A/N: No one called this, so I am now ready to receive your screams.
Excerpt from article 'Music in Wartime: stories from ten remarkable lives,' by Holly Blackwood, 1989
The Siren dropped out of public life following her uncle's death at the end of 1941. There is a sharp drop in reports about her in the Austrian and German papers, save for discussions of her pre-existing music and in memorials for Josef Huber.
At the time, and in consequent analyses of her life, some theorized a descent into substance abuse (reports vary between alcohol and opiates) that led to her being institutionalized at a medical center in the Austrian or French countryside. One reporter claimed, in full confidence, to have seen the Siren singing at a tavern of low repute outside Linz.
The general consensus at the time seems to have been that the singer had become a recluse. This wasn't uncommon mid-war, with many artists disappearing from the public eye due to a myriad of circumstances. The Siren would have been just another casualty in an unfortunate series of musical talent fading away.
Many likely expected her to never return.
January, 1942
The pier at the New York Passenger Terminal smelled just the way Alice remembered it: sea salt, engine fumes, and rotting garbage. The smell made her smile.
She remembered visiting this place while it was under construction, when Bucky had been working labor. A couple of times she and Steve had caught the train out here with a packed box of food for Bucky, and the three of them had sat on the seawall overlooking the harbor, admiring the reflection of New York City in the Hudson and wrinkling their noses at the wafting smells from the water.
Seven years later, Alice stood alone at the pier and stared up at the glinting towers of Manhattan. She turned slowly, her trunk in her hands, until she spied the Brooklyn Bridge reaching over the East River. Brooklyn was a dim and distant haze across the water, with the bustling Navy Yard a hazy flurry of activity.
Alice took in a deep breath. This wasn't how she'd imagined coming back. She'd dreamed this moment so many times: she'd step off the passenger ship and look up to see three beaming figures before her: Tom, Bucky, and Steve.
She looked down the pier but it was already emptying out, her fellow passengers keen to get into the city and away from the docks. No one waited for Alice.
"There a problem, miss?"
Alice glanced over her shoulder to see one of the dock workers looking over at her as he coiled a thick slimy rope around a bollard. His brow quirked.
"No," Alice said in a New York accent. She hoisted her trunk and shot the man a thin smile. "Everything's fine."
She lifted her chin and strode down the pier and into New York City.
It turned out that Vera had agreed with Alice when she said she needed to do more than just funnel information down a murky one-way line. Vera had been reaching out to contacts for a few months, unknown to Alice, and just before Christmas had received a message in reply.
One of the OCM's contacts across the ocean had responded with some interest on behalf of an organization called the 'SSR'. Alice didn't know anything about the organization beyond their acronym, and that they had offered (through Vera) to meet with Alice (who'd only been referred to as 'an interested party from Austria') to discuss 'cooperation'. Alice had packed up her things and gotten on board an illicit ferry across the Atlantic on the basis of these vague communications, banking everything on a hope.
She could have gone to the British; she knew of the British Special Operations Executive, who had sent agents into France, but there was something in her that called to the mysterious offer from New York. If only to see the city once more.
No one aside from Vera and the mystery organization in New York knew where Alice had gone. No one back in Austria knew anything apart from the fact that she was 'taking personal time to grieve', and all Hugo knew was that she was chasing down an idea and that she'd return soon. All her network knew was that the Steinkauz had gone silent.
Alice hadn't written to Steve, Bucky, or her brother about her plans. As far as they knew she was still in Vienna. It was far too dangerous to put her plans to paper, even through the Lisbon line. On the ship over she'd agonized about what to do. It seemed cruel to reappear in their lives, only to leave for the war again who knew how soon. She wouldn't be able to tell them anything.
Standing on the deck of the ship as she watched the tossing waves, Alice had told herself that her brother and the boys need never know that she was in New York. This is business, she told herself. You'll only put them in danger if they know you're in town.
As Alice stood on the side of a busy Hells Kitchen street with her hand out, she took another deep breath of New York air and felt alarmed when tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. It wasn't just that she was back in New York after half believing that she would never return – for the first time in years, no one knew who she was. No one knew where she was. She could do whatever she liked and it wouldn't put her or anyone else at risk of death. It felt like stepping out from underneath a heavy weight that teetered precariously, threatening to fall and crush her at any moment. It felt like stepping into sunlight.
A taxi screeched over to the side of the road and she climbed in.
"Where to, sweetheart?" called the brisk-voiced driver.
