A/N: And we have reached the end of Mallory's story! Don't worry, I have some follow ups planned so pleased stay tuned but this is the end of The Doctor and the Soldier. It's been so fun to write and watch the views go up and read reviews, and follow and favourite counts. You guys have been so supportive and I am so grateful for you all. Here's where the editing starts! Much love to you all!

The cab ride back home felt shorter. James sat beside her in the backseat, with a bag containing both a mix of Mallory's and Rumlow's clothes – for James, once he had showered and something for Mallory to wear to bed – and a few other essentials she'd need for the prolonged stay at her mother's. The cab driver's eyebrows had raised his eyebrows at the sight of two individuals, one dressed in armour with a metal arm, the other all in black fatigues, both clearly emotionally distressed and tired but hadn't said anything at all as they rolled through the now dark D.C roads back to the suburban lands of her childhood home. The radio was off and the only sound was the occasional soft sigh from Mallory, the thrum of the engine and the sound of James's boots making contact with the carpet underfoot as he rhythmically bounced his legs.

He'd been quiet since their scene in the apartment. After Mallory had dried her eyes, put his arm back in his socket and gathered her things, she'd announced her intention to take him home with her. He'd paled and protested weakly to it, claiming he'd be fine on his own if Mallory would just let him use his shower and maybe change into some more normal clothes to blend into civilization. His thoughts were that he would go into woods and live off the land.

"No." She'd said firmly, as she'd rechecked her bag. "You're coming with me. You need stability and I'm going to try to give you that as much as I gone. God knows it's the least I can do."

She still couldn't figure out what she was going to say to her mother. Of course James's presence would make it a little easier for her, but the story still muddled her. Would she tell her mother absolutely everything? The six months of not knowing anything and being completely blind to the most obvious thing in the world? Would she mention how she'd knocked out her own father to go against what he'd told her not to do and taken down a HYDRA agent and been locked in a Russian prison where she'd been forced to watch a woman die and her daughter lose a leg? Or how she'd almost been shot by the man sitting next to her on a freeway? How she had once again fallen in love with a dark haired blue eyed pretty boy who had seemed so perfect but turned out to be so fake? Everything. She has to know everything. Mallory might even tell her about how she had slept in a bed with another man and felt strange, strange things nobody in a relationship should ever feel with someone else. She turned her head to James but he stared forwards and Mallory remembered how when she'd seen him how relieved she had felt and she had wanted to kiss him immediately.

Not romantically, she reasoned. Just friendly. Now wasn't the time to see what kind of stance her head was in. She had to prioritize. First came dealing with the fallout of her father's death – that could take months, years even. Something like this, she had heard, never really stopped hurting. It clawed at you from within and could be suppressed for years till a word or a song or a picture or a date brought it all back. Ironically, it was not unlike the exact therapy that the man beside her had gone through. She made a mental note to ask him exactly what had happened between him and Steve. Then came dealing with Rumlow's death. Still painful, but somewhat easier. After she was as stable as she could be, then she'd deal with whatever this was she felt towards James. She pushed it to the back of her mind and sighed as the car pulled to a stop outside her mother's house.

Mallory handed a twenty. "Keep the change."

The drivers eyes lit up and he thanked her wholeheartedly. James quietly insisted on carrying the bags and Mallory let him, leading him up the stone path bathed in the soft glow of the porch light to her front door. The sun had set completely and Mallory's mother had remembered to switch all the lights on and close all of the curtains. From the outside the house looked homely but inside Mallory could feel the forbearing sense of cold as she entered the living room to see her mother on the phone and sobbing to someone. Her mother looked up and smiled at her weakly to acknowledge she'd seen her, and her eyes widened a little at James beside her but she didn't stop the call to ask who he was or what he was doing here. Mallory lead him upstairs.

