Road to War Part IV: The Space In Between

Epilogue: We Try to Fill the Spaces In Between

(takes place after CATWS; ties with ch 8 of I Would For You)

Something familiar and deeply upsetting awakens her, and she comes to halfway across the room from the bed, a knife in her hand. Then she realizes it was the sound of James screaming that woke her, and it takes her a few moments to calm down. He's stopped by now, so doesn't need immediate attention. She has enough time to compose herself before attempting to help him. She'd forgotten most of it, their time together, but she'd especially blocked what it was like to hear him scream like that. It isn't a memory she'd been hoping to regain.

Quietly, slowly, she leaves his bedroom and stays in the doorway until her looks at her. His expression is terrified, perplexed, and she moves hesitantly toward him. He doesn't react except to cling to his blankets and stare at her until she's right next to the couch where he'd been sleeping. She speaks to him soothingly and offers her hand, which he eventually takes. It takes some time, and requires her to be more honest than she has been in years (decades?), but she manages to talk him down.

She wonders as they talk just how much he remembers of his time in the Red Room. And how much she remembers. She doesn't think she had anything done to her like what was done to him, but she can't be sure. They could have messed with her memories if it was affecting her performance. After he'd been taken away from her, she doesn't know what happened. Was she able to snap right back into her lessons and training? Or had she spiraled and had to be altered to return to duty? Curious as she is, she doesn't mind not knowing.

It is better to focus on more pressing matters. Not her sordid past, despite most of her current problems coming from it. How will she do any missions if she has no covers? Is Clint right in thinking her house is no longer safe? How long should she stay here with James, lying low? Those are the things she should be thinking about, not how she ended up this way. James needs her here and now, anyway, and needs to see that there is the possibility of coming back from what was done to him. To them.

When he tells her that he's broken, she gets angry. Not so much at him, of course, but at the people who made him (and her) this way. "You're not broken," she tells him firmly, standing up. He watches her, blue eyes wide and clearly surprised by her reaction. "They wanted to make a perfect weapon, and, by God, they did. But just because you aren't him anymore doesn't mean you're broken. You're not malfunctioning, James. You're just being –" she searches for a word "– human."

Earlier in the evening, before the nightmares, he'd told her that she was the only thing that made him feel human in the last seventy years. And it hurts to think about that, both for his sake and because she fears that kind of responsibility. He's a good man, or was, better than she's ever been. How helpful can she really be to him?

The smile that slowly appears on his face is grim at best. "Do most people wake up like this?" he asks bitterly.

Frowning with something like annoyance, she pulls him to his feet and looks up at him intently. "Most people haven't gone through what you have. But you survived. And here you are, still surviving. So you may not sleep as much as everyone else. But we aren't like everyone else, James. So don't compare yourself to them," she tells him.

"Then to whom should I compare myself? Steve? Because that's not going to end well for anyone," he replies, the bitter edge remaining in his tone.

She shakes her head at him. "James, you were with me in the Red Room. You may not have been completely yourself, but you were getting closer every day. And you taught me how to reclaim myself from those monsters. Even if you don't remember it, I owe you for that."

He frowns, clearly surprised. "I did?"

"Yes, James," she says with a small smile.

Slowly, he looks down at his hands again. "You were the one good thing," he whispers, echoing what he had told her earlier.