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They start after D.C, after the man that came out of nowhere, after the helicarriers fell. The most vivid dreams that feel like a life forgotten. You write them off as shock, as some strange way your psyche is trying to cope at first, but they persist. Weeks turn into months, and you keep having them, snapshots of a life where you are at the center, circled by a man that sends your heart aflutter. It’s silly, it’s just dreams, but you feel like you know him. You wake up missing him, wake up with the ghosts of his kisses on your cheeks and wrists, his face always clouded when you try to conjure it and his name dying on your lips when you try to utter it.“God, you look like you haven’t slept in ages.”Your friend, frank as ever, plops down on the chair next to you, spearing a piece of chicken from her takeout salad. Life has slowly eased back to whatever passes for normal again. Work demands your attention, D.C rebuilds, the papers have slowly stopped speculating about what really happened that fateful day.“I’ve actually slept good, I’m just… I keep having these dreams,” you offer, unsuccessfully suppressing a yawn.“Dreams? Sweetie, are you having nightmares because of- because of the-”
Because of the collapse of a trusted institution? Because Captain America was launched into the bus you were on? Because a bullet grazed your side when men started shooting up the street and a masked man walked by you, looking at you with cold eyes?
“No! No, I- Fuck, I don’t know. They started after, but they’re not nightmares. It’s…”“Oh, god, are you gonna tell me you’re having sex dreams?”You choke on your coffee, grabbing a napkin so as not to splutter it all over the table. “No? Where did that come from?”“They’re the only dreams I could think of that are not bad and would leave you looking like you’ve been awake for a week,” your friend says, shrugging her shoulders. “Obviously it’s not, so why don’t you spit it out.”Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you consider it. Telling feels like divulging a secret, like what goes on at night is private, but they’re dreams, right? Only dreams. With a sigh, you start, trying not to sound like you’re crazy, like these are dreams, only dreams, very, very vivid dreams, and there’s nothing wrong with you.“You know, my grandma would say you’re experiencing a past life.”A past life. Just like that. You just told your friend about a string of semi-coherent dreams featuring a man you can never quite remember when you wake up, and her reaction is… a past life. Your disbelief must be written clear on your face, because your friend gives a laugh, setting down her fork.“Now don’t go judge my grandma, she knew what she was talking about. Most of the time, at least. She would tell me about these… feelings she had when she walked into a store, like there was something not exactly wrong, but, you know… different. She had dreams, too, though nothing as intense as you seem to be having. One day, she’s had enough, marches into the store and says she doesn’t care if they think she’s nuts, but she wants to check behind a freezer in a corner. Kept nagging until the store manager gives in and pulls away the freezer. Nothing there. Grandma huffs, gets down on her knees and scratches up a corner of the wallpaper, rips it up while the manager probably has a seizure.”“What was under it?”“Lovers note, scrawled in pen. Perfect match for my grandma’s handwriting, only she swore up and down her grave that she’d never been in that store before it was a grocery store, and the manager said they bought the space twenty years back and before that it was a hardware store. She couldn’t find any definite proof, no records that confirmed anything, but to the day she died, she was convinced she’d been drawn to that store because in a past life she’d lived or worked or at least spent a significant amount of time there.”“You do realize your grandma sounds just a little nuts.” You drained your coffee, setting the mug down with a harsher thunk than you intended.“No nuttier than you having several consecutive and connected dreams about a guy.”Rolling your eyes, you walked off, returning to work and trying to push the idea out of your head. Past life. You barely had your current life together, what on earth made the universe think you needed another one to deal with. Not an hour later, the internal messaging system pinged on your screen.
>>r u gonna tell me again if u dream abt him?
>>well now i’m not!
>>cmon, let me live vicariously thru u!
>>you know too much about my life already, you don’t need to know about the other one
>> so u DO believe its a past life?
>>no!