Upstairs was her mother and fathers bedroom with their ensuite, her old room, the guest room and the large bathroom with the added luxury of a bathtub underneath the shower. She showed him each room in turn, about to go into the ins and outs of how the shower worked when she remembered there had been one in the Bunker. She settled him in the guest bedroom, a decent sized room with a double bed, an open closet with hangers waiting to be filled and a flat screen mounted on the wall with a neat stack of crappy action DVDs.

As she showed him around she found herself strangely thinking about her own shower at home which leaked lava-like water then suddenly sprayed the user with what felt like ice shards before gradually going to a normal temperature. She remembered many times in the mornings brushing her teeth and making faces in the mirror as Rumlow showered and chuckling at his yelp of surprise as the cold sprayed him followed with his self-conscious laughter. Every time it would surprise him. She grew sad thinking about him and was glad for James's interruption.

"Will your mother mind me being here?" He asked, looking entirely out of place on the freshly laundered sheets and gingham covers in his armour.

"No. I'm planning on telling her about what Dad does- did and HYDRA. And by extension that means you so she'll be glad to have you here." I hope, she added as she rummaged through the bag to separate Rumlow's clothes from her own.

"What about the injunction?"

Mallory had forgotten all about that stupid injunction. Even if the injunction still proved to be legally silencing for her, she doubted her mother would turn her over to the cops for telling her. "I doubt that means anything now. Even if it does, Mom won't say anything."

He stayed silent and Mallory carefully folded all of what remained of Rumlow's clothes into a pile on the bed. "Here. I hope it doesn't freak you out wearing his clothes. I don't think Mom would've comfortable with you wearing Dad's clothes and besides, his stuff would hang off you. We'll get you some clothes soon."

He was lost in thought, staring ahead as if the floor had eyes and was looking back. He stirred a moment too late and looked at her hesitantly. It was obvious he wasn't ready to talk about it right now. "No. Of course it won't. Thanks."

"You remember where the bathroom is? Towels are in the white cupboard beside the sink."

He nodded and struggled out of the top of his armour. Mallory made a move to help him but he promptly stepped back and after a grunt, he'd unzipped the fiddly zips and had the jacket off. He stood in his fatigues, shoes and black tank top and inclined his head gratefully towards her before disappearing through the hallway and shutting the bathroom door. Mallory looked back through the bag to find some old clothes and noticed she'd forgotten to add one of Rumlow's shirts to the pile. It was an old thing, a faded royal blue with a hole near the neck and some black lettering which spelled out the gym Rumlow used to attend. She went to add them to James's pile but hesitated, her fingers running over the soft fabric. She lifted it and pressed her nose to it. It still smelt like him, wood and musk and soap. With a jolt she remembered the last time she'd seen it on him; it had been in January and he'd wanted to warm himself up by going to the gym. He'd worn it for five minutes, making Mallory laugh as he distracted her from making her breakfast with jokes and kisses. Then he'd changed, leaving the shirt in a pile on the bed to wear his usual gym gear. And Mallory had put in the back of her wardrobe and it had sat amongst discarded dresses and too small shorts, untouched till now.

Without thinking she had it under her arm as she went into her parents ensuite bathroom. She undressed out of her grimy black top and the fatigues she'd been wearing for what felt like forever, showered and brushed her teeth with her toothbrush she'd brought from her apartment. When she put her pajamas on, she swapped her usual checkered tank top with the shirt. She'd spent their entire relationship wearing his shirts to bed and even though it was over, the familiarity felt as if it had grounded her to make what she was going to tell her mother. She knocked lightly on the guest room's door.

"James? Can I come in?"

"Yes." His voice was soft. She entered the room and smiled. He was sitting on the bed and rubbing his soaking hair with a towel, dressed in black sweatpants and a green t-shirt. She sat beside him, their legs touching lightly.

"Do you want me there when you tell her?"

"Please. I don't think I could do by myself."

He nodded and put the towel beside him and they sat in silence for a few moments. She exchanged a look with him and they both rose from the bed at the same time. Mallory lead the way as they went downstairs and when she went into the living room her mother had finally hung the phone up and was sitting on the sofa with red eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache. Mallory's own stomach was turning, roiling as if she was going to be sick even though she hadn't eaten anything all day.

