Evangeline had quietly pulled Peggy aside and handed over the Christmas presents she'd been hanging onto, for both Peggy herself and for Rogers. Having a belated Christmas Dinner in her tent was scrapped as an idea. She'd made a feast, yes, but she was aware that Peggy probably (definitely) wanted some alone-time with her Captain now, rather than spending more time in the company of others.

Evangeline felt the same way about Bucky. She wasn't going to chivvy him away and keep him all to herself in her tent for the rest of the war, but she did want some couple-time.

It was a plan for the evening that Bucky definitely agreed with. He even helped her with starting the dishes (magic would finish them) and packing up the left-overs from dinner, just so that he could stick right by her side.

They had actually had a small argument over the dishes. Bucky said that, as Evangeline had cooked, she shouldn't be the one cleaning up after. Evangeline had countered that she'd made the mess and it was her job to clean it up, and then thrown in that she hadn't been the one fighting in a war.

They'd come to a compromise fairly quickly, but Bucky had insisted that "When this war is over, whoever does the cooking doesn't do dishes after."

Evangeline's cheeks had warmed and her heart had fluttered at that statement, at the look in his eyes when he said that to her. The veiled but stated intent to stick together when the fighting was over, to live together and cook for each other. She could only nod in silent, blissful happiness.

After everything in the kitchen was packed up and clean, they adjourned to the lounge room and Bucky started flipping through Evangeline's record collection.

"Now, I know you haven't heard this before," Evangeline declared with a laugh as Simon and Garfunkel started singing Homeward Bound. The record wouldn't even be made for another thirty years, give-or-take.

Bucky shrugged in acknowledgement.

"The title of the first track on the B-side appealed," he explained easily. "Not like it's turned out to be a bad decision, Doll," he pointed out with a smile.
"True," she agreed. "Simon and Garfunkel are very good, and they've got something for every mood, or just about."

Bucky took her hand and pulled her to him for a shuffle.

"Missed you," he said softly into her hair.

"Missed you too," she answered, though she spoke into his chest.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," Bucky admitted. "This whole war. It's tearing me up inside, Doll. Please tell me it will be over soon?"

"If it runs more-or-less the same way as it did in my old world, then it should be safe to say you'll be home for Christmas this year," she assured him softly.

"Thank God," he praised, his words a benediction, a reverent, hoarse whisper. "I hate this war. I hate what it's made me do, made me become."

Evangeline knew he wasn't talking about the Super Soldier bit.

Homeward Bound became Bridge Over Troubled Water, and their shuffle became a gently rocking sway. Two sets of arms squeezed just a little tighter.

"I got you a Christmas present," Evangeline disclosed when the sweet little hymn of a song ended, and America started. "You weren't here."

"I'm here now," Bucky replied, then added, "I have one for you too. Been carrying it around in one of the pouches that's meant to be for ammunition."

"When did you get time to do Christmas shopping?" Evangeline half-demanded, a curious little smile tugging at her lips.

"I didn't," Bucky admitted freely, a wry twist to his lips. "I wrote to my sister back in the States, sent her some cash, asked her to. Told her to get herself something as well."

"Trudy bought it?" Evangeline repeated, a little surprised.

"I told her what to get though," Bucky added, that sweet, cocky, boyish grin on his face again. The one that said he knew he'd done good.

He'd told her about his family, how his little sister, one Rebecca Gertrude 'Trudy' Barnes, was the only family he had left, strictly speaking. She was married, had a kid on the way, and her husband had apparently been drafted about a week after they found out. Talk about following good news with bad.

Bucky had walked her down the aisle. Their father had been killed in a factory fire less than a week after her beau had asked permission to marry her. Their mother had held on long enough to see her baby girl married, but she'd died not long after. Consumption, the doctors had said. Broken heart, Bucky and his sister privately knew.

Evangeline hadn't known that Bucky had told his sister about her though. It was, well, it was a little flattering, actually. Evangeline ducked her head down to hide the blush that had decided to warm her cheeks just then, and flicked her wand into her hand from the holster on her wrist. A summoning charm had her present for Bucky flying across the room to them.