>>the lady doth protest too much
>>the lady is tired and wants to go home
>>try interacting in the dream. grandma said on the few occasions she had her past life dreams she could be conscious of it for a while, it wont wake u up immediately like real dreams do
>>i am signing off ya loon
But come evening, you can’t let the words go, can’t rid yourself of the possibility that something more is going on. So what if it is a past life? Maybe you could find out what happened to the man, find out who he is? He’ll be old, if not gone, but what if someone knows who you were to him? You ponder the possibilities as you prepare for bed, brushing your teeth, turning out lights, checking the locks on your front door.Then again, what if it isn’t a past life. Sure, the world has gotten a lot stranger since aliens descended on New York, but past lives? No, they’re probably dreams. Just dreams, vivid dreams to help your mind make some sort of sense of the incident. Nothing more. Nothing m-
There’s a radio playing, carrying a slightly distorted tune through the small apartment. A woman sings, lamenting about love and a familiar song. Your hands work nimbly, movements choppier than you know they usually are, angrier. There’s a knock on your door, a voice you know belongs to your mother.
“He’s here, sweetheart.”
He’s so handsome, that smile, the glittering of his blue eyes, god, why are you so mad at him? Your lips force themselves into a smile, your arm keep a steady hold of his as people mill all around you. There’s a crashing sound somewhere, a flash of a smile and you’re still so, so mad, you can’t even look at his face.
No, wait.
Look at him.
But he’s hurt me-
Look at him.
He’s going-
You force yourself to focus, your body swaying as the world comes into focus. Sound and image sharpens like a movie reel that’s made to play at normal speed. He’s so close, so close and your body reacts a fraction of a second before your mind do, and you speak.
“Don’t kiss me.”
He pulls back, surprise colouring his features, those sparkling eyes searching your face.
“W-why not? I waited all day for you.”
The anger you felt as a subtle simmer now boils hot and stings at your eyes.
“You couldn’t tell me? I had to find out from Josie that you enlisted!”
You know him, you know him, just say his name, you know him. His name is as familiar as your own, as familiar as the way he kisses, as familiar as the way he takes your hand to thumb his way across your pearl bracelet in a manner that you know would make your knees weak any other night.
“I was going to, baby. Please, you gotta believe me, I- I didn’t enlist. My name got called, I had no choice. They’re moving fast, we’re all shipping out tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The world spins again, your heart breaking. He’s leaving tomorrow, you’ll lose him tomorrow. So many have already left, and who knows if they’re ever coming back. You can’t lose him, not to the hell that waits across the ocean. Ask him, beg him to stay. Say his name, call him home.
He’s solid against you when you hug him, the material of his uniform feeling harsh against you, your anger shifting towards what that uniform means, where it will take him. Your hands makes fists, pulls at the fabric where it stretches over his back, your jaw clenching.
“Please…”
“I know, darling, I know…”
Say his name. You know it. Looking up at him again, you feel a tendril of panic when you notice the world slowly starting to fade, his features slowly dimming. You’re waking up. No, no, not yet, you can’t- Say his name. Say his name, he’s waiting for you to say something.
“Bucky, please, don’t leave me!”
“Bucky!”You shoot out of bed, hands outstretched for a man you know you loved so fiercely you were prepared to dig your heels into the pavement and hold onto him. Heart beating a mile a minute, you toss your covers off of you, pacing through your cramped bedroom. Bucky. His name is Bucky, he is going to war, he is going to leave you alone and you don’t-No. Stop.“This is crazy,” you mutter, taking a deep breath. “Calm down. Christ, calm the fuck down…”Leaning up against the wall, you slowly sink down, deflate, breathing through the adrenaline rush. You try to tell yourself it was only a dream, only another one in a series of many, but you falter. It’s hard to convince yourself when you can still feel the anger at this man being shipped off to war, still feel the smooth glide of the pearls against your skin as he toyed with the strands around your wrist. You… loved him. You loved each other, truly and passionately. What if your friend’s grandma was right? What if this man… what if Bucky is real?Scooting closer to your bedside table, you fumble for your phone, bringing up the browser. With trembling fingers you type in “Bucky ww2” and press search, hoping against hope that there might be something, anything, to calm the raging storm in your mind. The five first results all talk about Captain America, and you’re about to dismiss them, dismiss the whole search when you see the name “Bucky” highlighted in each. Clicking a link for the Smithsonian, you patiently wait for the interactive page to load. This is crazy, you think as Captain America’s face greets you, fading from one stoic photo to the next. You hastily swipe to scroll down. This is not it.And then.And then there’s Bucky, jaw set and eyes looking defiantly into the camera. Your heart all but stops, clenches painfully in your chest. You run your finger over him, tracing the features you know in some long forgotten corner of your soul. Doing so activates a link, making Bucky’s face disappear and you barely manage to contain your whine at the loss. The new page loads quicker, a straightforward informative block of text accompanied by a groupshot where Bucky’s figure has been brought into colour.