"Mom?" Her voice was small like she was a child again. In her oversized t-shirt and loose shorts, she did feel like a child.

She looked up and smiled, then her eyes fell on James. "Who's he?"

"His name is James. He... um... he worked with me. And Dad."

Her mother went pale and sat forwards, eyeing James with a sudden wonder. "You knew Sampson?"

He nodded stiffly, shifting uncomfortably. Mallory felt uncomfortable too, as to her Sampson Smith was her father but to James, Smith was one of Pierce's lackeys who had overseen his years of oppression. She doubted his opinion of her father was a good one. Mallory herself wasn't sure about her own opinion of her father.

"Mom those agents told you that Dad was HYDRA." Her mother flinched but sat forwards, listening intently. "Well... I was HYDRA as well. And so was my boyfriend. And James."

Her mother looked between them all, her jaw open wide, shock plastering her features giving her red eyes a scary effect. "You were... HYDRA? Nazis? All of you?"

Mallory raised her arms in surrender. "Mom just- just let me finish. Okay? You can ask questions but it'll easier if I get it all out at once."

Her mother lent back in her chair and regarded Mallory stiffly, before nodding once and pressing her lips together. Mallory looked at James, drawing courage from his impassive face and faraway eyes, and began the tale of the last six months.

She told her mother everything. Everything she could remember came spilling out of her mouth in a coherent and chronological order. And as she talked, she could remember all details. She explained how she'd been hired for the organization in which Pierce and her father had both told her she was working for a sub division of S.H.I.E.L.D called HYDRA. When Mallory's mother put the question to her to why she hadn't known what HYDRA was, Mallory had told her that during all of her Dad's tales of Captain America's exploits he'd merely referred to the organization as 'a secret science division of Nazis'. Inside, Mallory had mused that if her father had simply mentioned what it was called, none of this would've ever happened. She explained to her mother about her role in HYDRA. She detailed the exploits with Reznak and Oswick, how they had first aroused her suspicions and how so suddenly after Rumlow had shown that well-timed interest in her. She told her how for their second date he had brought her a plastic lily which she'd kept in her apartment. She told of how Pierce had asked her to go into the field.

Her mother stopped her when Mallory mentioned the date. "Wait... was that... when you said you were in Mexico?"

Mallory nodded and as she continued to explain the situation with Ariadne and Sofia and Elliot her voice cracked. Mallory was transported right back into that moment as the blood had trickled past her wrist and gloves, how she'd watched the final moments between daughter and mother, how she'd held onto that hope that the Soldier wouldn't take any the only parent Sofia and the boy had left and that awful, horrible moment he'd fired the gun. She took a breath to control herself, and told her mother everything. Her mother clamped a hand to her mouth, and whimpered with pain at how much her daughter had endured.

She carried on her tale, her impromptu meeting with Natasha Romanoff, finding the file which had aroused her suspicions, how suddenly Pierce wanted Nick Fury dead activated the Bunker's destructive security protocols and finally, how she'd found out that Rumlow had been tasked by both Pierce and her father with the mission of seducing Mallory and swinging her to the HYDRA way of thinking by the bug in the lily he'd given her.

"I met Dad in a cafe to talk about it. He said that he believed Rumlow had fallen for me properly and that he had every intention of telling me of how we had met. Dad said that he was weighed down with guilt over how we'd met." Mallory rolled her eyes.

"That bastard." Mallory's mother whispered and Mallory wasn't sure if she was referring to her father or Rumlow. "I'll wring that pretty boy's neck next time I see him."

Oh. Mallory blinked. "You can't. He's dead."

Mallory's mother went white and she opened her mouth to say something before shutting it again. She motioned for Mallory to continue.

