Oh my God I can't even begin to express the love I felt reading the last reviews from you all! I really wasn't sure how people would take Beth, or whether they would accept her as I wasn't sure if she was a Mary-Sue or not! I want to especially thank Tracy 137 and Guest Fan for your beautiful reviews that both brought me to tears as well as reassured me that my writing has definitely improved since I took a hiatus from writing about 18 months ago. Thank you both.

As always, a thank you to all who reviewed and favourited the story, I love you all.

...

November 12th 1941. Brooklyn, New York

The past few months had been hard for the Roger's siblings. After their mother's funeral, Steve all but closed himself off from the world; withdrawing from art school and his work, leaving Beth the only breadwinner of the family. Beth, understanding her brother was grieving differently to her, ploughed on and took up a second job, but being a woman, had a lower wage than Steve had been getting. As a result, though food was still ending up on the kitchen table, only Steve was still eating the same amounts he had before their mother passed away. So absorbed in his grief, he failed to notice the gaunt expression on Beth's face as the lack of food started affecting her, but she didn't let it show, knowing her sickly brother needed the nutrition more than she ever would.

For three months it continued, with Beth losing more and more weight, able to hide it from Steve by applying make up to hide the sickliness of her face and only wearing bulky clothes when he was around so he wouldn't see the bones that were beginning to protrude unhealthily from her tight skin. She ignored the worried looks from her friends, and as autumn began, she breathed a sigh of relief, able to blame the cold for the extra clothing. One person wasn't so blind to her condition, but though he kept one eye on her, Bucky's attention was more focussed on Steve's isolation, causing him to see just how bad she truly was. it wasn't until they entered September that he really started to take notice of the way Beth's cardigan seemed to engulf her where before, it fit nicely, or the few times he caught her stomach growling only for her to shrug and say she would eat soon. I wasn't until she stopped hugging him goodbye that he truly grew concerned for her, finally taking his focus off Steve to really take note of the younger sibling. The first evening, he followed her to her room and as she slid off her cardigan, he fought to suppress a gasp of shock. She was far too thin. He tried to speak to Steve, only for the older Rogers to shrug him off, stating they'd both cut back on food to save money. Bucky wasn't reassured; what he'd seen went far beyond cutting back a little on food.

"Beth, are you okay?" he asked her one day towards the end of September after watching her stand up, only to reach out for the sofa to balance herself a second later.

She immediately smiled at him and nodded, though he didn't miss the way her eyes had darkened as she tried to refocus herself.

"I'm fine Bucky, I just haven't been sleeping well lately that's all." She reassured before hurrying out of the room.

Bucky gazed after her worriedly, and when he glanced over at Steve, he felt relieved to see that for the first time in months, the other man also had a frown on his face, replacing the usual blank look he'd been sporting.

"You're finally noticing too, huh?" Bucky asked, his voice soft, but Steve didn't fail to notice the tint of anger there.

"She said she's just tired, Buck." He replied nonchalantly, before standing and moving to his room before Bucky could reply.

Normally, Bucky would have let him go, but the thread of patience finally snapped and he stomped off after his best friend, shutting the door behind him.

In the kitchen, Beth heard their words and her fist clenched as rage washed over her. She wasn't sure who she was most angry at; herself for getting to that state, Bucky for noticing, or Steve for not caring. All she knew was that she felt both furious and helpless. As tears began welling in her eyes, she felt her head begin to spin violently, her stomach lurching at the same time. She managed to keep the contents of her stomach down, however, the effort to do so resulted in her head spinning further, until her knees buckled. She felt herself drop, too weak to notice the corner of the table in front of her. With a sickening crack, her head collided with the wood, instantly sending her into unconsciousness. She crumpled to the floor, blood slowly trickling down her head on to the white tiles, the sound totally unnoticed by the two arguing men in the other room.

...

"You know, you're a real punk, you know that?" Bucky hissed, keeping his voice low so Beth wouldn't hear.

Steve shrugged and Bucky lunged for him, barely refraining from slamming him against the wall. Instead, he shook the smaller man a few times.

"I've had enough Steve! I know your mom died, but you have got to move on and get back to reality! Beth has done so much for you the past few months and what have you done in return? Nothing but wallow in your own self pity! She is literally wasting away out there, but you couldn't give a crap!"

Steve's expression turned to guilt and Bucky sighed,letting him go. He ran a shaking hand through his hair to calm himself as Steve sat back on his bed. Seeing he wasn't going to say anything, Bucky let out a huff and moved back to the door, stopping only to say one last thing over his shoulder.

"She's not eating Steve. I think she's going without food so you an keep your health up. You may not care, but I will say this. If you don't step up and start being her brother again, she willend up joining your folks."

As Steve's bedroom door clicked shut, behind him, Bucky glanced round the room and frowned, finding it strange that Beth hadn't returned to the room. Normally, he would assume she was making coffee, however, she would have guessed the pair of them were arguing and wouldn't have done so. Thinking back on the state she was in earlier, he moved to the other room, calling out to her as he approached.

"Bethie, you okay kiddo?" he asked.

The silence that followed had him launching himself to the door. His foot slipped on something wet as he stood on the tiles and he crashed to the floor with a grunt. He lifted his hand, heart jumping in to his throat to see it slicked red with blood, not the water he was expecting. He glanced up, and all colour drained from his face to see Beth's limp form on the ground in front of him.

