Chapter 1. Again

Author notes: Although this story continues from where Crossing Off the List ended, it opens with what sent Joyce Franklin's daughter, Hope, back to New York, explaining why she reacted the way she did at the end of that story. Bucky will appear near the end of this first chapter.

There were so many people on the steps leading up to the street from the subway platform that Hope Franklin was tempted to pretend being sick just to get people to move out of the way. She even envisioned it for a moment, picturing herself with her hand on her mouth, making a gagging noise while bleating out that she was going to be sick. But she wasn't that type of person, so she patiently crept up the stairs like everyone else until she came out into the hot muggy afternoon.

Two blocks away from the station she entered the supermarket and picked up a shopping basket. With her boyfriend Jack supposed to be home by 7 pm she wanted his favourite meal ready and waiting. At her first stop in the produce section, she picked out a fresh garlic bulb, some shallots and lemons. Stopping at the seafood display she bought a dozen tiger shrimp and some scallops. Next was the fresh pasta, linguini, then some cream for the sauce, and fresh Parmesan. In the wine aisle she picked out a crisp white wine, then stopped at the bakery, choosing a chocolate mousse cake. As she walked past the pharmacy department she thought for a moment and figured she might as well, grabbing a box of condoms. It had been a few weeks since Jack went on his business trip, and his last text hinted that they had some important things to discuss. There was a lot of lost time to make up, so everything had to be perfect.

On the walk back to the apartment she looked up at her surroundings feeling good about today, of all days. It was the one-year anniversary of the day she met Jack Wallis, the man that she hoped to marry. That had to be what the important thing was that he wanted to discuss, right? The doorman was still on duty, and he greeted her as she came up the steps.

"Good afternoon, Miss Franklin," he said cheerily, opening the door for her. "Looks like you have the makings for a good meal there."

"I hope so, Fred," she replied. "Mr. Wallis is getting home this evening and I'm making him his favourite meal, seafood linguini with Alfredo sauce."

"Mr. Wallis has already been and gone," stated Fred. "He was in a few hours ago, left with a couple of large suitcases."

Hope stopped in her tracks, turning around slowly. Fred sickeningly realized that bit of information was not expected.

"What time exactly was he here?" she asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

Fred looked at his watch and sighed. "About 1:30. He left about an hour later." He winced slightly as he saw a flicker of despair on Hope's face. "I'm sorry."

Turning around without a word Hope pressed the elevator button and waited for the car to arrive. On the way up she breathed deeply to keep the impending sense of panic that she knew was just waiting to burst out of her. She could feel it's grip on her gut clawing its way up to her throat. All of this while a voice in her head was whispering "not again." When she finally arrived at the apartment door she stood and looked at it for some time before inserting the key and opening the door. Placing the groceries on the kitchen counter along with her purse Hope approached the bedroom and stood inside the door. Everything looked the same except Jack's watch case was gone from the top of the armoire.

"No," whispered Hope, "not Jack, please not him."

Pulling open the top drawer she saw it was empty; so were the other drawers. Beginning to panic Hope went to the closet with Jack's clothing and slid the doors open, revealing all empty hangers. All of Jack's shoes were gone, as was everything belonging to him that had been stored at the top of the closet. As Hope put her hand to her cheek, she was surprised to feel it was wet. Looking at the wet liquid on her hand it struck her that she was crying. She stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living room where she stood for a moment sweeping her view over the room when she saw it, a letter addressed to her. It was on the mantel piece of the faux fireplace right beside the picture of them taken at New Year's Eve moments after Jack said he loved her. Gingerly she picked up the envelope and took the letter out, sitting on the leather wing chair she bought Jack for his birthday.

Dear Hope,

First of all, let me tell you how sorry I am to be telling you this in a letter. I've been trying to gather my courage for some time but I'm a coward. I know that doesn't excuse how terrible a thing this is for me to tell you that I've fallen in love with someone else. She was a client in another city and meeting her was like being hit with a ton of bricks. We just clicked from the moment we met.