She told her of the situation on the bridge and how she knew Steve had recognized the Soldier, how later Pierce had finally revealed what HYDRA's true intentions were with Project INSIGHT. She told her mother how she'd witnessed the Soldier going through a mind wipe and how it was one of the most painful things she'd ever had to watch. She told her of how Rumlow had comforted her and how she'd hit him and told him he was a monster.

And then she told her mother of the triumph that the Soldier had remembered her.

"How?"

"The tech doesn't actually wipe the memories away completely; it just suppresses them. The guy who had developed the tech had this theory called memory fragmentation, that with the application of something that the subject had a strong emotional attachment with the subject."

"So what brought him back?" Her mother had not yet quite realized that James was the Soldier; she didn't blame her. Mallory hadn't realized it till it was too late either.

"I called Rumlow a monster. And it was the same words I'd told the Soldier in the prison." She felt James shift uncomfortably beside her. "Apparently it affected him more then I'd realized. It brought part of him back, enough for me to stall so I could figure out a plan to get to Steve Rogers."

"Dad brought me home from the bank and it was there I got a call from Natasha. Once I'd convinced her that I was innocent, she arranged a plan to get me to safety with Rogers. Me and Dad had a talk when we were upstairs and he slipped up, said something about the Soldier's identity. So I asked him who he was and after a while, Dad cracked. He told me his name. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes."

Her mother looked blank. Then she realized that Mallory was referring to Rogers's childhood best friend. And when James beside her shifted and looked to Mallory then back to her mother, her mother looked like she was about to faint.

"You?" Was all her mother could whisper. James nodded once and looked expectantly to Mallory. "How are... I don't understand."

"In the 40's, he was taken by HYDRA and experimented on him. They gave him a mild form of the serum used on Steve which boosted his immune system so when he fell from the train he survived. Zola's forces found him and fashioned him into a weapon to start controlling the world." Mallory turned her head to him. "That's why you dreamt about falling out of that train in the snow all those times. Do you remember?"

He nodded. Mallory turned back to her mother.

"The launch was about to happen so we worked out a plan. One of Steve's friends and Steve would run ground interference and attempt to get these electronic chips which would override HYDRA's control of the Hellicarriers. I was to distract Rumlow and Natasha and Fury would dump all of HYDRA's secrets on the internet." Mallory swallowed. "We managed to get the ships offline but as we were escaping-" She used that term lightly. Running for her life to get to a helicopter by jumping off a building, was the more accurate term. "- but Rumlow couldn't catch up to us in time and he..."

She trailed off. She didn't have to say it.

"I'm sorry honey." Her mother reached over and took her hands. Mallory looked at her mother's face searchingly, her own features etched with the hollowed look of grief and Mallory's mother squeezed her hand. "Sweetie, you don't need validation for your grief over him."

Her words were a whisper. "I can't help it. I want to hate him but..."

Her mother nodded. "It's hard. I know. I'd love to tell you it'll get easier but... I can't."

Both women were on the verge of tears. Mallory swallowed to force the lump down her throat and steadied herself, as her knees were shaking on the couch. She cleared her throat and continued.

"We get to the ground and Natasha tells me that they received confirmation that a body in the lobby belonged to Dad. And then I came home and..."

She didn't really need to delve into the details of how the Soldier had gone missing for a couple of hours. It was a panic she didn't want to relive. By the time her tale had ended, the clock read 1:42am. Mallory suddenly felt exhausted and her mother smiled lovingly at her, her hand under her chin.

"Why don't you kids go to bed? It's late and you've both been through... well, a lot lately. You'll be tired." It was more of a request than a statement.

Mallory stood, James copying her movements, then she paused. "Aren't you going to bed too?"

Her mother shook her head nervously, as if she was about to lie. "I have some phone calls to make. His sister didn't answer her phone."

Mallory wanted to stay with her mother, as she was sure she was lying in an attempt to not face the big empty bed that was the shared room with her father but she was exhausted and she knew her mother wouldn't appreciate her stealing in on her private moments. Mallory embraced her mother, fighting back tears and lead James back upstairs to his room.

