A/N: So. Sometimes writers get writer's block. And sometimes that block lasts in excess of two years. And sometimes something miraculous happens that allows said writer to work around said block. Which is what brings us here. Surprise! It's part four!

Extra special thanks to everyone who poked me with a stick to try and continue this and to Stencil Your Heart because I'm pretty sure she did a beta read of the opening scene two years ago and then had to do it all over again. Whoops!

Disclaimer: I don't own Cap.

Part Four: Hangovers and Second Chances

On Friday mornings, Peggy Carter usually woke up early so she could finish reading for her Middle Eastern Politics seminar while she made a green smoothie. She liked the quiet in the moments before she had to leave for campus where she would inevitably have zero time to herself. Her routine was simple and peaceful and on the first Friday in November she was surprised to find a fine layer of frost on the windows in the kitchen.

Instead of catching up on her reading, Peggy stood at the counter and reviewed the final draft of an essay she had to hand in that morning. Tracing her finger down the page, she reread a sentence and turned the blender on. Immediately the loud crunch of ice echoed through the kitchen, which served a second purpose as Sadie's alarm clock. Any second now Peggy expected to see her roommate appear from her room, stifling a yawn and making a beeline for the orange juice. She continued to read her essay until the blender stopped going. A small frown tugged at her lips when she realized her roommate had not appeared; she'd wanted to needle Sadie for details on her date with Bucky later that night. Peggy poured her smoothie into a shaker bottle and stuffed it back in the fridge, leaving her essay on the counter behind her. Sadie's bedroom door was slightly ajar and Peggy hesitated outside.

"Sade?" She asked, pushing the door barely open.

An incoherent, muffled grunt rose up from somewhere in the room. Peggy frowned but let herself into the bedroom. Sadie's bed was an unholy mess of covers. Pillows were chucked across the room and a single bare foot stuck out beneath the pale grey bedspread. Amidst the chaos Peggy could just make out Sadie's body, limbs in all directions and her dark hair in tangles across one of her pillows. Slowly, Peggy tread deeper into the room and dared to sit down on the edge of Sadie's bed near her pillows.

"Sadie? Are you alive in there?"

"No."

Peggy's lips quirked in a smile. She could count on one hand the number of times Sadie drank enough to warrant a bad hangover, mostly because Sadie's hangovers were a spectacle and tended to last for days.

"Drink too much last night?" She enquired as nicely as possible, searching for the top of Sadie's covers to keep her roommate from accidentally suffocating herself.

"Yes."

At last Peggy managed to peel the covers away from Sadie's face and her amusement gave way to surprise and concern.

"Sadie, what happened to you?"

In all their years of friendship and living together, Peggy had never seen Sadie in such a state before. Meticulous to a fault, even drunk Sadie always washed her face and brushed her hair before bed. The remains of Sadie's concealer and eyeliner were smeared across her pillow while mascara ran beneath her eyes, flaking on her skin. As she blinked blearily into the dim light of her room, Peggy could see that Sadie's eyes were red and puffy, a sure sign that she'd been crying. Her hands visibly shook when she reached for the covers to pull them back over her shoulders and Peggy was helpless to fight her as she sank deeper into her bed, turning her face to the side and partially into a pillow.

"I drank too much." Her voice was raspy and raw, bordering on a whisper.

Tentatively, Peggy started to smooth Sadie's hair back from her temple but stopped when she winced at the contact. The smell of bourbon rose up from her skin, begging one all too important question.

"I can see that. Do you want to tell me why?"

Sadie's grey eyes watered up again and she stared listlessly into nothing. "I didn't get into Columbia."

"Oh Sadie, I'm so sorry. I can't believe it."

"The letter's right there on the bedside table if you need proof," she muttered quite bitterly, taking Peggy by surprise. Hesitantly, she picked up the envelope and pulled the short and businesslike letter out. Sure enough, Sadie had been the recipient of the 'thanks-for-trying, better-luck-next-time' letter. The short paragraphs were an academic overachiever's worst nightmare, the stark pronouncement that their best wasn't good enough. Sadie, like Peggy, was a prodigious overachiever to a degree that often confused and intimidated her peers. She seemed like a shoo-in for Columbia, so much so that Peggy had already bought a bottle of champagne she'd been keeping at Steve's house. To see Sadie's name on the same page as a rejection didn't make sense; it defied everything Peggy knew about her friend.

"I just, I don't get it," she blurted out, folding the letter and shoving it back in the envelope. "You had everything going for you."

"I know," moaned Sadie, sniffling and wincing with each movement.

"You found out yesterday afternoon? Why didn't you tell me?" Peggy suddenly questioned.

Sadie shrugged, her frown deepening. "You were busy and I just really wanted to be alone."

Peggy wasn't sure she could blame her roommate for that. Sadie slid further into her bed, trying to shield her hurting eyes from the light. The pain on her face was evident. Peggy could only imagine how badly Sadie was hurting. Columbia meant the world to her; it was all Sadie ever wanted for herself, to go to the same medical school as her father. And now it seemed like her dreams had been foreclosed by what Peggy could only assume was an outstanding applying class and a razor thin margin. She thought about her own ambitions, about the University of Virginia and its law school. Peggy wondered how she would feel if her dream school told her she wasn't welcome. Devastated was the only word that came to mind.

"You need water, aspirin and something to eat," said Peggy soothingly. Sadie groaned and grumbled something about not eating ever again but Peggy promptly ignored her. "Don't argue, you'll only make your hangover worse. I'll be back."

She returned ten minutes later with a glass of cold water, two aspirin and two pieces of dry toast. Sadie somehow managed to force herself to sit halfway up in her bed, holding her hand over her eyes and looking more miserable than seemed possible. "Don't you have class?" Sadie mumbled but accepted the water all the same.

"I just e-mailed my professor my essay. This is more important," said Peggy as she kicked off her shoes and settled next to Sadie. She handed over the aspirin which Sadie dutifully took before she started to nibble at the corner of a piece of toast. Every small movement she made seemed to further pain her and Peggy could only guess at how badly her stomach was rolling and her head was pounding. Sadie trembled and slowly rested her head against Peggy's shoulder.

For a while they sat in silence, Peggy wondering what she could possibly do to cheer up her friend in the wake of the biggest disappointment of her life. Rejection was a very rare and unfamiliar creature to both of them. There would be no amount of rationalization or reassurance in the world that could keep Sadie from handling the situation the same way Peggy would. Eventually, in the ensuing minutes and hours and days Sadie would pick apart every single detail of her application, every word of her essay, and each syllable she'd uttered during her interview. She would review her MCAT scores with the national average, double-check Columbia's acceptance rates, and generally drive herself crazy with the unanswerable question of what separated her from her peers who had been accepted. This was nothing to say of the embarrassment that Peggy knew Sadie would feel when she had to admit to the rest of the world that she'd been rejected. It was irrational and stupid but Peggy knew Sadie would be mortified to tell anyone the truth because that's exactly how she'd feel herself. And the worst part of all was that Peggy knew Sadie was going to get into half a dozen of her backup schools and she knew Sadie was going to be a phenomenal doctor but that was of very little consolation right now.

"Is it wrong that I just hate everything right now?" Sadie asked softly after a while.

Peggy's lips quirked. At the very least, Sadie was still in possession of her occasionally dark sense of humor. "I think you're entitled."

"Good. Because I hate everything."

Sadie continued to slowly nibble at her toast until it became too much and she handed it back. She placed a hand over her stomach, presumably to try and settle herself. The smell of alcohol was unpleasant but Peggy worked through it. Her thoughts returned to Sadie's hangover which prompted yet another mystery that needed solving.

"Where did you go last night?"

"Hermann's," said Sadie. "I knew Dernier wouldn't mind if I took up a small spot at his bar on a Thursday night. Plus nobody from the biochemistry department goes there."

"Smart," mused Peggy. "How did you get home?"

Without warning, Sadie stiffened and clapped a hand over her face. "Oh my God."

Just the agonizing, absolutely horrified tone of Sadie's voice clued Peggy in that her misery wasn't just related to Columbia Medical School. There was another side to the story that Peggy hadn't gotten yet, but she'd started to put the puzzle pieces together before Sadie could formulate an answer. Then Sadie lurched forward, tumbling out of bed.

"I'm going to throw up."

Peggy watched slack-jawed as Sadie clawed her way out of her bedroom and slammed her bathroom door shut. Seconds later she heard the tell-tale retching sound. Knowing better than to try and comfort Sadie in the middle of being violently sick, Peggy instead let the darker side of her curiosity get the better of her. She'd pay hell for it later but she still reached for Sadie's phone, lying face down on the nightstand. Flipping it over, she pushed the home button and sure enough there was a string of text messages from Bucky.

B: Hey

B: How are you feeling this morning?

B: Do you want coffee before class?

B: Are you going to be in class?

B: Sadie? I know you're mad but will you at least text me back that you're okay?

B: Judging from your lack of response I'm going to just assume that you're either not talking to me or dead. It'd be nice to know one way or the other.

