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Summary: Ellie goes to the group therapy sessions Sam still holds whenever he finds time in between Avengers-business. Suffering from PTSD, she struggles to build a post-war life for herself as she can’t trust her brain to not mistake friend for foe. It’s at those sessions she meets Bucky who seems just as damaged by the past as she is.
Warnings: PTSD, talk of war, delusional episode
A/N: I... Ehm... I haven’t been on this blog for a year...soooo.... hyello. This is a super old thing I said I was gonna write in this post, and I guess better late than never? Right???
"My body is here, at home, but I still feel as if my mind is over there. I still feel as if I'm breathing in the dust underneath the burning sun, having to hold innocent at gunpoint because you have to determine everyone as the enemy. Sometimes it feels like if I reach over my shoulder, I'll feel the rifle right there, just waiting to be used..."
"Your mind is there." Sam agreed, attempting to gain eye contact with the young veteran who couldn't be much older than her, if not the same age. "Your mind is still at war, and it's your job to bring it peace. It is amazing that you can acknowledge the fact that you are not at war, Lawrence, because not all people can. Acknowledging your struggles is a far bigger step on the road to recovery than you can imagine. Being man enough to admit your own weaknesses is your first and greatest step..."
Sam's eyes scanned over everyone and stopped at her. "And being woman enough, of course." He added, causing a few of the other veterans to look her way. "What's your name?"
"Eleanor Conway, but I'd prefer Ellie, sir."
"I was First Sergeant in the Air Force, sir. Tours was not something I really did. I flew CSAR op's for three years before moving to Special Operations for my last two years of service."
"Combat search and rescue and special operations? That's some heavy weights you had to lift." Sam kept looking at her, trying to figure out what kind of a person she was. It was her first time in the meeting. He had received her order from court a week prior, giving her the option to either attend his group meetings or spend four months in jail, and that if she was to not show every Thursday night it was Sam's duty to report so.
From what the court order stated, Ellie had been approached by a police officer after she had been idle in her car at a traffic light for over ten minutes. When the officer had knocked on her window, she had tackled him to the ground by throwing the car door open, launched out of her car and on top of him, restraining his arms, only to fly off of him after a few seconds and apologize frantically. Sam didn't need to know much more than that to know that Ellie was yet another victim of post dramatic stress.
He never judged those who came in to the VA office for his sessions, but still he would never have thought she had been such a high rank in the Air Force, and even more surprised was he that she had been doing rescue missions, and special operations on top of that. Those were far from the easy services that the Air Force and the military provided. It would have been strange if anyone made it through all of that without at least a single scar, both physical and not.
"It was, but it's over now." She kept things short and cold, expressing her emotions being something strange and unpleasant in her world. Feelings makes you vulnerable, and vulnerability is not something you can afford when at war, that is something Ellie learned on her first day in the army, and it refuses to leave her mind no matter how much she tries to distance herself from her army days. That fear of being vulnerable latched onto her like a leech, even as war was in her rearview mirror.
"Do you still feel like your mind is at war?" Sam wondered, referring to the previous veteran who had spoken to the group about his struggles.
"No. I'm here." She assured, almost sounding defensive. Sam kept looking at her, trying to think of something to keep the conversation going, but it was clear to him that she wasn't very comfortable with being open, and he just so happened to catch a glimpse of the watch at his wrist after noticing that.
"Alright, that's about enough talking for one day, I'd say. Now, as you all know we work as a team around here, and so what we do is I will give you guys the next half hour to mingle around and find a partner. Why we do this is because it helps us to build a relationship with someone without having to explain or feel embarrassed about our past to them. It's good if you exchange numbers. If you’re having a rough day then maybe you could call your partner and just grab a beer at a local bar or something. It’s little things like that which will help you in the long run, perhaps especially a beer and watching the game on a flat screen." Sam smiled, earning a few laughs from around the room. "You make the rules. Either you want to let your partner into your life or you don't, and whatever path you choose is alright, but each week I'd like you to spend at least fifteen minutes talking to your partner and see how yore both doing, alright? Okay then, let's go. The coffee is going cold."
People began to rise from their seat, heading toward the table with coffee and some water. Ellie remained seated, looking over at the veterans who so easily began to talk amongst one another. They felt comfortable with their own kind, and even though they had never spoken to one another before, they all shared their military past, and somehow that seemed to be enough for them. She didn't recognize the same sense of familiarity. She had worked with others a lot in the Air Force, but when she was flying, she was alone in that plane.
Ellie turned to look down at her hands, but as her eyes moved across the circle of abandoned chairs, she noticed that one wasn't abandoned at all. About five seats to her left sat a man that she hadn't been able to see during the session. His hair was long and dark brown and tied into a knot underneath the rim of his baseball cap. He had his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, and as she looked at him, he noticed her movement and looked over at her only to create eye contact.
