Chapter 50: Belle No More
It was the day the Howling Commandoes were to go after the Red Skull. I sat in the room I had shared with Bucky. I wanted desperately to go with them. I also knew I couldn't be trusted. I honestly didn't know what I would do and that scared me beyond belief. But I knew because of that I couldn't go on the raid with them.
Yori was kind enough to stay behind with me, but I'd sent her off to run communications with Peggy. I knew she needed to be involved and I knew I was dragging her down with me as well. I knew I needed to pull out of this and be strong for the sake of my friends, for Steve's sake, for Yori's, but for the life of me I didn't know how.
I sat on the edge of the bed I shared with Bucky. I was dressed for the first time in days, wearing a skirt and blazer. My shirt, however, was one of Bucky's. I'd fixed my hair. I'd put on makeup. I'd pulled on tights and shoes even though I knew I wasn't going to go anywhere because maybe if I looked presentable enough to face the world I'd actually go out and do it.
But then I saw the picture of Bucky on our nightstand and I couldn't do it. I sat down at stared at that picture and I began to relive our entire relationship. From meeting at Camp Lehigh to sitting under the tree together and talking while I was at lunch. I pulled out the bundle of his letters and read through them. I remembered finding him at the HYDRA facility and pulling him out. I remembered sparring in front of the men. I remembered the times we were out for breakfast, the times were slept together, every single blessed moment of our time together. It all ran through my head on a constant loop.
I looked up when the door opened. Yori was standing there and there was this expression on her face I'd never seen before. Like she couldn't understand what she'd seen. More alarmingly, tears were tracing down her cheeks with a rapidity I'd never seen before. She was trembling. Her tail trailed on the ground after her and her wings were slumped like a physical pall over her.
"Y-Yori?"
I hadn't spoken in days. My voice was scratchy. Yori looked at me nevertheless and the moment she did she snapped and let out her demonic shriek, collapsing to her knees.
"Steve!" she wailed.
My own grief paled for the moment. Yori's was fresh and raw and real and it was what I needed to finally snap me out of my own little bubble of loss. I shot to Yori's side, kneeling next to her and kicking the door shut behind her. I knew she wouldn't want anyone to see her like this. I clutched her to me.
"His plane…" Yori sobbed. She knelt, her hands clutching her side. The force of her grief and her sobs had bowed her so that her forehead nearly touched the ground. "It went down… He's… He's gone…"
He's gone.
The words echoed in my head and suddenly I was in tears as well. He's gone, they're gone. How could the world stand to lose so much goodness so close together as it had with Steve and Bucky gone? How could anyone smile when our lights were gone? How could anyone smile when our happiness had been stolen?
"Why does it hurt so much?" Yori moaned helplessly, clawing at her chest. "Why?"
"Because you loved him," I said, forcing out the words that no one had ever said. "You loved him."
"He… Peggy…" Yori tried to protest, but she could barely get words out, she was sobbing so hard.
"Damn Peggy. It doesn't mean what you felt for him was any less real," I whispered fiercely.
"Is this… is this what is feels like? Like there's a hole in your chest?"
I nodded because I had become oh so intimately familiar with that sensation over the past few days. It was like someone had ripped your heart out. It was pain, it was an emptiness that twinged occasionally, like an old wound. A fog descended over your mind and it was like you were walking through a dream, but not a good dream, a nightmare, and nothing was the way it should be.
"Yes," I whispered, and the word broke both of us. We clutched each other as we sobbed our broken hearts out on the floor and when we could no longer cry we clutched each other all the harder and simply shuddered, silent and broken.
In those moments of grief, as Yori's fog descended my own lifted. Bucky had taken a part of my heart with him when he fell down into the ravine but he hadn't taken all of it. My heart still beat and burned with love for others. Howard, my family. Yori and Peggy. The Commandoes and Phillips, little Guinevere. The loss of Bucky and Steve was not the loss of everyone and much as the thought of it hurt now I would move on and I would live and I would recover some of myself.
But not all of myself. I would never be Belle again.
