Chapter 4: First Names
"Knock, knock," Bucky announced his presence outside of the infirmary. Anna was busy returning all the instruments to their proper placement, and he didn't want to startle her like the first time he'd met her down there for lunch. She'd dropped a scalpel on the floor and jumped half a foot in the air.
"Sergeant Barnes," Anna greeted when she glanced up to find him leaning against the doorframe to the infirmary. "Is it time for lunch already?"
"I swear you'd forget to stop and eat without me, Ace," Sergeant Barnes teased with a smile that crinkled the edges of his blue yes. "Come on, we're eating on the deck today," he added, holding up a basket Anna hadn't noticed earlier.
Setting aside the instruments she'd been sorting, Anna followed Sergeant Barnes out of the infirmary and up the metal steps into the fresh, salty breeze. The week at sea had passed faster than Anna had anticipated. Thanks mostly to the man standing beside her. His contraption kept her nausea at bay, and him and a few of his squad buddies kept her entertained and made sure she ate at the appropriate intervals.
"Are Private Adams and Corporal McKenzie not joining us today?" Anna asked when she looked around the main deck and found it empty.
"It's our last day on board. This might be the last time we have the opportunity to eat together or see each other. I wanted you all to myself, Ace," Bucky said. He knew, if up to him, it wouldn't be the last time he spent time with Anna in the days and months to come.
"I am going to be living in your base, Sergeant Barnes. I'm sure we'll see each other in passing," Anna remarked, trying to fight the warmth in her cheeks at his flirtatious remark. She had to remind herself he didn't mean anything by it.
"Still professional and refusing to use my first name," Bucky shook his head as he unpacked the basket he'd filled with whatever the cook had scrounged up for lunch that day.
"If I called you by your first name, I'd have to call every soldier by their first name. Learning first names means learning more about the men behind them and it means it'll hurt worse if I lose a patient," Anna countered, her voice softening at the end. Reaching for an apple from the basket in order to distract herself, Anna tossed it from hand to hand.
"It's okay to be scared, Ace," Bucky murmured, scooting a little closer to Anna. "My whole platoon is scared. Hell, I'm scared. It's what you do with your fear that matters."
"Is that a quote?" Anna asked, once she got over her surprise at hearing Sergeant Barnes admit he was afraid.
"Would it impress you more if it wasn't?" Bucky asked with a sly smile, causing Anna to knock his shoulder with her hand. "It's something Steve told me once."
"I'm going to miss this," Anna mused, her hands stilling as she stared down at the apple in her hand.
"The crappy meals on this ship?" Bucky asked as he pulled out a can of meat. "I'm sure they'll still be as crappy at base."
"No, I didn't mean the food. I meant this. Having leisure time to sit around and talk. I'm going to miss the small sense of normalcy in our conversations," Anna admitted, taking a bite of the apple. She'd grown used to their isolation on the ship. War seemed so distant when you were in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by water and sky. It was like they had been in their own little world and were being forced back into reality in a day's time.
"We'll just have to find a new normal when we land. But you can't get rid of me that easy Ace," Bucky responded with a slow smile. It was nice to hear Anna felt the same about their time together.
…
Anna didn't see Sergeant Barnes their first two days on land. They were in different trucks headed towards camp, and when they reached their temporary home Anna was kept mainly in the medical tent. The war had been going on before they arrived, which meant she already had patients waiting for her. The doctor she worked with mistook her for a nurse several times, but kept quiet once she corrected his diagnosis and saved a soldier's leg.
"He's a lost cause," Dr. King said from across the medical tent when a soldier was brought in on a stretcher. She'd just washed her hands from treating another patient, so she wiped them dry on the threadbare towel by the basin before approaching the new patient.
"What's your name," Anna murmured, moving to sit beside the stretcher.
"Corporal Sanders, miss," the man groaned, his hand gripping the wound in his side tighter. Anna could already see the blood pooling around his fingers.
"Don't bother Stark, there's nothing we can do," Dr. King insisted, sending Anna a dismissive gaze over his glasses that were perched on the end of his nose.
"You can't just write off someone's life without trying," Anna snapped back, refusing to shrink under Dr. King's gaze. "I'm going to need to take a look at the wound. I need you to move your hand for me," Anna instructed, her tone softening as she turned back to the soldier.
