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plusorminuscongress · 3 years

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New story in Politics from Time: Inside a Wisconsin Army Base Where Nearly 13,000 Afghans Await an Uncertain Future

On the last morning of September, dozens of Afghan children cheered on their older brothers as they played a lively game of soccer with U.S. Army soldiers on a military base in rural Wisconsin. As the kids ran up and down the pitch, their traditional long pants and tunics mixed with flashy, donated jackets and sneakers stamped with American logos. Across the field, some of their mothers watched and waved as they hung laundry out to dry.

Fort McCoy, a sprawling Army base surrounded by miles of cornfields and Christmas tree farms, is hosting the largest population of new Afghan evacuees in the U.S. Since the first families arrived in late August, it has grown into a small city of more than 12,600 refugees, almost half of them children, along with thousands more military and support staff. For the Afghans, it has been a blur of government interviews, paperwork, vaccinations, and talking to family left behind when they fled Kabul amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

But by the time a small group of reporters received a tightly-controlled tour on Sept. 30—the first time journalists were allowed onto the base—their surreal new life seemed to be settling into a routine. Afghan families have been sorted into neighborhoods of orderly white barracks, where they are waiting for their immigration paperwork, employment authorizations and health screenings to be processed. Most children seem to have recovered from the initial shock of a sudden, frenzied evacuation that tore them from their homes, according to volunteers. Kids are visible everywhere on the base, high-fiving soldiers, playing outside, and making arts and crafts while their parents learn key phrases in English classes. (“Would you like to pay in cash or card?”) Along with vaccinations, they are being given culturally appropriate clothing and food, military officials say.

Afghans who spoke to TIME were optimistic they would be leaving the base soon for their new lives. “I’m not concerned at all,” says Abdulhadi Pageman, a 44-year-old former Afghan Air Force pilot. “As soon as I’m safe here I will find a job,” he explains in an interview conducted under State Department supervision. “It takes some time…but these are amazing people.”

Yet outside the welcoming bubble of what Task Force McCoy Commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Norrie called this “city of Afghan guests,” there are signs of the struggle to come.

The Biden Administration’s efforts to resettle 95,000 Afghan evacuees by September 2022—53,000 of whom are currently being housed on eight military bases across the U.S.—has become a predictable political flashpoint. A short-term spending bill narrowly passed by Congress last week includes $6.3 billion in aid for Afghan resettlement efforts. Republican lawmakers in Washington had pushed for an amendment to the bill to cut off housing, medical help, food and other aid to Afghan refugees as of March 2023. The proposal, by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, also sought to cut language attached to the spending bill that would help Afghan refugees obtain drivers licenses and identification cards by waiving the requirement for documentation they may not have.

The same day that U.S. officials were walking reporters through the resettlement efforts at Fort McCoy, former President Donald Trump railed against “unlimited money to random, unscreened, unvetted Afghan nationals.” (U.S. security officials have stressed that all Afghan evacuees had to undergo extensive security screenings before arriving in the country.) The issue has been played up by national conservative news outlets, which had previously criticized Biden for not moving quickly enough to evacuate Afghans who risked their lives by working with U.S. forces. Two criminal incidents at Fort McCoy—one in which a 20-year old man was charged with engaging in sexual acts with a minor, and another in which a 32-year old man was charged with assaulting his wife—went viral on conservative social media.

The result has been a disorienting split-screen. More than seven out of 10 Americans support resettling Afghans who worked with the U.S. government or military, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll. That support is evident at Fort McCoy, where volunteers unpacked donated jackets and t-shirts on Sept. 30 pinned with little paper messages reading “Welcome to the USA,” “Welcome to safety,” and “We are glad you are here.” Residents near the base have stepped in to help, running donation drives and collecting toys and clothing. On a recent morning, members of a local chapter of Catholic Charities played frisbee with the kids, entertaining them while their parents attended English classes.

Yet as Republican lawmakers seize on the issue of refugee resettlement to push a hardline immigration agenda, the national spotlight on Fort McCoy has fueled rumors and safety fears that are testing the tolerance of some in this western Wisconsin community.

Barbara Davidson—Getty ImagesAfghan refugees stand outside housing in the Village, where they are temporarily living at the Ft. McCoy U.S. Army base on September 30, 2021 in Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin. The Village is the community housing for the Afghans, comprised of eight neighborhoods where the evacuees live, eat, and receive services and support.

The controversy began before the evacuees started arriving. In an open letter to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Aug. 20, GOP State Sen. Patrick Testin, whose district includes Fort McCoy, raised alarm about “10,000 to 20,000 potentially unidentified, potentially unvetted, potentially unhealthy people as they pour into rural Wisconsin…from a known terrorist training ground.”

Evers, a Democrat, dismissed these allegations as “dog whistle crap.” U.S. officials have also rejected the notion that any Afghan evacuees are entering the country without the necessary security checks. “These individuals were screened and vetted by intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals from across the U.S. government,” Angie Salazar, the federal coordinator for the Department of Homeland Security at Fort McCoy, told reporters.

