[ 01 - CHAPTER ONE ]

― sweet sorrow ―

The sounds of war were pleasant in their own bittersweet sort of way.

Listening to them was not unlike listening to the song of a symphony, cellos and violinists working together to play a ballad for anyone who would listen. The oboe, its tone sour and explosive, played a staccato rhythm of gunfire and explosions. The flute, the highest and most delicate instrument of all, mimicked the wailing notes of wives and mothers as their loved ones were sent off to war, perhaps never to return. And the harp, whose voice would make the mightiest warrior swoon at just one note, reflected the joyous sounds of war. The sounds that only a small fraction of people got to hear, when their beloved returned home and they would worry no longer.

War's songs were orchestras that warned of the sorrow that was to come. The sounds, joyful and harmonious to the ear, told its audience of the forthcoming loss whose dawn would soon light the shores of America. Alas, though the voices of battle tried their best to alert all who listened, no one heeded their warning. No one except Carolyn Levy, of course.

She, unlike her peers and jaunty acquaintances, listened closely to the sounds as they warned her. She knew what they were trying to say. She knew that they were telling everyone to take slow sips of the wine that poured out of pitchers like a waterfall. That the sounds were warning them to stop dancing so quickly, that they should take the time to hold their loved ones close before they lost them forever.

No one except Carolyn Levy recognized the voices of war. Everyone mistook them for voices of joy and triumph, of love and intimacy as Frank Sinatra's voice crooned from the nearest phonograph. But, perhaps because she'd lost more than most and knew how much could still be lost, she recognized foreboding when she saw it. And, when Carolyn heard Bucky Barnes had been drafted, and the sounds of war disguised themselves as mingling party guests and callous farewells, she felt horror at the fact that war was belching its notes of premonition once more.

"Carolyn!" a voice sounded from just behind her shoulder.

She whipped her head around, blonde tendrils of hair flying about like fairies from a fairytale, and grinned when she saw who'd shouted her name. It was a cautious grin, for the man who called for her was the one war's symphony tried to warn her about: Bucky Barnes. Her best friend since childhood, the little boy from the playground who always invited her to play hopscotch with him, even though he had dozens of friends already. But that little boy was a boy no longer. Now he was a man, his hair gelled and his shoulders broad as he prepared to go to war. His maturity had been a long time coming, but the world war had taken the last of his naivety from him. The draft had made sure of that.

"I've been looking for you everywhere!" he exclaimed, a goofy smile leaping onto his face.

A vibrant laugh frothed from between Carolyn's lips, a noise like the bubbles of freshly poured wine. "Yes, and I've been avoiding you everywhere."

"Be still, my broken heart."

Bucky's comment coaxed the slightest of smiles to appear on Carolyn's face, but she would be lying if she said the smile wasn't a fraud. An impostor, a flashback to her childhood games of pretend, because while she had been teasing when she claimed she'd been avoiding Bucky...she hadn't. In a way, avoiding him had been her top priority all night.

Ever since he'd taken her and Steve out to lunch just to tell them he'd been drafted, that he was leaving in a week for basic training, she'd been going out of her way to not see him. She couldn't tell if she was obeying the sounds of war or the enmities of her own heart, but what she was doing felt safe. It felt right to distance herself from Bucky before she lost him forever.

She never told Bucky this, of course. There was no reason for him to feel guilty for being drafted when it was a matter that lied miles out of his grasp of control.

So she pretended. She put on a mask of happiness and felicity, praying that no one would be able to see through its holes. She hosted a farewell party for him, the party she currently resided in, and invited his closest friends and family. She smiled when he looked at her, kept her spiteful comments to herself whenever the topic of war came to the front lines of conversation, and

But that didn't mean she relished being at the party. Seeing Bucky - one of her only comrades in the brutal battlefield that was life - smiling and laughing at his farewell gathering, at what very well might be the last time he saw his loved ones...it scared her. It sent a jolt of terror through her bones, washing away her sobriety and replacing it with wavelengths of panic. Bucky's blinding grin as he downed glass after glass of off-brand champagne - it only reminded Carolyn of what she was going to lose when he left.

"I think Becca is calling for you," Carolyn commented with a wave in the direction of a brown-haired girl. The girl, who alternated between the aliases 'Rebecca Barnes', 'Becca', and 'Bucky's kid sister', was waving frantically at her brother, an enthusiastic grin painted on her face.

Bucky followed Carolyn's gaze and smiled. He held a finger up, a silent sign that told Becca to wait a moment, and let his gaze linger on her for a moment before he turned back to Carolyn. He glanced at the linoleum flooring beneath his feet and set the glass in his hand down, the bubbles in his drink fizzing as he murmured, "I need to talk to you."

