Timeless

Chapter 32

A/N: It's Little Women reference time, and YES, you probably will cry during this chapter.

Over the course of the next week, Kathryn's condition simply worsened. Her fever got worse and she developed some sort of body pangs and pains. It was a whole state of delirium for the young woman and she had never been this sick in her life. She hardly remembered the week—and during that entire time, she was certain that she was dying .

Quite truthfully, she wasn't sure how they hadn't already killed her for being this sick. It seemed a rather strange thing, but she attributed it to her brother and to Buck. They simply weren't allowing her to die on them. She couldn't keep down food and scarcely remembered eating during that entire week—except for when her brother was forcing her to eat.

One of the things that she did, in fact, remember quite well was her brother reading to her. At one point, she had awoken in horrible pains, almost unable to move or bear it. And she realized that she was laying on someone's leg and her brother's voice was a steady beacon as she lay there.

Kathryn struggled to make any sound—her throat was so dry and every breath was like a sharp needle jabbing her in the ribs. "Is that... Little Women ?"

Bucky seemed surprised by the sudden coherence. She seemed to be present only half of the time she was fighting this fever, and her bouts of coherence were few and far between. "Well it was either this or the Bible since Guys and Dolls isn't exactly good reading material out here."

She wished she had the energy to smile about that, but Kathryn could barely even focus on the words that he was saying. "You finished it?"

"It's a good book," Bucky mumbled. "You didn't tell me that Beth dies though."

Kathryn felt like she was very far away from her own body at the moment. Like she was just watching this through some sort of screen and she was stuck in the backseat of a car. She remembered giving Little Women to her brother for his birthday—well, it was over a year ago now. And Buck had warned her that if he finished it and actually enjoyed it, it was likely that he'd never read anything ever again. Now he had finished it. And Kathryn didn't know what to say.

She shifted ever so slightly, head raising as much as she could to look at her older brother. "Beth's always supposed to die. It's in the writing, even if you don't want it to be. All throughout the book. You know."

Something seemed to change in her brother's gaze as he looked at her and he just shook his head. "You're not Beth."

"Well you're not Jo."

"I mean it, Kath," Bucky's voice just sounded pained. "It's not written out. You're not dying."

The fact of the matter was that Kathryn wasn't so sure. She certainly felt like Beth March did at the moment—and with the fever sapping all of her strength, she really had no other scope to compare this to. It scared her. And the worst part was that she could tell that it scared her brother too.

Bucky had always seemed indomitable. He was untouchable and unafraid of literally anything. He had stared death in the face time after time—but right now, he seemed just as scared as she was. It was unnerving and a testament to the fact that Kathryn was certain that she was, in fact, dying.

Kathryn felt another sharp pain roll through her body and she wanted to cry—but she didn't have enough energy in her body to cry. "Johnny?"

"Yeah, Kath?"

"What are you gonna tell ma?" Kathryn's voice was barely above a whisper as she laid there, eyes flickering in and out of focus.

Bucky didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about it one bit. Because it was one thing having to sit there and read to his sister, who was delirious with a fever. But for her to ask that kind of a question meant that she almost certainly thought that she was going to die. And in a place like this, mentality made the difference. If you thought you were going to die, then you certainly were.