James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (1917-1945) was one of the original members of the elite squad known as the Howling Commandos. A childhood friend of Captain Steve Rogers, Sergeant Barnes was reunited with his friend after imprisonment by Nazi deep science division HYDRA, and went on to complete several high risk missions in the European Theater. Barnes remains the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.
Tears roll down your cheeks, the ache in your heart replaced by an emptiness you can’t quite wrap your head around. Bucky was real, he was real and he was yours. Then again, it was a life you don’t remember, a life so distant from this one, finished and tucked away with nothing left of it. Bucky has been dead for decades and you… you are left to grieve a life and a man you never knew about. All at once you miss it, long for it. The tinny sound of the radio, his tender touches, hell, you even miss being angry with him.You try to move on, to accept. Your friend stops asking about your dreams and “your man" when you refuse to answer. The dreams lessen in frequency until they fade to mere sensations in the mornings. You find a cheap pearl bracelet in a dollar store, sliding the elastic onto your wrist as a memento, tripping your fingers over the plastic pearls like Bucky had. You move on. You comfort yourself. You think you might dream sometimes, waking up with the ghost of a kiss on your lips. You think it’s over.Then, a bomb goes off in Vienna.Then, his name is all over the news.Bucky Barnes is alive.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The joy you feel is short-lived. No sooner has the fact sunk in – Bucky is alive – than he is ripped away again. Every news station in the country play repeats of the same footage, unfocused clips of a fight in the Leipzig airport where the glint of a silver arm has your heart leaping out of your chest, an incensed declaration by Secretary Ross to apprehend Captain Rogers and his affiliates by any means necessary. Your dreams return, stuck on a loop where he hugs you tight before boarding the ship that will take him to England, kissing your cheek with a halfhearted smile. Work is buzzing with news, gossip, speculation, and it’s all you can do not to break when your friend talks of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, wondering where they might be.“You think they’ll go to prison if they turn themselves in? I heard there’s this supermax that no one in the government wants to talk about-”You walk out before she can say more, before your feelings betray you. He’s out there, somewhere, and there’s no way for you to reach him. What would happen if you went public? You’d just come off as a lunatic, talking about past lives and wanting to get in contact with a wanted criminal. On the off chance that someone, someone important would take you seriously, then what? Would you be taken to see him? Would you be apprehended in hopes it would draw Barnes out? Do you even want to find someone they say planned and carried out dozens of assassinations?
No. No, stop.
