We Were Soldiers

146. Date Night

Breakfast in the Strand was like feeding time at the zoo when the Commandos were around. By the time Bucky reached the breakfast hall, Dugan and Jacques had already graced the room with their presence; the others, minus Steve, arrived just a few minutes later, and they all piled their plates high with food before taking seats at one of the long tables.

"Nothing beats a full breakfast after an intensive mission," said Dugan. He immediately started on his toast.

"I have to admit, the full breakfasts are getting a little less… full… these days," said Monty. Unlike Dugan, he preferred his toast cold, so he stood it in the little metal toast stand to let it cool. Cold toast—the English were weird!

"Agreed," Morita chipped in. "I mean, look at this!" He used his fork to stab and then hold up the world's smallest rasher of bacon. "I reckon this came from a piglet. Probably a guinea-piglet."

"At least there are plenty of beans," said Jones. He'd opted for a triple helping of them.

"Whew. I ain't sittin' next to you in the Fiddle tonight!" Dugan said with a chuckle.

"This is definitely horse," said Jacques, eyeing his lone sausage with suspicion. "It is like we are in the Dark Ages."

Monty took a sip of tea from his china cup. "Quite."

"At least it's better than grits," Bucky pointed out. Or shit on a shingle. Plus, they could always go back for seconds. Or thirds. Even fourths, if they wanted to. Very recently, Bucky had been going back for fourths. If he didn't, he was ravenously hungry by midday.

Their fearless leader himself finally put in an appearance just as Bucky was starting on seconds. Judging by the very official look of his uniform, he'd probably just come from HQ. Not surprising, really. He'd want to be all over whatever intel Phillips got from their game of tag with the trains. Real missions saved him from long nights of tedious political handshaking.

"What's the word, pal?" Bucky asked him. "Do we have a hit on any of that blimp data?"

"Not yet; it's still being analysed. And cross-referenced with MI6. Phillips doesn't want to send us to somewhere we already know about. I did see something interesting at HQ, though."

"Let me guess," Dugan said. "Around five-six, brunette, lethal with a pistol?"

"Actually, Agent Carter wasn't there, but thanks for asking."

"She's probably getting ready for date night," Bucky told him. "It is tonight, right?"

"Ooh, another date?" said Morita. "That's three in two weeks. Sounds like things are getting serious!"

"Not just any date," Monty chipped in helpfully. "But a double-date with Agent Carter's brother. Sorry, I know, verboten," he added to Bucky.

"No it's fine, I don't mind."

"Wait, how did you hear about our double-date?" Steve demanded. "I only told Buck." That was added with a suspicious glance at his best friend.

"Hey, don't look at me, pal. I didn't tell him."

Monty offered a mysterious smile. "I have my ways."

"Do they involve eavesdropping?"

"Of course not! It just so happens that my brother Charles' wife, Cecilia, moves in a similar social circle to Mrs Carter's niece Sophie—that is to say, Agent Carter's first cousin on her mother's side—and it just so happened that whilst they were out shopping in Covent G—"

"You know, you could just say women's gossip," said Dugan. "We don't need your family history."

"Fine. The women were gossiping about it and Charles mentioned it to me in passing." He sniffed. "Are you happy that no eaves were dropped?"

"So, Steve," Jones said, before Monty could start getting pissy. "What was the interesting thing you saw at HQ earlier?"

"Oh, right. Some of the films that Freddie took during Operation Overlord have been developed. A couple of the bigwigs were watching them when I arrived. From what I could gather, they're using them as a sort of lessons learned aid."

"What, you mean how not to organise a semi-amphibious landing of non-amphibious personnel?" Morita scoffed.

"You're suspiciously quiet, Frenchie," said Dugan. "Is all this talk of Normandy bringing back too many memories?"

Jacques shook his head. He was only half way through his beans, and hadn't even touched the sausage on his plate. "Non. I am just contemplating the fact that I am about to eat some poor man's horse."

