"I DON'T WANT to talk about it," Cara insisted, crossing her arms as she sat across from Sam on the couch. Her feet up on the coffee table, she sat with her knees out, taking up as much space as she could. It was man-spreading if I'd ever seen it. "What happened between Cap and I is our own business. I've moved on, and so has he." She turned up her nose and looked up at the ceiling.

Sam smirked, giving me a sidelong glance. "No offense, Cara, but it kind of seems like you haven't."

My cheeks tingled with the way that he looked at me. The way that it was so natural for him, exactly like the good old days before all this. But I stifled a growl when his eyes met mine, forcing out a smile instead. I inhaled deeply to calm my senses, but I caught the sharp tang of earth and trees, like the forest surrounding my house. My eyes were open, but I saw Sam running away from me in my mind's eye, from the house, on his own to go and hide.

I'm sure Cara responded at some point, but I couldn't hear her over the blood roaring in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and put my face in my hands, curling into myself while sitting on the couch. There was nothing louder than my own shaky breathing for a few minutes. I didn't know where this was coming from. The smell of dirt, the memory of Sam leaving, I had no idea what brought it on. I'd been living alone after that day for months, and not once had my mind warped me like this.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Sam brought me out of my thoughts with a hand on my shoulder. It was meant to be kind, a compassionate gesture to an obviously struggling person next to him. But it only gave me the slightest sensation of pressure on my back and the urge to throw up. I shot up to my feet, my eyes wild as I looked at him. "I-I'm fine."

My friend, unable to let go of his mindset of a group leader at the Veterans Affairs, gave me a soft look. "Do you want to talk about anything?"

"I said I'm fine," I snapped. I scraped my scalp with my nails as if to claw the images and sensations out of my mind. Bringing myself to meet Cara's eyes, I held out a hand.

She knitted her eyebrows, perplexed. "Uh, sorry, I'm not one to hold hands much." Her hands slid into her pockets.

I rolled my eyes. "The keys," I said. "I'm gonna get the car off the street. It's too noticeable."

Cara stared at me. "There aren't any, remember? We jimmy-rigged the ignition. I can show you how, if you want."

"Oh." I shook my head. "No, that's okay. I can figure it out." I blocked out any noises of protest from either one of them and crept out the door, darting to the car in front of the house.

I'd never actually started a car without keys before, but I'd seen enough movies to know the general instructions. Huh, I thought, pop culture is actually coming in handy.

The car started with a low rumble, and I quickly maneuvered it into the garage, Sam having opened the door to assist me. The second I turned the vehicle off, the large garage door slid shut.

"Did anyone see you?" He asked, eyes darting back and forth out the window.

I shook my head. "Not likely." Wiping my hands on my jeans, I inhaled deeply and—thankfully—only smelled the bitter, metallic tang of gasoline. It's gone, but for how long? I still felt like it hovered in my nose, set aside for now only to come back at the most inopportune moment.

Sam nodded. "Good." He turned around and walked toward the sink, filling a glass with water. "Want something to drink, ladies? We've got a lot to talk about."

There was something so irritating about his nonchalance, his nearly careless attitude, that I had to hold myself back from knocking his jaw out of place. "Sure," I said stiffly.

We sat down again and waited for Sam to talk. My limbs were weary from the crazy past few days with little to no sleep, but the water temporarily refreshed me, the cool liquid sliding down my throat.

"I've been using my parents' house as a...a safe house," he explained. "I was planning on getting Steve back somehow but, uh, it's kind of hard to do that with only one person." He grimaced at us. "Looks like we've got the three of us now, though."

I nodded. "So, what's the plan, then?"

Cara jumped in. "I've been driving too long, spending too much time with Her Majesty over here." She jabbed a thumb in my direction, but winked good-naturedly when I gave her a dirty look. "Even though I could give that guy a serious kick to the balls, I'm in. How do we get Cap out of their grimy hands?"

"It's probably gonna take awhile to get Steve out of his predicament, but it's possible." Sam glanced at me, but dropped his eyes to his lap before I could face him. "I've had a few thoughts, but nothing worth trying." He adjusted in his seat, looking...ashamed? "Seems like I've lost my touch," he said softly.

"Well, don't worry about it, Sammy," Cara replied swiftly, moving her feet to the floor and leaning forward to place her elbows on her knees. "I'm sure we'll get it all sorted out."

I watched the shadow of a tree branch swaying on the otherwise sun-filled coffee table, my eyes starting to droop with the near-hypnotic movement.

Cara snickered. "Looks like we'll have to wait until tomorrow for all that, though."

Forcing my eyes to open, I shook my head. "No, I'll be fine. Just a little tired."

This time it was Sam that protested. "She's right," he said, "we can pick up with this tomorrow. We've got time."

As he ushered me down the hall to an empty room, I shot a response at him. We don't have time, the angry voice in my head thrashed around, the longer it takes to get Steve, the longer it takes to bring Bucky back to me. The more hopeless this mission becomes.

I didn't have the heart to look back at Sam or ask him to bring in my bags from the car, so I just waved a hand in dismissal and shuffled to the bed. I hardly noticed the decorations on the walls, or the frilly bedspread on the mattress. I wouldn't remember taking off my shoes and collapsing on the bed in pure exhaustion, but they definitely happened, as I would wake up in bed with my shoes and some layers of my clothes strewn across the floor.

My eyes closed in a matter of seconds, my body yearning to pull itself down into much-needed sleep, but my mind refused to let go of the waking world.

You're losing time, it told me.

I need this, I replied in my head, I'm going to burn out if I don't sleep.

If you sleep, you'll lose Bucky.

"Shut up," I mumbled into the pillow. "Shut the fuck up. You're lying."

