Leave Me Bleeding [Winter Soldier] I

Love Me [Chapter 24]

              This was her chance to help Bucky get back on his feet, and if he didn't want her around after that, so be it. She wouldn't do well in this world, but she had a few people in mind who might help her begin to understand it. It didn't matter if he never remembered her, what mattered was that he remember who he was. Everything that came after, Ophelia decided, would be up to Bucky.

                "You were sent in to kill Nick Fury," She worried about how he was going to take this part. She skimmed over it, not wanting to go great lengths into the detail. "He faked his death, and you were sent in to kill Steve, someone from your past."

                "I couldn't..."

                "I know."

                "Who was he?" He asked it as if he didn't want to know, and yet there was an underlying tone that suggested he had been waiting to ask this question since the moment he decided to save her from drowning.

                "Your best friend, from a lifetime ago."  Ophelia knew little about Steve and Bucky's friendship, and the fragments that she knew of came from her mental bridge she had caused with Steve. "He is going to come looking for us."

                "Us." He repeated her words and Ophelia's heart leaped into her throat.

                "Bucky..." she paused as this question scared her, "do you know who I am?"

                He looked up at her, turning his body at the waist and staring into her eyes. The dim lamp in the room offered pitiful lighting, but his blue eyes caressed her face creating serenity. Never once did he blink as he tried to remember who she was. Shifting slightly on the bed, he reached his hand up and touched her cheek; she was cold to the touch from how weakened she was. What she needed was sleep, proper medical attention, and food. Ophelia turned her head and pressed her lips to his palm, not kissing him, but not moving her lips from touching his soft skin. She had done this once before, a life time ago.

                "I'm sorry... no." He sighed, as if he was disappointed that he couldn't remember her. He pulled his hand away. "Your face, I've seen it in my memories... When they come and go."

                 The first person who ever showed her a shred of kindness, had no idea who she was.

                Ophelia was not a weak person, but after he was able to remember parts of everything else and everyone else but not her, she began to cry. Trying to hide it, she bit down on her bottom lip and looked at the light across the room, as if the dull warmth might dry her tears before they fell. They slid down her cheeks despite her efforts and she reached her hand up to wipe them away before he spotted them. Digging her teeth into her cheek to make herself stop, she inhaled a shaky breath through her nose. This ebbed the tears, but not soon enough.

                "Tell me," he said, noticing her. His own eyes looked watery, as if he were about to cry.

                "I'm just another faulty HYDRA experiment," she said; she knew now that HYDRA had cleared his memories of her. "My name is Ophelia."

                "Ophelia..." He nodded, giving her a glimmer of hope, then shook his head. He sighed.

                "You won't remember me." She pulled her good leg up, bending it at the knee and resting her chin upon her knee.

                "You said things... Things I have said before."

                She had used a lot of his own words on him, trying to get him to remember. She had seen Steve get through to him by saying 'I'm with you to the end of the line' and she knew that it might work. HYDRA used trigger words to get them to do their bidding, and so it was not such a long shot that something similar to that might bring back memories. It had worked in the past, and Ophelia was very aware that HYDRA's brainwashing was not without fault.