Perhaps it’s naïve of you, but you refuse to believe the man you knew, the man whose touch you can still feel in the mornings, willingly did the things they say he did. After the incident, you had not taken a particularly strong interest in the aftermath, you just wanted to move on. The hearing, the leaked files, it all went past you. Now, you scour through them, looking for anything that pertains to him. His military record, previously classified mission reports from the Howling Commandos, rumours about his time with HYDRA starting from the late fifties and popping up throughout the decades. Inbetween, nothing. The dreams lessen in frequency again, always lingering at the edge of your subconscious. You wake up with impressions instead of clear images. Arms wrapped around you, lips tickling the shell of your ear, an unending sorrow that sometimes weighs down on you until you feel tears roll down your cheeks. You can feel it, feel him, his presence ensconced deep inside you, just out of reach.In the wake of the fight in Leipzig, the Smithsonian had closed down the exhibit on Captain America, the area cleared and another exhibit installed. You’d only managed one visit before it was swept away, standing before the small memorial dedicated to Bucky, following his movements on the old reels rather than Captain Rogers’s.“What you got there?”You slam the notebook shut, the force enough to surely bleed the still fresh ink onto the opposite page.“Twitchy,” your friend remarks, taking a seat opposite you, a cup of what looks to be less coffee and more dessert in front of her.“Sorry, I… kinda got lost in my thoughts,” you apologize, sliding the notebook into your purse.“I didn’t know you kept a diary. They say it’s a good habit, but god, I could never do it. I’d start skipping days after a week, and really, what’s the point then?”“It’s not… really a diary.” You hesitate for a moment. It’s been a long time since you have talked about this. “It’s a dream journal.”“Dream journal? Why-” She falls silent, looking at you with her head cocked to the side. “Are you dreaming about him again? The past life guy?”“No.” Why are you lying? “No, I’m just-” Trying to hold onto him. “I wanted to see if there’s any truth to the whole dream interpretation thing. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep going.” You’ll keep going, you don’t want to forget him. “I’ll probably be bored of it soon, you know? Start skipping days and end up shoving this thing in the back of a drawer.”The skepticism is obvious in your friend’s eyes, flitting between the expression you hope is blasé enough to throw her off your scent. “Uh-huh, so what’s your dreams been telling you so far?”You thank your lucky star that you actually had a phase in high school where you kept checking up on meanings of dreams, “That I may be in for a change. Or I’m afraid of losing something.”"Really?"You nod, “Been dreaming about all of my teeth falling out. You can look that up yourself.”“If you’re trying to drag me into this, then hell no, my dreams are weird enough as is. I don’t need to know what they mean!”Mercifully, she changes the subject after this, while you nod, sip your tea and try desperately not to lose the sliver of dream you were journaling before being interrupted. You’d heard his voice for the first time in weeks, a soft whisper of a name you couldn’t remember but you knew was yours. You want to hold onto the tenderness, the way it made your heart skip a beat. In between the dreams you have now, you’ve tried to fill in the dreams you’ve had before, trying to put them in some sort of order.It’s not so much a timeline as an uneven patchwork. Your only constant is 1943, the year Bucky shipped out, the rest is arbitrarily put into context. With your dreams offering less visual clues, it’s a struggle to make sense of. You hold on to what little you get, inserting speculations along with the small details you can hold on to. When you go to bed, the notebook and pen are placed neatly on your bedside table, ready to save the life that’s slipping away from you ever more. Sometimes there are days, weeks when there’s nothing, when you wake up feeling hollow and the notebook seems to taunt you. There are so many pages left, so much left to explore and it’s all labyrinths and falling from heights and-
“I wish you wouldn’t go.”
Your heart breaks because god, look at him. Look at him. That smile that he tries so hard to make encouraging, but you know it, you see it doesn’t reach his eyes, the corners of his mouth don’t quirk up like you know they should. Bucky is trying to stay strong, and it makes you wrap your arms around his neck and cling to him.
“Please…”
“I have to, baby. I wish I could stay, but I…”
His voice trails off, teasing at you to look up. Look at him. Look. At. Him. His gaze briefly loses the bravado he’s trying to exude, bleeds into confusion and blinding despair. His lips quiver, words held back and you knit your brows.
Why is he-
Say the words, Bucky.
Say them, I know the words, say them. It’ll be okay.
The bravado slots back into place, like a cog in a wheel, “I gotta do this.”
You steel yourself for the next part, the gentle cup of your cheek, the loving kiss he presses to it.
“I’ll come back. Nothin’ over there can keep me from you.”
Your lips move, a line that has already broken your heart, “I’ll hold you to that. I’ll call you home to me, sergeant.”
You wake up before he can answer, tears running down your cheeks. Rifling for the notebook, you try to keep your breathing calm, hold back sobs, but you only succeed in knocking the pen under your bed. Grabbing the notebook, you hurry to your kitchen, to the small notepad you use to write grocery list, snatching the pen to scratch six words onto a fresh page.