"Excuse me, Sergeant Barnes?" Mr Chipperton appeared like a spectre beside their table. The guy could seriously move quietly when he wanted to! "There is a… ahm… courier… at reception for you. I'd be grateful if you could deal with him and send him on his way; he's tracking soot into my entrance hall. And Mr Dernier, please be assured that there is not a single scrap of horse in these sausages. It's all pure pig. Or cow. Or goat. Sometimes a mixture of them. Maybe with a little chicken thrown in. But definitely not horse."

"Alright." He snatched a piece of hot buttered toast and gave his teammates a good glaring. "I'll murder anyone who touches my breakfast."

Every face erupted into a picture of innocence. The bastards were definitely thinking about stealing his food.

The 'courier' turned out to be one of the young boys that servicemen used to send letters quickly around the city. Judging by the soot on his coat and face, this one was moonlighting as a chimney sweep's apprentice. Still, his hands were clean, and the envelope he handed over to Bucky was spotless. A familiar neat script on the front spelled out his name and rank. He'd been wondering how to get in touch with Wells, since he had no idea where the guy was staying. The letter solved that issue.

Barnes,

Heard you got back from your mission yesterday, hope you managed okay, I remember how you used to struggle real hard with missions where I wasn't there to pull your ass out of the fire when they went sideways. Haven't forgotten I owe you a catch-up. I got a couple of days off now, so can meet you in the Fiddle at seven tonight if you're free. Only send the kid back with a reply if you want to meet, otherwise I'll assume you're busy.

Wells

"Can I borrow your pen?" he asked Mr Chipperton, who was doing his very best impression of somebody who was discreetly trying to avoid reading the contents of the letter whilst being extremely nosy at the same time.

"Of course."

He turned the letter over on the counter and wrote a quick note on the back of it. Seven is fine, but let's meet at the Kettle & Drum instead. "Do you know where the Kettle & Drum is?" he asked the boy, who nodded enthusiastically. Bucky added to the letter, The kid can give you directions if you don't know where that is.

Letter finished, he folded it back into its envelope and gave it back to the boy, along with a shiny farthing. "Thanks, kid. You can return this."

"All is well, I trust?" Chipperton asked, when the boy was gone.

"Yeah, all's fine," Bucky said. Hopefully, it would be. He just needed to figure out how to make two different parts of his life fit together in a way that wasn't completely awkward and messy. Tonight might require some alcohol.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

"Buck, are you sure you don't wanna celebrate the success of the last mission with the rest of the team?" asked Steve, straightening his tie in the lobby mirror. The Commandos had already gone on ahead to the Fiddle, and Steve's swiftly impending double-date was making him all fingers and thumbs.

"Naw, I'm feeling kinda beat," he said. "Plus, I think my stomach's still upset with me for that undercooked burger I ate at lunch time. I just want a quiet night."

"Alright. But if you want me to stay—"

Bucky shook his head. "Seriously, Steve, I love you like a brother, but if you choose keeping me and my upset stomach company over date night with your girl, I may have to disown you."

"I just don't want you missing out," Steve objected. He loosened his tie, then tightened it again, but it still wouldn't sit straight.

"I'm not." Bucky stood and turned his friend around, fixing his tie for him. Steve had always been hopeless with ties, and it didn't help that he had big clumsy fingers now. "I just need a night of recuperation. Get my stomach settled. I'll be back in the middle of the action by tomorrow. You'll see."

"Well, if you change your mind, you know where they'll be. And thanks. I hate tying these things."

"You're welcome. Now please, go and have fun. You've definitely earned it!"

Honestly, Steve worried far too much at times. He needed to learn to loosen up, go with the flow, and let himself enjoy being in the company of a beautiful dame who liked him at least as much as he liked her. And if he couldn't learn to loosen up… well, Bucky might just bang both their heads together until they started acting more like two people in love.

