thearena | Where a dead man called out for his love to flee.

Entry tags:

Where a dead man called out for his love to flee.

Who| All those on the liberation mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 10.
Where| District 10.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

Fields of grass are all that can be seen in any direction for at least an hour while the hovercraft come in. These fields are broken only by the occasional color change (marking different kinds of grass and even the occasional wheat field) and a farmstead every now and again. It’s easy to see that the animals here far outnumber the people as it’s more likely to see a grazing horse or cow or even something stranger like llamas and elephant before one would ever notice a human being. The temperature is mild in this season, not too cool in the shade and not too hot under the sun, although as the hovercraft come in and the people of the main city come into view, quite a few are dressed in long pants and sleeves, their clothing worn and dirty from hours of hard labor. In wide open fields like these there are only a few groves of trees to park a hovercraft out of sight behind. It’s one of these far off groves the craft lands. It would be a shame to have to hoof it all the way into the city.

If you’re from the Capitol, this doesn’t apply, as they can land wherever is most convenient. For those in the rebel forces... well just be glad someone knew what to expect and has procured more than a few horses to carry you into town.

District Ten has always been overlooked by the Capitol. A large district by landmass alone, its people are perceived to be just as domestic as the livestock they tend to, so despite whatever political climate it may hold, rebellion is not seen as a concern here. Consequently, those on the rebellion’s side will find they’re the first ones on the scene.

They’re greeted by friendly, if not guarded, faces. These are people who stick to their own community, their own families, but they’re not an unfriendly group. They know who you are and why you’re here. They’ve said for ages that the Capitol needed to go down, that something ought to be done about Snow and his Games, but no one ever paid them any mind. Probably because all that talk may be there, but it’s only ever been that. No one expects an uprising from the countryfolk.

Being so laid back, there's really not much in the way of graffiti. No one particularly has anything to say that has been said and shrugged off. One might hear laughs and mutters about the compliance video or a morose mention of Bison and the call to fight. There are also others pointing out that this is just the way things work.

Even the peacekeeping forces here are limited and laid back, not nearly as strict as might be found in other districts, but they are still there, so it’s best to keep your heads down as you move through the town.

As for how the Capitol forces are greeted upon their arrival, well, that all depends on how successful those rebels are.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

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She doesn't answer his question and part of him wonders why, what it is she thinks he wants from them that she's purposefully not answering. It didn't matter, she gave him what information he needed, he could go from there. Business. No, war. This was war and his business was fighting, nothing else. He was a soldier.

He doesn't ask what happened to Peters' animals that his barn could be so empty, maybe he would have, but what did it matter? Tactics, a battle, a commander of forces, not a rancher or a brother or a member of this town. "Good. Take them there. Gather everyone you can, tell them whatever they need to hear, but get everyone you think fits that category over to that barn. My people are here to get the town on it's feet, they'll manage." There's a touch of pride in his voice for the offworlders who'd come to help, they'd do their best to protect this place even if they hadn't known it as home like he had and he didn't doubt they'd succeed.

"Not gonna ask you to stay behind, so once everyone's safe and you've found someone who can look after the lot of them, come find me. I'll be here and we'll fight them together." He hesitated but made up his mind and put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "And I need to talk to you about something important, but not 'till everyone's safe. It's about Sarah, Becky and mom."

It's nothing terribly tragic, concerning the barn. The old one was just too big for his purposes and he built a smaller one closer to his house and more easily accessible for an aging man. He'd switched from ranching to farming a year or so before Bucky's reaping and had to make some changes to accommodate in the years the eldest Barnes had been gone.

It was, however, symptomatic of many issues with Capitol rule, even if it was a non-violent one. John Peters became a farmer because the District was having issues feeding itself. All the livestock was spoken for in greater and greater numbers as the years went on. More meat, more for the Capitolites to stick in their faces, and so little left for the District to survive. If it weren't for John Peters' crops, many of them would have starved, potentially Rachel and the family included, but they were lucky.

