A/N: Okay okay, just one more surprise because I'M IN LOVE WITH THEM OKAY?!
Morning came all too early for Kathryn. It seemed she hadn't even been resting for a full hour or two before she was being roused by Buck. It was still frigid and Kathryn felt as though her bottom was stuck permanently on the ground. Still, Buck seemed upset by the concept of waking her—he extended a hand to her and pulled her off the ground.
Almost immediately, she wanted to cry at the sensation of her feet aching and screaming at the leather shoes. "We're not marching right now," Buck murmured to her.
She wondered how he was so good at reading every single one of her emotions. Or maybe she looked genuinely pained by the concept of standing. Either way, it was slightly endearing that he just knew .
"Where are we going then?" Kathryn questioned, squaring her shoulders and staring out at the cold.
"They've got us on a train," Bucky answered. "It's not far from here."
"Like cattle," Kathryn mumbled, somewhat numbly.
Maybe they really were being rounded up like lambs to the slaughter now. It wouldn't surprise her. Wouldn't shock her if that's what the plan was. To get them all in the same place and to just have one mass grave. She had seen enough things like that on the front back when she was there. But they weren't just on the front now—they were headed towards the heart of Germany and that was nerve-wracking enough.
Even being herded into that damn train was its own battle. Kathryn had nearly been trampled—and probably would have been, if it hadn't been for Buck—in the stampede of men rushing to climb into the train-cars. It was no more than a wooden freezer that would move them from one prison to another. That's all that it was. It was not a reprieve.
Bucky was up first, pulling himself in. And before she could even make a move to climb up herself, Buck was lifting her and handing her to Bucky—it took her by surprise, truth be told. Either she was frightfully thin and weighed next to nothing (which was probably the truth), or Buck was stronger than she thought that he was.
Still, she didn't relax until he was standing next to her in the train car. It wasn't as bad as the march had been, but that was only because snow wasn't blowing straight in their faces and they weren't trekking through snow.
Kathryn stood between her brother and Buck, occasionally breathing on the tips of her fingers for warmth. She scarcely remembered what warmth felt like, let alone what the feeling of home was. She wondered if anywhere would feel like home, if they made it through this entire thing. It all just seemed like some sort of fever-dream.
Life before wasn't real—none of the luxuries that had existed before were real. The thought of soap or lotion or a shower was so far out of mind, that even thinking about it made her tired. But this entire train-ride, it also seemed like a fever-dream. Like it was never going to end. Like this had always been her life and it always would be. There was just no end to it all.
Solomon stuck close to the train walls, eyes peering out to see where they were going. "This isn't good. They're going to take us somewhere to kill us, aren't they?"
"They've had plenty of chances if they wanted to kill us," Daniels murmured.
"They're Nazi's," Solomon retorted.
"It'll be okay, Sully," Buck was quick to cut into the conversation. There would be no talk of death, no entertaining the notion—because these were his men and he was responsible for them too. No one was dying on his watch.
Kathryn glanced over at Buck—and noting his look of utter and total distress the minute that Solomon had gone quiet, she silently slipped her hand into his and gave it a small squeeze. He seemed surprised by the gesture, eyes flicking to her and warming ever so slightly.
They were both still here. They were both still together. It would be alright.
"It's uh...it's not what we thought it would be, huh?" Bucky's voice quietly entered the conversation.
Kathryn wasn't sure she had ever heard her brother this uncertain or quiet before. "Not exactly," Buck answered. His gaze shifted onto Bucky in curiosity and narrowed. "You wish you'd done it differently?"
Her brother was silent for a moment, gaze locked onto the ground of the train. "Can't say that I would have. Minus one argument."
"Just one?" Kathryn piqued an eyebrow, forcing a half-smile onto her face.
"Okay maybe more than one," Bucky amended, nearly rolling his eyes at her. "You?" He questioned, gaze on Buck.
"I wasn't planning on getting shot down," Buck admitted quietly. Then in a moment of vulnerability that Kathryn felt reverberated through her entire soul, he spoke again. "You know, I really did believe that if there were two B-17s left, it'd be me and you flyin' them." A beat of silence again. "The last few years would have been rough without you, John."
"Same," Bucky mumbled tiredly.
Kathryn felt this conversation was a turning point for them. Because somewhere along the way for these two, Bucky had become John—and Buck had become Gale. They weren't just Buck and Bucky anymore. Things had changed so fundamentally, even for them. And she had always viewed them as immovable forces of nature, fixed points in her life that would never change. But here they all were.
Bucky Egan was just John Egan.
Buck Cleven was just Gale Cleven.
And Kathryn? She wasn't sure what she was at the moment. A doctor, a nurse—a sister, a lover—a survivor.
Maybe they were the sum of all of the parts that made them them. Maybe, just maybe, the good and the bad, the painful and the sweet, it all just added up to make them who they were. And it was an amalgamation of the people they had been and the people they were now becoming. It was scary, in a way, to her.
"We're slowing down!" Sully piped up.
"Any idea where we are?" Another pilot questioned.
"Nuremberg!"
Kathryn felt a vein of dread shoot through her.
The arrival at the next Stalag did little to ease Kathryn's feeling of being on edge. She was fairly certain, looking around at the sight of the damp tents, that this was much worse than the last place she had been. It was moments like these she wondered about Beatrice.
Because surely, Beatrice was somewhere with a fire and a hearth and had a roof over her head. Surely she was comfortable and well-provided for. Surely she had food in her belly and a bed to sleep in at night. The thought was enough to make Kathryn Egan ill. But she was resolute in her decision to stay—her moral high ground had brought her here and that had been her lot. Her decision. There was no changing that now. And Kathryn wouldn't want to.
