Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

-James Baldwin

.

.

Captain Rogers returned the next day and the day after that, each time with a hot bowl of soup. Today's was called it chicken puree. It had a gritty, watery texture, but the taste tickled his taste buds. He wished it had some rosemary and chunks like the venison stew he made in the woods. His preference felt like a delicious secret. He squirreled it away with the realization that he liked the warmth of Captain Roger's skin against his. He treasured the rare moments when Rogers would crawl under the bed and join him in watching the door. After that time with the gummy bears, Captain Rogers never approached the bed unless Barnes made it clear he was invited.

Usually, Captain Rogers set up on the far side of the room away from the bed by the door. Sometimes he sat closer to the corner. He always brought the pad of lineless paper and pencils, or a book. Sometimes he read out loud.

After that first time, he always brought two bottles of water. One stayed by his hip so he could sip it occasionally. The other he rolled across the room until Barnes could reach it without leaving the safety of the bed.

His pencil strokes were short and brusque. The lead of his pencil broke under the pressure of his grip so he kept stopping to sharpen the lead. His breath hitched and he kept pressing his hand to his abdomen. There was a slight dilation in the blue eyes set in a ghastly-blanched face.

Barnes lay conflicted, squirming internally. Part of him wanted to go sit next to the Captain. He'd ask what was wrong, ruffle his hair to get rid of the line between his eyebrows, tell a joke. If he knew any jokes he'd tell a joke. The rest of him wanted to shake the Captain until his teeth rattled and his secrets fell onto the floor.

Were his superiors angry? Did they disapprove of how Rogers was handling him? Barnes wriggled back farther into the shadows and arranged the Gummy Bear Army between him and Rogers.

Rogers dragged a hand over his face and walked over to the edge of the bed. He sat down on the floor at the end of the bed as he did four days ago, one leg bent up to his chin the other stretched out like a blockade. It was irrational that Rogers blocking the door made Barnes feel safer but it did. Barnes felt like an insurmountable wall had been built between the harm of the world and him. He slowly crept closer until he could peer out at Captain Rogers from under the hem of the blanket.

He got caught in the blue eyes looking back. Rogers' eyes were warm; the lines of his face softening the longer Barnes lay caught in his gaze. His hand lifted and Barnes flinched, eyes jerking to the left. Rogers' hand dropped like a stone and laid flat against his thigh. "It's okay, Bucky," Rogers said. Barnes risked peeking at his face; Rogers was watching him thoughtfully. Barnes quickly looked away.

"Bucky," Rogers said firmly. "I want you to nod if you understand me." Barnes looked at him sideways, but nodded. It wasn't the weirdest request by a long shot and by now Barnes was used to Rogers addressing him directly. Rogers's thoughtful expression melted into a set jaw and thin lips. "Okay," he breathed. "Okay. I'm going to ask you some questions. You don't have to…" he stopped and closed his eyes. "I want you to answer as best you can. Nod if you understand."

This time Barnes nod was crisp. He felt the order settle into the small of his back, a weight grounding him. Finally, the Soldier whispered. Finally, person-like part mourned.

Rogers didn't start the interrogation immediately; instead, he sat for a long moment eyes fixed upon his upturned palm. His fingers curled. "Last order," he said, eyes locked onto his fingertips. "If you feel scared, or hurt, or angry say Stop and I'll leave. No matter what happens, you're going to get dinner. No one is going to hurt you. All you have to do is say Stop and I go. Nod if you understand."

This time it took longer for Barnes to nod. He was confused, the different sets of data contradicted and conflicting. The Soldier and the Asset turned the words over and over trying to find the meaning behind the meaning.

What did stop mean in this context?

Pare, aufhören, توقف, стоп.

To come to an end. To cease happening. To cause an event to stop. A cessation of movement or operation. Cease. Desist. Terminate.

Leave.

离开, άδεια, jättää. To depart. To go away from. To allow to remain. To exit. To go without taking.

It made no logical sense. But then, nothing made sense. Maybe that was the trick.

Bucky nodded, a brisk stutter of movement barely there and gone, but Rogers was watching him carefully. "After the attack on the Helicarrier, where did you go?"

Barnes blinked. It took a moment for his unused voice to croak, "Wyoming. Near the mountains."

"Was there a Hydra base there?"

"No," Barnes said. "I…" wanted to hide, but wanting wasn't allowed. Neither was hiding. Should he lie? Was this another test? He'd already taken too long to answer. Panicked he looked up at Rogers, and then realized his mistake as their eyes locked and he couldn't look away. However Rogers didn't frown or hit him but looked back steadily. In steady blue eyes Barnes found the courage to say, "I wanted to be free."