Rachel's tired of being simply 'lucky'. She's tired of scraping by and pretending just to grumble under her breath where the Peacekeepers can't hear. She's ready to make her own luck.

"Good, 'cause you know I would just follow you anyway. I'll get everyone sorted out then meet back up." She pauses, raring to go but knowing the gap between them containing their family needs to be addressed, however much she doesn't want to. However much she doesn't want Bucky to see the worst of it. But with things moving forward at what feels to be a sudden breakneck speed, it's better to talk about it now than never get the chance.

"Just tell me now."

He smiled and while it was a more normal feeling these days than in the last few years, he suddenly felt like he had no right to do it in the face of her anger, but it was a small thing and made from affection more than anything else. "I know."

Her persistence made him shake his head, just as stubborn, a perfect match to his own temperament. In fact, a little over a year ago and they'd be a mirror image, there was one factor that made them different and Bucky selfishly wished he could tell Rachel about him. Later, maybe. When they were safe.

"It's nothing dire, I promise. Well, not really. I have a contingency plan in place for you all. There's been one from the start, a failsafe in case I ever truly died to make sure you all would be taken from here and put somewhere safe. I have a new net in place this time to make sure, should the worst happen, you'll be on a 'craft back to 13 at the end of this battle. If everything goes fine, then it won't matter."

He tells her about his plan and her rage boils up again, brimming over the lid she'd placed on it and before she knows it she's shoving him again. "Another thing to keep us in the dark about? Not to deal with until you're already gone? You're a real piece of work, you know that?!"

"Why didn't you send for us before? Why is it that only when the Capitol's actually here to kill us you remember to come get us, huh Bucky? Then maybe they coulda done something about Sarah!" She didn't mean to tell him like that, didn't want to use her own sister as a weapon against her brother, but it just comes out and feels as if she's small again, screaming against the world she feels she can't make a mark on.

Now she just covers her mouth and fervently wishes she could be anywhere but here, watching Bucky's face for the inevitable question.

His own ire rises again, words rising up to defend his choices. She might have a point for some of it, but not all-

At least until she mentions Sarah and it's like someone's shoved something sharp into his gut and the warmth is bleeding out from it, even with the sun warm on his skin.

"What do you mean? What happened to Sarah?" He stepped closer, hand coming to her arm, firm but not tight. "Rachel!"

"She- Nothing..." It's not a lie, either, technically. Nothing happened to her specifically that hadn't happened to all of them, she just...

"You saw her when you were back after your Games, couldn't stop talking about the damn door they broke getting Steve? Something was already bent then but when you "died"-" She actually uses her fingers to form the quotations around the word, anger and bitterness turning her childish - "She just snapped. Won't talk to anyone, just stares at the wall and pets that toy of hers bare."

She's silent for a moment, not meeting his eyes. "I didn't want to tell you. Not like that."

He could picture it all too well.

Something had been wrong with Sarah even then, they way she'd been talking, her fear...it had fueled his anger and fear then and he'd gone off to find Steve, to pull him back from wherever he'd been dragged to and make everything better again. That had been the plan, at least. A half-cocked plan worthy of the man he'd tried to rescue.

He can picture Sarah's detachment from reality, her young mind unable to cope with everything going wrong around her; she'd always been the most sensitive one, even more than Becca. He could even remember the dumb rabbit toy Stevie had gotten her so long ago now. She'd been two and kept it ever since. Now, thirteen, it had likely seen much better days.

"I want to see her."

He hadn't been sure before, hell, he'd been down right terrified. Now he was certain.

"No you don't." Rachel mutters under her breath, but there's a heavy quality to it, a discomfort and personal confusion. She's whipped between wanting to defiantly shove Sarah's condition in Bucky's face as if it's his fault and feeling ashamed for even thinking such a thing, especially when her own guilt at not being able to help her sister weighs heavily on her shoulders. She's the oldest now - or was, when they thought Bucky dead - she should have been able to do something...

