#also the trunk is inspired by my own grandfathers ww2 era footlocker that i have

[jakes3resin]

So I'm watching episode 1 of MOTA again, and all I can think about is what if Bucky wasn't there when the boys land. What if he crashed on one of the missions he was a tag along? What if Buck landed in England and didn't see his John there waiting for him?

Just imagine you're the other crews and personnel at the base. You've just had a new arrival of boys ready to run missions while you're still recovering from the last one that saw more planes leave than came back. How do you respond when one of the newly arrived Majors asks where Major Egan is? How do you say sorry sir but he went down yesterday without sounding callous? How do you react when that Major nearly falls to his knees in front of you?

What do you do when your worst nightmare comes to pass? What do you feel when you let half of your soul slip away like a thief in the night?

How do you breathe when it's your fault?

John's not there when Buck steps onto English soil.

Something's wrong, a sharp voice whispers into his ear. Something's changed. Find him.

There's no one to ask.

The ground crews run to secure their plane, running diagnostics and checking what they have to work with. A lieutenant directs them to a truck, saying they'll be taken to their assigned quarters.

There's no time to stop and ask. No one will stop and let him ask at least. They're dropped at their assigned huts and barely given enough time to drop their stuff off before they're shuffled off again.

Meeting after meeting keeps them busy. Huglin introduces himself and leaves just as quickly. A British Colonel steps up to welcome them. Apparently, they need to be welcomed by every higher up this base has before they can lay down or eat. Every higher up except the Air Exec.

Buck tries to ask, but no one stops long enough to answer him. Apparently, they're planning the next bombing mission already, and all hands are on deck.

Buck wonders if that's where John is.

They're sent back to their huts and told dinner gets served at exactly 6 o'clock sharp. The rest of the evening is their's as they're not on rotation just yet. Buck leads the boys in.

"Are you Major Cleven, sir?"

Buck turns and finds a short curly haired boy staring at him. Kid barely looks eighteen, but there's a tired look to him that doesn't match. He's dressed in the typical ground crew's overalls holding a bike steady in each hand. There's a stripe of grease across his cheek.

"Depends whose asking," Buck waves the other boys into the building. They're all exhausted and should get some rest before dinner. They trail past, grumbling about meetings after being stuck in a Fort all day. All of them staring between Buck, the mechanic, and the bikes.

"Sergeant Ken Lemmons, sir," The now named boy smiles at him, cherubic and sweet. "I'd shake your hand, but I need them to keep these steady you see."

"Nice to meet you." Buck nods staring down at the bikes. "How can I help you?"

Ken pauses, eyes wide and full of some emotion Buck can't place. He doesn't like it.

"Well, I," Ken bites his lip and drops his gaze. "I thought I'd deliver these to you. For Major Egan, sir."

"John sent you?"

Relief flows through him. John's fine. He's just running late or stuck somewhere, and he sent someone to make sure Buck didn't feel forgotten. He'd roll up soon with a bright smile to talk Buck's ear off about what idiotic, mind-numbing task kept him from Buck's side. Life could finally get back to normal with them.

Ken shakes his head. Buck tilts his.

"John didn't send you?"

"No sir." Ken stares up at Buck. "He was just so excited to give you these that it didn't feel right not getting them to you somehow. Can't get anywhere on base without one, and he won them for you."

"Right," Buck glanced down at the bikes, confusion growing. "Would you mind telling me where Major Egan is, if he didn't send you?"

"No one's told you."

It's not a question. Not with that level of devastation attached. Ken's eyes look destroyed, startlingly so. Heart jumping, Buck nearly growls.

"Tell me what, Sergeant?"

"Major Egan didn't come back from a mission yesterday. He, well, uh, he crashed, sir."

The earth drops out from underneath him. He's freefalling.

Buck tries to breathe. He'd told John not to die on him before he got over here, but it'd been light-hearted. He never truly thought John would die, never allowed himself to think it for fearing of jinxing John.

I told you, the voice from before whispers. You didn't notice.

