Titanium ~A Bucky Barnes Love Story~

Chapter Seven

Caden rolled on to her back, huffing in exasperation. Despite her seemingly infinite fatigue, she could not bring her mind to ease.

Her inevitable annoyance with her cousin's nosiness and his audacity to spy on her, plus the rare frustration she felt towards Rogers, for several reasons, as wells as the shock she had from several of the sentences that had come from Bucky, no matter how simple or honest they had been, combined with the awful remembrance she had been unexpectedly forced to choke down, had all built up into one, big, messy cloud of emotion. It was messing with her brain, with her thinking process, and most importantly, with her ability to sleep, and it bothered her. It bothered her doctor's mind to an unhinged extent.

She flipped back onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillows as she let out a growl of frustration. Nothing was calming her mind, her thoughts, the way she felt. It was just one big thunderstorm of emotions on the inside. Nothing was helping her soothe her mind, not the breathing techniques she would teach patients, not the simple, peaceful visions she would try to envision from underneath closed eyelids, not even trying to lay in different positions.

Eventually, she threw back her blankets, beginning to pace her bedroom floor in the hopes of burning off any bottled up energy still in her.

She paused every once in a while, glancing out of her window and down into the streets of New York City. All those cars, all filled with people. Just where were they going at midnight? They should be home, in bed, sound asleep.

Like she should be.

Caden put her hands behind her back, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, hoping to clear out the negative energy, the bad memories. If only she could be rid of those memories! Those horrifying, awful, scarring memories.

The smoke.

The fires.

The blood.

The horror on her cousin's face when he told her.

She was only a child.

For God's sake she was only a child!

She shut her eyes, covering her face with her hands, and let out a muffled scream.

~~~

After two more hours of enduring the torment of the black emptiness surrounding her, Caden finally gave up, resolving to playing on her StarkPad. Stark had given it an update a few days ago and she hadn't had a chance to work with it.

She had barely put in the password, however, when a crash broke through the silence.

"I swear to God if that is Tony trying to spy on me again..." Caden muttered viciously before trailing off when she heard another sound.

It sounded kind of like a scream.

"What's going on?" she murmured, the exhaustion in her voice evident as she threw back the blankets of her bed. Staggering out of her room and into the hallway, she heard it again.

Definitely a scream.

She turned on the hallway light and began running in its direction.

It was coming from Bucky's room.

"Oh, no," she said, gripping the handle to the bedroom door.

She opened the door as quietly as she could, creeping in. Bucky's moaning was muffled by the blankets, but the cries were now very distinct as she drew near.

Caden took a couple of steps towards Bucky, stopping when she heard a crunching sound beneath her socks. Looking down, she saw on the floor beside the bed, the table lamp. Shattered.