Reminisce: Dear O,

August 5th, 2015 cont.

August 5th, 2015 cont.

      "I got O to let me in, so that I could talk to her. Both of us sat on opposite sides of the small bathroom, our backs leaned against either wall. We didn't look at each other, just listening to our laboured breathing, feeling the tension fill the room. When I went to reach for her, all I could see was the nightmare I'd had. In all these nightmares, what scares me is me. Not the HYDRA guards, not the people I kill, but me. And so knowing that O had gotten in my head and seen that, seen me... I looked at my arm and I had to put it down. The only words I could muster was "sorry" and that was hardly the beginning of what I wanted to say.

       When I said the word, she looked at me at last; she didn't have hatred in her eyes, just fear. Fear I'd seen in so many eyes before hers. Fear I'd seen in her eyes before. We talked then, longer than we ever had before about something like this. She'd accidentally gotten in my head when she couldn't wake me up, and it was clear that something in my own head was disturbing me. In her panic, she accidentally linked with me, and that's when she saw and felt the memory.

     It had been about her; on the helicarrier. Me standing above her, a gun my hand, pulling the trigger. She'd been through the events, she had her own thoughts on it, but this time she got to feel what was running through my mind in that moment. Ophelia felt just how badly I wanted to kill her in that moment, and I'm surprised she hadn't already left me. At the time, my mission was to stop Steve, and she'd been in the way over and over again, slowing my mission down. I wanted her to stop, to leave me alone- at the time I wanted her dead. I wish I could say that was a lie, but it isn't.

       By the time we were done talking, she was in my arms. Not crying, like I expected her to, just there. She's stronger than I ever was, to be able to see and feel all that and not walk out the door, to not slap me across the face and tell me I'm a monster. Because I sat there feeling like dirt, and I still feel... I don't deserve her, but I cannot imagine life without her."