It was obvious that something bad happened last night. Peggy left Sadie's phone and retrieved her own, unsurprised to find another message from Bucky. The boy had it bad, thought Peggy when she read his message to her.

B: Hey. If you don't already know, Sadie tried to drink half the bar last night and we had a fight. She's not answering my messages, can you just tell me if she's okay?

Peggy was typing when the bathroom door opened and Sadie reappeared, crawling back into bed. "I think I'm dying," she groaned and sank back into her covers. "Who are you talking to?"

P: Well, she's alive. Okay is a relative term. She's definitely not going to make it to class…or anywhere today probably.

"Bucky," she said matter-of-factly. Sadie's answering groan into her pillow cause Peggy to raise an eyebrow. Before she could say anything, her phone buzzed. Bucky had texted her back.

B: I figured. I didn't even know she could get that drunk. Let me know if I can do anything.

P: I will.

"So, do you want to tell me what happened?" Peggy's voice carried a mothering, rather pointed tone.

"No," said Sadie unhappily. Closing her eyes while she shifted, Sadie rolled onto her back and rested her head in Peggy's lap. "You're going to make me tell you, aren't you?"

"It's either that or I make Steve badger Bucky until Bucky tells him so he can tell me."

Peggy knew this prospect was even worse for Sadie and she swallowed hard. "Some of it is really fuzzy," she muttered by way of an explanation. "But when you didn't pick up your phone, Dernier must have made me tell him who to call after he took my keys. I said Bucky, don't ask me why."

Peggy didn't need to ask why. If there were ever two human beings so stupidly perfect for each other and so stupidly dense about it then it was Sadie and Bucky. It was also a fact that Sadie wasn't nearly as subtle about her feelings for Bucky as she thought she was. "So Bucky came to get you?"

Sadie nodded once, her nose scrunching in pain as she did so. "And he was just perfect, of course. He made me feel so much better about this whole shit storm and then he drove me home. And I don't know what I was thinking, Peg. Like, I know we've kissed but it's not like we're jumping each other every chance we get or anything but that definitely didn't stop me from coming onto him anyway."

The embarrassment burned tomato red on Sadie's cheeks. Peggy's own second-hand embarrassment for her friend made her shift uncomfortably. Even thinking about Sadie coming onto anyone was grossly odd because it was so out of character for her. Seeing Sadie drunk was such a rarity that it hadn't even occurred to Peggy that she'd act that way.

"Oh no," she said in a soft tone.

Sadie swallowed painfully. "Yeah. I mean, there was no pretense, no trying to be subtle. I just walked up to him and," she choked her words off, fresh tears brimming at the corners of her eyes.

It didn't take a genius to see where the story was headed. "And he said no."

"Of course he did. Because, as I previously mentioned, he's perfect. And there was drunk me trying to change his mind, practically throwing myself at him and he kept trying to tell me that I was drunk and we'd both regret it but there was no telling me anything at that point."

"How did the fight come about? Just because he said no?"

"Not exactly," admitted Sadie balefully. By now she couldn't even look at Peggy and kept her hand over her eyes. "I asked him if he didn't want to spend the night with me at which point he said he did but not when I was drunk and then proceeded to say we should wait until tomorrow night."

"Ah," said Peggy, scowling. "Well, I admit he could have picked a better way to word it."

"Hah, well drunk me immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. I basically accused him of being a good guy in order to get me into bed the next night."

Even Peggy wanted to sink into the floor and die on Sadie's behalf. "Ouch."

"And then I kicked him out."

There were no words of comfort Peggy could drum up in response to that. Staring down at her hungover, depressed, mortified best friend was like looking at Sadie wallowing at the bottom of the barrel. Peggy had no doubts that this was one of the lower points in Sadie's life, first rejected by the school of her dreams and then possibly chasing off a guy that was literally nothing short of perfect for her.

"God, he probably thinks I'm not only insane but the worst person in the world. I am the worst person in the world."

Peggy rolled her eyes. "Don't be so melodramatic. You definitely screwed up but you're not the worst person in the world. Bucky knows that. He's been texting you all morning."

This news had the opposite effect that Peggy intended. "I don't want to talk to him right now. It's bad enough I was so shitty but I think I literally might die of embarrassment. I can't believe drunk me thought he'd spend the night. Not only was I a mess but he's not that guy, the guy who takes advantage of drunk girls. I mean obviously he's not."

"Well you need to apologize to him at some point even if you don't do it today. Bucky knows you were upset last night because of Columbia."

Sadie's hungover mind was so fractured that the mere mention of Columbia sent her spiraling again. "Jesus Christ, I'm going to have to tell my mother about Columbia. She's going to be unbearable and I'm going to have to talk her out of getting on a plane to take care of me."

An idea came to Peggy, one she thought she'd never suggest in her life. Sadie's relationship with her mother was good, but worked best with a thousand miles between them. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea."

Sadie actually sat up at Peggy's words. "Excuse me? This is Norma Reid we're talking about, the woman who likes to walk through our apartment with a million passive aggressive comments about our décor and then goes out and buys a ton of shit we don't need while I'm in class! Last month she sent me three care packages with friendly warnings about the evils of gluten and a stack of back issues of Southern Living along with the engagement announcements of girls I went to high school with. My mother is crazier than I am."

"And she's a perfect distraction from Columbia and Bucky, if you really want it. Let her come out for a few days. You know she'll love getting to lavish some attention on you and her idea of letting loose your bad energy is an entire weekend devoted to the spa and shopping. There are worse ways to handle a little rejection."

The wheels started turning in Sadie's red eyes. Peggy wasn't interested in foisting Sadie off on her mother because she didn't care. Norma Reid was something of a nuclear option but no matter how much Sadie complained, she always loved her mother's visits and was usually improved as a result. "I'm going to have to tell her no matter what, so I guess it's not the worst idea in the world," Sadie agreed.

"Good. Now that that's settled can I give you two more pieces of well-meaning advice?"

Sadie nodded. "First, take a shower. Not only do you smell terrible but it will make you feel better. And second, don't wait to apologize to Bucky and do it in person. He's absolutely head over heels for you but even he's not going to wait forever."

"Okay," she said and started to get out of bed.

"That's it?" Peggy said, incredulous. She figured she'd get at least a little push-back.

"Yeah, that's it. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to throw up again."

Peggy sighed and took Sadie's uneaten toast and water back to the kitchen, muttering under her breath about how someone so smart could be so remarkably stupid.

X X X

Bucky realized in rapid order that he did not like sitting through philosophy without Sadie. He'd grown accustomed to writing notes to her in an attempt to bait her into not paying attention and answering him back. Sometimes he would slide his crossword over her with a question mark next to a particularly stumping clue and others she would take his sudoku from him and shove it into her bag so he would actually take notes. But that Friday, for the first time all semester, her seat remained empty and the space in front of her was filled with the coffee he brought her that she would never drink.

A headache lingered between his temples when he walked out of class, sipping on her coffee and wondering just how upset and hungover she really was. Knowing Sadie, she likely also felt embarrassed at her behavior, if she even remembered what she'd done. In the daylight, free of the haze of the moment, Bucky didn't really think what she'd tried to do was all that bad. What upset him more were the accusations that she'd made to his character and the suggestions that he was in this for one thing only. No matter how many times he tried to tell himself that he'd been dealing with a different person, Bucky had a hard time forgetting Sadie's words. And then, to top it off, she'd refused to text him back which prompted Bucky to sink to an even lower level and text Peggy instead.

As he made the decision to skip the rest of his classes and headed home, Bucky couldn't decide how he felt. Was he angry at Sadie for acting so unbelievably childish and stupid the night before? Was he disappointed that she didn't seem to want to talk to him after kicking him out? He half-expected a grovelling apology message but that never came either. Was he annoyed that she couldn't be bothered to set her hangover aside long enough to say she was sorry? Bucky knew he still liked Sadie and he knew that he'd forgive her in a heartbeat if she would just talk to him. These questions followed him all the way through his front door and into his bedroom.

"Skipping class?" Steve asked when he ambled into the kitchen, backpack already slung over his shoulder.

"Rough night," Bucky replied, dropping his bag on the floor. "I think I'm just gonna sleep it off."

"Don't you have a date tonight?"

Bucky thought about Peggy's response, about how Sadie was in no shape to go anywhere. He wondered if Sadie would want to go out with him even if she did recover in time. A frown pulled at his lips; he wasn't sure that he really wanted to go out with her tonight either. "I don't think it's gonna happen."

When Bucky didn't say anything further, Steve scowled but mercifully let it go without the expected lecture. Bucky suspected that he'd gone off to badger Peggy about what happened. This suited Bucky just fine; better Steve talk about him behind his back then endure a long-winded discussion about how Bucky always did this when he found a girl he liked. Criticisms of Bucky's habits of self-sabotage and backing away from anything resembling commitment were all well and good when they were talking about someone that Bucky didn't see a future with. Being guilted by Steve for having genuinely conflicted feelings on how to handle things with someone Bucky actually did want to be with was entirely different.

He flopped back onto his bed when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. A familiar name flashed across the screen, though it wasn't the one he expected. Grinning broadly, he hit 'answer.'

