Once more, many thanks to those of you still reading this. It's always appreciated, thank you.

In this chapter we find out a little bit more about Alex, why she does what she does. All errors are my own and unintentional. As always, i'd love to hear what you think :)

Chapter Nine:

Rust is growing on my armour, I am wheezing like an old man done.

She watches him, how he grapples with what she's just shared with him.

"You were shot at work? Here?"

She slowly shakes her head. "No. At the hospital where I worked, where Gabe still works," she tells him, her voice faint.

Her eyes seem to glaze over and then she shakes her head again.

"I don't really want to talk about it," she mutters and moves past him.

He watches as she heads into the kitchen. He stands motionless for a moment, still absorbing everything before he follows her.

She stands by the sink and stares into nothing, her mind full of what happened downstairs, what she witnessed.

Bucky had protected her; enfolded his arms around her, pulled her up against his body, wrapped himself around her and taken three bullets for her. She can still hear them striking his arm, the sound they made as they rebounded off the metal. Rebounded. Then he pushed her behind him and went on the offensive, disarming Frankie before she could even blink. She remembered the easy way in which he handled the gun, as if it was an extension of his arm. She can still see how he stood over him, gun aimed, finger on the trigger but it was the expression on his face; intense, hair trigger intense that she remembers the clearest. The moment she spoke to him, physically touched him, he snapped out of it and looked at her with such empty eyes, as if he had no memory of any of it at all.

Of what he'd just done.

He hadn't even hesitated, moving automatically, with absolutely no fear and Mary's words earlier today come back to her.

'Nothing scares you.'

And she had been right.

"How long ago?" His voice is quiet but she still startles. It seems to be a habit of his, just showing up without making a sound. How many times since he got here has she turned around and just seen him standing there, watching her, as if waiting to be noticed?

"How long ago what?" she enquires as she turns to face him. He stands just inside the room and her eyes take in the holes puncturing the left sleeve of the long sleeved top that he wears. Not even Mary will be able to work miracles with that one.

"Since you were shot," he replies patiently knowing full well that she's being deliberately obtuse in her response to him.

"I don't remember, four maybe five years ago."

Four years and seven months ago to be precise.

Cold outside tonight, the inclement weather bringing in car accidents, seasonal injuries; broken and sprained limbs caused by slipping on the ice and snow outside. She spends most of the shift suturing, splinting, resetting damaged and dislocated limbs. The department is busy, busier than usual but she takes it all in her stride as always. The busier the shift, the quicker it goes by, that's the theory anyway. Tonight though she barely has time to think, never mind breathe.

Then Jodie comes into the cubicle where she's working and tells her that Louise is back in the ER, with her kids and that it's bad.

And she'll only see Alex.

Sees her sitting on the gurney, her face battered, her left eye all but swollen shut, purple and blue, her bottom lip split and bleeding, blood oozing from her nose. Alex can see that chunks of her black hair have been wrenched out and her t-shirt is torn, splatters of her blood staining the well washed cotton material. She's shaking, trembling with fear, an arm wrapped around each child, a boy and a girl, eight and ten years of age, huddled up against her; wide eyed and traumatised by what they've obviously witnessed and the frantic busyness of the ER isn't helping.

"Her name was Louise. She was thirty years old and a frequent visitor to the ER," Alex whispers. Bucky doesn't answer. She flicks a glance up at him to see him still standing just inside of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest but he's listening to her, still as a statue.

"I lost count of how many times I'd treated her over the preceding months. Seems like she was in every other week almost like clockwork, every time a bruise healed, another one would replace it. It got to the point that if I was on shift, she just wanted to see me. Her husband was always around, always with her like a bad smell. I tried to help her but she wouldn't leave him, wouldn't press charges, made excuses, said she was too clumsy, not looking where she was going and even when she did acknowledge that the violence was happening, she'd blame herself, saying she did this wrong or wasn't taking good enough care of him. He had her completely brainwashed into believing it was all her fault. We all could see what was going on but unless she pressed charges there wasn't a damned thing we could do about it. She was too afraid, of him and what he was capable of. He was the sole breadwinner you see, had a good salary so she stayed at home with the kids. He kept her alone, isolated and completely dependent upon him."