But many residents of the surrounding area remain unnerved. The towns of Sparta and Tomah, which flank Fort McCoy on either side, have populations of under 10,000, which are now surpassed by the evacuees on base. “As far as I’m concerned, they don’t belong here,” says area resident Lee O’Neill, who told TIME he threw a flier urging neighbors to be respectful of Afghan culture in the trash. “I haven’t met one person around here that’s happy about it.”

On social media, rumors circulated that refugees were “escaping” from the Army installation, forcing local authorities to respond. “Refugees from Afghanistan are lawfully in our country,” Tomah Police Chief Scott Holum wrote on the department’s Facebook page Sept. 1. “As many of you are aware, there have been several reports through social media regarding activities or sightings of refugees…the Tomah Police Department has not received any reports of criminal activity related to refugees from Afghanistan.”

That post and others became forums for heated online arguments. “There is nothing wrong with having trepidation about Afghans coming to rural Wisconsin,” one man wrote in a Facebook comment on the police page, warning that there could be “sleeper al-Qaeda/ISIS operatives mixed in with the valid refugees.”

Many residents who spoke to TIME did not know that few, if any, of the Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy are expected to be resettled in the immediate area. “When you have around 13,000 people come here from a different country that doesn’t really like you, you would be concerned also,” says Paul Bransted, a former U.S. Army Ranger who lives an hour from the base. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re all good people, but when the Trojan horse is on the move there’s going to be a few bad apples that would love to do harm to us.”

Others say this is a minority view. “It’s strange for us to be in the national spotlight, and I think the majority of people here see the publicity we are getting as an opportunity to show off our compassion and hospitality,” says Chelsea Van Gundy of Tomah. “We have some community members who have a lot of fear related to the vetting process, and at first there was not a lot of transparency, which fueled rumors. But once our local law enforcement started briefing the community, it helped calm initial fears and reinforce that these refugees are our guests.”

The local reaction is shaped in part by the past. Many residents still vividly remember the last time the U.S. government used Fort McCoy for its refugee resettlement efforts. In 1980, in the midst of the Cold War, President Jimmy Carter vowed the U.S. would provide an “open heart and open arms to refugees seeking freedom from Communist domination” under Fidel Castro, who had just loosened emigration policies. More than 125,000 Cubans arrived in South Florida in what became known as the Mariel boatlift. Roughly 14,000 of them were flown to an improvised refugee camp at Fort McCoy.

Mary Bower—Courtesy U.S. ArmyCuban refugees step off a bus and into a holding area at Fort McCoy in 1980 after a ride from the La Crosse Municipal Airport. Fort McCoy served as a processing center for Cuban refugees from the Mariel Boatlift.

The circumstances were different. The large group of Cubans was mostly young and male, and included political prisoners and dissidents as well as those considered “social undesirables” by the Castro regime. But the scenes on the base looked strikingly similar, according to white-and-black photographs in a local archive: the same rows of white barracks, the same English classes and lines for meals and vaccination. The signs were in Spanish then, instead of Pashto and Dari, and the Cubans played baseball and dominoes instead of soccer. But then as now, news coverage amplified concerns about rising crime and the cost to taxpayers, according to Omar Granados, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

“They were saying that Castro had basically sent them all over here to infiltrate the U.S., and that everyone should be concerned about violent crime,” says Don Porschien, a 58-year-old retired U.S. Marine who at the time was attending high school in nearby La Crosse. “My dad was on a business trip, so he told me to load up my hunting rifle and keep it handy.”

With little clarity about the immigration process or how long they would be detained, the Cuban refugees grew frustrated. There were reports of fights and extortion on the base. Many tried to escape. “Cubans are inside the compound with no protection afforded them by the U.S. government,” a fact-finding commission ordered by the Wisconsin governor found in September 1980, calling internal security to protect the refugees “nonexistent.”

That experience “looms very large for the people who were living here,” says Jared Roll, the historian for Monroe County, which encompasses Fort McCoy. “Everybody that they saw became a potential criminal and therefore someone dangerous in their backyard.” The initial response to Afghan refugees has been largely supportive, Roll says, but it remains to be seen whether the constant news coverage amplifying security concerns will change that.

U.S. officials have not given a timeline for how long Afghan refugees will be housed at Fort McCoy. The group is largely made up of people who worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan, including translators, drivers, cooks and Afghan Air Force pilots, as well as others whose jobs put them at risk, like journalists, human-rights advocates and aid workers. There are also family members of American citizens or green card holders. Many there are on humanitarian parole while they wait for their special immigrant visas (SIV) to go through a lengthy 14-step process. For those hoping to be sponsored by family members in the country, the process could take between one to five years.

The open-ended process has driven several hundred refugees to leave the military bases where they’re being housed to join friends and family members already in the U.S., according to a report by Reuters, even though doing so means that they forfeit all federal resettlement benefits and likely complicate their immigration status.

Barbara Davidson—Getty ImagesVolunteer Sandra Hoeser plays frisbee with Afghan refugees at the Ft. McCoy U.S. Army base on September 30, 2021 in Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin.