"Come on." She returns softly, turning abruptly to lead him along the dusty avenues of District 10 and knowing he doesn't need a guide to find his own house. "Mom will want to see you anyway."

He doesn't say anything in response. He was sure he understood why she said that but she didn't understand, he'd already made up his mind. No matter what was waiting for him when he went to see Sarah, he wanted to go see her all the same.

He should see them all, no matter how much it terrified him.

Capitol soldiers were fine, a family reunion was leaving his mouth dry and his thoughts stuttering, luckily his gait didn't change as he followed her on the familiar route. The cotton in his mouth catches any spare thoughts that might have escaped the nets in his mind.

"I'm home!"

The house rings hollow with Rachel's voice, the once too-small building now seeming cavernous and devoid of life despite the woman who looks up from the worn stove and the teen beside her at the counter.

"BUCKY!" Becca is throwing her arms around her brother's neck before their mother can even drop her mouth open in surprise. She stares, just stares, with a hand over her heart as Becca hugs Bucky tight enough to nearly choke and babbles on and on.

"We thought you were dead! The Capitol said so and they gave us your token back but I always hoped they were lying because Rachel always said they were liars and you could be anywhere and she tried to run off to rescue you once but mom wouldn't allow it on account of the peac-"

"That's enough!" Rachel cuts her sister off, a bit red in the face.

He'd never considered the phrase 'Like coming home' wouldn't apply when he finally came home, but then, he'd never thought he'd actually return. Better to let them think he'd died than ever admit he'd lied to them for so long. Even for their own protection, it seemed cruel. Yet here he was.

The same dusty streets with the same tired buildings and all he could think about was how this familiar place would soon be a battleground. It hurt. But that was why he'd come back. If this place fell to the Capitol, it wouldn't be for a lack of trying on his part.

His childhood home grew closer and closer and his eyes didn't leave it even when the memories threatened to be too much. It had been eight years and everything seemed impossibly the same, like he might open that door and find his mother cooking dinner with Stevie at her elbow to help.

The door opens and his mother is there cooking...but Steve is nowhere in sight. He's not even in this world anymore and it chokes him to remember, the hit harder when this place was steeped in memories of his best friend being there.

Becca's voice cuts through his melencholy and suddenly he's choking up for a different reason. The teen's arms go around his neck and his arms quickly wrap around her in return.

His head was spinning, too many emotions and thoughts and words whipping together to make his mead a little slow. He reached up to pet Becca's hair, his voice quiet near her ear despite her yammering. "When'd you get so big, Becky?" He knew he could probably pick her up again, but his last memory of her was holding her up against his chest, her small arms wrapped around his neck like they were, now her feet touched the ground.

He looked up and he could feel the burn in his eyes but pushed the feeling back. "Hey, mom." He cast his eyes down, unable to look at her expression with the feeling of guilt heavy in his heart. "Sorry I've been out of touch." She wasn't even angry, not yet at least, and he already felt seventeen again instead of the twenty-five he was now.

"Well its been years. I gotta grow up eventually. I never got reaped though!" She says it excitedly but there's a mutedness to it, a solemnity under her usual excitable demeanor; she knows how close she could have come to death. "Thanks to the off-worlders, I think."

"James." In the few moments that Becca has been babbling to her estranged brother, the Barnes Matron wiped her hands on her apron and walked her way to the small gaggle of her children. There's a third step in her gait, the thump of a cane against the wooden floor, but if anything it doesn't seem to make her weaker, only stronger.

"James Buchanan Barnes," She booms, her voice echoing but not any louder than is normal to speak indoors. There are tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. Once upon a time she might have walloped him. She'd thought about it, in her fevered dreams that perhaps it was all made up, that he'd run off and was alive out there somewhere. It had crossed her mind, but she'd put it away as impossible. Now, here he is, she knows she was right, and all she wants to do is hold her boy, her eldest, her only son to her heart and never let go. "You come give your mother what she's due or so help me."

