Everything faded in and out.

Water filled her lungs. The pressure of the water above was suffocating.

Then it was gone.

She could hardly move. For a moment she thought she felt herself opening her eyes. The sky was too bright. Every inch of her hurt. Her body was soaked to the bone.

She thought she saw flashes of Steve, unconscious and unmoving until her vision turned to Bucky. She had thought he had met her eyes and remembered. Why else would he be pulling them from the water?

But that moment too soon faded.

Time was indeterminate.

It didn't move slow or fast. All she could feel were the passing moments and the increasing pain in her arm.

It wasn't until the walls surrounding her darken vision began to shake. Everything was bright then dark, bright then dark and spinning. Nothing came into focus until she felt her hands grasping a cold metal bar, and she found herself wrenching up water and bile onto a tiled floor. Every movement of her right arm seemed to be thwarted by a cast.

A single voice spun around her until her eyes could match the source. Fury stood to the side of her, his arms holding her up by her shoulders for she herself sat on a hospital bed. He wasn't wearing his signature leather jacket but casual civilian clothes in disguise.

When she tried to speak, her voice was hoarse and her throat raw, "What happened? Where's Steve?"

"He's fine. Somehow you both made it out alive. Do you remember what happened?"

She tried hard to think, and he was the first person to come to mind. "Bucky. I think- I think he pulled us out of the water."

Fury only nodded and sat at the foot of the gurney. "Which means you have a choice to make. Even though HYDRA went down with those Helicarriers, I still think they could be out there. Or whatever else comes next. No one knows you made it out though, and maybe, it might be better if everyone believes you didn't."

Looking around for a moment, trying to process what he was saying, Gideon recognized they were in the hospital's morgue.

"Is that why we're in here?"

"Yes," he answered, "But it's your choice."

She sat for a moment in thought until finally saying, "Steve must know. I'm not putting him through that again. Tony too. He shouldn't have to lose another person in his life."

Fury only nodded. "It's your call, your terms." Silence then fell between them, and he broke it when he said, "I'm sorry about Barnes. Rogers should have known."

She could only nod. Leaving Steve in the dark almost cost her their friendship, one of the only things she had left.

"Can I see them? Natasha and Sam should know too," she wondered.

He agreed softly before she turned invisible and followed him. The air outside felt much warmer than the morgue, yet she herself still felt cold as if she had never left the water. Or maybe a part of her was still left in it. She couldn't ignore how truly broken Bucky looked on the Helicarrier.

Seeing Steve, though, uplifted her. After Fury had shut all the blinds, Gideon returned to her normal self, and she didn't hesitate to hug Steve.

"You're killing me, kid," the man laughed as he hugged her back.

"Sorry," she uttered, smiling, "I was so worried." Loosening her arms once locked over his shoulders, she turned to hug Sam too. "I'm glad you're both all right."

"You too, Gideon."

"Where's Nat?"

"Off giving hell to the National Security Committee right about now," Fury laughed.

She joined him in laughing before she settled, sitting with her legs crossed, on the foot of Steve's bed and looked at all three of them.

"Steve, it was Bucky. I think he pulled us out."

"He remembered," Steve only said.

She took his hand and told him, "We're gonna find him. Together."

Hours later and against Gideon's protests, Steve un-advisedly discharged himself from the hospital.

Then, they all found themselves standing in front of Gideon's and Fury's head stones, above empty graves.

The sky hadn't even began to set. Everyone wore civilian clothes, yet Gideon and Fury were the only ones with hoodies covering their heads and sunglasses.

It all felt so surreal, seeing her name engraved on a head stone meant for the dead. She should be dead. If anything now, she felt more like a ghost than alive. There was no trace left of her. Her identity went down with the Helicarriers, and her and Fury finished the job by burning every trace left of themselves.

There was no more plan, no guidance; she will have to find her own.

"You got used to it," Steve told them.

"We've been data-mining HYDRA files. Looks like a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship. I'm headed to Europe tonight. Wanted to ask if you'd come," Fury turned to Steve.

"There's something I gotta do first," Steve shook his head.

"How about you, Wilson," Fury then asked Sam. "I could use a man with your abilities."

"I'm more of a soldier than a spy," Sam replied, and Gideon smiled slightly.

"Alright then," he nodded before shaking their hands. He then looked at Gideon, "Well Erskine, for now."

"For now," she grinned and gripped his extended hand. "I'll find you when I'm done."

"See you around, kid," he nodded before leaving them.

It was now just the four of them left as Natasha approached. "You should be honored, that's about as close as he gets to saying thank you," she joked to them.

"Not going with him," Steve wondered.

She shook her head, "No."

"Not staying here?"

"I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one," she said simply.

"That might take a while."

"Don't worry, it's not too hard," Gideon after, smiling slightly.

"I'm counting on it," she returned. "And Steve, before you go, call that nurse for me."

Smirking, he asked, "What's her name again?"

"Sharon. She's nice," Nat added. She kissed him on the cheek before leaving as well.

Gideon smiled back up at him, "You'd like her." Only she really knew that Sharon was Peggy's niece. Having met her on multiple occasions when she was growing up and watching her excel in SHIELD, Gideon knew that her and Peggy are both so alike in character. Her and Steve would get on well.

"Hmmm maybe," he said, but his face remained skeptical.

After a moment of quietness, Gideon then handed him the only thing she carried with her. It was the one of the only things she kept close since she received it over two decades ago. "I brought this for you. Before I burned everything, I save it and a flash drive with all the info I had on him."

Brows slightly furrowed, Steve opened File 17 to see Bucky's face in cryo and a small clip of him from the forties.

Sam then spoke up, "You guys going after him?"

"You don't have to come with us," Steve said.

"I know," he nodded. "When do we start?"

LAST CHAPTER!!! Don't worry though, there's an epilogue and then some (;