Already there are indications that some evacuees may stay at Fort McCoy longer than they expect. Preparations have already begun for what military officials on the base called the “Winter is coming” planning effort. In a warehouse with large cardboard boxes containing donations, evacuees were being fitted for winter coats and boots. Cold-weather tents have been erected on either side of one of the mess halls to shield people waiting in meal lines once temperatures drop.

Some of the Afghan evacuees who spoke to TIME said that they’ve been following the political debate over their presence. “I never thought of getting out of my country, it all happened all of a sudden,” says Khwaga Ghani, a 30-year-old journalist from Kabul who worked for international media outlets before she had to flee. “I don’t care what anybody says—I’m just thankful for what is happening. The people who were scared for their lives, they are safe now.”

As their future continues to be debated in Washington and on cable news, most Afghan evacuees are focused on more immediate matters. “It’s a lot of bureaucratic things that I’m worried about,” says Sameer Amini, a 36-year-old former program coordinator at the U.S. Embassy, who fled Kabul with his wife and two children. “I’m worried about where I will be settled, how I will travel around because I don’t have a drivers’ license, which offices we have to be in contact with…for medical purposes or for schools for my children.”

Any leftover energy goes into thinking about his parents left behind in Afghanistan, Amini says. “I’m not worried about anything else.”

By Vera Bergengruen/Fort McCoy, Wis. on October 04, 2021 at 02:21PM

#Time #politics #PlusOrMinusCongress #±Congress #Indega±#IndegaPlusOrMinus #TimeMag #TimeMagazine

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gripefroot · 4 years

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Golden Dreams [2/3]

“So. Sergeant, huh?”

Dancing fingers up the bare, sweaty skin of his chest. Still breathing heavily, though his smile is lazy as he gazes down - your smug, coy smile unfurling prettily as lacquered fingernails tap on new silver metal dog tags. Issued as an ominous parting from Camp McCoy, but he’d been too excited about furlough and you that he’d just tucked them in his army-green button-down and not thought twice about it.

But now you’re thinking about it, and he guesses, by the light of your eyes, that you rather like it. The tags against his chest - broadened an inch, thanks to the Army. Not the going-to-war part.

“Yeah, sugar,” he says fondly. “Sergeant.”

Ten weeks of basic training have made for a wild reunion - the evidence is everywhere. Squashed pillows, rumpled sheets, the quilt his grandmother had gifted as a wedding present trailing on the floor - and from the bit that’s touching his ankle - wet, in spots. Bucky doesn’t care. Buries his fingers in the mess of your hair as you give a sigh that brushes cooler air against his chest.

For December, it sure is hot in here.

Warm, wet kisses to his chest now. The flick of a tongue, loose hair tickling his bare skin. Bucky groans, eyes squeezing shut - still sensitive everywhere, but you’re gentle.

“Must’ve gone through the ranks fast,” you murmur, and he shivers.

“Uh - yeah. Guess so.”

“And I wasn’t there to congratulate you each time.”

Blood is rushing. The curve of your smile, knowing exactly what you’re doing to him. And he’s glad you do. But for now…

“Got a couple letters of recommendation,” Bucky says, a little hoarse. “From the company commander. That’s probably worth a pop of champagne, huh?”

“Well.” A little, thoughtful furrow of your brows as your fingers clench into his chest. He sucks in a little moaning breath, feeling the heat in his muscles… “I don’t have champagne on me, baby. Can I make it up to you?”

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. “Yeah, alright.”

Ten weeks is a long time without his wife…

And unfortunately, it’s going to be more. Only a few cold days later he’s kissing you goodbye on a train station platform - surrounded by the stink of diesel and crying babies, the groaning of engines - Bucky doesn’t want to pull himself from your pretty, sparkling eyes - all stoic, good humor, though he wonders if tears will spill later. For now, it’s bright lipstick and a jaunty hat, and he feels proud to be yours.

“I’ll miss you, Sarge,” you say softly. No one else would be able to hear, of course - just a secret between husband and wife, man and woman. Lovers. Smiles that mean more than upturned lips. A pinch in his stomach of want and preliminary sorrow - and holding your gloved hands tightly in his, Bucky bends again to kiss your lips. Again.

“You’d better,” he teases, and puffs out his chest a little as your hands run down the front of his coat, tugging to straighten the lapels of his jacket. “If I come back and you’ve found yourself a spring-chicken boyfriend…”

A tinkling laugh. “I would never,” you promise, the tip of your finger shining a brass button on his chest. “Besides, you taught me well. I can knock him flat on his back, if I have to.”

Bucky laughs, too. The train whistle blows. “Just - ” he stutters, and his heart is racing. “I’m worried about you being alone, sugar. Write to me?”

“I will.” The softest smile, warming him head to toes. “You’ll be the first to know, darling.”

The train whistle blows again - soldiers breaking away from families and loved ones, hurrying to board the already crowded train, headed south for Fort Monmouth. Bucky sighs, eyes flickering over your face one last time to memorize it for the next ten weeks - a clumsy kiss to your cheek, and he bends to pick up his bag.

