Just a few moments later the barista at the bar called out their order and Bucky got up to go grab it. Weaving in and out of the multitudes of people as he retrieved the two scorching hot cups of black coffee and returned back to the table. Upon his return, Ella was still very much surveying the room in front of her.

Bucky handed her one of the cups. She smiled at him and thanked him.

"I do love the smell of socially acceptable chemical dependence in the morning." She sighed.

Bucky found himself laughing, having been caught off guard. He succeeded in getting ahold of himself quickly. He did not miss the self-satisfied look on Ella's face before she took a sip. She immediately pulled a face.

"Is something wrong?" Bucky asked. Still recovering from the sudden and unforeseen attack of Ella's wit.

"Oh, it's nothing. I just always forget that Americans don't roast their coffee. They burn it. I hardly come here anymore; I generally prefer to make my own."

Bucky took a sip of his own coffee and tasted what Ella was talking about. He hadn't really noticed before. After the war and having to drink coffee that was almost literally mud, anything was better than that.

"I bet you make one killer cup of coffee then."

Ella continued to examine the coffee shop as she responded.

"I personally think so, but it all comes down to who you ask. People are sure picky about their coffee. I should know, I'm one of them."

Bucky finally worked up the nerve to ask.

"So, what branch did you serve?"

Ella stopped and looked at Bucky with the same appraising eyes that she had been giving the room in front of her. A chill ran down his spine. He wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing.

"Is it that obvious? Am I being that obvious?"

Bucky then began to feel warm under her gaze. Her green eyes were alive and almost wild in a way.

"To me, it is. There is absolutely no mistaking it."

Ella studied him for a few more seconds as she took another sip from her coffee.

"Army. Two tours. Well, one and a half."

Bucky laughed and gave her a crooked smile.

"Same here. I was only deployed on one tour. You have me beat there."

Bucky seemed to be holding Ella's full attention now.

"What made you want to enlist?"

Bucky shrugged as he thought back. That was a good question. He hadn't thought about that since he was actually in the war.

"I wanted to do something right. Do the right thing. To serve my country." Bucky paused for a moment. "What about you?"

Ella looked into her cup.

"Now that is a very, very long story. One that I could not do justice for over coffee."

Bucky thought he got the signal but was afraid to misread any signals. Had she just hinted at there maybe being a next time to this? The thought frightened him as much as it enticed and excited him.

"So, where are you from Soldier?"

Bucky didn't even hesitate.

"Brooklyn."

"Now that makes a lot of sense. You may not sound like it all the time, though. Question: Yankees or Dodgers?"

"Wait. You can tell? How? And Dodgers all the way. There is no competition there. So, where are you from? You mentioned earlier that where you come from you don't have spring or autumn."

"You have a slight accent. And something about you just screams New York Boy. I was born in Germany, but I grew up in Arizona. My summers were spent outside of Tucson on a family ranch and I lived in Phoenix the rest of the time."

"No one has ever told me I have an accent. And what do you mean 'screams New York Boy'? Why did your family immigrate?"

Ella laughed and looked out the window next to her.

"I'm good with both languages and accents. I pick up on them easily. And I couldn't tell you. Maybe it's how you carry yourself? Maybe it's that as well as the accent. But, that's how you come across to me. Why does anyone pack up everything they have and leave a country they are from and move to another?"

"I hope none of that will go against my record. And Touché. Why did your family move to Arizona of all the places in America?"

Ella scoffed and turned back to face Bucky, humor flashing in her eyes.

"Oh, so you have a record now? No, it won't count against you. My grandfather picked Arizona for the family because he thought himself a real cowboy. He even genuinely looked the part until he opened his mouth and spoke. He wanted to be a cowboy so badly that he wanted us to bury him up on Boot Hill."

Bucky laughed and took a drink from his own coffee.

"Needless to say, that never happened." Ella sniggered.

"What do you miss most about it?" Bucky found himself asking without thinking, surprising himself.

Ella sat back in her chair and held her coffee in both hands as she thought. Her eyes went over the crowd of people again before they settled back on Bucky, who had not taken his eyes off of her. They just looked at each other for a moment before she answered.

He was almost startled due to the fact that he had gotten lost in those powerfully green eyes, again.

