informed her that Bucky had hurriedly left the meeting because he was late for therapy.

"He's looking forward to therapy now, I think that's progress," Fury said.

"He was late... for a meeting he is mandated to attend or he'll end up in jail. I'd say that's more prudence than progress."

"I'll choose to see the glass as half full," Fury replied. "You didn't answer my question about how things are going."

"They're going. They'd be going better if he wasn't being put in highly stressful situations almost constantly."

"You realize Barnes did have a choice. He volunteered for this."

"Did he volunteer to work with Walker, too?"

Fury grumbled that he wasn't exactly happy with the current situation either be he was doing what was needed. "Do I look like I was born yesterday?"

"You know if you keep bringing a match into a room full of dynamite sooner or later something will explode," she said.

"Duly noted. Anything else I should know about explosives?"

"That is privileged information," Alex said before hanging up.