Chapter Twenty-one

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"Imagine it…"

Mocking laughter rang in his ears, ice water clutching at his throat, and Steve bolted awake, lungs straining for air, heart racing a hundred miles an hour. His shirt was soaked in a cold sweat, and shredded remnants of his nightmares danced in his head. Reaching out, he groped for Peggy at his side, needing to feel her reassuring weight against him.

His fingertips bounced off hard wood instead, and with a sudden sickening clarity, Steve realized it had all been a dream after all.

Peggy was dead.

She had died ages ago, strangling on ice, trapped in the sarcophagus she had hoped to bring his body back in. She was dead, and he had watched them lower her coffin into the ground, and there was nothing on earth he could do to bring her back.

It had all seemed so real, for a while there. A wife, a son, a hope for the life he'd never had. That Wanda Maximoff - oh, she was good, making him think he had a family like that. Steve rocked forward on his hands and knees, trying to endure the wave of pain and loneliness that was rising over his head.

There hadn't been enough beds to go around, even with Thor still gone. Steve had volunteered to take the floor in the Barton's living room, and now, very distantly, he was glad for it. At least he wouldn't wake anybody up this way. He dug his fingers in his hair, trying to get a grip on himself, but it wasn't enough.

Space. He needed space. He needed to get out of this perfect home where he didn't belong.

Shaking, he bolted for the door, charging out onto the porch and coming up hard against the railing. He wanted to run and run and run and hit things until the throbbing of his body overpowered the agony in his heart, but he was too unsteady to try. Instead he bowed over the railing, gripping it in both hands until the wood creaked, trying to remember how to breathe.

How could he miss something so badly that he'd never had in the first place?

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Upstairs, Laura Barton came awake with a suddenness born of long years as a mother. The sound of the front door, though quiet, had been more than enough. Moving with the awkward heaviness that came with pregnancy, she struggled out of bed and crossed to the window, looking out and down at the front porch.

Then she returned to the bed and shook Clint awake.

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The cool night air helped, and after a while, Steve felt his heart rate begin to slow, head clearing little by little. Conflicting memories clashed in his mind - Peggy's funeral, their wedding, the warm curve of her shoulder, the image of their unborn son, her frozen body. Confused, he dug his fingernails deeper into the wood under his hands, pushing through the pain in his head and heart, trying to concentrate.

"Hey, Cap?" Clint stood in the doorway, looking out at him. He was in his pajamas, hair sticking every which way, but his eyes were clear and concerned. "Can't sleep?"

"'M fine," Steve gritted out. He didn't want to talk, didn't want a member of his team to see him like this.

Clint eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, before turning back inside without a word. Steve could hear a low murmur of voices from just inside the door - Laura Barton was up too, he guessed. A moment later Clint reemerged, holding something in his hand.

"Here," he said, holding it out. "Untraceable burner phone - thought you might want to talk to your wife. Always helped me after - you know." He swirled a finger at his temple, and then shoved the phone a little closer. "It's dialing."

His wife. Steve swallowed, shaking the quivers out of one hand before taking the little device and holding it to his ear.

Please, please let it be real.

"Hello?"

It was Peggy's voice. All at once, everything slotted into place with a rush, and Steve lost his breath under the onslaught of sudden relief, swaying heavily against the railing.

On the other side of the country, Peggy frowned, sitting up in bed and holding the phone a little more firmly against her ear. "Hello?" she tried again, groping for the bedside lamp and squinting through the yellow glow at the clock. Who on earth would be calling her in the middle of the night?

"Peggy?"

She knew that voice, and her heart contracted with sudden panic, breath coming more quickly. Steve hadn't sounded like that in ages - not since he drove a plane into the sea. "Steve? What's happening? Are you all right?"

He didn't answer, and for the first time she realized she could hear his breathing over the line, heavy and uncertain. Someone else seemed to be talking in the background, and then Clint's voice came on.

"He's okay," he reassured her. "At a safehouse. Nobody's injured, just - real tired. I thought he might want to talk to you."

Peggy moistened her lips. Her fright seemed to have woken the baby - she could feel him kicking energetically. "Right, thank you. Put Steve back on, if you will." She beat back the unbidden visions of her husband dying somewhere, and tried to focus on what she actually knew.

Maria Hill had told her that the team was under radio silence at a safehouse. She'd seen the news footage of the debacle in Africa, and understood the need, but was still angry at herself for missing Steve's call while she was at her appointment.

"He asked for you," Maria had explained at the time. "Sounded tired. The whole team got hit hard with something, but Barton didn't say what."

"Peggy?" Steve's voice came over the line again, sounding weary and raw.

"I'm here," she promised, pouring every ounce of soothing strength she possessed into her words. "Darling, are you someplace you can sit down?"

On the other end of the line, Steve turned to Clint with a nod of thanks, waiting until the other man had returned to the house before falling to his knees with a dull thud. Physical and emotional exhaustion dragged heavily at him. "Yeah. Are you okay?"