"Brooklyn," Alice murmured as she tried to fight back her tears (and her annoyance at being called sweetheart).
"Where in Brooklyn?"
She wanted so badly to give him her old address. Matthias's family still ran the tailor shop, but the apartment over it had been rented out years ago. She shook away the thought. "A hotel. Any hotel."
"You got it." The driver stomped on the gas pedal and Alice leaned back against the headrest as she was whisked toward Brooklyn.
The ship had made good time across the Atlantic, and Alice's scheduled meet with Vera's contact wasn't for another two days. She booked a hotel room, unpacked her things (a few outfits, the letters and records she'd dug out of the back garden of her uncle's house, and money), and then sat down on the edge of her bed.
Her hotel was mid-range, nicer than anywhere she'd lived before Austria, with a paisley green bedspread, dark wooden furniture, electric heating and a view over the street below. They'd even had a bellhop to help her carry her trunk upstairs. Alice slowly got to her feet and looked out the window.
Brooklyn hadn't changed. Cars rumbled up and down the street, dodging the rattly Brownsville trolley, and on the sidewalks thronged the people: young women with smart skirts and hats, groups of kids skidding around street corners, harried families, elderly women coughing into their handkerchiefs. The early January chill hadn't put these people off from going about their business. The only difference was the number of men and women in uniform - mostly navy, thanks to the nearby ship yard. Seeing English on the signs and advertisements up and down the street did something funny to Alice's heart.
She pressed her palm against the cold glass. It rattled under her hand when the trolley rolled past. She could just hear the muffled sounds from outside: engines purring, children laughing.
What to do for two days?
Alice turned away from the glass and eyed the inside of her hotel room. There was nothing here for her but old letters from Steve, Bucky, and Tom, and her heart wasn't strong enough to reread those right now.
Alice ran her hands through her hair. The concept of spare time was unnatural to her. If this were Vienna she'd be heading out to be useful, or making a new cipher, or calling up contacts for information or to invite them to a party. She always had something going on. But now all she had left to do was to wait until her scheduled meeting time with the SSR contact in two days.
She looked over her shoulder out the window and caught a glimpse of five children chasing each other down the sidewalk before darting into an alley. Alice knew exactly where that alley led. She knew it had once had a large trashcan halfway down that the electronics store tossed their unsaleable parts into.
Alice blew out a breath. Can't stay in here.
Advertisement for Museum of the City of New York exhibit 'Life in Wartime', 2005
This Sunday, the museum is unveiling its latest exhibit, a photographic tour through New York City in World War II. Journey from the pre-Pearl Harbor days of relative peace, to the sudden explosion of industry and mobilization following the United States' entry into the war. World War II dramatically changed the way people lived in New York: those going about their daily lives received updates about the war in Europe over the radio and in the newspaper every day, survived through mandated food rationing, and participated in the growing civilian war effort.
New York become one of the major navy hubs of the war, with a ship leaving New York Harbor every 15 minutes (the busiest that port has been throughout its long history), and the Brooklyn Navy Yard doubling in size and employing over 70,000 people, many of them civilian or military women (WAVES). People and materials flowed through the city.
See photographs and artworks depicting this momentous time in New York's history, and from 2-3PM stay to hear testimonies from contemporary veterans and residents of the city. As one former resident of Manhattan puts it: "It was an extraordinary time. So New Yorkers, as they always do, became extraordinary to meet it."
For the first time in six years Alice walked the streets of Brooklyn. There was a bite in the air that threatened snow, but she had a heavy coat and thick boots, and had no desire to huddle up by a fire.
At first she stayed away from the neighborhoods she knew. She walked down the busy streets packed with new stores and busy shoppers, and lost herself in the crowd. Then she started edging her way into familiar territory: she strode past the first dance hall she'd performed in, past Brooklyn Bridge park with its view of the looming bridge and its crowd of memories. She walked down the road past Brooklyn Junior High, then walked the few blocks to Brooklyn Senior High. The buildings seemed… strange, after her years away. They seemed much smaller, somehow more ordinary than her memories. She circled back and found the stoop where she'd first really met Steve and Bucky: the time Billy Russel threw her book in the puddle. Alice smiled at the memory.
She didn't dare go past Steve and Bucky's houses. She was too afraid they'd see her on the street and… well. She wasn't sure what she'd do if that happened.