He returned to his room to keep out of Mr Chipperton's way, but didn't have a particularly long wait. At six-thirty, he pulled on his jacket and left the hotel. Meeting at the Fiddle was entirely out of the question. It was nice enough, but it tended to get loud. Any place that combined the Commandos and alcohol for any length of time inevitably got loud. Besides, Dugan and Jones would instantly recognise Wells, and probably go through a similar 'what the hell' kind of process that Bucky had been through when he discovered his friend was alive. He couldn't deal with that right now. He was still dealing with his own 'what the hell. He just needed to figure out exactly how his recently-alive friend was gonna fit into his life here, and to do that he needed a distraction-free environment.

The Kettle & Drum was on the other side of the Thames, and as he walked, Bucky received a few nods and 'hellos', but he passed nobody he knew personally, and saw no other American soldiers on the streets. Between fresh troops coming in and being shipped out to France, the faces changed every few days. There seemed little point fraternising with them, because they were all gone before they could get too comfortable in London's hotels. But he did keep his fingers crossed that their time in France would be easier than his. He still wasn't sure whether Operation Overlord or the SSR's missions last year had taken the greatest toll. Probably the latter, now he came to think about it. By the time he set foot in Normandy, he already had a pretty good idea about what to expect from war.

Music and light did not spill out from the Kettle, and the inside was a rather more muted affair than the Fiddle, but it wasn't an unpleasant establishment. It was clean, and spacious, and the clientèle seemed to be a little more upmarket; bankers and businessmen who'd managed to avoid the draft. Bucky found Wells waiting at the bar, lounging as he chatted to the barmaid. He looked… well. Healthy. He'd put on the weight he'd lost after nearly six months of forced marches across hard terrain, and still had a tan from the summer he'd spent in Italy. He smiled easily at the barmaid, as if he hadn't a single care in the world. Hard to believe he'd been shot and on the brink of death. But this was Wells, so maybe his recounting of how ill he'd been had a typical Wells-exaggeration.

"Hey," Bucky said, sidling up during a gap in the conversation.

"Hey," Wells returned. He offered a small smile that touched his eyes more than his lips. "I was just telling Gladys here that if my pal was a no-show, I'd take her dancing after her shift finished. Sorry Gladys; maybe another night."

Gladys merely rolled her eyes. She probably had to put up with a lot of bullshit from servicemen, and Wells was a master of it. "What can I get you boys to drink?"

"I dunno. Is the beer warm and flat?"

"It's called ale," she said.

Wells wrinkled his nose. "Fine. I'll have the ale. Barnes?"

"Same," he agreed. It was only what he'd be drinking in the Fiddle anyway. Scotch was nice, but he'd promised Steve months ago that he'd go easy on the stuff, and tonight, he wanted a slightly clearer head to allow him to think without saying anything too stupid.

After Gladys poured their drinks, and Wells paid for the first round, they wound their way through the crowd and found a table in a quiet spot next to the unlit fireplace. The last time they'd been in England together, they'd purposely gone looking for the busiest pubs in Plymouth, and the irony was not lost on him. Nor, it seemed, on Wells.

"I'm surprised you wanted to meet here," Wells said, as he settled into a comfortable lounge in his chair. "The Fiddle's ale is much better."

"I wanted a change of scenery, and I've enjoyed a drink or two here in the past."

Wells took a long sip of his beer then gave a snort of amusement. "You're so full of shit."

Clearly, his mind had lost none of its sharpness during his convalescence. "Fine. I wanted somewhere we could talk in private without those other jerks interrupting all the time."

"What, you don't wanna introduce me to your new friends? I'm wounded, Sergeant Barnes," Wells grinned.

And just like that, it was as if Danny Wells had never been dead.

"Don't be an idiot, you already know some of the team, and I'll introduce you to the others soon. But I wanna get you caught up on everything first. Otherwise, you might fall for Jacques trying to poison you with mouldy cheese."

"Uh-huh. Right. So, you told them you were blowing them off so you could have private drinks and a catch-up with your formerly deceased fellow sergeant?"