Hand shaking, the soldier removed it from his wound, allowing Anna to pull back his uniform and the bandage he'd had wrapped around him in the field, to get a better look. There was no denying it was bad. Corporal Sanders' had been caught by an enemy grenade. His side was torn open and Anna could see the shine of some of the shrapnel in his wound. By The looks of it, the shrapnel had pierced the large intestine.
"I'm going to need clean towels, tweezers, light, and a stitching kit," Anna ordered one of the nurses. Someone had already applied Sulfanilamide powder to his wound, but once she got the bleeding under control she'd give him tablets of the antibiotic just to be safe.
"If he dies and supplies are wasted, you get to tell the General," Dr. King snapped as he watched his nurse follow Anna's orders.
Dr. King left sometime during the procedure, but Anna couldn't say when. After sanitizing the equipment, Anna used the towels to try and soak up some of the blood. The nurse held the light over Corporal Sanders as Anna pulled the metal from the wound slowly. If she wasn't careful, Anna could do more damage pulling the metal out than it'd made going in. With steady hands, Anna maneuvered the metal out, dropping it with a cling on the tray beside her.
Quick to continue before the soldier lost too much blood, Anna replaced the tweezers with the needle and thread. She'd need to stitch up the puncture to the intestine before closing the wound up. Absorbable sutures were used for the intestine. Anna had to use her fingers to determine where the puncture started and stopped. It took seven stitches to sew the intestine closed, and twenty five to close the skin.
"I can't promise you'll survive, but I can promise I did my best," Anna stated, coming to stand beside Corporal Sanders' head after washing the blood from her hands and arms.
"Thank you. For trying," Corporal Sanders whispered, his eyes fluttering closed. There was no guarantee he'd make it, even after the procedure, but Anna felt better for trying.
Leaving the medical tent to put in a request for plasma to be sent over, Anna ran into Dr. King. The look on his face told her she wasn't going to get a congratulations or thank you from him. Not that she'd expected one. He was the epitome of male ego when it came to male doctors. She'd met a lot of doctors who thought they were better than her because of their sex, but Dr. King beat them all.
"You will not undermine my authority in my medical tent and with my nurses again. Are we clear?" Dr. King spat out, bringing the attention of the returning troops towards them.
"No," Anna stated calmly, crossing her arms.
"What?" Dr. King sputtered, his eyes blazing when Anna hadn't given him the answer he expected.
"It's not your tent. The nurses are there to help the patients by assisting the doctor. I'm a doctor. And next time you decide to play God and decide who is worth treating, remember this: I saved the soldier you deemed a lost cause," Anna bit out before moving around the doctor and leaving him in is silent stupor. She hoped her words would sink in and that next time his ego would prevent him from giving up on a patient before even trying to help them.
"Talk about fiery, that new doc is something else," One of the returning soldiers commented with a smirk to his fellow platoon members, unaware that some men from 107th were behind him. "I'd like to see how well she knows the male anatomy, if you know what I mean."
"Don't talk about her like that," Bucky spoke up, pushing his way past some of the 90th until he stood before the big mouthed soldier.
"If it isn't Sergeant Barnes," Fitch commented with a mock salute. "I heard you already had your try at bat with her."
"You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand. Makes you look stupid," Bucky shot back, narrowing his eyes at the soldier before him. He knew him by reputation. Corporal Fitch had a big mouth, but lacked the balls to back it up.
"Are you here to defend her honor?" Fitch chuckled, looking around at his platoon as they joined in with muffled laughter.
"She doesn't need defending. I'm just reminding you to check your manners. Because you'll be at her mercy if you get injured. I wouldn't want to piss off the person who has my limbs and life in her hands," Bucky retorted with a slap on the guys shoulder.
Bucky hadn't seen Anna since their picnic on the ship. Orders went out as soon as his boots hit the ground. The 107th was needed at the front lines, and Bucky and his men had boarded a truck out to help the 90th. The Germans were pushing back hard against their established border. With gun in hand and his men beside him, Bucky joined the 90th in the trenches. It felt like he shot blindly at first, rising up from the trenches and firing in the general direction of the enemy. But he supposed a whole platoon of men blindly firing in the direction of the enemy was bound to do some damage.
