Breakdown.

Another bad night.

Another early morning. Bright outside, flooding the room in soft pale light.

She sees him curled up on the sofa, arms wrapped around folded up knees and he's staring into nothing but she can tell that there's something going on behind those eyes of his. From the dusty greyish shadows that hollow out each socket to the over brightness that tarnishes the blue. He's reliving the nightmare that hauled him screaming out of the oblivion that was his sleep. The nightmare he can't or won't share with her. She suspects that it's the latter.

She knows because she's been there.

She won't prod him, she's learned that to do that only succeeds into making him withdraw all the more. He's talented at locking himself away in that cell he calls his memories. Fractured and whole ones. How long he keeps himself captive in there depends on how bad the nightmare was. It can be minutes, it can be hours and it can be days. She can't predict. Even now she can't and so she leaves him be.

The terror holds him mute and she longs for the day when he deems her trustworthy enough to let them spill out, to let her share in the pain, to help lance it and allow it to drain but they're not there yet. She doesn't know if that will ever happen. When she's feeling confident, she thinks that he might but at her worst she fears that he never will.

She gets out of bed and walks towards him. He's tucked into the corner of the sofa, spine rigid and deathly still apart from the subtle trembling she can see in his shoulders, the way he holds his head. He doesn't look at her when she slowly sits down beside him and she's careful to leave a gap between them even though what she longs to do the most is wrap her arms around him and hold him close.

He won't let her though so she doesn't.

She places the tea cup beside him and retakes her seat, holding her own carefully as she tucks her feet beneath her. The room is silent apart from his quiet ragged breathing. She quietly blows on the surface of her own tea before taking that all important first sip.

Time ebbs and flows and fades away.

She doesn't speak as she carefully places the soft blanket around his shoulders, tucking it gently in front of him. Then she reclaims her tea cup as well as her corner of the sofa and watches him. His expression is still so blank, so utterly lost and something twists in the region of her heart at the sight of it. She takes a silent deep breath and licks her bottom lip. She needs to speak, to say something to him, to let him know at least that she's there because she isn't sure that he's aware that she is.

"Hey." Her voice is husky, dry in the silence. She sees the subtle stiffening of his spine and she realises that her guess was correct, he wasn't aware. So completely trapped in his prison cell.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks him, keeping her voice just above a whisper. She can all but see the fine hairs lifting on his skin. He's fine tuning, remembering where he is again, connecting back into his surroundings.

Silence blankets them as she waits for his answer, if he will say anything at all that is.

"No." His reply is just as quiet, a bare expulsion of breath on the air and she ignores the sharp nip of disappointment that scratches her skin.

"It could help," she offers again and once again she waits, fingers gripping the porcelain of her cup, ignoring the burn bleaching through.

He still doesn't look in her direction but at least he's acknowledged her.

"Won't."

She wants to remind him that he won't know unless he tries but doesn't. He's only ever hinted at the horrors he's gone through, a whispered late night confession that he really wasn't aware he was making. Telling her about a machine that wiped his memories, did it over and over again. It's a miracle he's still in one piece physically though emotionally, mentally that's a completely different story.

"I made you some tea, it's beside you on the end table. It'll help to soothe you."

He doesn't move. He looks as though he's ready to disappear back into that world again, the one he won't let her in to. She puts her own cup on the second end table beside the paperback that keeps her company most nights and she bridges that small gap on the sofa towards him. Stretches an arm across the back of the cushions and gently rests her hand between his shoulder blades, skin against skin where the blanket has slid down and she looks at the dark brown hair that tangles against the back of his neck. She think sometimes she can see a chestnut cast to it when the light hits it a certain way. She feels him tense, a subtle shift in muscle tension. It should be a warning to her to withdraw, to leave him be but she doesn't move. Waits for him to tell her to leave him alone.

He doesn't.

"I hope that one day you'll let me in, Bucky. I hope you'll feel brave enough to share with me what's going on inside of your head. I promise you that when you're ready, I'll listen."

Slowly he turns his head and he looks at her.

"You've told me about the machine. You told me about how Hydra controlled you and why and the reason why you no longer like thunderstorms," she continues.

"That's just the surface." His voice is gravelly, dry as dust but he's louder this time. Angrier.

"Then let me in."

"Why? Do you think you can help me? People more qualified than you have tried. People closer to me have failed. What makes you think you're so special?" he snaps. She blinks at his words, at their brutal honesty and tries to ignore the pain that lances through her at their muscle.

"I don't think I'm special at all," she tells him. "But right now you're getting angry and that's a positive thing."

"Is it? Because to me it means a loss of control and that's never a good idea."

"I disagree because if you lose control then whatever it is that you're trying to contain inside of you will break free…."

"And do what? Cleanse me? Save me? Cure me?" he rudely interrupts. "What if I hurt you? What if it's worse?"

She sees how his eyes flash, that temper very close to the surface. It scares her but she knows that she can't back down now, no matter what.

"I want to help you Bucky. I want to at least try," she whispers.

"But you can't!" His retaliation is sharp, some of that anger breaking free of its bindings. She almost hears his 'no one can," at the end of it.

His eyes glow in their intensity as he glares at her.

"That's what you don't understand Alex. Any loss of control for me can be dangerous. People have died, blood has been spilled. I don't want to hurt anyone ever again. I can't. I won't."

"So you're just going to let this consume you? Nightmares, insomnia, disconnection. You're going to live with it, let it eat you alive, is that it? Have you decided that it's going to be your punishment?"

"What's the alternative Alex? I warned you about this. You told me that you could cope because you help people and that you understood. Did you think that this was make believe? Did you think you could save me?" His tone becomes scathing, blistering in its heat. He snarls at her but she can see the pain in his eyes, the tears that are gathered at the edges.

"No. I thought I could help because I know a little of what you're going through," she replies, hearing the defensiveness in her voice.

"You don't know anything of what I'm going through," he sneers at her.

"Because you won't talk to me, you won't share it with me or anyone else. You want to get better, you've told me that and the first step towards that is to open that door just a tiny crack and let someone else in, let someone else see it."

"I can't," he tells her through clenched teeth and she sees a couple of those tears leak out.

"Because you're terrified that if you start talking then you won't be able to stop? Good. Let it all out. I'll listen to it. I'll listen to every damn word until you're empty, til you're spent, however long it takes."

More tears are falling now. It seems once they've started that they won't stop and his face crumples in abject pain. She continues to look at him, swallowing against the lump in her own throat swelling at the look on his face, at how he's suffering.

"If you think I'll be horrified, I might be but what I won't do is judge you. Think of me as a conduit, someone to talk at, yell at, scream at if it'll make you feel better."

"I can't do that to you," he whispers shakily, seemingly horrified by that very idea.

"Yeah you can." She moves her hand from between his shoulder blades to around his shoulders. "Yeah you can." She begins to draw him against her. He resists for a moment and then softens, lets himself lean against her. She rests her cheek against the top of his head, feeling the softness of his hair and she slowly strokes his right shoulder above the blanket that still drapes him. Holds him close to her while he allows it.

"Tell me what you were dreaming about," she whispers.