Chapter 7
Her eyes rove over the screen in front of her as her heart stalls in her chest. Something about this presentation makes her feel like she can’t breathe.
The lecture hall isn’t that large but all the seats are filled. Claustrophobia and anxiety starts to settle over her, feeling as though the walls might cave in and bury her at any time. She had decided to take American History this semester and was now seriously starting to doubt her sanity. The faces staring down at her seem all too familiar, eerily so, almost as though she knows them. Or, more accurately, one of them.
They’re studying America’s impact on World War II and she’s starting to feel vaguely sick. But the professor seems to have some sort of extreme interest in the Howling Commandos, and so he just keeps droning on and on and on. She wishes he’d just take their fucking picture off the goddamn screen.
When class is finally over she’s the first to bolt out of the room. She knows where that man is from. James Buchanan Barnes. He’s the man that haunts every dream she’s ever had.
At least now she knows that she’s going crazy.
When she gets back to her apartment she rushes to the bathroom and empties the contents of her stomach into the toilet, retching until noting comes up. Something inside her is stirring, pressing, howling to get out. She wishes she knew what it all meant, why she’s struggling so much, why that man isn’t only familiar to her but important.
She slumps onto the floor and passes out, a memory or a dream shining in her mind.
It’s cold. There’s a man talking about a train.
~
“Hey,” Bucky says, head lolling back against the wall, lanky legs spread out in front of him. “You okay?”
Her clothes are different, her dress having been swapped for a t-shirt and trousers. But her feet are still bare against the cold floor and he hates them for that.
They’ve been moved, no longer in their old cell. She’s retrieved at all hours of the day and night as the scientists try and sort out her sickness. “Fine.” Her English had improved incredibly in recent weeks and Bucky attributes it to whatever they’re doing to her to fix the sickness, whatever they’re injecting her with. He hopes they figure it out soon, though something tells him it might take a while.
Their new cell is separated by bars and she makes sure to sit as close to them as possible just like Bucky is. They seem to want to limit their contact while simultaneously keeping them together. “I’m okay. I have something for you.”
He frowns, “You have something for me?”
She nods and pulls it from beneath her shirt. Bread and a small piece of meat. In short, a miracle. “For you.” The look on her face tells him she’s quite proud of herself for finding something so unattainable.
Bucky smiles wide, excitement in his voice, “Where’d you get that?”
“I took it. From table. They did not see.” She smiles back, “We share?”
“Yeah, yeah, this is great.” He can’t keep the smile off of his face. “You’ll haveta split it up though doll. I’m useless with one arm.”
Carefully she splits the food evenly before passing it through bars. “Are you okay?”
He nods, taking a bite and chewing slowly. Bucky groans, “This is fuckin’ delicious.” It reality its cold meat and hard bread but she think the same. It’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. She sticks her hand through the bars and pats his shoulder, lets her hand rest there for a second against the skin of his neck. “Thanks for this. They could have seen you though.”
“I do not care.” Her fingers go to her own neck and tug free his dog tags. She examines them as they twist through her fingers. “I do not care. They will hurt me anyways. And you haven’t eaten.”
Her concern warms his heart. “You haven’t eaten either.” They carefully controlled their food intake to keep them as weak as possible without killing them. “Are your feet cold?”
“A little,” she says sadly as she glances down at her feet.
Bucky scarfs down the rest of his food even though he knows doing so will probably make him sick. Then he carefully reaches down and pulls off his socks, and tries to pass them through the bars. “Take ‘em.”
“No,” she looks horrified at the prospect. “Then you will be cold.”
“I’ll be fine. Please take ‘em…you’re turnin’ blue.”
A frown creases her forehead before she takes them from him, her fingers brushing against his. “We will take turns.”
They won’t, he thinks. Bucky won’t take them back, but he still nods so as to make it easier for her. He watches her stiff fingers twitch and struggle to get the socks up before she sighs and rubs her feet through the thick wool. “Thank you, Bucky.”
“Dla Ciebie wszystko.”
Anything for you.
She smiles and reaches through the bars again to lie a gentle hand against his face. Her fingers are ice cold but Bucky doesn’t pull away. “One day, when this is over I will take you home with me. We’ll meet my parents and I’ll show you the town I lived in. And then we’ll go down to the city and you can look for the prettiest girl.”
