STATE OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
STANDARD CERTIFICATE OF DEATH

1. COUNTY OF: Kings County CITY, TOWN, OR RURAL DISTRICT: Brooklyn

2. FULL NAME: _Marie Léonie Johnson_

3. SEX: female

4. RACE: Cauc.

5. MARITAL STATUS: Married

6. IF MARRIED, WIDOWED, OR DIVORCED, NAME OF HUSBAND OR WIFE: _Matthias Cowlie Johnson_

7. DATE OF BIRTH: December 1 1894_

8. AGE: 41yr 2mo 7days

9. TRADE, PROFESSION, OR KIND OF WORK DONE: Translator

10. BIRTHPLACE (CITY OR TOWN): Vienna_ STATE OR COUNTRY: Austria_

11. MAIDEN NAME: Marie Léonie Huber (former married name: Moser)

12. BURIAL, CREMATION OR REMOVAL?: _Burial_ PLACE: _Fulton st church_

13. DATE OF DEATH: _Feb 8 1936_

14. I HEREBY CERTIFY, THAT I TOOK CHARGE OF THE REMAINS DESCRIBED ABOVE (SIGN): _Johnson Smith_

15. THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF DEATH AND RELATED CAUSES OF IMPORTANCE, IN ORDER OF ONSET, WERE AS FOLLOWS: _Blunt force trauma, blood loss_

16. IF DEATH WAS DUE TO EXTERNAL CAUSES (VIOLENCE) FILL IN THE FOLLOWING:
ACCIDENT, SUICIDE, OR HOMICIDE?: _Homicide_
DATE OF INJURY: _Feb 8 1936_

CORONER SIGNATURE: _Johnson Smith_

The next time Alice saw Steve was at the funeral.

It had only been a week, but the world had changed and he hadn't been able to see her. Alice had been at the police station, at the morgue, at the city hall, Harlem, a hotel. Whisked around in a blur of details, questions, and though she tried to cling to her brother he kept slipping out of her fingers. And Steve had been sick. His mom took him to the Moser-Johnson house three times, but after the third time no one answered she put him back to bed and told him to wait. Bucky came to sit by Steve's side, his eyes red.

The music that weaved through Alice's thoughts fell still.

Rammed off the road, they said. A witness said they'd seen the two cars pulled up next to each other at an intersection, saw the driver see Marie and Matthias together. Waited, then drove up and ran them off the road.

Unlikely we'll catch him.

Alice didn't scream. Didn't cry unless she was alone. She listened with a calm face, only the deep shadows beneath her eyes betraying that there was anything going on in her head at all.

Steve, his mom, and Bucky were among the first to arrive at the church for Marie's funeral, hoping to see Alice before it started. But the front row was empty.

Marie and Matthias were to have separate funerals – they'd had to attend different churches after all. As they'd had to be separate in life, so they'd be separate in death. Matthias's funeral was in a few days.

The church sighed and breathed with whispers. It was a clear, sharp day outside, but the priest had still lit candles up and down the pews. His face was drawn long and old.

Alice and Tom arrived a few minutes before the service began. Alice wore a long black dress and Tom clutched her and his aunt Molly's hands, wearing a black suit with the sleeves rolled up to fit him. His eyes were wide and scared.

Steve felt like he'd been punched in the gut when he saw Alice. She'd been sick when he last saw her, but that was nothing to how she looked now: her face was lined with shadows and she pressed her lips tight together as she looked up to see the full church. Her eyes were lined with red. And she still looked completely, heartbreakingly beautiful.

He was so absorbed by Alice that he didn't notice the man by her side for a few moments: he was tall and stately, wearing a finer suit than anyone else in the church. He had finely-combed blonde hair and dark brows, and a narrow, pointed nose. He stood close to Alice's side.

Steve frowned.

Alice, Tom, Molly, the strange man and some other members of Matthias's family made their way down the middle of the pews. Members of the congregation stood to pause them for a moment, to murmur words of grief and consolation.

When they reached the third row Bucky stood bolt upright and stepped into the aisle to meet Alice's eyes. At the sight of him Alice fell still and something like wariness slipped out of the tense line of her shoulders.

Bucky wordlessly pulled her in for a hug. He dwarfed her, as if Alice had shrunk in the past week. The man accompanying Alice watched with flat brown eyes.

Steve was there when Bucky and Alice pulled apart. Alice barely saw him before she was hugging him, her left hand digging tight between his shoulderblades as if he'd try to let her go. Her other hand still gripped Tom's.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured, half muffled by her shoulder. Alice clung to him tighter.