At first, Alice felt strange. Like she was trying to put on a shoe that didn't fit any more. She felt like Gulliver on the island of Lilliput, too large and too strange to truly fit in. But with each familiar place she passed Alice felt the hard, cold shell she'd constructed around herself begin to slide away. She passed the police station, and realized that she didn't need to fear it. She spotted familiar faces: the same elderly Polish baker with flour on his hands, the postman on his bicycle, the surly-faced man at the newspaper stall. Alice's heart warmed at the sight of them but she slid past before they could see her. She eyed the film titles advertised at the cinema and only felt warm nostalgia, instead of resentment.
Alice had grown to love Austria in her time there, she realized. But she had also learned to fear it. Now, as she strode an inch taller and a lifetime older down the streets she knew by heart, she realized that she had come home. And yet it didn't feel quite real. It felt as if she were walking a dreamscape of her childhood. Brooklyn, to her, wasn't made up of its buildings and streets. It was made up of people.
Her thoughts preoccupied her so much that she didn't realize where her feet were taking her until she heard the familiar tinkle of a bell over a doorway.
Her feet stalled and she glanced up with wide eyes.
JOHNSON TAILOR SHOP, read the sign over the door. Not many people would notice, but there was a spot of brown paint on the corner of the sign; Alice still remembered her mom telling her off for spilling the paint. Matthias had sided with her mom that Alice needed to be more careful, but then had gathered them both up under his arms (this had been before Tom, even) and said: No need to worry. No one's ever going to notice but us.
Alice let out a shaky breath. She could see herself in the dim reflection of the glass windows: a pale-faced blonde woman with wide green eyes, swallowed up in a thick winter coat. The last time she'd seen this shop she'd just been a girl who thought she understood how the world worked.
Alice swallowed and realized her throat had become uncomfortably dry.
The bell over the door chimed again as it opened from the inside, and on seeing Alice standing there the customer on his way out held it open for her, smiling.
"Thank you," Alice rasped, and walked inside without thinking. She couldn't very well stand outside in the cold and stare at the shop like a criminal.
Inside, the shop was warm. If she'd thought her school seemed small it was nothing to Matthias's store: she remembered it being cozy, but now she looked at the narrow walls and racks of clothing and thought is this it?
She realized she was standing dumbly in the doorway, so she took a few paces in and ran her hand over a pile of folded fabrics, letting out a slow breath as the cloth brushed her skin. The shop was reasonably busy, with about eight customers perusing the racks or lining up to talk to the man behind the register (Alice recognized him as Matthias's cousin, but he hadn't known her well enough to recognize her now).
I used to know every square inch of this place.
Alice ached to go to the back room. She wondered if her old comics were still back there; she hadn't had enough time to pack them after her mom and Matthias died. The idea of reading Buck Rogers and Famous Funnies again made her smile.
The smile vanished from her face when she heard the squeaky hinge to the back room door as it swung open. Her eyes flew up.
A young man walked through the door from the back room, calling to the man at the register in a teasing manner. He strolled over to speak in a lower tone, gesturing to the back room with a wry smile.
And Alice couldn't move. Because that was Tom.
He wasn't a little boy anymore. She knew exactly how old he was – thirteen – but he looked like a young man. He must be as tall as her shoulder now, and she could see signs of a growth spurt: his long limbs were gangly as he gestured to the man at the register, and he was losing the baby fat around his face. His dark hair grew thick and wild, and he had an easy grace about him that reminded her of Matthias. And yet she saw her mother in the quirk of his brow and the lighter tone to his skin.
Tom must have sensed eyes boring into him, because he looked up to see the white lady at the other end of the store staring at him. Alice couldn't look away. She couldn't even move: she was half twisted toward the back of the shop with her hands frozen on a pile of fabric. Her eyes were bone dry, which she knew meant she was about to burst into tears.
Tom's eyes narrowed, then widened. He took a step back. "Alice?" he mouthed. No sound came out.
Alice's shaky hand rose to her mouth. This wasn't meant to happen. She'd been hoping, deep down, but it was a stupid, foolish hope. Wetness at her fingers told her she'd started crying. It felt like someone had taken a deep gouge out of her chest. She wanted to double over, hold herself and gasp for breath.
Tom paced slowly towards her. Alice still couldn't move.
"Alice," he breathed when he was close enough to touch. His voice wasn't quite a man's yet but it was deeper than she remembered; close to breaking. His eyes were wide. "It's you, isn't it?"