Thanks to the offworlders indeed. That was why he'd never hated them. People in Thirteen didn't know just what the offworlders meant for the districts and their children, but Bucky did with three younger sisters and the thought of any of them getting reaped...there'd be no one to volunteer for them just as he'd had to stand back and watch Peggy get reaped with no one to stop it. Luckily, he'd never see his sisters up on Capitol TV now.

His more morbid thoughts were halted in their place at the familiar boom of his mother's presence. She'd had to wrangle five children, sometimes six, in her time and all by herself, she'd earned her imposing presence and the way she could command her children's attention as easily with a gentle word as she could with a sharp one.

Bucky gently freed himself of his youngest sister's death-hold and closed the distance between himself and the lady of the house, quickly enveloping her in a tight but gentle hold. Seventeen, he'd been tall, but only a little taller than her and more wiry in build, a long and awkwardly lanky teenager. Now he'd gained a few more inches on her and filled out and she seemed so small and fragile in his arms now than she'd ever been before. He was wise enough to keep the thought to himself.

Despite their difference in height, he buried his face into her shoulder, reveling in how much comfort and home she held in her very being. "I'm sorry, Ma." It's whispered to her, another apology, this one much less stilted and flippant and far more earnest and encompassing. Sorry he'd vanished and left them to think he was dead, sorry he couldn't protect Stevie after all, even after nearly dying for him, sorry he hadn't yet made it right when he'd sworn to himself the rebellion would win ages ago.

"I know, Sweet Pea." It's an old endearment, one she hadn't used in ages when it was nearly all she called her children while growing up. All her peas in a pod, including Steve and Peggy. Now she uses it carefully, like dusting off an antique, and she hugs Bucky as if she's afraid he'll shatter at her touch.

At first.

Then he buries his face in her shoulder and she can't hold herself back. She hugs him bear-tight and twice as fiercely, unable to cover the hitch in her chest and the soundless sob that wracks her at having her baby home and alive. Everything is forgiven.

"Let me get a look at you." She pulls away just enough to bring a hand to Bucky's face, to take in the changes in him. She can always read any of them if she looked them in the eyes, though it takes her more effort with tears in her own still threatening to spill.

"Becca," she starts, looking at her youngest daughter briefly. "Go see to your sister."

"No."

"What?" Martha Barnes looks at her daughter with surprise, not just at the disobedience but at the solemnity that its expressed with.

"No. Whatever Bucky has to say is gonna be for all of us."

Martha is quiet for a long moment, her face unreadable as she decides. Rachel stands by, strong jaw set just like her younger sister's, just like her brother's.

Martha nods.

"There's going to be fighting." A statement but also a question, directed at Bucky.

Edited 2016-05-02 18:37 (UTC)

He nods, expression turning guarded and wary. "Yes. The Capitol is coming and Thirteen will fight them. I'll fight them. They won't hurt anyone who doesn't fight..." He said this to his mother, but even as he said it he knew it wouldn't go over well. He doesn't wait for anyone to say anything else.

"But it doesn't matter, I just need you all to stay alive and, no matter what else, I'll get you all out of here. I shouldn't have left you alone before, I won't be doing it again."

He brought his hand up to take his mother's. "Gather only what you need."

"We both know that isn't true." Rachel rolls her eyes at Bucky saying non-combatants won't get hurt, but her mother waves a hand at her by way of shush and she quiets down so her brother can finish.

Martha squeezes Bucky's hand with a smile and a stiff upper lip before letting go and drawing herself up with all the aplomb of a general ready to face a difficult battle. And really, that's what she is in that moment. "Becca, get Sarah ready to travel. Bucky, help her. Rachel, go gather clean socks, underwear, and a change of clothes each. No more than will fit in your father's old sack."

For her part, Martha will take the memories. The small box of old photos, the husbandry book their family has been keeping for generations, the little collection of carved animals her late husband had whittled from bleached bone as toys for his brood. Everything else is expendable.

