Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter X - Returning

The only sound for hours was the rhythmic trudging of boots through mud. No one spoke. No one dared to. Many men were exhausted and injured. Many carried others on their backs. Those whose arms weren't lifting a comrade carried weapons stolen from their captors. The occasional pained cry of the wounded punctuated the silence as the journey dragged forward.

Steve lead the way - marching forward with determination and a burning desire to get back to base. Beside him was Bucky.

He marched in silence, biting back his pain and his exhaustion, the sickly pallor of his face paling with each fresh wave of pain. When help was offered to him he refused it. Looking at his best friend, now so drastically changed, pushed him forward. He had never been weak in front of Steve. He would not be weak in front of Steve. Instead he opted to keep moving, to push forward, to keep going. In his hands he held a rifle, always ready for the fight, as his eyes darted around the vast wooded area they now pushed through. He shook slightly, no doubt a side effect of what may have happened in the isolation room.

Dugan, now marching on Steve's left flank, jutted his chin towards Barnes.

"He's in a bad way Cap."

Steve looked over his best friend, watching as his posture never relaxed, his eyes never slowed and the tension in his jaw never lessened. Bucky was afraid, more so than most.

It was never his intention to mention her on this journey. In fact, he worried that doing so would lead to Bucky behaving in a way that was distracted and a risk to his own safety, but watching how lost he was now... Steve made a choice.

He cleared his throat and nudged his childhood protector with his elbow.

"So Buck. When were you going to tell me how pretty Elizabeth is?"

Bucky stopped in his tracks, forcing the soldiers behind him to either stop too or move around him, his eyes finally settling on one place: Steve's smirk.

"What?"

"I said 'when were you going to tell me how pretty Elizabeth is?' I mean, she really is something Buck. Great smile. Not that I saw much of it, what with you scaring the life out of her with that disappearing act you did."

"Steven Grant Rogers." Bucky tried to control himself, but Steve could hear the frustration mixed with that hint of hope, the same hope that was now dancing in Bucky's eyes. "What the hell are you not telling me?"

Steve laughed as he watched Bucky's confusion give way to a wide, unencumbered smile. A smile that Steve had never seen before.

"She's at base. Transferred about two weeks after your capture. Of course, she didn't know you'd been captured and so when Peggy asked her to fix up the medical situation and mentioned your regiment she thought she'd be joining you."

"Wait, Lizzie knows your Peggy?" Bucky's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation.

Steve laughed as he pulled Bucky's arm to get him moving again.

"Yeah, she knows Peggy. They're actually pretty close by the looks of things."

"And what about you and Peggy? Any closer than the last time you saw her?" Bucky smirked. This was the Bucky Steve knew.

"No. And stop changing the subject. Elizabeth... you told her how you feel yet?"

Bucky sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"No. I wrote a letter. I put it away in the book and tucked it into my bag under my bunk. I figured I'd get back within a day or two and I could send it then. I should have just sent it Steve. Hell, I don't even know if she wrote those letters out of kindness or what. I could have misread the entire thing. But, honest to God, thinking of her has been the only thing that has kept me going Steve. She's something special... She's... I don't even know how to describe it. She's just the most important thing there is."