Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter One Hundred & One: The Trial

The Trial

Most personal diaries are found by relatives years later and are pretty uninteresting on the whole. Yes, their descendants may find something they didn't know about before, but usually what is written about is every day happenstance. Every day emotions. Usually we are just surprised at how like our own Iives theirs were.

But then, every so often someone finds one of the dusty volumes, and, flicking through it, has something catch their attention and they find themselves sat, cross-legged, two hours later, still reading.

This is one of those diaries.

It is written by a man called Jack Harper.

There was nothing special about Jack or where his diary was found. It is in an old box of clutter that has been put in an old Emporium, or what you and I would call a junk shop; the diary had been originally bound for the incinerator but had been carelessly thrown into the wrong pile of rubbish.

The diary did not start its life as a journal; it was a plain ruled hardback notebook in which Jack inscribed the dates himself. Neither is every day included, but towards the middle there is a solid block of seven days each with an entry, and this is what has caught the reader's interest. They have never heard of Jack Harper. No one has. His story isn't a great one; it is more how he has written it, how he realised that in those seven days he learnt something about himself that he didn't know before.

We only have his name to go on. There is no address, we are not even sure if England was his home country. This is the short tale he told from his own point of view.

*

Day Zero:

Well diary, do I have a surprise for you. Knocked me off my feet! I received a package today which was a surprise enough but inside was the strangest mobile phone I've ever seen and a letter. I, me, Jack Harper - non-extraordinaire - have been chosen to serve on the jury of the trial of that Barnes bloke. What do you think of that! Impressed?

Problem is, I don't know if I want to. At first I thought, yeah, why not. Then I thought, hang on, Jack you need to think carefully. A man's life is in the balance here. That sounds dramatic doesn't it? I mean like everyone else I only really know a little bit about the case. American soldier sold his country out to a Russian organisation, worked as an assassin for them, and now they are holding him accountable for his crimes. I mean come on, it's not that hard. The guy's guilty! Got to be! So what do I do? Give it a shot, I guess. I have to say I am a little intrigued because it sounds a bit like a science fiction movie. In between his missions as they called them they kept him frozen – yeah that's right, like a bag of peas in the freezer. Wouldn't mind finding out how they did that!

Later.

Okay. So I've done it. I phoned the telephone number they gave and said yes I would serve. Hey, I'm not working at the moment so what else am I going to do? It'll stave off the hours of not knowing what to do with myself anyway.

There are conditions though. I mustn't tell anyone. Who am I going to tell, huh? Valerie's been dead two years now, I haven't seen my son in all that time. I don't even know where he is. In truth I don't even know why I'm here sometimes. Anyway, Jack stop being so maudlin and concentrate. They will broadcast the information and I'll watch it on the telly I think, bigger screen. We also have our own catch-up channel should we need to see one of the blocks again. That is what they call them. Blocks of information, good and bad. Oh, and, get this, we also have our own telephone number should we need help of any kind! Ha, I don't think I'm the one who needs help – it's more like this bloody American is the one who needs help. I can see him swinging from the gallows already!