He won't remember you. He'll probably want to kill you.

I squeezed my eyes shut, engulfing myself into the blackness of my eyelids. "Shut up!" I practically shouted into my pillow. "He'll know who I am. He knows who I am. He loves me. He told me he loves me. We're going to be just fine. I just have to find him. Then everything's going to be okay. He's going to come back to me. He will." I sounded like a lunatic.

Just like Cade?

My mind was a cruel place. For some, it was the solitude that they craved, the peace and quiet that they earned themselves after their long day. For them, their mind was the safest place on the planet. For me, I now saw that my mind was the most dangerous and lethal place for my thoughts. It was dangerous for me to be alone, though I'd been emotionally alone for so many years.

Without Bucky, I was breaking. The cracks and fissures were starting to form, and it wouldn't be long before I would shatter, making one final mess that would have to be picked up. Without Bucky, I was lost.

That was it. He'd completely changed me. After that year with him, only him, I was a different person. I spent all my time thinking of him, trying to remember him and what it felt like to have him all to myself, but I was descending into a pit that I couldn't climb out of. He made me into this whimpering, whining, crying mess that I was now, and I decided that I hated him for it.

"I hate you," I said, just above a whisper. The darkness pounded in my ears, but the walls, chairs, and desk around me didn't respond. They just stood back, watching and listening as this woman tore herself apart. "I hate you."

But the words tasted bitter in my mouth, and my stomach clenched as I said them. Shaking my head, I began to sob. "I don't mean it, I don't mean it, I don't mean it," I immediately apologized. "I'm sorry, Bucky. I love you, I love you, I'm so sorry."

I don't remember when I started chanting his name, but somewhere along the way, I'd begun repeating my brother's name like a mantra. "Cade," I choked out, "Cade, please forgive me, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for you to die, I love you, I want you to come back. Please come back, Cade, I need you. I need you."

At some point my sobs took over my voice and I drifted into an uneasy sleep, though my tears still dripped down my face and onto the pillow. I was trapped in my own mind.

||

When I opened my eyes, the walls were bleeding.

I could feel the bed beneath me, and the moonlight shone from the windows, but the darkness of the night did nothing to hide the buckets of blood covering the painted walls, staining them forever. I blinked, willing it to go away, but it did nothing. My nose filled with the metallic stench, the back of my throat suffocating in the taste and smell of it all. I sat up in the bed, holding my hands around my throat as I choked on the sensation. My eyes widened as I saw drops of blood begin to pool on the sheets in front of me, my gag reflex acting up.

It was all around me, the blood was seeping into the carpet, covering my shoes and clothes, rising up into the bed like a faceless monster that would claim me to its red darkness.

It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, I told myself. I clenched my fists so hard that my nails dug into my palms, but nothing helped to wake me from this nightmare.

And then the lights were on, momentarily blinding me as it all went away. The blood receded up the walls to the crack between the ceiling, the pool of blood below me sank into the mattress, and I inhaled clean air in ragged breaths.

"Elda! Oh my god," a figure leapt toward me, my vision still somewhat blurry. "You're okay, Elda, look at me, I'm right here, you're awake." The figure swam in my eyes but it was clear enough to recognize Cara, her wide blue eyes staring so hard at me that I thought she might drill a hole in my head. "Elda, shh, look at me, look at me," she said. Her hands clasped my forearms, and the stillness I felt made me realize that I had been shaking.

"Are you real?" I asked, my voice muffled by my own ears. I reached out a hand to touch her face. "Are you here?"

She nodded, holding my hand against her cheek. "I'm real. I'm here. You're okay."

Another tall figure entered the room, and my mind began to clear enough to realize that Sam had come in. "Elda, here, drink some water," he urged me, holding a glass to my lips. I obeyed, and it only took a few minutes for the ringing in my ears to fade, for my senses to come back to me.

I looked at Cara, who was still perched on the edge of the bed. She held my hand in both of hers, looking at me with obvious concern. "Hey," she said in an attempt to be gentle, but she squeezed my hand so hard I thought she might break bones. "Hey," she repeated.

My face crumpled, but the tears didn't come. I didn't have any left to spill over my cheeks. So instead, I collided with my new friend, wrapping my arms around her neck and pulling her close. I counted her breaths as we stayed there, the numbers bringing me closer to reality. "I'm okay," I said, to convince all three of us. "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay."

"Gave me a scare when you started screaming," Sam said, crossing his arms. "I haven't seen you get a nightmare since...well." He ducked his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. Since Cade died.

I shook my head. "I know. I don't know what..." I looked up at him, letting go of Cara in a moment of sudden clarity. "It's you," I said, no ill-will meant by it. "You're the reason."

He stepped back, eyes wide and jaw slackened. "What?"

"Ever since you ran away and left me there," I ignored his flinch, "I guess I've been harboring the memories. And when I saw you again, it...it all came rushing back. It's you."

Sam had never looked more heartbroken. "I'm so sorry, Elda, I didn't know—"

I interrupted him, shaking my head again. "You couldn't have." My voice grew soft again as I turned to Cara. "What color are the walls?" I asked her carefully.

She knitted her eyebrows and peered at the room. "They're ivory."

My chest deflated and I let out a breath. "They were red."

"What?"

"The walls," I said, clenching her hand. "The walls were red. They were bleeding."

||

so i didn't really know how to end this chapter, but i actually really liked writing about elda's ptsd from her experience at her house all those months ago, i think that she deserves some sleep but also it's time we talk about her feelings, as it's not normal to hold all that in for so long.

this was supposed to be the last chapter of part one but i wrote this instead, so chapter eleven will round out part one, and then it's on to part two! the next chapter is gonna be realllllly good, people. i promise.

august 15, 2019