After She Left

find peace

"It began to follow me

So I found that old motel

I've been planning escape strategies

So I knew the way there well"

Marissa Nadler's "All Out Of Catastrophes"

Bucky didn't know what possessed him to do it.

He knew it would take his heart and shatter it, as though it had been left in a winter storm and frozen beyond repair. But with each step, and there were so many, he felt closer to salvation. Whatever salvation meant. The familiarity of the building enraptured him, it made him question if any of it was real. If maybe he was back in 2015, and when he arrived at the apartment, he would open the door and find Ophelia seated in the window, coffee in hand.

Or perhaps asleep on the mattress on the floor, blankets tangled, hair a mess.

She was so god damn beautiful when she looked at peace.

He reached the door, his feet leading him there as if no time had passed. Muscle memory. Only, instead of entering, he raised his fist to knock. Because Ophelia wouldn't be in there, he was sane enough to know that despite his desire to come here.

When no one answered, he knew it was a mistake. A small detour before returning to America, where he had even less than he did here. A waste of time. He lowered his head in defeat, and then placed his metal hand on the door, fingers splayed outwards so that his palm pressed firmly against it.

Then, he turned on tired feet. As if all this fighting super soldiers who didn't really know what they had gotten themselves into finally caught up to him. He'd seen so much death, so much horror, he had so much trauma. He didn't know why he thought coming back here would make him feel anything other than remorse.

Agony, maybe.

Tucking his hands into his pockets, he headed back down the stairs.

Until he came face to face with a woman on her way up.

"Bucky?"

At first, he thought it was her ghost. With a soft curtain of brown hair, a lilac sundress stopped just above her knees. But it was the eyes that were different, brown, not green. As the gears in his brain turned, he felt his mouth go dry.

"I'm..."

"Daciana," he said in a whisper.

She smiled, nodded. "What are you..." she caught herself. "Do you want to come in?"

He blinked tears away, unsure where this swell of emotion came from. Perhaps it was the knowledge that someone he had gotten to know through letters was a reality – while Ophelia's ghost was false, Daciana was a real person.

Without a word, he followed her back up the steps and waited anxiously as she unlocked the door. She had one bag of groceries in hand and he wished he had offered to carry it, or at least hold it while she fumbled with keys. The door swung wide, and Bucky was shocked to see it was entirely different. But, he supposed it would be. Normal people didn't sleep on an old mattress on the floor and use cinderblocks for shelving.

It was quaint.

Ophelia would have loved it.

"I saw the news, about John Walker," she said, her accent so similar to Ophelia's. He could not stop staring. "I knew you were in the area, but I never expected..."

"I shouldn't have come."

"I'm glad you did," she stated, then she put her groceries down and walked to a nightstand, opening a drawer. "I found this."

She handed him an off-white envelope, yellowed with time.

"What is it?"

"I haven't opened it, but I imagine anything hidden in the crevices of this apartment belong to you, or her."

Bucky took it, but dared not open it less the floodgates open. Instead, he tucked it into his jacket pocket, and looked across at Daciana, still surprised to see her in the flesh. She resembled Ophelia in so many ways, and yet not at all. But what she had done for him, to help his healing process along, it reminded him of someone else who helped him.

There were people who cared about him, and his progress. He just needed to stop shutting them out.

So I know I said this would be 20 chapters, but the next one will be the final part of this book. (which is part 19, so close enough) 

I'll probably one day go in and change a few things in this, as I had ideas that didn't pan out.