Gone to War (A Bucky Barnes FanFiction)

Chapter Ten

|| September 15, 1943. USA Military Camp, Northern Italy. ||

Ophelia pulled down her hat as she passed the many men in uniforms around her. She glanced over her shoulder, making sure no one was following her. The woman kept her head down, avoiding the gaze of all the men who did their duties around her. She stood in front of a truck that would guide her to the new base where she would be posted. As she jumped on the back of the truck, her dog tags jingled at her movements.

The dog tag had the name William Richard.

She sat herself between to men and kept her eyes down to her lap. She shifted as the wrapping around her breasts were tight, as she tried to hide the lady like features on her body. The truck started to drive down the dirt road as she waited for the next part of her life. She was running, Ophelia couldn't deny that. Running like she had never run before.

Ophelia thought of Steve, how she left him back in Brooklyn with nothing but a letter telling him she needed to get away. She worried about what his life was like now that she left the way she did. She thought of everything she never got to tell him. The many adventures they didn't get to have. Ophelia didn't want to leave, but she did.

She thought of Bucky, how much she wanted to see him again. How much she wanted for him to say something stupid and she would laugh at it. She wanted to tell him everything, but nothing all at the same time.

"Alright boys get moving!" The commander yelled as they pulled up to the army camp. Ophelia and all the other men jumped out and lined up in front of all the tents.

"These are the men from France." One soldier said to the commander, holding a clipboard. The commander took the clipboard from the young man and sighed, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

"You ladies are no longer in your mother kitchen!" He yelled, "You're in my playhouse! You listen to my rules so we can beat these sons-of-bitches to hell and go home to the wonderful American girls back home, do you all understand?!" The commander walked around the line up.

"Yes sir!" All the men, including Ophelia in a deep voice, yelled. She held herself high and straight like all the other men around her. She had seen the drills and setting she was in, having been an ear for many commanders and soldiers who complained of drills and rules they had to follow.

"Alright," he grumbled looking at his list, "Francis, Ronald."

"Here." The man yelled back.

"Harlow, Raymond."

"Here."

"Fitzpatrick, Edward."

"Here."

This went back and forth down the line until finally landing on Ophelia. "Richard, William."

"Here." She said deep in her chest. The commander stopped and looked up from his clipboard. In that moment Ophelia knew she had blown her cover, he knew she wasn't a man. "You were one of the survivors from that hospital in Italy?"

"Yes, sir." She swallowed her fears as the Commander came closer to her.

The Commander nodded his head and looked her up and down, "Terrible thing that was." He mumbled to her. "Alright boys!" He shouted making Ophelia flinch a little, "Come get your assigned tents with Sargent Collins and get some rest, we've got a lot of work ahead of us." The Commander turned away and left the men to their own devices.

Ophelia got her tent and found herself sharing with two other men, which made her nervous but she kept to herself when she entered the tent. "Hey." One nodded, "Timothy Dugan." He put his hand on his chest. He wore his uniform, with a sort of bowler hat. "That's Gabe Jones." He pointed to the man across the tent who smiled to her. She nodded her head in return and set her things down in the empty bed. "Where are you from?" Dugan leaned forward trying to get her to talk. "Will Richard." She said not looking to him, "I'm from Brooklyn."

"Oh." Dugan said nodded, "Another Brooklyn kid." He mumbled to Gabe.

"Let's hope he's not a push over like the other Brooklyn guy." Gabe chuckled as Ophelia put her suit case under her bed. "Me and Dugan are going to say hello to the nurses, wanna join us?" Gabe asked smirking to Dugan who laughed. Ophelia shook her head, as the two men walked out of the tent.

She reached in the pockets of her suit, which wasn't actually hers. She was wearing a dead mans suit. She reached in and felt a notepad, Ophelia pulled it from the pocket and opened it up. The pages were filled with poems filled for a women name Helen, filled with love stories and letters of love for this Helen. Ophelia sat on her bed as she looked at the notebook, she was a dead man walking. William Richard isn't supposed to be alive, but here she was posing as him, a liar. She could be put in jail for what she was doing, or worse, killed. Pushing those thoughts aside she found the kit that soldiers carry on them for if they die on the battlefield. It's a way to tell those who find them who they were, letters that would be sent if they were found dead. Their last legacy. Ophelia didn't open the little bag filled with letters for the real William's family, he kept it private. But she did find the letter that Bucky wrote her, still unopened.

She looked down at his handwriting, the envelope still sealed shut. Closing her eyes, she saw Bucky in her head, smiling to her, telling her he would be alright. Ophelia opened her eyes and put the letter away in her suitcase, not wanting to read it now. She didn't want to read it at all, and she didn't know why. It was mostly because she felt guilty for making Steve lie to Bucky, just to save her own ass. It felt selfish, and it was. But she couldn't, she didn't want too face her mistakes.

Standing up from the bed, Ophelia walked out into the open air and saw all the other men around her busy about their duties. Some playing cards in chairs near tents, while others around the med tent, where three nurses laughed at Gabe and Dugan, as they tried to flirt with them. She knew how it felt, having soldiers flirt while trying to do your job. She didn't let it bother her, nor did she like it. Other nurses took it in like a sponge, thriving off the attention from young single men.

Ophelia thought of Colonel Charles, how he tried to flirt with her when he first came to Ophelia's care. His warm smile that was painted with pain and fear, stained with the horrors of war. But yet, he was not one to show it. Having a laugh with Ophelia as she fumbled her words, trying to help the poor Colonel as she tried to remove shrapnel from his leg. Ophelia suddenly remembered that he was gone, the man who she cared for in a way that she never did before. She didn't admit it, but she liked Colonel Charles, but he was gone, she never told him how she felt, now she never can. Maybe in another life, but not this one. He was gone, and there was nothing she could do.

Ophelia turned away from the men who walked past her and kept her head down as she saw Gabe turn to a man, who was turned away from her. He was talking to him before she had looked away. She heard one name and froze in her spot.

"Hey Barnes! Get over here!" Dugan yelled as Ophelia turned back around.

Not far from her, standing in his uniform, was her childhood friend, Bucky Barnes.