DEAR OLD FRIEND

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August 9th, 1948

1253 days

Or, 3 years, 5 months and 4 days.

It wasn't healthy, she knew that it wasn't. Keeping a mental tally of sorts; yet she could not help it. Each morning when she woke, alone in her apartment, it was almost as if she could hear a voice announcing 'Day number 12 without Bucky. Day number 482. Day number 937…'

It was relentless and mind numbing. And yet, she carried on, albeit in a daze but she carried on nonetheless.

After the war ended, Alice and the rest of the nurses were shipped back to Britain. And as it turned out, things were not much better for her there either.

Upon returning home, she was met at the station by her sister and her husband. Susan had a sombre expression on their face, while Graham, her brother in law, plastered a smile of false pretence across his face.

The reunion was anything but joyful, with Alice immediately demanding for them to tell her what had happened in her absence.

The news that her father had been killed in action, his body left in the fields of No Man's Land somewhere in France, had reached them almost six months previous. The news had devastated her mother, which was surely what caused the older woman's already weakened heart to stop, only five weeks prior.

Her parents were dead, and no-one told her. No-one thought to write her a letter, or send an emergency wire to the camp.

After that revelation, the weeks passed in a blur. Her once unbreakable relationship with her sister had deteriorated until the point where it was almost nonexistent. There were no letter, no calls nor any visits.

She couldn't live in her childhood home any longer, it held too many memories - mostly pleasant, but they were soon swamped by her mouring. 

Gwen already had made her reservations about travelling to the States to live with Lawrence. The couple were still in their delayed honeymoon phase, but they graciously offered for Alice to travel to the States and temporarily reside with them. All she needed was to find her own apartment and a job, and she would be able to get by on her own.

And this is what she did, albeit against her sister's best wishes, she moved to the suburbs of New York and there she continued to work for the Army’s main hospital, training the future generation of nurses.
  

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October, 1948

 
In the fall, Alice turned thirty.

Despite her best efforts to keep the day under wraps, her friends had tried to mark the somewhat joyous occasion.

Gwen and Lawerence had been adamant that she was not allowed to spend the day alone. They invited her to their modest family home, for what she was led to believe would be a quiet afternoon meal.

However, when she arrived at the Keller residence, she was welcomed with an eruption of cheers and hollers from her front line comrades. The nurses she had worked so closely with, and the remaining members of the Howling Commandos - minus two very prominent figures. The main living room was decorated with streamers and a sweet homemade banner hung across the tall, main window.

She tried to enjoy herself, mainly spending the day passing off airs and graces while pretending that she was having fun. She spent the majority of the afternoon with Patrick, Gwen and Lawerence's young son, perched on her knee. The two year old was enthusiastically showing her the wooden soldier figurines his 'Uncle' Dugan had made for him.

Admittedly, it had been a much welcomed distraction, reconciling with her old friends and hearing about where life had taken them in the last three years. However, after talking with Martha, who could not help but gush about her and Dugan's recent engagement, she could not bear it any longer.

There was no malice in the young blonde's words, and she appeared genuinely gobsmacked and apologetic once Dugan had placed his hands on her shoulders and whispered something hushed in her ears. Alice presumed that he was trying to contain his new fiances' excitement for another time.

She found comfort sitting with the young boy, talking with her friends. But as she often came to realise these days, wherever she found comfort, a sense of sadness would soon creep in.

She could have had all of this. She could have had it all with Bucky - the American Dream.

She yearned to own a home with a white picket fence and a yard. They would have had a dog two, possibly two. Bucky loved dogs. He always talked about how he always wanted for them to adopt a puppy. Nothing too big, and nothing too small - a Boxer or an old Sheepdog perhaps.

The matching set of dog tags that hung from the thin chain around her neck suddenly felt as though it was made of lead. Her fingers subconsciously came up to touch them, the metal cold beneath her fingers.

In a sombre way, she was almost relieved when Steve had presented her with the chain; he had tears in his eyes as he recalled to her how he tried to reach out and grab Bucky. All he managed to grasp was his identity as it hung around his neck.

She lightly traced her fingernail along the engraved lettering, a motion that she had done almost every day since that fateful day. She was so used to the feeling, that she could make out each individual letter and digit.

She couldn't stay for much longer after that and left. Making sure to thank Gwen and Lawerence for the hospitality and their efforts to make her birthday an enjoyable one, she quietly slipped away from the party unnoticed.

Alice did not know the area all that well, and walked to the first train station she found, only to be told that no trains were running that day. She asked for directions to the nearest train station but was told that a union strike had halted all public transport for the foreseeable future.

The walk to her apartment was not a particularly long one, only around forty minutes. The air was still somewhat warm and pleasant, despite being the end of autumn. The path she took kept her on the main streets, past bars and restaurants; she tries to ignore the twinge of jealously in her chest as she saw the buildings crammed with couples and families, enjoying their evening without a care in the world.

Again, all she could think about was how she could have had that. She and Bucky should have had that. And it had all been cruelly taken away.

The sun was just beginning to set when she reached her apartment. It was a decent size for a single occupant, yet to Alice it seemed vast and empty. The doorway led into a small entrance hall, complete with coat and shoe rack, before entering the combined kitchen and dining room, that mornings newspaper was still discarded on the counter. She couldn't bring herself to turn on the TV in the living room, all she wanted to do was curl up beneath her covers and slip away.

She took a quick shower first, needing to warm herself from the now chilly evening air. The feeling of the lukewarm water cascading down her tense body was blissful. After drying her hair and body with a once soft towel she pulled on her camisole nightie and robe, fully intending on settling in for an early night.

While that was the intended plan, her mind had other plans. Sleep was evading her, and soon the hours ticked by. Alice remembered hearing the clock in the hallway chiming midnight, and she was almost ready to give up on the idea of sleep altogether, when suddenly she saw a faint but distinct light flickering underneath her doorframe.

And then she noticed the heavy footfall and shadow looming.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she instinctively reached for the closest object that could be considered a weapon - a decorative glass paper weight on her dresser. Making her way over to the door, she made sure to keep her feet flat on the ground, keeping her movements as light as possible.

The bedroom door opened with a pop and a small creak. She peered out into the dimly lit living area.

A man was standing in her kitchen. At least she presumed it to be a man, their back was turned to her and it was difficult to tell by the strange clothes they were wearing. It reminded her of the overalls the nurses had worn when they dragged their stretchers into the muddy fields to retrieve those wounded. However, this was not like any uniform she had seen before. The material was thicker, courser and made from a white fabric. The contrasting black and red panelling and detailing was bold and unconventional.

Despite being light on her feet, her shuffling caught the intruders attention, and his head turned to her slightly, detecting her movements. His face was still obscured by the helmet and visor he wore.

"I-I don't have any money," Alice mumbled. It was the only thing she could think of to say. "I don't have anything."

She found it disconcerting when the man turned to fully face her, his stature towered above her by more than a foot. The visor still obstructing her view of him. She flinched when he raised a hand, her shoulders tensing; he placed the metal briefcase he was holding onto the ground and held up both of his hands as a sign that he meant her no harm.

Pressing his left hand to the side of his helmet, the visor snapped open, startling her.

And then, as the rest of the helmet seemed to fold in on itself, Alice could have sworn that her heart stopped briefly as she caught sight of the blue eyes, although slightly aged and weathered, that she had grown to know so well.

This was not possible. He was dead. The world knew that he was dead. And yet, here he was standing in her dining room.

"...Steve?"