I’ll always come home to you
His voice, you can hear it echoing through you, the exact cadence, the tender kiss that was the last. Your last words formed a promise that was bound to be broken, bound to break you, and now it has again. The words are uneven, the ink bleeding in the gentle bends of your a’s, waning in your i’s and l’s, the final word almost illegible. Your soul aches and exults for him, welcoming him back. Sleep refuses you the rest of the night save for short slips into a state that is just shy of dreams and yet you still feel his presence when you wake up groggy and disoriented by your alarm.He stays with you, a shadow in your heart that is a comfort rather than a worry. Dreams stay spotty as ever, but they do return, vivid as they ever were. They give you the same scenes as before, but god, you take them, you cherish them, you let yourself live them the moment you realize you’re in one. You fill in existing entries in the journal, adding details, editing things you remembered wrong. You keep track of the disbanded Avengers in the news, your pulse quickening with every mention of a sighting only to drop when there is no mention of Bucky. It’s as if he’s gone underground. Completely disappeared. Still, you have to believe he is still around, still alive. Why else would you keep having these dreams?Then, another spaceship. Another fight, a whisper that spreads like wildfire through media. Where are the Avengers?You huddle together with your colleagues, watching as shaky footage shows Iron Man battling an alien together with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. You keep hoping, keep wishing that this is all a dream, that this is the dream and that you’ll wake up to a life where Bucky returns from the war and life goes on in some version of happily ever after. The distant sound of buildings crumbling brings down your hopes with it.It’s almost too good to be true when the invaders leave, the strange ship departing and leaving behind more questions. Someone cheers, the relief infectious, spreading in applause and sentiments of victory. You watch the skies, worry drawing a crease on your brow, but there’s nothing there that shouldn’t be there. Sharp city silhouette. Grey clouds. Safety in familiarity.It’s almost too good to be true, the news anchor says with a smile so wide and white it seems unnatural on the evening news. He makes it sound like a feat worthy of gods, praising Iron Man and his associates for their courageous intervention in fighting off the invaders, then solemnly commenting on how New York will rebuild yet again. It’s almost too good to be true, you think, wondering why Tony Stark is not on every news channel, why no one is speaking of the broken band of heroes he belonged to. Where were the others? Why did the aliens come?You sleep through what happens next. You know nothing of the fight in Edinburgh, of an order to arrest, of a soldier being called to arms. All you know is that Bucky’s dancing with you, a steady hand on the small of your back, your name on his lips, and god, why can’t you hear him say it? It blurs in your mind the second it drips from his lips, fades into oblivion as morning pulls you back.Any sense of safety is ripped away as New York wakes up to reports from Edinburgh, from countries neighbouring Wakanda. When the first scream sounds from the street below, you sprint for the window. Ashes. People are turning to ashes, scattering in the wind, not just one or two, dozens, maybe even mi-
‘It seems to me I’ve heard that song before…’
The tinny voices crackle through the radio, making you sway slowly. The earrings are fiddly to fasten, and you’ve closed your eyes out of habit, the tip of your tongue peeking out in concentration. Just a little more, just a little…
“Sweetheart?”
Your eyes shoot open, pulling the hoop from your ear and sending it clinking to the floor. No, no, no, you’re supposed to be alone, he’s not supposed to be here. Fingers trembling, you look into the mirror, stunned for a second to see yourself. It’s… you, and yet not. Your hair is a little different, still your own but in a style that makes you look so unlike yourself. A pencil dress hugs along your waist and hips, a pair of heels on your feet that has you suddenly feeling unsteady. And there, behind you.
"Bucky?"
He looks like himself, like you’ve come to know him. Short hair slicked back, his one good suit that he’d dress up in to take you dancing, handsome as ever, but his eyes. His eyes are older, they know of things that has happened after this moment, of the years you haven’t been able to find, of what has happened now.
"Am I- Are we dead?"
