We Were Soldiers

90. Burn

He was aflame, his entire body burning from the inside out. Dead. The world wanted him dead. Time and time again, the fire rose up and tried to consume him. It raced over his skin and deep into his bones, and he knew only one thing: If he could find Steve, everything would be okay. Steve would help him. Steve would know what to do.

The forest beckoned, and he ran and he ran. Low branches whipped his face as he raced through the undergrowth, and vines clawed at his legs, trying to bring him down. Tears of frustration spilled from his eyes, and where they rolled down his cheeks they burned so hot that they felt like ice. He shed his tears as he shed the miles, not even knowing whether what he sought was truly there.

Whispers came to him, hushed voices borne on an icy wind. They said his name, over and over again. "Barnes. Barnes. You're dying… save yourself… on your feet, soldier…" And another voice whispered in tandem, a woman's voice, full of scorn. "At times you act more like little boys than grown men! This isn't a fairytale. It isn't a story. It isn't a game."

"I gotta find Steve," he told the voices. "I can't stay here. I gotta find Steve."

His best friend's voice came through on the wind, quieter than a whisper, little more than a gentle sigh. "I'm right here, pal. Just hang on."

But he didn't know how to hang on, or what to hang to, so he ran again. If Steve was in this forest, Bucky would find him.

Blindly he ran, unable to see past the tears and the trees, only realising he'd reached a sheer cliff when he was already tumbling over it. The world swirled like a vortex, a kaleidoscope of white and green and black, and when he landed it was outside a familiar concrete bunker. The first concrete bunker he'd ever seen. The start of his trial by fire.

He stepped towards it, and shadows stepped with him. They were tall as men but dark as night. They stepped when he stepped, stopped when he stopped, watched in silence as if waiting for him to command them. "I don't want to do this anymore," he said. "I know who you are, and I already watched you die once. Why can't you just leave? Why can't you rest in peace?"

The shadows said nothing, their faces blank and impassive. Then, one by one, they turned, and walked into the forest. Bucky's shivering began anew. If they left him, he'd be all alone. Surely the dead were better company than the emptiness of the forest. Better company than his own guilts and regrets.

"Wait." He shouted the command as he ran after them, but this time, they ignored him. They moved slowly, at their ease, but no matter how fast he ran, he couldn't catch them. Even when he reached out to grab the nearest shadow-soldier, it somehow danced out of reach. Names flitted across his tongue, names of the men he'd commanded and lost. But he held back. He wasn't sure what would happen, if he called them by their names. Maybe if they knew their names and remembered who they were, they would disappear forever.

The chase ended at a clearing in which a campfire burned. As soon as the heat from the flames touched his skin, he knew he'd found what he'd been looking for, and he knew he wasn't burning after all; he was freezing cold, colder than he'd ever been in his life. A tree stump beside the fire looked smooth and warm, so he sat down on it and held his hands towards the flames while the shadows watched from the trees. When he looked down behind him, he saw his own shadow stretching out across the leaf-strewn ground, seemingly going on forever.

"You know… if you want to come closer to the fire, you can use my shadow," he told the shadow-soldiers. "You don't have to stay out in the cold anymore."

They surged forward, running along the edges of his shadow, creeping across his hands, sliding up his arms. He'd expected them to be cold, with a touch like death, but they were as hot as the flames of the fire, and they swarmed over his body before the world erupted in a bright flash of light.

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

Bucky's eyelids crept open to a cold white light. He didn't need his vision to know he was in a hospital; the scent of iodine was enough to tell him that. And when he was finally able to fully open his eyes, his suspicions were confirmed. He was in a hospital room, complete with sterile grey tiles and an oversized Steve Rogers dozing in his olive-drab uniform in a chair next to the bed. His head pounded, his throat felt raw and a needle attached to a drip was sticking out the back of his left hand, but at least he was alive. And if Steve was sleeping, that meant Bucky was probably recovering.

How long had it been since… the shadows? He shook his head. No. That hadn't been real. Norway. Norway was real. But judging by the cloudy grey sky he could see outside the window, he wasn't in Norway anymore. This was an English sky if ever he'd seen one.

"What the hell happened?" he croaked with his sandpaper tongue.