When night had fallen, so did a false calm as the fighting turned to a stalemate. Sleep was impossible even when Bucky had a man take his post. Closing his eyes meant being unprepared for another attack. He didn't sleep more than an hour that night. Still, even with little sleep, Bucky felt more prepared to fight the next day when the sunrise ended the stalemate. He knew what to expect, and was able to properly aim when he knew he could take a few extra seconds to set up his shot. They ended up gaining some ground that day, pushing the Germans back to a comfortable distance. But they knew it was only a temporary retreat on the German's part. They were regrouping, and the Allies would have to hit them before they had a chance to counter attack. The retreat only bought them a day or two tops back at camp.
"Ace," Bucky called out when he caught up to her just outside her tent.
"Sergeant Barnes," Anna greeted, already smiling at the familiar nickname when she turned to face him. "I wasn't aware the 107th had returned."
It didn't take much digging to find out the reason Anna hadn't seen him around was because his unit got sent to the frontlines. When the General had enlightened her to that fact, Anna had found worry settling in. Worry for the soldier before her. A man she'd only known for a week. Every patient that came in from the lines had Anna's palms sweating until she found it wasn't Sergeant Barnes. She'd rather never see Sergeant Barnes again than have him end up in the medical tent.
"The truck just dropped us off a few minutes ago. I came to find you, see if I could talk you into breaking bread with me again," Bucky inquired as he moved into an 'at ease' stance with his arms behind his back and his feet hip with apart.
"I think I can be persuaded," Anna retorted, glancing down at her blood stained medic uniform. "Let me just change into a fresh uniform. I'll meet you by the cook's tent in ten minutes."
Bucky had a little swagger in his step when he left Ace at her tent. War wasn't all that bad when it meant dinner with Ace whenever he returned to camp. Moving towards the tent he shared with his platoon, Bucky decided freshening up a bit wouldn't hurt. Washing his face in the basin, Bucky was in the middle of shaving when Private Adams interrupted.
"Look at you getting all dolled up. Meeting Anna for dinner?" John asked with a sly smile. Ever since he'd seen Bucky with the doc, John ragged on him about his intentions. For all the teasing John and the others dished out, none of them went as far as messing with the doc. They knew enough about Bucky to know that Anna was off limits whether it was flirting or teasing.
"You're more than welcome to join us," Bucky retorted as he patted his face dry.
"Liar. You ditched us the last day on ship so you could be alone with her," John countered as he sat on the cot closest to Bucky.
"But whether you mean it or not, we're accepting," Keith McKenzie chimed in, as he held open the flap to their tent. "C'mon. You best not keep the lady waiting."
Dinner was a livelier event that night. Anna sat with Sergeant Barnes and some of his platoon, laughing at their antics as each of them tried to outdo the other's stories. Sergeant Barnes sat beside her, their shoulders brushing when more men came to join them and they had to make room.
"I better go check on Corporeal Sanders. See how he's doing," Anna stated once her laughter subsided from the story Private Adams told. She had long since finished her food, and though she'd like to stay and spend more time with the soldiers, particularly the one beside her, she had a responsibility to her patient.
"I'll walk with you," Bucky offered, rising to his feet and offering his hand down to Anna. Several of his men sent him knowing looks while Adams raised his eyebrows up and down in jest and McKenzie sent him a wink. Fortunately, Anna's back was to them so she didn't catch any of the men's antics.
The stars were just beginning to come out as they made their way towards the medic tent across camp. Bucky stayed close to Anna without invading her personal space, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. Even having to share her attention, dinner was nice. It was the same food they got out on the front lines, but the atmosphere at camp, and the company, made eating it more enjoyable.
"Tonight was nice. I mostly stick to myself around camp. Having people to eat and talk with…it was a good change," Anna commented as they made their way through camp.
"Consider meals an open invitation whenever I'm at camp," Bucky readily offered. "And with us spending more time together, maybe you could call me Bucky instead of Sergeant."
He'd been trying for a week straight to get Ace to call him by his name rather than his title. But she'd been adamant, sticking to her guns about remaining professional. He'd even tried explaining how using first names wasn't unprofessional if you got permission before using them. No amount of charm or logic had gotten her to give up calling him Sergeant Barnes.
"You really want me to use your first name, don't you?" Anna prodded, glancing up at him.
"I would see it as an immense accomplishment, yes," Bucky shrugged, trying to hide his smile. He had a feeling he'd finally worn her down.