Ten weeks, he thinks with a secret smile, as he jumps up into the train car - just in time - it starts moving slow, and he twists, holding onto the railing as he sends you one last wave, and you blow one last kiss.

Ten weeks, and everything could be different. A baby boy, a baby girl - won’t know for a while, but either way, Bucky will be more than pleased. Your eyes or his - as long as the baby has a strong fist. You’d teased him about that, of course, when he’d whispered that quip into your ear long after midnight.

“Babies don’t come out swinging right hooks, Buck,” you’d said. “Just let the baby be a baby.”

The baby. As if it - he or she - has been willed into existence by the sheer want and excitement of their parents. You’ll know before next furlough - he’ll know before next furlough, and it makes the dreary anticipation of ten weeks of training a little less dull. Something to look forward to. That, and his favorite lawn-green silk nightie you have, tucked away to welcome him home in the spring…

Spring which brings new buds on the trees in Prospect Park, and no baby. But - a welcome-home of smudged lipstick and torn stockings - an accident, he insists - and the metal form of the bed bends in a little, when he puts his weight on it in the wrong way.

But you laugh him all the way into your arms, and he forgets that he’ll have to repair that later.

Little kisses to the nicks and scrapes of training - your pretty lips, pursed, branding yourself onto him once more. And Bucky buries his nose into your hair, letting the familiar scent drive away the weeks of dust and bunkers, gunpowder and cafeteria food and crude men. This is more what he’s fighting for than any of that - not the orders, not the selective service. You. Home. Family.

Four days’ furlough. Hitting up the YMCA again, as you show him proudly around as the new secretary, filling in for him while he’s gone - working with the gentle ex-champion Robbie McCarthy, old and wizened but happy to have help. And you whisper to Bucky about how you can stay late most nights, trying to stay in shape.

“Not hitting anyone, are ya?” he asks, squeezing your waist. The office is empty - you’ve moved into his abandoned desk, and Robbie is out with a class.

“Not at all,” you say solemnly - hands on his chest, though your eyes are sparkling. Bucky leans back against his - your desk, now - neater and prettier than it ever was, and you lean into him.

“Well,” he bites his lip. Watches as your tongue wets yours. “If you need some real practice - I don’t have anything else to do, tonight.”

You lift a brow. “Yes, we do - remember? We’re gonna make a baby.”

“Oh, right,” Bucky pretends to frown. To mull it over. “Well - maybe we can do both? And then keep working on the baby tomorrow, too.”

“Promises, promises.” A brush of hot breath against his mouth, and he chuckles as he leans down, planting a thorough kiss on your lips as you sigh in contentment.

Now, Bucky’s no expert in making babies - probably the neighbors downstairs from his parents with thirteen kids hold that title - and he isn’t sure how pressing your chest to the lockers this time as he slips into you from behind is going to be most efficient - but he’s too hyped up on adrenaline and the joy of being lost in you - your moans, the vibrations of your throat as he leans down to nibble on your neck. If this way doesn’t work, he’ll try a different position every day that he possibly can.

Oddly enough, he returns to Fort Monmouth from furloughs as exhausted as he leaves.

Spring slinks into a humid summer, bringing with the prickling heat an even more bothersome dread and sorrow. A final week’s rest before he’s scheduled to board a boat for Morocco with the 107th, but Bucky doesn’t think about that - he settles back home as if he’ll never leave it.

Shirtless and damp from sweat, wandering around the tiny apartment with the windows open to allow some breeze, even if it stinks of city - wrapping up around you despite the heat, and your flimsy silk slip is sticky as you sigh, tracing fingers up his bare, muscled arms. Bucky rests his chin on your shoulder, breathing in the distant whiffs of perfume you’d worn the previous night to welcome him at the train station. Mostly covered by the musk of sex and sweat now, but still so beautifully you.

“Sugar,” he starts, and you twist in his arms in the worn chair - squirming a little, facing him with that smile that makes his heart beat fast. Lets himself smile lazily, shivers as your fingertips rest on the fine hairs of his chest. “Sugar, I don’t want you to be alone while I’m away.”

“I know, darling.” A wry smile. A nuzzle of your nose against his. “That’s why - well, you know.”

“Know what?” Bucky teases. Jokes. Because he can.

“That’s why we’ve been going at it like rabbits, Bucky Barnes,” you say with a tinkling laugh, and he grins.

“Oh - but isn’t that the usual for us?” he asks, all wickedness as he tugs you closer by the waist, and your bright giggles are swallowed in his mouth as he presses his hot lips to your warm ones.

“Mmm.” A soft moan, roving hands. Too hot, too exhausted to do much more - but there’s peace and love enough in this soft intimacy. His fingers in your hair, yours still on his chest as you press your cheek to his shoulder. “I love you, Bucky.”

His heart swells, and stops. He swallows thickly - the sweetness of your words feel so bitter at the edges, but he doesn’t say anything about that. No reminders.