"Where the hell have you been? I was starting to think you were dead."

"That's how you answer your phone?" Rebecca Barnes asked, sarcasm practically dripping through the receiver. "God, no wonder mom thinks you're a degenerate."

He grinned, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear. "In all fairness, I am a degenerate. What's up?"

"Well, I may or may not be about twenty minutes away from your house."

Bucky sat up, shifting his phone to his hand so he could push his unsettled hair from his face. "You're what now?"

He didn't even need to see Rebecca's face to know she was pursing her lips together in the most innocent manner possible. She'd used that same expression to get out of trouble for years. "Kind of, sort of, almost at your house? I woke up this morning to an alert that Black Rabbit are playing a show at the Bellfort in your neck of the woods so I threw a couple things in a bag and started your way. Is that cool? If you've got plans no worries, I'll stay out of your hair as much as possible."

Rebecca was a freshman at a small university three hours away from Bucky. Her college town was famous for its excellent writing program and being stuck in the center of a town so small, the population took a fifty percent drop whenever school emptied for the summer. Possessing something of a savant talent for discovering the best bands nobody had ever heard of, Rebecca followed several musicians religiously and would take any and every opportunity to see them live when she could. The year before, she came down to visit Bucky no less than five times under the auspices of touring the college and visiting him, but all she really wanted to do was go see her favorite bands play and sweet talk her brother into buying her alcohol. So far that year she'd been so busy with her Freshman year that she hadn't made it down to visit him yet, despite her repeated promises that she would.

Bucky considered her promise to not muck up his plans. He thought about Sadie and how she still hadn't texted or called or dropped by. Everything he knew about her led him to believe that she probably wouldn't mind in the slightest if he took a raincheck on their plans. Bucky grinned; the opportunity to see Rebecca was one he couldn't pass up, especially after the previous night. Without thinking, he was on his feet.

"I've got nothing going on that I can't reschedule. I should probably tell Steve you're almost here."

Rebecca's laugh provoked a wicked smirk of his own. "D'you think he's up for the show?"

"Is it tonight or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, I just didn't feel like sticking around in town. If I did my roommate would probably want to come and there's no way"

Bucky sauntered into the living room and down the hallway to the hall closet where he and Steve kept a couple of extra pillows and blankets that Steve insisted they have for overnight company. "What's wrong with your roommate?"

"Nothing, except she'd take one look at you and Steve and would be incoherent all weekend."

The smirk on Bucky's face only grew. He tugged the blankets and pillows out of the closet and dumped them on the sofa. "That's a little extreme."

"If you ever meet her you'll understand," muttered Rebecca. "She damn near died when she saw your picture and it wasn't even a good one." Bucky could hear her put on her turn signal. "I just got off the highway, so I'm gonna go. I'll see you in a few!"

Bucky hung up and immediately opened his text messages to the third name on his list below Peggy and Steve. A twinge of guilt hit his stomach when he glanced at the last few messages he sent to Sadie, trying in vain to get her to respond. Still nothing. He typed out another message, hoping this time she would find it in herself to answer.

B: Hey, maybe we should take a raincheck for tonight.

While he went about trying to pick up odds and ends in the house in anticipation for Rebecca to show up any second, Bucky listened for the sound of his text message alert. A few minutes later it went off.

S: Sure, if that's what you want to do.

Bucky had hoped for something different, for a chirpy reply that he was right and she still wasn't feeling well. Part of him even thought she might make a disparaging, self-deprecating joke but it never came. Instead she sent him one more message.

S: I'm really sorry about last night. I wasn't in a good place and it won't happen again, I promise.

Bucky didn't know why, but after reading her message he felt infinitely worse. He started to type out a reply but was forced to stop when someone knocked on the front door. Upon opening it he hardly had time to brace himself before Rebecca launched herself into him, throwing her arms around his neck. Wrapping her in a brotherly embrace, he lifted her up and spun her in a circle.

"Miss me?" She asked, as bright-eyed and wild as ever.

Bucky's gaze settled on the most shocking aspect of her appearance. "Your hair," he spoke slowly, almost too stunned to form the words. "It's purple."

"Damn," she said, glancing up at her vivid purple locks. "And here I was hoping it wasn't noticeable."

X X X

Bucky liked to take some credit for the way his little sister turned out. She'd spent years following Steve and him around, soaking up the rock music they listened to and watching the same TV shows and movies. By the time she was ten years old, she could beat Steve at any video game and knew how to throw a solid punch. The older she got the cooler she got, from the piercings she collected on her ears to her casual, go with the flow attitude. The girls she dated were prettier than most of Bucky's ex-girlfriends and the very first thing Rebecca did when she dropped her bag on the sofa in the living room was round on her older brother.

"Does mom know you look homeless?" She asked while she shed her green field jacket and laid it over the back of the sofa. "Because with the hair and the half-beard, it's like you want her to chase you around the house with a pair of scissors."

"Like you have room to talk," groused Bucky, pushing his fingers through his long hair. In the face of her criticism he popped off the elastic band on his wrist and pulled his hair back into a small bun at the back of his head. "Has mom seen what you've done to your hair yet?"

Rebecca raised her eyes to her hair and grinned. Far from the cinnamon locks she had the last time Bucky saw her, her hair was a particularly eye-popping shade of purple, twisted into a bun at the top of her head. "Nope," she said, popping the 'p.' "I thought I'd drop that particular bomb at Thanksgiving."

A look of long-suffering crossed Bucky's face. "Why do I get the feeling I'm gonna get blamed, even when I had nothing to do with it?"

"Because you probably are," she said matter-of-factly and drifted over to the bookshelf on the wall to examine the titles that Steve added over the course of the year. "Being a bad influence on me and all that."

Bucky snorted in laughter. "Right, 'cause you're not responsible for your own decisions."

Her reckless grin was a mirror of his own, a direct product of his influence. They continued their pleasant bickering while she waited for him to get his stuff together before taking off for Kingdom Records, a local legend. The rest of their afternoon passed in a haze of sunshine and cool fall weather. Rebecca regaled him with the latest and greatest escapades from her freshman year while they ate dinner. Bucky soaked up her company and he even turned a blind eye when she poured a healthy measure of her flask into her soda when her attempts to flirt her way into drinks from the bartender failed.

"So, who is she?"

Rebecca's pointed question caught Bucky off guard. "What are you talking about?"

"The girl? Oh come on, don't give me that confused, innocent face. You've been distracted and checking your notifications all day long. I know you're not that desperate to talk to Stevie so it's got to be a girl."

Bucky scowled and turned his phone over. How did Rebecca catch him so easily? The truth was that he had been checking his home screen incessantly, though he had no good reason for why. It wasn't as if he expected Sadie to text him again after apologizing. As the afternoon passed on he just assumed that she really didn't want to talk to him and was probably still recovering. He wasn't about to pester her with more messages if she felt that way.

"It's nothing," he tried to explain away but Rebecca knew him way better than that.

"Bullshit," she said from around her straw. "What's her name?"

"Sadie," he replied, leaning back in his side of the booth. "Who do you have chasing you these days?"

Rebecca shook her head. "Nu-uh, we're talking about you, not me. Tell me more about Sadie. Where is she from? Is she a student or someone you picked up in town? Do you have a picture?"

"Are we really gonna do this? Talk about girls?" Bucky asked in a deadpan voice.

She shrugged her shoulders, bared by her black off-shoulder shirt. "Why not? If you like her I wanna know about her."

"Honestly, there's nothing to tell really. She's a biochem student and we've been hanging out a lot but I don't think it's gonna go anywhere." Bucky thought about Sadie's apology and the words punctuating the end of her text - it won't happen again. What did that mean? Did she mean she wouldn't lean on him for support again or drunkenly try to take him to bed? Knowing Sadie, she could have just as easily intended either or both or anything in between the spectrum.

It was clear from her skeptical expression that Rebecca didn't believe him for a second but she wisely chose not to press whether he was right about his relationship trajectory or not. Instead she latched onto a different subject buried in his statement. "A biochem major?" She let out a low whistle. "Since when have you started robbing the brain trust again? The last time you dated a really smart girl was Natasha and that was ages ago."

Bucky bristled at the mention of Natasha, the only girl he'd seriously dated. "If I promise to buy you beer at the concert, will you shut up about this?"

Rebecca's eyes glinted in mild triumph and Bucky guessed that this was her nefarious plan all along. "Well it's a sacrifice, giving up the chance to take the shit out of you, but I accept. We can talk about what you're going to do with your life after you graduate instead."

That was a subject he wanted to talk about even less. Groaning, he sank lower into his booth. "Why can't we talk about you instead?" He complained.

"Because I already have a life plan and you're on year five looking more and more like a drifter every time I see you. C'mon Bucky, you know mom and dad are gonna ask questions at Thanksgiving. What are you going to tell them this year?"

"That I'm actually turning into a drifter," he snapped in reply but Rebecca remained perfectly undeterred by his ire. Rather than badger or pester him, she chose to simply stare at him from across the booth, lips poised over her straw, tapping her long fingernails against her cup. Bucky hated the sound almost as much as he hated the knowing look that swirled into Rebecca's blue eyes. He deflated. "I don't know. There, I said it. Happy now?"

