Ophelia

Love

                Bucky sat at the edge of the glistening lake. In the distance a fish leapt out of the water, then splashed back in. He glanced at his one hand, fingers dancing gently in a nervous tick he was developing when he spent to much time alone. Awake for a few months now, he had learned so much about Wakanda, and even the young children that hung around began calling him "White Wolf". They were calming to be around, to see young children not terrified of him. Looking at that lake, he thought back to how him and O never swam; he used to swim in the cold ocean in his youth with pretty young women.

How he knew how to love. He could love any woman who wanted him to, and yet he never knew what love was until he met Ophelia. He would give back every second spent with any other woman to have one hour with Ophelia again. The thought was too painful, though, to have her in his grasp for an hour and to lose her again would only break him further.

Bucky launched a rock into the lake, watching at it disrupting the calm waters and made a satisfying plop as it sunk.

Lying back on the soft grasses that were taller than his knees, Bucky disappeared from sight. Staring up at the blue sky, he thought back to the journals, the ones that T'Challa gave to him when he woke. He gave them back, not ready to read them, not ready to read about everything he would never have again. Cursed with this never-ending life, one hundred years old and yet he was barely thirty. He would live so much longer, and the thought was agonizing. If things continued this way, this secure lifestyle hidden in the forests of Wakanda, he would easily live another seventy years. Seventy years without her seemed like torture worse than anything HYDRA did to him.

"It should have been me, O," he said to himself. "I should have left you in Washington, you should have gone with Steve. You would have been safe then. But I was selfish, and I took you with me."

"Now stop that," T'Challa's voice was velvet smooth as it wafted through the air and disrupted Bucky's monologue.

Bucky sat up as T'Challa sat down beside him, hands resting on his knees. He was wearing his traditional garb, now the king of Wakanda because of what one evil man did. One man that forced the two sitting there at each other's throats. Now they sat side by side as equals, both understanding the evil in the world and how it is best to try and see all sides of things before reacting.

"O was good at that," Bucky said out loud.

"At what?" T'Challa asked.

Bucky laughed a little, embarrassed that he spoke aloud. "Seeing everything, seeing the good in everyone."

"That much is clear; she loved you," T'Challa joked.

Bucky looked at him and smiled.

"I am still sorry we could not do more for her. My sister has since focused on head injuries, mastering such corrections and life saving technologies."

"She's a good kid, O would have been fascinated by her."

"I wish I had known her better, the circumstances at which we met were not ideal."

"Our lives weren't ideal, but we made it. We made a life for ourselves out of the scraps we were given, it was all her, everything she did was for us and all I wanted was her."

"It doesn't get easier," T'Challa said, thinking of his father. "But we learn how to live with what we have lost. That reminds me, Shuri wanted me to give you something."

Bucky cocked his head to the side as T'Challa pulled something from his robes. A glass jar of small black pills, they shimmered purple in the sunlight at the right angle. Bucky took them from him and the pills rattled inside. "What is this?"

"It will help you dream, it will help you control your dream, to focus in on it, to focus on the best parts," T'Challa explained. "However, if she suspects you are living in dreams and not in reality, she will take them back. They are for healing, not for escape."

Bucky smiled, clutching that bottle. Considering it, this generous item, this generous gift, he opened the lid - quite awkwardly with only one arm - and took out one small black pill. Palming it, slid it into his pocket, then handed the bottle back to T'Challa.

"I see her in my dreams every night, maybe if I take this I can talk to her. If we can sort it out, maybe..."

"She'll leave you in peace?"

"Maybe," he choked on his words, "if I see less of her it will hurt less to wake up every morning."

"Sometimes talking to our past is the best way to understand it," T'Challa said. Then he rose to his feet. "Tell her I say goodbye, White Wolf."