December // A Winter Soldier Story

11

"Of course. You needed help. I wasn't just going to let you die, especially since you've already saved mine once."

He blinks. This must be normal: saving people, fighting for life, taking bullets out rather than driving them in. This must be what normal people do, each and every day. It's...admirable, he thinks. It would take some serious adjustment, but he could imagine getting used to this at some point.

If only he didn't have to leave tonight.

"You're tired," she comments, breaking his train of thoughts. He refocuses his gaze and stares at her. "I can see it in your face. We should get some rest. You've been through a lot."

You have no idea, he thinks. But who's fault is that? He's the one who barely told her anything of his past. There's no way she could know what he's been through unless he had been strong enough to tell her earlier, which he hadn't.

But he hides all of these thoughts, as usual, and agrees that he could use some sleep.

As she walks to the switch to turn off the lights, he takes in her features one last time. Her hair is the most beautiful shade of blonde he's ever seen, catching the light in the room and reflecting it like gold. Her blue eyes, the ones that notice so much about him, are lighter right now than usual. Her jawline is sharp but her features are warm. She is utterly dazzling. He knows she has imperfections that others would pick apart -- she has a red spot on her forehead, her lips are slightly chapped, her hair is messy -- but he has seen nothing but the worst things in the world for the last couple of decades. To him, being bothered by these small, natural things is nothing but a waste of time. She is beautiful, chapped lips and all. Why try and dim her light when he can brighten it?

She catches him watching her just before she reaches the switch, and tosses him an over the shoulder smile that weakens his knees. A second later, the room goes dark, and all he can see is her form moving back towards the bed.

He lays down himself on the floor beside her, wrapped up in a soft blanket and fluffed pillows. The warmth from the room, the blanket, and his sweatshirt would all be too much for him if, in the back of his mind, he didn't know the warmth was extending from Lea. That thought made him never want to lose this heat ever again.

It is quiet for many minutes. He can tell she is still awake based on her breathing patterns. Perhaps she is overthinking just as much as he is, and can't fall asleep either.

He is thinking about how much he doesn't want to leave -- about how easy it would be to stay here, drunk on her, for the rest of his numbered days. He doesn't have many left, the least he could do is spend the rest of them in this deep, intoxicating state of ecstasy.

But he pictures what might happen if he were to stay: Hydra would find him, breaking through the doors with tens of heavily armed men with fully loaded machine guns, shooting at everything that moved. Lea would be one of their targets before they even knew who she was. He pictures her riddled with bullet holes in that bed of hers, blood dripping onto the white rug beneath her. The thought has him struggling to breathe.

To break himself from his own nightmarish thinking, he looks beside him, seeing her arm draped over the side of the bed. She is here, and she is alive, he tells himself. No need to panic.

She is close to sleep now, he can tell. However, he has one more question he needs to ask her, needs to ask somebody before it is too late. He's wanted a second opinion on it for a long time. He hopes she can help. Also, he knows he must hear her voice at least once more, for his own sanity.

"Lea?" he begins, making his voice as light and soft as he can. She stirs in the bed, letting out a sleepy, "hmm?" that is so delicate and perfect that he takes a second to commit it to memory before continuing.

"What do you think happens to us after we die?"

It is a question he has mulled over for decades; has been pondering and thinking about it for ages. He has come so close to dying so many times that he cannot help but think about it. He wants somebody to tell him that there is peace waiting for him out there. That his suffering will, at some point, finally end.

It has taken him a lifetime to answer the other question he used to ask himself: is there peace to be had in this life? He can answer that now: yes, there is. It is here, with her.

Now he just needs an answer to the second question.

She sucks in a breath before answering. "I don't think there is a God," she begins, choosing her words carefully. "So I don't believe in heaven. At least, if there is some force out there, I don't think it's a human one, and I don't think the afterlife is as concrete as heaven and hell. I think what happens to us is determined by the universe, and I don't think we need to find an explanation for the universe and it's actions by creating ideas like heaven and hell. I think life just is. There doesn't have to be a reason for what it does, we don't need to create a nameable, controlling force behind it. When we die, our bodies will return to the Earth because we are a piece of the universe just as the stars are, and that's how the universe works. It recycles. Every piece of what we were will go on to become something else, just as what we are now used to be a different part of the world. Maybe we will go on to become stars someday. Or another planet. Or another living thing."

He closes his eyes. He may not believe in God anymore, but her words are holy to him.

"As for our souls -- who we are -- I can't really say. I think we live on the most in other people. People who knew us and carry our memory with them. Perhaps our souls actually live on as their own things, go somewhere else, do something we can't fathom. Maybe our souls will enter another living thing, and we'll be reborn. I don't know."

She rolls over then, leaning over the side of the bed to look at him in the darkness. He hears her move, and opens his eyes. Her head is framed by the moon entering the window behind her. She is an angel, he decides. She is his angel.

"All I know is we are all part of a world that has been spinning long before we were born and will spin long after we die. What happens to us isn't up to us, it's up to the universe. If my soul lives on once this body can't go any farther, it lives on. If when my body gives out, that's the end, then that's the end. Either way, I think we all find peace at the end of this life, in whatever form that comes in. There is usually a sort of peace that comes with the finality of things in life, I can't imagine why that wouldn't extend to death."

He falls in love right then and there.