A/N - Here's a quick epilogue (complete with a slight title change for the story - the new one seemed more appropriate given what happens at the end of this chapter). I hope you enjoy this!

"The prodigal son's awake!"

Sam's excited announcement takes a few seconds to force a tired reaction out of Bucky, who responds by sending a rude hand gesture his way. Though he knows he shouldn't, Steve finds himself laughing, the noise drawing his newly awoken friend's attention towards him, and he's gifted with a weak smile which he returns. After so many months of Bucky being frozen and unreachable, Steve finds himself unused to the weightlessness that seeing him re-animated brings, and it feels like he's spent the last year as a shattered fragment of glass that's finally been put back together.

Bucky was awoken early in the morning, after a week of intense discussions regarding the safety behind doing so, along with extensive planning for his eventual management once he was back on his feet. As Steve looks at him now, it's clear that the aftershocks of the ice are still clinging to him; he's ghostly pale and clammy with dark shadows under his eyes, and though great care has been taken to keep him warm, he's still shivering underneath his blanket. He seems alert though, which is a small comfort, and though it's clear he's going to need a lot of rest, Steve's finally able to trust his eyes and assure himself that he actually has Bucky back.

"I would say it's nice to see you, Sam, but I'd be lying," Bucky croaks, only letting the fact that he's joking shine through when Sam clutches his chest in mock-outrage. He drops the playfulness briefly when a young doctor sidles up to him to evaluate his cranial nerves and neurological responses, but when she finishes her examination with a satisfied nod, a small smile graces Bucky's face again.

The sight is enough to cancel out the presence of those busying themselves around the room. For the moment, all Steve can focus on is Bucky and Sam.

When it becomes painfully clear that he's been standing on the fringes of the medical bay for too long, Steve takes several heavy strides towards Bucky, with each step feeling like an invisible rope is pulling him back, keeping him away from the man all over again. He fights it though, as he always has, and finds himself sitting beside Bucky on the bed, before placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sam leave them in peace, finding a doctor in order to gather any information they may need, and Bucky turns to Steve, seeming to deflate in his exhaustion as if finally able to drop an act.

"It's good to see you," Steve says, the words seeming so insignificant after all that's happened between them. Part of him is still trapped in disbelief and he half-expects that he'll wake to a world in which Bucky is still in the ice - or worse, buried in a ravine - but if this is an illusion then he's determined to drag it out as long as possible.

"S'nice to see you too," Bucky says. Up close he looks even more exhausted, like the claws of sleep are seconds away from claiming him, but unlike with Hydra there is no-one here who will deny him rest. Steve will make sure of that.

The next few moments pass in silence. It doesn't take long for Bucky to give into temptation and slump against Steve with his head rested on his shoulder, and Steve watches as his breathing evens out and he surrenders to sleep. It's only then that the surrounding sounds return to him – the cacophony of beeps and hums of machines, and discussions being carried out in both Wakandan and English – and he looks up to see Sam finish a detailed discussion with a doctor before making his way over to them, smiling more softly than Steve expects him to when he sees Bucky fast asleep.

"How is he, really?" Sam asks, any hint of the earlier teasing absent from his tone, and Steve allows himself a weak smile before looking back to the man at his side. He knows that waking up isn't enough to bring an end to his trials – there's still the triggers to deal with – but it's a start.

Enough for Steve to believe that things will get better anyway.

He takes a deep breath and exhales, as if releasing several months-worth of tension, and looks back to Sam with a relieved smile.

"He's okay," he says, and his breath shudders as if such a concept is still unbelievable. "He's going to be okay."

Sam nods and the corners of his mouth quirk upwards before he goes to Bucky's other side and sits quietly beside him. Steve finds he doesn't have the energy to remind him that he's supposed to be keeping up a 'you're an asshole and I hate you' act with Bucky; he's sure Sam will return to it as soon as Bucky wakes up anyway.

For the first time in a long time, Steve finds that he's perfectly content and is able to waste a good few hours letting Bucky rest, indulging himself in the illusion that nothing beyond the three of them matters.

It's a further two days before Bucky's released from the medical bay, with the doctors satisfied that his stint in the ice has caused him no harm, and Steve's finally able to take him to the suite he's called home for the past few months. Though T'Challa has offered to prepare a separate room for Bucky, he seems satisfied enough to stay close to Steve. As they walk along the wide corridors joining the medical wing to the tower containing the guest bedrooms, Bucky leans close to Steve and mutters that it'll be just like when they slept on the couch cushions as kids, and Steve shakes his head and laughs because of course Bucky would remember that.

When they finally arrive at Steve's suite and he's able to close the door behind them as if separating them both from the bustle of the palace, he turns to see Bucky stumbling over to the window, enamoured. It's mid-day - the curtains are drawn back and the view is on full display – and Steve makes his way over to Bucky's side and takes in the sights as if doing so for the first time.

The sun is at its highest, beaming down upon the grounds and amplifying the greens and glittering blues of the grasses and streams. As if embracing the palace in a tight hug, the grounds are surrounded by dense green forests which continue into a rocky outcrop of mountains in the distance, and straight ahead tall skyscrapers decorate the skyline, the modern city contrasting with the wild countryside. Though Bucky had seen a little of Wakanda upon their arrival, the time to truly appreciate it hadn't been a luxury he could afford, but now he seems to be falling in love before Steve's eyes.

It's easy to lose themselves in the view, and Steve loses track of time before he pulls himself away from the window and wanders over to the high wardrobe opposite his bed. He can feel Bucky's eyes follow him across the room as he pushes away the hanging clothes, and pulls free the tattered backpack he'd received so long ago.

