A/N* Just a quick note; The Eagle now has a youtube playlist, to find it you can just search The Eagle A.E Buhr. Hopefully, you can find it alright. Otherwise, I'll put the link in my bio.
Aubrey wrung her hands nervously, only half-listening to Tony as he motioned to a human skeleton, explaining to a doctor what his plan was. Every few moments the doctor would nod and ask something, pointing to various bones before going back to listening to Tony. Last she had heard, he was talking about how the NanoTech would move through her bloodstream and be filtered through something that would be implanted into her spine...or something like that. Quietly she tuned them out and studied the doctor. Her face was round with long wispy black hair and her hands moved with precision. Tony had said she was one of the best surgeons in the world, known for trying experimental technology.
"Aubrey?" She jumped and puffed a breath out of her lips before looking to the doctor, who was gazing at Aubrey, eyes twinkling with excitement.
"Yeah?"
"Tony has just explained to me what he wants me to do, did you hear some of it?"
"Bits and pieces." Although if she had been honest...Aubrey hadn't really been listening at all.
The doctor nodded "I need to get some of my equipment down here but if all goes well then we can do the surgery in a day or two."
Aubrey nodded shakily, wondering if her legs would hold her weight after the surgery and if her body would have after-effects. With that Tony and the doctor left the room to discuss details and Aubrey was left to wait and hope she had enough time left.
That night Aubrey was plagued by fitful sleep for hours before she was finally able to relax and sink into a deeper sleep. But her mind was anything but peaceful as a nightmare plagued her for hours.
A knock sounded on a storm door and Mrs. Cristo was in the kitchen, listening as one of the boys opened the door. She heard the dogs scrabbling and the deep bark of Glacier, who had doubled in size since first coming there.
"Mom? The man from when Aubrey visited is here."
Daniels words brought alarm bouncing through her mind. Was Aubrey here too? The thought excited her as she turned off the stovetop and hurried to the front door, a smile preparing to light up her face. But her feet slowed and became glued to the floor when she saw the expression on the man's face. Grief.
"Uhm...Bucky, come on in" she started. Bucky nodded and stepped inside, she watched his movements and knew immediately something was very wrong. His normal methodical movements were jerky and his shoulders were dropping with every step. He opened his mouth once but clamped it shut again, swallowing before trying again.
"Mrs. Cristo...I.." he didn't get farther than those words before she interrupted him.
"It's Aubrey, isn't it. They can't fix her? How much time does she have left? Where is she? Where's my baby girl?"
Pain flashed across his face and right then and there an ugly truth began to emerge in her mind. He opened his mouth and his voice lowered with every word.
"This morning….she..her heart stopped in the middle of the night...I..they were too late" by the time he got to the last word Mrs. Cristo wasn't hearing him anymore, her ears had started ringing and a sob made its way out of her mouth. Bucky turned away slightly, grief coming off him in waves, Glacier seemed to sense it too and sat at his feet, whining and nudging his leg.
The colors of the scene twisted together, creating suffocating darkness as it recreated itself into something else.
The church was crowded but it made Bucky proud to see so many people here for her. He had tried to shut down his thoughts but they still appeared as he took in everyone in the room, all dressed in varying shades of silver, gold, and white. Instead of the traditional black, he had asked her parents if they could request the guests to wear colors that would symbolize her life and the growth she had gone through. Her family sat in the front two rows, sorrow rolling off of them in waves. He stood nervously in the shadows of the room, unsure where he belonged. Her mother had asked him to go up and speak about her but he wasn't sure he wanted to. The time he spent with Aubrey was personal and in his mind, part of him didn't want to share but he knew how much this meant to her family. In various other pews sat people he hadn't met, Fury and Agent Hill sat in the back and Bucky knew they had agents posted all around the perimeter just in case something happened. Tony Stark was seated opposite her family, he was the only one dressed in black. His arms were crisscrossed and frustration rolled off of him in potently. Beside him sat a woman with light-colored hair, she was talking to a petite woman with short brown hair and glasses, she was the nurse that had found Aubrey...the morning of...Bucky shut the thought down before it could finish.
"You should be sitting with her family" a voice startled him and he turned to find Sam Wilson watching him. Bucky looked around for Steve but Sam spoke again. "He's not here"
"Then why are you?" He tried to keep the malice out of his voice.
"Because even though I didn't know her, I wish I did. Now go sit with them"
"I-" he started but Sam cut him off.
"You are part of their family now, you are their only link to her. Just go sit" Bucky nodded, feeling chided, and crept over to an empty spot beside her little brother Jesse. The boy looked up to him, tears glistening in his eyes.
"Do you miss her?" the boy asked Bucky. He gulped and nodded
"I do." the boy was satisfied with his answer and leaned back into the chair, and after a moment he shifted his head onto Bucky's arm, sighing.