"Not exactly," Bucky admitted. "They think I'm having a quiet night at the hotel. Upset stomach. I didn't want them to get the wrong idea." It had seemed the best excuse at the time for not going to the Fiddle with them.

"We're two pals from the 107th meeting to reminisce about the good old times after one of us turned out to be not dead. What is there to get the wrong idea about?" Wells asked. He seemed to be enjoying himself far too much. "Lying to your friends about your whereabouts… now, that might give them the wrong idea."

"Only if I'm caught lying."

"In my experience, lies always have a way of coming to the surface eventually." He took another sip of his ale, then settled back into his chair. "But never mind about that now. Tell me everything I missed."

"Jeez, where do I even begin?"

"Here, let me get you started," Wells offered. "Once upon a time, in an Italy far, far away, a handsome young Sergeant was sent out on a mission to recover some important supplies that were dropped into the area by pilots with terrible aim. Little did he know that the evil Krauts were waiting nearby, and he was ambushed and left for dead by his fiendish foe. Meanwhile, back at base camp, his less handsome friend, who was worried sick despite the untimely concussion he received earlier in the day, quickly realised that the handsome young Sergeant was overdue back from the mission. And so…" Wells paused. "That's where you begin."

"I'm sorry, but I just can't believe any story that describes you as more handsome than me," he said. "It's clearly a work of fiction, like The War of the Worlds. Only a bit less realistic."

Wells shrugged. "We'll get Gladys to settle it for us later, if you like."

"Sure. And five dollars says I win. Anyway, what happened next… when you and the others didn't come back, I wasn't worried right away. Figured you'd have to take a detour, or hunt for the drop site. When Haven and Biggs and the others came back… it wasn't good. A lot of men were injured. Biggs was in shock. You know he blamed himself every time we lost someone 'cos he thought he was unlucky, right?"

Wells nodded. "I thought we managed to get him out of that mindset."

"It came back. With a vengeance. I managed to pry out of him what had happened, and I knew I had to go and look for you and the others. I went to the command tent, to request a jeep, and I overheard Haven blaming the mission failure on the 107th."

"Bastard," Wells growled, his blue eyes taking on an angry glint. "He held the 9th back. We were s'posed to advance together, but when the shooting started, I heard the 9th firing from at least twenty yard behind us. The 107th took the brunt of the attack."

"I figured as much. Did you at least set the record straight when you got back?"

Wells shook his head. "Didn't seem much point. Brass weren't interested. What happened next?"

"Neither Phillips nor Hawkswell would give us permission to leave and go find you. So Gusty and I had a plan to steal a jeep and pull off a rescue."

"'Preciate it. But it would have been suicide. Area was crawling with Germans even after they rabbited with our supplies. You got caught before you could pull off the world's most doomed rescue?"

"Yeah. Haven again. He put forward a pretty convincing case for you and the others being dead. I wish I hadn't listened to him. That I'd knocked him out and gone through with it anyway."

"I'm glad you didn't," Wells told him. "You never would'a found me, and I'd already taken the tags from the others, so it would have been a wasted journey."

Bucky continued with how Gusty and Biggs had got promoted, the couple of missions the 107th went on, and then told of how they got wind of Nazis en route to taking a small town in an attempt to push the line back and cut off the American supply chain.

"I heard about Azzano," Wells nodded. The scowl for Haven had been replaced some time ago with a sympathetic gaze for his friend. "And Austria. That place sounded like hell."

"It was," Bucky agreed. Even now, thinking about what he'd gone through there made his heart race and his skin want to break out in a sweat. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to wash away the unease with fresh air. Or rather, beer-scented air.

"I know I should say 'I wish I'd been there,' but I'm actually really glad I wasn't there." Wells knocked back the rest of his beer, then ordered two more from Gladys. "But you got out. Guess you were one of the lucky ones."