"I... I made it for you, but I'm not quite sure it's your style," Evangeline admitted as she caught the parcel and guided him to her couch.

"Whatever it is, it's perfect," Bucky assured her firmly, and swapped the present he'd plucked out of one of the pouches on his belt for the simply wrapped but large-ish, lumpy gift Evangeline held for him. Then he pulled her down to sit with him, close enough that she was almost in his lap.

It was a jacket. Dragon-hide, quilted, the leather carefully worked so that it felt as soft as butter even while retaining it's everything-proof qualities. Evangeline had spent hours working on it, this was after Colonel Philips had told her off for scaring his men with her machete.

She'd bought several dragon-hides, whole, a bit after the war. Before she'd decided to become a Healer/Doctor, when she had still been trying everything and learning everything... and making a finally noticeable dent in her extremely large inheritance with all the purchases her curiosity and paranoia had led her to make.

The hide that Evangeline had used to make Bucky's jacket had come from a Welsh Red. Most magicals, when they thought of Welsh dragons, automatically thought of the Green that was so prolific and dangerous. The reds were less prolific, but just slightly. The one that was really rare was the Welsh White. There were breeding and conservation programs for the White.

Reds were bigger than either the Green or the White, and more lazy. That didn't make them less dangerous though. While a Green or White would spit short gouts of fire at anyone who got just a little too near, a Red would breathe long streamers of flames out just to watch the aftermath... and they spat fireballs at people who got too near, but there was no way to judge when a Red would feel you were too near. Greens and Whites had slightly more regular, recognisable 'invisible lines' that professional dragon-handlers had learned not to cross.

"It's gorgeous," Bucky declared, a light shining in his eyes as he ran his hands over the lapels and the buttons.

"It's not military regulation," Evangeline quipped with a smile, pleased he liked her gift. It was double-breasted, and made in a style that would have looked a bit more right in black pinstripe and on a mobster, but it worked in red dragon-hide leather as well. "But... it is bullet proof, and fire-proof, and water-proof."

"I believe you, but I'm not wearing this where there's a chance of me being shot," Bucky denied at once. "It's too nice for the war. I love it though, definitely my style, though I don't know where I'd wear it for sure... You said you made it?"

Evangeline nodded.

"I missed you," she said, as if that explained everything.

Bucky lay his new jacket down across his knees and wrapped both arms around Evangeline firmly, squeezing her tight to him.

"God, Doll, I missed you too," he breathed into her ear.

Evangeline hugged him tightly back, and for a while they stayed like that.

"Come on," Bucky urged softly as he pulled back. "You haven't opened your present yet."

Evangeline choked on a laugh, but obediently pulled at the paper. Once she got down to the gift, she stared.

"Bucky, are those...?"

"Turns out, an officer makes a bit more than a lowly sergeant," he'd been getting a quite a few promotions with all the missions, and had made major two weeks ago. "Then you can add in winnings from poker nights – because there's times when there's nothing to do but a lot of sitting around, even during a war. There's also almost always a deck of cards to be found. Add in the possibility of the next day being their last, a lot of men really don't mind putting up their whole week's pay for stakes, well, after they've sent a bit home to their old ladies," Bucky explained with a wry smile as he propped his chin on Evangeline's shoulder. "There's also that the Howling Commandos haven't been with any single company for long enough that the men we got stationed with learned not to bet against me. I always win."

Evangeline laughed at the little story of just how Bucky was able to afford a pearl necklace, all the pearls the same size, shape, and colour. Since he'd asked his sister Trudy to buy them on his behalf, he was probably able to afford two such necklaces.

Yes, Evangeline owned gold and jewels in great quantities (everything she owned was tucked away in one compartment or another of her trunk, everything), and yes, there were pearls among that collection as well. Specifically, pearls that had belonged to her grandmother Dorea Potter nee Black. Most of Dorea's pearls had all been some shade of silvery-grey, though there was the occasional pink in with them.