“I was thinking, sugar,” he says after a moment. Absently gazes above your head, to the tidy quirks of his home. Your home. A home made together. “If - if it might be easier on you to move in with my parents. They have the space - they’d love to have you.”

A confused tilt of the brows as you lift your face - Bucky smiles, pushing back damp strands of hair from your face with gentle fingertips. Wants to live in this moment forever.

“I don’t plan on being alone forever,” you point out.

“But, sugar - it’s been a while and nothing’s happened, and I don’t want you to be lonely - ”

“I won’t be.” A kiss to the dimple in his chin - his heart wrenches as the hope shining so bright in your eyes. “Besides - Rebecca already volunteered to move in here after you leave. I think she wants to be closer to Harry Mathers down the street.”

Bucky bursts into laughter.

The last night is a special one - the YMCA forgone for the first time that week, and instead, a simple meal at home eaten mostly in silence. The next morning hangs over like a storm cloud: threatening, but not breaking. Enough to make it gloomy, and Bucky washes the dishes without a word as you sweep the tiny kitchen. The swoosh-swoosh of the broom, marking time in miserable seconds, and Bucky wishes they would stop. Cease to continue. Freeze in the here and now, as he carefully puts dried plates away, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

A small cake, made with precious rations as a going-away treat. Eaten out of the glass dish you’d baked it in, earlier that day - with no frosting, but a smear of raspberry jam that tastes better than any meringue. Especially when you learn forward with a sparkle in your eyes, to lick some from his lips, and he gets dizzy.

The lawn-green silk slides over your supple skin, that night. A poem in motion; a song in touch. And touch he does: every inch of your warmth, starting with his lips and trailing fingers across curves and bends. Searing each one into his memory like a flaming, iron brand. You. You. You.

“I wish - ” you start to stay, voice husky and thick as you unbutton his trousers - but once glance up to his face, and you don’t finish. Only a blazing look, a shifting of cotton. Bucky’s head lolls against the metal rails of the headboard - sucking in a breath as your warm, wet mouth pulls him in. He wishes, too. He licks your half-dried, salty slick from his lips. Let the bursts of fireworks race across his skin.

“I’m gonna miss you, sugar,” is all he groans out. All that he can say, and the only moment he can say it - because only a few seconds later you pull away, crawling up towards him with glistening eyes, and he pulls you by the back of your neck, and crashes lips to lips as if to send a big old middle finger to the morning. The Army doesn’t have him tonight.

Sticky, tacky skin on damp, sweaty skin - lawn-green silk settling pretty on his belly as you climb into his lap - one strap of your slip is hanging down your arm, baring enough breast to draw his attention. His hands slide up the silken contours of your waist as your lashes flutter so pretty, mounting him in a slick motion that makes him grunt, engulfed in heat - and as your hips roll, his practiced fingers tug down the other strap, and he slides the slip down lower. Green pools at your waist, and he leans forward to work his tongue against the firm rise of your nipples. Your fingers tighten in his hair, tugging as your breathy gasp fills the room, moving fast -

Bearing down, clenching on him - Bucky’s teeth nip at your breast as you shudder and still. Clinging to him; his hair mussed now beyond redemption and your thighs tight around his hips.

“Feel so good, sugar,” he pants, fervently cupping a breast in his shaking, sweaty palm. Licks his way past the dips and hollows of your collarbone, to your throat, glistening with perspiration as a moan vibrates him to the core.

“Not as good as you.” A ragged rejoinder, and he huffs a laugh into the kisses along your jaw.

“Lay down, sugar. Let’s get this baby made.”

“Mmm. You gonna show me a good time, Sarge?” The challenging quirk of your brows he loves so much - the same quirk that had drawn him to you in a room full of dames, that pretty confidence that shines so bright. Throat full, Bucky’s hands shake as he lifts the rumpled folds of the slip up and over your head - your arms lifting obligingly, and he lets out a long breath to see your glory bared to his eager eyes. He wraps his arm around your waist, lifting you slightly as you let out a pretend laugh of terror, and he grins, turning to dump you onto your back against the faded covers of the bed.

How stunning you are - laid out like this, relaxed and somehow still so sinfully enticing and on edge - nudging himself between your soft thighs, Bucky’s heart beats about a thousand miles an hour, and he dips his head to plant a single, chaste kiss to your pretty lips.

“C’mon, Sarge.” A low invitation, hands on his chest. “You promised.”

If he wasn’t already hard as a rock, the dark stars in your eyes would certainly do it. The trusting, adoring gaze as you smile up at him, ready and wanting, welcoming him between your arms and legs as he sinks down with a ragged breath, lips finding the junction of your neck and jaw again to worship there. Tucked right where he belongs.

Where he never wants to leave.

Warmly enveloped, perfectly eased into you like a dream - fingers threading through yours against the pillow, and a throaty gasp spurs him on.

