Hello! :)
I have been thinking about that story for months now. After I have changed my mind a lot of times I have finally decided to publish it.
It could be considered a sort of crossover with Captain America universe, only for what concerns the characters of Peggy and Steve ( but there will be not involved supernatural powers nor S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents).
It has been influenced by "The House of the Spirit" too.
The story will explore the love of Mark and Lexie and their family and friends from 1942 until now. There will be almost all characters from GA ( such as Meredith and Derek, Addison, April, Jackson, Callie, Arizona and so on), but they will be a little different in order to be suitable for this alternative universe. Sorry for some possible historical mistakes!
Enjoy the story, review and remember always that English is my second language!
If you want to watch some pictures which have inspired the story, please click the link below, it will address you to my LJ profile. ( . )
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Sloan Mansion, Southampton, New York, January 22, 2015.
Every conception and every birth are fortuitous. Two people meet, perhaps they fall in love – but it is not a necessary condition-, they sleep together – and it really is a necessary condition- and nine months later there will be a child. It is the circle of life. And you know, life does not care about your plans or your expectations. If life decides you must be a parent, then you will be one. Screw the consequences and thank you very much!
Despite that, Peggy has always considered her life ( and the lives of her dad, her aunts, her brother and all her cousins too) as an event which is strangely accidental, the result of the odd union between two people who met in the most unlike way ever. Obviously, she is very grateful to her grandparents for their love and for the consequential birth of her father, since without them she'd never been born in the first place.
When she was younger, Peggy didn't think a lot about all the circumstances of her life and her family. Now, she is almost in her thirties and she feels very involved in this topic, maybe because it is the time of evaluation.
She can't help but thinking that when her grandmother was her age, she was a fulfilled woman with a career, a husband and several children. Peggy really loves her nan. Lexie has been the most important person in her life, since her own mother's death.
Daphne was thirty-one years old when she died in a plane crash and Peggy was only a toddler at that time. So, from this age to the adulthood she and Chris, her brother, were raised by her feisty and loving grandmother.
Their father, James, is still alive but he has always been around the world for his strange adventures and discoveries. It is not that he doesn't love his children or doesn't care, because he does. Simply, he is an introvert by nature. Always shy and bashful, he prefers his books and researches to real people and after Daphne's death, things only got worst.
Anyway, Peggy really loves him and doesn't complain anything; she has lived the most interesting experiences of her life with him.
But Lexie and Mark, her grandfather, were all another story. They gave them a real home and all the love of a real family.
Only now, she can actually understand all that her grandmother had fought through her life. She managed everything, in the best way possible. If life was nothing than chance, Lexie was able to accept the dare and win.
And now she is gone. Just like Daphne and Mark, Lexie is dead too.
Peggy is in their grandparents' mansion in Southampton, in what has been her grandmother's bedroom since her arrival to United States, seventy year earlier.
That room is Lexie, she can feels her soul and her nature everywhere.
In the hardwood floor covered with fluffy carpets, in the four large windows that give the room a lot of natural light and in the big and comfy wrought iron bed. Everything is bright and cozy.
There is an old and romantic fireplace too, its mantel full of pictures. They represent the story of her family, and for Lexie, family has been the most important thing in her life.
However, the thing that Peggy has always loved most about her grandmother's bedroom, is her vanity table. She used to sit on the bed and watch Lexie getting ready for work or for the social events that she had to attend because of her rank. She had her beauty ritual and Peggy was fascinated by that.
Lexie didn't use to apply a lot of makeup and she never wore fleshy jewelry, though she could afford it.
She always wore only her engagement and wedding rings, her pearl necklace and earrings. Usually, after she got dressed, she used to sit at her vanity table and brush her long, wavy and dark hair for a long time. Then, she proceeded with her makeup, which basically consisted in a little of mascara, a shred of lipstick and some blush. In the end, two sprays of her rose-scented perfume completed the job. Sometimes, she would apply some blush on Peggy's chubby cheeks, laughing at her amazed and spellbound expression.
Peggy must admit that her grandmother has been her principal source of inspiration for what concerns fashion and beauty. Perhaps, that is the reason she still has vintage and classic style and manners.
She is sitting at the vanity table, poking at an elegant mulberry wood box, containing all her grandmother's diaries, that, now, belongs to her.