"No," she snorted. "You know you can't coast on your good looks forever, Buck. Doesn't it bother you that half of your friends are gone and the rest will be at the end of this year? You need a plan; it's good to have goals."

The only goal Bucky could see in sight was not failing this semester; he couldn't retake philosophy if he failed this time around. "I have goals," he muttered offhandedly, trying to think about anything else he saw long term. Very little came to mind, though he'd gotten remarkably good at convincing himself that he would land on his feet no matter what.

"Look, I'm going to say the thing that nobody is brave enough to say but maybe you need to hear. You got a lot of free passes after the accident but those days won't last forever. This year is a bit of freebie but you can't keep coasting."

On reflex, Bucky's hand went to his shoulder. Through his thin sweater he could feel the ridges from his scarring. A deep scowl touched his lips. "I'm not coasting or taking advantage of what happened, Becca. That's a low fucking blow."

"I'm not saying you do it intentionally," she defended. Pushing her drink aside, she folded her hands together. "But I think maybe you've subconsciously used it as an excuse for why you haven't figured out what you want to do with your life."

"I'll figure it out," he promised. "I always do. Now can we please, please talk about something else?"

Rebecca's eyes narrowed but she could tell when she'd lost the battle. Bucky ignored the guilt burning in his stomach not only for ducking out of these conversations but also for not having a satisfactory answer. Even as Rebecca let her lecturing go and turned the conversation to argue about what movie they would watch when they got back to the house, Bucky considered what he would do when his parents asked the inevitable. The problem, in his humble estimation, wasn't that he lacked the intelligence to go onto graduate school so much as he never felt that there was a right path he was supposed to take. Bucky could do lots of things but he'd never found any one subject or field where he truly stood out.

The thoughts were just additional downers to his already subdued mood. Once more, he reached for his phone and turned it over to a lock screen free of new notifications. Still no word from Sadie. Maybe if she texted him to say she was feeling better, his spirits would lift. Bucky remembered that he was supposed to be out with her at that very moment and, although he loved hanging out with Rebecca, he couldn't help but wish that it was Sadie sitting across from him.

X X X

At some point in the early afternoon, Sadie's headache ceased to be a product of her hangover and became a product of her mother. After her shower, Sadie sat on the living room floor and let Peggy transform her hair into a river of loose, shiny curls that spilled down her shoulders and framed her pale face, distracting from the dark circles beneath her eyes and the lingering sickly pallor. While she worked, Peggy kept up a running commentary of all the things wrong with the legal drama the girls marathoned on TV right up until Sadie's mother called, forcing Sadie to face the music. A quarter of an hour passed before Sadie could even get a word in edgewise to break the bad news.

Sadie reasoned that most mothers would immediately jump into comfort-mode upon hearing that their child was dealt a crushing blow. And while Norma Reid certainly slipped into comfort-mode, her version differed dramatically from what Sadie figured most mothers did. Instead of promising to send a care package, offering commiserating sympathies, and roundly abusing Columbia's board of admissions, Norma did what she'd done Sadie's entire life, she looked forward.

"Maybe it was your interview? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sweetheart, but not everyone gets your humor. You didn't make any of those dark jokes only you and your smart-alec friends make, did you? What did you wear? Not the navy suit, I hope; it doesn't really do justice for your eyes."

Norma carried on about Sadie's entries on her applications until the entire exercise became so frustrating that Sadie put her mother on speaker phone just so Peggy could listen in, her eyes growing wider with each passing topic. After half an hour of Sadie assuring her mother that it was probably nothing more than a close call and a tenth of a point on her GPA that made the difference, Norma switched gears.

"I'm looking at flights right now. I can be there as early as nine-thirty tomorrow morning. And I'm also googling the best places to buy women's suits. Ooh, what if I booked us both flights to New York? Maybe not, you probably don't want to be reminded of Columbia. Atlanta? We could meet there and buy you a handful of new suits for your school interviews and then go over every inch of your application information to make sure you're not missing a single detail."

Peggy shook her head in open disbelief at Norma's extravagant suggestions. Sadie, however, was far too used to her mother's antics to be shocked. In high school, Norma took her to Dallas to buy her prom dress and every November took her to Chicago for Christmas shopping. After Sadie's first breakup, Norma's idea of wallowing included a full day at a spa followed by a shopping spree so eye-popping that the credit card company actually called to ensure that nobody stole her identity. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Sadie opened her mouth more than once to interrupt her mother but couldn't find a good place until Norma started rattling off specific flight times.

"Mom!" She finally lost her cool and Norma stopped talking. "I can't go to Atlanta for five days. I have class and not that much time to submit the rest of my applications to my backup schools." Even saying "backup schools" twinged. "How about I just e-mail you everything that I've compiled for my applications and you can go through my essays with a fine-toothed comb to make sure I don't have any misplaced commas?"

"Sade," a softness touched Norma's voice and Sadie raised an eyebrow. Her mother never called her 'Sade.' "I'm just trying to help, but I'm out of my depth. If your father were here he'd know exactly what to do."

Sadie took her mother off speaker and drifted out of the living room. Guilt gnawed at her heart. Sometimes it was easy for Sadie to forget that she'd left her mother behind after her father died. Although Norma surrounded herself with her friends, she was still alone at the end of the day and with her child too old and too far away for any kind of real parenting.

"I know you are, mom," said Sadie, sinking onto the foot of her bed. "And I know you wish you could change this but it is what it is. I am really disappointed and hurt but there's not much I can do except focus on my backup schools."

Norma sniffled on the other end of the line. Sadie pictured her standing at the kitchen counter, staring out of the windows that overlooked the pond behind their house. "Sometimes you remind me of your father so much, Sarah Grace." Sadie pulled the silver chain out from beneath her shirt to toy with her father's ring. "Alright, why don't you send me all of your materials and I'll take a look. I'll also pick up a few nice shirts for you to liven up your suits for interviews."

"That would be great, mom," Sadie relented with a tiny smile, turning the ring over and over again in her fingers until the chain twisted too tight.

"Alright honey, I've got to go. I have reservations at Rolando's with the girls from book club. I'll call tomorrow to check up."

Sadie nodded, wishing for a brief moment that her mother really was getting on a plane to come see her. "Sounds good."

The women bade each other goodbye. When Sadie retreated back to the living room it was to find Peggy scrolling through her phone. Sadie sat down on the other end of the sofa too fast. Pressing a hand over her stomach to quell the uncomfortable rolling, she waited until she was certain of her body before opening her eyes again.

"You talk your mum off a ledge?" Peggy asked, not looking up from her phone.

"Barely, though I bet she's already putting together a sympathy care package to put all others to shame."

Peggy raised an eyebrow. "Yes, because it must be so awful having a mother who enjoys trying to cheer her daughter up with nice things," she remarked mildly.

Sadie felt a flush burn the back of her neck. She sat down on the arm of the sofa next to her friend. "It's not awful, it's incredibly nice. But I wish she would listen to me to know that new things won't cheer me up."

"Then what will?" Peggy asked, finally glancing up from the group text message that Sadie suspected was blowing up her phone. "Because getting drunk didn't help you, punishing yourself for a human mistake is only making things worse, and if your mother lavishing you with stuff isn't going to do the trick what's going to get you out of this rut? I'm asking as someone who genuinely wants to help you."

Sadie sighed. She turned her own phone over in her hands, thinking about what would improve her dour mood. There were only two things she could really think of that would help pull her out of the dumps. One of them was an actual impossibility and the other seemed just as remote at this point. But neither of those issues were Peggy's fault and taking out her disappointments on her roommate seemed more than unfair, it was just downright awful.

"Honestly?" She sighed, pushing her fingers through her thick curls to displace them down her shoulders. "The only things I can think of are if the admissions committee at Stanford calls me and says 'hey we heard Columbia passed on a good thing, how about you come here instead.'"

"Yeah, I can't really make that happen," Peggy admitted, patting Sadie's knee. "And the other?"

Sadie dropped her head, brushing her thumb over her black phone screen. All afternoon long she thought maybe she could simply will Bucky into changing his mind, into accepting her apology and telling her that on second thought maybe they could still make this date happen. As her hangover cleared she'd started to realize just how much she'd been looking forward to their first date and that she really wanted to be with Bucky.

"It's stupid," she muttered, shaking her head to try and hide the disappointment that pinched her features. "But I was really, really excited about tonight. I don't blame Bucky for cancelling; I mean, up until about two hours ago I wasn't even feeling human, so I get it. I know I should want to wallow with my girlfriends and not hang my happiness on a guy but-"

"It's not stupid. Can I be blunt with you?"

"Always."

"You and Bucky are...stupidly perfect for each other. And it's not something I could have seen coming but any time I see the two of you together, it's so obvious. There's nothing wrong with wanting to find part of your happiness with someone else. Maybe you should go over to his place and see if he's home?"

