Okay so I'm considering quitting my job because I hate it so much…

ANYWAYS no school tomorrow. It's Professional Service Day and also our Health and Wellness Fair where us college kids look for internships and then go learn how not to be nerds. I'm just gonna go for my attendance mark and the free food.

How many of you are out of school already? Our midterms just ended today (ACED THAT PSYCHOLOGY SHIZZ)…

Review with comments, questions, concerns, predictions, life story…etc.

Chapter 14

The Soldier sat reading her words with some foreign emotion taking hold in his chest. While he couldn't remember half of the things she tended to reminisce about in the months of entries that followed his departure, he felt for the young woman.

The emotions in his chest and the pit of his stomach froze when her writing turned frantic, her words barely forming sentences. She'd gotten word he was MIA. And she was broken. The entry was more of a list than paragraphs of words. Things she'd regretted—not spending more time with him, not looking after Steve for him, not telling him that, though they'd only known each other about a year, she loved him.

His metal hand was suddenly at his face. When he pulled it away, the metal glinted wetly. He was crying. The emotion in his chest bubbled up and left him in a choked, twisted sob. The more he felt like this, the better he felt.

At Hydra, he'd never felt anything. The Winter Soldier was not expected to feel. He was expected to do his job—his missions—without question, without emotions or opinions getting in the way. Feeling emotions—sadness, anger, worry—it was a welcome change, he decided.

XXX

"Yes, I'll be back in DC soon," Clara was muttering into a phone quietly across the room from Tony, who was working at his desk. "I'm not—I don't have specific dates yet, but we can schedule something for—" she flipped through a thick black planner quickly, "how about in a week and a half? I should be done with business here by then."

The door to the office suddenly opened and both occupants watched as Steve walked in and, noticing Clara on the phone, shut the door as gently as he could.

"You're early," Tony noted, returning to his work.

Steve's brows furrowed in confusion. "Are you—are you actually working? I thought Pepper—"

"Has the day off," Tony pressed, his tone shutting down the conversation.

"Oh no, I'm fine," Clara replied to her client when asked if everything was okay, snapping her back to her own conversation. "I've just been called out to New York to handle a bit of a special case. I'm passing it on to another doctor at the end of the week, I think."

"Apparently she still has a life," Tony commented to Steve, earning a nasty look from Clara.

"Okay, well, try not to do anything too stressful and we'll talk when I return." She shut her phone and dropped it into her bag at her feet, then slouched down into the chair and gave her attention to the man standing before her. "I don't know if he's awake yet, but there are a few things I'd like to go over with you before you see him, if you don't mind."

Steve pulled the chair in front of Tony's desk around so that he was facing her. "Setting some rules?"

"Of sorts," Clara smiled. "More like guidelines to help him—"

"It's alright, Dr. Maitland," he waved her away. "Whatever I need to do."

"Alright." She let out a breath and pulled a notebook from her bag, flipping to a few pages worth of notes before she spoke again. "Okay, so he's been remembering a few bits here but there're a few things I want to make you aware of—handling someone with amnesia paired with PTSD like this, I just want to handle this with care."

"Of course," Tony muttered from behind Steve.

"There are a few different types of amnesia—but in his case, I'm leaning towards what's called retrograde amnesia. Based on the reports I've read, when they found him, he remembered nothing about himself."

"You mean he had amnesia from the fall?" Steve clarified, wringing his hands in his lap.

"Possibly."

"That would actually make the most sense," Tony began, pushing away from his computer and moving to join their little group discussion across the room. "With no memories Hydra was basically given a blank super soldier. They could convince him of anything."

"And he would believe that?" Steve questioned, skeptical. "Hydra managed to turn him into exactly what we were fighting."

"The right wording and Hydra could manipulate him into believing he was doing good work," Clara said quietly. "But what I desperately want to avoid is false memory syndrome. This is when false memories are created through suggestion—intentional or otherwise. Things he imagines from the stories he's told—he might start to believe they're memories when they're just his imagination."

"So don't tell him stories," Steve guessed.

"Let him tell you. It's much better for him to find the memories himself, so to speak," she said. "I think he already questions what he remembers."

Tony glanced at the time on his watch. "You've got less than an hour before the doctor gets here," he said, turning away. "I've got a bit of work to do for the company, but I'll let you know when it's time."

"Thanks," Steve muttered as he and Clara left the room.

XXX

The clock on the wall ticked away the morning. The soldier had woken up soundlessly from a dreamless sleep in time to watch the sun slowly light the room. What time was the procedure? Someone was bound to come collect him when it was time—or rather, if Steve was there.

He laid on the bed until mid-morning, sorting through his thoughts slowly and carefully in a way he had never been able to before. With Hydra he was told what to think and when. Sure, he'd had his own thoughts, but they were short and fleeting.