You don’t mean for your voice to break, because really, if this is death, than isn’t it a kind one? Bucky comes up to you, slipping his hands around you and turning you into his embrace. It’s so familiar, warm and safe.
“I… I’m not sure. We were up against something so much bigger than ourselves, than anything we’ve seen. But I don’t think we’re dead. Don’t ask me how I know, but this… doesn’t feel like death.”
What does death feel like? You want to ask, but you don’t want to know how Bucky knows what death feels like. It makes you think that maybe his lost years are better left lost. This matters; the life that was and the life that, well…
“What happens now? If we aren’t dead?” you ask, leaning in to draw in a breath, allowing yourself a moment filled with his scent.
“I’m not sure. But if there is a chance, if Steve, if someone remained, then I know they will try to undo this, bring us back.”
“To where we’re apart.” The words taste bitter on your tongue. You should be glad, elated at the possibility of going back to living, but now that you’re here, both of you, you’re reluctant to leave.
“To where we can find each other,” Bucky corrects you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I promised I’d always come home to you, right?”
Nodding against his chest, you look down, unable to meet his gaze for fear of crying. You remember. You remember all of it now; the words, the way you felt, the emptiness when he was gone, the heartbreak when his mother came knocking on your door with his sister, the tears, sobbing his name at night.
"I'd call you home."
It’s a quiet reply, repeating the words, knowing they were never realized. Bucky slides one hand to grip yours, easing you into a slow dance around the room. The song never ends.
‘Forever more’s a memory, please have them play it again…’
“When is this?” you ask, letting him twirl you around and back into his arms.
“You don’t remember?”
When you shake your head, you think you see a flash of disappointment in his eyes. “I know you,” you add, holding his gaze. “I dream about you, about us, our lives, my... my past life. In my dreams, I know who you are, who you were to me. I get… impressions, I guess, but this life is foreign. I don’t remember who I was, when this is, when we started seeing each other.”
“I asked you out the night before this,” Bucky says with a fond smile. “Thought you’d turn me down, and you didn’t. Said you’d meet me on the curb outside your house because-”
“Because otherwise we’d never be rid of my mother,” you will in with a smile, the memory planting itself in your mind.
“So I waited… and waited… Thought you were standing me up.“
“My earring kept unhooking, I didn’t wanna lose it. I tried to be quick, and then you… god, you knocked on the door.”
“Took an hour before your ma let us go. The movie I was gonna take you to was halfway finished.”
“You took me to a diner, we had…” The taste is right there on your tongue, faint, unmistakeable, but you can’t remember-
“Chocolate cream pie,” Bucky offers helpfully. “I’d gotten back from winter training a coupla weeks before, had to borrow money to be able to take you out. It had gotten more expensive since rationing, but you looked so happy when you saw it. Best money I ever spent.”
"When was this?"
"March, 1943."
“You shipped out in June. That’s- I thought-”
“You thought we had more time. Maybe that’s why you remember? Because we didn’t get enough time?”
It’s as good an explanation as any, perhaps the only one you’ll ever get. All of your dreams, all that time, was condensed into three months. You’d have it all over again, you’d live those three months over and over if life would let you, just for the time that you had together, before war tore you apart, before Bucky fell, before the world became aliens and heroes and destruction and-
‘And I'll remember just when I heard that lovely song before…’
The song is distorted now, slowly fading. Your room follows suit, disintegrating into a soft light. Looking up at Bucky, you see him now longer as the man in your dreams, but as he was when the world ended. Long hair, rugged beard, the hand around your waist hard and smooth.
“They did it. We’re going back.” Bucky stops, grasping your hands in his, one warm, one cold.
“Please…” You choke on your words. Not again, not again, please, dear god, not again. “I wish-”
“I’ll find you. I promise you.”
Between the two of you, your hands turn to ash again.
“You’ll call me home, you always do.”
He fades with three words on his lips and you fade with a sob caught in your throat.
