This follows my story Sarcophagus. I'd recommend you read it first, but it's not absolutely necessary. This does contain spoilers for the ending, though.
Keeping the Faith
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They had been married for two weeks when Steve woke up in the middle of the night and remembered drowning.
Freezing, dark, invisible water lapping at the sides of his face, rushing in from nowhere. Chunks of ice, hitting him in the head, and the cold constricting his lungs until he couldn't breathe.
"Steve? Darling, it's all right, I have you, you're safe," Peggy's voice was in his ear; she was sitting up, hands firm on his shoulders. Every muscle was drawn incredibly tight at the physical memory of the burning cold, but he managed to exhale and gather her close in his arms, seeking to reassure himself that he was alive, that she was alive.
"I'm okay," he told her, but jittery adrenaline still rushed through his system, fine tremors racking his body. Each breath came as a labored gasp, and his ribs hurt with the strain.
Peggy gently guided him back down into bed. She was going to hop up and get another blanket, but his arm closed around her waist and she didn't want to leave him. Instead, she pulled up the covers and tucked them firmly around his shoulders before lying at his side. Immediately, he reached for her, pulling her close and pressing his head into her shoulder.
"What happened?" she asked after a long interval of silence, only broken by the painfully forced breathing that he struggled to calm.
His large hand splayed out against her back and he cleared his throat. "I just - ah, remembered drowning. It's okay though, I'm okay."
"Oh, Steve..." His body was coiled, tense in her arms. She pulled him more closely against her and ran her fingers through his hair. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
Cold water flashed against his mind again, and he jerked his head to the side and further against her shoulder, trying to shake the memory loose. Dimly he realized he was aching all over from taut muscles that couldn't seem to relax. He curled closer to his wife; she was warm from sleep, holding him and whispering soothingly.
He'd told her about the landing before, but he chose to start there anyway. Even so, it took a while before he could speak about it again - being flung forward, headfirst over the console and into the windows with a splintering crash, even as the wall rushed to greet him, driven inwards by the impact with the ice. He had no visual memory after that - either the airship had gone under the ice where there was no light, or he had gone blind from the terrific concussion to his head.
Peggy tightened her hold on him as the next words came reluctantly. He knew they would hurt her but he would not keep secrets; she had a right to know, she was his wife.
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Everything after the initial crash had been a dazed pain-filled blur. Pinned down on the dangerously tilted floor, he vaguely heard the first wave of water sweep into the plane. It touched his hand, so bitingly cold that for a moment he couldn't even feel it. Then his bones started to ache with the intense chill of the freezing water.
"Steve? Steve?"
"Peggy?" What was she doing here? Then the radio died with a sputtering crackle as the water reached it, and he remembered.
He had to get out - he had to get out of the plane and find someplace where he could wait for Peggy. She would be looking for him, he knew that. But no matter how hard he struggled, how far he reached, all he could feel was crumpled metal and broken glass - nothing big enough to get a grip on to lever himself free.
Feeling for the thing that pinned him down, he tried to move it with all his might, ignoring the wave of burning agony that blazed down his spine and flared into horrible nothingness just above his hips. The metal moved a little, but not enough to let him pull himself loose.
Suddenly the water was at his waist; a cold like nothing he'd ever felt before, quickly traveling up his body. How had he not noticed it earlier? Perhaps his legs were numb. He strained again at the weight over his body and it finally shifted a little more, screaming metal shrill in his ears. It wasn't enough; he still couldn't move.
Something touched his shoulder and he jumped, reaching out. "P-Peg?" She had come for him - everything would be all right... His fingers slid off a floating chunk of ice just as another one bumped his chest.
Then the water was at his throat and his lungs seized up at the cold, each rib locked into place like a vice around his heart. It jerked sideways, trying to keep beating; every throb felt like a knife in his chest. He scrabbled at the metal again with numb fingers, but he'd lost his handhold and couldn't find it again. Suddenly he panicked - the burning line of water was rising up his face, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Disoriented, he flailed desperately, trying to remember which way was up until he found air once more, choking it in with a gasp.
That was his last breath. He could still feel the surface of the water with his hands, but it was too far above him now, pinned down as he was. Groping for the weight across his body one last time, he fought to raise it with all the strength he had left. It wasn't enough; his limbs were clumsy and sluggish with the freezing cold, and he could feel his heartbeat slowing.