It must have been the right answer because while Rogers's face didn't change – he was too well trained for that – his eyes lit up. "Okay," he said, gentle and even as always. "Why did you come here?"

Why. Why. Why, why, why. To ask for what reason or purpose. A reason or explanation. On account of which.

"I…" He stopped there, stuck. I wanted to be safe? Hydra closed in. I wanted to be a person. "I knew you." His eyes burned and he looked down. Captain Yellow Bear urged him on. "I wanted to be a person. And I knew you."

Rogers sat silent for a long time. Just when Barnes thought the weight would crush him Captain Rogers asked, "And what does it mean to be a person?"

Barnes looked up anxiously. "I thought you'd know. That…that you'd look at me and tell me if I could be one—If I'd ever be person-like again, and how…" How to talk, how to laugh, how to be James Buchanan Barnes, how to be a son, a brother, a friend, anything other than a soldier. He didn't know how to say it. "How," he finished lamely.

Suddenly, in a burst of courage he didn't know he had, "I worked hard," he blurted out determined to prove that he could. He could if Rogers would just give him a chance. "I figured out how to eat, and how to clean my clothes, and I practiced looking people in the eyes." It all seemed so pathetic, the little achievements he'd worked so hard for pitiful. The weapon pretending to be a man. Barnes scrounged away for something else to add and came up blank.

Barnes flushed in shame, and his shame quickly turned to anger. It built like air in a balloon until it slipped out through his defenses like water through a broken dam. "Then you locked me up in here," he hissed. "I thought maybe you'd turn me away, or say I wasn't human, but I never thought you'd be just like them."

Rogers rocked back like he'd been hit. His face blanched, then reddened, then turned sickly grey.

For a few heady moments Barnes felt powerful. He'd struck out and hurt him. He fought back. Him. The Soldier never fought. This was pure fear engulfed him. He clapped a hand over his mouth against the wave of instinctive vomit of apologies. The Soldier doesn't beg, and even so… he'd fought back for one glorious moment. He wouldn't ruin in with apologies even if they drove nails though his feet and hands or made him lay flat on the floor while they poured boiling water over his back.

Rogers's hands spread his fingers across his thighs and pressed until the joints turned bone white. "Okay," he said, voice tight but even. His eyes flickered from Barnes's grip over his mouth to his eyes focused to the left of his face to the door. "Okay. I guess that answers my next question. What do you think we want?"

"What?" Barnes said.

Rogers repeated the question. "What do you think we want?" When Barnes stared at him, his careful mask broke, softened. "It's okay, Bucky. If you want to stop, all you have to say is—"

"You want to take me out and put Bucky in," Barnes said rapidly while he still could. "You want to reprogram me to be your friend but you don't know the proper procedure."Rogers swallowed like he'd been punched in the gut. That was two strikes Barnes managed to land. Rogers looked down blinking rapidly, his hand clenching and unfurling. "Okay," Rogers said. "Okay." He pushed himself to his feet. "Thanks for answering me, Bu…" he stopped, fist clenched tight. "Thank you. I'll go get your soup now."

He started to the door – his shoulders hunched and bent – and as Barnes watched him leave all his triumph turned to ash.

"Wait!" Barnes said, scrambling out from under the bed. Captain Rogers turned slowly like he didn't want to face him. Barnes immediately slit to his knees at the Captain's feet when Rogers turned fully. "Are—are you still my friend?" he asked, eyes fixed on the ground.

Immediately strong hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him to his feet and into the circle of Rogers's arms. "Of course," Rogers said fiercely. "Of course I am, Bu…Buddy. Never, ever doubt that."

Barnes pressed his face into the hollow of Rogers's neck. "Are you mad?" he whispered.

"No." Rogers answered, hands gently cupping the back of Barnes's head, cradling it closer to his chest. "I'm… sad that I messed up. I messed up, not you, okay? And I promise I'm going to be better."

He pulled back until he could look Bucky in the face. When Bucky's eyes slid to the side Rogers moved to catch them. "Buddy – you are a person. Right now, you're a person. I promise. I don't want to take you out and put someone else in because you're already…you're already you. I don't need to do anything. You already did it."

Memories of that look layered on top of Rogers, a face thinner and hollow but just as fierce. Steve never lied. Not to Bucky. Not like this. "You promise," he said desperately. "You'll come back?"