Alice met her little brother's eyes, and nodded silently because she couldn't speak. His eyes welled with tears to match hers and his breath whooshed out of him. He didn't seem to know what to do.
Feeling zinged back through Alice's limbs and she reached out to land a fumbling touch on Tom's shoulder. He was warm, and shaking slightly.
Tom blinked, and seemed to realize that this should not be a public moment. "Come to the back with me," he murmured.
He grabbed the end of her sleeve (like he used to when he was little, Alice remembered), and pulled her through to the back of the store. "I need to speak with this customer," he told his relative at the register, and then they were walking through the back door into the room Alice knew so well.
It looked slightly different, but it was still clearly a private haven; the radio on the bench played soft jazz, and there were comic books and cards strewn around on piles of fabric and half-finished clothes.
When Tom shut the door behind them Alice grabbed his shoulders and held him at arms length, trying to fight back tears. He looked back at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. She was right: he was just a head shorter than her.
"You're so big," she finally said, and then properly burst into tears.
She caught a glimpse of gleaming tears on his face as well just before he darted forward to wrap his arms around her so tight that she could barely breathe. He was strong.
For a long time the two of them just held each other tightly and cried. Tom shook in her arms, and Alice didn't know how she'd ever thought she could be in New York and not find him. She'd forgotten a lot of her heart overseas.
Alice laid a hand on the back of his head and held him to her.
Eventually they sat down, tired from crying, and Tom pulled away with red eyes and a sniffly nose to ask: "How are you here? Why are you here? Are you staying?"
Alice wiped her eyes then reached out to mess up his hair like she used to do. She couldn't stop staring at him. "I… there's a lot I can't tell you, Tom. You can't tell anyone else that I'm in Brooklyn. Not even Molly."
"Why?"
"I… can't tell you." She grimaced, but Tom just nodded trustingly (despite a little frustration). He had the same triad of dark freckles by his ear. "I won't be here for long."
"Where are you going? Back to Austria?" His mouth turned down. "Even with the war?"
Alice let out a deep sigh and then smiled at him. "I promise that one day, I will tell you everything." She looked into his eyes to make sure he knew how serious she was. "But I'm here, Tom. I…" she opened and closed her mouth a few times, drinking him in. "I want to learn everything about you. Letters can only say so much. Who are your friends? What are you doing at school? Where are your favorite places to hang out?"
As she spoke she felt his excitement rising, as if it had just sunk in that she was here and right in front of him. For a moment he looked back at her with wet eyes and shaky fingers. Then he opened his mouth and began to tell her everything.
She and Tom spent the rest of the day together. After a few minutes in the back room they went out again (Alice bought a blue silk scarf just for cover, feeling strange about being a customer at the shop for the first time ever), then met Tom across the street. They went to a café which Tom proclaimed was his favorite in Brooklyn (it was new, Alice remembered when it used to be a bookstore), and Alice treated her little brother to anything he wanted.
Over two tall chocolate sundaes, she learned about his life. His school in Harlem was bigger than the one in Brooklyn, but it sounded like he had a good group of friends and even a few girls he hung out with from time to time. Alice didn't ask directly, but something inside her unwound when she realized that the war had barely touched his life. Tom was safe here.
When she reached the bottom of her sundae, her gaze flicked around the mostly empty booths of the café and the grimy windows. "Do you… do you see Steve and Bucky often?"
"They still check up on me about once a month," Tom said with a look that reminded Alice of the look she used to wear when Matthias got overprotective. It made her lips quirk. "Bucky's at basic training right now I think, and Steve's got a job at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. They've been just as curious about you lately as I have." Tom hesitated, then looked at her with a keen glance. "Did you and Steve… were you ever…?" he trailed off, scrunching his nose.
Alice laughed. "What?"
"I dunno," Tom said. "I guess I've always thought he was sweet on you."
"You did?" she asked smoothly. "When?"
He eyed her over his sundae. "Oh my god, you're sweet on him too!" he accused. "I knew it!"
Alice laughed at his teenage horror, even as her cheeks went pink. Was this the life I could have had if I stayed? This all felt… alarmingly normal.
Tom settled back in his seat. "Do they know you're back?"
She shook her head.
He frowned. "Really?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I just… pretty much every memory of you that I have has them in it. Find it hard to think of you keeping secrets from them."
"You'd be surprised," she said heavily.
Tom slurped his sundae. "Why won't you tell 'em you're back? They'd lose their minds."