You're a wonderful woman and you deserve much better than me. To make up for the absolutely terrible way I've handled this I want you to keep the apartment for six months. Everything is paid for that time and there's enough left in the joint account to cover food and incidentals. When you move take what you want - it's yours.

Once again, I'm truly sorry.

Jack

"Son of a bitch," said Hope, crumpling up the paper and tossing it into the space where a fire would be if they had an actual working fireplace instead of the fake one. Fake ... just like this relationship. Her lip trembled for a moment then she swallowed and took the picture of them out of the frame, tearing it up into little pieces and throwing them on top of the crumpled paper. That was just the start as she went through the photos of them mounted on the walls, tearing them up and tossing the remains on the growing pile. To that she added jewelry he bought her, clothes he gave her, and anything that ever came from Jack Wallis. Then she threw herself on the bed and cried until she fell asleep.

The following morning, she woke up early. The sun wasn't up yet and when she opened the door to the balcony the city was still quiet. Quiet except for the sound of a homeless woman on the street below, pushing a shopping cart ahead of her, filled with all of her possessions. An idea came to Hope, and she quickly got dressed, then headed out in search of the homeless woman, someone she had noticed before. She was already a couple of blocks away by the time Hope caught up to her, where she was digging through a garbage can, presumably looking for bottles she could cash in.

"Excuse me," said Hope.

The woman ignored her.

"Excuse me," she said louder, and the woman looked up at Hope.

"I didn't steal anything," replied the woman. "Everything I have was stuff that was thrown out."

"I believe you," said Hope. "I have a proposal for you."

"Fuck off," swore the woman. "I'm no hooker."

"I didn't say you were." Hope looked around. She must be crazy to even think of this. "If you had a place to live, rent free, plus an allowance to pay for food and maybe the occasional night out would you do it? Would you live there?"

The woman looked around, wondering if this was a setup. She stepped closer looking carefully at Hope's eyes.

"You don't look high," she stated. "Is this on the level?"

"Yep, on the level but you can only live there for six months," replied Hope. "That's six months of not being on the street. Six months for you to maybe turn your life around. I'm offering it to you, but I need to know right now if you're willing to give it a chance."

"What happens in six months?"

"The guy who owns the place will probably sell it," said Hope. "He dumped me. To make up for it he said I could live there for six months, rent free. But I can't stay there. Too many memories. Legally, I can sublet it to you for a token amount, say a dollar a month."

"What's the catch?" asked the woman.

"No catch," replied Hope. "Except that when he comes back you don't tell him where I've gone. You just use the place to live in and try to make your life better."

"What will you do?"

She looked up at the sky which was getting brighter by the moment. "I'm going home, back to New York, and figure out why I keep picking guys who dump me." Hope smiled sadly at the woman. "What do you say?"

The woman, Rae, agreed and pushed her cart to the front of the apartment building, looking up at it, then at Hope. Opening the door, they went to the elevator and Hope pushed the button for the tenth floor. She unlocked the apartment door and held it open for Rae, who peered around at the apartment then again at Hope.

"You sure you want to do this?" she asked.

"100% sure," replied Hope. "We've been together a year and he left me a letter that said he met someone better. I gave up a lot to come to Chicago with him. I have a fucking master's degree in graphic design, but he didn't like the idea of me working with so many men, so I settled for being a legal secretary. I hate it; I get hit on every day. How's that for ironic? So, I'm going home and I'm going to start over again. No men this time."

Rae smiled. "Good luck with that," she chuckled. "So, how do we do this?"

Hope opened her laptop and brought up a standard sublet agreement, entering her information then asking Rae for hers. For the sum of 1 per month for six months the apartment would be hers for that time period. She printed the agreement out then pulled the crumpled letter out of the fireplace, proving that Jack had left the apartment to her for six months and she was choosing to sublet it. Using the copy function on the printer she made three copies of the sublet agreement and two copies of the letter, Hope took six crumpled dollar bills from the no-longer homeless woman, creating a receipt to her on the computer, then printing out three copies, signing each one. Then she showed Rae around the apartment, told her to go ahead and have a shower, wash her clothes, and even offered her some of her clothes that she wasn't going to take with her. While Rae showered, she packed her suitcases, finishing just as the other woman came out of the bathroom, clean, wearing some of Hope's discarded clothing, and looking much younger than she had previously. Hope looked at the shopping cart, still full of the woman's possessions.