Rachel all to readily disappears into the bowels of the house, guilty but relieved she doesn't have to be the one to show her brother how their sister is only half there now. Becca, for her part, just takes her brother's hand and leads him upstairs.

The flurry of movement and activity that had exploded downstairs with Martha's orders doesn't reach up here. The only noise is a faint rocking and even fainter singing, the words only becoming apparent when Becca cautiously reaches out to open the door.

"Four little ducks went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said 'Quack, quack, quack, quack.'
But only three little ducks came back..."

Sarah sits with her face to the wall, little of her visible other than her chestnut hair over the back of the ancient rocking chair and the tiny, faded flowers on her dress peeking from between the wooden bars at the chair's back. She rocks softly, just dissonant with the melody of her song.

"Three little ducks went out one day
Over the hill and far away..."

"Sarah." Becca takes a breath and walks up beside the chair, a sad kindness radiating in her expression. Her tone is patient, as if talking to a very small child, despite Sarah being her elder by a year. "We're going on a trip, Sarah. And someone very special is here to take us."

He's stayed near the middle of the room while Becca talked, but slowly moves towards his sister when cued in to do so. He closed the distance between them and crouched down on Sarah's other side, his hand gently placed on her knee.

"Hey there, bug." The affectionate nickname slips out easy, he had one for each of his sisters, and flashed her a smile he hoped would pull one from her as well. She was worse than he'd imagined.

He could still remember the terrified and quiet voice she'd had remembering Steve's abduction, the event had traumatized her. And instead of fixing it, he'd gone and made things worse by taking a swing at that Peacekeeper. And then he'd vanished and left her alone. Sarah had always been the more delicate and gentle of his three sisters, he'd only ever wanted to protect her and now she sat like a delicate waif, fragile to the whole world.

"How're you doing?"

"You're home." Sarah smiles vaguely at Bucky, not lacking in recognition of him so much as not in the present at all. There's no acknowledgement of how long he's been gone, or the circumstances under which he'd left. "Hi."

She has a doll in her lap, a ratty stuffed horse that's been through so many surgeries it's nearly more thread than fabric at this point. It had been Bucky's first, then Rachel's, and in their youngest years Sarah and Becca had fought over the thing tooth and nail. It had been named Lightning, Carrot, and currently Cloppy, for the clicking noise Martha used to do with her tongue in playing with her daughters. Stuffing pokes out from the seam of one back leg, and Sarah picks at it without watching her fingers.

"Did you and Steve get the milk? Cloppy's thirsty."

Everything aches. There's a pang in his chest, not just about Steve, but about how completely detached she was. She didn't know or, at least, refused to notice. She was broken.

He put on a smile and shoved the sensation of being choked down. If he cried in front of her it would just confuse her. "We couldn't. Stevie and I, we saw some bad people coming here. I came back to protect all of you."

One of his hands brushed at the one fussing at the stuffing while his other reaches to brush her hair behind her ear like she was eight again and not the sixteen she really was. "So, right now, I need your help picking out anything you want to take with you, starting with Cloppy. Then, once we get to where we're going, we'll make sure to get some milk for this old guy, okay?"

"Okay," she smiles, a radiance so like Becca's but there's something vague about it, something reflected, as if filtered through clouds or tree cover. She understands what's being asked of her, but not the bigger picture.

"C'mon, we'll get your other dress." Becca helps Sarah from the chair and lead her around the room with uncommon gentleness and patience. If anyone has grown in the time of Bucky's absence, it's Becca. There's a maternal aura about her despite her only being 15, a sense that she's like their mother, with the same dichotomy of softness and practicality.

"It's not your fault." Rachel's at the door; how long she's been there is anyone's guess, but it doesn't take much to gather only one extra outfit for two people. Her younger siblings are going about getting their own clothes, Sarah seemingly oblivious to Bucky's presence once he's not speaking to her directly, but even so Rachel's voice is quiet, her face a stone mask. "It's the Capitol. They did this to her."

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Where a dead man called out for his love to flee.

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