We Were Soldiers

50. Choices

Bucky woke up bone-weary, his mind in a thick, numbing fog. Every morning, it was the same. Fear of losing Stoller in the night woke him over and over again, so that every hour or so he was waking just to check that the guy was still breathing, which was stupid, because the men took it in turns to watch Stoller, and any one of them would have woken the rest if the injured soldier took a turn for the worse. At this rate, it might take another five days to get back to camp. Another five days of barely any sleep. If he had to go even one more day, he thought he might go crazy. With his thoughts heavy and sluggish, he knew his reflexes had been dulled by exhaustion. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Yawning deeply, he pushed himself out of his sleeping roll and made his way over to the makeshift stretcher, his legs trudging numbly, as if they had lead weights attached to them. Stoller was awake, though by the look in his eyes, he was pretty out of it. The guy did nothing but sleep and get carried around, yet he looked worse than Bucky felt. Go figure. Beside him, Wells and Tex were talking quietly. Both men looked up when Bucky appeared, but he ignored them and crouched down beside Stoller for a minute.

"How're you doing, Private?" he asked.

"Mm'tired, Sarge," Stoller mumbled.

"I know the feeling, pal." He gave the guy a pat on the shoulder. "Hang in there. We'll have you back to camp in no time." Stoller nodded mutely, and Bucky sent a silent prayer of thanks that the young soldier didn't bring up the subject of leaving him behind again. He searched around for the first aid kit, and when he couldn't find it, he turned to Wells. "You got the kit?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I gave Stoller more morphine about a half-hour ago."

"Alright. Hand it over, I need something from it."

Wells pulled the kit from his backpack and passed it on. "What're you looking for?" he asked, after Bucky had rooted around inside it for a moment.

"Benzedrine."

At last he found it, right at the bottom of the kit. He pulled out the box and counted the tablets in the blister pack. Twelve. It might be enough, just, if the trip took five days. He could limit himself to two per day. Regs said you weren't supposed to take more than three doses in a week, but these circumstances were pretty extenuating. He needed to be awake, to be able to focus. He couldn't operate with his mind in a tired fog. He'd only get men killed, like that.

When he felt eyes burning a hole in him, he glanced up and saw Wells and Tex watching him.

"What?" he demanded.

"Private, go wake the rest of the men, tell them to have breakfast." Wells waited until Tex was gone, then swivelled around in his cross-legged seated position to face Bucky. "You don't need that."

"I beg to differ. I feel like I'm wading through pea soup every damn minute of every day."

"That's because you haven't been sleeping properly."

"How do you know how I sleep?" Bucky scoffed. "As soon as your eyes are closed, you're out like a light. Not even a blitz could wake you."

"You forget, I'm a smart-ass. And right now, I say you don't need to be more awake; you need to be more asleep."

"That's a luxury we don't have. And I didn't ask for your opinion. I know what I'm doing."

Wells looked like he was about to argue back, but Bucky was saved from a lecture by Roberto's arrival. The guy strode up issuing a stream of unintelligible Italian, gesturing to himself, then to Stoller, then to the forest in general, appearing agitated and making Bucky even more exhausted just looking at him.

"Wells?" he sighed.

Wells shrugged. "From his emphatic gesticulating, I deduce he's singing something to the tune of, 'This is taking too long, we're all in danger, the Germans may find us at any minute, we should leave this injured guy behind and get back to base as quickly as possible with my valuable information.' Don't worry, Stoller, we're not leaving you behind," Wells added for the barely-conscious private.

The blister pack in Bucky's hands was shaking. Took him a moment to realise it was his hands which were shaking. Goddamn tiredness. Why couldn't it go bother someone else?

"Tell him to get lost," he instructed.

With a deep sigh, Wells said, "Si, si signore, go eat breakfast." He pulled out his phrasebook. "Go… andare… eat… mangiare… breakfast… colazione. Andare mangiare colazione. Of course, those are just words, and without a proper sentence structure, for all I know I just said 'your mom looks like a donkey.'"

"Why can't there be some goddamn language that everyone speaks?" Bucky growled. Stupid Italians and their stupid language.

"Oh, there is. I just dunno if I'm officially approved to use it."

Bucky stared for a moment at his friend. "For godssake, Wells, if you know something, don't keep it to yourself!"