Sadie shook her head, biting her lower lip. The truth was that she did want to go over but whenever the idea came to her mind, she couldn't get past the overwhelming embarrassment. Her mind went back to his text message cancelling their date. Bucky probably didn't want to see her tonight in the first place, if he was home at all. "No, I'm not ready yet. I'm going to wait until Monday when all of this doesn't feel so fresh."

Peggy frowned but chose not to argue. Rather than push her luck and risk Sadie shutting down on her altogether, she switched gears and held up her phone to show the string of messages from Betty and Evie. "Well the way I see it, we can spend tonight wallowing if you want to or we can go over to Betty and Evie's. Apparently they're having a booze and baking party which sounds like it could get downright dangerous."

Sadie snorted in laughter. "Didn't Evie set one of those microwave mug cakes on fire once?"

"I don't know but I wouldn't be shocked. Someone should probably be there who's sober enough to operate a fire extinguisher." Peggy stood and shrugged her shoulders in a hopeful way. "Come on, watching those two try to follow a recipe with boxed wine has to be more entertaining than anything we've got going on here."

X X X

"Wait, wait, I thought the recipe called for two large eggs?" Evie lifted the egg carton and scowled as she read the lid. "Hey Sade?"

"Hmm?" Sadie didn't look up from the Vogue she was absently flipping through.

"What's the difference between a large and extra-large egg and does it matter?"

It took every ounce of self control in Sadie's body to keep herself from laughing. Her eyebrows rose in a questioning manner, not quite believing that Evelyn Lewis - a twenty-one year old college senior who planned on being a nurse - was asking her that question.

"Well," she said slowly, "I'm no expert on chickens but I'm pretty sure extra large eggs are bigger than large eggs which means if you're using extra large eggs in a recipe that calls for large, the proportions will be off."

Evelyn shot a dirty look at Sadie, unimpressed with her salty reply. Her scowl translated down to the egg carton before her face cleared and she shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever, it's not like I'm trying to win The Bake Off or anything, who cares."

Sadie rolled her eyes and turned back to her magazine, where her light headache only permitted her to graze through the sumptuous fashion spreads depicting unnaturally thin models swathed in airy floral prints, lounging on antique furniture in ways no normal person would ever sit. But perusing Vogue was better than checking her phone for what had to be the twentieth time since she and Peggy arrived at Betty and Evie's house two hours earlier. Sooner or later someone was going to catch her constant monitoring and ask why. Just as she wasn't prepared to discuss Columbia with anyone other than Peggy, Sadie wasn't ready to answer the onslaught of questions revolving around Bucky and the unstable ground they stood on.

Still, Sadie would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't disappointed that Bucky hadn't changed his mind or at least replied to her last text message. Maybe he was waiting for her to continue the apology or change her mind on their failed date. Whatever the case was, she knew that she still sat in the wrong and one way or another, she was going to have to come up with a suitable apology that would not only induce him to forgive her but also maybe convince him that dating her wasn't a monumental mistake. How she was going to do that eluded her to an embarrassing degree. Sadie could handle any kind of academic challenge thrown at her but when it came to people, she found herself at an alarming loss. Even from her appointed perch on one of Betty and Evie's kitchen stools, she continually drew blanks every time she tried to come up with the right words to say outside of 'I'm sorry' which was so woefully inadequate she felt her cheeks heat up just thinking about it.

Exhaling softly, Sadie started to turn the page of her magazine but stopped. What was the point in pretending to peruse through fashion she couldn't have cared less about? On the other side of the counter Betty and Peggy were cackling about some private joke into their overfilled glasses of cheap wine, mixing sprinkles into cake batter. Evie was consulting the instructions for cookies for the fifth time, muttering under her breath even as her absent hand reached for her vodka soda. There was no reason in the world that Sadie shouldn't join their merriment or at the very least help Evie out, but she just didn't have it in her.

The weight of her rejection from Columbia still rested on her chest, compounding the breaths she took and reminding her that in the morning she would have to wake up and set aside the sting in order to start on the applications for her backup schools. Even considering the phrase 'backup school' conjured up a sentiment of failure that Sadie so rarely felt, needling at the very heart of her every insecurity. Once more the feeling of simply not being enough crept up on her and brought with it an impish, twisted voice in the back of her head, telling her all of her years of hard work were for nothing and all of her late father's pride and assurances that she was going to excel were just the wheedling wishes of a man too overconfident in his child's abilities to see the truth.

Sadie pressed a hand to her chest as the thought suddenly took her breath away. Though there wasn't a day that passed where she didn't think of her father, she couldn't believe her disappointment had dragged her to such a new low.

"Sade? You okay?"

"Yeah," she waved Evelyn off, turning her head down toward the ripped knees of her jeans so the tortured look on her face wouldn't show. "Just a catch in my chest."

Evie took her word at face value and went on with her baking. Confident that she wouldn't raise any more fuss, Sadie slipped off her stool and passed through the hallway to the front door. Evie and Betty's house boasted a fantastic screened-in front porch that they decorated with patio furniture painted white and adorned with cushions in their sorority colors. Sadie sank down onto the small sofa, brushing away a few stray tears that sprang to her eyes. On a certain level she knew she was being childish. There was always a chance she wouldn't get into Columbia and yet, if she was going to be brutally honest with herself, Sadie had been so certain she was going to get in. She'd flown too close to the sun, arrogant to the point where she just assumed backup schools were for other students. Years of hearing other people laud her accomplishments and of never facing failure set her expectations too high and now she was staring at the business end of those consequences.

More tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and she moved to hastily dash them away just as the door opened.

"Sadie?" Peggy's quiet voice drifted onto the patio.

"Hey," she tried her hardest to put together a serviceable smile. "I just needed some air. I'll be back in a second."

"You know, you're not a particularly good liar."

"Maybe that's why Columbia rejected me; they could tell I was lying in my interview when I said I was open to all branches of medicine."

Peggy rolled her eyes and sat next to her, slipping an arm through Sadie's. "That's not why Columbia rejected you. Honestly Sadie, you know what happened. You got caught in the mix of an excellent applying class and the margins were likely ultra-thin."

"I know. And I know it probably boiled down to like...a point on my MCAT or a tenth of a percentage point in my GPA but somehow that makes it worse. Knowing that maybe I was right at the cut off and didn't make it? I dunno Peg, I know it's irrational but I can't help it, I just feel-."

"Really stupid?" Peggy suggested.

Sadie dropped her head in shame. "Yeah."

Peggy shifted to face Sadie. "I can tell you until I'm blue in the face that you shouldn't feel stupid because you aren't but if we're being honest, I'd probably feel the same way too. We've been told our whole lives that we can do anything we want and we're luckier for it but that's also set us up to crash spectacularly when we fail."

"And it's one of the few things I can't fix," Sadie mumbled, already frustrated with the jarring finality of Columbia's decision.

"You're right, you can't just pick up the phone and tell the board of admissions they fucked up - which, I absolutely think they did. And I know it's of no comfort to you right now but you are going to get into your backup schools. There is no doubt in my mind that Stanford or USC or Johns Hopkins or one of the other dozen schools on your list is going to be thrilled to have you, Sade. And you will be an incredible doctor."

For the first time all day, a little wisp of hope flickered to life in Sadie's chest. She sniffled and smiled at her lap. "Wow, you're pretty persuasive. You trying to go to law school or something?"

"Heaven only knows I'm trying," Peggy grumbled. "If only I didn't have to wait until February or March to find out."

"Well, looks like we'll both be in that boat together," Sadie said and sighed. "And I really do believe you. I know one day I'm going to look back on all of this and laugh."

"Yes, but for now you're entitled to be upset. Nobody will fault you for that, not even my boyfriend's roommate."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "How long have you been holding onto that one?"

"I'm just saying, you can't control Columbia but you can control how things turn out with Bucky and who knows, maybe you'll feel better if your mind is on things other than medical school."

"Peggy!" Sadie exclaimed in half-shock.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Peggy swatted her away, laughing as they both fell back in opposite directions. "If that's what you want to do that's none of my business and I'm certainly not judging you, but what I meant was maybe you'll feel better if you put at least one matter to rest."

Again Sadie knew that her roommate was right, as she often was. During the rare moments of the day when she wasn't asleep on the bathroom floor or dwelling over Columbia, Sadie had been thinking about Bucky. Glancing down at her watch, she bit back a frown. It was already almost nine and in a perfect world they'd be together, getting dessert or a drink while talking about anything and everything that came to mind. That other timeline sounded infinitely preferable to the one she was currently living out, stuck second guessing herself and wallowing in her misery. But getting to a point where that was even possible required an apology and, loathe as she was to admit it, Sadie knew Peggy was right that the apology needed to happen in person. Was she really ready to face Bucky just one night after their disastrous encounter? Did she really want to apologize to him wearing ripped jeans and looking like death warmed over?

Blowing out a sigh, she shrugged. "I think I'm just going to stick to the plan and apologize to him on Monday when I officially can't avoid him any longer."

"Suit yourself."

The disappointment in Peggy's voice was palpable. Behind them a loud crash and a shriek could be heard. "Ugh, someone probably needs to make sure Betty didn't accidentally break something."