Alice pointedly did not think about how it would feel to see Steve and Bucky again. "Because I can't stay."
"You came to see me."
She almost said I didn't mean to, but that would be cruel, so she didn't. "I… it's complicated, Tom."
"That's just what adults say when they mean I don't know," he accused.
She shot him a sharp look. "When did you get so smart?"
They traded teasing and old memories back and forth, and Alice realized as the minutes flew by that she was smiling easier, laughing more often. And it wasn't just from seeing her brother again. Tom had become his own person, and she liked him. He was funny, quick with a joke or a clever comment, and seemed to understand her quiet façade almost instantly. He filled the silences with ease.
Patrons at the café came and went. Someone turned on the jukebox, which started belting out old hits. Tom started tapping his fingers on the countertop when the faster-paced Doug the Jitterbug started playing, and about halfway through he interrupted his own story about his math teacher to start singing along.
"Young and wild with lots of style, that's Doug the Jitterbug!"
With delight, Alice joined him. Tom was good, with a mellow voice that she could sense maturing into something deeper. He had a good ear for tune and he harmonized with her effortlessly. Her high, clear voice weaved in and out of his lower one as they sang along to the trumpets. Their fingers tapped on the table and they bounced their knees, grinning as they sang. The few other people in the café looked over, and when they finished the last lyric they got a smattering of applause before everyone turned back to their drinks.
"You can sing," Alice said breathlessly, her heart bursting. She'd been singing in public for five years now, for princes and politicians and generals, but nothing had come close to that impromptu duet over a Brooklyn café countertop.
Tom shrugged. "Started when you started sending me those records. I've been going to the halls around Harlem, learning a lot there. I remember… I kinda remember mom and dad. I remember dad singing me to sleep." Alice's smile instantly dropped. Tom had only been seven when their mom and Matthias died. The same age she had been when her own father died, and she barely remembered him.
Alice reached across the table and laid her hand over his. "They'd be so proud of you, Tom."
He didn't look away from their hands. "You think so?"
"I know so. Mom would say…" Alice's breath hitched. "Mom would be so amazed at how tall you've gotten, and how handsome." Tom blushed and looked away. "I mean it. She was a touchy person, you know, she'd be all over you. Kissing your cheeks, mussing your hair, you wouldn't be able to get away from her." Tom smiled. Alice kept going: "Matth- your dad was a bit of a crier. He'd take one look at you and burst into tears."
"Kinda like you did," Tom said teasingly.
Alice laughingly acknowledged him. "That's true. He'd want to sing with you too. He'd dance you around the room like he used to when you were small. He'd want to hear every up and down of your life, and…" Alice shook her head in fond reminiscence. It felt like warmth trickling back into her chest after years of freezing cold. "He'd give you that look, like you're the most important person in the universe. Because you are, Tom. You were their world."
She'd brought Tom to the brink of tears. He took in a sharp breath, his gleaming eyes avoiding her own. "I… I love Molly. She's like my second mom. But… I miss them."
"I know." Alice's eyes burned. "I miss them too. Every day."
Tom looked up at her with red eyes. "Can you… can you tell me more about them?"
"Of course," she breathed. "I'll tell you anything you want."
They kept talking until it got dark out, and Tom realized that he'd be missed at home soon. As they were collecting their things to leave, the elderly gentleman who'd been sitting at the booth across from them got up to go to the bathroom. Alice sensed his eyes on them a moment before he spoke, and she tensed.
"Oughta be ashamed of yourselves," she heard him mutter as he strode past.
Alice's muscles locked. She watched the man as he strode across the café toward the bathroom, and caught the disgusted look he shot over his shoulder at them before he disappeared. For a moment she saw herself and Tom through his eyes: a young white woman with a young black (appearing) man, laughing and talking like they'd known each other for years. Clearly the man couldn't see the youth in Tom's face, or the true nature of their love for each other.
A quick glance at Tom showed that his eyes had gone weary and his shoulders stiff. He picked up his coat and stood. Turn the other cheek.
Alice wanted to follow the old man into the bathroom and drown him in a toilet bowl.
As if sensing the sharp, glittering anger cutting Alice up from the inside, Tom hunched his shoulders. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get out of here."
Alice stood smoothly from the booth. "I just have one last thing to do."
"Alice-"
But she'd already moved across to the booth the old man had just left. He had a half finished coffee and a newspaper open on the counter, and he'd left his briefcase on the booth seat. With a quick glance around, Alice swiped the salt up from his table and started shaking it into his coffee.