It was loud enough to wake Steve, whose blue eyes flew open only a fraction before he was out of his seat and heading towards the open door. He stuck his head out and yelled, "Doctor, he's awake!" He was back at Bucky's bedside before Bucky could even reiterate his question. "It's so good to see you, Buck. You had me worried."

"So I gather. Help me sit up before the docs get here and start trying to take blood." He struggled with his pillow until Steve helped prop it behind his back, then tried to find a comfortable position to lie in. Not an easy feat, with his muscles aching like he'd run a marathon. "How did I get here? What happened in Norway? Did I ruin the mission?"

His questions went unanswered. At that moment, two doctors, one nurse and Howard Stark appeared in the door, and Bucky was assaulted by a mêlée of stethoscopes and thermometers and groping hands. The eldest doctor introduced himself as Hopkins, and asked Bucky how he felt.

"Like I woke up in a hospital room after drinking a pint of sand," Bucky admitted. "What's wrong with me?"

"Amongst other things? A somewhat severe case of malnutrition. You need to start eating properly, Sergeant Barnes."

"But I have! Wait—what 'other things' are we talking about?"

A look passed between the medics. A look that said everything and nothing all at once. It was not a promising look.

"We don't really know," Dr. Hopkins admitted. "Your blood-work is… well, it's… peculiar."

Just the thought of having peculiar blood made Bucky feel cold inside. Why did bad things continually happen to him? Why couldn't something go right for once? In a voice that came out a lot smaller than intended, he asked, "Am I dying?"

"Good heavens, no!" Dr. Hopkins appeared horrified by the very suggestion that one of his patients might be so unwell.

"What he means is," Stark clarified, "probably not. In truth, we've no idea what's wrong with you."

"And you're here why?" Bucky asked the inventor. Not that he didn't appreciate Stark's medical input—the guy technically had saved his life during that whole Nurse Green incident, after all—but surely Stark had better things to do than tend to a sick soldier.

Stark stuck his thumb out, indicating the doctors beside him. "They called me in when they couldn't figure out what was wrong with you. I'm still working on it. But in the meantime, I've managed to nurse you back to consciousness. Yay for me. Must be my impeccable bedside manner. And besides, you owe me a two hundred dollar bottle of Scotch. I'm not lettin' you off with that."

"Sergeant Barnes," Hopkins picked up when Stark took a breath, "you really need to start taking better care of yourself. No skipping meals, especially before missions."

"That's what I was drying to tell you, Doc. I don't skip meals. I eat as much as—and sometimes more than—the rest of my team. Good stuff, too, none of that horrible cheese Dernier keeps trying to force on us." Dr. Hopkins expression said he didn't quite believe Bucky's claim, so Bucky turned to his oldest friend for help. "Tell him, Steve!"

Trying to drag assistance outta Steve was like drying to draw blood from a stone. Bucky could tell by the expression on his friend's face that this was as worried as he'd ever been about someone else's health, but at the same time, he just didn't know how to tell a lie.

"It's true, Doctor. Bucky's got a good appetite. Always has. I know for a fact he doesn't skip meals, and he ate the same as us right before and during the mission."

"Which rules out that food poisoning nonsense," said Stark. Bucky gave him the stink-eye, but Stark was too busy examining Bucky's chart at the foot of the bed. "You wouldn't have electrolyte levels like this if you had food poisoning. For now, I want to put you on the same high-protein, high-fat energy bars that Captain Rogers consumes… let's say, three bars per week. Any more than that and we risk turning you into Sergeant Tubby."

"So much for your excellent bedside manner," Bucky scoffed. "What makes you think eating those bars would help me, anyway?"

"Well, if you're eating as much as the rest of your team, then the problem isn't what you're eating, but how much your body's processing. If, for some reason, your body isn't getting as much out of your food as it ought to, then that would account for the malnutrition, which could in turn account for some of your other symptoms, such as muscle spasms and exhaustion. If we can't feasibly increase the amount that you consume, maybe we can increase the calorie content. The bars I made for Captain Rogers are designed to fuel a metabolism that burns faster than usual."

