December // A Winter Soldier Story

13

ｄｅｃｅｍｂｅｒ ２１ｓｔ， ２０１３

１７°

ℒℯ𝒶

When she wakes up the next morning, he is gone.

She searches the entire house to be sure. Both bedrooms, both bathrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. The front porch, the back deck. Everywhere she looks is empty of his haunting form.

A trail of footsteps leads from the house to the woods, pressed carefully into the otherwise flawless snow. The tracks resemble the bottom of Bucky's boots, the ones she had taken off of him when she'd first found him so that he could be comfortable.

He had left her. His uniform, which had been carefully pulled and cut off of him, was missing. He must have taken it with him. Her mind is slow to process all of this, however, as she is struggling to push through her feelings of hurt, betrayal, guilt, and confusion.

She sits on the back deck, in a sweater and thick socks and pajama pants, and lets the cold envelope her, soak her to the bone. She is frozen to the spot. Her eyes stare out into the woods, watching, waiting: for him, for answers, for something to make sense. Lea wonders if it is all her fault. If her questions yesterday had been too much, if letting him sleep on the floor of her room last night so he didn't have to be alone was too much. She must've done something wrong. That's the only reason she could think of that he would have left.

A ghost of a memory -- it might've been a dream -- of him brushing his lips against her forehead is echoing in her thoughts, feeling so real and so imaginary all at once that she doesn't know what actually happened, or even if she wants it to have happened. All she knows is that she feels like his lips were soft, and thinks they might've whispered something to her before they left.

The air is still, as if the whole world was holding its breath along with Lea. Her soldier is gone, having left nothing behind but footprints in the snow, and she feels as though she is responsible.

She closes her eyes. Her fingers clench the sleeve of her sweater. She can feel it when the snow starts to fall, coating the already thin layer of snow on the ground with another.

Soon the footsteps are gone, and it's like he was never there at all.