Screeching groans of the metal frame - coils in the mattress protesting in squeaks - but Bucky just hears you. The little presses of breath into the shell of his ear. All those mumbled pleas that send shivers up his spine - “C’mon, Bucky, baby - you feel so good, Sarge - right there, mmm - I’m gonna - I’m gonna - ”

And he does, too - a flashing spark that starts low in his belly and roars through his veins in licking flames. Your sticky skin arching against him, and he spills - milked right outta him by how good you feel around him - the squeeze of your legs around his hips, and he rocks for a moment longer before giving a strangled grunt at the sensitivity.

The seconds tick on.

“Oh - Bucky, darling, I have to - ” A wiggle of your hips, and blearily he lifts his head to your anxious expression. “Relieve myself,” you add a little lamely.

“Not yet,” Bucky says. And though he pulls away, leaving you shivering and limp - he smiles, gently lifting one of your legs over to close them. “Read it in a book back in high school biology,” he says, a little smugly. “Keep your hips up, sugar.”

The slightest roll of your eyes - but beneath this pretend impatience is exasperated fondness. With a chuckle he crawls up to lay beside you - creaking the mattress, and sinking into the softness. Buried in your scent everywhere, as you curl into his arms with a sigh, your eyes closing slow with a smile still lingering.

“What time is it?” you murmur against him, and he twists to glance at the clock on the nightstand.

“It’s only eight-fifteen, sugar.”

“You need to sleep.” Nuzzled deeper into his embrace, something lodges in his throat…

“I will, sugar. Don’t you worry. I’ll sleep.” A kiss to your head, and Bucky finishes the promise in his mind: On the boat, I’ll sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll sleep. Every other night, I’ll sleep. But I’m not gonna waste my last night at home sleeping when I can be watching the pretty sight of you, your messy curls, the rise and fall of your breaths...

You doze soft and light for a while - skin to skin, wrapped up in safety and peace. Finally around nine, you shift and wake, and Bucky pretends to wake, too, blinking fast.

“Now I am going,” you say firmly, squirming from his arms and out of the bed. “I’m sure that was quite long enough, Sergeant.”

A smile creeps up his face as he watches you disappear into the dim hallway. Then reaches over with a yawn, tugging the cord of the lamp so that all goes dark. Straightens the covers. Fluffs up your pillow. Waits.

You glide back in sticky moonlight; Bucky smiles without thinking at the flash of your teeth in a grin. Limbs bump and tangle, the bed squeaks some more - and you settle right back in with a yawn.

“Don’t forget to sleep, Sarge,” you say sleepily, and he gives a noncommittal grunt as he kisses the top of your head once more. As often as he can as the night coasts and continues, without waking you from your restless sleep. Listens to your soft breathing, drinks in the splay of moon against your cheek. Kisses the moonlight, tries to understand your murmurs. He’ll miss listening to you, talking in your sleep. Guessing at the mysteries on your lips.

Still, he feels as though he hasn’t kissed you quite enough, when he draws you into his arms at the docks at dawn. Already warm even though the sun is barely pink at the horizon - the ships belching putrid smoke everywhere, tears and cries sounding loud. Different than the train station? Maybe. Maybe not.

The harbor stinks bad, though.

So Bucky buries his nose into your hair - tries not to dislodge your pretty hat, and breathes in deep. Eyes closed. Heart beating. Here, and now. Your arms tight ‘round his shoulders, your soft breath against his neck.

“Write to me,” he says raggedly. Holds back the burn in his eyes. “Write to me, sugar.”

“I will.” A steely promise. “Oh, Bucky - I hope - ” But again, it goes unfinished. He knows, though. He knows, in his heart of hearts, and he wishes the same.

A desperate embrace, a hasty clashing of lips. Not enough. Never enough. But shouts are rising - the ship will be leaving soon. A last raking over your face, memorizing the smiling sight - the squeeze of his hand in yours. No tears. Not yet. His might come soon, but you’re as assured and calm as ever, letting his hand fall as he twists in the crowd. Makes for the gangway.

In the cabin he shares with five other men - a tiny slit of a window. Through it, he can see the dock, the bustling crowd. But he can’t see you.

Jaw clenches. Other men barge in, laughing and dragging their bags, and Bucky straightens. Thoughts of home not put away - just aside. For empty nights which he knows are coming.

Morocco is dusty and hot - but only a stop on their way north, and by the middle of June he finally sets his feet in Europe, though his heart is still at home.

A dreary rest of the summer, a gloomy autumn. Punctuated with nightmares he barely keeps at bay. The first real joy comes in October, with a rucksack of mail from London that erases all order within the troops, and Bucky doesn’t even care. There’s one for him.

In the disbursement he finds a lonely, ragged oak tree to sit against. The back against his coat, the cold ground hard and unwelcoming - but he tears the seal with shaking fingers, and laughs aloud at the joy that spills from it.

Greetings, Sarge, he reads, and he laughs more, face hurting from smiling - he can just imagine your cheeky wink. I hope you’re well. Brooklyn has been absolutely dismal these last weeks - I swear, it won’t stop raining. Probably because it knows you aren’t around to hold an umbrella overhead for me. Weather has a funny way of knowing those things. Your sisters and I have started making decorations for Christmas this year - it won’t be the same without you, we’re all in agreement - but it brightens our days a little bit, if prematurely.