"But why am I like this? What's caused my body to not process food like it should?" The hesitant glance that passed between Steve and Stark sent a chill up Bucky's spine, and confirmed one of his worst fears. "Zola. You think that whatever he did to me in Krausberg has messed me up." He'd always known it. Zola had taken pieces out of him, or put pieces in him, or changed him. Krausberg had stayed with him even after he'd got out, not just in his nightmares, but in his body. At some deep level, he was broken.

"We don't know that for sure, Buck." The pity in Steve's troubled blue eyes was too hard to look at, so Bucky fixed his gaze on the ceiling and tried not to let despair creep in and overwhelm him.

"But it's a pretty good bet," said Stark. "But don't worry, we're doing everything we can to figure out what's wrong with you. In the meantime, food and bed-rest is the best medicine I could prescribe. We've already got you on an intravenous solution, but I want you to start your new high-calorie regime right away. I'll head back to my lab and grab you a supply of the bars."

Stark left, and Steve asked the medical staff to give him a moment alone with Bucky. As soon as the door was clocked, he asked, "Y'okay, Buck?"

No. No he wasn't okay. Krausberg had found him all over again. Zola was still sticking his needles under Bucky's skin; he was simply doing it from afar. Bucky was still on that cold metal table, and he probably always would be. But maybe that was his cross to bear. His punishment for holding a gun to his head and trying to rob his family of their son and brother. Maybe he was just going to have to live with the coldness and darkness that now dwelt in his heart.

"Yeah," he said, pulling his gaze from the ceiling, focusing on his friend. It wasn't entirely a lie. Until now, he'd been pretending. Hoping. Putting on a brave face. Fearing the worst. Now, the worst had happened. He'd let Steve and the team down. Zola was still torturing him. The best Bucky could do now was accept that he was broken and try to fight whatever was being done to him. Hopefully he could fight long enough to make Zola and Schmidt pay. "I mean, no. But I will be. I think."

A tidal wave of relief flooded over Steve's face, taking years off him. "You know I'll do whatever we can to help. We all will. The whole team."

"I know. Now, will you tell me what happened in Norway? How'd the mission go down? How'd we get out? How long have we been back? And for Godssake, pull up a chair; it's hurting my neck to look up at you all the time."

"Oh yeah, I forgot how much taller I am now," Steve said, ever his humble self. He dragged the chair over to the side of the bed and settled his overly large frame into the considerably smaller frame. "Well, the first thing you need to know is, the mission was a complete success, so please don't worry that you ruined anything. We went through with the plan with only a minor hiccup—"

"Details on the minor hiccup, please."

"Well…" Steve ran a hand through his hair as his gaze turned inward. "We encountered some resistance inside the facility. I sent the rest of my team out to safety and planned to drop the explosive, give myself a five second count, and blow it once I was clear. What I didn't realise was Falsworth had… improvised. His team set their explosive at the door, then drained some of the fuel from the vehicles and drenched the walls in it. When I blew my explosive, the gasoline ignited and caused the second explosive to detonate prematurely. I got a bit… singed."

Bucky winced in sympathy. "I hope you weren't too badly burned?"

"Not too bad," Steve agreed, though Bucky could tell he was lying. "It mostly got my back, because I was withdrawing at the time. I wasn't so badly hurt that I couldn't make it back to camp under my own steam, but my uniform took quite a beating. That's why I'm back in this." He gestured down at his olive-drab duds. "Stark says he's going to make the next suit flame-retardant. It's probably going to be made entirely of asbestos."

"Did you take any prisoners?"

Steve shook his head, and Bucky sighed quietly in relief. Prisoners had been one of the things Steve had been worrying over. What to do with them. How to handle them. It was a weight off his shoulders, to know that his friend hadn't had to deal with those concerns after all.

"After we got back to camp," Steve continued, "we activated the transponder for our pick-up, and Leif guided us to the landing point. He left us there, said he had to get moving again. We only had to wait for an hour or so for our plane. That was two days ago."

Two days? Jeez, it only felt like two hours! Had Steve been here all that time? Knowing Steve, he probably had. And the fact that he'd actually been sleeping told Bucky that his best friend had probably spent the past two days awake and worrying.

"Any word from Phillips?"

"About you?"

"No, doofus; about our next mission."

Steve got that cagey look about him. The one he always got when he didn't really wanna say what needed to be said. "No." He steeled himself. "He said you've gotta pass a whole bunch of physicals before he'll let you on any more missions."