He wasn't going to make it out of this one.
The realization galvanized him to renewed action, and he groped blindly around himself. His shield - where was his shield? Perhaps he could use it as a lever…
His shield was nowhere near him, but his wandering hand hit something small and round, drifting across the floor, pushed by currents of icy water. It was acutely painful to bend his stiff fingers around it, but the instant he did so, he recognized it. Somehow or other, his compass had ended up at his side. Peggy had come to him after all.
He tried to keep fighting, but most of his body was numb or spiked through with pain, and he could no longer move. The crushing agony in his back was worse than before, muscles seizing torturously from the intense cold. The deafening rush of water around him had stopped at last, and the only thing he could hear was the steadily slowing pound of his heart.
Clenching his hand around the small compass with her dear picture in it, he clumsily tried to press it against the star on his chest with the last of his strength. The pain began to blur away as a great peace slowly filled him. His mind was suddenly caught back to Sunday afternoons when he was a little boy, sitting in a pool of light on the floor of their Brooklyn apartment while his mother read to him.
I have fought a good fight…
Red Skull was dead, torn apart by the very tool he had hoped to turn against the world. His friends could take care of the remnants of Hydra. The war would soon be over - Howard Stark had been hinting at a solution in the works for quite some time now.
I have finished my course…
"If it could work only once, he'd be proud it was you," Peggy's voice echoed in his ears. Dr. Erskine had given him the power to follow his life's mission, the strength to protect the helpless and avenge their wrongs. Brooklyn was safe now, Bucky's mother and sisters, countless innocents in countless cities around the globe.
I have kept the faith.
"Peggy," he gasped as his last breath finally escaped. He could no longer feel his hand and arm, but still clutched the compass close to his heart with every ounce of will he had as his lungs spasmed uncontrollably, filling with icy water. For one long moment he relived the thrill of her kiss, and listened as his own heart slowed to a stop.
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Peggy's heart broke as she listened to Steve bite out his story between chattering teeth. He was shaking; whether from phantom cold or residual adrenaline she wasn't sure. She pulled the covers up to his ears and then wound her arms more firmly around him, holding him close, trying to administer some kind of comfort in retrospect.
"I wish I'd been there," she whispered when he was done. "I wish I could have been with you." The thought of her husband drowning in freezing water, blind and broken and calling her name was unbearable; all the more awful because it had actually happened and she hadn't been there to try to get him out or even simply hold his hand and comfort him.
He drew a deep, rattling breath. "You're here now." His arms tightened around her, and then he raised his head. "It's okay, Peggy - I'm okay. It just threw me for a loop for a minute."
Peggy smiled because she would not cry. Of course he would try to comfort her, just after remembering the most hopeless moments of his life. It was exactly the kind of thing he would do. She drew his head back to her shoulder and smoothed his hair, rubbing long strokes down his tense, shuddering back. "I know, my darling. Go to sleep now; I've got you. It's all right."
They lay for a long time, holding each other. It seemed an age before his desperate grip gentled and she felt the tight muscles in his neck and back start to slacken. "Peggy, you're a brick," he whispered drowsily into her throat, and she kissed him lingeringly.
Long after he was asleep, she lay awake, feeling his strong heartbeat pound reassuringly against her side. Despite the sorrow and trauma they had passed through, she felt a deep glow of quiet satisfaction. The entire world depended on Captain America, and he was always there for them, always fighting for the right, for the innocent, for freedom.
What people didn't know was that when Steve Rogers hit rock bottom, pressed down by the weight of the world, she was there. Peggy was her husband's strength, his light in the darkness, the one person that stood by him though all else failed. It was a trust she held sacred, and so she lay awake, keeping watch over the man she loved until the sky began to blush with the first faint rays of dawn, and she finally allowed herself to drift off to sleep, still wrapped in his arms.
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"From what Mr. Stark has told me, Captain Rogers relied heavily on you for courage, strategy, and moral guidance. You were his support." - Edwin Jarvis to Peggy Carter
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Happy ending!
Thoughts? I'd love to hear from you.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the storyline. Quotes I used are referenced below.
2 Timothy, 4:7 KJV Bible
Captain America
Agent Carter season 1, episode 2