Rogers pulled him into a fierce hug, warm and firm and safe. "Yeah, buddy. We're going to have a long talk later but right now I need to go see a guy about a dog. Can you stay here just a little bit longer? Just give me one hour. One hour that's all I need."

Barnes nodded and let Rogers untangle himself. Rogers pressed their foreheads together. "I'm with you, Buddy. I promise." Then he was gone.

Barnes stood in the empty room hands listless at his sides. He felt hollowed out, empty. Barnes walked back and sat on the corner of his bed, counting down the seconds. He played the moments of the interrogation in his head, over and over again. His mouth formed the words, "You are a person," and a pleased flush spread over his skin.

He also turned the words "I messed up, not you," over and over, trying to understand their meaning. He didn't understand the acknowledgement of error just like he didn't know what error Rogers was talking about. If he was talking about the method of indoctrination then yes, he had messed up. But then he wouldn't promise to come back, he wouldn't say Barnes was a person, he wouldn't promise absolution… he didn't make any sense.

For the first time, Barnes allowed himself to return to the memories that drove him here in the first place. He picked through them slowly, achingly, until his head hurt and his fingers pressed bruises into his skin to the bone. He forced himself to stop thinking like a prisoner waiting for recalibration and like the man surviving in the mountains.

The room kept him from reaching the clam center where tactics and heart met. Every time he began to think like a person the blank walls forced him back. He couldn't think. Barnes lifted his finger to his teeth and bit, hard and deep until he felt the warm rush of blood flow over his tongue. The pain brought the edges of the world into focus.

If Rogers wasn't his handler, then Rogers was Steve. Steve was his friend. So, if Rogers who wasn't his Handler was Steve who was his friend then Barnes wasn't… was? Barnes was…

The logic burned.

His fingers dug into his short hair, the bristles just long enough for him to grab and twist. If Steve was his friend, then Barnes was what? What was confined but not a Soldier. What did you take care of while putting it in a cage? A pet. A criminal. Something dangerous.

What was dangerous?

An enemy.

What was a friend but also an enemy?

His scalp burned as small pieces of hair fell from between his fingers onto the bed. The seconds ticked into minutes, the minutes into forty-five. His teeth wore into the wound on his thumb, blood tricking over his chin.

The door opened and Rogers-Steve-Not-Handler stepped into the room. He crossed the room in a few quick firm strides only faltering slightly when he saw Barnes's thumb and fingers. He didn't stop though. Gentle hands cupped Barnes's face as Steve sank to his knees beside the bed. "Come on, buddy. Are you ready to get out of here?" He pulled Barnes's hand down and squeezed it gently.

Barnes searched him hope blossoming. "I can go?"

"If you want," Steve said. "I'll walk you to the door myself and call you a cab. But I thought you might want to live with me. I'm not that great a cook but I have a few games we could play and I have a warm bed and I'll protect you, buddy. I promise. No recalibration, no torture, no more locked rooms. I'll help you. You'll be safe and—"

Barnes threw himself forward into Steve's chest. Strong arms wrapped around him as he buried his face into Steve's shoulder. "You promise?" he gasped. "Promise, promise."

Promise. Saad. Promesa.คำมั่นสัญญา. To assure someone they will definitely do, give, or arrange something. To undertake or declare that something would happen. To make an oath, a declaration that gives right to expect or promised. He pulled Barnes close – safe, secure – and let him listen to him breathing. His hand soothed up and down Barnes's back. "I've got you, buddy," he his ear pressed against Steve's chest, Bucky's mind spun in circles. If Steve wasn't lying then he wasn't the Soldier waiting for recalibration, or the man on the mountain. He wasn't the Soldier, and he didn't have to be Bucky. "Who am I now?" he asked."Whoever you want to be." Steve's voice rumbled under his wanted to be confident. Strong. Capable. He wanted to show Steve he wasn't the sniveling coward hiding under the bed waiting for the handler to drag him out. He also wanted to stay right here, protected and safe and let Steve carry him for a while.

Barnes closed his eyes and gave himself to the count of five then pulled away. "I want to go with you," he said. "But if I change my mind I can leave?"

Steve's face twisted like he was happy and sad at the same time but nodded. "Just say the word and I'll walk you to the front door."

Barnes looked around the white cell. "I'm ready to go now."

Steve stepped back to allow Barnes room to stand. Barnes picked up the Gummy Bear army and looked around for somewhere to put them. His scrubs didn't have pockets. Steve held out a hand and left it hanging while Barnes studied him suspiciously. Now that Captain Rogers was Steve was Not Handler he didn't need to obey him automatically. Finally he handed them over and watched like a hovering mother as Steve tucked them into his pockets.