Someone cleared their throat softly. They pulled apart.

Alice looked as if the hug had sapped at her hard, impenetrable shell, turning it as fragile as the stained glass in the church window. She glanced from Steve, to Bucky, to the man standing over her shoulder.

"This is my uncle," she explained in a low voice. "Josef Huber. My mother's brother. He flew over from Austria when… when he got the telegram."

Flew. Steve looked up into the man's face, though the man did not look back at him. He must be really rich. Or famous. Alice had never spoken much about her family back in Austria.

Then the uncle steered her away down the aisle. Steve's hands felt numb. There'd been so much he'd wanted to say to her this past week, and all he'd managed to get out was I'm so sorry.

He fell back into his seat, his eyes on the back of Alice's blonde head, and his mom took his hand. On his other side, Bucky put a hand on his shoulder.

Alice's uncle gestured for her to sit at the end of the pew and then took the seat beside her, leaving no room. She took Tom and set him on her lap. The uncle's head turned away.

Then there were echoing footsteps as the priest made his way to the lectern, and the service started.

Steve didn't move for the whole service. He'd been restless all week, determined to do something, but then he had looked into Alice's eyes, held her against him, and he had felt her grief as strongly as if she'd shoved it into his chest. It froze him.

When the men stood to carry Marie's casket in, Steve didn't move. Bucky went, as did Alice's uncle, and Matthias's brother in law. Steve just sat there useless, looking at the back of Alice's head. He couldn't hold her hand, couldn't say anything to make this better, couldn't even carry her dead mother in to be buried.

Under the organ music and the heavy tone of the priest's voice, the church sounded like weeping. Steve had been to funerals before, but those were for other people. Old people. He'd felt the heaviness of them and felt their gravity but those had been about remembrance. This was tragedy.

The casket wasn't open. Steve knew what that meant: what lay inside was not for seeing. It was a simple wooden casket with white flowers laid on top. He'd smelled them as they went past – sweet, simple.

Alice didn't speak in the service; either she couldn't or she wouldn't. She sat at the end of her pew with her little brother curled up in her lap, her arms wrapped around him as if to protect him from something.

Molly stood and said a few words: loving mother, worked hard to support her family. Kind to anyone who crossed her path. Steve remembered Molly and Marie laughing over the turkey wishbone at Thanksgiving.

The uncle didn't speak. The priest had asked Steve's mom yesterday if she would speak on behalf of the church congregation and Marie's friends. She touched Alice's shoulder as she went up to speak, and delivered a loving eulogy worthy of the impact Marie had made here. Steve's mom looked down at Alice toward the end of her speech and her face crumpled. She walked back to her pew weeping.

When it was done, they all stood and walked Alice's mom out to the graveyard to be buried.

There was a hole waiting for her; the ground cold and hard. The congregation huddled around and shivered as the casket was lowered into the hole. A breeze blew through and made Steve shudder. His father was buried a few rows up from here.

Alice dropped a flower on the casket. Tom did too, his eyes wet and dark. He curled into his sister's side and she spread her hand over the back of his head. When they began pouring the dirt back in over Marie, Alice picked up Tom and held him tightly.

The congregation gathered and mingled, exchanging low words of sorrow as the hole in the ground began to fill. Steve and Bucky stood where they were for a few moments, giving the brother and sister at the edge of the hole in the ground a moment to hold each other.

They watched Molly approach, her face exhausted and bereft, and gently take Tom from Alice's arms. Alice's uncle stood only a few paces away.

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance and then went to join their friend.

They didn't hug this time – Alice looked brittle and small, and Steve and Bucky both sensed that she might break if touched. The tightness around her eyes loosened at the sight of them, though.

For a few moments none of them spoke. The last time they'd all been together had been… the back of the tailor shop, Steve thought. Matthias had been hard at work with winter customers in the main room, Marie had stuck her head through the door to say hi as she went out to shop with Tom. The three of them had been playing cards and arguing over what radio station they wanted to listen to.

The moment hung heavy over all three of them.

"What's going to happen to you?" Bucky asked.

Steve wanted to thank him for finally voicing the question, but his words had dried up in his throat.

Alice reached up with shaky fingers to her eyes, but she wasn't crying. Her eyes were wet and desperate as she said carefully: "I don't have any family left in New York. My uncle," she half turned to the man, who took a step closer as she mentioned him, "Is my guardian now." She looked back but did not seem to see them. "I'm going back to Austria."

