The reviews I got from all of you floored me! Thank you so much! Without further ado, here's the next chapter! P.S.- I don't know why the first paragraph is in bold, but it won't turn into regular font because the word processor is being evil. So sorry, but don't let it distract you!
Chapter Forty-Eight
My aunt and uncle followed Bucky into the white room now washed with blood. It had been the fight of a lifetime-or at least mine. That gun training with my aunt had been a real payoff now that I looked at it.
I was sitting in a hospital chair, motionless, as I stared at the blank walls in front of me, the night's events reeling through my mind. The blood, the bullets, the shouts; all rang in my mind as if I was still there.
Blood was sprayed on the walls and the pools of the red liquid stained the bright white floor as I stood in the now-quiet room. I tried not to look at Derek's face as the team and I ran out into the halls, but his face was unmistakable; slumped against the wall, eyes shut, gun held loosely in his hand. He was the image of a hero slain in battle. And he was a hero. I blinked and looked away, not bearing to look at him anymore.
I couldn't look at Steve either, only glancing back once in a while as we ran down the hall to make sure the others were keeping up as they carried Steve's unconscious form in their arms. The crisp, early morning air struck me on the cheek as I raced out to the trapdoor on the roof, the heavy sound of something overhead making me instinctively point my gun to the sky. A hand was placed on mine, the word "help" causing me to put the weapon back in its holder. I looked at Tony's face, his expression confused and worried.
"You alright kid?"
"Fine." I muttered, focusing on the heavy sound that quickly became the figure of a quinjet, the pilot familiar: Maria Hill.
Rhodey must have sent her.
I strapped myself in to one of the seats, the ride a flash like the speed of the quinjet. Nearby, I could hear Bruce's murmurings over the motionless body in front of him.
"Is he still breathing?" Aunt Nat asked.
My heart nearly stopped, waiting on Bruce's reply.
If he dies...
I didn't want to think about what would happen then.
"Yes. He's still breathing."
My heart started to beat again, but I still didn't want to see him. I couldn't look at what I had done.
You didn't mean to.
It doesn't matter.
It's not your fault.
How wasn't it?
I had let Derek in. I had let HYDRA come through our doors, unnoticed.
A glimpse of morning light broke through the dark thoughts encircling my mind. Pinks swirled with purples as the sun advanced towards the horizon of the open sky. The city lights started to dim as the light poured out onto the hospital walls and to the streets below. I wanted to touch the sun, grasp it, wanting warmth in the cold that overwhelmed my heart.
"You've been here a while."
The repetitive click click of crutches hit the floor. The sound drew me out of my quest for the sun, my blood running cold as I realized it was one of the objects of my pain: my uncle.
I didn't answer him, averting my gaze back towards the window. He eased into the chair slowly beside me, a small sigh coming from his mouth, a sign of his broken ribs. I shifted in the seat beside me, trying to push myself away.
Why would he want to be near me?
By now, Bruce had probably told him of what I'd done; how I'd let Derek in and caused this mess. I tried to keep my face from flushing with shame, but as he continued to sit there, it threatened to erupt on my pale cheeks.
The response didn't come in words at first. It was a hand; a warm hand resting on mine. I closed my eyes, wanting to pull away, but some strange force held me there, like his hand had the force of a thousand-pound weight. The same weight of guilt threatened to crush my soul.
"You're not alone."
I had never felt so alone in my life, not since Dad had died. What I had done had separated me from the family I had left. I had almost killed them. If they wanted me out on the street by now, I wouldn't have blamed them. If they disowned me, I would have felt better, knowing what they were doing was justice, at least a little. As for Steve, who was somewhere in a surgery room, if he lived and wanted me to leave and never come back, I would have done so to relieve some of the guilt inside.
But instead of making me feel guilty, the person beside me told me I wasn't alone.
I dared to look at the man beside me. His eyes were looking at the sun, but seeing me in his peripheral vision, the two orbs looked at me.
"You're not alone in your guilt."
"You didn't cause this." I jerked my hand away from him, leaning as far from him as possible.
"But I did something to you four years ago." He responded, his eyes looking at me with unblinking seriousness.
"Don't bring that up. It's not the same."
"Yes, it is." He replied, his voice stern.
"You didn't know I was going to get hurt."
"Neither did you."
"I let Derek in."
