Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XIV - The Right Mind

Elizabeth sat straight, tapping her foot in anticipation of an argument. The Colonel had spent the last three days looking through the notes she and her nurses had compiled on the men Captain Rogers had rescued four weeks ago and today he had come to her for a discussion on specific men. The men in question were Tim Dugan, Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth, Jim Morita, Jacques Dernier and, of course, her Bucky.

She had been pre-warned of course. Steve had pulled her aside a week ago.

*
"Elizabeth," he said, "I need you not to freak out."

"Steven Rogers. What about me makes you think telling me not to freak out stops me from freaking out?" The panic that engulfed her instantly had one point of origin: worry for Bucky. "What's happened?"

Steve offered a sympathetic smile as he sat down in the chair opposite her in the tiny tent The Colonel had given her as an office space now that there were so many more soldiers whose care needed to be organised. He placed his hand out on the desk for her to take and she did instantly. Over the course of the last four weeks they had grown fond of each other and had often found themselves in whispered conversations by Bucky's bed side as he slept during those first two weeks.

"The Colonel is putting together a team for me to head up. He wants me to take down Hydra and, well Lizzie, I don't think I can do it without him."

Her eyes dropped to where his hands now encased her own and she gently pulled away.

"He's not ready Steve."

"Come on Lizzie, you and I both know he's healed twice as fast as the others have. He's stronger than you're giving him credit for." Steve sighed as he sat back and Elizabeth finally looked him in the eye.

"No Steve, you're wrong. Physically yes, he's healed well, but you don't see the tremors that he hides from you. You don't feel his entire body tense before he even wakes from the nightmares that plague his mind, nightmares that rip him from the sleep he desperately needs I might add. He's not ready." She wasn't mad or angry. Her eyes screamed with worry and her voice was quiet and calm.

Elizabeth waited for him to respond. If there was one thing she had come to know about Steven Grant Rogers it was that he always had a response. When he didn't say anything she knew.

Without another word Elizabeth rose to her feet and stalked out of the small tent and towards the soldiers quarters.

Bucky had been discharged from the medical tent after two weeks of watchful eyes and constant care, with the agreement that he'd go back once a day for checks. Lizzie's orders. He was relieved of course, it meant he felt less fragile, less like people were waiting for him to break. On the other hand though, it meant that Lizzie wasn't with him every night. On nights when she was on shift he often found himself sneaking in to watch her work, sitting in the corner of the tent with their book in hand, or camping out in her office so that he was close to her. On nights she wasn't scheduled to work he would sneak to the small tent she shared with one of the other nurses and wrap himself around her, letting her presence ease his mind. On nights like that he would fall asleep with her head on his chest, his arms tight around her and his soul at peace. Nightmares would wake him, but they passed quickly when she would softly caress his face, her eyes on his, and breathe with him. She was his safe place.

He sat, content in the bunk he hardly slept in, re-reading The Hobbit and scribbling answers to more of Lizzie's margin questions, when she stormed in.

"You agreed to it, didn't you?" Her lips pursed as she waited for a response and she balled her hands into fists over and over again as they hung at her sides. She was shaking slightly and her nostrils flared as she waited for a response.