"We are, yes." Peggy smoothed her hand over her stomach, wishing desperately that she could be with him. "Are you? What happened?"

Steve opened his mouth to respond and suddenly found he had no words. The Maximoff girl's poisonous dream fluttered in the corners of his mind still, and he shook his head hard. "Peg, I - I - just talk to me?"

Peggy looked around the room for inspiration, and then caught sight of the window. "Steve, can you see the stars?"

It took a minute for his tired brain to translate her question, but when he did, he tipped his head back against the railing. "I see 'em."

"Good." Peggy hauled the top blanket off her bed, tugging it around her shoulders as she sat on the floor, leaning against the glass of the window. "So do I." Only a few stars were really visible through New York's light pollution, but it was the thought that counted in the end.

Swallowing hard, the captain focused on the winking dots of light as though they were his salvation. "Peggy…"

She talked to him, telling him all the trivial things about the day, nattering on and on about truly inane things that didn't matter in the least, and that neither one would ever remember. It was the sound of her voice that he needed, not the words she chose to use.

This hadn't happened many times before, and never this severely. Bad dreams weren't unusual for either of them, and Steve often had trouble distinguishing reality afterwards, but this felt different somehow.

At last she heard his breathing calm, become less ragged, and his voice sounded more normal when he spoke again. "Sorry about that, Peg."

"Can you tell me what that was all about?" she asked, but Steve shook his head, momentarily forgetting she could not see him.

"The Maximoff girl," he finally explained. "She can touch a man's mind - make him see things, hear things."

Peggy bit her lips. Whatever he had seen must have had to do with her or the baby or Bucky - nothing else could shake him that badly. "We're quite all right," she promised again.

For a moment, neither one spoke, just content to have a link to the other, however tenuous. Steve finally broke the silence.

"How'd that appointment go?" he asked. "I've been thinking about you all day. Tried to call before we went dark, but you weren't back yet."

Peggy pulled the blanket a little tighter around herself. This was a conversation she had hoped to have in person with him, or at least when he wasn't caught in the aftermath of a nightmare, but it couldn't be helped. If she tried to put it off now, he would only insist, and then worry more afterwards.

"Right," she said, and took a deep breath to calm the butterflies that suddenly raced up and down her insides. "There's something we need to discuss, darling."

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Peggy Rogers strongly disliked hospitals.

"Train as a nurse," people had told her when she was younger. "Help with the war effort." So she had, and she'd been as good at it as everything else she'd set her mind to. Even when she moved on to her work at Bletchley Park, and later the SOE, her superiors made sure she kept up the image. It looked good in a background check, and the medical training came in handy more times than she could count.

That still didn't mean she liked hospitals though. Or trusted doctors - especially when she was hurting.

Now, sitting in an unfamiliar medical suite, Peggy regarded the white-coated woman opposite her with an expression so fierce it was almost hostile.

Dr. Finlayson seemed completely unaffected by Peggy's regard, simply continuing to sort through the new ultrasound pictures they'd just taken. She had a warm smile and a very professional attitude.

"I don't want to give you false hope," she was saying, "but the field has progressed in leaps and bounds in the last few years." She frowned, looking at the printout from the amniocentesis test. "I can confirm though, that your son is not a good candidate for either a heart transplant or a Norwood procedure."

Peggy had no patience for this. "I came to you for a second opinion, not to hear the first one reiterated." Steve would be so disappointed. She knew he'd been trying to prepare for the worst, but hope died hard for him.

Dr. Finlayson finished her perusal of the reports, and took one long, last look at the sonogram recording of the baby's half-heart pumping away. Then she nodded once and looked up.

"Fair enough," she agreed pleasantly. "I'll have to do some more tests, but - how experimental are you willing to go?"

Peggy's heart skipped a beat. She thought of the serum, of her husband's agonized roars from inside Howard's machine, of the transfusion that had saved her own life.

"Quite," she said immediately, and unconsciously spread her hand across her stomach. "Quite experimental."

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Evidently, from what Dr. Finlayson had said, it seemed there might be another option besides the impossible heart transplant or the equally impossible three-stage Norwood procedure.

"It's a procedure called fetal valvuloplasty," Dr. Finlayson had explained. "It's not been done a great deal, and there are risks, but there's a possibility it might help. You and I would need to consult with my colleagues in Boston to determine if it's a good decision for you."

The procedure was one that involved heavy sedation, a microscopic balloon, and a very long needle, to be inserted through Peggy's skin and directly into their baby's tiny heart, poking open the faulty valve that was blocking growth. If successfully and immediately implemented, it had the potential to allow their son's heart to start developing again before birth.

It sounded simple enough - but the reality of trying to manipulate the end of a needle through two peoples' bodies, into a beating heart no larger than a peanut, and then inflating the tiny balloon to dilate a valve smaller than the tip of a pen - well, it was daunting to say the least. The doctors would be operating with only sonograms to direct their course of action. There was so much that could go wrong - it was nearly mind-boggling.