He sat on the bed and ran a hand through his hair, silent as ever his eyes deep in thought. Mallory stood above him and felt awkward, unsure of what to say in this uncomfortable silence. She swallowed and attempted small talk.

"Bed okay?" He looked at her as if she had started speaking another language. "I mean is it comfortable- too springy, not enough blankets? Pillows? There's some in the cupboard if you want me to get them-"

He shook his head. "It's fine."

"Okay."

Another moment of silence. James was resting his elbows on his knees, staring ahead, once again following a train of thought in his memory. Mallory watched him, her concern over her patient fighting over the urge to make awkward and useless small talk.

"Can I ask you a question?"

He hesitated but nodded all the same. She took the space opposite him, sitting close and her knee brushed against his. He jerked as if she'd slapped him, then relaxed when he'd moved from. Her face clouded with confusion; she'd touched him before and he'd been fine but she didn't say anything, not wanting to frighten him or make him even more nervous then he seemed.

"What happened on the bridge? Between you and Steve?"

Instead of shifting nervously, he became very still. Corpse like, she decided as the only movement was blinking and his shoulder's rising and falling with the movements of his breathing. He clearly didn't want to talk about it, and Mallory felt stupid for asking. Doctors were supposed to have some sort of bedside manner but it seemed all of Mallory's training had gone out of the window with her insensitive manner towards him. She kept touching him when he didn't want to be, she kept probing in matters that she should've waited for him to speak to her about. Feeling terrible, she went to get up to stalk off to her childhood bedroom to cry over everything that had happened today when to her utter astonishment he started talking.

"They wiped me again." She must've looked confused even though inside she was swelling with anger at the now-dead Pierce because he elaborated. "When you left. I asked where you'd gone and they ordered me wiped."

Visions of his torturing wiping session came into her mind and how she done absolutely nothing to stop it apart from cry in Rumlow's arms. It was just another thing to be guilty about.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from that again. You understand why I left, right?" It was assurance she needed and assurance he gave her with his tight nod. "You didn't answer my question."

"I know." He took a deep breath in, seemingly sucking all the air he could into his lungs and sighing it out then fixing his eyes on the floor when he opened his mouth to speak again. "He didn't want to fight me. But I did so we fought. Then I shot him. He took the, uh..."

He looked to her helplessly and Mallory nodded. "Hellicarrier."

"Hellicarrier." he repeated it wondrously as if he'd never heard of it before. "He took the Hellicarrier offline with this chip but I'd shot him a few times so he couldn't escape. It exploded or something and I was trying to kill him when he said 'I'm with you till the end of the line."

Was that Rogers and his version of memory fragmentation? What had that phrase meant to them both? It had brought him back but to what extent?

"It reminded me of a funeral I'd once been to and how I had that to reassure someone. Someone who had meant a lot to me." He swallowed tightly and shrugged. "Steve."

"How much do you remember?"

"Bits and pieces. Flashes like photographs." His voice lowered. "Before and after my fall."

That meant he could remember some of his life as the Winter Soldier. All the things he had done, the people who he had killed. He could remember the eccentric oil baron Oswick and how he'd rammed his car off the road, the business of Elliott Kohl and that damned Russian prison, and the supposed death of Nick Fury. She wondered how he felt about that. What a stupid thing to say. He probably felt terrible. But he had to understand that it wasn't his fault. Pierce, Zola and all those bastards had used him to achieve their aims and although in a way it had been his fault, he had not been fully in control of his actions and could not be blamed. It occurred to Mallory for the first time in hours that she was technically harboring a missing person and an enemy of the state. She had not checked in with either Natasha, Sam or even Hill, to say she was aware of Steve's condition or that her mother had taken the news a little better than she'd expected or that here James sat beside her getting quizzed over his business on the Hellicarrier. All three would want to question him about his position at HYDRA. And Steve. Once Steve got better he'd want to see his best friend, he would want to catch up on all that lost time when both parties had been convinced the other was dead. She remembered with a pang of painful nostalgia that her father had told her Steve had watched James tumble to his death and had tried so desperately to save his life.