"There are a few things I miss. The monsoon seasons. Although I do not miss the humidity and excessive heat. Monsoon storms. My family's farm. I miss riding my horses. I also miss riding my dirt bike. The smell of rain, before and after a storm. It's called petrichor. That would have to be my favorite smell in the whole world. And you can only smell it there. I've tried all kinds of candles and smell-good shit and nothing ever comes close. Then there are sunsets. When the sun falls below the storm clouds, you've never seen anything like it. My family. My regular customers. I guess I miss more than I realized." Ella trailed off, looking genuinely sad.

"What made you leave?" Bucky asked quietly. At least quiet in comparison to the din around them. He did not like to see her sad. Although he had about a billion other questions he wanted to ask now, he needed to know why she was here, missing all of that.

"Now that's easy. I wanted to stay behind and continue on with the family business, but a bigger part of me knew I was meant for greater things. Things that I could do that would benefit everything more than just myself. I was not meant to stay. I do not believe that is why I am here, what I was put on this earth to do."

"What do you think you were meant to do? What kind of family business?" Bucky was amazed at how easy it was to ask her these questions. He usually didn't talk to strangers at all, let alone ask them personal questions.

"I believe I was meant to make up for the past. I'm going to leave it at that. One day I'll tell you exactly what I mean, but today is not that day." Ella finished with a finality in her tone of voice that made that part of the conversation over and done with. Unquestioningly so.

Bucky hesitated for a moment. Afraid that he had just crossed a line. Then something occurred to him about what she had just said. She had said that she would one day tell him. He wasn't reading into things that were not there. She was thinking about there being a next time between them.

He sat there thinking, misty-eyed, for a moment, and then Ella started speaking again and snapped him out of it. The look on her face, the half-smile she was giving him, gave him the impression that she had caught him and that she knew what he had been thinking. He almost flushed with embarrassment, feeling like he had just been caught red-handed.

"As for the family business, my mom's side of the family owns and runs a bakery. We specialize in European-style rye breads, hard rolls, and pretzels. That's another thing I miss, my bread. Americans don't know how to bake without sugar. It's disgusting. I pretty much grew up in it. Child labor laws do not apply to children in a family over the age of six or eight. I worked there until I was 16."

Bucky smirked.

"I bet your pretzels have nothing on the ones from the cart around the street from my apartment building back in Brooklyn."

Ella smirked right back.

"I bet your cart uses baking soda and not food-grade sodium hydroxide for their dip. If they even make a fresh product, not some freshly frozen bullshit. I also bet you need mustard or cheese to help make it appetizing. You gotta have lye to be the real deal and not some doughy knock-off."

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath.

"Oh! You got me! You struck me right in the heart with that one." He pointed to his heart. "Right there."

Ella smiled a sinfully innocent and yet utterly suggestive smile.

"Well, you know what they say. The best way to a man's heart is between the 3rd and 4th rib."

Bucky's thoughts went back to the series of events that had brought him here and questioned if he was really, truly doing this.

"Are you saying you're trying to get at my heart or that you want to stab me?" He said, leaning in and cocking his head to the side. He saw the flash in her eyes before she herself leaned in and responded.

Ella looked at him seriously.

"Yes."

Then that façade cracked and the humor shown from within when she continued.

"I'm joking! Or am I? I haven't figured that out yet. I'll be sure to let you know what I decide. Or, you'll be fully aware of my decision without me having to say a word." Her mischievous grin did something to Bucky that he had not felt since before the war. Something both familiar yet entirely unfamiliar.

Sam had been right; Bucky was attracted to this woman. He wanted to see her again after this day. And not in passing at the park. He wanted to know more about her. Anything and everything he could. He wanted to be greedy.

"So, you said you were working on some kind of scientific paper earlier. What is it about?" Bucky inquired. He had always liked girls with brains. It sounded like she had them. And he was interested in the subject matter that Ella was working on and why she was interested in whatever she was working on.

Ella took a large swig of her coffee. She looked pensive as she went back to overlooking the crowd. Finally, she spoke, almost hesitantly. Bucky got the impression that she was reluctant to talk about it.

"I'm working on a piece for a feature in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry about memory, mental health, and trauma. Specifically, how trauma affects memory. I'm analyzing how the brain functions to produce, or suppress, memory in direct correlation with trauma and mental illness. How memory affects patients suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and other established diagnoses. And, on the flip side, how these diagnoses affect the formation of memory."

Bucky sat there, stunned. He could see why she was apprehensive. This was a big deal. It seems she had more brains than was customary. He certainly had a lot of experience on these subjects, but there was no way he was willing to share them with her. She continued, not noticing the expression on his face. She was looking out the window as she spoke, distant and disconnected.