According to Lexie's will, all funds, stocks, properties and jewelry – located in both US and UK- have been divided equally among all her children and grandchildren; but Peggy would have kept her pearl necklace and all her journals, beside all furniture of her bedroom.
On the top of the box there is a letter addressed to Peggy, written by Lexie just before her death.
She opens the envelope and emits a soft sigh, recognizing the rounded and neat handwriting of her grandmother.
"Dear Margaret,
My beloved and precious girl, if you are reading this letter, then I am gone.
Do not be sad about that, I have had the chance to live a long and satisfying existence filled with love and happiness.
I want to tell you some things. I am now an old and boring lady and perhaps this letter will be full of cliched and corny concepts; please, forgive me for that.
You have been so much more than a grandchild to me, I have loved you so much and this love will always be with you. Do not forget that.
Enjoy your life, every single moment of it and make a lot of happy memories, they will be forever with you and will become your only hope when you are old and wrinkled as me. Life is too rich and too brief to sit idle, so live a hundred times.
Live with no regrets and do not be afraid of breaking bounds or leaving the safe and known path; I did it when I was young and that allowed me to have the life I have always wanted. Be what you want to be, without fears and worries but do not forget to use your head. And let me tell you, you do have a great head! You are so smart and clever.
Love. Apparently, love has always been a blessing and a curse for our family.
We are able to love with all ourselves and it may be a danger, sometimes. Remember your great-grandmother Susan and your great-aunts Meredith and Molly. Your grandfather and me. Your aunts Alice, Charlotte and Gwendolyn. Your dad and mom. We all are the proof that storybook love does exist and happen in the real life too. You just have to hold out for it and you will find your love one day. Do not settle and do not stop looking for it; find someone you are compatible with to love forever. However, do not be obsessed by this research, one day true love will arrive because everybody is meant to be together with someone else.
Be brave, you already are. Do not let prejudices and gossip hurt you and do not care what people think. Life is really short, when you put it in perspective. I knew that, your mom knew that. Daphne lived without fear and was a wonderful woman. Smart, kind, cheerful and gorgeous. Your mother shined. Literally. Like you.
Thus, do not limit yourself. You have always been too strict with yourself. Be free, laugh and make some mistakes. Only if you are ready to risk, you will be able to live.
Travel and explore the world. You have already visited so many countries, known so many different cultures and met so many amazing people, but do not stop. Be hungry as you have always been.
Build and preserve boundaries, with your friends and with your relatives. I have been so proud of you and your brother. You are bonded in the deepest way possible. He will always be here, for you. As your father. You know he loves you and he will do anything for your happiness. I am afraid James is too British and introvert to show all his feelings. Forgive me for that, I guess this aspect of his personality comes from the Grey genes.
When you are ready, build your own family. Being a parent is the most difficult but rewarding experience you will ever live! And I am sure you will be a great mom.
As you already know, there will be some moments full of grief and sorrow. Life is not only about good feelings. But however bad it may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there is life, there is hope.
You are amazing and strong and have the whole world in your hands. Use it!
I have filled too many pages with a lot of words and I was going to forget the most important thing.
Now, I am in my nineties and I should be wise and practical, so let me give you my last advice: life is all about feelings and emotions. So, if there is one thing that should always be remembered, it is how to feel.
Be safe, be brilliant.
I love you,
Your nan.
P.S. I have left the box full of my journals to you. I have written them for seventy years in order to see things in their true dimension and to defy my own poor memory. Memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously*... I hope you will be able to understand that and, above all, to find yourself when you will get lost.
Family is our past, present and future. Do not forget that."
Peggy doesn't know when exactly she has started to cry but her cheeks are wet and damp. She sighed before opening the box with trembling hands. Inside there are almost one hundred colored and thick notebook, filled with her grandmother's memories. Lexie used to store in them some pictures, drawings and small objects too.
Peggy takes a red diary, maybe the first one according to the date written on a yellowed tag on the cover: 1942/1943.
She almost feels bad, it seems she is intruding in Lexie's private life, her feelings, her dreams, her fears.
But she remembers what she has just read: " I hope you will be able to understand that and, above all, to find yourself when you will get lost."
And in that moment she is completely lost.
She opens the journal and begins to read.
*The sentence is a quote from "The House of the Spirit".