"I can handle it. Are you sure you want to come back in? I understand if you don't feel like people. You can take my keys and go back home."

"Are you sure you don't mind? I'm just really not up for this."

Peggy leaned just inside the house to grab her keys from the hook on the wall along with Sadie's wristlet. She took her house key off the ring and handed everything over. "I'll just tell them you had a migraine and wanted to go to bed early."

Sadie couldn't imagine a better best friend. Giving Peggy one final grateful smile, she let herself off the porch and made her way to Peggy's car. As she got in and drove away she didn't see her roommate watch her leave, arms crossed over her chest and wearing a self-satisfied smirk. Peggy pulled her phone out of her back pocket and dialed a familiar phone number.

"Hey, what's up?" Steve asked, just barely audible over the din of the bar where he'd gone out with some of his friends in the graduate program.

"I want to change the terms of our bet."

"This ought to be good."

"Double or nothing my roommate wakes up at your house tomorrow."

X X X

Sadie got as far as the stop sign at the end of Betty and Evie's street before she began to consider her real options. On the one hand, she could go home where she could enjoy solitude and continue wallowing. Her apartment was cozy and contained all of her favorite things including pajamas, hot chocolate, and Netflix. But the apartment was also empty, serving as a continual reminder of her monumental screw-up the night before. On the other hand, she was less than ten minutes from Bucky's house where she was potentially one huge apology away from making things right with him. Sadie's still-tender stomach shriveled up a little at the prospect of just showing up at his house uninvited even to apologize but she also knew herself well enough to know she would be just as uncomfortable on Monday morning for her planned overture.

If she turned left, she could crawl into her bed and watch reruns of Brooklyn 99 on her iPad.

But if she turned right...well, there were a lot of possibilities if she turned right.

"Maybe he's not even home," Sadie mused to herself. The cowardly impulse in her found this to be an ideal situation. If she went by and he wasn't home then she could simply text him the next morning saying that she'd dropped by to apologize but missed him, thereby opening the door to an easier conversation on Monday.

In the end, the car that rolled up behind Sadie made the decision for her. A flash of bright headlights preceded the honking horn that startled Sadie and before she knew what she'd done, she turned right. From there the turns came to her far too easily until she parked on the curb across the street from his house. Lights were on, illuminating the windows covered up by the blinds. Steve's jeep was gone but Bucky's bike sat in its usual spot in the drive.

Sadie's hands shook as she turned off Peggy's car and got out, already second-guessing herself. What on earth was Bucky going to think of her impulse move? God, she hoped that she wasn't interrupting anything important.

But her feet were far braver than her heart and they carried her across the street, right up the two steps to the front door. Sadie flinched when she rang the doorbell, sending it echoing through the entry and living room. She thought she heard a voice and then another, leading to footsteps that grew louder until the lock gave and the door opened to reveal-her heart plummeted past her feet somewhere into the depths of the earth below.

"Hey."

The prettiest girl Sadie had ever seen held the door open, resting her weight on one foot. She shook her vivid purple hair from her crystal clear peaches and cream skin. Sadie was certain that she'd forgotten how to breathe in the wake of this reveal, the last thing she ever expected. Was this the sort of girl that Bucky usually went for? Unbearably cute and quirky?

"H-hi," she managed to force out in a faint, wilted sort of voice.

The girl's appraising gaze flicked from the top of Sadie's head to her white converse and back up, raising one expertly shaped eyebrow. "So, uh, what's up? Do you need help or something?"

"Oh, uhm, no I was just here to see-" Sadie shook her head, wondering if it truly was medically possible to die from embarrassment. "You know what? Don't worry about it, I'm just gonna go. Sorry I bothered you."

Without waiting for the girl to respond, Sadie turned on her heel and half-stumbled down the steps in her haste to get away. Hot tears stung her eyes, a byproduct of the embarrassment that beat in her cheeks and only the knowledge that running would look even worse kept Sadie from sprinting to the car. A whole litany of questions all boiled down to one solitary inquiry: What on earth had she been thinking? Of course showing up at Bucky's house unannounced after he cancelled their date carried with it a certain level of risk but Sadie never imagined he'd already have replaced her. She thought, for all of his other faults and vices, that Bucky at least wasn't that kind of guy when it came to girls.

The gorgeous girl who answered his door refuted that belief from the top of her vivid purple head down to her black jeans that fit her slender legs like a second skin. Sadie always suspected that maybe she wasn't the usual kind of girl that Bucky went for but she had no idea he was so interested in girls with taste so completely opposite of hers. There wasn't enough money in the world to induce Sadie into dyeing her hair purple and in the brief flash she got, she counted at least five piercings in one ear. That was nothing to say of the girl's black combat boots or the overall aura she projected, one of cool confidence that Sadie could never quite master. Just thinking about herself in comparison to his company only further upset Sadie such that her hands were shaking as she tried to unlock the car door.

She only just got it open when a voice rang out across the yard.

"Sadie! Sade, hold up!"

It was official. Sadie Reid wanted to, simply put, melt into the pavement and die.

"God please, can this day just end already?" Sadie muttered to herself and, determined to ignore Bucky, started to get into the car.

Bucky jogged down the path bisecting his lawn and loped easily across the street, managing to just catch the door before she shut it. He tugged on the door, pulling it from Sadie's grasp and opening it all the way. At his beckoning she got out, starting when he pushed the car door shut. In his haste to catch up with her his hair fell in a hundred different directions that he smoothed over with his fingers.

"Hey, I was shouting for you, didn't you hear me?"

"What? Oh, uhm no," she lied.

"Well you're not leaving yet, are you?"

Sadie gaped at him. What was he getting at? Of course she was leaving! Why on earth would she plan to stay when he had a date over? "I mean, yeah. You're obviously pretty busy."

At once Bucky picked up on her hidden meaning. The corner of his mouth rose up in a lopsided grin. "Yeah, hanging out with my sister."

"Your-what?"

A tiny chuckle escaped his lips. "Come on Sade, I know I've told you about Rebecca before."

"Well yeah, but in the picture on your desk she's got brown hair!" Sadie exclaimed of the picture of Bucky with Rebecca. Now that she considered the photograph, taken at Coney Island, they were both also wearing sunglasses which obscured Rebecca's stunning blue eyes. She realized then that Rebecca's eyes were the exact same shade as Bucky's.

"The purple's new, it came as a shock to me too. I didn't even know she was coming down from her college until she was already in town. She's here to catch a concert tomorrow night. She said you were here to see me before you freaked out and walked off?"

Sadie was glad for the darkness to hide the furious blush that pounded in her cheeks and spread down the back of her neck and her upper chest. She tugged on the sleeves of her loose grey sweater in a fit of nerves. A dozen syllables sprang to the tip of her tongue but none of them formed a coherent thought or even words that approximated an apology. Dropping her head, she exhaled before realizing that Bucky had chased her down barefoot. That little detail twisted her heart in a funny way, both giving her hope and making her sad to think that they'd reached this new low. She didn't even realize that too many seconds had passed without her reply until Bucky's thumb drew along the line of her jaw, coming just beneath her chin to tip it up.

"Sadie? Are you okay?"

Ever since she'd woken up hungover, Sadie couldn't understand what her drunk self was thinking by trying to coerce Bucky into her bed.

An orange glow from the streetlights cast slanted light across Bucky's face, illuminating his strong jaw and defined cheeks. He stared at her with an intensity that poured into her, pooling in her stomach and giving her a thrill like she was on a swing, coming down from being too high. Everything about Bucky drew her in, from his broad shoulders squared to her to the way his hand still hovered close to her cheek, silently begging to touch her again but holding back for some reason she didn't understand. Sadie had no idea that two people could be so magnetic but in that moment she understood her drunk self perfectly; all she wanted to do was hook her fingers in the collar of his henley and tug him down to her. Never in her life had she wanted to do something as impulsive as dragging him into the backseat of Peggy's car and yet there she was, fingers itching for the backseat door and thinking that just maybe, bad circumstances aside, drunk Sadie had the right idea.

Something must have showed on Sadie's face that betrayed her thoughts because Bucky's mouth parted softly, drawing her gaze to his lips. God, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to feel his arms constrict around her, his fingers diving into her hair and his hands all over her body. She wanted to memorize the rises and planes of his muscles, trace her fingernails down his spine and slide her hand into the back pocket of his jeans just so he would start in surprise and step even closer into her. She was desperate for him in that moment, her mouth drier than a desert and every nerve in her body humming with anticipation. Did he have any idea what he did to her? Did Bucky have even the faintest clue that she wanted to taste the traces of his last drink on his tongue and learn what his bare skin felt like sliding against hers?

Bucky's eyes darted across her face, reading her slightly wide eyes and her rounded mouth before dropping lower. The wide neck of her sweater revealed the line of her neck which he tracked down to her collarbone. A chill swept through her as he drank in her hips and the way her jeans hugged her thighs. And when he returned to her face he hovered over her mouth, struggling to meet her eyes. Sadie took a deep breath and he swallowed hard in response, his chest puffing against his dark green shirt. She couldn't explain how she knew it but she was absolutely certain Bucky was asking the same question she was. How could two people have this kind of chemistry?

