Sam doesn't dream of Bakhmala, but he dreams of Riley that night, the two of them strapped into their EXO-7 harnesses and soaring through the clouds. Riley is going too high, backlit by the sun with the light gleaming off his outstretched wings, and the air feels too thin as Sam watches his spiraling climb from a lower current.
This isn't a memory. He's not wearing his helmet or body armor, and can feel the wind on his face and rushing past his ears. Sam knows he must be dreaming, but that doesn't stop him from feeling dizzy or keep his heart from trying to pound its way out of his chest. They're so high up he can't even see the ground anymore.
Not that he could ever look away from Riley.
His wingpack's engine roars to life between his shoulder blades, his core muscles contracting to hold him steady and brace against the jerk of increased momentum as he struggles to match Riley's speed.
"You'll catch me, right?" He must feel Riley say it, sounding like 2008 and a hundred training exercises over the empty woodlands and drop zones of North Carolina, because neither of them are wearing comms and the distance is far too great for him to have heard him speak without them. Riley has his head tilted back, upturned to the sky. His flight goggles are down and Sam can't see his face and he needs to, now more than ever. "If I fall?"
Don't you leave me behind, Riley had said, but Sam doesn't make it back either. Not really. Not in any of the ways that matter. He feels it in his bones, in his blood, deep deep deep inside at the very apex of his soul. They're both still out in the shit, high above a desert in a country they don't actually care about, flying into danger for people who would rather die than be saved by men like them. His harness straps dig into his shoulders and chest, and his lower back feels like it's on fire where the engine blasts out hot air where his t-shirt and the wingpack's narrow spinal flap doesn't protect him. But he presses forward, urging the EXO-7 to take him higher, faster.
It won't be enough. Sam knows it won't be enough, but God, he has to try.
Riley's wings snap back, tucked in close to his sides. He continues to rise for a single moment, stalling out in slow motion before he succumbs to the power of gravity. His body tips, a graceful arc as the engine in his wingpack cuts out just as the sky goes dark and starless around them. There's an explosion to Sam's left, blinding light of an RPG slamming into its target, and then there's shrapnel cutting into his unprotected skin and smoke clawing down his throat as he is forced to watch Riley plummet to the earth all over again.
He wakes choking on Riley's name, sweaty and panicked with big hands on his shoulders holding him down in the tangled mess of his blankets and bedsheets. It takes him a minute to realize where and when he is, to recognize that the hands belong to Rogers and that he isn't dreaming anymore.
"You okay?" Rogers asks after Sam has found his breath and stopped struggling. Sam nods, panting, but he doesn't let go. Rogers is kneeling on the edge of the bed in the clothes he borrowed, Sam's old PT shirt stretched tight across his chest and the sleeves straining against his biceps. His hair is sticking up every which way, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Sam woke him.
"Sorry," he mutters weakly, but Rogers just shakes his head.
"Don't be," he says. "Bucky used to —" he cuts himself off sharply, head turning so that he doesn't have to meet Sam's gaze. There's a tick going off in his cheek where his teeth clench, and his nostrils flare a little as he takes a deep breath through his nose. He's even less ready to be back in the world than Sam is, like the Army forgot to stitch him closed four days ago and now he's just waiting for the sluggish blood loss or inevitable sepsis to finish him off.
Rogers removes his hands and sits back to allow Sam room to ease himself up. He gets his back against the headboard, draws his knees to his chest and wraps his arms loosely around his legs. "Riley."
"What?" Rogers looks back with a start.
"My wingman. My. . ." Sam falters, not sure that he's up to explaining all the things that Riley had been to him. So he doesn't, and says instead, "We deployed together. I came home, and he didn't. It's been. . ."
"Yeah," Rogers finishes for him, nodding. "Bucky was. . . We served together, too. He was my sergeant."
Sam is about to offer him a weak smile that he knows won't reach his eyes and crack another joke like he had back at the coffee shop, when they hear the knock on the front door. It's not unusually early but Sam isn't expecting company, so it catches him by surprise. It startles Rogers, too, who jerks a hand out like he's reaching for a weapon that isn't there. They exchange wary, confused looks, but once it becomes obvious that the loud and insistent pounding isn't going away on its own, Sam huffs a sigh and gets to his feet, pausing for a moment to wipe the sweat and tears off his face with the edge of the top sheet. "I got it," he says.
He tosses a shirt on as he exits the bedroom, bypassing the couch where Rogers had left the spare blanket balled up on the floor next to his wheel case when he had rushed to Sam's side. And, well, Sam can't help feeling embarrassed. He isn't sure what brought on the nightmare, but he'd thought he was doing okay before. Not great, granted, but distinctly average. Okay. Hell, maybe even normal.
It is only through a sheer act of will that Sam doesn't pause in front of Riley's door, and the urge is coupled with a sinking sense of disappointment and failure at his own lack of progress. Because now, he knows that it isn't really Riley's door. It's just the door to an empty second bedroom. There is no one on the other side.
He is hit with the terrifying possibility that maybe this is it. Maybe this is what recovery is always going to look like for him; bad dreams and closed doors and talking to birds. The bottom of his stomach drops out ominously like his body is anticipating a fall. If this is as good as it gets. . . Sam doesn't know if he can live the rest of his life like that.