As his wife explained, Steve felt the cheap plastic of the phone in his hand begin to twist, and hurriedly loosened his grip. The unexpected surge of hope left him actually lightheaded. "If this works?"

"They're not entirely certain," Peggy answered hesitantly. "Best case scenario, the left half of his heart will begin developing normally again, so by the time he's born he'll only need minimal surgery, if any at all."

The stars in the sky blazed brighter before dimming. "What if it doesn't?"

Peggy didn't answer. Couldn't answer. How do you tell your husband that the very thing that could save your child had just as much chance of not working at all - or worse, killing it?

Steve's voice was very quiet over the wire. He had learned to read her silences all too well. "I see." His next breath was shaky. "What about you?"

"Fine," Peggy answered, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. Drat those hormones. "There's - there's no danger to me."

Steve closed his eyes and then looked up past the stars, seeking guidance.

"Okay," he said a few minutes later. "How long before we have to decide?"

As it turned out, there was no time to waste - if indeed they were confirmed as candidates. The sooner the decision, the more time their child would have to heal and grow before birth. In addition, there were only a few doctors in the nation who had ever even attempted such a delicate procedure, and several of them happened to be in Boston for the next few days.

"Can we afford it?" Steve's mind was racing, weighing the balance in the bank, their army pensions, their careful investments. Of course, the place in Brooklyn would have to wait - he would put up with living in Stark's tower for the next fifty years if he had to.

"Pepper offered to cover whatever we couldn't," Peggy's voice had a breathless quality to it, and he knew she was struggling. What he wouldn't give to be there now, holding her. He wanted to fight this by her side, not on opposite ends of a telephone call.

"I can take the quinjet, be there in an hour or two," he offered, but she cut him off.

"Absolutely not. The team needs you - you can't just run off with their transportation."

"You need me too, and you're my wife," Steve replied doggedly, and started to get up.

Peggy felt her backbone straighten. She knew that sound in his voice. This was the man who had been set to run into enemy territory to rescue his friend. "Don't you dare, Captain. The media is still in an uproar over the situation in Africa, and we still haven't been able to track Ultron down. He may be laying in wait for you all to separate."

Steve sank back. She had a point. The last thing he wanted to do was leave his teammates vulnerable. Peggy was as safe as she could be - if he went to her, his presence might very well lead the robot straight to her door.

"So are we doing this?" Peggy asked after a few moments. Her husband bowed his head.

"Yeah." His voice was rough with suppressed feeling. "If it gives him any chance at all, I vote we go for it."

Peggy pressed her forehead against the window glass and closed her eyes. "All right," she said, with a little hitch in her throat that she valiantly tried not to let him hear. "I agree. I'll tell them in the morning."

Steve had better hearing than she gave him credit for, and his heart broke a little more. Still, his wife and baby were both alive for the moment, and that was more than he'd thought he had just a few hours ago.

"I love you, Peggy Rogers," he whispered fiercely into the phone, aching to hold her.

Peggy laughed a little, biting her lip, imagining it was his arms around her instead of the blanket. "You're an unbearable sap."

"And you wouldn't have me any other way," he rejoined softly.

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Hi, folks! So the research involved in this chapter is pretty much the main reason why this story took so long to write. (Why do I do this to myself?) Also, thanks everybody for your kind comments - it's been a rough couple weeks, and you've really brightened them. Y'all are the best. :)

Hey, does anybody out there speak German? I'm writing another chapter of "Within the Legacy" where Peggy takes on a Nazi, and I need help with just a sentence or two. PM me if you're willing to help! I'll credit you!

Here's the technical points, in case you care. Babies with HLHS are born with only half a developed heart. The most common treatment is a Norwood procedure, which takes three surgeries over a year and a half, and basically re-wires the half-heart so it does all the work of the missing half as well. It's only been around since 1981. A heart transplant is the second option, but newborn donors are almost impossible to find, and the recipient will take immunosuppressants for the rest of their life. Fetal valvuloplasty is an experimental third option that's only really been explored much in the last few years. Results are varied.

Wow. You didn't know you'd signed up for a cardiology lesson, did you? Sorry about that. :)

lembas7: Thank you so much! And yeah - I mean, it's a sad mercy that child-size caskets are available, but it's terribly tragic that they need to be a thing at all.

ChildofGod: Awww, thank you so much! That's high praise, right there. Every time the stakes are raised, it makes things that much more poignant, in my opinion. I had lots of fun watching clips of AOU in the context of my story, trying to make them fit. Glad it seems to have worked! (And YES! Clint's family is pretty much the best thing ever! Loved them the minute I learned they existed!)

Laughy Taffy: Ahahaha! Oh my word - I'm helplessly laughing at the mental image of your Jarvis sniffing and dripping code through your drive! XD Are you trying to crack me up? Because it's definitely working. (Also, Christmas goodies! Thank you! Yummmm…) In answer to your question: I do have a Civil War continuation in my head and partially drafted. Whether I ever actually write/post it remains to be seen.