Your pen hovers over the empty page, the latte next to you growing steadily colder. The notebook has been laying in your bedside drawer for weeks, ignored and forgotten until the your dreams all but beg you for some clarity. It’s become harder and harder to remember them, and so you resort to this: desperately trying to put them down on paper when you had the time. Coffee breaks at work, Sunday brunches."Whatcha got there?"The voice comes out of nowhere, making you flinch and draw a harsh line across the entire page."Jesus Christ, you scared me!"A man steps into your line of sight, sits down with his own cup of coffee. His smile is bright, expectant. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Figures I’d end up-”He furrows his brow, his statement dying on his lips. God, do you have something on your face? Foam from the latte? Has your lipstick smudged?“This is probably gonna sound crazy,” he tells you, still observing you for… whatever he’s searching for, “but do you know me?”“Should I?” you retort, ripping the page from the notebook and crumpling it into a little ball.It’s apparently the wrong answer. The man’s face falls, sadness creeping into the blue of his eyes. “A-are you sure?”“Positive, mister. Maybe you’re confusing me with someone else. I probably got one of those faces, you know.”For a moment, he looks like he wants to protest, but finally he just bites down, lets his mouth form a reluctant smile followed by a nod. Grabs his cup of coffee, takes a long sip.“Sorry, I- I’ll leave you to it, miss.”You have no idea why you do it. Maybe you feel bad that you aren’t the person he thought you were. Maybe you want some company. Maybe you want him to stay for the sake of staying. Whatever it is, it makes your heart jump and your mind speak for you when he gets up to leave.“It’s a dream journal.”He turns on a dime, a flicker of hope dancing over his feature. “Really? Anything interesting?”Laughing, you let the pages flip across the pad of your thumb. “Lots of teeth falling out right now. I don’t know, I started it maybe… two months ago? Mustn’t have been very good at it. I seem to have been dreaming a lot about the same thing for a while, but I got worse at writing them down. The teeth though, I hate that.”"Teeth?"“Yeah, like… all of a sudden my teeth just start falling out. All of ‘em, just spitting them out. No blood or anything, they just fall out. Creepy as hell. Apparently it means I’m in for a change. Or afraid of losing something.”“Change, huh?” The man sits down again, cradling his coffee between the palms of his hands.“Yeah. Or fear of losing something.”“What are you afraid of losing?” he asks, looking at you so intently you have to avert your gaze, looking down at one of the last pages you’d written before apparently giving up. Six words in increasingly shakier handwriting.“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe it’s this.” You flip the pages again, to a new empty page, the tear visible where you ripped out the previous page. “I can’t for the life of me remember what I dreamt last night. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll lose my memory.”“Yeah, hate it when that happens,” he says with a snort, but you doubt he’s finding humour in the same thing you are.Still, you smile, acknowledging his merriment. The two of you fall into a comfortable silence, slowly draining your drinks while you try to catch the elusive dream from last night. You doodle in the margins, hoping that simply by keeping busy, the words will come. All the while, the man’s eyes never leave you for long, his glances gliding over you like the softest touch.“Sorry, I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time,” he apologizes a while later, his cup empty.“No, it’s fine, I’m- I didn’t mind.”He nods, offers a small smile before getting up. Again, your heart reaches out, wants him to stay, wants you to follow."Hey!"He turns again, no hope in his eyes this time, but rather something like sorrow. You falter, not knowing really what to say.“I’m… I didn’t catch your name.”A beat of silence, hesitation carving a line between his eyebrows. Then, “James.”
No.
“You don’t look like a James.” Where did that come from?The line disappears, his eyebrows knitting together. “My… friends call me Bucky.”
Bucky.
“Bucky…” You taste the name on your tongue, gripping your pen tighter. “Sorry I wasn’t who you thought I was.”“Yeah. I have a feeling she’s around though. Used to say she’d call me home, and well, here I am.”He bids you goodbye, and you barely register it, your heart beating fast in your chest. Bucky disappears into the bustle of the street, and you flip through the pages with shaking fingers. A few pages past the six words, you find it. Your handwriting, steady, a promise, underlined.
I’ll call you home.