"You can keep it here but if you leave it in the parking garage people can use it to take groceries up to their apartment. There's a grocery store in the neighbourhood, lots of bars and little shops. They may need help and with you now having an address they'll look better on you if you apply for a job. I'm going to run to the bank and take out all the cash from our joint account. He said it was mine to do with as I pleased. I'll leave you some money to get you started."

When she returned to the apartment half an hour later Rae had cleaned up the mess that Hope left on the floor, taking the clothing that she had tossed on the pile for her own. She also unpacked the shopping cart, with most of her possessions spread out on the dining room table, since most of it needed to be cleaned.

There was 8345 in the joint account that Hope shared with Jack. By a rough reckoning in her head, Hope figured Rae should be good with about 4000 to handle a couple of months' worth of expenses, expecting her to be able to support herself if she could get a job. As she handed the money over to her, Rae looked at her as if once again, she couldn't believe that someone was doing this for her.

"Why?" she asked. "Why are you helping me?"

Hope looked up for a moment, trying to figure out for herself why she was doing this. She didn't really know other than she just couldn't stay there anymore and if one person could benefit from having a place to live for a while, to get her life together, then that was a good thing.

"Because I can and I've seen you around," she replied. "I don't know your story, but you've always tried to look presentable, as best you could under your circumstances. Maybe you ran into tough times, maybe you got your heart broken and took it hard. Maybe this little gesture will help you."

"Well, thank you," said Rae. "Do you have a number I can call you in six months? Just to let you know that I'm okay?"

With a nod, Hope gave her cell phone number to the woman. Then she took her suitcases out to the elevator, along with two of the copies of the sublet agreement, handed Rae all of the keys and left. She stopped at the main floor office, dropping off one of the sublet agreement copies in the office door slot, then continued down the elevator to the parking garage where her car was. Even though she used the transit system for her job, she had kept her car, liking the freedom to drive out of town, especially when Jack had been on the road. Loading her suitcases into it, she started it up, put it into gear and drove out of the parking garage. By the time she got on the I80 the sun was up and she was on her way to Cleveland, planning to stay there overnight.

The following morning, she had breakfast, bought a coffee to go, and got back on the I80 for the 7 hour drive to Brooklyn, determined to do it that day. She did have to take a break at one point, pulling off at a rest stop to use the bathroom, have something to eat and buy another coffee to go. By the time she reached the Holland Tunnel, the underground connector between New Jersey and Manhattan it was late afternoon, the traffic was heavy, and she cursed herself for not leaving earlier. Canal Street was bumper to bumper, but she eventually got on the Manhattan Bridge, creeping forward onto Flatbush Avenue. She turned off into downtown Brooklyn then towards Brooklyn Heights, minutes away from her childhood home. She couldn't get a parking spot close to the house so she parked where she could, then locked her car up and made the short walk to the brownstone.

She rang the doorbell but there was no answer, even though she could hear music coming from inside. With a shake of her head, recognizing it as disco music she wondered what her mother was doing with the music cranked up so high. She tried knocking, still no answer, so she turned the doorknob, surprised to find it was open. Stepping inside she called out to her mother but heard no response. She did hear laughter, both male and female, and the sound of movement. Following it to the kitchen she stood and watched as her mother, Joyce, danced to Staying Alive with a handsome but considerably younger man. Neither seemed to notice her so she made a significant cough sound which her mother finally responded to. Picking up her phone, she turned the volume down, then stared at her daughter.

"Hope, what are you doing here? What's going on?"

"I should ask you the same, Mom," replied her daughter, as she glared at Bucky. "Who the hell is this?"