Her eyes moved away lazily, not caring that the man clearly had caught her looking at him. She simply sunk down in her seat and let her head fall back, eyes glued to the ceiling. It didn't take long for her to hear the sound of a chair shrieking against the floor to her left and footsteps approaching. The man she had looked at for just a moment sat down in the chair next to her, eyes looking across the room whilst hers were still just looking up.
"Not interested in having a partner, or whatever." She interrupted him. "Find someone else."
"Who the hell says I want you as a partner?" The man questioned, causing Ellie to raise her head slightly and look at the guy who had no issue with being bold, it seemed.
"What do you want then?" She asked in confusion, not in a rude tone, but not in a particularly friendly one either.
"Well, I was about to introduce myself when some a-hole cut me off." He explained in a cold tone, looking rather annoyed by her dismissiveness. They both maintained eye contact, not saying anything for a few moments, before Ellie eventually reached her hand out towards him.
"Ellie, but you probably knew that already."
"Bucky." He took her hand and shook it when suddenly she noticed that his left hand was being concealed by a black glove. She could only assume he was covering a military injury, just like so many others do after they've served and just like a couple of others in the room. "I'd say it's nice to meet you, but I can't tell at the moment."
"Wow... I see how it is." Ellie pulled her hand back, tightened her lips and looked ahead of her instead of at him. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he could tell she understood the humor to his words. "It's cool. You don't need to like me."
"Oh if we're talking about liking you, then the answer is a definite no."
"Alright, ha ha... I get it, I was an ass for wanting you to leave me alone. Anything else?" She rolled her eyes back to him.
"We should exchange numbers." He changed the subject, taking her slightly by surprise. "And no, I'm not saying that because you're the only girl in here. I'm saying it because I know Sam better than anyone else here and I know he'll never leave me alone if I don't get one of these partners, nor you, for that matter."
"So we're forced to give our number out and socialize at this place?" She asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.
"No, but you'll have Sam begging you to do it every time you come here, which is twice a week last time I checked." Bucky placed his elbow on the back of his chair and laid his right leg over his left one leisurely.
"That does sound annoying, I'll admit." She confessed before looking over to Sam who stood against a wall in the room to get an overlook of everyone. He seemed to look towards the door in the moment, but Ellie could tell he was watching her and Bucky in the corner of his eye.
"Alright, give me your number." Ellie pulled her phone out from her pocket, unlocking it and opening up the contacts before handing it to Bucky.
"Really?" Bucky furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
"You wanna suggest something and then question me when I agree to it?" She waved the phone in his face until he grabbed it. He wrote his number down and named himself before handing it back to her.
"I left my phone at home so if you could just write your number down..." His words faded out as he noticed the strange look she was giving him. "What? You're not gonna give me your number?"
"I have yours. That's more than enough." She shoved the phone back into her pocket, crossing her arms afterwards and leaning back into her seat.
Bucky had just been about to give a witty comment. Across the room, Sam had just been thanked by the veteran who had shared his story before Ellie. By the table of coffee, two men had just realized they both came from the same, small, town in the midwest. It was in that moment that a veteran across the busy room — military jacket clad in pins and medallions — moved underneath one of the ceiling lights. The lamp shone down onto one of his pins and the shiny surface reflected the light from above, flashing across Ellie's eyes.
Her mind stoped. Her entire body froze. It was as if this giant, complex, assembly, of cogs and wheels had been spinning perfectly when someone abruptly jammed a metal rod in the middle of it, causing the entire mechanism to jolt to a stop, jerking viciously as it was trying to spin but couldn't.
Ellie flew back with a vicious cry, the folding chair beneath her being kicked to the side. Her hands were up ahead of her as if she was holding a rifle and she aimed for the veteran with pins across his chest and arms. The chair she had kicked away then lost balance from the sudden move and folded together only to slam against the floor with a loud bang. She let out another panicked grunt and aimed at the ground where the still piece of furniture laid before aiming back to the veteran.
"Sniper... Sniper..." She repeated the words to herself over and over. Her hair hung messily over her face and only one eye was peaking out, her head leaning against her arm as if looking through the scope of the rifle she knew to be holding. In her mind, it wasn't imaginary. She could feel the weapon in her hand. She could feel the coolness of the metal trigger against the pad of her right index. The room wasn't a room anymore but it was the desert, and in the distance there was mountains. In a small crevasse in the midst of the orange rocks there was the reflection of a sniper rifle scope, and she had her eyes locked on the enemy.
"Out." Sam called, eyes open wide and locked onto Ellie. As no one moved, he turned his attention to the twenty people still in the room. "I said get out."
People started to hurry for the doors. The only one that didn't seem to be in a rush was Bucky, who still sat in the chair that had been right next to hers. He looked at Ellie with parted lips and an empty stare as her head snapped from side to side as she paranoiacally saw more and more threats around her. His eyes moved to Sam for a moment who was just pushing out the last people through the door.