She pauses again, looks at him one more time. "I'd been trying to persuade her to leave him, to go with Angie and Benny but she was always too afraid to take that first step. I tried everything I could think of, we tried every tactic to get him away from her in the ER so she could talk but she never did and he knew and he hated me."

Once more she halts, her eyes filled with distant memories and she takes another deep shaky breath.

"This time though she got away from him, I'm not sure what the final straw was but she grabbed those kids and she left and showed up at the ER. She was bruised and bloody but she was determined that this time she was gonna leave him. She was absolutely terrified but she told me she was ready."

She sneaks another look at Bucky to see that he hasn't moved, he's listening to every word that she says. She wonders why she's telling him all of this. Maybe because he asked and despite what she said earlier, she wants to talk about it. Needs to.

"I already knew Angie because she was a nurse there, a damned good one and tough as nails. She had a room at her apartment where someone who needed it could have a place of safety until they were ready to move on. All three of them were going to go there, Angie had called Benny to pick them up and he was on his way." Her voice is still so quiet.

"And then he appeared in the ER, Louise's husband, William Reid." Once more she stops. She frowns slightly as she stares off into space and then slowly shakes her head, swipes her tongue across her lower lip.

"Goddamn it," she whispers.

He watches as she goes to the kitchen island in the centre of the room and lowers herself onto one of the stools. She leans forward and rests her elbows on the counter and clasps her hands together. Doesn't look at him, locked in her memories.

"He…strode… through the department, looking for his family big and loud and as demanding as you like. Attracted a hell of a lot of attention. He found us. He was a big guy, or at least I thought so at the time, it could be my mind making him that way now but at the time he seemed enormous. I stood in front of Louise and I told him that she wasn't going anywhere with him, that she was going somewhere safe. I thought that I was invincible, that he'd never try to do anything stupid in the middle of a busy ER, to Louise or to me, I would've pressed charges in a heartbeat. I even yelled for security and they were coming, I could see them." Her lips twist in a cynical semblance of a smile and she slowly shakes her head once more.

For a while she doesn't say anything else.

"He shot you."

Her eyes tick up to his face. "Twice. First he shot Louise, once, in the head. Her blood splattered her kids, she was still… holding onto them. He called me a bitch and then he shot me, stood over me and told me that's what I got for being… mouthy."

Her lips twist again and Bucky sees the gleam of something deep in her eyes, a traitorous shine which she brutally blinks back, taking a deep breath at the same time.

"What happened to him?"

"That son of a bitch blew his own brains out in the middle of that room, in front of his already traumatised kids. Coward."

Doesn't feel any pain, not initially. Just the explosion of gunfire. Her eyes are wide with shock, the force of the bullet striking her knocking her back against the gurney, the second one dropping her down onto the cold hard floor.

Things begin to go quiet for her about then; she sees legs, feet moving towards her. Another noise and someone's falling down beside her, wide unseeing eyes staring in her direction, a hole in the side of his head, hair blackened and bloody. Lifeless.

Her breathing is loud in her ears, it's all she can hear. It fills her head. She swears she hears someone yelling her name but it sounds strange, muffled, like it's coming from underwater and she turns her head a fraction away from the eyes that still stare at her and sees someone drop onto their knees beside her, looking over her, familiar blue eyes wide, panicked. Gabe. He's scared. Why's he scared? She moves a hand across her abdomen and that's when she feels pain begin to swell, it burns, oh God it burns. Her eyes widen with fear, panic. Her hand is shaking as she lifts it, brings it up and it's bright red. She's bleeding. Looks back at her brother, whimpers his name. Then she's moving, going upwards, being lain on a gurney and she sees lights fly past her eyes as she's whisked away. Something covers her face. Someone's holding her hand, others her legs, her shoulder, her belly. Pressing down. Hurts. The edges of her vision begin to turn grey, the voices become indistinct. She can't breathe...she can't breathe.

