"When my time comes around

Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

No grave can hold my body down

I'll crawl home to her"

"Work Song" -Hozier

Ophelia knew something was wrong, but she filed it away. None of that mattered when she was alive, when Bucky was alive, his arms wrapped around her. She never wanted to let go, even though she had been dead for eight years, she was beginning to feel that void- Bucky too had been vanished for five of those years. They missed out on a lot of things, but here they were, given yet another chance to try to get it right.

Bucky tore his eyes away from Ophelia at last, that essence of worry still lingering in his blue eyes -he could never hide everything from her. But Ophelia hadn't told him what she felt when she looked inside Steve's head, the pain that she felt. Though Bucky couldn't hide anything from her, Ophelia worried she would never be able to link with someone ever again. She just hoped that she never needed to, that Bucky would never be trapped in his own mind, that she would never be forced to locate someone. She couldn't handle the agony it caused her, the splitting ache in her skull.

There would come a time when she could tell Bucky about this, but it was not now.

"Sam," Bucky said suddenly, nodding towards the lake.

Though there was so much to be said, and so much left unsaid, Bucky wrapped his arm around Ophelia like he had done a thousand times in their past. His arm around her waist, holding her close, they watched as Sam approached someone sitting on a bench facing the lake. Ophelia looked up at Bucky, admiring everything about him, absorbing every detail of his face from the shape of his jaw, to the length of his hair, to the look in his eyes that suggested time had once again worn him down. She was filled to the brim with questions, but dared not ask them yet. Soaking in this moment was all she needed -they could take it day by day after that.

Sam approached a man who appeared to be Steve, though a much older version of Steve.

"You should talk to him," Ophelia whispered, though her tone suggested she didn't want Bucky to let go of her.

He wasn't planning on it. "I already did."

Looking down, he kissed the top of her head, holding her a bit tighter. She could feel in this action that he was devastated somewhere deep down that he had now lost Steve, but it was a different feeling of loss. The feeling of saying goodbye, knowing everyone was happy -the kind of sadness that is easier to cope with. Steve brought Ophelia back to help Bucky through that. "He said everything he needed to when he gave you back."

"There's something bothering you," she said.

"Are you inside my head?" he asked, raising and eyebrow. It felt like there had been no time at all between them, that she had never died, and yet there was a chasm between them too.

"No," she replied. "I told you a long time ago I would never get inside your head without your permission, and..."

"And?"

Ophelia nibbled her lip. She didn't want to tell him about the pain, the splitting headache that currently was just a throbbing, nagging pulse. She didn't want to tell him that she felt trillions of people die, she felt the agony of the universe watching their loved ones disappear without reason or explanation. He didn't need to know the cost of which she had returned.

So instead she told him, "I don't want to use what HYDRA gave me. I don't want that anymore. I want... I want to experience it like everyone else. You have a lot to tell me, and I want nothing more than to hear your voice."

"O, there isn't all that much good..."

"We've always taken the bad with the good," she replied, leaning her head against his chest.

Ophelia watched from her tucked away spot against Bucky's firm frame as Sam picked up the shield. He placed it on his arm and immediately suited it. Words that neither Bucky nor Ophelia could hear were exchanged- Steve shook Sam's hand. It was a moment of a torch being passed on, from one hero to another. Ophelia was glad to have been able to witness it, she was just thankful to be alive in this moment, breathing the air, knowing that maybe they would be okay from now on.

She wanted to know everything that had happened, and she knew Bucky would tell her in his own time. "Where do we go from here?"

Bucky only hesitated for a second, realizing they were once again a 'we'. He told her, "There's a place I know you'll love, you've been there but not... Not really."

"Where?" She cocked her head to the side.

"Wakanda."

"Wakanda...? Isn't that a-"

"It's more than you'll ever believe until you've seen it. It's where we brought you after... Siberia." Bucky tapered off, the words falling to pieces. Guilt filled him from the deepest voids within his mind. "God O... I promised you I wouldn't let you die in that base and I-"

"Stop," she cut him off. "Don't ever say those words."

"O, I failed."

"Enough," she commanded. "Living in the guilt of the past is what got me killed. Not you."

He ruminated on those words for a moment, repeating them inside his head. She was right, of course she was right. When it came down to it, O was the one person who understood the way the mind worked, how it got tangled and muddy when emotions got involved. She was the one who could pick apart that labyrinth and see the truth beyond the emotion.

"I missed your pep talks," he whispered, the thankful undertone of his voice not missed by Ophelia.

Sam was heading back towards them, tears in his eyes, a blank kind of expression on his face. The combination of being overwhelmed by everything -O returning and Steve coming back seventy years older- was obvious in the staggered way he walked. It was as if the weight of the shield in his hands was too uneven, but Ophelia knew that was not the cause. It was what the shield meant.

"Hey, Sam," Ophelia called to him. Though she had been gone for eight years and couldn't feel the time that had been lost, she missed him.

"Hey, Kid, we missed you," Sam said. Then he sighed. "I'm not really sure how to process all this," Sam admitted to them. 

When he glanced back over his shoulder, Steve was gone. It looked like it hit Sam like a tonne of bricks. "I don't know whether to be happy or..."

"Be happy," Ophelia told him. "He's happy."

Sam smiled at her, then glanced briefly at Bucky. Then, Sam raised his arms. Ophelia broke from Bucky, feeling the tightness of his grip as he didn't want to let her go. She closed the gap between her and Sam, and hugged him tight. A flood of memories from when he was there for her in Germany, after Bucky had been brainwashed by Zemo, how Sam helped her cope with that. How Sam wanted to protect her, shield her from harm. Him, Steve, and Bucky were the three most important people in her life.

Parting from the embrace, Sam said, "Cap left us some pretty big tasks."

"Yeah?" Ophelia smiled.

"He's expecting me to fill some pretty big shoes, and he's expecting you to keep this one in line," Sam said, pointing at Bucky.

A shy grin appeared on Bucky's face. "Well, if anyone can, it's her."

"He always knew how to make the right choice, I'm not so sure I can do the same," Sam admitted his fears.

"Remember what you did for me in Berlin?" Ophelia asked Sam, not mentioning the panic attacks, Bucky being the Winter Soldier and nearly strangling her to death. Her panic attack had hit her hard, and Sam had been there to pick up the pieces.

"Yeah," Sam replied.

"The shoes are filled already," Ophelia told him.