Carolyn's brow furrowed. "Now? Bucky, these people are here for you."

"They can wait."

Carolyn didn't offer a response. She simply stared at him, their locked gazes a clash of his icy blue eyes and her cerulean ones, neither set of eyes daring to look away from the other. It was symbolic in its own horrid, macabre way. It was almost as if they were afraid that, if they let their best friend out of their line of sight, they would lose them forever.

"Come to the kitchen," Carolyn finally spoke, reaching for a pile of discarded plates that lied on the table next to her. "I need to wash some dishes anyway."

They only made it a few steps before Carolyn's feet landed in an abrupt halt, a wisp of a smile on her face as she glared at Bucky's hands. A corner of her mouth rose and she teased, "Pick up some glasses. You're the one who drank out of most of them, you can help wash them."

Bucky grumbled something about Carolyn being bossy, but he didn't object and followed her to the kitchen of his own apartment, multiple wine glasses in hand. She could feel scattered tugs on her tendrils of honey-dipped hair as she weaved through the crowd - consequences of men consuming one too many beverages, she was certain, but also of longtime friends trying to pull her aside for a conversation. Whatever the case, she plowed through, a bull forcing its way through the bars that caged it.

Bucky was never more than a few paces behind her. Above the shouts and din of laughter, she could hear the occasional grumble roll from his tongue - a brusque "hey, watch the lady" - whenever someone collided with her, whether it had been incidental or not.

Once they'd trudged through the mass of people from all parts of Bucky's life, they found themselves in the deserted kitchen. It seemed as though none of the guests had an interest in lingering there, and with all the entertainment that resided in the living and dining room, Carolyn couldn't blame them.

She couldn't join them, either.

Not while she lived with gray clouds crowding the pores of her heart. Every time she allowed herself to ponder the reason all these people were here - to say farewell to Bucky one last time before he left - she could feel the clouds begin to creep closer. Tighter. Nearer. And they began to strangle. The fog seeped in through every gaping hole of her heart and churned there.

So she tried her best not to ponder at all. She preferred being able to breathe normally.

Carolyn eased the wine glasses she'd been holding into the sink and watched as Bucky did the same. He dropped the first few in a careless manner, causing Carrie to wince at the distinct clang they made, but he took notice of her grimace and set the rest down more gently. Carolyn switched the hot water lever on and began to scrub.

It was silent. Aside from the rushing of the tap water and the softened raucous of the party guests that continued to waft in through the open kitchen doorway, there was no noise to be heard.

"Carolyn."

She opened a drawer to the right of the sink, plucking the half-empty bottle of dish soap from its appointed resting spot. She'd known exactly where to find it, because though it was Bucky and Steve's apartment, she knew it as well as her own from all the time spent there. All the late nights spent on their couch, eyes drooping as she tried to persevere through just one more card game. All the afternoons she stopped by just so she could rest in the warm solace that another person's company could provide. She loathed to wonder what it would be like with Bucky gone, when -

"Carrie!"

She went still. Bucky was leaning against the counter, hands gripping the edge to sustain his weight. He was still the same boy, her heart whispered in response to the gentle ache of familiarity, eyes taking note of how his russet hair curled ever so slightly at the ends, making a game out of the turns and of how it tickled his brows. But if he was still the same child, why was he being made to fight a man's war?

"You're mad at me," he mumbled, voice like the honey that was hesitant to drip down the honeycomb, for fear of being eaten by the bear.

A bee from that very same honeycomb that lived in Bucky flew out to sting Carrie's chest. For him to think that she could ever be angry with him for something that was out of his control... She forced a laugh, trying to deflect the pain of the swelling bruise that the bee sting had left behind.

"And you're buzzed," she quipped.

Which he was, if only slightly. But she hadn't made that comment with the intent of accusation. It had been an endeavor to avoid the conversation altogether.

An endeavor that proved itself unsuccessful when Bucky answered with, "So you are mad?"

Carolyn let a puff of breath escape her lips, dropping the fraying washcloth she'd been holding onto the counter. "I'm not mad at you."

"Then what?" Bucky's head tilted to one side, a stick poking the bear in front of him. "Because you haven't exactly been happy the past couple days."

A moment passed and he added, this time under his breath, "I mean, you never really are, you always have some sort of snarky comment to make, but -"

"Alright, alright, I get it."

