5.

June 16th, 2013

Isabel wakes up slowly, her eyes fluttering open. She looks up, and blinks away the white light that clouds her vision, and eventually a white-painted ceiling comes into view. She's lying on a bed, soft beneath her.

She sits up slowly, but all the aches and pains that have come to be a part of life have disappeared. Looking down at her hands, Isabel just about screams when she sees their smooth and youthful again, the dark spots, wrinkles and aged skin disappeared. She stares at them a moment before coming to the realisation that if her hands are young again, maybe she is, too. She gets up and hurries over to the mirror over the vanity, amazed at the way her body can move again, and comes face to face with a person she hasn't seen in quite a long time.

Staring back at her is herself, or the way she used to look sixty years ago. She'd say she was about thirty, if she had to guess, small lines starting to appear from smiling and frowning. But her eyes are wide again, a clear blue-grey. Her lips are fuller, her teeth all her own in her mouth. Her forehead is smooth, her skin undamaged by the sun, the dark circles that were permanent in her old age disappeared.

It's wonderful, but she knows she doesn't look like this. This version of her is not her reality anymore. She's dreaming, she must be. Sometimes dreams can be cruel like that; so vivid that people swear they're real, only to be horribly let down once they open their eyes the next morning.

But then she remembers what had happened – Steve had been there, still young and beautiful as ever. But his face had been pinched into a worried, sorrowful frown, his eyes welling with tears, his bottom lip quivering. She'd been in a bed, a monitor beeping behind her and… oh, she'd been in hospital. And then she'd closed her eyes and Steve had promised he'd still be there when she woke up.

Isabel's hand flies up to cover her mouth as the tears threaten to spill over. Oh God, I died. I left him, I died, and I left Steve all alone. He only just came back to me and I had to go.

Isabel feels weak and grabs the vanity to support herself, sliding herself down onto the floor in a puddle of tears and sobs. She pounds her fist into the floor in anger and frustration like a child having a tantrum, the vibration knocking one of the perfume bottles from the vanity. The glass doesn't smash though, the bottle landing safely as though it landed on a pillow rather than hardwood floors. Isabel doesn't notice.

Every time they got each other back, one of them was ripped away once again. It's like destiny, God, whatever controls it all is intent on keeping them apart forever. They'll never get their happily ever after.

Isabel wails, something she's rarely done since she lost Steve, hiding her face in her elbow. She jumps when she feels a hand on her arm, and looks up, eyes widening in shock.

"Mama?" She whispers through her tears, staring up at the smiling face of her mother, a face she hasn't seen in thirty years, and Winifred Barnes definitely hadn't been this young when Isabel had last seen her – she'd been old and withering away in a hospital bed from cancer. The Winifred that stands in front of Isabel is no older than thirty as well, youthful and beaming, her hair all brown and her face free of wrinkles. Apparently, everyone reverts back to a younger age when they go… wherever they are.

"Oh, my darling," Winifred coos, sitting on the floor and taking her daughter into her arms. "It's been so long."

"Mama?" Isabel cries, clinging to her mother. "Oh, God, Ma, I'm so sorry."

"No, none of that," Winifred berates, petting down Isabel's hair.

"Where are we?" Isabel asks quietly, her face buried in her mother's shoulder length hair.

"Oh, Belle, you're going to love it. Everyone is here. We're in the World to Come."

"Heaven?" Isabel asks, her jaw slack.

"If that's what you want to call it," Winifred agrees. "It can be whatever you want it to be, honey."

Isabel looks around at the room in awe. She frowns then, confused.

At the look on Isabel's face, Winifred pauses, eyeing her daughter carefully. "Did you not think you would end up here?" She asks quietly.

"I don't know," Isabel admits. "I did some terrible things…"

"Nothing any worse than anyone else has done," Winifred reassures. "I've been watching you, we all have. You lived a long and happy life and you did an awful lot of good. You and your friends saved the world."

That seems to spark something in Isabel. She sits up quickly, pulling herself to her feet, not even marvelling in how agile she is for the first time in many, many years or how free from pain she is. "Where's Bucky?" Isabel asks hopefully. But when she turns back to her mother, she looks disappointed and worried. "Where's Bucky?! Bucky?" Isabel asks again, her voice just bordering on hysterical.

Isabel opens the door to her room, and hurries into the kitchen, gasping when the lounge room is filled with enough people to make it cramped and humid. Every face looks at her expectantly and every face is familiar – Dad, Robbie, Dugan, Morita, Dernier, just like Isabel had promised Steve before she left him. But no Bucky. No Bucky.

"Bucky isn't here," Isabel notes, looking around the room with a shocked expression. "B-Bucky isn't here. That means he… He's alive?"

"He never died, darling," Winifred says carefully, appearing from the room and putting an arm on Isabel's shoulders. "God, I wish we could have told you once we found out. Hydra found him at the bottom of that ravine. He's been with Hydra this entire time. They've had him in containment."

Isabel turns slowly to face her mother, her eyebrows furrowed. "I lived my whole life thinking he died and I'd be able to see him again once I got here. I… I named my baby after him thinking I was honouring him, when I… I should have been searching for him."

"No, Isabel. This is the way it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to end up with Hydra," George cuts in, stepping closer to his daughter and pulling her into his arms.

"What? That makes no sense–"

"It makes perfect sense, darling," George argues, pulling away and holding her at arms' length. "Hydra has extended Bucky's life well into the present. He hasn't aged a day. When Steve finds Bucky, and he will, they'll be together again. They won't be entirely alone. Bucky, he's going to give Steve another purpose to keep living in his new life, along with the people you've left behind that he's promised to protect."

"Steve won't be alone?"

"No, of course not. We all know Jamie and the girls wouldn't let that happen anyway. But Bucky will be company for him, a living reminder of his old life. They'll get through it together, Belle. They'll be okay."

George pauses, and Dugan takes the opportunity to speak up. "Baby Barnes, aren't you happy? Your brother, he's getting another chance at life. Just like Steve is. They get to start over."

Isabel looks up at Dugan, her eyes glassy. She wipes at them, sniffing softly. "I am happy," she reassures. "I just…This isn't how I imagined it. I would never wish for him to be dead but… Hydra, they're…" She shrugs, laughing at her own tears. "At least then we could have all been together."

"It's not so bad, waiting here," Morita reassures. "We have all of eternity to wait for them."

"And we get to wait together," Winifred tells Isabel. "You can be right here when they wake up, when they do eventually get here. You can be here for everyone when they come, doesn't matter who."

Isabel nods, wiping away another tear. "I can do that."