Figured. Bucky wished he could argue, but in Phillips' position, he'd do exactly the same. You couldn't have a man on the team if he wasn't fit for duty. That was why he'd swapped Wells for Carrot, that day Wells had stabbed himself while juggling knives. Phillips was just doing what was best for the team, and Bucky would just have to do everything he could to get better and show the colonel that he wasn't a liability.

"Then pass physicals I shall," he told Steve. "How's the rest of the team?"

"They're good. Morita finally stopped shivering… yesterday. And I gave Falsworth a couple of days furlough to visit his family. He didn't wanna go, but I ordered him."

"All that power finally going to your head, huh?"

Steve laughed, which made Bucky smile. It was good to see that leadership wasn't a burden to him. However, the laugh only lasted for a minute before it was replaced with the too-familiar frown of worry.

"Look, if you ever want to talk about Krausberg, I'm here. I know you don't like thinking of that place, but Stark believes if you could tell us about what happened, there might be some clue about what Zola was doing to you. It might help with your treatment. Get you on your feet a little faster."

Even before Steve had finished, Bucky was shaking his head. Krausberg was a floodgate he never wanted to open. Once he started talking about the needles and the opera and the fire burning in his veins, he'd have to talk about how he'd broken and tried to kill himself, and how he'd wished others in his place. Stark was pretty damn smart; sooner or later, he'd figure out a way to fix Bucky's problems… his medical problems, at least. But he'd do it without stories of darkness and torture and weakness. Nobody could ever know what had happened on that table.

"I'm pretty sure that all the important bits happened when I was unconscious," he told Steve. "You saw the state of me; I was barely with it even when I was awake." He bit his lower lip as something came back to him. Something that probably wouldn't hurt to tell Steve. Wouldn't hurt for Stark or Phillips to know. Maybe it would finally get Steve off his back. "There is one thing I remember clearly. I wasn't the first person they experimented on. Zola called me 'Subject 36.' And he mentioned something about phases, or stages. Maybe stages of testing. But I guess I blacked out after that."

Steve nodded as he took the information in. He'd probably be repeating it verbatim to Stark and Phillips later, but if it saved Bucky having to tell it again, that was fine. "Alright. Thanks, that might help. I guess it'll mean more to Stark than it does to me. If you think of anything else, let me know."

"I will." Time to deflect the conversation elsewhere. He didn't want to think of Krausberg. That place haunted his nightmares; no point it haunting his waking moments, too. "So, how's Agent Carter."

Steve managed to avoid a blush, but couldn't help the smile creeping across his face. "She's fine. Worried about you."

Bucky snorted. "I doubt it. Or, I doubt she's more worried about me than she is about the rest of the war effort. Anyway, you two set a second date yet?"

"I'm not so sure we've even had a first."

"What about that dinner and wine you had?"

"Does that count as a date?"

Poor, clueless Steve. "Of course it counts as a date!"

"I didn't buy her dinner. She insisted on paying for herself."

"Alright, then it was half a date." Bucky settled back on his bed and his muscles relaxed a little as thoughts of Krausberg faded into the background. Now he was on more familiar territory.

"In that case, I need some ideas for the second half of the first date. What've you got?"

Bucky chuckled as Steve pulled out his notepad and a pencil. It was nice to be able to talk to Steve about dames. In the past, he'd always been interested in the wrong ones; or they hadn't been interested in him. Maybe now, Steve could benefit from a little of Bucky's wisdom. It was only fair, after all.

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

An icy wind blew through the courtyard of the stalag, biting harshly at any inch of bare skin it could find. Michael, and the other workers in his detachment, hunched their shoulders, trying to find what little comfort they could in the dirty, stiff collars of their battered Army jackets.

"Captain!"

Lieutenant Cromwell skidded to a halt in the centre of the work detail, and Michael could tell that the pink flush to his cheeks wasn't entirely because of the cold wind. Whatever it was, it must be big. Cromwell wasn't usually given to excitement. That was one of the reasons Michael had picked him for the upcoming mission.

Feigning the need to knuckle his back, he leant against his shovel as he asked, "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"I just got word from Steinberg. He overheard an incoming transmission to the communications room. Our captors are expecting an additional supply of weapons and troops from Warsaw, and they'll be here tonight!"