Bucky doesn’t have any reason to look for a pretty girl, not when she’s sitting in front of him. But he had told her stories about taking girls dancing, and the other ordinary things he had once done and taken for granted. So, he just nods at her, small smile still creasing his face.
“I’ll show ya Brooklyn, doll. You’ll love New York. It’s got somethin’ for everyone. In fact, I bet if we looked we’d find a Polish place or two.”
“Polish place in America?” She asks bewilderedly. “How?”
He smirks and turns his head to the side against her slowly warming hand, placing a soft kiss against her palm. “We got what they call a melting pot.” When he chuckles at her confused look she taps her fingers against his lips impatiently. “Means we have everybody in New York City, all walks of life. In my neighborhood alone we had Italians and Irish, which if you know anything you’ll know that ain’t a good combination. We got the French and the Jews and some Czechs, and Germans even. I’m sure we could find a few Poles too.”
The girl looks away from the laughing blue eyes, down to the dog tags resting against her throat. “America sounds nice. Do they get along? We have all these people and look what happens.” Her voice drops low, “We hurt each other so badly here.”
“Well I think it’ll be a little bit like that anywhere ya go. ‘Course some people at home don’t like the mixed bag but…hey, a lotta us do, me included.” He reaches up and takes her hand from his cheek. “Things will get better someday.” She still looks melancholy though, seemingly somewhere else in her mind and so he squeezes her hand a little harder than he should and asks, “Are your toes warmer now?” When she doesn’t answer he adds, “I think I’d like to see your home one day.”
“Yes my toes are better,” she murmurs. And then a few minutes later, she whispers thickly, “And one day you will see my home.”
Something is still bothering her though and Bucky decides to keep his trap shut in case she’s starting to feel sick again.
Maybe an hour passes before she takes her hand away from his face and lets his hand slip away from hers. With her other hand she had been twirling his tags between her fingers, examining them. Those too she lets slip away with a small clink. Instead she curls her fingers in the collar of his shirt and tugs him closer until they’re nose to nose through the metal bars. “What does P mean?”
“P?”
“Everything else on the necklace makes sense. Name, birthday, number. What does P mean?”
He swallows hard. “Why does it matter?”
“I think it is why you gave them to me.” Her eyes are intense. “Is it dangerous? Have you put me in danger?” She had known they were before, otherwise they wouldn’t have been handed off but now she needed to know. Identification is important. It can save your life or get you killed.
Bucky’s chest is tight, his mouth a tight line. “Means Protestant, doll.”
Her brows furrow, “Strongly convicted?”
“No.”
The knot in her stomach loosens a little. “Then it is not unsafe.” She tilts her head to the side, “So why do I hide them?”
He’s afraid to tell her. She might hate him, she might-
“Because that isn’t all I am.” He doesn’t even lift his eyes when he says it, can’t believe he just blurted it out. He keeps his head down, starting at the dirty floor.
“Oh…” Judging by her tone, it sounds as though she’s understood. “Bucky?” It takes several long minutes for him to look up at her. When he does, she’s frowning. “I don’t care. Why should I care? What does it matter now?”
Something in his chest seizes and he rips away from her, tearing her hand from his shirt. “But you would have cared before?”
“No.” She states matter-of-factly. “I would not have cared. My neighbors were Polish but also Jewish. I played with their daughters. Their mother was a friend of my mother. My grandmother was Jewish. She married a Catholic and converted because she loved him. It doesn’t matter. You are the only friend I have left in the world now. I don’t care what you are. Now or before or anytime.”
And then she does the strangest, most incredible and mundane thing anyone has ever done to him. She grabs his shirt again, pulls him in close and kisses him full on the mouth through the bars of their cells.
Its heart stopping and horrifying and wonderful and panic inducing and he loves it. Her nose bumps into his cheek as they break off with a gasp. He never wants to stop kissing her and so he murmurs, “I’ll never let them make me forget you. I’ll always know you. And one day I’ll follow you wherever you go. We’ll go to your home and mine and things will be better.”
She nods and doesn’t think it’s true even if it’s a nice thought. So she just kisses him again and again and again. Because he gave her socks and still fought the guards and ran his mouth to them and learned her language and retained his kindness. Because he asked her how she was every time they met even though he already knew the answer. Because he calls her doll when she was anything but.
Eventually she pulls back and murmurs something about sleep. The day’s session had been draining and harrowing and she should prepare for the next round of injections.
They fall asleep with their fingers curled together, sleeping as tightly together as can through a hard metal cage.