"This is my friend, Bucky," answered Joyce, her guard up at Hope's tone. "We were celebrating a milestone for Bucky and he's a guest in my home. You don't talk to me or about him in that fashion. Why are you here?"

"You have a gigolo dancing up a storm with you during the middle of the day and I'm the bad guy?"

"I didn't say that Hope," replied Joyce, even more exasperated. "Why are you here? Why aren't you in Chicago?"

That was when Hope's face fell and Joyce stepped forward, her face suddenly changing from angry to concerned.

"What's happened, Hope?"

She looked at the tall, dark-haired man, unwilling to talk in front of him. Her mother looked at him then at the door, indicating that maybe he should step out, and he spoke to Hope, in a voice that was actually kind.

"Do you have luggage I can get for you? You probably weren't able to park too close."

Despite the anger she felt when she first saw him, Hope nodded and gave him her keys then a description of her car and where it was. As soon as the sound of the front door closing reached her, she looked at her mother again, no longer able to keep her emotions in check.

"Jack left me, Mom," she whimpered. "He came home while I was at work, took all of his stuff and left me for another woman. Couldn't even break up with me in person. He left me a fucking letter."

She began to cry, and Joyce put her arms out, inviting her daughter into her embrace. While she cried, her mother's friend returned with the luggage and stood in the hallway where it led into the kitchen. He gestured upstairs to Hope's room, receiving a nod from Joyce, and took the things up then returned back down. Picking up his letter he nodded at Joyce then left, leaving the two women alone. It was several minutes before Hope was able to stop crying enough for Joyce to lead her to the couch in the living room. Cradling Hope's face in her hands, Joyce studied her daughter's face carefully. She looked tired.

"Did you drive all the way here in one day?"

"No." Hope shook her head. "Two days but it was still hard doing it on my own. I couldn't stay there. As soon as I read the letter, I had to get out of there."

"What about the apartment?"

"It's all in his name." She looked down at her hands. "He said he would take care of me and would always be there for me." She gave out a grim laugh. "You might be happy with what I did with it."

At first, Joyce thought that her daughter may have vandalized the high-end apartment she shared with Jack Wallis in Chicago, but her daughter noticed the look of horror on her mother's face.

"No, I didn't trash the place." She grinned, looking a little off kilter as she did. "I sublet it to a homeless woman. Gave her some cash from our joint account that he so kindly left for me to use and encouraged her to turn her life around. Wrote out a sublet lease, gave a copy of the letter to her for proof I had the right to do it, and made her a receipt for the amount she paid me." She waited a moment. "1 per month for six months. All legal. I've learned that much from being a legal secretary."

A small grin appeared on Joyce's face, replaced by that motherly look of concern. "What about you? Are you going to be, okay?"

Hope breathed out audibly. "It might take a while, but I've had broken hearts before and always bounced back. This one really hurt, and I'll probably brood over the signs I obviously missed. I just wish I could meet a guy who wouldn't even look at another woman, someone like Dad."

"You don't think your dad ever looked at other women?" asked Joyce, her face incredulous. "He looked, he just never acted on it because he knew it would devastate me. He never compared me to anyone else, either. Never told me to lose some weight or stop snoring at night." She smiled, remembering her husband. "He made me feel like I was perfect, just the way I was." She swallowed. "It might be the wrong time to tell you, but I've met someone."

"Not that Bucky guy," answered Hope.

"No, he's a friend, really," said Joyce. "A good friend. I went on a cruise with Paula Dalton. We met brothers from Boston on the ship. Tom's a very nice man; a widower, retired geology professor. He flew here with me after the cruise and only went back to Boston last week. We're going to try to make it work."

Hope wasn't sure what to feel about that but as she watched how her mother spoke of this Tom fellow, she realized how lonely it must have been for her, with all of them living elsewhere.

"Is it serious?"

"Could be," said her mother. She stood up. "When was the last time you ate?"

"I took a break in the early afternoon. I really need a shower. Where did that Bucky guy put my suitcases?"