"Alice," Tom repeated, but there was a smile in his voice.
She looked over her shoulder as she selected a teaspoon and started stirring the salt into the coffee. "What?"
He grinned at her, though his eyes kept darting toward the bathroom. "Hurry up."
"Just one moment."
She set the salt and teaspoon back, then grabbed the pot of cream, flipped open the man's briefcase and poured the white liquid liberally over the papers inside. Tom snorted behind her.
She heard the bathroom door open. She flipped the briefcase closed, returned the cream pot, then turned away to take Tom's arm and walk him out of the café. As she held the door open for him, the elderly man walked into the main room of the café and narrowed his eyes at the sight of them. Alice shot him a sweet smile and then walked out onto the street.
Tom was waiting for her with an incredulous look on his laughing face. "I see now why Bucky calls you a troublemaker."
Alice lifted her chin. "Do as I say, Tom, and not as I do – and you should never do anything like that."
"I ain't crazy enough to-"
Alice glimpsed the old man through the window as he reached for his coffee, and she reached out to take Tom's arm again. "Hurry now."
Tom had to get on the train back home, but they agreed to meet the next morning in Harlem.
"I've got Sunday school in the afternoon," he said apologetically. "But I can show you around before that."
They clung to each other at the train station as if they'd never see each other again. They hadn't gotten a proper goodbye, last time. Tom had been too young to understand death or how far away Austria truly was. He hadn't understood why Alice was crying when she hugged him at the port.
Alice recalled how her uncle had looked on at their last farewell with poorly concealed disgust in his eyes, and hugged Tom all the harder.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she promised.
She walked home in the sharp cold of January under the yellow streetlights, her hands in her pockets and her breath coming out as vapor.
That night she lay sleepless in bed, staring at the ceiling. When sleeplessness itched at her eyes and the shadows of the room seemed hazy, she began to whisper into the silence. She whispered about Tom: how much he'd grown, what he liked and what he didn't like, the future she could see glinting just out of reach for him. She whispered as if her mom and Matthias might hear. As if they were sitting just out of sight on the edge of her bed, like they used to do when nightmares kept her up.
"I wish you could meet him," she whispered, and her tears trickled into the soft cotton of her pillow.
Letter from Maureen Higgins (Brooklyn Senior High School senior administrative assistant) to Principal Wallace, October 2 1946
Dear David,
Regarding your last letter, I agree that the upcoming 10 year reunion ought to be combined with a memorial. I've just started chasing up the graduating year of 1936 and I've discovered from newspaper obituaries that at least twenty of them so far died in the war. Most notably, of course, Captain Steve Rogers (his friend, James Barnes, would have graduated in 1935 but left the school in 1934 to pursue employment).
I've included a list below of those former students who have passed, and those who I've been unable to track down.
Best,
Maureen
Excerpt from Principal Wallace's reply, October 3 1946
Maureen,
Agreed. Let's set up a memorial service in the early afternoon, and have the standard reunion afterwards. I'll talk to Connie about arrangements. We can time the memorial with the unveiling of the plaque for Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, if we ask the caretaker to get a move on.
I've responded to the list of missing alumni with my suggestions below.
...
... similarly, regarding #15 (Alice Moser), if your records indicate that she moved before graduating, I wouldn't expend too much effort in attempting to contact her. You said there was no forwarding address and that she hasn't been in contact with the school since then, so we'll count that as a no-show.
The next morning, Tom cocked an eyebrow at the canvas bag Alice had brought with her to the Harlem train station.
"What's that?"
Alice didn't answer the question until they were wrapped in the bustle of the pedestrians on the side of the road, walking down the street past a park. She held the bag to her chest, then looked over at her little brother.
"Can you keep this safe for me?"
Tom raised a second eyebrow. "What is it?"
"Nothing, really. Letters, records, a few photos." Alice decided not to tell him that they'd been buried in her garden for months. "But I can't keep them in Austria. Could you… keep them somewhere safe?" She flipped open the canvas flap and showed him the corner of cardboard-bound records. "You can listen to the records. But don't read my letters."
Tom laughed and took the bag from her. "What are they, love letters?"
Alice's ears burned. They were letters from Steve, but to call them that… she shook herself. "Can you look after them or not?"
Tom waved a hand at her. "I can, don't worry." He slung the bag over his shoulder, then cocked his head to the side as they walked. "So what're you in New York for?" Alice opened her mouth and he added: "I know you can't tell me, but just… give me a hint?"