"Yeah. One of the lucky ones." At least he'd come out of it alive. Other POWs had been worked to death. None of the others who'd gone into the isolation room had come out. If he'd had his way, he wouldn't have come out, either. That was what he was. Lucky.

"You don't sound so sure of that."

Bucky fixed his gaze on the slowly rising bubbles of the pale ale in the glass in front of him. It was easier than looking at his friend. Easier than having to see the pity in his eyes. For almost a year, he'd kept hidden his failed attempt at taking his own life, the guilt and the shame gnawing quietly at his conscience day by day, wearing him down little bit at a time. Whilst he'd been in isolation, there were men who'd been fighting for survival in the main cells, clinging on to what strength they had left, hoping against hope for some miracle and supporting each other every step of the way.

And Bucky had given up. He'd told himself it was because he didn't want to contribute towards a weapon that might be used against his friends and their allies. That his death would rob Hydra of valuable research. Take away their lab rat. But that was only half of the truth. The other half was that he didn't want to carry on with the daily pain. He'd been weak, and tried to end it. And he'd even failed at doing that.

"Hey, look at me," said Wells. And Bucky reluctantly did. They pity he was expecting to see wasn't there, though. Instead, Wells' expression was one of defiance. "I can't imagine what you guys went through in that place. But whatever happened… you don't have to talk about it. It's okay to not be okay. To not want to deal with it right now. I know what it's like to be haunted by something awful that you can't undo and can't change no matter how much you wish it, and I know that as soon as you start talking about it, that makes it more real. You can't just pretend anymore. You can't just put on a brave face and act like everything is okay."

"I don't think I'm very good at putting on a brave face," he admitted. "I feel like everyone can see right through me."

"Well, yeah. You're a terrible liar. But that's not the point, is it? The façade isn't for everyone else; it's for you. So that whenever you look in the mirror, you can see someone who's trying his best to keep it together. To give yourself hope that tomorrow will be better. It took me a long time—a very long time—to talk about my awful childhood, and the soul-crushing claustrophobia I developed because of that. But you're still the only one I've ever told. Nobody else knows. Everybody else gets the façade, imperfect as it is.

"And it's fine if it takes you that long, or even longer, to be ready to talk about everything you've been through. Hell, it's fine if you're never ready to talk about that. The important thing is, you understand that you've got people who will listen without judgment if you ever want to talk. You can do this alone, if you want. But you don't have to."

"Yeah, I know." Steve had been trying to get him to open up since he'd pulled him outta Krausberg. But that was a floodgate Bucky was not yet ready to approach. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Alright. You want some bad news?"

"Not really."

"Tough, you're getting it. Remember Hodge?"

Bucky winced. "Unfortunately."

"Well, he got promoted to Sergeant."

"What? No way! How the hell did that happen? Wait, you met up with the 107th?!"

Wells took a long sip of his beer, then shook his head. "No. Just Hodge. When I made it back to a friendly camp, the big-wigs couldn't decide whether I was really who I said I was, or whether I was some Kraut spy. So they sent for Colonel Hawkswell, who was just a couple of mountains over, or whatever, to confirm my identity. Hodge was his designated driver, and absolutely full of himself over it. And you know what the worst part of it is? That guy will probably outrank us both by the end of the year."

"The end is nigh," Bucky agreed. "I saw Gusty and the others, you know. A couple of months back."

"Yeah, Hodge mentioned that you'd been over there on some mission. Bossing people around and swimming across lakes, or something like that."

"I am going to kick his ass so hard the next time I see him."

"I'd be careful; by the time you do see him, that could be assault on a senior officer."

"That's not even funny."

"It's about as funny as you being Captain America's sidekick," Wells grinned.

"Okay, now you're just asking for me to kick your ass."

"You can try. But the last time you tried, as I recall, you completely failed to block an incoming punch that I told you you'd fail to block, and you ended up in the hospital tent."

Wells had a point. Not that Bucky would ever admit it. Instead, he asked, "So, lend-lease. How'd you end up doing that?"

