Reality in Motion

finally the truth

"I'm tracking down a lead on Bucky for the taskforce." Her answer came after a brief moment of tense silence. Then, she cringed at her lie - hating that it was her first instinct to do so even after everything, "No, I'm not." she backtracked immediately causing a look of confusion and slight frustration to come over Steve's face.

"Then what are you doing here?" he shifted his stance, still just as serious as he was when he first walked into the apartment. She could ask him the same thing. She tried to figure out how he had gotten to the apartment so quickly. Sharon didn't give her the allotted time she had been promised. Something must have happened to move up the time table. Q hesitated for a moment, taking in a deep breath and tangling her fingers together a bit. This was the worst time to tell him, in the worst place, and yet, it had to be done. The pressure had been building and building and building until it was about to explode. And now it was about to explode.

"Do you remember when we were in Croatia, how I told you about that family member?" she started with a step toward Steve, "The one who was captured by Hydra?" He nodded once, not wanting to interrupt her explanation, "And you said the story reminded you of Bucky?" Another nod from him. Another deep breath from her, "That's because it is Bucky." she admitted with a drop of her hands to her sides, "It's Bucky." she repeated herself hoping the point was clear enough.

"What are you saying?" Apparently it wasn't clear enough. She rolled her shoulders back and took another step toward him,

"My grandma is - was Rebecca Barnes -" she corrected herself at the self-reminder that her grandmother had passed years before. A look of recognition came over his face at the name of his best friend's younger sister. Memories came back fast and hard of a youth he had lived ages before. Instinctively, he straightened up, as he did whenever someone brought up his past. As if preparing himself for an attack of some sort, "I didn't know until we went to my family's for Thanksgiving. I found a box of her things and there were letters from Bucky along with a pair of his dog tags." The words began to tumble out of her mouth. Like the dam had finally been broken, "I thought I knew everything there was to know about my grandmother, but I didn't." her brow furrowed as she tried to keep her emotions in check, "And I wanted to. So I started to search for Bucky."

"For the next two years." he sighed heavily, connecting the dots together. Bucky was who she had been searching for. Not some random soldier from the 107th. Stupid of him for not pushing harder to get a little more information out of her. Enough to figure it out sooner. "Why didn't you tell me about...your grandmother?" he subbed in the relation to Q instead of using Rebecca's actual name - the name having too much emotion behind it. Too much of a ruined past was attached to it.

"Because I only found out about it like two years ago." she let out a sad little laugh and gestured out with her arm, "And I read about your last conversation with her." he swallowed the lump in his throat at the look of pity from Q. She knew what had happened between the former friends, "I didn't...I didn't want to bring back all that pain. And I didn't want you to look at me, us, any differently either." she admitted, realizing the last part was more true than anything. She still wanted to be just Q to him. Not his best friend's sister's granddaughter. They had met under normal circumstances and with the new connection between the two of them, she didn't want him thinking there to be anything different or reanalyzing their entire relationship. As if it were pre-planned.

"Did anyone else know before you did?" he was working through trying to figure out exactly what she was afraid of: if their relationship was organic from the start or influenced in any way because of someone's knowledge of her connection to him. His eyes were trained on her, studying her in this new light. Despite what he now knew, she still looked like the Q he knew and loved. Wild waves of brown hair pulled back from her face that still had the remains of her funeral makeup. She had been shrinking into herself ever since she told him her secret. As if afraid of what he would do.