Here it is! I'm so sorry I made you wait so long! We'll (I'll) talk more at the end!

This is your 'get-the-tissues-ready' warning, since some readers have asked for an emotion-filled chapter heads-up :)

December 13, 2014

Her apartment felt cooler than usual, Lucille noticed, tugging her fleece jacket around her shoulders more snugly. She pushed the up arrow button on the thermostat several times before taking her walker and shuffling into the kitchen. All day long she'd been looking forward to heating up a plate of the pasta Bucky had made for her a couple days ago. Opening the refrigerator, Lucille reached in to grab the small Tupperware of pasta. The container didn't clear the door before Lucille suddenly decided pasta didn't sound as appetizing as it had earlier in the day. She bit her lip, hesitating to put it back even though it made her stomach turn to think of eating it.

Crackers for dinner it was, then.

Later that night, Lucille was giving the television a sideways look. It was the only way she could watch without setting off a stabbing pain behind her eyes. Nearly all the lights were off in her apartment. If the light sensitivity because of this headache continued through tomorrow, she wasn't sure how she'd make it through the day…

…

"Charlie," she sighed into the receiver of her phone the next morning, her voice scratchy from a long night of little sleep. "I'm not coming in today. Just leave any new exhibit things on my desk and I'll get to them tomorrow. Thanks, Charlie, you have a good day, too." She snapped her phone shut and gingerly leaned back against her pillows. The headache had expanded to her entire head, practically, and the slightest movement sent the world spinning.

Lucille called in the next day, too. And the next.

Then the soreness started.

Lucille shifted in her bed for what felt like the billionth time. The movement sent a quick, pounding pain shooting through her head and she stilled for a moment, waiting for it to pass. Three days later, and she still had the blasted headache. But she was quickly learning how she could and couldn't move to keep from setting it off. Now the real issue was the soreness in every muscle in her body. Muscles she didn't even know she had were making themselves known. Lucille groaned and shifted slowly once again, leveraging herself to a slouched seated position. She carefully leaned over and grabbed the ibuprofen off the night table and popped them into her mouth, reaching for the glass of water and swigging them down. Maybe she'd be lucky enough to get a few hours of sleep now...

…

It wasn't until Lucille had woken up that she realized she had actually been asleep. But now she was sweating. Her clothes and sheets felt considerably damp. Lucille struggled up to sit on the edge of her bed, snagging her glasses off the night table and tiredly pushing them up the bridge of her nose. Arranging her walker in front of her, Lucille stiffly got to her feet and shuffled out of the bedroom and into the bathroom.

Lucille bit out a few words that people would not generally associate with a polite little old lady when the bathroom light hit her eyes and sent a throb through her head. When she was able to open her eyes again, she grimaced at the reflection that stared back at her. The grey curls were all stuck up on one side and thoroughly slick with sweat, especially at the back of her neck. She glanced at the clock and groaned. It felt like the middle of the night, but apparently it was the middle of the afternoon.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Lucille croaked, knowing that the odds favored the visitor having slightly better hearing than the average human. Sure enough, there was a sound of a key scraping in the lock and the door opened. Bucky stepped in, tugged his key out of the sticky lock, and shut the door behind him. Lucille watched as his smile slowly disappeared and his expression became unreadable when he took in her condition. "I was just about to call you," she told him, scooting a little further into the room. Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Well," she amended, leaning heavily on her walker, "I would have, sooner or later."

Bucky closed the distance between them in three quick strides. He brought his right hand up to rest on her forehead briefly. "Jesus, Luci, you're burning up. How long have you been like this?"

"I didn't know I was going to get this sick," Lucille mumbled defensively as he helped her to sit in her armchair. She didn't miss the fact that he practically carried her there when her legs turned to jelly after the first step. "I guess it was three, maybe four days ago," she elaborated as Bucky sighed impatiently. "I was just tired and had a bit of a headache. I spent a lot of it sleeping - or trying to, anyway. The fever's new, must have only started an hour or two ago. James, I promise I would have called as soon as I got myself a doctor's appointment." She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chair. She didn't have to see to know that Bucky was watching her worriedly.