The book lying on top of the blankets next to him was like a beacon. He couldn't stop staring at it, but made no immediate move to open it. The urge to pick up reading where he'd left off was warring in his mind. He didn't want to know what happened next, because he could give a pretty damned good guess.

It was a while—almost an hour, if the angle of the light streaming in from the window was anything to go by—before he picked up the diary and took a seat beneath the window, back against the wall.

He's gone. She wrote, the words nearly scratched into the page. There had been a long gap—almost three weeks between her last entry and this one. The funeral was last week. It was both expected and unexpected. He'd been MIA for a while. I got word from his parents—Steve had a letter sent that Bucky had been found and rescued with the rest of the men. But it was fleeting.

I feel like I was teased. I feel like someone filled me from head to toe with wonderful hope only to rip it from my flesh in the most painful way possible. I think the worst of it was watching them bury an empty box.

I feel so awful inside and my mind can't keep the horrible thoughts from coming. Where was his body? No doubt dumped somewhere, left somewhere to rot as another nameless soldier, another among thousands.

I'm trying to cope, trying hard to move on, because I am too young to waste my life over this—as horrible and heartless a thought that is, I know Bucky wouldn't want me to mourn him for the rest of my life. But for right now, there is nothing I want to do. I just want to cry…

The soldier flipped through the last few sporadic, short entries until the end of the book—the last date was several months after his funeral.

The tone of the first entry of the next book, dated a few years after the last, was entirely different. It was more chipper, much like the first few entries he had read. She detailed for a few entries about a new man she had met. William Warner.

Connie's headstone passed through his mind's eye at the recognition of his last name. Something twitched in his metal arm unnervingly and he shut the diary. He didn't want to read about that. Not just yet. Not when he could only barely remember the feelings he'd had for her.

A glance up at the clock on the wall told him morning was almost over, and that someone would be coming to collect him soon for the procedure. So, not wanting to waste time, he opened the last, most recent diary, and flipped to the last entry.

I am going to die today. I can feel it. I welcome it. Even surrounded by my family—my children and their children and their spouses—I feel too lonely. I'm ready to be with William again. It's been so long since I've seen him. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to go mad missing him.

But Bucky…I don't think a day goes by I don't sit and wonder. I still believe we were supposed to be together. Rebecca passed away a few months ago and I believe she is finally with her brother. I'd like to hope he has someone up there—though I know he has Steve with him.

Just once. I'd like to see Bucky just once before I die—maybe his ghost. Penny talks about ghosts all the time. If his ghost could come see me once before I die, just so I can tell him I love him—that he died a great man in my eyes, that I looked after his little sister as much as I could.

That is the thing about getting old that I have noticed recently. I've been unintentionally making lists of things in my head that I wish I could do before I die. Did Bucky do this when he realized he was going to die? Maybe he realized this when he got the draft notice. It would explain his behavior, I think.

Was someone knocking at the door? The sudden twisting of metal, a short scratching sound, and the door slammed against the wall with a loud bang. The Soldier's eyes jumped up to the man and woman in the doorway, eyes finally leaving the page.

"Bucky," the man gasped, crossing the room in a few long strides. He knelt down and reached out, but the soldier slapped his hand away and stood, dragging his flesh hand across his eyes when he was turned away from the other two, discreetly rubbing the wetness from his eyes.

"Are you alright?" Clara demanded.

"I'm fine," he snapped.

"Can you give us a bit, Dr. Maitland?" Steve murmured to her, receiving a nod. Clara closed the door as best she could without a knob and Steve waited until they couldn't hear her footfalls anymore. "Bucky—"

"I'm fine," he grumbled, a little more unconvincingly. He tilted his head back and sighed.

"No you're not, Buck," Steve began, sitting gently on the edge of the bed, watching his friend like a hawk. "But that's alright. It's not easy—I know what it's like to get a bit of a culture shock."

"This is more than a culture shock," he replied dryly.

Steve let out a humorless laugh and nodded. "Yeah, but that's the best way I could think to describe it."

He paced in front of the bed slowly, Steve's eyes on him. "How did you do it?" he muttered. "When they found you—how did you not go insane? How did you know who you were? How did you know what they were telling you was true?"

"I didn't," Steve said bluntly. "But I had my memories—"

"How can I trust those?" the Soldier snapped, stopping his movements. "How d I know those things I remember are mine?"

"You think Hydra somehow gave you fake memories?" Steve concluded.

"Wouldn't surprise me," he said bitterly.

Steve took a long slow breath and then looked back at his friend. "Tell me what you remember," he said firmly. "I'll see if it matches up with what I remember. Tell me about Connie."

His lips twitched and he let out a soft, bitter laugh. "Clara tell you about her?"

"Yeah, but I wanna know what you know about her."

Tongue running quickly between his pressed lips, he took a seat beneath the window and slid a diary towards Steve. "So, from what I recall," he began slowly, "we met at a bar…"