"Alright, you win. Happy, James?" Anna smirked when she noticed his eyes widen in surprise and his step falter. "That is your first name, isn't it? Sergeant James Barnes."
"Cheeky," Bucky murmured with a shake of his head. That wasn't what he'd meant, and she knew it. Bucky never liked his first name. It was too stuffy for him. But he had to admit, it sounded better when Anna said it.
"I can always go back to Sergeant Barnes if you prefer," Anna teased. She'd only been having a bit of fun with him, calling him James. There was also a part of her that remembered the first time he brought up his name. All his friends called him Bucky. Anna didn't want to be like every other friend James had. In fleeting moments of honesty, she knew she might not want to be just his friend. But that was just a passing thought she buried deep down.
"No, James is fine," Bucky insisted, deciding to take the win.
Following her into the medic tent, Bucky kept his distance as Anna checked on the soldier. She checked is wound and bandaged it up again, checked his temperature, and gave him water. Sitting beside him on the next cot over, she took the time to talk with him. Bucky couldn't hear what she said, but whatever it was made the man smile.
"I'm going to stay the night here in case he needs anything," Anna announced as she approached James. Corporal Sanders was still in critical condition. She didn't want to leave him alone all night in case something happened, or he needed something.
"Alone?" Bucky asked, his brow creasing. None of the nurses were around. No one to help her should she need it. "What about the other doc? Could you trade off shifts with him?"
"He didn't even want to treat Corporal Sanders. I wouldn't trust to leave him alone with him all night. I'll be fine. It's no different than my own tent. I just have an injured soldier as a roommate instead of a nurse," Anna insisted.
"I'll stay. In case you need an extra pair of hands to fetch you supplies," Bucky offered, shrugging out of his uniform jacket and draping it over the other free cot.
"Technically only medical personnel or injured soldiers are allowed to stay the night in here," Anna countered, remembering the lecture that was given to all new medical staff when she'd first reached the tent.
"You know, I forgot to mention. I think I twisted my ankle on the way here," Bucky feigned as he limped over to the cot and sat down. Anna simply rolled her eyes at him, but he noticed the sides of her mouth twitching up as though she were fighting a smile.
"Let me get you some ice for that," Anna finally responded, playing along with James. If he wanted to spend his night in the medic tent, where she'd be up and about at random hours checking on her patient, instead of sleeping soundly in his tent, far be it for her to stop him. When she returned with a small pack of ice, she found James lounging with his hands behind his head, much like the first time she'd met him.
"Good night, Ace," Bucky called out when he heard the cot on the other side of the injured soldier sink down from her weight. When she echoed his sentiments he closed his eyes with a smile. He had no trouble drifting off to sleep that night, and it wasn't just because the chance of the enemy shooting him had drastically declined.
A/N: I'm baaaaccckk! This story is so much fun to write. I enjoy time traveling back to the 1940s. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. For this story, just keep in mind, my knowledge of WWII is limited to high school US History and that one history class I had to take in college. I'm trying to research a little as I go, but war tactics and facts might not be super accurate. Same goes with medicine. I'm more knowledgeable with modern medicine, but I do try and fact check all the medical things before I write about them. Anyways, I know I mentioned this before, but when updating my stories it will go Relentless one time then Beneath your Beautiful the next. So since I just posted this, the next story to be updated will be Relentless. Then after that's posted I'll update this again.
Onto guest review responses!
Jo: I'm glad you think I'm writing this story well. I just hope the plot doesn't seem to drag. Relentless has a lot of action to it, this one might ease into action.
Kam: I am honored you put your love for this story in the same sphere with Game of Thrones. I take that as a huge compliment and will try not to let you down. (I'm actually about to start season 6…I know I'm way behind, so no spoilers! Lol)
To the guest who is absolutely adoring this story: yay! I'm having fun with it and it's nice to know others are too.
Bucky fan No 1: You're so sweet. Writing style is such a huge part of a writer's identity, so it's good to know you appreciate mine. Relating with the characters is a huge goal, as I feel my stories are very character driven. I'm glad I could accomplish that with you! I will continue this one as long as people don't grow bored of it. Maybe even then too. Thanks for the love, sending it right back at you!
To the guest who said I write so well: Thanks! I've written a lot to get to the point where I'm at today and I hope I continue to grow as a writer. Practice makes perfect, right?
Rach
xoxo