If this were a movie Steve would stagger back like a man struck by an arrow. He would rage and argue. But as it was he just stood, rooted to the spot, looking and looking and looking at her and waiting for her words to be a lie.

A tear escaped the corner of her eye, rolled down her face and dripped off the edge of her chin. It was alone. She swiped her cheek with twisted fingers.

"No," said Steve, sounding almost confused.

Alice finally looked fully at him. Her expression was wrenched. He'd never seen her like this – not even after the night Matthias got hurt. Something dark and overwhelming was welling inside her. "I don't have anywhere else to go-"

"There's Molly, Matthias's family, us-"

The uncle spoke directly to Steve for the first time: "The Johnsons are Thomas's next of kin," he said. His accent was heavier than Marie's had been. Steve had to compute 'Thomas' for a moment – no one called the boy that. The uncle continued: "But they - and anyone else - cannot legally take care of Alice. She'll come back to her family in Austria, where she'll be well taken care of."

"You're splitting them up?" asked Bucky with the horror of a sibling in his voice. The uncle turned to him to reply in a calm, reasonable tone.

As Bucky and the uncle spoke, Steve looked back to Alice and finally, finally saw it: her hands had been moving almost constantly since they came over – fixing her coat, wiping away tears, but Steve had just assumed it was an anxious tic that had escaped her normally rigid self control. Even now her hand played at the sleeve of her coat, but he saw that it wasn't a sign of self comfort. Her fingers were crossed.

It was an old code. They hadn't used it for years, not since they'd been smaller and wanting to escape from the bore of adults milling around after church service. It meant meet me in the courtyard.

Steve's eyes widened and he nodded. Alice's welling eyes cleared, and she uncrossed her fingers.

"So you see," her uncle said, turning to face the three of them in general rather than just Bucky, "This is what's best." He set his hand on Alice's shoulder and they turned away, heading for the priest.

Bucky watched them with an open mouth and limp hands. "She can't just go," he said. He turned to Steve. "Steve, I-"

"C'mon." Steve grabbed Bucky's sleeve and started pulling him through the mourners in the direction of the back gate that he knew led to the church courtyard. Their boots crunched on the gravel path.

"What? Where're we going?"

"Alice said to meet in the courtyard."

"When did she – oh, one of your codes." Bucky planted his feet, so Steve had to turn around with a furrow on his brow. They were a few yards away from the congregation in the graveyard. Bucky looked back at him with knowing dark eyes.

"Come on," Steve said, "I don't know how much time we'll have."

"You go."

"What?"

Bucky sighed. "You go. She wants to talk to you, punk, not me-"

"That's not-"

"I know, I know," Bucky made a quelling gesture. "But she won't have long, and it should be you. I'll be your lookout."

Steve's shoulders dropped. "Bucky."

"Go on." Bucky glanced over his shoulder and then back. "She's already slipped out, she'll be waiting for ya."

Steve looked back at his friend for another moment, his jaw clenched, then turned and hastened to the church courtyard door. Bucky watched him go.

Alice was, as Bucky had predicted, already waiting for Steve in the small courtyard behind the church. The courtyard seemed smaller than it ever had, enclosed by slate-grey brick walls. There wasn't much in here aside from a few shrubs and a pond. Weeds sprang through the gaps between cobblestones, and a fine sheet of ice covered the brown pond in the middle of the yard. They used to throw pebbles into that pond on mornings like this and watch the ice splinter. Their priest had taught them to shoot here, propping the target up against the sturdy church wall.

Alice shifted her weight from one foot to another, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Steve," she breathed as soon as he'd shut the wooden door behind him. Steve's boots echoed off the paving stones as he rushed over to her and took both her hands in his. They'd never held each other like this before.

Alice's eyes were wild and large in her pale face. "Steve, I'm leaving today."

His stomach dropped. "What?"

"There's a ticket for a ship booked, he says it has to be today, Steve, I…"

"No, but-" His head reeled, this was too much too soon. He wanted time. He wanted to sit with her and hold her as she cried and let her slowly, slowly, open up to him. This wasn't fair. "Why today?"

"I don't know. He took care of everything." Alice pulled her hands out of his to grip her head. Her breath came in a sharp gasp. "He can't take Tom," she said in a high, breaking voice. "And I can't stay with him. Steve, he's only seven-"

"I know," Steve said. Tears prickled at his eyes and he reached out – his hand settled on her arm. "I know, I'm so sorry." He felt so useless. Couldn't he say anything else? "You know Molly and the others will take good care of him, you don't need to be scared for him."