"Alright." Wells pulled his sidearm from his holster, cocked it, and pointed it at Roberto. Then he made a shoo'ing motion, and gestured to rest of the team, who were clustered not far away wisely pretending they didn't see the crazy Italian gesticulating or their sergeants arguing about the use of stimulants. "Andare. Andare," Wells said, pointing again. "No, don't wave your arms at me and rant, go away. Andare. Ah, fuckit." He pointed his gun into the air and fired it once, a loud report tearing through the peace of the morning and making everyone except Private Stoller jump. The fog in Bucky's mind quickly began to clear as he contemplated tackling his clearly insane friend before he could turn that gun back to Roberto.

Tackling proved unnecessary. Roberto seemed to get the message regardless of what Wells had been saying about his mom. He scurried back to the men, who'd suddenly become a lot more interested in examining their boots. Smart men.

"Oh look, seems we do speak the same language after all," said Wells, holstering his pistol. "Gusty, keep an eye on Stoller. Biggs, do the same for our linguistically challenged friend. Sergeant Barnes, would you join me by the river for a moment?"

There was little Bucky could do except let his friend lead him away from the campsite, down to the river bank. He half expected Wells to pick up the argument about the amphetamines again, so he was pleasantly surprised when that didn't happen. The pleasant surprise lasted only a brief moment, however.

"Y'know," Wells said, "the guy's technically right. This is taking too long. The delay is unacceptable."

He could barely believe what he was hearing. "Surely you're not seriously thinking of leaving Stoller behind?"

"Of course not. Give me two men, a couple of extra canteens, and half your rations. You can take the rest of the team and the guy we're babysitting, and be back at camp in a couple of days if you set a fast pace. It might take us longer to get there, but I'll make sure Stoller makes it back."

"That's a stupid idea." He didn't even bother thinking about it. There was nothing to think about. "I'm not leaving anybody behind."

"Barnes, don't be an idiot. The mission here is to get that guy back to base. You have to complete the mission."

"And I will," he said. Why was Wells even suggesting this? It was suicide. "We will. We'll all complete it together."

"More likely this delay will get us all killed." Wells took a step closer, his face a deepening scowl. "What happens if we're ambushed again? What if we lose someone else? Eventually, we're gonna run out of able bodies to carry the injured. The smartest thing is to split up now, whilst most of the team are somewhat fresh and uninjured."

"I never claimed to be a smart man. If it's such a smart idea, why don't you take the team and get the informant back, and I'll stay with Stoller? After all, you're the one who's supposed to speak Italian."

"Because I saw how you looked when Stoller got hit. You're better at motivating people to accomplish the mission, and I'm better at cleaning up the mess when things go sideways. That's why our missions are always successful. And now, for this mission to be successful, the men need you to get them safely back to base."

Bucky clenched his jaw so hard that it ached. Wells was wrong. Splitting the team was a terrible idea. A stupid idea. But Wells had been acting pissed off since early in the mission. Clearly this stupid idea was just a symptom of whatever was bothering him.

"Fine," Wells said, when their stare-off ended in a stalemate. There was that uncompromising look in his eyes again. "This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go back there and order Gusty to take the rest of the men and get Roberto back to base camp. You can either go with them, and help keep them alive, or you can stand here arguing with me until we both die of old age."

"Gusty won't listen to you. And the men won't leave Stoller."

"Yes, they will, because they know how important this mission is. The only reason you're being so goddamn stubborn is because you're exhausted. You're so exhausted you think taking stimulants is a good idea. If I ask for two men to stay behind and help me bring Stoller back, the rest will go. Because unlike you, they're still capable of seeing sense."

"You're wrong."

"Prove it," Wells challenged.

"Fine. And when you're proven wrong, you have to accept that we're all sticking together." Soon, Wells would be eating his words.

"That's fine. And when I'm proven right, you have to accept that my plan is the best way, and you have to see it through."

"Fine. Let's go see what everyone says about your stupid idea."

They joined the rest of the team, and when Bucky called for everyone's attention, they gave it him immediately. They looked tense. Twitchy. It was all Wells' fault. He shouldn't'a fired his gun like that.