She sighed. It was an unseasonably warm day for January, and she'd woken up with a strange prickling across her skin: a sense of purpose. "I… I'm here to help people." She looked straight ahead. "I think I might… maybe have a chance at a new kind of job. Something big." But I won't find out until tomorrow.
"You're going to stop singing?"
"No. Probably not. It's-"
"Complicated, I know." Tom rolled his eyes at her, but a few minutes later his expression went sharp. "Is this job dangerous?"
Alice fought not to let her surprise show on her face – Tom was quick. "Maybe," she said in a moment of rare honesty. It felt good.
Tom's face fell.
"But I'm hoping to learn how to be safer," she added. Her lips pursed. "Now don't ask me any more questions about it."
"Alright, bossy." He hiked the bag further up on his shoulder then nodded across the road. "Here we are, this is the jazz club I wanted to show you."
They walked around Tom's neighborhood for the rest of the morning as he pointed out his school, his favorite haunts, and the places he wanted to perform at one day. Alice pointed out the clubs and dance halls she remembered Matthias singing at, and the two of them beamed over their memories of the light-hearted, hard working tailor.
After lunch Alice walked Tom to his Sunday school, and found herself alone once more.
She turned around and made her way back to Brooklyn.
Alice wound up, as she had so many times before, at Brooklyn Bridge Park. She sat on a wooden park bench with her chin in her hand and the sun in her eyes as she looked across the water. There were a few families in the park, filling the air with the sound of laughter and children playing. Seagulls squawked in the distance.
If the buildings of Brooklyn had seemed smaller, the bridge seemed somehow larger and more imposing than ever – she traced the stone and cables with her eyes to the other side of the river. Then her gaze flicked up to the Manhattan skyline, with the Empire State soaring over it all.
Alice had dreamed this moment so many times. But it wasn't right.
She ran a hand over her face and let out a sigh as she eyed the Manhattan skyline. She'd come over with so many firm ideas about secrecy and keeping business separate from personal. You'll only put them in danger, she told herself again.
But she'd seen Tom, and nothing bad had happened. Nothing bad would happen, since there was no way anyone would find out about him.
You can't tell them anything.
Tom hadn't minded.
It would be cruel to appear, only to leave again.
Alice dropped her head in her hands. She couldn't argue with that one.
Five minutes later, Alice stood up from the park bench and dusted off her skirt. Then she turned on her heel and started walking. She strode down familiar streets and turned corners she knew like the back of her hand, and her heart slowly rose up her throat into her mouth.
A block away from her destination, she tugged at her winter coat. She wasn't dressed very fashionably, but she'd never have been able to afford even these clothes before. They were clean, and tidy, and –
Get a grip, she told herself crossly. It doesn't matter what you're wearing.
She came to a stumbling halt outside a dull brick tenement building with rattly metal stairs out the front. She'd climbed those stairs who knew how many times. She set her foot on the first step and began to climb.
Finally she found herself at the door to what she used to think of Steve and his mom's apartment. Now it was just Steve's. She swallowed dryly.
He might not be home.
Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought she might be sick. Her legs felt shivery. She raised a fist.
If he's not home, you turn around, walk away, and never come back.
Her fist fell against the door in a sharp knock.
For a few moments all she heard was the sound of her own sharp, shallow breathing.
She knocked again.
Nothing. Her heart clenched painfully. Maybe he moved.
She shuffled to the side to peer through a window, but it was obscured by an off-yellow curtain. Surely he'd have told me if he moved. She chewed her lip and thought.
Alice eventually settled on walking back downstairs, but with the open street before her and the world beyond, she couldn't make herself walk away. In her head was a short, blonde, stubborn boy who'd somehow worked his way deep into her heart and could not be removed no matter how hard she tried.
She let out a breath and settled on the stoop outside the tenement, where she must have spent hours of her childhood waiting for Steve. She was happy to wait as long as it took now.
~ I will wait ~
"All I'm saying, pal, is that if you make me see Gone With the Wind one more goddamned time-"
"I didn't know that's all they'd have on!" Bucky protested as he laughed at the sour look on Steve's face. They both walked with their hands stuffed in their pockets and their scarves pulled tight against the chill wind down the Brooklyn streets. "Besides, this is only what, the third time?"