As long as she had Buck and her brother, Kathryn truly believed that she could get through anything and everything that happened to her. She had survived being demoralized and brutalized. She had survived humiliation and being taken advantage of. She had survived the damn front and avoided a mass-grave.
She had done that.
And she wasn't going to die here either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Bucky came to the tent that night, he couldn't help but roll his eyes and shake his head. Because there, cuddled up nice and cozy, was his sister and Buck. "What would 'ma say?" Bucky questioned pointedly.
"That we are scientifically conserving body heat," Kathryn retorted in annoyance.
"Ooh you're becoming more nerdy by association with him," Bucky snarked.
"How does he have the energy to make fun of us?" Kathryn mumbled to Buck, who just grinned into her neck. "He's your best friend."
"You're marrying him," came the retort.
"Oh leave them be," Annie's voice filled the tent as she appeared in the entryway, Tina in tow. Both looked utterly exhausted and gaunt in appearance, snow still flaked in their hair. At the sight of her nurses though, Kathryn's expression entirely lit up.
"Oh thank God!" Kathryn let out an exhale and for the first time since the march had started, she felt a small modicum of relief. She hadn't seen either of them the entire time that she had been marching and it had left her worrying and in wonder.
"You both alright?" Buck questioned, gaze falling on the nurses.
Tina forced a smile onto her weary features. "Tired but we're not dead yet."
"Here, you can have my cot!" DeMarco piped up, gesturing at the cot.
"But where will you sleep?" Tina questioned, gaze narrowing.
"Brady likes to cuddle."
"So everyone here is cuddling but me, I guess," Bucky rolled his eyes in annoyance. There were only so many tents and only so many cots within the tents. And as it happened to be, he was missing his actual cuddle buddy—Biddick. It was a strange thing to think of him at a moment like this and that joke had seemed like a whole lifetime ago. It certainly felt like it.
"Somehow I think you'll survive," Buck said pointedly.
A comfortable silence fell over the group—and a level of exhaustion that none of them had ever felt in their lifetime. In the damp of the tent, Kathryn found solace and warmth in the presence of Buck holding onto her securely. Somewhere along the way, his bunk had become their bunk. And she didn't mind one bit.
Later though, when it was nearly time for bed and Kathryn was attempting to get her boots off—every time she tried to tug them off, she nearly winced out in pain. "What's the matter?" Buck's voice sounded quietly in her ear.
She just let out a huff of air. "It's the shoes."
"They're stuck?"
"Yeah," Kathryn just felt like a child. Like a stupid little girl who needed someone to help her with her shoes. It was entirely humiliating and humbling in a way that she did not need to feel at the moment.
But Buck—he didn't seem to care about that. He glanced down at her feet and then tilted his head. "Can I—" His voice cut off as he gestured at her leg.
"Oh, uh—sure," Kathryn had never seen or felt someone so tenderly or carefully lift her leg atop his own. He reached down to the laces, tugging them as loose as he could—and though he was limiting their physical contact, every touch from him seemed to light her to life.
He was careful as he gave a firm tug on the boot and she let out a hiss of pain, clutching at his arm. At the sound of her being in pain, Buck's gaze immediately whirled onto her in worry. "You—"
"Just get it off. Please?" Kathryn begged.
What happened next was gruesome. As he pulled the boot from her foot, there was a disgusting squelching sound—and he felt sick as he stared at the blood and blisters that covered her feet. It was mostly dried, but so clear that these shoes did not fit her and were not made for her.
At the feeling of cold air on her feet, she nearly let out a cry. Kathryn couldn't even bring herself to look at the sores. "You don't have socks?" Buck's voice sounded far away from her.
"They're not even my shoes," Kathryn mumbled into his shoulder. "I lost mine in the attack."
"Oh honey," Buck murmured back to her. Every time he found something out, he just seemed to bottle it in more. He was angry at this war for doing this to Kathryn Egan. She was light in human form and an angel in his eyes—and she should not be bleeding from walking miles in the snow in shoes that weren't even hers to begin with.
He was careful with the next foot as well. He didn't flinch as the same squelching sound came again and left Kathryn with tears in her eyes from the pain. They had nothing to clean the wounds with and she would just have to sit here the next day and try to air them out the best she could. It was all they could do at this point.
When night fell, Kathryn had never been more tired in her life. But her brother just stared at them, arms crossed from across the tent. "Can I help you with something, Bucky?" Buck questioned, pulling the blanket up over the two of them.
"Yeah, keep your hands to yourself and above that blanket," Bucky demanded.
Kathryn wasn't sure if it was because she was utterly annoyed or just too exhausted to care. But she grabbed both of Buck's hands and slipped them back under the blanket and held them in hers—leaving her brother with his jaw dropped.
"Katie Egan—"
"Now who sounds like 'ma?"
"Take that back! And keep your hands—" Bucky started.
"Shut up! Please?!" Kathryn begged tiredly. "Or get yourself a cuddle buddy of your own."
"Maybe I will."
"Go to bed, John," Buck could just barely form words, cheeks still burning with heat from Kathryn's actions.
"Go to bed, Gale," Bucky retorted.
Buck chose, very wisely, not to mention that he was in fact, in bed with Bucky's sister at that moment. Kathryn just rolled her eyes and she rested her head against Buck's chest. With their legs and hands entwined, Kathryn wondered how she had ever slept by herself before this entire thing had started.
Glancing up, she found Buck's tired gaze on her. "I love you," she murmured tiredly.
"I love you too."