"Barnes..." Sam said after spotting Bucky still seated only a few feet away from Ellie, nudging his head towards to doors he stood by, hoping Bucky would get the hint and leave with the others.
"What's happening to her?" Bucky asked, eyes still on Ellie, or whatever was left of her with them since her mind was clearly elsewhere.
"PTSD..." Sam sighed, walking quickly cross the room to retrieve his phone. He knew it said nothing in the court order or the emails he had gotten associated to Ellie's case about how to deal with her episodes, but even though he knew that he wanted to double check.
"No, this is something else..." Bucky disagreed. He knew PTSD, and whatever Ellie was going through was not that.
"She's only here because she goes to jail otherwise." Sam said in a stressed tone, knowing he probably shouldn't share the information with Bucky. "She attacked a police officer during one of her episodes and either she comes here to try and get better or she goes to jail."
"What is she doing?" Bucky rose from his seat, taking a few steps back to give Ellie some room.
"The damn girl has spent five years assigned to amongst the most dangerous fields within the military and she's not even twenty five years old. I think you can imagine a couple of things that might have traumatized her." Sam spat back, almost a little annoyed by how ignorant Bucky seemed, even if that wasn't the case.
"Ellie?" Sam gave up on the emails he had received about her and instead walked up to her slowly, watching her every move to see her reaction. Her head snapped to him, the lines seen through her scope crossing one another in the center of Sam's head. Although there was no weapon and Ellie was the only one who could see it, even Sam could tell that her aim was impeccable. "Eleanor?"
She was still just mumbling the word "sniper" on an endless loop, eyes glazed over as she was looking at something completely different than what both Bucky and Sam were.
"Ellie? Can you hear me?" Sam kept trying to get some sort of contact, but she was so lost in her mind she couldn't even hear him. Bucky was quiet and simply observing the situation before him. He did try and imagine what Ellie had been through, and none of it was pleasant. He had never heard of someone so young being such a high rank and doing such serious missions, and it threw him off a little. When he looked at her it was as if his brain couldn't puzzle her and her military background together. She just looked like a normal girl.
"Ellie you need to calm down, okay? You're in the VA office, back home. You're not in the military right now." Sam continued his efforts in vain. She couldn’t hear him. She wasn’t even in the same country as him in her head. She was alone. Over intercom she heard her commanding officer every now and then, and in the distance there was the enemy, but other than that she was on her own.
“Target in sight, awaiting orders.” Ellie continued to mumble. Sam had struggled to catch what she had said, but Bucky had picked up on her radio message that she believed she was sending her officer. It gave him an idea, one that he didn’t run by Sam before testing.
“Abort. For Sergeant Conway, I repeat, abort. Target misidentified. That’s one of ours, Sergeant. Stand down. Over.” Bucky spoke with a sternness in his tone and his eyes remained locked on Ellie the entire time. Sam glanced between Bucky and Ellie, both surprised by Bucky’s initiative but also impressed by his clever idea, even if he’d never admit that to him.
“Sergeant Conway reporting. Copy that, standing...” Ellie began to blink quickly and her eyes slowly lost that emptiness in them that they’d just had. “Standing down... I...”
“Ellie?” Sam tried again, his voice low and soft as not to startle her in any way. “Are you alright?”
“I’m...” She felt light headed. She felt really light headed. Her vision was blurry and the room seemed to fade between the actual room in the VA office and the desert, patches of the scorching mountains blotting her field of vision before they slowly began to grow dark and blank. The now black patches continued to expand and covered more and more of the room before her until finally, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her body seemed to have been turned off by a switch.
“Oh shit-“ Sam dashed forward to catch her limp body but it was Bucky who just barely managed to catch her in time before she would have crumbled helplessly to the ground. He quickly laid her on the floor and backed away, not comfortable being so close.
“I’m calling 911.” Sam sighed as he felt the worry slowly subside, even if it was still very much present. With her passed out, at least she didn’t have to suffer through the pain of embarrassment he knew she undoubtedly would have when she realized they had witnessed an entire episode of hers.
She remained unconscious for the twenty minutes it took the ambulance to arrive, and she had yet to awake when the paramedics loaded her into the back and shut the doors behind them before driving her to the hospital. Sam and Bucky remained standing in silence on the steps leading up the the entrance of the office after they’d taken her away, neither of them knowing what to say after the whole ordeal. Eventually, Sam admitted to how tired he was and that he just wanted to go home. He told Bucky to take care before they parted ways. Sam got into his car and drove off whilst Bucky decided to walk to his tiny apartment. It was a thirty minute walk, but he felt like he needed it. Seeing Ellie like that had somehow rattled him up a bit and an uneasy feeling nestled in the back of his mind.
Her mind and actions were not her own after the war she’d been fighting—a situation he found all too familiar for his liking. Perhaps they weren’t as different as he had first thought, him and Ellie?
So, as “usual” (can I still say that after having been away for over a year?) I love hearing what you think, so please do share your thoughts!
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