"Three times too many," Steve muttered as he squinted against another bitter wind. He cocked his head. "At least this time you didn't try to trick me into another disaster date."
"Some fellas would pay to be tricked into spending an evening with a beautiful woman," Bucky pointed out with a grin.
"That's prostitution, Buck."
"That it is," he said with a considering nod. "You're a punk, Steve."
Steve squinted across at Bucky with an unimpressed gaze for a few moments longer before he broke, grinned, and shoved his shoulder into Bucky's. "Jerk."
It was good to have Bucky back. He'd been at basic training ever since he enlisted, save for Christmas, but he'd finally gotten a weekend break. Steve got so wrapped up in his own head without someone to pull him outside to get some sun (what little of it there was to be had in January), and seeing Bucky healthy and happy helped ease the slight sting of envy. He'd had another 4F stamp in the Bronx a few days ago.
They walked and bickered for a few more minutes, weaving to dodge piles of slush and trash and to throw each other off balance with their shoulders.
Bucky was the first to notice. He laughed at one of Steve's quietly muttered jokes, then glanced up for a moment as they rounded a corner. Half a second later he stopped in his tracks.
Could be anyone, was Bucky's first, numb thought. But he knew it wasn't.
Steve walked a few more steps before looking back with a frown at Bucky's sudden stop. "Buck?" His frown deepened, and he followed Bucky's gaze to the front of the tenement building.
He saw the blonde woman sitting on the stoop outside the building with her chin on her fist, her face turned away, and his stomach bottomed out.
"Bucky," he croaked. They were hundreds of yards up the street. "Is it…"
"I dunno, pal," Bucky said in a strangely hoarse voice. "But we're having the same hallucination if it isn't." The woman's hair shifted a little in the breeze, but she didn't turn her head. She wore a dark winter coat and her heeled shoe was propped against the curb.
"But she's not…" They'd started walking again, their footsteps slow and wary. Steve slowly picked up the pace until he was almost jogging. He almost tripped over his own feet and Bucky had to reach out to steady him. He pressed forward, unblinking.
And then the young woman sitting outside the tenement turned toward the oncoming footsteps and the weak January sunlight streaming through the buildings fell on her face, and Steve thought that he might be having his first heart attack.
He stopped dead again. Bucky stopped a few paces behind him.
Alice Moser slowly rose from her seated position on the stoop, staring. Her wide eyes drank in the sight of them. She wasn't quite smiling, but her face wasn't blank either. Her chest rose and fell as if she was the one who'd been running.
The three of them stood there on the street, staring at each other.
"Is it over?" Steve asked. Because he'd dreamed about this moment: the war is over, and Alice had come back to Brooklyn like she always promised.
Alice's eyes shadowed and she shook her head, but Steve didn't care, because suddenly it didn't matter if the whole world was at war because Alice was just twenty, ten, five feet away from him. They were both moving, he realized, and then they collided in an awkward tangle of limbs and laughing and crying. Bucky was half a second behind and scooped them both into his arms, squeezing so tight that Steve thought he might die.
Alice's skin was cold as she shook in their arms. Steve's ears were filled with laughter and crying, mostly from Alice, and he tried to hold her tighter. He realized that even without the heels she wore she was taller than him.
"You came back," he breathed. For some reason that made Bucky laugh. He got a glimpse of Alice's gleaming green eyes, just inches away from his own as Bucky squeezed them tighter. There was hurt in those eyes, but so much joy as well.
A shaky smile lifted her lips. "I promised I would, didn't I?"
Reviews
SagaDuWyrm: Hopefully this one was worth the wait! I'm really glad you enjoyed last chapter :)
Guest: Indeed, the plot of Captain America is on its way! We've got some story to get through before then, but I promise I won't leave you hanging. Thanks for reviewing!
Guest: What an excellent summary ;)
Guest: Thank you for the AtLL ideas! I hadn't considered the idea of Bucky and Maggie fighting, but you're right it would be interesting. And I think I might do a one shot of Maggie and Alice meeting (obviously super AU), as that could be fun to do. I think they probably wouldn't get along at first, but would grow to really like each other. Thank you for reviewing!
Guest: Hello Wyvern reader, I'm so glad you found your way to this story as well! Thank you so much :) I'm really glad you're enjoying it!
jul (from chapter 10): Hi hi, I'm so happy you're enjoying it! I'm glad you made it to this story after enjoying the Wyvern. Sorry for making you cry with this story as well, I'm clearly addicted to angst.