Bucky's short chuckles brushed across Carolyn's eardrums, and she looked up at him from beneath her eyelids, meeting his close-lipped smirk with one of her own. They'd always conversed in such a manner for as long as she could remember - with two snakes hiding beneath their tongues, scales bristling with every syllable until the abrasions were too much and they whipped their heads out. They could never go too long without one of them making a jab at the other, but every prod was in jest, and felt more like comfort than a woven pleasantry laced with manners would.

"I..." Carolyn's words drifted off with the scattered melodies that still sounded from the phonograph. She knew Bucky like she knew the freckles on her own arms, but she still didn't know the perfect way to speak with him. Not when there was conflict.

"I'm not mad at you," she finally said. "I'm mad at the situation you're in."

Bucky nodded, gaze dashing to the linoleum beneath them. "I didn't choose this."

He pressed his lips together, the structure of his jaw pulsing as it shifted. Carolyn's gut twisted. The bee sting again. She'd seen this look on his face before, the same furrowing of his eyebrows, the same widening of his eyes as if making them larger would create more space to swallow the tears. She recognized it from the first time they'd seen the way Joseph Rogers really treated Steve and Sarah, and again from when he'd sat in the front row at his own father's funeral.

"Oh, Buck," she breathed, stepping forward to worm her arms around his torso. "I know you're scared -"

"I'm not." Carrie took a step backwards, but then the caustic bevel in Bucky's eyes softened, and he pulled her close once more. "I'm not scared of fighting, I'm scared of hurting Steve. And you. And Becca, and the rest of them." He scoffed. "But I hurt you anyway. First Steve, and now you. Steve never came straight out and said it, of course, but I can tell. I can see it in the way his shoulders tighten when I'm around, and when he dips his head to avoid my gaze. He's mad that I got in and he didn't. And I didn't even tell him that I got drafted, because if he's upset that I'm living out his passion, then how much more upset would he be to learn that I got what he wanted without even trying?"

Carolyn shook her head, eyelashes fluttering as she stepped back once more to look Bucky in the eyes. "We don't blame you for the hurting, Buck."

A shallow smile graced his lips. Not shallow in its meaning, but only in its appearance, because beneath the facade, the painful contractions of his heart were experiencing strokes of peace. Strokes that healed wounds deeper than a scrape. An onslaught of waves as they crashed against the shore, muted but persistent, because Carolyn and Steve weren't stitching the blame to his conscience.

"You are a jerk for leaving us, though," Carolyn snipped.

Bucky's eyebrows leapt into his forehead, but at the sight of his friend's sly smile, he let out a bout of boisterous laughter. The vibrations tickled the film on his lips, tiptoeing away in the wake of its initial hesitancy. "Well, what would you say to dancing with a jerk?"

Carolyn didn't answer, her voice stagnant in the box that rested in her throat, frightened to peel open the lid until she was sure of her response.

"What?" Bucky teased, a corner of his mouth lifting in a devilish grin. "Scared to let a jerk steal your heart?"

She shifted her weight on her feet, wiggling one foot to nudge the dress shoe that was blistering her heel. Still nothing.

Bucky sighed and pushed himself off of the counter, but a playful dance still twinkled in the pupil of his eyes. He extended an arm out in front of him. Palm up. Waiting. "Come on, Carrie. Just one dance before I leave, just like the old times. One last dance with my best girl."

Carolyn's chin lifted, the seed of a smile sprouting on her mouth. "You know I can't dance."

"So let me lead."

Just like that, she was in her best friend's embrace. It was second nature, the way her footsteps followed in the stead of his, like one child pushing another on a swing. She could hardly hear the notes of the song that was playing as they worked to trickle into the kitchen, but it didn't seem to matter. Bucky could hear the melody, and so she followed.

Though they'd never danced like that before, inhibitions reigned in and arms restrained instead of flying around wildly to the tune of their favorite song, she recognized it intimately. Because she recognized him. The smell of his shirt, evergreen and cinnamon and a hint of aftershave, flooded her nostrils. The way his voice rumbled at the bottom of his throat as he hummed the harmonies of a song he scarcely knew. His breath blowing the stray hairs on her forehead, his hand interlacing with her own as the other rested on her waist. She'd encountered it all before, every day of her life, every day that she'd had him in it.

They were a pair of twin planets in that moment, orbiting around one another, souls made of the same stardust. They gorged themselves in thoughts of each other. The cerulean button-up shirt that encapsulated Bucky's chest was the atmosphere of Carolyn's world, her wispy blonde curls being the sun that his world gazed at.

Carolyn allowed herself one last prayer then. She begged that he would never have to leave. Because without her childhood friend, her planet would be devoid of its core.