He knew something was wrong when John didn't meet them on the runway. He should have known then. John had been so excited to see him, had talked about all of the things they'd do together once Buck flew over. Nothing would have kept him from seeing Buck.

"Where?" Buck manages out. He needs to know. Needs to know so that he can think. He needs facts and data, something logical. So that his brain will work. His heart feels slashed open from just that word. Betrayed by his brain, his heart rebels even thinking those words to be true.

"Sorry sir, there's no record of where his plane went down."

No record? How could there be no record? That was the navigator's job! How could they not know where John went down? How could they not see it?

Worse, how could Buck not feel it? How did he go about his day yesterday unaware that the other half of his soul was gone? Fell from the sky, and Buck didn't do a damn thing! Had lived through that moment none the wiser! He'd hadn't even paused.

"Buck?" Benny's voice breaks through his downward spiral, and Buck has to push through it. Has to swallow his grief and hold back his tears because he has men to take care of. He has a job to do.

"Sorry boys," Buck turns around face now carefully wiped blank. Benny watches him, and the rest of the crew gathers round the doorway watching. They look worried. Some of them glance behind him at Ken. The one man who'd finally answered Buck. The one man Buck never wanted to see again.

John's dead.

Buck knows he has to say the words, has to tell them what's going on, and then he has to find the other crews and tell them because that's his job. He has to find Curt and Jack. A laundry list of people who need to know. Then he has to write John's mother and sisters. That's his punishment now. He let Bucky fly alone. He has to do this. He has to say the words. But he can't. Because once he says them, it's real. John's gone, and Buck spoke it into the universe. Buck made it true.

"Bit of a hold up on our welcoming committee?" Benny asks. Buck can hear the question he's really asking. Where's Bucky? All of the waiting faces scream it at him.

I don't know! He wants to scream. He's gone! Gone where I can't follow when he promised not to!

"Yeah," Buck says, voice soft. "You could say that."

He clears his throat.

"The sergeant here..."

Fuck, Buck's a coward. The words eat at his insides, gnawing at his heart, but he can't say them. Can't get them up his throat and out his mouth.

"I've got to head in, more debriefs." Buck's heart races. The faces around him nod in understanding. "I'll find you boys after."

The men fall out talking amongst themselves as they head back to their bunks, but Benny stays. Buck tries to breathe. Ken stands silently next to him still holding on to those damned bikes.

"Where's Bucky?" Benny asks before Buck can escape. Buck clenches his jaw. Benny's eyebrow ticks up.

"Something happen?" Meatball runs up to them, panting and happy to see Buck. John will never get to meet him.

"You could say that." Buck manages. He reaches down to run a hand over Meatball's head. John had loved it when Buck played with his hair. The dog bounces around, playfully nipping at Buck's hand.

"What else could I say about it?"

"There was a mission." Buck starts. Tries to speak but shuts his mouth a few times. Benny stares at him. Ken shuffles behind him.

"John," Gale pauses. "Bucky didn't make it back."

"Shit," Benny curses, and Gale stares down at Meatball. His hand rests just behind his ears. The dog tilts his head at him, wondering why he stopped. Bucky used to do that too, whenever he wanted Gale to do something with him.

"Where'd he go down?"

"No record."

"Shit," Benny breathes out. Gale bites his tongue.

"Sir, I really am sorry." Ken's voice is soft. "I thought everyone knew to tell you. They were supposed to tell you."

But they didn't! Gale wants to scream. They didn't, and now I'm alone!

"Thanks for telling us, you can leave those there." Benny says gesturing to the bikes.

"Yes, sir."

Ken slowly turns away with another quiet apology that Gale doesn't acknowledge.

Rage boils up within him. Rage at Ken for telling him. Rage at the crew for allowing Bucky onto their doomed mission. Rage at the Germans for starting the stupid fucking war. Rage at every person who had a hand in taking Bucky away.

Rage at Bucky for leaving him.

