Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter VI - Caught in the Blue

The journey to Italy was long and cold. Elizabeth looked around her and took it all in. She was sitting in the back of the small cargo plane, Peggy opposite her and Stark up front in the tiny cockpit. Occasionally Peggy stepped up to join him, discussing flight paths, operation times and Starks own responsibilities on the base. Elizabeth could hear Stark's teasing but tried not to pry. She heard her own name once or twice, but ultimately he focussed on Peggy and a man he only called The Captain. It was none of Elizabeth's business.

Her breath formed a mist in front of her as the temperature of the cabin continued to drop. New York was cold, but the biting chill of the air suggested that where they were heading was colder. She pulled her thin coat tighter around her and Peggy noticed.

"Is that the warmest coat you have?" she questioned.

Elizabeth nodded with a resigned smile.

"The other nurses were always telling me to get a proper winter coat but I never really listened. I guess I should have." She giggled a little, a small cloud forming on her breath.

Peggy laughed and returned to her paperwork. She made a mental note to try to find Elizabeth some warm items that could be included in her uniform on arrival.

The cargo of the plane, including Miss Halsted, was considered precious and Peggy ran through the inventory again. Bandages, antibiotics, crutches, cots... These were the supplies the 107th and 332nd so desperately needed.

"So, Lizzie, mind if I call you Lizzie?" Stark called over his shoulder. Elizabeth gave him a small smile and a little nod. "What, or should we say who, made you agree to this madness?" His laugh boomed as Peggy let out a small gasp.

Peggy fixed Howard with a glare that could kill. She had warned him not to push this countless times. There was no evidence that Elizabeth had a man, and even if she did, it was surely not the business of the playboy currently piloting them across the Atlantic.

"Howard -" she stood to chastise him, but Elizabeth held up a hand, stopping her in her tracks.

"It's okay, Agent Carter." Elizabeth felt a strange sense of comfort, knowing this woman who barely knew her was ready to jump to her defence so quickly against a man she seemed to know well. "There is a soldier, Mr Stark, who just so happens to be part of the 107th."

Stark raised an eyebrow at Peggy, almost as if to say 'I told you so'.

Elizabeth continued."I met him just twice before his deployment. The first time I met him he actually came to my rescue when I really needed some help. The next night he took me dancing. He also took me to the Stark Expo. He was absolutely fascinated by your work Mr Stark, he would be biting jealous that I was here with you and he couldn't sit here asking you every question he could come up with." A sadness sat on her lips and clouded her eyes for the briefest of moments. Slowly she took the last letter she had received from her coat pocket and handed it to Peggy. She cleared her throat. "As I said, we only met twice. We barely know each other. But we write. Or we wrote. He..." Her voice began to trail off as her eyes threatened to spill her pain for them both to see. "Well, his last letter arrived a couple of months ago. When Agent Carter mentioned the 107th has a lot of injured men I thought he might be among them. It's a much more comforting notion than the alternative. Perhaps I'm being naive. After all, we met just twice and our letters, while comforting, are companionship and have never been suggested to be anything more, but it has been breaking me to think that there's a world moving on without Sergeant Barnes in it. I guess this is closure."

Peggy moved to sit beside her and took her hand. She knew what it was to long for someone who may not feel the same way, but she also knew that the person she longed for, although easily the best man for the fight, was safely tucked away on a silly little show tour of America and Europe. For this reason she wanted to protect Elizabeth. She respected her for her choices and she also wished she had chosen another nurse. She wished she wasn't about to be the cause of real pain. She also realised exactly how Colonel Phillips had known Elizabeth's name. There wasn't a single letter that went in or out of that base without The Colonel's eyes checking it. And Colonel Phillips wouldn't bring Elizabeth out there just to distract one of his men.

"Elizabeth," she whispered. "You know there is a chance that Sergeant Barnes is - "

"Gone?" Elizabeth interrupted. "Yes, I know. I know it's probable that he is. But there is a possibility, a very small possibility that he's not. I think I would just like to know."

A silence fell over the plane, other than the constant whirring and juttering of the engine, and the three companions let it settle. After a short while Stark broke the silence with a soft chuckle. If Elizabeth didn't know any better she would have suspected that Howard Stark had become emotional after her confession. The thick toffee sound of his voice, almost a whisper but not quite, suggested so. As did the quick flick of his wrist moving to wipe his face that indicated some potential tears. But surely not. Mr Howard Stark was not emotionally invested in the romantic endeavours of a nurse he had only just met and a soldier he had never known?

"Well, Agent Carter, you owe me a fondue night. I said there was a guy."

Elizabeth laughed a little as she shed a few tears. She decided there and then, she quite liked Mr Stark. He may have put on quite a performance at the Expo, he may even be a hideous gossip, but he had a soft side under all of that.

At some point, over Spain perhaps, Elizabeth fell asleep. It was a restless kind of sleep, uncomfortable and plagued with images of things she'd rather not see. Her mind swam with images of men burned beyond recognition, of wounds gaping and seeping, of death and destruction. Somewhere in these images was a sea of soft blue. Crystal and deep and flecked with darkness. The blue brought comfort and the blue brought fear. She waded through the sea of the injured, careful with her tread, always looking, always searching for his eyes. Bandages fell from faces that had been burned away, and soiled uniforms lay bloodstained at her feet. She slipped. Falling for what felt like an eternity as the blue consumed her.

She woke with a start. Peggy was asleep on the seat to her left and Stark was humming a tune to himself in the cockpit. Unclasping her makeshift belt she stood up and made her way to the front.

"Good morning Lizzie." Stark hummed.

"Good morning Howie."

Stark grinned at her as she took a seat beside him. No one had ever called him Howie.

"I'll allow it, but only from you. If you tell anyone, including her," his head jutted back to indicate he meant Peggy, "that I let you call me that and we're not friends. Got it?"

Elizabeth giggled. "So we're friends? Bucky would be jealous."

The two kept each other in good company for another hour before Peggy woke. She approached the two quickly and caught the tail end of their conversation. Of course Stark was talking tech: vibranium, reactors, power that never gets shut off. She rolled her eyes.

"How long until arrival Howard?"

"Just another thirty minutes. When we land I'll get the stuff signed over to the Colonel. You two can do your thing." Stark smiled at Elizabeth and she and Peggy made their way back to their seats among the supplies.

"When we land Elizabeth, I'll take you straight to the medical tents. There's a lot of chaos, as you know so it will be best to familiarise yourself with it quickly. While you get settled there, introduce yourself to the other nurses and such, I'll see what I can find out about your soldier." Peggy looked serious, but her tone was soft. It was comforting.

Anxiety began to stir as Elizabeth's mind rewatched clips of her nightmare. Her breathing became laboured and her head span with fear and pain. What if he was gone? What if she had just joined the front line efforts only to find Bucky was dead? Panic washed over her eyes and Peggy watched as Elizabeth zoned out. She was no longer in the conversation, she was a world away and she was in pain. Without thinking Peggy took her hand in her own and gave it a squeeze bringing Elizabeth back to the here and now.

"Thank you, Agent Carter."

"You're welcome. And please, call me Peggy. This is a man's world we're entering now. Us girls need to stick together."