Next time she's aware, she's in a quiet white room, machinery bleeping the only sound she can hear. There's a tube in her throat and she can feel a weight against one of her hands. She must've made a sound because the weight moves and she's looking into eyes again. They're momentarily wide but slowly they soften and warm with a smile. The face comes more into focus. It's Gabe and he's talking to her but she can't really hear him. Feels him press a kiss on her forehead. There's someone else in the room, she can smell perfume. It's familiarity dances around the edges of her memory before fatigue claims her and her eyes slip shut again.

Alex blinks, takes a deep breath and wipes at her cheeks but there's no tears there. Not any more, there's none left. She looks back across at Bucky who still watches her with that strange blank expression on his face. She wishes she could read him more easily. She remembers Mary's comment about his soul being broken and while she agrees with it, she wonders what happened to him. Ponders the idea she and Gabe entertained about Bucky coming down from a possible benzodiazepine dependency. They're psychoactive drugs, working against anxiety, to help treat seizures, insomnia, agitation and in some cases act as a muscle relaxant. He doesn't seem to remember which suggests they were given to him against his will or knowledge but for what purpose? She wonders at that.

It all comes back to control.

It's a horrifying prospect if it's the truth.

Another ragged sigh escapes her lips.

"I spent a month in hospital. Lost a lot of blood, part of my left kidney and it was touch and go for the first twenty four hours according to Gabe but I don't remember it, not really. I mean there are images in my head but I'm not sure whether they're real or hallucinations from the medication and morphine I was on." She gives her head a quick shake as if to rid herself of the memories. She smiles at him, brief, nowhere near her eyes.

"Gabe was working in the same department the day it happened. He's a trauma surgeon, one of the best. He probably saved my life, in fact I know he did but I know it scared him too, almost losing me changed him. It's why he's so protective of me, why he reacted to you that first day."

Bucky watches as she gets to her feet. Another smile ghosts across her face but he isn't fooled by it for a single second.

"Now I promised you dinner. What are you in the mood for?" Clearly the topic of conversation is over for now.

Bucky opens his mouth to speak but anything he's about to say is halted by the sound of a knock. His head whips around to the front door.

"Alex, it's us, Callum and Connor," a muffled voice informs them. Bucky allows himself to relax slightly as he recognises Callum's voice. He watches as Alex goes to the door and unlocks it, opens it a fraction and peeks out. Then she opens the door a little wider and allows them inside. Alex closes and locks the door behind them. Bucky doesn't move, just watches them, sees how Callum draws her into his arms in a hug and as he draws back, he seems to examine every inch of Alex's face. Beside him, Connor looks on, wide eyed still.

"Are you okay?" Callum keeps his voice low, concerned and she nods just the once.

"I didn't know he was armed."

"None of us did and it would've been a whole lot worse if not for Bucky and his quick thinking," Alex replies and Bucky watches as Connor turns his face in his direction. There's nothing but suspicion behind his eyes as he regards him.

"How did you know how to do that and why are you not hurt?" he asks. Bucky just stares at him and doesn't answer.

"You know we don't ask questions of the people we help unless they volunteer the information first Con. Place of safety," Alex reminds him. Bucky watches how his eyes fall on the shirt, the holes in the material in the left sleeve and in the shoulder. He slowly removes the glove from his left hand and sees the growing disbelief on Connor's face, eyes wide behind black framed glasses. He doesn't say a word as he then peels off the Henley, revealing more of of the arm to him.

"Woah," he whispers, "is that a prosthetic?"

"Kind of," Bucky murmurs.

"And bulletproof too?"

Bucky shrugs in response.

"Okay, question time is done now Connor," Alex interrupts in a voice a little too sharp, "Where's Frankie now?" she asks Callum who slowly tears his own eyes away from Bucky's metal arm and looks at her once more.

"I called Gabe, he was just finishing his shift. Be warned, he's not happy. I had to explain the circumstances and that included mentioning the gun." He watches as she rolls her eyes. "I had to."

She sighs. "I know you did," she reassures him.

Callum then returns his attention to Bucky.

"You broke Frankie's nose and shattered his cheekbone," he tells him and sees how he looks away not before seeing the regret in his eyes.

"Didn't mean to…I… just…"

"You probably saved Alex's life."

Anything else Bucky is about to say, dries up in his mouth and he looks back at him.