"By being too good at everything else," said Wells with a defeated sigh. "Lend-lease was the only thing they could find to really challenge my skills."

"You don't wanna tell me," he accused with mock severity.

"There's nothing to tell! Honestly! When I got picked up by the 3rd Infantry in Italy, I was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps. I did my CO a few favours… you know, helping him to expose an elaborate web of Syndicate scheming, setting him up with a beautiful nurse, injecting some backbone into him… the usual stuff… and in return, when this position came up here in London, he gave me first refusal."

"I'm impressed," said Bucky, trying to hide his grin. "I didn't know you were capable of making friends without me there to hold your hand."

"Ha ha, you're so fuckin' funny." Wells aimed his best affronted scowl across the table. "He wasn't my friend, he was my CO, and you know how I feel about officers."

"You helped him out. He helped you out. If you don't call that friendship, what do you call it?"

"Trade. Anyway, that's how I ended up doing lend-lease. It's more complex than I thought it would be, but quite interesting to learn about. The night shifts are a pain, though."

"I wouldn't think a desk job like that even came with night shifts."

"Yeah, you'd think not, but it turns out there are these things called timezones, and not everyone is awake in the same one. So when I gotta make a call back home, I've gotta be awake at stupid o'clock."

"Well, I'm glad you managed to get a couple of days off now," he said. He'd needed this. To take a step away from the Commandos for an evening. To do something different, and lose himself in someone else's bullshit for a while. For some reason, talking to Wells seemed to diminish everything that his mind worried about. The worries were still there, they were just smaller, somehow. Less urgent.

Wells nodded. "Me too. We need to figure out where we're gonna go from here."

"Yeah." He'd been slightly dreading this conversation, but it would be best to be honest right from the start. He needed to make sure Wells knew that friendship was the only thing that could ever be between them. Whatever the real reason for his return, he couldn't let his friend continue in the hope that their friendship might become something else. It wasn't fair to give him false hope, and since Wells had been brutally honest enough to share his feelings, Bucky could do no less. "Like I said before the mission, I don't want to lose you as a friend. Not again. But what you said in your letter… I know it was important to you. I remember you agonising over writing it for days. And, y'know, you said a lot of flattering things, which was really nice. But I don't feel like… that. I'm not sure I've ever felt like that about anybody. Hell, maybe I'm not even capable of feeling that way about someone. I do like spending time with you. I just don't want you to think—"

Wells held up his hand to interrupt his hastily-prepared speech. Judging by the stifled grin on his face, he was trying real hard not to laugh. The bastard. "I meant we need to figure out where we're literally gonna go from here. I'm not sittin' in this place all night, not when I've managed to dodge a night shift to be here! I wanna go somewhere more fun. I seem to recall promising dames and dancing while we were on the Monty, so we could try that Stork Club place I've heard about, it's meant to be pretty swanky. I am assuming from the fact that you spend every spare moment drinking with your fellow sidekicks that you haven't managed to find a dame on your own yet."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at his friend. "Have you been stalking me?"

"You say stalking, I say recon," Wells shrugged. "I couldn't just risk walkin' into the Fiddle with you and your pals in the middle of some drinking contest, I was worried it might freak you out or something. And make things awkward. Which it kinda did. Good call on my part, I thought."

"Wait, how long have you actually been in London for?"

"Eh, let's not get hung up on semantics—"

"Wells."

"Oh, fine." He sighed and took another sip of his beer, then spoke quietly into the glass. "About two weeks, before I collared you in the Fiddle."

"You were in London for two weeks, and didn't even write me a letter, or send me a note by courier, or… wait, I saw you!" The memory came racing back. "I saw your reflection in a window on Pall Mall."

Wells winced. "Yeah, I thought you made me. Had to jump in a cab with some dame who was not impressed to be suddenly sharing with me."

"I thought I was going mad! Seeing faces from my past. I was on the verge of asking Stark to run medical tests on me!"

