Gold to Airy Thinness Beat

Chapter Fifteen

Later, Stephanie would feel grateful for the relative peace and quiet of the journey home as both attributes were in short supply after they got back. Bucky was soon dragged away to the Medical Tents while she was taken to be debriefed. She turned over the weird blue capsules she'd brought back to Howard, who was ecstatic to have new toys to play with, and then gave a rundown of what the layout of the facility had looked like. She also mentioned the map and various weapons and vehicles she'd seen. Phillips wanted to know what went on in the Isolation Ward but Stephanie didn't know and told them they would have to ask Sergeant Barnes about that.

"Barnes, huh," Phillips said while, beside him, Peggy straightened at the name. "That's the one that started all this. Got him back did you?"

"I did," Stephanie said with pride. Her eyes went, instinctively, to Phillips' desk and she frowned. "What happened to the letters?"

"What do you think?" Phillips asked. "Mailed them. Not like anyone was expecting you to come waltzing back, certainly not with a pack of missing soldiers in your wake."

Stephanie gaped at him. "You mailed them?" she stood up so fast she nearly knocked the chair she was sitting in over.

"Relax," Phillips growled. "We got access to a phone line. It's going to cost us a fortune but we're letting the men call home, let their families know they're fine."

Stephanie nodded, lodging the information in her mind. Bucky would need to call his parents and sister as soon as he was better. Fortunately, the letters were nowhere close to making it across the sea and to their door yet so they had time. She hadn't seen any letters from them in his footlocker but had no doubt she'd simply missed them, probably under the stack of writing paper if she had to guess. Bucky's parents and sister adored him and the last thing Stephanie wanted was for them to go through what she'd felt thinking him gone, even for a second.

Phillips dismissed her soon after. He had a lot of logistics to take care of, getting the men their calls, taking care of where he was going to put them all, dealing with the weapons brought back and planning their next steps. Peggy stayed behind with him to help him plan.

After she left, Stephanie went back to her tent and changed into her civilian clothes again. She considered trying to take Bucky's uniform back to his footlocker but decided against it. Things were chaotic in that area and she didn't feel like trying to fight her way through.

Instead she gathered it up and headed toward the Medical Tent to personally return the uniform to Bucky. It'd be better than the clothing he was currently wearing and, besides that, he cut a very sharp figure in it.

She frowned, wondering where that thought had come from, but then shrugged it off. Bucky did look good in his dress uniform; her noticing was no different than noting a dress looked particularly good on one of her female friends.

The Medical Tent came into view and she smiled, looking forward to seeing him. It had only been a few hours but that was already much to long as far as she was concerned.

Much to long indeed.

***

Stephanie slumped down on the stool next to the one where Tony was lounging, his back against the bar behind him. It had been nearly a week since the rescue of the men and her mood was split somewhere between depression and wanting to punch something.

She hadn't seen Bucky once.

She'd tried to visit him, repeatedly, the most recent time mere hours earlier. The officers had been given a small area in the back of the Medical Tent, sectioned off from the rest of the space by a curtain. That area was then broken into tiny, semi-private rooms by still more curtains. Reaching the area required Stephanie to walk the full length of the Medical Tent and, every time, she barely took ten steps before she found herself mobbed by well-meaning, grateful soldiers as well as a few more ardent fans of Lady Liberty. This had, in turn, led to the nurses asking her to stay away from the tent all together in order to give the men a chance to rest and recover.