With that weighing heavily on his shoulders, and the familiar low thrum of anxiety and adrenaline still itching under his flushed skin, Sam isn't in the best headspace when he answers the front door with a tired, "What?"
His siblings are standing on the other side, Gideon wearing his usual judgmental frown and his little sister Sarah snorting through her nose in an entirely unladylike fashion. They're bundled up with hats and scarves, and Sarah's even got a pair of little blue gloves on, both wearing jeans with their coats buttoned up to the collars to keep out the chill.
Sam hasn't seen Sarah since 2010, when he visited home while on block leave after that first tour, and, just like then, he somehow keeps forgetting that she isn't still some mouthy twelve year old with ambitions to annoy him to death or insanity. It's a shock every time he realizes that she's become a grown up at some point while he wasn't looking, a pretty young woman with bright amber eyes and medium brown skin like Gideon's and their mother's, all warm undertones that give her a constant, open glow. She wears mulberry lip stains instead of glitter gloss these days, and she's taller than he thinks he remembers her ever being; a quick glance down informs him that her knee high boots are flat, and it's just his memory playing tricks on him again.
"Well, good morning to you, too!" Sarah announces, and shoves past Sam into his apartment without waiting for an invitation. She's the baby of the Wilson family, and she never had much use for manners because her brothers and father used to always let her get away with everything on account of being little and feminine and cute back then. Sam decides that she definitely isn't any of those things anymore, and he probably would have done better by her if he'd been more of a hard-ass in the past. Her hair has been straightened into loose flowing waves that brush just below her jawline this morning, bouncing as she skids to a stop at the end of his hallway where it opens into the living room.
"Woah," Sarah says, looking at Rogers, who had just stepped out of Sam's bedroom to retrieve his things. "Who. . .?"
Sam knows what she's thinking, can hear it in the way she holds onto the vowel and lets the sound drag out. It grates on his already raw nerves, and he can feel the indignation and shame burn a hot swath across his face and down his throat. He scowls, and lets Gideon inside, closing the door roughly behind him. "It's not like that, Sarah. He's a friend. Just needed a place to stay for a bit. That's all."
"Hey, I'm not judging," she says, playfully glib, as she turns back to him with her hands on her hips. "You're a big boy, Sam, if you want to pick up hunky guys —"
It is precisely the wrong thing to say, especially this particular morning, with the grisly images of Riley's death hovering like sunspots behind his eyelids whenever he blinks. He flinches at the accusation, a full body cringe that makes Sarah cover her mouth in horror when she realizes what she just said and who she said it to. Gideon puts a hand on Sam's shoulder, but doesn't say anything, his face a stony mask.
"Oh, my God, Sammy, no. I-I didn't mean it like that, I was joking." Sarah says, her voice gone soft with remorse and trepidation, "I was joking, I'm sorry. It wasn't funny, and I am so sorry."
It doesn't actually make it any better. They are all painfully aware of the fact that she never made that kind of comment to Gideon after he lost his wife, and Sam isn't sure if that's because they were actually married or because Aaliyah was a woman that Sarah knew. His family never met Riley; to them, Riley was just the good-looking white boy standing next to Sam in a handful of shared photographs and then a boyfriend mentioned in those later letters and phone calls home.
The worst part, he thinks, is that he did think about picking Rogers up when he brought him back here, however abstractly. There's no denying that Rogers is an attractive man, and Sam feels inappropriately guilty given that he hasn't done anything wrong.
Rogers looks uneasily between the Wilsons standing at the entry to the living room and the wheel case by the couch like he's planning to dive for his stuff and then exit via the window.
"I can go," he says, but Sam just shakes his head to dismiss the offer.
"No, you're fine," Sam says quickly. He wipes a hand down his face and turns his attention back to his siblings. "What are you two even doing here?"
"Dragging you out of your apartment," Sarah informs him, shoulders going back and chin coming up like she fully expects him to argue against it. "They still have the Greenmarket in Union Square, and there's a street fair going on this weekend down Park Ave and Broadway. I thought it would be fun, you know, for the three of us to go out. I tried to call you about it, but you never answer my calls or texts anymore."
Sam rolls his eyes, but knows that he's been the asshole here and this is his fault. Sarah is trying her best, and she probably doesn't actually have all the time in the world to spare making sure that Sam isn't holing up in his apartment all day every day being miserable. Same with Gideon; they've both got lives and other things going on now. Sarah is in her final year at CUNY, getting a Master's Degree in Journalism with a specialization in urban reporting. Gideon is getting ready to take over their father's congregation and just sent Jim off to Mexico for a year of work with the Peace Corps.
". . . Okay," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut for a moment to collect himself. "Yeah, okay, that sounds. . . Yeah. I'll go."
"You can come, too," Sarah says to Rogers, who looks vaguely uncomfortable at the extended invitation.
"Oh, uhm, I wouldn't want to intru—" he begins to politely decline, but Sarah shakes her head and puts her foot down the way only a baby sister can:
"Good thing I wasn't asking. Now, get dressed and let's go."