"In your room," said Joyce.

"Wait, he knows which room is mine? Mom, who is he?"

"Look, go have your shower, change, and I'll make something for you to eat. I'll tell you all about him and why I'm friends with him, okay?"

With another hug from her mother, Hope stood up and trudged up the stairs, entering her bedroom. She smiled slightly after noticing that the guy, Bucky ... what kind of name was that ... had placed her suitcases on the bed. It seemed he knew how to be considerate. Opening one of them, she took out clean clothes and underwear, then her bag of toiletries and headed for the bathroom.

The shower was wonderful, making her feel like all the stress of the breakup and then driving for two days straight fell off of her. Hope washed her hair as well then stood under the stream of warm water until it started to get cooler. Turning it off, she wrapped her hair in a towel then dried herself off. After putting some moisturizer on her face she got dressed, combed her hair out and returned to her bedroom, leaving her dirty clothes in a pile beside the dresser. Her mother should have another hamper or a laundry basket somewhere, but the floor would do for now. With a sigh she stood in the middle of her bedroom then looked at the self portrait she painted of herself after high school.

"Still damaged goods, aren't you?" she murmured to the portrait.

With a sigh she left the room and went down to the kitchen where her mother had made her an omelette. She poured a coffee for each of them and sat with Hope while she began eating.

"So, who is he?" asked Hope, after the first few bites.

"He's kind of infamous," said her mother. "You may have seen him on the news stories about the Flag Smashers. He's Bucky Barnes."

Hope almost spit out her coffee. "The Winter Soldier? The assassin ... you're friends with a killer? Do Bobby and Tara know you're palling around with him?"

"He's not a killer, not anymore, and if you took a moment to get to know him you would realize what a good man he is." She stood up, trying to distance herself from Hope before turning to her. "They tortured him to make him into a killer. You know that, right? They turned him into a super soldier against his will, tortured him physically, emotionally and psychologically to break him and they had to keep doing it for years and years because that serum they gave him meant his body kept repairing what damage they did to him. He tried many times to get away and they caught him, punishing him worse each time."

"But Mom, seriously? How do you know he won't just lose it sometime? He's got to have PTSD after all that and you hear all the time about former soldiers with PTSD going off the deep end and killing their family."

"No, he's not like that," said Joyce, looking carefully at her daughter. "I'll tell Bobby and Tara when I'm ready for them to know about my friendship with him. He has been a very good friend to me, Hope. He's helped me get through some hard times."

Hope stopped eating, wondering what her mother wasn't saying. It had been before the Snap when she had breast cancer and then Dad died. That had been hard for her mother, but Bucky Barnes wasn't around then. Carefully, she studied her mother, noticing she seemed a little thin, and tired looking.

"Mom, what's wrong? What are you going through?"

Joyce took a breath. "Leukaemia. I was diagnosed in March and underwent chemotherapy then, and again in May. Bucky helped me through the May treatments, stayed here and took care of me. That's how he knew which bedroom was yours."

Hope stood up and approached her mother, feeling a pang of fear in her gut.

"How bad is it?"

"Well, bad enough but I don't have to go for the next round until the end of July, so that's something." Hope took her mother's hands in her own. "I didn't say anything to any of you kids because I didn't want to give up my independence. You know Bobby would tell me to sell the place and move into a seniors' home. I'm not ready for that."

"Okay," stated Hope. "I can understand that. How did you meet Bucky?"

"He's acquainted with a mutual friend who told him I used to be a high school librarian," replied Joyce. "He asked for my help in getting his GED because he had to quit school to work during the depression." Hope smiled. "He's a very smart man and I've really enjoyed being his friend."

"Alright, I'll try to be nice." She looked at the dishes. "I'll put these away later, but can we just sit in the living room while I tell you how right you were about Jack?"

The two women hugged, and Joyce pulled out a bottle of white wine, pouring them each a glass. After choosing some background music they talked for some time about men, life, and broken hearts. It was probably one of the best talks Hope ever had with her mother.