"Shit! STEVE, CALL AN AMBULANCE!" he roared as he shuffled to her pulling her into his arms to try and find the source of the bleeding and stop it.

"Come on Beth, wake up sweetheart." He pleaded, heart in his mouth as he tried to rouse the woman that felt too light in his arms, her skin a sickly shade of grey that had him blinking back tears.

Hearing Bucky's cry, Steve darted from his room and froze in the doorway at the sight of his baby sister in Bucky's arms, the blood now turning his shirt a deep crimson that matched the floor and her hair. His mind immediately blanked, with one thought running through it 'This is your fault.' Bucky looked up and from the look on the smaller man's face, knew exactly what he was thinking. He wasn't about to let him do it though, not until Beth was in the hospital.

"STEVE! AMBULANCE, NOW!" he yelled again.

The shout broke Steve from his thoughts and he rushed to the phone. Once the call was made he came back to the kitchen to see Bucky had lifted Beth from the floor and was carrying her to the living room. Knowing what he was about to do, Steve rushed ahead of him and cleared the table so Beth could be laid down on it. As Bucky took off to the kitchen once more, Steve reached down to brush her hair from her face, his eyes misting over as she let out a soft moan.

"I'm so sorry Beth." He whispered, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

Bucky came back in, arms loaded with tea towels. He thrust a handful at Steve.

"We need to stop the bleeding."

The pair worked together to press the pieces of fabric to the gash Bucky found in the back of her head. When Steve asked, Bucky shrugged and guessed that she must have split the skin open when her skull met the floor tiles. It wasn't long before Beth was being loaded into an ambulance, with Steve jumping in after her. Bucky followed closely behind in his car, barely able to breath the whole way there.

...

When Beth woke, the first thing she noticed was the throbbing in her head as she tried to move.

"Ow." She grumbled, her voice rough with sleep.

"Beth?"

She cracked open an eye and saw Steve hovering next to her bed, one arm tentatively reached out to her as if he was afraid she would reject his touch. Knowing he wouldn't come closer unless she initiated it, she reached out for him and took his hand. With a sigh of relief, he gripped her tighter as he sank down onto the bed, eyes filled with concern.

"Where am I?" she asked, noticing for the first time that she wasn't at home.

"You're in the hospital." He replied, voice unable to speak any more words.

"How?" she asked again.

The angered voice that cut over any reply Steve had immediately brought tears to her eyes.

"You pushed yourself too far, let yourself get too malnourished and passed out. Gave yourself a good whack on the head and gave us a good heart attack thinking you were going to die. That's how."

Beth looked over at Bucky who had clearly just entered the room. He looked the most dishevelled she'd ever seen him; his hair messy as if he'd been constantly running his hands through it, his clothes creased. His eyes flashed in both anger and disappointment and seeing it aimed at her made her eyes sting. She dropped her head, hot tears running down her face. She heard clothes shuffling and a warm hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look up and meet Bucky's gaze. The look her gave her was indescribable, but the one thing she definitely felt from him was fear; he'd genuinely been scared that they would lose her. Without saying a word, his eyes softened and he leaned forward to press a kiss on her cheek.

"Don't ever scare us like that again."

"I won't" she whispered and he let her go to sit back in one of the chairs propped next to the bed.

Beth turned her attention back to Steve and saw he had a look of guilt on his face.

"Steve…"

"Don't." He interrupted. "This is my fault. If I hadn't left my job, you would have been okay."

"Please, Steve. I chose to do it. It isn't your fault."

He didn't reply, simply stood and moved over to her, wrapping her in his arms.

"I'm going back to work tomorrow. No more wallowing. No more neglecting you. You're all I have left and I nearly lost you. It's not happening again, I promise."

Beth found herself unable to reply, her tears coming too thick and fast to do anything but press tighter in his shoulder as silent sobs tore through her body. A second pair of arms wrapped round her other side and the trio sat there for a long time, drawing comfort from each other as finally, they all allowed the grief for losing Sarah and worry for Beth come through. When they finally separated, it felt as though a large weight had been lifted from them all. As Beth grasped a hand from each of them, both hers and Steve's eyes hardened in determination. Bucky watched them and felt a smile tug on his face. Though he'd never been so scared or worried about the pair he considered family before, he knew it would never happen again. He knew they'd be okay.

' I just wish it had taken something a little bit less extreme than Beth trying to cave her head in for them to finally snap out of it.'He thought to himself as he rolled his eyes at the pair of idiots he loved more than anything else. He sat down in the chair beside her and was about to reach for her hand when the door opened and in stepped a tall blonde man.

"Beth, what happened?" he asked as he made his way to her and to Bucky's horror, kissed her.

"Who..?" he found himself asking.

"Oh, Bucky, Steve, this is Mark. I met him at work a few months ago and we've been courting since. I haven't really spoken to you two enough to tell you"

Both men frowned at her, but quickly looked away with guilty expressions, knowing it was their own faults that they didn't know. As Beth smiled warmly at Mark, Steve and Bucky looked at each other,, both with eyebrows raised.

"This could get interesting." They simultaneously thought, though each for very different reasons.

For Bucky, it would be interesting seeing Beth juggle a fella on top of everything else. For Steve, it would be interesting seeing how much Bucky's protective nature would shine through as time passed.