"Gabe initially treated Frankie in the kitchen. He's now conscious but in some pain so he's taken him to the ER for further treatment. Gabe will make sure he'll keep both your names out of it. Frankie won't be pressing charges because then he'll have to explain why he was in the bar and what he was doing in possession of a gun."

"Was that his choice or someone else's?" Alex enquires.

"A bit of both. He didn't need much persuading, especially when I told him that the guy patching him up is your brother. I've also contacted Angie and Benny just to be on the safe side and to warn them but I don't think he'll be stupid enough to try again."

"He won't find them." She'll give Angie a call in the morning, once everything has settled in her head again.

"There's also these…" They watch Callum delve into the front pocket of his jeans and extract a white napkin which he holds in the palm of his left hand and carefully opens. Four flattened bullets lie there and for a moment they stare at them in silence before Alex takes them, refolding the napkin.

"I can't believe you found them all. What about the gun?" she asks, shoving them in the front pocket of her jeans.

"Gone."

She just nods.

"Now we've just gotta hope that no one called the cops to report shots fired."

"I have to go back downstairs to finish closing up so if anyone does show up, I'll do my best to get rid of them but if they were coming, they'd be here by now." Callum sends another look Bucky's way but doesn't say anything and then he looks at Connor.

"C'mon, you can help me clean up." He looks back Alex's way. "You gonna be okay?"

She nods once more as she opens the door again and watches them leave. She then slowly closes it again, turns the lock and leans heavily against the wood, sighing softly. She then looks at Bucky who still stands in the entrance to the kitchen.

"Dinner," she tells him in a low voice.

He watches her walk past him and back into the kitchen and then follows once more.

"I want to know why," he begins.

"Why what?" she answers as she heads to the refrigerator but she doesn't look at him.

He takes a deep breath.

"Why you help people, people like me?" he continues, watching her as she begins to pull ingredients out of the refrigerator and cupboards. She glances back at him over one shoulder. Slowly he approaches her, holding the door to the fridge open as she straightens up. She looks at him, frowning slightly.

"What's with all of the questions all of a sudden?" she enquires as she heads to the nearest counter and places the food stuff on it. He hears the spiky tone and his first instinct is to back straight down and say no more but he's curious, he wants to know. He waits a beat and she looks back at him. He tenses.

She rolls her eyes.

"Because it's the right thing to do?" she answers. He just regards her and she sighs roughly.

"It's one of the reasons. I tried to help people before it happened, in my job I saw all kinds of things going on and felt powerless to help. Afterwards…well let's just say I had a hard time adjusting to the world again and I didn't like how that made me feel."

At first she pretends that everything is just fine, accepts her colleagues' good wishes, their welcome backs and pats on the back with smiles and shrugs, as if getting shot twice and surviving is no big deal. She's looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, to feeling that rush of adrenaline again with each new case, the process of problem solving, being in the middle of a full scale emergency, saving lives, everything she signed up to medical school to become. To get lost in her job once more.

But it doesn't happen. Instead of adrenaline she feels uncertainty, fear almost and her confidence deserts her at the most crucial times and her mind goes blank when it shouldn't, when in the past it never has before.

At first everyone is so understanding, so patient but she's not stupid, she knows it won't last for long. She has to be sharp, be on point, involved, helping, not this, this useless shell of a person.

She can't sleep and when she does, her dreams are filled with faceless shadowy men sneaking up on her with guns, shooting her, shooting her until she's lying on that cold hard floor again, bright red blood oozing out of her and this time there's no Gabe to save her. The nightmares drag her out of sleep, breath heaving in her lungs, scars pulling and aching, soaked in sweat, terrified beyond belief.

She begins to sleep with a light on, a lamp on, a radio or the TV playing quietly in the background, anything to cover the silence.

She tries to function as normal at work, to be professional, cool, hardworking and she thinks she's succeeding until a tray drops somewhere in the department, the resulting crash echoing around the area like a thunderclap.

Makes her panic, bolt, run. Want to hide.

Angie's the one to find her hiding in the on call room, pacing the small space, trying not to give into the sense of all pervading fear and panic that is looming. She's the one who grasps both her hands and talks to her in a low non-threatening tone, reminds her to breathe, to breathe with her, slow deep breaths in to the count of five and to exhale just as slowly. Over and over until colour begins to return to her greyish white pallor, until the sweat dries on her brow. Until she remembers what her name is. Until her mind begins to settle again.

