onlyforthedream | Real Estate.

Being free to walk the island is almost as gratifying as being free to scour it will be. I'm taking care with my shoulder and the mostly-healed incision long my right side. A tropical environment is rife with opportunities for infection, as careful as I may be and as skilled as the clinic staff demonstrably is. Still, I'm out of bed, feeling better than I have in weeks- in just about as long as I can remember, if I'm honest- out in just blue jeans and a white t-shirt, surveying the layout of the place. There are boardwalks that lead out to the beach, well trodden paths, a sizable junkyard, it looks like- and people's homes. Some look like traditional, stilted island huts, of a good size and solid build. Some look more like small, modern houses. It definitely feels like a settlement, though, a community. One that I am not at present a part of.

I follow a trail south, crossing a creek as I do, and come out on sand that slopes down to ocean that looks like it goes on for forever. It's a pretty stretch- you can see a sort of curling peninsula that comes off the main body of the island a little ways out, like a sandbar. The place where the island curves northward, maybe the next direction I'll head, is lush and a darker green where it curves around the base of the mountain.

It's nice, down here. After a moment I turn and start to walk in the direction of what I have been told is dinosaur territory, and as I go I see a figure that is instantly familiar. I lift a hand, my right one come to that, in greeting.

"Bucky."

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"I know," says Bucky, not really thinking about the implications until after the words have already left his mouth. He's told Steve plenty about the future already, it's true, but Bucky's been careful about divulging his own part in it, for a number of reasons, his natural inclination towards reticence in regards to himself chief among them. Instead of lingering, though, he presses on in the hopes Steve won't ask for clarification.

"There's a stream that runs down from the mountain. It's not the ocean, but it's something."

My gaze sharpens for a moment at that brief glimpse into a future I missed. I never had Bucky over to the house, not before I- apparently- died. It's a depressing prospect, that the circumstances for Bucky seeing the place could be as innocent as his coming over once I- again, apparently- came back, or that it could have happened in the interim.

"I'll take a look," I tell him, scanning the lush rise of the island's trees, the mountain not so far off.

"Where did you set up shop?"

"...by, uh, the stream that runs down from the mountain," Bucky admits, biting back a short laugh that he tries to pass off as a cough. It's silly; he's spent so much time trying to run away from Steve since he got his memories back, but Jason's nagging apparently planted a few ideas in Bucky's head.

Rolling his eyes, he adds, "I'm just a little north of here. Had the same idea as you, with the water."

I've thought about the conversation I had with Jason that first day numerous times, of course, but to have come around to it with Bucky is, I have to admit, gratifying. I had meant what I'd said- that I would give Bucky the space he needed, not just regardless of but in part due to the number of questions I have, the things that lie between us that I don't think either one of us is entirely equipped to resolve.

It would be a lie to say I didn't want to regain the closeness we once had. It won't be the same- it can't be, because we're very different people than we were- but for whatever reason, the thought of being neighbors feels like a good first step.

"Show me," I say with a nod, and it's half a request for a look at the life Bucky's set up here.

It's a simple request, one Bucky honestly should've expected, but he's almost taken aback by it. He blinks once, his expression going blank for just a moment before he gathers himself, and musters up a smile.

"Yeah, of course," he says, shaking his head slightly, and he briefly claps a hand to Steve's good shoulder. "C'mon."

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