"We have two problems," he began. Clouds of that foggy tiredness tried to roll across his aching mind, and he pushed back at them, keeping them at bay through sheer force of will. Now, the lead weights on his legs felt like they'd been transferred to his eyelids. "First, the mission is taking longer than expected. We only have a couple of days' worth of rations left. Second, the longer we spend out here, the more chance of us coming across more Nazis."

"You should leave me behind," Stoller called out feebly. Bucky ignored him.

"Now, Wells has come up with a plan to split the team into two groups. One group would come with me, and we'd set a fast pace to escort our Italian informant back to base camp. The second group would stay with Wells, and help get Stoller back at a more manageable pace. It will be risky, so I'm not gonna order anyone to stay behind. If we don't get two volunteers to stay with Wells and help Stoller, then we'll all stick together, and we'll go back to camp the same way we started out; as one team."

He watched their faces as his words sank in. Saw their eyes assessing the situation from all angles, calculating their chances. They knew that Wells' ideas were always completely mad, and he knew his one team speech had appealed to their spirit of military camaraderie. Wells was gonna sulk for the entire trip back, but it would be worth it, to keep the men together.

"So," he said, after they'd had the moment they needed. "Are there any volunteers to stay behind and help Wells?"

Bucky's heart dropped into his stomach when every hand was raised. They weren't even tentatively raised. It didn't start with one man, then slowly spread to the others. They didn't have to glare or guilt each other into it. Their hands went from down to up in a heartbeat.

"But…"

"You said it yourself, Sarge," Gusty spoke up. "We can go forty-eight hours without food, and on minimal sleep, but we don't have enough rations left for every man if it takes another four or five days to get back. It's just math."

"Fine." He turned his head slightly to address Wells, but didn't look at his friend's face. Didn't wanna see the gloating expression in his eyes. "Who do you want?"

"Biggs and Pearson," Wells said. "The rest of you, leave us with as much of your rations as you think you can spare."

Now that the decision was made, the men didn't hang about. They had a quick breakfast, sorted through their ration kits and packed up the camp in just under twenty minutes. Stoller tried a couple more times to convince the team to leave him behind, but nobody paid him any attention, and he eventually gave up. Bucky tried to drag his feet. To pack slow and delay the moment he had to take the majority of the team and leave their friends behind. There was no guarantees he'd see any of them again, once they parted ways.

Eventually, he was ready to go. He told Gusty to take the men on ahead, and loitered behind as the group set off. Pearson was doing his best to make Stoller comfortable for the journey, while Biggs and Wells packed the extra food into their haversacks and checked over their weapons. Wells pulled something out of his bag, and a rueful smile graced his mouth.

"You should take this," he said, holding the Italian phrasebook out to Bucky. "Might come in handy."

"Alright. And you should take this," he replied, handing over a couple of extra M1 ammo clips from his bandolier. "But I'm keeping the Benzedrine."

Wells pursed his lips, but didn't object. Maybe he didn't wanna push his luck, now that he'd had one victory. "When I get back, I'm gonna get Stark to invent me something better than Benzedrine."

"Just make sure you do get back," Bucky told him. "We've got a war to win."

"Don't worry, Barnes." Wells ejected the half-spent ammo clip from his M1 and replaced it with a full one. The bolt slid back into place with a grim, mechanical note of finality. "I've miles to go before I sleep."

Bucky gave a humourless snort, but he couldn't delay any longer. His team were almost out of view, and he had a lot of ground to cover. Time itself seemed against him. Once, he'd had so much of it that he hadn't known what to do with it. He'd filled his time with poker and books and pranks. Now that he needed more of it, it ran ahead of him, always just out of reach.

He followed after the rest of his team, and didn't look back until he was far enough away that the four men at the campsite were nothing but indistinct blurs.

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

Bucky had a new best friend, and its name was Benzedrine. An hour after taking his first dose, he felt as if he'd had a good night's sleep. Everything was better with Benzedrine's warm arms wrapped around his mind. The shadows beneath the trees were less ominous. The small sounds of the forest were less threatening. He felt like he'd sense any Nazis approaching long before they could surprise the group. Nazis were evil, and now, thanks to Benzedrine, Bucky could sense evil.

Seven hours after his first dose, he lost the ability to sense evil and his mind sank back into the thick pea-soup fog of tiredness. So, he took another dose, and regained his amazing new ability and his immunity to being tired.