Michael nodded as his sluggish, cold mind absorbed the information. Nobody knew who their captors were; they spoke German, but didn't wear the same uniforms as the rest of the Nazis. The guards were almost always masked with strange helmets, and the weapons they carried… he'd never seen anything like them before. One hit seemed to vaporise a victim. It was like something out of a fiction book.

Whatever or whoever their captors were, if they were getting reinforcements, it meant the chances of his plan succeeding would be greatly diminished. They would have to bring their schedule forward.

"Is the hole big enough?" he asked.

"Almost. Two of Steinberg's men are working on it now. They say it'll be ready within the hour."

"Good." The hole had to be deep enough to go beneath the electrified fence which ran around the outside of the compound. It had to be wide enough to fit a man. And it had to be concealed after each time it was worked on, to prevent their captors discovering it and filling it in. The work had been done predominantly at night, and it had been covered over by a mesh of fabric, weighted down at the edges and loosely covered with dirt. Even under great scrutiny, it was difficult to spot. So far, Michael and his men had been lucky. They couldn't expect their luck to last any longer. "Do you have the messages?"

Cromwell nodded and patted the breast pocket of his jacket. "All of them."

"And you have enough food?"

"Enough to get me to Krakow. Once I'm there, I can find a way to get more."

"And—"

"My clothes. I know." Cromwell continued with more patience than Michael would've had in his position. "There's a stash down by the river, the best civilian clothing Steinberg could get together. I know the exact spot, and I'll bury my uniform once I find it." A sheepish grin slid across his face. "Don't worry, Captain. I won't be travelling as Lieutenant Andrew Cromwell of the British Army, but as Janusz Nowak skilled tradesman. Steinberg had the falsified papers left with the clothes."

"Then this is it."

"It would seem so."

"All our hopes go with you, Lieutenant." Michael reached out, to rest a hand on his shoulder. "The world believes us dead, Cromwell. Show them they're wrong."

Cromwell saluted, standing as tall as he could manage. After three years of imprisonment in the stalag, it was a wonder he could stand at all. A wonder any of them could stand. Michael didn't know why he and his team had been transferred out of Stalag XX-A on the outskirts of Toruń, but for the past three years, he and his men had laboured for the Germans, mining iron from the deepest quarry Michael had ever seen. When he'd been brought here, thirty three of his men had come with him. Now, they were down to eight. The others had succumbed over the years to harsh treatment and deprivation. Michael and his survivors probably didn't have much work left in them; their ribs were visible beneath paper-thin skin, their collarbones protruding at painfully harsh angles.

Unfortunately, the Germans had no shortage of workers to replace those who perished. It was predominantly Jews who worked in the stalag, and the Germans worked them harder than they did Michael and his men. Hundreds had died, in the years Michael had been there. Only Steinberg and a handful of others, all of them skilled in some way that exempted them from dumb labour, had been there longer. Michael had promised the man that if this plan worked, and if his superiors back home eventually sent a rescue team, he would not leave without the Jewish prisoners. They were the ones who'd done most of the work on the hole, and they were the ones who'd arranged for Cromwell's travel papers and new clothes. They'd risked everything.

Michael resumed digging as Cromwell returned to his own detail. With hands shaking from excitement, he drove his shovel into the ground, and wondered how many more days he'd have to dig for before freedom would come. Cromwell's orders were to get to Krakow where he could blend in with the locals, then find a way to make contact with the Allies. If he could get back to England, or make it to a neutral country, all the better. With him, he carried letters from each of the surviving men. Proof that they hadn't been KIA after all.

As he dug into the frozen mud, his mind drifted back to home, to the family he'd left behind. Regret stabbed its icy fingers into his stomach. Regret about the way he'd left things. The last words he'd spoken to Peggy. That he hadn't done a better job of convincing her to join the SOE. She was probably married by now. Probably had a child, maybe another one on the way. All of her potential, wasted. Because of Fred. A man who sat comfortably in the Home Office while others gave their lives for freedom. Peggy deserved more. A pity she couldn't see that.

Thoughts of home always made time pass more quickly, and today was no exception. One minute he was back home, talking to Peggy about her chance at working for the SOE, and the next he was in the biting wind of the stalag, Corporal Backhouse elbowing him gently for attention.