Lucille became aware of a tickle in her nose, and lifted a hand to stop it, but instead her movement was stilled by a warm hand on top of hers.

"You'll pull the IV out if you use that hand," Bucky told her.

Lucille turned to look at him. He looked only a little better than she felt. His hair was all over, as if he had slept several nights in the chair he currently occupied - and Lucille had a growing suspicion that that was the case. But the darkening circles around his eyes belied the fact that sleep had not come easily to him, if at all. Heeding his warning, Lucille used her other hand to trace the tubing that ran under her nose. "How did I end up here?" she asked, her voice cracking in exhaustion.

"You passed out. Three days ago. The docs say you've got a bad case of pneumonia. Why didn't you do anything about this sooner?"

"I didn't know it was anything serious," she said, frowning at the weakness of her voice. "I just assumed it was a little cold."

Bucky sighed, shaking his head. "Luci, honey, I hate to break it to you, but you're at the point in your life where even a 'little cold' can be real bad news." Lucille stayed quiet, unwilling to admit to the truth of his words. Bucky leaned forward and took her hand in both of his. She watched their hands, the difference between the texture of their skin painfully apparent now. The afternoon sun glinted sharply off Bucky's cybernetic fingers. The play of the light was almost hypnotic, and Lucille felt her eyelids grow heavier and heavier. She struggled to keep them open; Bucky noticed, and squeezed her hand gently. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

"You need'a sleep," Lucille mumbled, finally succumbing to the drowsy pull of the medicine she knew was coursing through her. She sighed. "Love you." On the very edge of hearing, she heard Bucky chuckle softly.

"I love you, too, doll."

Bucky sat in a chair, his knees pressed up against the metal frame of the hospital bed. He knew Steve and Sam were waiting for him out in the hall. He hoped they were prepared to wait for a while.

He stared unseeingly at the empty bed. The sheets had been stripped and no one had replaced them yet. The room was eerily quiet; the beeping and soft humming of the machines silent in the absence of a patient to monitor.

Lucille had woken briefly two more times, but both times she had been just barely conscious, unable to speak. Bucky wasn't even sure she had known he was there. He had talked to her anyway, reassuring her that he wasn't going to leave, telling her how much it meant to him that they had found each other again.

Every day, awake or not, he had told her he would always love her.

He didn't know how long he sat in the empty room. His fists clenched in his lap, the quiet mechanical whirring of his arm the only noise that filled the still air. He expelled a long, silent breath and slowly pushed the chair back from the bed. He pushed himself to his feet, feeling the sympathetic eyes of the two in the hall watching him carefully. He dragged the chair back to the corner and glanced at the bed one last time.

Then Bucky strode out of the room.

-0-

Again, I apologize for making you wait so long! It was a mixture of didn't want to end it/had no muse/been working a lot... But here it is! I hope it was okay. I'm worried that spending so much time away might have been detrimental to this chapter... So please tell me what you think! I'm going to go through and edit it again in a day or two, because I feel like I'm too close to it now to see mistakes, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post now that I finally finished it. Since this is going to replace the note, I'm going to reiterate that this is not necessarily the last chapter, per say. I have some fuzzy ideas for additional chapters that will expand upon parts of their lives that I kind of glossed over. Those just won't come very soon or very often. You all have been the greatest readers a girl could ask for; I am so thankful for all your support!

[Guest.1: Aww, hearing that so many of you wonderful readers are reacting so much to this story is really heartwarming! I hope you liked this chapter as well! Thank you so much for your fabulous review!

Guest.2: Oh my goodness, thank you so, so much! That means so much to me! I hope you liked this chapter, even though it was the end and probably didn't give them as much time together as you had wanted... Thank you so much for your wonderful review!]