He wanted to talk. Needed to talk. He had too many thoughts to contain in his head, and they had to come out, but he couldn't talk to the rest of the team because they were focused on their surroundings. The rest of the team didn't have Bucky's newfound ability to sense evil approaching, so they had to concentrate and remain alert. They were doing a good job of it, too; even Mex wasn't chattering, for once.

He couldn't talk to the men, so he talked to Steve. Steve wasn't there, of course, because here was Italy, and Steve was back in New York. But he could imagine Steve walking right beside him… maybe panting and wheezing a little because the altitude was a little higher than normal, and the oxygen not quite as heavy as it was in New York.

"But at least the air's clean!" he said mentally to Steve. "Just smell it, pal! No dust kicked up from the streets, no fumes from cars. It's like drinking pure, liquid air, except it's a gas, and I'm breathing it. I wish you could be here breathing it, too.

"It's a real shame you never got accepted. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be crazy for you to be out here, but I sure do miss you at times. If only you weren't so stubborn! There are jobs you could'a done out here. You could'a been a mechanic, or a cook—you make a mean plate of scrambled eggs—or you could'a gone to college and studied medicine. Or you could'a been a spy, maybe, because who would suspect Steve Rogers of being a spy? But no. You wanted to be an infantryman, just like your dad, and nothing else would do.

"Well, I can tell you right now, pal, it's overrated. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be doing my bit, but I get the feeling I should'a joined the Airforce. Maybe learned how to become a pilot. Remember when we first heard about Pearl Harbor? We went down to the nearest enlistment line the very next day. We were gonna enlist together, then apply for officer training school. But you didn't pass the physical, and when I found out about the huge backlog of men applying for officer training, I changed my mind. Didn't wanna wait. Thought I'd get to the front lines faster as an enlisted man.

"Mom thought I was crazy. Said my time at NYU ought to count for something. I told her the officer training school wasn't exactly rushing to snap up English Majors. Maybe I was just being impatient. Maybe I should'a listened. Not that it matters. I am where I am. Thinking about being someplace else ain't gonna change a thing."

"Sarge, do you think we oughta send a couple of men to scout ahead?" asked Gusty.

It was then Bucky realised they'd reached the edge of the forest. All that lay ahead of them was meadow. Meadow and mountain, not unlike the place where Stoller had been shot. Wait… they hadn't come full circle, had they?! He shook his head. That really was crazy. Gusty had his map and compass out, and Gusty wasn't an idiot; he could travel in a straight line with the best of them.

"No, it's okay," he told the corporal. "I can sense evil."

Gusty gave him a funny look, then told Tex and Marsh to go scout ahead.

The pair returned some twenty minutes later to report that the fields ahead seemed Nazi-free. Bucky didn't bother with an I told you so, because nobody liked a gloater. His finely-honed evil-senses would keep the team safe, but if Gusty needed to send scouts, then Gusty could send as many scouts as he felt the need to send.

"He's alright, really," Bucky told Steve in his head. "Reminds me of you, sometimes. He gets a bit nervous around dames, though he's getting better now that he has Audrey. Come to think of it, Tex reminds me of you a little, too. He's laid back, easy-going. And Wells reminds me of you, as well. Too damn smart for his own good, just like you. His mouth gets him into trouble so often that I think he could give you a run for your money.

"Maybe I see pieces of you in everybody around me because you're not here yourself. I wonder if I'm a piece of you, too. Wouldn't that be weird? Bucky Barnes – a piece of Steve Rogers! I guess I'd be your sense of justice. Or maybe your fighting spirit. Only… I haven't had much of my own fighting spirit, since getting over here. Used to be I enjoyed climbing into a ring. Now I'm in the biggest ring of all, and sometimes I hate it. I hate the things I have to do, the lives I have to take, the friends I have to lose.

"What if I lose Wells, and Biggs, and Pearson, and Stoller? What if they don't make it back? Gah, I'm such an idiot! If you were here, you wouldn't have let me leave those men behind. Why weren't you here earlier, when I needed backup? I should'a stayed. I should'a made Wells escort our Italian informant back to camp, and I should'a been the one to stay with Stoller. Now I might never see them again. Why didn't you tell me to argue harder against that stupid idea, Steve?"

The next time the team stopped moving, it was dark. When had that happened? It seemed to Bucky that the lights had just been switched out. But his ability to sense evil was still there, so that was good.