It feels hollow to be so angry at Bucky. It's not his fault, but Gale is angry at him. They were a pair, Bucky had made sure of that the day he named Gale.

He's alone now.

He doesn't know how to do it. It's been torture these past few weeks with Bucky in England. The only thing that had gotten him to today was knowing the separation was temporary. How was he supposed to last the rest of his life?

"I'll tell the others," Gale turned to Benny. "Would you mind telling the boys in there?"

"Sure, Buck," Benny nods, staring at him. Gale knows the other won't turn away until Gale leaves, so he does. He has to. He has to turn away and start moving. Because if he lets himself stop now, he doesn't think he'll ever be able to move out of that rage. He'll sink into it, and that's not who he wants to be. That's not the man Bucky loved. He need to keep going. For Bucky.

Gale heads out. He walks without any place in mind. He doesn't know where Curt or Jack are quartered, doesn't even know who he could ask. He simply walks through the base.

A crowd draws his eye, and despite himself, Gale wanders towards it.

Men rush into a hut not to dissimilar to the one Gale had just walked away from. A few of them hold clipboards calling out names, and as Gale watches, trunks matching those names get carried out.

"Excuse me? Are you assigned to these barracks?" A private walks up to him, clipboard clasped to his chest.

"Pardon?" Gale walks closer. He scans the rows and rows out trunks as they're loaded onto a truck.

"Are these your quarters, Major...?

"Major Gale Cleven. No. What are these?" Gale runs his hand along the nearest trunk.

"Trunks to be sent home, sir." One of the privates turns to him. "We have to move them out so the new arrivals can move in."

That's why they were stuck in useless meetings all afternoon, Gale suddenly realizes. They'd had to move the missing men's belongings out. The knowledge makes him ill.

"Where do you take them?" Stomach rolling as he asks, Gale projects an air of stoic calm.

"Down there," The private points down the road. "It's another empty bunkhouse, but it's better than storing them in the open sir."

"Right," Gale murmurs, mind already racing. "Back to it boys."

Gale walks, purposeful this time, down the road. If all of the trunks were being moved now, maybe... maybe Bucky's was there. It wouldn't be much, wouldn't be him, but it'd be enough, just enough to get him through today.

No one stops Gale as he walks into the bunkhouse. In fact most of the boys avoid his gaze as if he were a ghost walking among them. Which maybe he's as close a man can get. Half his soul is gone. Doesn't that make a man a ghost? Can't he qualify?

Bucky's trunk is tucked in a back corner. His must have been one of the first to be cleared out.

Gale kneels beside. He'd never been too religious, but this feels near enough to a church that Gale barely dares to breathe.

The trunks sits there bathed in the late afternoon light streaming through the windows. Gale reaches out his hand. The metal is cold to the touch. The paint spelling out Bucky's name is a soft white. There's a scratch across the top, and scuff marks along the bottom. Gale traces those. They're signs of life. Signs that Bucky once lived and breathed dragging this trunk along behind him.

Gale can't open the trunk. He thought he could, thought it'd help him, but he was wrong. This is worse. Sitting here in this graveyard of lost men, Gale feels tears burning at his eyes that he can't hold back anymore.

His John is gone. Bucky is dead, and all that's left is this trunk. This trunk and Gale.

"Can't believe you boys moved my fucking trunk! Talk about burying a man before he's dead!"

Gale's heart stops, and he turns tears trailing down his cheek. Barely daring to hope, he stares at the entrance.

"Sir, we were informed that we needed to move these trunks. Our apologies for not double-checking!"

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, any of you guys hear if the 100th flew in yet?"

Gale scarcely dares to breathe.

"Yes, sir! They flew in three hours ago."

The voices grow closer. Gale turns, still on his knees next to Bucky's trunk. Any second they'll walk in. Any second Gale's hopes will be dashed, and he'll return to a world where his John, the boys' Bucky is dead. He'll remain a Gale with no one else's name attached to him.

Any second.

The moment passes. The door opens. Light bleeds into the room, and Buck hadn't known how dark it had been before then.