The door yawned like the mouth of a monster ready to snap him up at any minute, but the minute his feet crossed the threshold of the prison he felt himself relax. His mind jerked, like a train changing tracks. The habits of the prisoner fell away.

His shoulders straightened, his head lifted. The trembling in his hands and legs subsided and his mind felt clearer. Fear receded the farther they moved away from the cell. Barnes's movements firmed and he stretched his stride.

He was out.

.

.

His new room was next to Steve's. He had a big soft bed with a blue and green-checkered blanket and four fluffy pillows. There was a soft red carpet beside the bed he could dig his toes into. Next to the door stood large brown cabinet doors big enough to hide in across from a window with tinted glass.

If he opened the door he'd step into a short hallway with cream-colored walls. If he walked three steps away from his door he'd see Steve's room with his door open so Barnes knew he was welcome. Steve's room was covered in clutter - paper, pencils, ink, and paint – but he made his bed to military specifications.

If he wanted to eat there was food in the cabinets. Water ran from the tap. The toilet paper in the bathroom was soft and thick. There was a hot shower with small blue flowers painted on white tiles. Forget-me-nots.

Barnes lifted his head from the pillow – as soft as a marshmallow and so warm – and got out of bed. The moon was beginning to sink. The world outside slept.

Tomorrow he'd meet with Sam for his bi-weekly session. They'd talk about how his day went and Sam would give him little tasks to do during the week. Some things he did without prompting – took a shower every two days, ate when he was hungry.

Other things were harder.

Therapy was hard. Steve's friend Sam pushed for Barnes to talk about what it was like in Hydra's hands. Barnes was shamed when he talked about standing naked while people touched him. He was embarrassed to admit that he never fought back or ran away. He didn't want to tell Sam about the targets or the nightmares or the times he woke up and longed for a few moments of peace so much he wanted to go back to being blank and empty. Sometimes Barnes's memory got jumbled up and something that felt so true one day was revealed to be a lie two weeks later.

However Sam's face never changed. He always listened quietly, only making gentle sounds to let Barnes know he was listening. He never denied anything Barnes said and always validated what he was feeling even if it was illogical. Feelings, Sam said, didn't have a truth or a lie but simply existed.

The day after they talked about things things and after Barnes's feelings and emotions had a chance to settle they'd meet again. Then they went over everything Barnes said and Sam helped Barnes work through it with facts and data.

This was when Sam explained about dehumanizing. He explained that Hydra didn't make him not-a-person, but they treated him like an object which made him feel non-human. "You're feelings are real, which is why I'm not going to say you felt like an object, because that can disassociate you from your experience. I'm going to say you were an object. So I'm not going to say you're person-like, I'm going to say you are a person, because that's fact.

"People have been debating personhood for about as long as humans have been around. Is it intelligence, or ability, or self-awareness? Can there be greater people and lesser people? When does a person begin to exist? Hell, half of the arguments and wars we've fought, even the current debates over abortion and civil rights and race are about when and what personhood is. People used to say that black people like me were less of a person so they'd have an excuse to make us slaves.

"Just because you don't feel like a human being right now doesn't mean you aren't one. Fact is you were born from a human mother and a human father. Far as I can see you're as human as me and Steve."

Sam helped him make a timeline of where he was and where he'd been. Sam explained that while recovery wasn't linear and setbacks were just as important as moving forward, it helped to see how much he'd improved over time. It also helped him organize the disjointed memories in his head.

It cleared up the fact that Barnes's wasn't imagining his turmoil; that he had a right to feel what he felt. It let him know he wasn't weak or pathetic when he hid away in the closet to talk to his bears.

It helped him to hold onto the days when he felt like himself – when he felt strong, and capable, and rational, when he knew the words to say to make Steve smile – because it helped him know they'd come around again.

The best part though was leaving.

Whenever their hour or two hour session finished and Sam felt comfortable letting him go Barnes walked out of Sam's apartment and straight to Steve who greeted him with Irish hot chocolate and a book which he'd read out loud. Steve and Barnes sat down together on the large green couch wrapped in blankets and pillows while Steve read. They covered Watership Down and the Little Britches series in two months.

Barnes opened his bedroom door and crept out to the living room. He walked around the perimeter of the room checking the locks on the doors and listening to the vents.