"But I am scared, I am."

So am I.

"You're…" he tried to think. "You're going to Austria, we can still write to each other. And you'll come back, you'll…" he was just wishing aloud now.

"I will," Alice said, and he realized tears were streaming from her eyes. He'd never seen her cry so freely, without even attempting to stop herself. It made his hand tighten on her arm, made him pull her into a hug so tight that he could feel her heartbeat. He drew in a breath that made his chest shudder.

"Steve," she whispered. "Please… can you go to Matthias's funeral for me?"

She was going to miss his funeral. Steve nodded, the movement brushing the side of her head. "Of course, I'll – I'll be there."

"Thank you," came her shaky voice.

She was so warm against him, but every part of her he touched was cold: the tips of her pale hair felt icy, her hand against the back of his neck was like cool glass. She's leaving, said his mind, but he could not bring himself to picture the reality of it – surely she should always be just a few blocks down the street. Always waiting for him at the post box on the way to school, always touching her toes to his on the carpet of his living room, always a melody of dots and dashes crackling through the radio.

"I don't want to leave," she whispered against the side of his neck.

"Don't," he said helplessly. This was not something he could fight.

And then she was pulling back, but she wasn't leaving, because her eyes were in front of him now – wide and green and crying.

He kissed her. Or she kissed him, he wasn't sure.

It wasn't how Steve hoped it would be (he could see it in his mind's eye: laughing, maybe a bit fumbling, free of desperation or grief), but it still flooded his chest with warmth and sent his heart pounding faster than was likely good for him considering his history of palpitations. Her lips crushed against his, not bruising but enough to make them both light up at the feeling. His fingers tangled in her hair. She moved her head slightly and he felt her wet eyelashes brush against his skin. His heart skipped.

As if she could sense the danger Alice leaned back with one palm laid on his bony chest.

A small smile broke out on her face and Steve's heart shattered and came back together in a second. "I'll be seeing you, Steve Rogers."

He swallowed. He'd imagined saying so many things to her but it was too soon, too sad. Yet it hurt not to say them. So he whispered: "Keep in touch."

"I promise." She kissed him again; long and sweet and barely there, then she slipped away.

THREE YEARS LATER
September 3rd, 1939

Banging on the door.

"Mmf."

More banging. "Steve! I know you're in there, open up!"

Bucky.

Steve rolled over onto his back and squinted in the early morning gloom. The same water stain that had been there since he could remember sat brown and splotchy on the white plaster ceiling.

"Steve!"

Bucky'd get bored of knocking (banging) soon and get the spare key from under the brick outside. But even in his half-awake state Steve could hear a more urgent note in his voice than the usual 'I have plans for us today and you're not moving fast enough'.

So he swung his legs out of bed – the mattress springs creaked in protest – winced as his feet landed on the cold wooden floor, and then trudged through the apartment to the door. If it were anyone else he'd tell them to wait a minute so he could get changed out of his cotton pajamas and comb his hair, but Bucky sounded fit to break the door down at this point. Maybe he'd forgotten about the spare key.

"I'm coming!" Steve called grouchily. He passed the table with Alice's latest letter from Vienna still open upon it – he'd already replied, but he liked seeing her flowy cursive. A sprig of lavender from Mrs Bullock's herb patch on the roof stood crumbling in a jar in the middle of the table.

"Hurry up about it!" came Bucky's muffled voice.

Scowling, Steve tripped over the rug by the entrance and then flung the door open to Bucky's flustered face. Then his eyes lifted to the outside world, where he could just see dawn light filtering through the tenement buildings on the other side of the street. The sky was a dark, slumbering blue.

Steve frowned and checked his watch. "Bucky it's half past five in the morning, what the hell-"

A rustle of paper brought Steve's attention to the thing Bucky had brandished as soon as Steve opened the door: a newspaper. It smelled like fish – Bucky must've picked it up at the docks as his shift began and run all the way back here.

"Steve," Bucky said breathlessly.

Steve scanned the bold black print of the headline and his stomach plummeted so quickly he thought he might fall backwards.

"Steve," Bucky repeated. "Alice."

Steve nodded. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the headline:

GERMANY AT WAR.

Uh. Merry Christmas?

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Red Vixen: Hope your week has been okay! Thank you so much for your lovely reviews, I hope you have a very Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and a Happy New Year!