"Steinberg says everything is ready," Backhouse whispered. "It's now or never."

Michael's heart fluttered with anticipation and excitement. Their last escape attempt had ended with the death of several of his men, but that had been a foolhardy attempt to overpower their guards and leave en mass. In the two years since then, Michael had grown wiser and more patient. His alliance with Steinberg had just been the first step. Now, they would take their final step. One that would hopefully lead to freedom for all.

"Then let's get it done," he whispered back. "It's time."

He nodded at Cromwell across the quarry, signalling his second-in-command to be ready for what would come next. Cromwell nodded back, and slowly began to work his way towards the hole. Michael gathered what was left of his men and led them to the water pump, where several of the Jews were working the device, pumping out muddy water into rough wooden cups. All Jews in the camp were easily distinguishable by the tattooed numbers on their arms, and the Star of David they were forced to wear on their prisoner rags. They came from all over Poland and Germany, shipped in whenever their captors needed replacement workers, united by their faith and their suffering.

He just hoped they could put on a good show.

For the first time in three years, Michael buried his respect for his fellow man. He buried it deep, where he hid his feelings of disappointment over his sister's choices. So deep that he couldn't let them touch him, and affect what needed to be done. As he approached the men at the pump, he fixed a glare on his face. Fed himself a lie. That he hated these people. That they were responsible for his downfall. He lashed out, knocking the cup out of one man's hand, muddy water seeping into the ground. With a snarl of anger, he said, "You. Jew. I'm fed up of you shirking your work. You idle at the water pump while me and my men slave away in the quarry. Well, it's time for that to end."

The Jewish man—Michael didn't know his name, but he knew he was one of Steinberg's associates—turned with a scowl of his own.

"Oh? And what are you going to do about it, Farshtunkener?"

He didn't stop to think about his actions, because he might've talked himself out of it. He just let the goad sink its hooks in, let his body move like he hadn't since he was twelve years old, responding to some school bully's taunt. "Oh, this is your sister's lunch? Well, what're you going to do about it, Carter?"

The punch wasn't thrown with his full strength. His 'full' strength was feeble right now anyway, but the last thing he wanted was to seriously hurt his opponent, even by accident. It wasn't a full strength punch, but it was enough to send him staggering back. As if on some signal, other men joined the fray on both sides. Rigby and one of the Jewish men tussled by the water bucket, six-and-a-half-foot Camberley held off two Jews barely half his size, while Holt let one of the Jews throw him and pin him in a pretty convincing strangle-hold.

The fight had the desired effect. Guards came racing, wading into the mêlée, wielding rifles which they butted into ribs and backs to break up the combatants. Michael, focused on playing his part, barely noticed them—until one jabbed his rifle stock right into his floating ribs, sending him into a crumpled heap. Fighting for breath, he took in the state of his men. One of the Jews had a black eye, while Camberley's nose was bleeding. The knuckles on Michael's right hand were bruised, and he knew he wouldn't be the only one struggling to hold a shovel or a pick for a few days.

"Get back to vork," one of the guards commanded. "Or ve vill replace you."

Michael shivered at the threat. Men were only replaced when they died, and he wasn't willing to push his captors that far. Not when they were so close to getting word out.

"You Jews stay away from me and my men," Michael called to his limping opponent. A stupid thing to say, since the Jews far outnumbered Michael's team, but it was exactly the sort of thing an angry, hot-headed prisoner might mouth off. Until rescue came—which would probably be after the end of the war—he still had a part to play, and with enemy reinforcements on the way, the stage was about to become more dangerous than ever.

He didn't ask after Cromwell as he returned to work. He didn't look around, or otherwise draw attention to his absent team-mate. But an hour later, Backhouse sidled over to him and whispered that Steinberg had told him Cromwell managed to get away unnoticed in the chaos. By now, he would've recovered his new clothes and papers in their cache by the river, and would be well on his way to Krakow.

For the first time in three years, Michael Carter smiled.

Author's note: Thanks to everyone for your well-wishes. I'm much recovered from my cold now, and feeling pretty good overall. Don't worry, we won't be languishing with Bucky's illness much longer... the Commandos will soon be getting out and having adventures.