"I think this will make a good campsite," Gusty said. He'd halted the team in the lee of an overhanging bluff. Here they would be sheltered from prying eyes and elements alike.

"If I was the brass, I would'a made you a Captain by now," Bucky told him wisely. "And if I was a General, I'd marry you."

"I, umm, what?"

He gave a quiet snort. "I mean, I'd perform your marriage vows. I think Generals are allowed to do that."

"Err, right, Sarge. Why don't you… umm… take a seat and focus on… err… sensing evil? We need to know if any Nazis are close enough to get the jump on us."

"You're a smart man, Gusty."

Bucky sat down on the dry, grassy ground and let his mind unfurl like the leaf of a fern opening up to the rays of the sun. He couldn't sense any evil around him, which meant they were safe for now. And while he was busy mentally searching for Nazis, the rest of the team began to turn the area into a proper campsite. They brought out cooking stoves, and shared a single tin of beans between them. Bucky eschewed food, because he thought it would interfere with his evil-sense.

"I see more clearly without it," he told Gusty, when the corporal tried to force beans on him.

Gusty gave him a worried look, then went to feed Roberto.

Ah yes, Roberto! Bucky had almost forgotten about him. From his pocket, he pulled out the Italian phrasebook and opened it to page one. Wells had failed at learning Italian, but how hard could it be?

The letters swam around the page. They darted here and there like minnows in a stream. Or, rather, like he imagined minnows in a stream would dart. He'd never seen minnows, but he'd read about them in a book. The book said they darted, just like the letters on the page. When one of the words began attacking his thumb, he dropped the book with a yelp.

"Holy crap! No wonder Wells couldn't make heads nor tails of this thing!" he said. The rest of the team looked on, thoroughly perplexed. "The words are alive, and they're vicious little bastards!" He looked up, into Gusty's worried face. "Throw it on the fire, quickly, before they escape!"

"Err, Sarge." The corporal looked hesitant. And concerned. Very concerned. Even more concerned than he'd been about Stoller, and he'd been pretty damn concerned at the time. "Could I, erm, take a look at that packet of Benzedrine?"

"I didn't overdose," Bucky assured him. "The medic back at boot camp said no more than three days, and it's been only one."

"I know, but I just want to make sure they haven't passed their expiration date."

Gusty seemed genuinely concerned, so he handed the packet over. The corporal counted the tablets out, and then spoke to the rest of the squad like Bucky wasn't even there.

"He's only had two. He shouldn't be like this."

"I'm fine," Bucky assured the men. "It's not me that's the problem, it's that damn book." He gave the book a good glaring. "If Wells was here, he'd tell you."

"Ah'm no doctor," said Tex, and the mental image of Private Robertson wearing a doctor's coat made Bucky snigger quietly, "but only a month ago, he was drugged by a Nazi spy with something even Mr. Stark doesn't fully understand. Maybe whatever it was has lingered in his system and had a whatchamacallit… an adverse reaction to the Benzedrine."

"I'm fine," Bucky assured them. "Fit as a fiddle. Fit as the fiddler, in fact." They ignored him, and he understood what it meant to be Stoller.

"Sarge, I think you should have something to eat and then have a good, long nap," Gusty said. He handed over a tray full of beans and his canteen.

"But then who will sense evil approaching?"

"We'll do it the old fashioned way, by keeping watch."

"Well… alright," Bucky relented. Gusty was a smart guy. Practically a captain, except that he was still a corporal. "But you gotta wake me for my turn at watch."

"Of course."

So, Bucky ate the beans, and they were cold. And he drank the water, and it was warm. It was as if somebody had inverted the way things ought to be. Water oughta be cold, and beans oughta be warm. But that was Europe for you; they had everything backwards. Like beer that was flat, and books which attacked you.

After his drink and his dinner, Gusty helped him with his bedroll, and he settled down beneath his blanket. He wished for a pillow, but fate was cruel and did not provide him with one. When his eyes finally closed, he sank into a deep sleep, one filled with dreams of flying over New York, and watching Steve—dressed in the American flag—getting punched by some guy draped in that awful monstrosity of a thing from the HYDRA bunkers. He wanted to swoop down and help, but somewhere further away he heard Wells shouting out that he was being attacked by books, so he left Steve to his fight and soared over the Alps in search of his absent squadmates.