These pearls were all pure white, the clasp was gold, and Bucky had given them to her. Bucky, who had been a little guy from Brooklyn. Bucky, who had sold and moved furniture for a living. Bucky, who had always put away a quarter of his pay for just in case Steve got sick again had to go to hospital – a fund which had been completely drained twice before, and still left him having to put in a lot of over-time afterwards to pay back the medical bills.

Bucky, who could now afford to buy pearls for a girl – and had.

Evangeline reverently removed the gift from the box, undid the clasp, and moved to hang the pearls from her neck at once.

Bucky's arms untangled from around her waist, swept her hair aside, and claimed the clasp from her hands. He kissed her neck just above the clasp once he'd fastened it.

America finished, and Kathy's Song began.

"You like 'em?" he murmured against her skin. "I know you've probably got enough jewels to swim in, but I wanted to -"

"I love them," Evangeline interrupted, though she carefully didn't move. Moving would mean dislodging Bucky from where he was, and his arms were around her middle again, while his lips stayed against the skin of her neck. "Yes, I'm stupidly rich and have inherited a lot of jewels. No, I don't need more, and I don't really wear things like this very much, but these, and the locket you gave me, are two that I will never be without. Not if I can help it."

Bucky smiled and held her a tiny bit tighter.

Eventually, they stood up to dance to the rest of Kathy's Song, and continued through El Condor Pasa and Bookends. Then Cecilia started, and it was such a different song compared to the tone of the others that had come before, that they both burst out laughing. Every other song that had played sounded like some part of them, resonating on some level. The last song of the record's B-side, however, definitely did not. They still danced to it though, Bucky even taught Evangeline how to jitterbug, and they wore stupid grins on their faces as they enjoyed the up-beat song with the not-quite-as-happy lyrics.

~oOo~

Wars always get worse right before they ended. Always. It was like a competition to see which side could leave the other worse off before the peace documents were signed. A race to actually win the war, regardless of whatever the papers might say afterwards.

Hitler shot himself, rather than be captured, and it made big news. It made things a bit sticky as well, because Germany needed a leader if they wanted to negotiate peace. Which they did, especially with the demoralising facts that they were losing the war, and their people were just as frightened of their own government as they were of the enemy. In some cases, they were even more frightened. Talks were finally able to begin in June.

Colonel Philips didn't have the time to suggest Evangeline think about making him more Super Soldiers, he was too busy barking orders, running assaults, and (unlike others of his rank) getting into the thick of the fighting. That was fine by her, as she certainly didn't have the time to make more serum, let alone go through the time-consuming process that preceded the 'creation' of a new Super Soldier. Evangeline was constantly up to her elbows in this soldier's chest, or that soldier's intestines, or doing her best to save another's leg.

She was certainly proving herself as the best doctor of the current era, and if she performed a miracle or two on the quiet, using her magic to fix what non-magical medicine couldn't, then the only complaints were pleas to not be sent back out to fight.

It was a rare thing for the Howling Commandos to have down-time. The closest they got was catching some sleep in a truck or a plane as they were being taken to the location of their next mission. In other parts of the war, the Howlett brothers were similarly being employed to the greatest advantage, because of their noted indestructibility. Parker, as well, was sent on mission after mission after mission, a special team of his own backing him up in a manner similar to the Howling Commandos with Captain America.

The Germans were defeated, their concentration camps and their execution camps forcibly shut down, one after another, throughout May and June. A good work, but not a pretty one. July was a fight for borders, for outposts, for that little stretch of land that one side or another wanted to hang onto. August was filled with cover-fire and revenge. Shooting to make the way clear to get people out. Shooting to get as many of them as could be shot, in payback for having lost a friend, a brother, earlier in the war.

On the second of September, in the year nineteen-hundred-and-forty-five, the war officially, finally, ended.

Across Europe, people breathed sighs of relief. All around the world, people raised their glasses in toast to those who hadn't lived to see the victory. People laughed, cried, and rejoiced in being shipped home to their loved-ones.