To silence your worries of my being alone without you - come early March I shan’t be alone any longer. And no, darling, I didn’t get a boyfriend. Although I suppose the chances are half and half of it being a boy or a girl - your Ma says it will be a boy, because I am more dizzy than nauseous. But whatever we have - I know he or she will be loved to the moon and back. And I hope they have your eyes.

I’ll try my best not to have the baby on your birthday. I know people can be quite particular about sharing those days…

Although you’re not here, I wonder at continuing our plan to buy a larger home. Would you like me to look, or shall I wait? I confess I worry about carrying a baby up and down the stairs with the milk jars and groceries. I will start eating only light foods - bakery bread and spinach.

All my love is in this envelope, save for a fraction I am keeping for our child. Do phone if you have the chance - there was an incident with Mrs. Hendersen downstairs the other day that can only be done justice in person. And hurry home, if you can.

Loopy signature - hastily written, as the rest of the scrawled words. Small, to fit more in. His nose tickles, and a breath of fresh air sends tendrils of hope through his mind - Bucky leans forward, and just a trace of your perfume, which you’d clearly dotted onto the paper...it’s enough. It’s enough for now.

Vision blurry, he kisses your name, and folds the letter carefully to return to his pocket. To pursue again later, and every day again, to remember home.

The letter is stripped from him a week later in Austria, and he watches in numbed horror as it’s thrown into a crackling fire with other possessions from the ragged remains of his men. His wedding ring, which you’d slipped onto his finger over an altar two years earlier - taken and discarded for reuse by the Nazis.

In the cages, he flexes his fingers, and dreams of better days.

He remembers his wedding day. Your wedding day. A purple dusk in late summer; a pretty white dress and pink roses on your wrist. Sweet strawberry cake, and your lips tasting of it all night long. That green slip, like water through his fingers...

He doesn’t remember for long.

Not when the metal and burning overtakes his despairing hope, and twists it into something foul. Turns him into something foul, and he’s left with nothing but numbers on his lips, all memories of you no more than the wishful desires of a boy in a uniform -

And then Steve comes, and reminds him.

“I saw her before I left,” Steve says, nonchalantly and easily beneath the stars, as if there aren’t a hundred other things to discuss, too. Like how he’s enormous, and leveled a Nazi with a single punch. Bucky won’t say it, but he’s impressed. “She’s good, Buck. She looks really good and happy.”

Bucky’s lips twist.

“I mean - not happy happy,” Steve hurries to day, his cheeks flushing bright even in the dim light. “She’d be happier if you were there, obviously. But she’s happy to be - to be, you know - ”

He can’t even say pregnant. What a schmuck.

“To be in the family way,” Bucky says coolly. “I got it, Steve - thanks.” The bitterness gnawing inside is an unfamiliar taste - the poison he’d been pumped with had nearly pushed you out. As he curls on the ground to sleep, he racks through every laugh, every smile, every moan - remembers it, savors it. A tear drips onto the ground. Sorrow is a heady ache, and it lives in him now.

In London he has the chance, in an eerily quiet office building, to write a letter back. He fumbles over the words - trying to remember how he used to talk before all this - but manages. Jokes about missing seeing you all round and slow - but it isn’t really a joke. Mentions the Y offhand, asks if you’ll still work after the baby is born. Asks why you didn’t keep skinny old Steve from joining the army when he was the size and delicacy of a toothpick. Admits that he misses you. Wishes he could be home for Christmas.

Yes, he writes. Do look for a new home. I won’t forgive myself if you’re living off of spinach and bread because I’m not there to carry groceries up the stairs for you.

The SSR sends it off, and stamps a badge on his arm as part of a new tactical team.

Between being stuck in the wilds of Europe and being kept off-grid and off-record, there’s no chance of mail or rest until April. By then a gnawing of anxiety has taken root in his stomach: not knowing is the worst feeling, he has decided, and his hands are shaking when a bundle of letters is finally placed in them on a short furlough in London by a sympathetic secretary.

Rose Emmaline Barnes, you announce, and the pride is so overwhelming all at once that he has to sniff back tears, embarrassed that the secretary can see him. Rose. He has a daughter named Rose - Rosie Barnes - and his imagination supplies a heart-wrenching image of you, pretty and soft and smiling, with a baby wrapped up in one of his mother’s crocheted afghans...you’d sing to her, he knows it. And if he could just be there, he could slip an arm around your waist, and kiss his daughter -

When he gets home, he decides, clearing his throat with a sniffle. First thing he’ll do.

I wish you could’ve been here to name her with me, you’d added, and he drinks in every word. It doesn’t feel right to be loving our daughter by myself. Oh, you’d love her, darling - she has the prettiest blue eyes. Darker than yours, but your Ma says they’ll lighten. That’s all I wanted - I wanted her to have your eyes.