Slowly his mouth tugged into a smile and he dropped his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not for nothing, but I don't think you came by just so we could stare at each other."

"No," she replied, her voice sounding a thousand miles away. "I came to apologize for last night."

"You already apologized, not that there's anything to apologize for."

Already he was advancing closer, telegraphing his moves but the spell between them broke. Bucky's mere suggestion that she didn't need to make amends offended her in a strange way. Their obvious mutual attraction didn't suddenly excuse any and all bad behavior and Sadie didn't want to set a dangerous precedent. She backed up a step, her back coming against Peggy's car.

"A text message doesn't count! And there's plenty to apologize for. A lot of it is still fuzzy but I do remember shamelessly coming onto you and accusing you of only being interested in me for sex," she argued, feeling her cheeks burn even harder because she couldn't stop thinking about what Bucky's weight would feel like on top of her. Forcing herself to push through the worst of her thoughts, she found a path to clarity once more. "I was awful last night, Bucky. And we both know it."

"You were drunk," he countered, shoving his hands in his back pockets. "Everyone does stupid shit when they're drunk."

"That's not an excuse!" Sadie pinched the bridge of her nose. Regret started to creep in from the edges of her multi-layered frustration. "I'm pretty sure I insulted your intelligence via a backhanded compliment. Then I tried to drag you to my bed despite the fact that I know you're not that guy, the one who takes advantage of drunk girls no matter what the situation is. I know that about you Bucky and I hate that I might have said anything to make you think otherwise."

"I mean, I'd be lying if I said it didn't suck hearing you say that stuff but I'm over it. Honestly, you don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," she insisted so vehemently her whole body shook.

"Why? Why's it so important to you?"

"Because I'm falling for you, you idiot!" She shouted.

It took less than a full heartbeat for Sadie to realize what she'd just confessed in the wake of her frustration bubbling over. Clapping her hands to her mouth, she tried to back away from Bucky but with her back against Peggy's car there was nowhere to go. For a moment neither of them dared to even move, allowing the magnitude of her confession to settle over them and for Sadie to begin bracing herself for her impending rejection.

"Sadie," Bucky started to say but Sadie cut him off, though whether it was out of nerves or desperation, Sadie didn't know.

"See this is why I should have waited until Monday to talk to you. Because then I'd've had the whole weekend to put together a coherent apology and meet you at the coffee shop not looking like trash and I wouldn't go around saying stuff like that because, as if last night wasn't bad enough, I'm just so going to chase you away now."

She covered her face with her hands.

"Sarah Grace, I swear to God," Bucky muttered before he grasped her wrists and pulled her hands away.

Sadie's breath hitched in her chest and she experienced a moment of stark clarity before he drew her arms out and swept down to claim her mouth for his. Bucky's fingers moved up her wrists and across her palms to thread their fingers together, stretching her arms out along the side of Peggy's car. She inhaled sharply in response to his kiss, initially hard in his haste to prevent her from saying another word. As he pressed his body to hers his mouth coaxed her out of her shock into kissing him back, moving in easy synchrony with him. With her arms pinned out wide she was at Bucky's complete mercy, resorting to rising up to the tips of her toes to meet him, dragging her body along his which piqued too many sensitive nerves, turning wanting to outright longing as Bucky sandwiched her against the car, holding himself to her inch for inch.

There was an alarming ease to the way they fit together. When she moved, he followed. She shifted her thighs to accommodate her precarious position and he slid a knee between her legs, opening her up and allowing him to come even closer though she didn't think that was possible. Their breaths matched up, gasps between consuming kisses that jammed their chests together, squishing her breasts to his firm muscles that he seemed to enjoy if the growing hardness pressed against her hip was any indication. Eventually Bucky's own desire to touch her outgrew his need for dominance and he relinquished her hands, smiling against her lips when her fingers dove into his hair, knotting up the strands so she could pull his face down to hers for better access to the traces of bourbon lingering on his tongue and his lower lip which she grazed with her teeth. Bucky's hands seemed disjointed with his brain and they roamed with aimless curiosity, unable to stay in one place for too long. He trailed across her cheekbones and down her neck and arms, jumping to her hips and back up to her sides and breasts, each new place eliciting some fresh response that only further egged him on. When at last Sadie's lungs burned for oxygen and she realized her lightheadedness had nothing to do with the way Bucky kissed her, she started to pull back. He responded in kind, tearing his lips from hers to draw in a ragged breath that did awful things to her.

"We have got to stop making out against cars," he panted, though his wolfish grin suggested he wasn't even remotely upset. "And if we're gonna keep this up we definitely need to go on a real date. How about Sunday?"

Sadie's head spun. Bucky took to all of this newness like a fish to water. The wild leaps in his logic were so wide she needed bridges to cross them and she envied the way he never over-thought things, he just intrinsically understood what was happening between them. It made perfect sense that they could go from the misery of last night to cancelling their date to his dismissal of her apology to making out against Peggy's car. For Bucky this was easy; forgiving her was a snap and kissing her came to him like breathing, as did the quips that followed. Sadie envied how he could leap into the unknown without looking, trusting her with some part of himself she didn't yet understand.

It was the trust he placed in her that threw the world into sharp perspective. The scales tipped for Sadie. More than time and planning, she wanted Bucky. Sadie wanted to continue falling off the cliff with him regardless of whether they would plunge into a deeper ocean or cast themselves on the rocks below. She would take the risk if it meant spending time in his arms and holding his hand while they talked about everything and nothing. Drawing in a deep breath, Sadie steeled herself and summoned up all of her courage.

He noticed how she shifted in his hold. Dipping his head, Bucky exhaled into her curls, sending his breath skimming along her skin, a tease in and of itself.

"In case you didn't already notice, I'm falling for you too."

"So Sunday?" She asked, biting her lower lip to cage a smile when he began planting kisses at the underside of her ear, moving down to her jaw.

"Yeah, we can take a long drive and get out of town, get dinner, maybe do some more of this or get ice cream or maybe do a whole lot more of this."

"Sounds like a pretty perfect do-over."

"It will be."

Bucky punctuated his reply by nipping the edge of her jaw. He gathered her hair up and dumped it over one shoulder, baring her neck to him. Sadie rose up a little higher, letting her eyes flutter shut as he tugged her sweater out of the way, unashamed to let his free hand slip beneath the hem and travel higher up her side, digging into her ribcage to keep her in place when her back arched off the car.

His name floated off her lips, a dreamy prayer in response to the feathery sweep of his lips down her neck, searching out the pulse point there. Unbidden to her, Sadie's fingers bunched up his shirt at his sides and held him close. She remained vaguely aware that they stood out in the open but it was hard to care about where they were or who might see them when he planted his hand on her back, fingers sliding beneath the band of her bra. All of the more horrible aspects of the past forty-eight hours vanished into nothing with each kiss he adorned her neck with and with every inch of his hot skin she discovered, pushing a curious hand beneath his shirt. At length he returned to her mouth and was just beginning to deepen the kiss when Sadie heard someone clear their throat.

Sadie felt Bucky's reluctance when he pulled away, releasing her lips so slowly she felt tingles erupt all over her body. Her eyes fluttered open and she turned her head to find Rebecca Barnes standing a few feet away from them, arms crossed over her chest. When her eyes met Sadie's she gave a little wave to accompany her cheeky smile.

"So I totally hate to interrupt all of," she made a funny circular gesture toward their entangled bodies, including their hands hidden beneath each other's shirts, "this, but I was worried someone was gonna call the cops if you kept it up."

Bucky scowled at his sister. "Are you serious right now?"

Rebecca shrugged, her grin only growing and taking on a rather evil bent that Sadie instantly recognized. Bucky often gave her that smile whenever he bugged her in the middle of class or had the barista write an amusing name on her coffee cup.

"Sorry, but from the window it looked like you were suffocating her!" Without missing a beat and not caring in the slightest that Bucky hadn't moved an inch off Sadie, Rebecca strode up to them and stuck out her hand. "You must be the biochem major he's so into. Hi, I'm Rebecca!"

Sadie couldn't decide if she wanted to wilt from fresh embarrassment or laugh. Taking care with the fact that Bucky still needed a minute to come down from the high of their intense reverie, Sadie extricated herself from him to take Rebecca's hand.

"Sadie Reid," she introduced herself.

"It's nice to meet you! It's not often my brother gets so hung up on a girl; you're kind of like a unicorn. But," Sadie's eyes widened when Rebecca gave her a blatant once-over, "I definitely get the appeal. Shame he met you first."

Sadie didn't even know what to say in response to that and fortunately Bucky saved her the trouble. "Becca, shut up."

"Ignore him, he's just irritated that I stopped him from pulling you into the backseat of your car. We're actually supposed to be watching a movie. You should join us!"

"Oh, I don't want to interrupt family time," Sadie started to argue but stopped when Bucky reached down and filled her hand with his.

"You're not interrupting anything, unlike someone I know."