When he turns, Bucky's eyes light up in recognition and he walks towards Steve, the wonders of the outside world forgotten. Each step seems careful, disbelieving, and considering the circumstances in which the backpack had been lost, Steve can hardly blame him.

"Sharon was able to return it," he explains, though he's not sure the circumstances matter all that much to Bucky. "I'm not sure if she was able to save everything, but-"

"No, it's… it's fine," Bucky says, a small smile making its way onto his face, and he reaches out and carefully takes the backpack from Steve. His touch is careful, as if half-expecting the fabric to crumble into dust in his hands, but when it remains whole he wanders over to the bed and starts digging through it.

Steve joins him, sitting silently by his side and simply watching as Bucky examines the contents. He watches him pull out Janove's phone with a small smile and slipping it into his pocket, before pulling free the maps with a bark of laughter and a muttered "Won't be needing these anymore." The outdated passport gets thrown in a pile with the maps while the new one joins the pile of chocolates and phrase-books that Bucky intends to keep, and the money gets returned to the backpack for safekeeping.

When he pulls out the notebook, gently as if handling his most prized possession, his breath seems to catch in his throat and Steve lets himself wonder just how valuable the memories within are to Bucky. They'd felt important to read, on his part, but for Bucky it must be a symbol of his ability to remember his past and move on from Hydra's twisted control, and he can't imagine what it must be like for him to have the book back after thinking it lost to some vault in Berlin. Steve watches as Bucky rests the book in his lap and flicks through it with his hand, lost in himself until he reaches the final scribbled entry.

"Have you read it?" he asks, although Steve suspects he already knows the answer.

"Yes," Steve replies, and when Bucky closes the book and rests his hand on its cover, he adds "I shouldn't have done, I'm sorry."

Any justified anger he expects fails to emerge, however. Instead, Bucky simply shrugs, as if Steve hadn't let his loneliness compel him to look into some of his deepest thoughts.

If anything, the fact that Bucky has so little reaction only makes Steve feel worse.

"If you read it, then you know… It wasn't true, what I told Stark. I don't remember everything. I'm not sure I ever will." Steve doesn't miss Bucky's sad smile as he speaks, nor the way it fails to meet his eyes. The words sound like an admission of guilt, as if it's expected that Steve will respond with anger at the notion that no matter how well Bucky's recovered, he hasn't recovered well enough. It takes all of Steve's willpower not to interrupt and reassure Bucky otherwise, rather than let him say his piece. "The man I was – the man you know – I'm not sure I can ever be him again. I've changed too much."

"We've both changed," Steve says, and Bucky responds with a huff of laughter before turning to look at him. The truth in the words must sink in though, for the quirk in his lips quickly vanishes and his eyes study Steve as if seeing him for the first time since the causeway three years before. Neither of them are the same men they were in the forties – they've both endured too much for that to be the case and have been left as scarred echoes of their past selves – and though it's nice to believe that this is the point where they'll start to go back to what they used to be, Steve isn't sure that's possible.

"Look, I'm not going to lie and say I don't miss the old days, because I do. I really do. But if I went back there now, I don't think I'd fit in. No-one would recognise me, and not just because of the serum," he adds, smirking as the idea that of course no-one would think he was the same skinny-Steve Rogers seems to flash through both his and Bucky's minds. "And what happened to you… if I could have switched places with you, I would have. I'd have given anything to save you from that."

He sees Bucky flinch, but he can't bring himself to regret saying it. He knows the idea of either of them undergoing the torture Hydra inflicted is unappealing, but Steve has spent more nights than he can remember losing sleep over the knowledge that it should have been him suffering all those years and not Bucky.

Perhaps, in a better, parallel universe, that's how it happened. Perhaps there's even a universe in which they both led the normal lives they craved.

Steve shakes his head to rid himself of the idea. There's no point crying over what should have happened; all they can do is deal with the reality. "Anyway, we're here now and that's all that matters. And it's really good to have you back, Buck."

Bucky looks away from him and draws his attention back to the notebook in his lap, his eyebrow furrowed in the same way it used to when he was concentrating on something. He stares at it for several moments before releasing a breath and carefully tucking it into the backpack along with the money for safekeeping. One day Steve hopes that they'll be able to salvage the others – that Bucky will have access to every memory that flared within his mind just long enough for him to write it down before it faded – but at least he has the makeshift diary for now.

Steve really will have to pay Sharon back one day.

Bucky's barely finished setting the backpack aside before he grabs Steve in a fierce, one-armed hug and buries his face in his neck. Steve must give a yelp of surprise, if Bucky's sudden laughter is any indication, but it isn't long before he too is laughing with relief at the fact that holding the most important person in his life is finally an option again. He almost misses Bucky's soft utterance of "It's good to have you back too," but it hardly matters; the message is implicit in the way Bucky clings to him as if afraid to let go.

It hits Steve, as he clutches Bucky a little tighter, that it's been decades since they've shared a proper hug. The last time was probably in some cramped tent in Europe, cuddling together to fend off the cold, unaware that an irreparable change was facing them. The weight of everything makes him want to cry, and he clenches his eyes shut and simply loses himself in the idea that they're the only two people in the world. Two people lost in time, with no family and no home besides each other, but perhaps that's all they ever needed.

Hell, perhaps they're lucky. They have people like Sam and Nat and Wanda in their lives too – a family in their own right and a reminder that they'll never truly be as lonely as they feel – and they're safe and alive in spite of the many people who would wish them ill. The future that lies ahead of them will not always be a bright one, but at the very least they will have a future.

"I guess the end of the line still has a way to go, huh?" Bucky says, his lips brushing against Steve's neck as he speaks and his voice soft as if worried he'll be overheard.

Steve smiles and opens his eyes, looking out at the sun shining brightly over the peace that lies beyond their window.

"Yeah Buck. It does."