"I let you leave."
I could still remember the pain of him telling me I had to leave them, my own family, to go to foster care for my own safety to keep me safe from the Dark Hand. Then, the car accident. I touched the scar on my side absentmindedly.
"I almost killed all of you."
"But you saved us all."
"I'm a monster."
He suddenly latched onto my hand, gripping it so hard that it hurt.
"Don't you ever say that." He nearly growled out the last word. "You will never be that."
"Only a monster hurts people."
"A monster hurts people of their own free will." He replied rigidly. "Monsters are not innocent."
"I let him in. I let him in."
"You didn't know." He responded. "And that same young man turned on HYDRA because of you."
In the last few seconds, Derek had pulled a gun on the HYDRA agent called Rumlow. It was a direct hit to the chest and Rumlow had doubled back before hitting the floor. The other agents immediately returned fire on Derek. We used that opportunity to our advantage, quickly pulling Steve off the table and using it as a shield.
"He..." Derek's shy face with courageous eyes flashed back at me in my mind's eye, "saved our lives."
"Because of you. Because of you, he turned on them."
He had looked so conflicted at first, and then so sure. Then he had turned on them. His eyes flashed at me one last time. There was a spark in them, something that was so familiar yet so unfamiliar sitting in this chair in the hospital. Redemption?
"But I was the one who put us in danger." I replied sullenly.
I couldn't accept it. Nothing, no action or word, could ever clean the dark stain my actions had left. I couldn't erase my guilt or shame, no matter what I did.
A sigh followed.
"Do you know what it was like, sitting here four years ago when you were in surgery?"
I hadn't realized it, but this was the hospital whose emergency room I had been rushed into four years ago. I heard I had nearly died twice, or so my uncle tells me. I could even remember the room where I woke up: 9C. It was an eerie feeling, being in the same hospital that I had watched with trepidation so many times as I passed it on a walk with Steve or on his motorcycle going to school.
"No." I replied.
"It was the worst day of my life." His hawk-like eyes stared at me, their intensity burning an invisible hole into me as I refused to look at him. "I kept thinking of when I last saw you; blood-stained, pale-faced and dying as you were in surgery. I sat in a chair with your aunt, grasping her hand, knowing that I, in pushing you away, had put you in harm's way."
"It's not the same."
"Yes, it is!" He snapped. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean for you to almost die by the hands of those terrorists, but it happened, and every day I've been walking around with this invisible bruise, hurting every time I think about it."
Bruises.
Now where had I heard that before?
I couldn't answer him. To say I wasn't guilty seemed wrong. To let me off the hook would be anything but right.
"We make mistakes, Hannah," He said, "we do things we regret. But we move past them. We remember the past, live in forgiveness and hope for the future. Our past makes us who we are."
"You're not alone in how you've been. Everybody loses. We've all got bruises." I murmured the lyrics, barely audible to the passing staff except to my uncle and I.
It was our song. Our song that had brought us together as a family; when Dad died, our pain brought us together, and through this, our mutual guilt and pain had brought us together.
Then I dared to think. To hope. Maybe. Possibly. And daringly, I asked,
"Is there really forgiveness?"
There were no words then. He pulled me tightly into his arms, ignoring the pain in his broken ribs somehow. Slowly, I returned the embrace. The warmth of the sun enveloped me.
Steve
My eyes felt sticky as they tried to open. I felt stiff and sore, but it wasn't the worst pain I had felt. I had suffered far worse in the War. I sucked in a deep breath, the reek of antiseptic almost nauseating. My eyes glanced toward a window, but the scenery was covered by curtains. I frowned. I always liked looking outside when I woke up. I glanced towards the other side of my bed and the face there made me smile.
Hannah was sleeping in a chair, curled in a ball. But what drew my attention was the book that laid beside her on a small nightstand. The gold lettering read clearly on the brown background: The Holy Bible. Surprisingly alert and reeling with curiosity, I reached towards it and held it in my fingers. It had been opened and tampered with, one of its many pages dog-eared. I flipped towards the page, reaching Isaiah. I looked to the page, wondering why this page would be one she would choose.
Then came a verse that stuck out, underlined in red ink. It was Isaiah 1:18: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."