"What makes some memories of serious physical and psychological trauma stand out, makes the person experience them as if they were reliving them again, while others are almost completely erased? Like the trauma never happened, but the after-effects are still there?"

Bucky sat silently, slightly uncomfortably. He then plucked up the courage to tell Ella about a few aspects, a few very small details, of his own struggles with the very things she was researching. He was about to ask her about what she thought about a few different theories he himself had had over the years. Maybe they could help each other out.

But then her cellphone rang. She reached into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and produced the phone. She took one look at the screen and she made another disgruntled face.

"I'm sorry, Bucky. I have to take this. It'll just take a second. I promise." She gave him a sickly-sweet smile before answering.

Bucky, on the other hand, was thankful for the interruption. He had been about to get a little too personal for comfort and he was wondering exactly why he had even considered talking to this woman about anything he had gone through. Even in the vaguest of terms.

While she was in a discussion with the person on the other end of the line, he mentally shook himself and reminded himself that he had just formally met this woman. He reminded himself that they were not going to get personal. That this probably wasn't even going to last past the doors of this coffee shop.

If that was the case then why had he felt so relaxed talking to her? Why did he feel comfortable with her now, about to tell her details he had trouble talking about with his doctor? Why did he desperately not want this to be the last time they saw each other or talked to each other like this? Once again he was asking himself what the hell had he gotten himself into.

While Bucky was deep in thought he still caught part of her conversation. After a few minutes, she hung up and went to put the phone back into her jacket pocket. An odd expression on her face. She looked even more uneasy than she had before she had told him about the publication.

Bucky gave her a questioning look when she met his eyes again.

"What's going on, Ella?"

Ella sighs rested her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Causing her hair to cascade around her. Without moving her position, she answered him.

"I have my first solo gallery show as a photographer this upcoming weekend. And that was the gallery manager telling me my final set of prints had arrived and are ready for pick up."

Bucky noted that she did not seem at all happy about this. He also noted that she was both a scholar and an artist. He had to investigate further into both of these pieces of information about this enigmatic woman. Although, very differently than how he had investigated her the first time around.

"You seem enthusiastic about it." He said jovially, with more than a hint of sarcasm, trying to diffuse some of the tension radiating off of her.

Ella lifted her head up out of her hands, interlaced her fingers, and rested her chin on them. She leveled Bucky with another piercing gaze before she spoke.

"Do not get me wrong, I am excited about it. But I am more nervous than excited. To be perfectly honest I am starting to really regret my choice to put this… aspect of my work on display for everyone to see."

Bucky was confused.

"Why, aren't you proud of your work?"

Ella smiled a small, sad smile and laughed hollowly.

"Of course, I am. This show just deals with… controversial subjects. Things that are disturbing, in some cases very much so. And still other things that are considered in very bad taste."

Ella paused and sipped at the dregs left in her cup, then stared down into it.

"Please don't misunderstand me, I am extremely proud of my work. Especially what I am going to be exhibiting. It has helped me heal a lot of old and new wounds as well as deal with the fallout and trauma of them. I make art to help myself as well as to make the viewer uncomfortable in a thought-provoking way. It is supposed to make you think. It is supposed to make you feel something. Otherwise, it is not art as I intended it to be. Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

Bucky considered everything Ella had told him. He knew she wasn't finished. And he wanted to hear what else she had to say. This was the most interesting conversation he had participated in, in a very, very long time. So, he waited patiently for her to continue. His eagerness only too evident on his face when she looked back up at him.

"What I am anxious about is peoples' reactions to everything. Particularly the people that I know. It is why I keep my lives separate from each other. Some spheres should just never cross. In the end, I am putting myself, my broken and scared soul, out there, on full display. Raw and unedited to be judged and picked apart by anyone who chooses to do so. I don't care when strangers do it. Fuck what they think or have to say. What do they know? It's the thoughts and opinions of people that I already know that tend to hurt the most."

Bucky could see a deep desolation in her green eyes. He wanted very much to make it better. To make the feeling that caused that look to go away and never return. He wanted to protect her from the pain he heard in her voice.

"Why are you so afraid how the people you know will react this way? Has it happened before?"

'And whose ass do I have to kick?' Bucky thought to himself, starting to get irritated.

Ella stuck her tongue into her cheek and looked back out of the window and nodded an affirmation.

