18 Sam

The next day, Steve was still trying to force himself to forget the conversation he'd had with Bucky. He put it out of his mind, pushed it down under the water where it was dark and cold and hard to see, but there he could lose the things he hated to feel and the way he was a burden.

He couldn't forget completely, however, because Sam came to visit him that day as he had promised and Steve was so happy to see him standing in his doorway that before Sam could speak, Steve enveloped him in a tight hug.

"Hey!" Sam said and he sounded surprised and Steve felt him wrap his arms around his back and hug him in return. "How're you feeling?" Steve felt emotion welling up in him because he was exhausted, he felt emotionally drained, he didn't know how much longer he could put on a smile and he hated arguing with Bucky, hated seeing that expression on his face and now Sam was here and Steve had to blink away emotion, had to pull away from Sam and force himself to look okay.

"Yeah, yeah, I feel a lot better now," Steve said and then stepped away from the door. "Here, come in."

"My family is so thankful," Sam said. "About Andy, the kid you saved. My mom is baking you cookies." Steve smiled a little and laughed.

"She doesn't need to," he said. "Really, it was nothing."

"No, you saved Andy's life," Sam said. "I don't know what we would have done without you." Steve shuffled his feet a little and shrugged his shoulders.

"Thanks, Sam," he said, looking up and smiling at him and Sam just nodded.

"There was something else, too," he added, his smile falling, and Steve sucked in a breath and braced himself. "About the ice."

"It was an accident," Steve said like he had said to Bucky and he could still hear Bucky's voice in his head, telling him that standing on ice and waiting for it to crack was no accident. Sam looked at Steve's face and nodded.

"It's okay, Steve," Sam said, and then he delivered words the hit Steve to his very core and Steve didn't know how Sam could know these things like he did. "I understand, okay? I've seen this a lot, and I know and you're not alone, okay?" Steve grit his teeth together and took a deep breath and looked away and tried not to let himself become emotional. "Sometimes, it looks like there's no options or you're entirely alone and that's not true. It's hard to talk about, I get that. But talking about it, it makes it better, Steve," Sam said. "You are not alone." Steve swallowed hard because these were things he needed to hear and he felt gutted by them, made raw, laid bare. It hurt.

"Okay," Steve said quietly. "Okay."

"You're always welcome at the VA," Sam added gently. "And you can always just call me. I'm not afraid to talk about this, to listen to you. I do this every single day. I can help." Steve just nodded because he was becoming choked up. It was Sam's turn now to wrap Steve up in a hug and Steve accepted it and tried to feel comforted.

People were telling him to talk. Sam, and Bucky, they were trying to tell him to open up, trying to tell him to stop suffocating. As Steve stood there and hugged Sam and tried to stop telling himself that he didn't deserve their love, hadn't earned it, he considered that maybe it was time to try talking.

He remembered thinking he needed help.

Talking about it. It makes it better.

Steve figured it was about time that he tried.

I have a horrible announcement to make. I have waited for literally as long as I possible could to avoid this, especially since I reached something like this during Run and was able to work it out before it came to such drastic measures, but I'm going to have to stop posting for a while.

The difference is that this isn't my summer anymore. I can't work dawn to dusk on writing anymore like I could for Run. I'm in university and I haven't had a spare moment to sit down in at least a week. And then, of course, I'm anxious to get my work out and I splurged and posted one too many chapters one too many days and now here I am with nothing new to give you tomorrow evening and no time to put together something I can truly be proud of. :(

So, I know this is awful and unprofessional and I am begging your forgiveness, but expect to hear from me again about this next Tuesday, because by then I can swear to you, I will have something truly spectacular to share.

Again, I apologize. I worked really, really hard and sacrificed a lot to try and make sure this didn't happen, but it did anyway and I'm going to work even harder to resume my posting schedule in, at the very most, a week. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your support. :) I'll see everyone again soon. -BB