Why would she choose this, I wondered as I set the book down quietly, careful not to wake her. She had dark circles under her eyes as if she had been deprived of sleep for a hundred years. She twitched uncomfortably in her sleep, a whimper emitting from her lips once.
My troubled gazing was interrupted when the hospital room door suddenly opened, revealing Tony and Bruce with fresh cups of coffee. It smelled terribly good. My strength was returning quickly.
"Looks like Capsicle's finally decided to join the living." Tony said quietly, taking mind of the sleeping lady beside me. "She's been waiting for you for three days, you know."
"Three days?" Bruce nodded.
"It took a while to get the drugs out of your system. After that, you started to improve significantly."
"After the first few hours, Hannah's been by your side since." Tony gave Hannah a weary smile. "She's taken this whole thing pretty hard."
"Why?"
"She's felt guilty about all this." Bruce replied. "She knows she let Derek in, and has felt awful."
"It's not her fault." I responded immediately.
She didn't know. And worse, she had let him in at her weakest moment: when I had been pushing her away. If anyone should have felt guilty, it should have been me.
"That's what we all have been telling her, but I don't know if she really believes it." Bruce replied. "Clint helped a lot and said something to get her to come into your room, but there's still something that's holding her back."
She's waiting on me.
"How'd we get out of there?" I asked him, very curious about how we managed to escape from the HYDRA compound no worse for wear than what we had already been.
"That kid, Derek, I think," Tony began, "He turned on them. He started firing, even killed that guy you called Rumlow."
He killed Rumlow?
There was a tinge of regret when I realized the reason, at least in part, for our escape. I had been distrustful of him (and rightfully so), but then he turned and saved our lives?
"Is he alright?"
"He died when the other agents returned fire." Bruce replied. "He died quickly."
"Like a hero." I muttered softly.
There was a deep sigh opposite Tony and Bruce and I turned my head to see Hannah's sleepy eyes slowly flutter open. Tony nudged the scientist beside him, cuing it was time for them to leave.
"We'll tell the rest of the team you're up." They cast us both a quick glance before closing the door behind them.
She stared at me in silence. There was a faint beeping in the background, the bag of liquid attached to my IV giving off an annoying drip, drip every few seconds. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes moving from me to the Bible to her knees.
Even when she was a wreck she looked beautiful. I couldn't help but notice her curvy hair, usually so tame, now falling wildly over her shoulders. Her makeup was gone, revealing her pale complexion in the fluorescent light of the hospital room. She almost looked sick.
"I'm glad you're up." Her voice wavered, as if she was unsure of speaking.
"Glad to be up." I gave her one of my best smiles, the ones she always blushed at. But it was returned with a weak, fake smile that made me frown.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She was as bad a liar as me. She avoided my gaze whilst she clasped her hands together tightly.
"Hannah," I reached for her, my long arm finding her hands, "please talk to me."
She looked up at me, her eyes now red and tears threatening to fall any second.
"I'm so sorry." She whispered. My chest tightened, my hand clasping hers.
"There's nothing to be sorry about."
She looked at me ruefully.
"I almost killed you. I let Derek in and he..."
"I know." I replied. "And I also know you didn't know about him."
"That's no excuse."
"And I also know," I continued, "that the only reason you let him in was because of me."
She grew rigid, as if revolted at the notion. "Don't ever blame yourself for this."
"If I hadn't been pushing you away, then you wouldn't have felt so alone." It hurt to think back to those days, when I had hurt her so badly that she had had to find solace in another; one who had turned into a traitor.
"But I..."
"Stop." I told her. "Please."
"How can I?" She whispered.
My grip tightened.
"Because I love you."
The words just came out. And they were true. Every word. She looked at me with disbelief.
"You what?"
"I love you." The words came easier now, my hand finding its way to her cheek, a smile emerging on my lips, one with which I felt complete joy. "And love always forgives."
Something changed then. The pain that had surrounded her melted, her eyes reflecting her change of heart. She smiled. A true smile. How I loved that smile.
"I...I love you."
I tugged on her gently and she gradually succumbed to my silent pleading, evaporating the distance between us.
It was a gentle kiss on the forehead-then the cheek-then the other-until her lips finally pressed against mine. I coudn't stop myself from smiling in-between kisses.
My girl. She's my girl.
Steve's alive! Aren't you all happy that he's alive and okay? Leave your thoughts in your reviews! Thanks, guys!