Moonlight lit the carpet with silver and pooled in the water in a leftover cup on the coffee table. Around the cup, Captain Yellow Bear and his men were laying siege on Steve's action figures. Tony Stark made them small thimble helmets to match the army jackets Steve stitched for them. There were even different uniforms for the agents' verses the soldiers.

A map was laid out across the table near the heap of blankets and couch pillows marked up in red and yellow as Steve and Barnes planned their summer wilderness getaway. Barnes had marked and circled the path to the cave carefully marking scattered mines in bright red just in case.

Barnes pulled the fuzzy blanket out of the jumble and twisted it around until he was in a felt cocoon. He shuffled over to the window seat and curled up, forehead pressed to the glass. Down below the city that never slept rolled over lazily, a few stray taillights disappearing into the darkness as the late night workers headed home.

"James Buchanan Barnes," he said quietly, the now familiar rolling over his tongue like milk chocolate, almost too sweet. He closed his eyes. His memories were hazy. He knew his sisters names now, knew he loved them. The mix of love and anger against his dad roiled in his stomach, a match to the sickening feeling of pity and resentment toward his mother. For a lot of things he knew they happened rather than remembered. He knew he fought in WWII, and he remembered mud between his toes – ice frosting his scope when Michael Wess's head caught a stray bullet over the barbwire – but he didn't remember the boat there or how he ended up the trench.

Sam said that was normal. Few people remembered their lives cleanly and siblings often remembered the same event two different ways. Brains processed memory and deleted facts it considered unimportant. Data and experiences changed memory like a potter changed clay.

Barnes considered. He remembered how Bucky felt about things. He was a happy man, always ready for a good joke, quick to laugh and a flash-pan temper. He liked church, liked the ritual and the confidence of knowing what he was supposed to do even if he didn't follow it. Sally Monroe's red lipstick. He used to watch her across the schoolyard, but she never gave him the time of day.

In ever memory he had Steve was there. Steve's grumpy face with lips thin and brow furrowed, Steve's face when they rode the Cyclone all pinched and kind of green. Steve holding his sister back while Bucky screamed at his father. Steve and his mom making a bed for him on the couch after he ran away. Steve was his brother; closer than a friend, that kind of close where you handed the other person knives to rip your soul because you knew they'd never use them.

He wanted that back. Back when he was Hydra's he wanted it. In the early days he remembers latching onto people like a kitten looking for its mama. He tried over and over to find the limb he was missing, that piece of his chest that ached. Someone he could trust. Some handlers used it, but they all turned it against him eventually.

He used to turn to his handler, mouth open to say something only for it to fade away when he saw brown hair, or eyes the wrong shade of blue, or a frame too tall or too short. The words vanished as if stolen by the wind.

Instinct faded.

His reflection echoed the movement of his lips. Ja, teeth clenched, lips pursed out, teeth open. Mes. Lips closed and pressed inward, opened to clenched teeth. Bu. Lips parted to a cushion of air and didn't close for the force of sound pushed by the back of his tongue which rolls forward to hit the roof of his mouth, ckan. Nan is a flicker of the tongue. Barn a rapid movement of the jaw softened by the lingering tongue of nes. James Buchanan Barnes.

The cool of the glass soothed his headache.

A shadow trod silently into in the corner of his vision and moved in from the hallway to sit on the barren couch. Steve rested his weight on his elbows. He fiddled with the bears, absently shoving Agent Blue Bear closer to Soldier Bear and Captain Yellow Bear.

Barnes focused on the traffic below.

The reflection of Steve rubbed his eyes and yawned. "Did I wake you?" Barnes asked.

"Nah," Steve rumbled, voice hoarse with sleep. "Was jus' thinking."

Liar. Barnes smiled at his reflection. His body loosened, instinctively trusting Steve to his back. They sat in companionable silence for a while.

For a moment, Barnes could see the future stretching out in front of them. He saw he and Steve in a holding pattern, Steve always there and Barnes a shattered wreck trying to pull himself together. There'd be good days. There'd be bad days, and eventually the good would out way the bad. They'd live out their days slow, content. Restless.

He wanted more.

"Steve," Barnes said.

"Yeah, buddy," Steve replied, straightening from where he'd begun to drop off. He blinked back sleep and focused on his friend. "Wassup."

"Do you know why I ran?"

Steve stilled, suddenly wide awake and alert. His body language spoke of caution as he pushed himself all the way upright. "No," he said finally. "We have theories, but…" he trailed off. "Do you want to tell me?"