"Sorry. And you're right, I could'a wrote something… but to be honest, I wasn't sure if you'd come. Not if you found out like that. I figured my first letter may have done too much damage for a second letter to fix. Besides, you know how much I love to punish myself and those around me with awkward stuff. Maybe I was being selfish, doing all that recon, seeing you when you didn't know I was there… sometimes it's hard to know what's the right thing to do. I mean, I don't have a road map for this friendship stuff. I'm just trying my best. To make it up to you, I'll let you win at our next boxing match."

It was hard to stay mad at his bullshit. Besides, maybe Wells was right. If he'd gotten a letter delivered from someone claiming to be Wells and wanting to meet, what would he have done? Probably torn London apart searching for an imposter. Gone crazy trying to track him down. Worried about having left him behind. Shown up looking like a complete wreck. At least being surprised as he was meant he hadn't had days of agonising over what to do and say. "There's not going to be a 'next boxing match'. I'm not gonna punch a guy who's been shot," he countered.

"Are you sure? Because with me fighting with a handicap, you might actually stand a chance of landing a hit next time."

He shook his head. "To answer your earlier question, we can do dames and dancing some other time," he said. "Right now, I kinda need to figure all of this out."

"Whaddya mean?"

"Well…" How could he explain without sounding like a crazy person? How could Wells possibly understand that the Bucky he'd known was gone forever, just like the Bucky Steve had known? He was different, now. Changed, and not in a good way. He'd put certain things behind him, because otherwise the guilt would overwhelm him. He couldn't be the Bucky who'd served with Wells and Carrot and Hawkins and Tipper and all the others, because if that Bucky came back, the ghosts of those men would come back too, and then he'd have to go back to drinking himself to sleep to avoid the nightmares. "Look, I'm not the same person you knew before."

Wells merely shrugged. "I don't expect you to be. And that works out quite handy, because I'm not the person you knew before, either."

"Oh." That… was not what he'd been expecting to hear. "I just thought… you know… you wanted things to go back to how they were?"

"In terms of our completely platonic and totally normal quasi-rivalry-friendship, sure. But as for everything else… you can't go back. Ever." He paused for a moment to consider his ale. "Unless you're a wizard, I guess. Like in the Wizard of Oz. Maybe he can go back. See, I had a lot of time to think about the meaning of life stuff when I was recuperating from my injury. And I figure, life is like a river. It flows along in one direction. Sometimes it meets other rivers, and they merge for a while. And as it's flowing along, the scenery changes, like sometimes it's flowing through fields and stuff, and sometimes it's thundering down mountains in a waterfall. And I figure, this river, we can navigate it a bit. Go from side to side, bank to bank, enjoy the scenery as it comes along, and enjoy spending time with the people who're along for the ride. That's where we are right now, by the way. But one thing we can't do is go the other way. We can't go upstream. All we can do is go downstream, and be changed by the journey. I don't think we're ever meant to go back, otherwise we'd all revert to cavemen. Right?"

"I guess." It made sense. In one of those stupid Wells-ways. And thinking about the people he'd lost, the men like Carrot and Tipper and Franklin and Davies, everyone who'd died before their time… thinking of their lives as rivers that had briefly merged with his was much nicer than thinking of them dead and pushing up daisies. Maybe rivers merging like that was even enough to change the course of his river… his life… in terms of the effect they'd had on him, and how much he'd gained from knowing them. Still, more time to deal with his friend coming back from the dead would not go amiss. "Would you mind if… well, if I didn't tell Dugan and the others that you're alive, just yet?" He needed time to wrap his head around everything, and that was just too many rivers to deal with all at once.

"Why would I mind? I didn't come here for them." He smiled and pushed his empty glass forward. "I came for the ale, of course. Are you gonna buy the next round, or are we actually gonna go somewhere fun?"

Bucky drained his glass and stood. "All right. Fun it is. I think I know a place that might work."