She hopes it's a one off thing, maybe it's her brain reacting to being back at work, struggling to cope with stress but as sleep continues to elude her and her nerves stretch closer to breaking point she realises that it isn't. One morning she can't get out of bed, lies stretched out on the mattress listening to her alarm blare out and she does nothing. Is still lying there hours later when Gabe shows up wondering why she isn't at work today. Realises that she's been living in a fog of nightmares and insomnia, jumping at shadows real and imagined. Realises that she needs help.

Angie shows up one day and no matter how hard Alex tries to get rid of her, she isn't going anywhere.

"If it wasn't for Angie, I wouldn't be where I am today," Alex tells him. "I'm her someone, like you're mine." She sees his look of momentary confusion. "It's what I call the people I help, my someone. Right now, it's you."

He then remembers how she introduced him to Mary at the bar, as her 'newest someone'

"How many have there been?"

"A few. I don't keep count."

She's been doing this for three years now. She sold her apartment, bought this building and with Angie's help, began to offer a place of safety to those who needed it.

She turns to look at him more fully.

"I'll ask again, what's with the questions all of a sudden?"

"Just curious I guess," he replies.

She regards him.

"Okay, I get that but you gotta know that curiosity works both ways. I could have questions for you, like what happened to you for you to end up in the alley behind the bar. For you to withdraw from a mystery drug, possibly a benzodiazepine in an impossibly quick time. To recover from a dislocated shoulder in the same amount of time as well as those bruises you came in with. They're all gone, you've healed. How? How is that possible? Who are you?"

She sees how his eyes widen briefly at her barrage of questions and his expression change, she literally sees shutters come down over his eyes as he withdraws, takes a physical step back, looks down as he wraps his arms around his body, an openly defensive mechanism if she's ever seen one.

"My name is Bucky," he tells her in a low voice and lifts his eyes to her face again, the expression wary.

She lifts a hand to her forehead and her shoulders slump. She slowly shakes her head.

"God, I'm sorry. I just told Connor that he couldn't ask you about anything you weren't willing to share voluntarily and I've just broken that rule myself. Damn it, just ignore me. It's been one hell of a day."

Bucky doesn't answer, just continues to watch her and she lowers her hand, she still sees the caution in his eyes.

"I don't like talking about what happened to me anymore than I suspect that you like talking about happened to you. It makes me grouchy. Help me with dinner and we can talk or not, whatever you want to do," she invites. He still doesn't respond and she gets the real impression that whatever level of trust she's built with him, the foundations have begun to crack a little and inwardly she curses herself at her stupidity.

"How are you with pasta?" she asks instead.

He's helping her to put away newly washed dishes when he hears the front door open. Alex glances at him as he freezes, going statue still and she notices how his eyes dart around the room. She reaches out and touches his wrist and his eyes flick to hers.

"It'll be Gabe, he has a key," she murmurs to him and almost as soon as the words leave her mouth then her brother appears in the kitchen. His eyes are wide, worried. He drops his bag on the floor at his feet and strides across to his sister and he pulls her into his arms and holds her tightly.

"I'm okay Gabe, really," she tells him, her voice muffled by his jacket. He doesn't reply, his eyes closed. "Gabe. Really need to breathe here. I'm fine, truly."

"He drew a gun on you," Gabe whispers as he draws her back, his hands still on her shoulders.

She looks up at him, smiles softly.

"This time I had Bucky with me, he disarmed him, put him down."

Bucky watches as the Doc slowly looks at him.

"I'm assuming that you hit him with your metal arm. You did some damage, right orbital socket is shattered, nose is broken in two places, you really did a number on him."

Bucky doesn't reply, how does he explain the manner in which he took Frankie down when he barely remembers it himself? Like Alex said earlier, he went into auto pilot and it's all still a little blurry.

"Thank you Bucky, what you did was…heroic."

Bucky's eyes go a little wide at Gabe's words. He opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out.

Heroic? He's the furthest thing away from heroic.