"Yes, it has happened many times before. What happens is people tend to look at me differently. They start treating me differently, talking to me differently. Talking to me less and talking behind my back more. Then they just stop talking to me altogether. I get that my work can be deeply disturbing, but I don't think it's that bad. Even some people whom I have known for years, people who have known what I've been through and where these ideas come from, have distanced themselves from me after seeing this part of me."

Bucky wanted to tell her that he knew exactly how she felt. Had experienced the exact same thing. After everything he himself had done. But his mouth was dry and he was unable to speak due to the sudden anger rising up within him. Not even an apology for these other people's horrid actions.

Most of all he wanted to see these photographs. To see the worst side of her, as she thought them to be. He wanted to see every facet of her. It couldn't be nearly as bad as she was making it out to be. Not compared to himself and all things considered. It was just making him want and fiend for more.

She stared into her empty cup, and he stared at her. Memorizing her face. After a relatively long, but not uncomfortable, silence. Ella proceeded.

"In the end, I cannot control how others react or think. I can only control my responses and my reactions. I just wish more people would talk to me, communicate their inability to cope with, or understand, my messages. How can those who have seen the darkness and evil I have gone through still not understand? In the end, I have stopped explaining myself to anyone who has proven that they lack the depth needed to actually understand me."

Ella went quiet for a few minutes as Bucky continued to study her face and ponder what she had said. A lot of it hit home, but for different reasons. He was even more interested in what this gallery show was now. Suddenly Ella groaned, folded her arms on the table, and rested her forehead on them.

"Oh, shit. I'm oversharing and rambling, aren't I? I didn't mean to get so serious on you. And so quickly. Sometimes I even give myself whiplash." She looked up at him through her mane of hair. A pained and embarrassed look on her face.

"I don't do this very often."

Bucky chuckled and went to move her hair out of her face but stopped himself. He had already lifted his hand but was just short of reaching out. He deflected with a question, hoping she had not noticed.

"Don't do what very often?"

She sat up again, rolled her eyes, and gestured in the space between them.

"This."

Bucky looked at her seriously. He did not believe that for one second. And he knew that his face showed it. A woman like her had to have men clamoring to take her out. That Todd behind the counter certainly was one of them.

"Don't worry about it. I found this really enjoyable. Your perspectives and thoughts are rather refreshing. And your honesty is impressive."

Ella rolled her eyes.

'Now that is surprising. I would agree with refreshing. I find that you will not get to know someone by asking a bunch of arbitrary questions. I'd rather talk about quantum theory, the existence of God, or the meaning of life if there is one at all. Anything existential or deeply personal. You haven't asked a single cliché first date question. Usually, I would have most people running for the hills by now."

"I think you will come to find that I am not like everyone else…"

Bucky trailed off knowing exactly what he wanted to say next, but not sure whether he should take the next step or not. She had just said that this was their first date after all. In the end, he went against his better judgment. His judgment and decision to not have any kind of romantic personal life. Ever.

Bucky had just realized they had been talking for nearly two hours. It felt like moments, not hours. He wanted more time.

"So, about dinner…"

Ella smiled a crooked smile before meeting his eye again. She paused for a moment, just looking at him. Appraising him once again.

"How about tomorrow night? I have to go pick up the rest of my prints right now. Give me a call in a few hours and we can plan from there."

Ella took out her notebook and wrote down a phone number on one of the empty pages. She tore it out and handed it to him. They donned their jackets, Ella grabbed her messenger bag, then they make their way to the door of the coffee shop. Ella waved at the people behind the counter and they all do the same.

Even Todd, who gave Bucky another critical look. Bucky just stared right back with the same blank expression that he was so used to giving now.

Bucky held open the door for her, her number still clutched in his hand.

"Would you like any help with those prints? If you need an extra set of hands, I'm available."

Ella turned fully towards him and looked up at him and gave him a sweet smile. Bucky had not realized they were standing so close.

"No, I don't need any help. But thank you anyway. I appreciate the offer. My place is above the gallery. So, it's just up and down some stairs a few times."

"Oh, nice. That's convenient. Do you rent from the gallery owner?"

Ella suppressed a wicked grin, only letting an impish smirk touch her lips. She looked down and away from him before she answered.

"No. He rents from me."

She turned away from him and started walking away down the sidewalk. Bucky just stood there and watched her go.

When she turned the next corner, she looked back at him with those hauntingly green eyes one last time. Then she was gone.

Bucky was left with a sense of awe and anticipation. As well as the phone number on the piece of paper still in his grasp.