James was not the same man Steve had knew. Yes, he was slightly warmer than the Soldier had been but Steve would optimistically expect his old friend to be back to normal by the time he got better. But Mallory knew it didn't work that way. The theory was called memory fragmentation for a reason; fragments of memory came back, one at a time, in bulk or sometimes none at all. He could remember some of both, and this man that sat before her was a bewildered mess of both men and she wasn't sure how Steve would react to that. Or James for that matter.

She decided to ask him. "Do you wanna see Steve? I can ask Nat which hospital he's in and take you there. Or if you'd rather, we can wait until he's woken up."

"I... I'd like to." His tone took on one of confession, as if he was ashamed for wanting to see his childhood friend. "But not right now. I don't wanna disappoint him, you know? I wanna be Bucky when he sees me not just remember him. Does that make sense? Do you... do you get it?"

It broke her heart and brought a tear to her eyes. She nodded wordlessly, unable to think over her thoughts running wild. He wants to be Bucky when he sees him. She didn't have a heart to tell him that it could be a while before that happened. Mallory went to place her hand over his but remembered his discomfort when she'd last touched him, so she rose with an affectionate smile instead.

"I better leave you, I'm exhausted and I know you are. If it gets too hot, the key to the window is in the drawer and if it's too cold, the cupboard with blankets is downstairs. Night."

"Mallory?"

She turned, her hand resting on the door. "Yeah?"

He ran a hand through his hair. "I never... uhm... I never said sorry. About your dad. Or Rumlow."

Her chest tightened at the mention of the two liars who she loved. Her eyes glistened with tears as she surveyed him in the bright lights of the room. "Thanks."

"Night."

She switched the light off and shut the door, making her way steadily across the hallway to her childhood bedroom. She didn't want to look at her walls and the posters of the teenage heart throbs or the bands she had loved, nor the collection of trophies or teddy bears that lined her shelves. These trips down memory held no interest to her especially the big blue box she knew was tucked away inside her wardrobe that held all of the photographs of her with Liam, her with Danni, some very old photographs of her with Jackson. Instead she switched the light off and waited for her eyes to adjust in the darkness, her thin curtains allowing moonlight to bathe the room with a natural light that was easy to sleep in. She slid down the checkered pajama pants and folded them on the floor. When she rolled into bed she rearranged the four pillows; two behind her bed and the other two on either side of her. She didn't even want to admit it to herself but the pressure and weight that covered her body was supposed to, when she shut her eyes and breathed in Rumlow's scent on his shirt, send her back to a time when she was in love and her dad was alive and everything was simple, easy.

She thought of her dad walking her down the aisle, children with a mixed Italian-English ancestry, blue eyes framed with wrinkles and a loving smile on the porch of a home on the outskirts of D.C. It was like a punch in the gut. Her eyes watered with the knowledge that the future that had seemed so within her reach that she had been ready to wait for was all a lie and impossible. People had always told her, ironically enough it had been her father, that honesty was the best policy but as Mallory lay in her childhood bed pretending her lying Nazi boyfriend who she still was deeply in love with wasn't dead nor a Nazi or that her lying Nazi father whom she also still deeply loved was also not dead or a Nazi, the weight of how honest she had been today pinned her into the bed and as the first waves of grief crashed over and over and over her, relentless, pounding, unforgiving she couldn't agree. Honesty just hurt. There was a hole in her heart that no matter how much closure she was given would never be filled. Grief had hollowed and hardened her, whilst rubbing her emotions raw. She couldn't breathe, pressure engulfing her. She had lived so much in the past six months compared to the rest of her life.

And as Mallory Smith lay choking and gasping for pain as her memory taunted her of the men she had lost, she knew this was only the beginning.