VIII

DAY 87

Hadassa rested her head on the grass, gazing at the clear night sky and enjoying the silence of the sleeping camp, while Bucky held her hand in his. Time was a nice thing, and being with him just felt... right. Very right.

"Do you ever wonder if we'll ever be out there, in space?" her boyfriend asked. "How we'd look from the moon."

Hadassa didn't first answer. Just like she didn't like thinking of the past, she didn't enjoy wondering about the future. Too many losses taught her to live in the present and to never wonder about the rest.

They took walks together every night, and this was one of them.

"Not really," she confessed. "I like staying on the ground."

So far, only a few people knew of their relationship. Just Dot, Bucky's major and Abraam and honestly, she didn't want that to change. Hadassa enjoyed her privacy and didn't feel comfortable with anyone else knowing more than the basics about her.

"When I was a kid, I'd imagine myself making something to bring me up there. Sometimes, I'd even see myself landing and walking on the moon. It would always be shiny there."

Her lips curled in a small smile.

"Sounds beautiful."

He squeezed her hand in his and kissed it before taking a long and deep breath.

"What about you?"

She couldn't understand.

"Me?"

"Do you have any childhood memory you like a lot?" he asked. "You don't talk about your past a lot."

It was her turn to breathe in deeply. Her childhood was a century ago, and as much as Hadassa had a good memory, most of it was lost.

"I had many siblings as a kid," she spoke slowly. "But none of them was a close to my mother as I was…"

She closed her eyes. She had sketches and paintings of her parents, but their voices and real faces were gone from her memory.

"Every end of the day, she would take me to her garden with her, my siblings were all playing, but I'd stay there with her. We watered the plants, cleared the ground from weeds, add those..." Hadassa hesitated, trying to find a word but losing. "… weird mixtures you'd do with food that you can't eat anymore."

He let out a tiny chuckle at your struggle but didn't interrupt her.

"Oh, and we planted roses on my 5th birthday," she told him. "White roses. Maybe they are still there, I don't really know."

Bucky fell silent, then took her hand and moved it to his lips again, kissing her skin tenderly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "You must miss her a lot."

Hadassa took in a long breath, feeling the pain in her heart.

"I do," she muttered. "Every day."

Her boyfriend squeezed it tighter and put it over his chest, and she could feel his heartbeat against the back of her hand.

"What happened to her?" he questioned.

She moved uncomfortably. Her mother had died of old age, happy with her life and with the whole family around her, but she couldn't tell him that.

"She caught some sort of disease," Hadassa lied, at last. "They all did."

When he spoke again, his voice sounded pained with the realisation of the story she had just told him.

"Except for you."

Hadassa nodded.

"Except for me."