"What happens if I forget her? I don't wanna forget her"
Bucky had stiffened at the touch but looked over at the boy, seeing the fear in his eyes.
"I don't think you will forget her, and if you can't remember something you have a lot of people to ask. She will…" Bucky paused, clearing his throat "she will live on in here-" he pointed to the boy's head and then again to his heart "and especially in here".
"Okay" Jesse squeaked, hands fiddling with the white suit his parents had dressed him in. Bucky watched the child for a moment before facing the front as the pastor came up and prayed over the congregation. Aubrey's mother stood up and went to the front of the room, her hands folded in front of her. Clearing her throat, Mrs. Cristo started to speak.
"Aubrey was born on November eighteenth, and I got to watch her grow up and become an amazing person..-" her mother paused, sniffling back tears "And then, on November eighteenth, twenty years later, she was taken from us and I was left with nothing but memories of my baby girl.-" she turned her gaze to Bucky as she spoke the next sentences. "Last year she was on my porch, she had come back to me. It was then that I found out what had happened and where she had been….So instead of me speaking first...I...I've decided to let the person who knew her best speak first. Bucky, would you please come up?" Mrs. Cristo stepped off the raised platform and hugged Bucky before he went on stage.
"I…-" he cleared his throat "Where do I start?" nervous laughter bubbled out of his mouth and he took a deep breath before starting again and telling about how she had saved his life.
Aubrey startled awake and found she couldn't breathe fast enough. Her lungs screamed for air, her chest ached and vaguely she heard an alarm going off inside her room. F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice sounded.
"Ms. Cristo help is coming, try to calm down"
Aubrey continued gasping for air, her hand clutching the blankets to her chest as her eyes frantically zoomed around the room, looking for something to help her. But then she heard the door bang open and Miss. M came into her viewpoint, a determined look on her face. She unhooked something and placed an oxygen mask onto Aubrey's face, relief working its way through her body as filtered air slid into her lungs but it was then that she realized that a steady pressure had started on her right side. Panic slid back into her mind and Aubrey watched Miss. M. opening her mouth to say something.
"Don't talk yet" Miss. M warned as she fiddled with something out of her viewpoint. Aubrey felt the sting of a needle poking into her skin and felt something cold running into her veins. "How on earth did you get so dehydrated?" she mumbled to herself before looking at Aubrey with alarm "Wait! Don't answer that"
But the pain in her chest was amounting and Aubrey wheezed "Chest pain...right...side." The two words caused Miss. M's face to go slack and she yelled to F.R.I.D.A.Y
"Get Doctor Fletched down here immediately."
"Yes Ma'am" came F.R.I.D.A.Y's strained answer.
Aubrey tried to take her mind off the pain, instead, she focused on the dream, playing it on repeat. It all had felt so...so real and she knew at that moment that she couldn't let it be real for a long time. She had to see her family again and make sure Bucky was on the right path.
She heard the door bang open again and more footsteps but her vision had begun to blur.
"Aubrey can you hear me?" the voice belonged to Dr. Fletched and Aubrey put all her energy into nodding as the Doctor continued. "Your carbon dioxide levels are higher than normal and your oxygen lower. We are going to take an X-ray alright? It's very possible that one of your lungs has collapsed."
She nodded and closed her eyes, focusing on breathing as she felt hands pick her up and move her from one bed to another before the bed was rolled down the hallway. The x-ray was taken quickly and soon confirmed the collapsed lung. Aubrey felt the oxygen in her mask filter with anesthetic and knew they were putting her under for one reason or another.
She knew that time had passed when she woke but was unable to gauge how much. A face leaned over and Aubrey focused on it, watching as the form went from blurry to clear.
"Whahappened" She croaked out.
Miss M. smiled gently "Your lung collapsed so we had to insert a tube into your chest to relieve the air..but then we ran some tests and found some things..and..Doctor Fletcher wants to talk to you, alright?"
Aubrey nodded and waited as Miss. M's face disappeared and was replaced with Dr. Fletchers unfamiliar face.
"Aubrey your rib cracked when we bumped it tonight while we were trying to fix the collapsed lung. Some of my equipment is here so I want to do the surgery now."
Her eyebrows rose and Aubrey opened her mouth to protest but Tony's voice came from somewhere else in the room, cutting her off.
"I triple checked everything and I've had countless other people run the numbers. It's now or never Aubrey." His words reassured her and Aubrey weakly nodded, terror skittering up her spine. Breathing in deeply she vaguely, under the cloud of pain drugs, felt the stab of pain from the broken rib.
"Okay," she whispered as Dr. Fletcher read the steps of the procedure and helped Aubrey sign at the bottom. A door banged open and Aubrey heard someone with an uneven gait enter the room. Her subconscious recognized it before she did, a hand touched her shoulder and his voice was just loud enough for her to hear.
"Everything will be alright Brie."
Those were the last words she heard before Dr. Fletcher administered a strong sedative and she faded away.