On a bench in the SSR offices - Bucky weeps. He weeps as the secretary excuses herself silently, he weeps as the light through the window fades and darkens, and he weeps until he’s all dried up and parched, feeling an empty shell, cracked and broken. When he does quiet, it’s dusk, his face itches, and he’s sure he’s hollow.

A tentative squeak of the door from the staircase - he doesn’t look, but the tread sounds like Steve.

He’s right.

“Wanna come down to the pub?” Steve asks - too soft and too gentle to be ignorant of how Bucky had spent his afternoon.

“Sure,” Bucky says, and his voice is hoarse. “Yeah.”

The letter is tucked into his pocket - he’ll be reading it over and over again, the way he’d memorized your first letter before he had been wrenched from his hands… will he lose this one, too?

He starts to dream, in the lonely nights, of his daughter. Of Rose.

Will she have dark hair? Will she have your dimples? Is it true that she’ll have his eyes - his mother’s eyes, really - or will she surprise everyone and turn into a miniature you? Will she be as ferocious? As confident, as quick? As determined? Will she snatch cookies from the countertop while you’re baking them, as he did in his ma’s kitchen? During your lonely nights - will she sleep with you? Her small, baby head on his pillow, snoring as he does, keeping you awake? Will you hold her tighter when the pang of his absence overwhelms?

Some of the questions, at least, are answered several months later, with a rumpled, stained letter put into his hands somewhere in France. Beside a once-beautiful fireplace in a home with only a tarp stretched above beams for a roof - a black and white photo slides into his hand, and Bucky’s heart starts pounding fast, faster than ever before - could it be?

A few of the other men have letters, too, and the scant light of the flickering fire is shared. Bucky moves close, bumping knees with a laughing Dum-Dum, eagerly gazing -

Two beaming faces. You, of course, and a baby. Rose. Rosie. His Rose. She really does resemble him, and it hurts his heart in the best way. The smiles are the same though - she has your smile. All mischief. Bucky is grinning, his dirty fingers hovering over the printed moment, but not touching it. A floral apron tied over your shoulders - ribbons in Rose’s curls.

“Aw, man,” he murmurs without thinking - his joy and delight - snatched from the darkness this evening, burns brighter than the feeble fire. “Aw, man. My girls.” His face hurts from smiling. Even when the others crowd around in curiosity - Bucky doesn’t mind sharing his happiness at all. Passes around the photo for congratulations from Steve, Monty, Jim, Pinky, and Junior - Dum-Dum is the only one brave enough to tease.

“She’s pretty,” he says loudly. “Your wife. How’d you get her? Sure couldn’t have been your ugly mug, huh, Sarge?” And Dum-Dum bellows with laughter at his own joke, and Bucky’s face burns, and he snatches his photo back. A breathy memory of you calling him Sarge, between bed sheets with only the moon watching, and he shivers.

“He saw her beating off a hoodlum with her handbag outside a cinema,” Steve pipes in. “Fell in love at that moment. I don’t remember why she liked you back, Bucky - was it those flowers you sent her every night for a week, just to get a date? Because she turned you down the first time?”

“Hey,” Bucky protests, though these happy memories - brought to the surface so suddenly, bring more warmth than shame. “She didn’t turn me down…” But the damage is done - laughing breaks out around that fire, and the bombed-out house isn’t so dreary anymore.

He’d mind - but he doesn’t. And he falls asleep with the photo propped up beside his bedroll, and nightmares don’t come to him that night. Or any night after, with your smile and Rosie’s, bringing a sliver of home to him.

Snow comes in drifts and gusts, and missions, too. Harassing suppliers here, picking off traps there. And every day his heart keeps beating, hoping and wishing that his small part will be enough - enough to make it back to his girls. Enough to keep them safe.

“It won’t last forever,” Monty says wisely, one night over a bottle of old brandy, somewhere in Austria. “It won’t.”

And no one asks what he means. Because everyone knows, but no one is brave enough to say it.

A snaking, slithering black train against the pale winter of the Alps brings more than a mission - it brings a whoosh of cold air battering at all sides as a wrench of metal slips him from safety. His thought is of white: white and grey and bitter wind. And then: searing pain, clouded vision, and red.

Hard rocks; icy ground. Hurts everywhere. Burns at his shoulder, and even as he groans, moans for help that doesn’t come - the drip drip of scarlet splatter, fumbling footsteps, searching, searching…

A tall spruce doesn’t offer much in the way of comfort, but it does smell - like Christmas, he thinks, barely holding onto the memory. Tries to think of your face, your smile - but everything swims and fades. Rosie, he thinks dimly, but the frail beating of his heart doesn’t quicken.

Soon the night falls, and the dim tendrils of consciousness peter out into nothing.

The only mercy of this, of the encroaching dawn, is that he doesn’t witness the blood-specked, black and white photo - resting on the snow nearby as if in vigil - dug into the ice by the heel of a jabbering soldier. A soldier that doesn’t even notice the bright, smiling faces peering up, frozen, at the cloudy sky.

The faces left behind.

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