Barnes watched him in the mirror of the window. The moonlight glinted off the edges of his metal hand. "You pulled it off. The scaffolding. You knew I'd come up swinging but you still helped me. The moment you finished your mission you stopped hurting me. No one ever did that before." The metal fingers curled and uncurled. "No one ever did that before. Helped when they could hurt."

The Soldier had never experienced kindness before. He'd seen it on missions, sometimes. Sometimes the soldiers in his unit cared for wounded members or placed a comforting hand on the shoulder of a grieving rookie. The technicians ooh'd and awe'd when a female programmer got pregnant. They brought her hot chocolate and gave her the single rolling chair so she wouldn't put pressure on her swollen ankles.

None of that kindness was spared for the Soldier because you didn't caress a chair or a knife or a gun. You used it, cleaned it, and put it away.

The Soldier had liked that kindness. He'd wanted to protect the memory of it.

Barnes dug his fingers into his temple, and then lifted a finger to his teeth. A warm hand pulled it away before he drew blood, curled around his fist until it was safely wrapped in the only skin Barnes would never hurt. Steve sat down next to him on the window seat, Barnes's hand trapped between his palms. His metal fist dropped back to his lap.

"I knew they'd take it away," he told their hands. "I didn't want to lose that."

They sat silent except for the even exchange of breath. "I knew," Barnes said suddenly. "I knew they'd find me, that I'd lose and they'd take even more away because I ran but suddenly a small moment of kindness was worth an eternity of hell. So I ran."

And the longer he stayed away the more he got back until the thought of losing everything was enough to chase the man from the Helicarrier even if he turned Barnes away.

"I didn't let myself think of myself as…as James Buchanan Barnes. I didn't think I deserved it. I thought that if I imitated what I saw the handlers do I'd learn how to be human. When I finally realized everything I'd done, everyone I killed…" his voice broke. "I wanted to die. So. Bad."

Steve's breath hitched. His hands clamped down tight on Barnes's hands. Barnes tilted his head further into the window so he wouldn't see Steve's expression reflected in the window. "I figured remorse earned me the name Barnes."

He focused hard on a silver car parked below. It looked like a toy; something he'd pick up with tweezers. Maybe if he focused hard enough on the reflection of the moon in the windshield the words wouldn't tear him apart. "Do you think," he whispered to the glass pretending it was a question between him and the moon. "Do you think I've earned the rest of my name?" He gathered his courage and looked at Steve. "Can I be Bucky now?"

Steve's smiled bright and shaky. "Yeah, Buck." he said against a throat full of tears. "You can be whoever you want to be."

Bucky breathed out. "Promise?"

"Mmmhm." Steve reached out and pulled Bucky into a hug. "I promise."

Bucky Barnes rested his forehead against Steve's clavicle, his cheek pressed against skin and soft cotton, the steady thrum of Steve's heartbeat under his ear. He heard Steve's breath hitch and warm salt-water drops hit his cheek. One hand rubbed a soothing pattern across the bumps of his spine and ribs. The other gripped his hand tightly, a thumb rubbing over the scarred imprint of Bucky's teeth.

He breathed in cotton and sleepy warm skin; safe. He breathed out contentment.

Home.

Notes:

Well, that's the end of this story. Bucky is obviously not okay yet, but this story was never about the full recovery as much as it was about coming home. Healing is a process that starts and stops and reverses and leaps forward and is rarely linear.

Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented, encouraged, critiqued, and left Kudos. You are the most amazing readers a writer could ask for.

I will be writing more about the days to come for Steve and Bucky, but there have been some amazing writers who've covered the process better than I could ever hope to.

Some of the struggles Bucky faces - including the struggle to look people in the face and the difficulty in speaking - is based on my own social anxiety, though obviously I've never been captured by a Nazi Mythological Science group and brainwashed into their personal assassin, or faced any of the horrors of war and torture.

The advice Sam gave Steve the previous chapter, and the discussion of emotion is based on some of my own discussions and experiences dealing with choices and emotion. The grocery store, for example, came from when my family was serving in Brazil and returned to the USA on furlough. The advice about removing the "I Feel" prefix to emotion came from discussions of shame, anxiety, depression and insecurity, as the I Feel can minimize the suffering of the person, and can distance both the speaker and the listener from the pain they are experiencing. Sometimes it's really good for forcing a person to realize exactly what they've been thinking about themselves. After all, saying "I feel like a monster" is much less shocking than "I'm a monster."

The survival information in the first three chapters comes from experienced members of my family, survival manuals, and wilderness training. I want to emphasize once again DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME.

I hope you all enjoyed this journey with me. Thank you so much once again and Merry Christmas!