"Perfect, I'll go make the popcorn." Rebecca pointed an accusatory finger at Bucky, "Don't even think about staying out here to start making out with your new girlfriend again or else I'll call the cops."

Sadie had to admit that watching Bucky suffer from his own version of embarrassment was rather funny. Rebecca shot her another perky smile before turning on heel and flouncing up the walk and back through the open front door. Her absence allowed Sadie to take in all of the surprising things that happened in their brief exchange.

"So that's-"

"My sister, yeah."

"Is she always-"

"So obnoxious?"

"I was gonna say brazen but, sure."

"Always."

"And did she really just-"

"Shamelessly hit on you? Yeah, she does that. You should see her with girls she's actually into."

"I was gonna say call me your girlfriend but I'm glad we covered that too."

Bucky's fingers tightened over her hand. "Well, I mean-" he paused and chuckled, shaking his head "-leave it to Rebecca to have that conversation for us but I'm not mad about it. I definitely didn't put it all on the line for kicks."

"Bucky Barnes, my boyfriend," she tested the words out only to find them foreign to her. It had been such a long time since she'd had a boyfriend that Sadie felt weird attaching a label to Bucky and even stranger hearing the label of 'girlfriend' attached to her. When she made a face, he laughed.

"What? Never expected you'd have a boyfriend who's so roguishly handsome?"

Sadie slipped her hand from his. "I was gonna say who's such a degenerate but sure, we'll go with that," she joked and shrieked in laughter, taking off toward the house when he made to grab her.

Her shorter legs were no competition with Bucky's and before she even reached the sidewalk his hand closed around her wrist, spinning her around. One strong arm and then the other wrapped around her and Bucky lifted her clean off the ground.

"Well, I never expected to have such a smartass for a girlfriend but here we are."

Sadie smoothed a few stray strands of hair from his face and bent her neck to kiss him. "You like that I'm a smartass."

"Sadly, I do. I've always had a thing for girls who insult me. Now come on, let's get inside before Becca comes out and starts yelling at me."

X X X

Rebecca turned out to be fantastic company. The trio exchanged a movie for episodes of Stranger Things and Bucky tried in vain to stop Rebecca from telling embarrassing stories from childhood. She goaded Sadie into tossing popcorn pieces back and forth to try and catch them in their mouths from either end of the sofa while convincing Sadie to blow off backup applications the following night to go the concert with them. Now that at least one half of her problems worked out in her favor, Sadie felt less awful about Columbia and she relished the opportunity to lighten up. Good company was the best balm for misery and Sadie couldn't ask for better than Rebecca and Bucky.

At some point they settled down to actually watch part of an episode. Rebecca stretched out on the sofa and promptly fell asleep within minutes, rolling over with her back to the screen. Bucky tugged Sadie to join him on the small loveseat where they became progressively more entangled as the episode wore on. With her legs draped over Bucky's and a blanket pulled over their bodies nobody could see her palm splayed out on his chest or his hand as it curved over her knee, pushing up the length of her thigh. Neither of them tore their eyes away from the screen, even when Sadie began toying with his hair or his arm around her shoulder tightened to pull her deeper against him. The innocence of their touching was nothing more than a veneer for something simmering just beneath the surface, desire that wouldn't stay pent up for much longer though Sadie hoped to make it at least a couple more nights before giving into their mutual wanting.

As one episode blended into another Sadie sank further into her spot, resting her head on Bucky's shoulder. Despite her attempts at staying awake and her every intention of going home at the end of that episode her eyes fluttered shut and she fell asleep. The steady rise and fall of Bucky's chest grew longer and deeper when he drifted off. Sadie slept peacefully until she heard her phone buzzing on the end table just behind her head. She narrowly bit back her groan, remembering Rebecca at the last second as she twisted to reach for her phone.

"What's up?"

Both of them winced away from the bright screen. "It's Peggy, she just wanted to let me know she's crashing at Betty and Evie's tonight and she'll get a ride home from them in the morning."

Bucky squinted to read the text message that included more than one typo. "She drunk?"

"Looks that way. Saves me the trouble of having to get her since I've got her car."

Sadie turned off her phone screen and turned to pillow her cheek back on Bucky's shoulder. He buried his lips in her hair.

"So," he kept quiet, his voice just barely above a whisper in her ear. "It's one in the morning."

"Way later than I planned to stay. Your couch is just really comfy."

"The couch, huh?"

Sadie pressed her face into his neck to hide her smile. As the haze of her sleep wore off she remembered the position they were in. Even thinking that she was tangled up on the sofa with her boyfriend seemed strange, like she was stepping into someone else's life. This was especially true when she considered who her brand new boyfriend was. Girls like Sadie didn't end up with boys like Bucky Barnes. He was like something out a of a movie and if she didn't already know so many of his flaws she might be tempted to romanticize his aching good looks combined with his sharp sense of humor and staggering intelligence. She always pictured herself with another science major, a guy who shared her ambitions and could understand the world she planned to enter. Sadie always imagined someone clean cut and maybe too respectable, serious and driven, not at all like the boy currently wrapped around her.

Maybe it was a good thing, she mused, stifling a giggle when he nuzzled at her face, coaxing her to look up to him so he could kiss her. Bucky didn't seem to mind the worst of her Type A personality traits and in fact he tempered some of them. The parade of worries that constantly followed her tapered off when they were together. He possessed a strange knack for getting her to loosen up and stop thinking about her life ten years in advance. Bucky was all about the here and now, what was happening in that exact moment and how could he get the absolute most out of it. His lips molded perfectly to hers and when he kissed her she couldn't think about anything but the way he invaded her every sense, drawing her out of her universe and onto an entirely different plane, one where expectations and the high stakes didn't matter. They couldn't have been more different if they tried but Bucky was a perfect foil to Sadie's harshest aspects and she thought that in some strange, cosmic way they were supposed to be together.

"Your sister is right there," she whispered between soft, lazy, lippy kisses that entered her bloodstream, swimming through her veins to reach every part of her body.

"Becca sleeps like the dead," he promised, voice so quiet Sadie almost didn't hear him.

"I should probably go home."

Bucky nodded but didn't move to let go of her. "Are you sure you'll be safe to drive? It's past one already."

Sadie liked the way he brushed the tip of her nose past hers, chasing her lips when she pulled back. "It's not far, I'll be okay."

"What if I asked you to stay?"

"That depends. Are you asking me to stay because you're worried I'm not capable of driving myself home? Or because you want me to spend the night?"

"I can't believe you have to ask." Sadie could hear the grin in his voice. "I promise to behave myself."

His hand dragged along the outside of her thigh, rounding up to her backside.

"All evidence to the contrary."

Sadie's traitorous side crept to the forefront of her mind, warring with reason. The no-nonsense girl in her said that staying the night this early sent a message and that she was better off going home and letting this newfound relationship unfold slowly. That girl couldn't compete, however, with the warmth of Bucky's body seeping through her clothes down into her bones or the way he touched her with such unerring confidence. Perhaps she was getting carried away on the moment but the last thing she wanted to do was leave the comfort of his arms or she simply joy of his company. Wasn't this part of the joy of embracing her bravery and going all in on this relationship?

"I'll sleep on the floor if you want me to," he joked and she muffled her low laugh with her hand.

Bucky shifted their bodies, prompting her to get up. Together they circumnavigated the couch and the sleeping Rebecca. Where they stood Sadie could see her shoes by the living room doorway along with her wristlet and Peggy's car keys. She clenched her phone in her hand and considered that a smart girl would go home. Turning to face Bucky to tell him that she really should get going she stopped when he held his hand out to her in invitation. All trace of humor left his face.

"Stay with me, please."

Sadie wouldn't have denied him for the world. Just for once she didn't want to be a smart girl. Taking his hand she followed him down the hall and into his bedroom. Bucky shut the door behind them, closing them off from the outside world. There, ensconced in the darkness and sweetness of solitude Sadie let go of her worries, her disappointment over Columbia, the anxiety of applying to backup schools, and what the future might bring whether it be five days or five years from then. Instead she accepted the t-shirt that Bucky gave her and his help in undressing so she could tug the soft cotton shirt over her head. They crawled into his bed and somewhere between long kisses, wandering hands, and low laughter wound up inextricably tangled together.

It was hard to believe that only that morning Sadie wasn't sure she and Bucky could ever recover from her gaffe. However she thought her Friday might end she didn't expect to find herself curled into Bucky's side with her hand resting on his bare chest. Lightly tapping to fingers in time with the beat of his heart, she listened to the melody, eyelids growing heavier until she drifted off into deep sleep.

Maybe a smart girl wouldn't have given into her desire to stay, but then there was every chance in the world that she also wouldn't have opened to the risks associated with falling for Bucky 'can-I-get-a-second-extension-on-that-assignment' Barnes. And if given the option between being forever a smart girl and having Bucky in her life she knew there was no contest.

Sadie would choose Bucky every single time.

A/N: So, I'm not going to make a promise for when the next update will be. The sequel and another project of mine take priority but I am working on the next part! It will be posted as soon as I finish!

Shocked that I actually updated? I am too and I'd love to hear your thoughts! Much love, Kappa.