A/n: If you wanted to know what happened to the rest of your favs... this epilogue is for you. Also, I literally have an entire file of unused time travel quotes I gathered for this epic, so if you ever randomly want some time travel quotes, hit me up. XD Here we are, this is the final, final chapter in the entire epic.
THANK YOU TO WIP BANG, because without your deadlines and the awesome people doing art and cheering each other on, I'd probably still be writing this beast. XD Lastly, just in case, but: this chapter contains MAJOR SPOILERS for parts 1 and 2.
EPILOGUE
Jack: "I don't believe in destiny."
Locke: "Yes, you do. You just don't know it yet."
– LOST
[ SCOTLAND, 1128 ]
Alric pressed himself into the cover of some thick brambles when shouts and hasty footsteps rushed his way. A group of Scotsmen thundered past, hollering about witchcraft, and Alric waited patiently until the forest had long fallen still again.
He had managed to slip out of his cell early that morning during a commotion when the last of the English prisoners were being trotted out for the second day of Lady Brae's tournament. He kept himself hidden, carefully picking his way through the woods, avoiding the Scotsmen intent on tracking down stragglers.
His patience, it seemed, had been rewarded.
Alric came to a clearing near a stream and found Dommal at the base of a towering tree. He flew to his friend's side, dropping to his knees. Dommal was horribly pale and unmoving. He checked Dommal's breathing—was he even still alive?
Barely.
"Dommal?" Alric whispered, touching the boy's shoulder, careful not to aggravate his injury.
The boy stirred, and it seemed a herculean effort for him to open his eyes. His cracked lips spread into a weak smile.
"Alric," he greeted, his voice so faint, Alric almost couldn't hear him over the trickling stream. "You...made...it."
"I did." Alric gave him a nod. His heart hung heavy with sorrow in his chest. It was clear at a glance that his friend was near death and would not see the sunset.
He had no intention of leaving him. At nightfall, he would give his friend a proper burial. There was a trade route perhaps a day's walk from here and come morning, he would make for it. He would be cautious in these woods, with Lady Brae's men on the prowl, but was confident he would manage to barter passage to friendlier lands. He would get word to Dommal's family back in Berwick and be sure his friend's memory was honored.
Alric cleared his throat, trying to hide his heartache. "Where is Sir Tony?" he asked.
The ground had been torn up as though a minor skirmish had taken place, but otherwise there was no sign of the other man.
"Bright...light…" Dommal managed. "I think...think he was…" He trailed off in a coughing fit and blood spattered over his chin.
Alric moved his hand to support Dommal's neck. Thinking of his conversation with Sir Tony in the cell—how impossible yet utterly true he had been—he smiled.
So either I'm stuck here forever or one day I'll just 'poof' and be gone. That's the theory, anyways.
"He has gone home, I think, Sir Dommal." Alric's eyes stung. To lose two friends in one day was no easy undertaking, no matter the circumstances. "As...as will you, very soon."
Dommal raised a shaking hand to grasp Alric's arm. "I always thought...thought I would be ready." He swallowed thickly. "Always thought...it would be at the end...of a sword. In...battle."
"You fought bravely, as you always have," Alric assured him, blinking fiercely. "And I will see you again soon."
Dommal let his hand drop to his lap. "Thank you...bud-dee." He chuckled a little, and choked, leaning into Alric's arm for support.
"Shh," Alric whispered. "Rest now. Be still, my friend."
The coolness of the morning gave way to midday heat, and Alric stayed with Dommal. The boy's breathing grew shallower and shallower, and Alric filled the silence with soft stories of the impossible things Sir Tony had told him.
"Be at peace, Sir Dommal."
Dommal's eyes slid shut. Alric touched his forehead to Dommal's, and listened as Dommal's breaths faded to silence.
"Goodbye, my friend."
[ NEW YORK, 1946 ]
The machine was little more than a pile of debris where it'd crashed to the floor. Howard's sledgehammer lay beside it and Peggy stared at it for a long time before she looked to Howard, seated on the stool beside her.
"I just don't understand it," she said.
Howard scrubbed his hand over his face. "It wasn't at our end. Whatever it was...it didn't come from here."
Peggy pressed her lips together, toying with the scrap of fabric between her fingers. She'd clung so desperately to Clint as he was snatched away from her that his sleeve had torn. She had not been ready for him to leave yet—she had so much she still wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to say, for him to pass on to Steve.
"Guess it was his time," Howard said dully.
He'd never say it, but she knew it was true for him, too. So many things left forever unsaid.
Peggy swallowed. Tell Steve I love him . She rubbed her thumb over the fabric. Tell him I miss him all the time. That we never had enough time. Tell Steve I went to Stork Club anyways, and I said goodbye. That I've gone there the same day the past two years in his memory.
She sighed. "Well. I guess it's over now." She stood and smoothed her hands down her skirt. She cast another sad look at the broken machine and took a step towards the door.
"It doesn't have to be," Howard murmured, so softly she almost didn't hear him.
"What do you mean?"
There was something a little manic about Howard then—more the genius with a proclivity for chaotic, unstable experiments than her friend.
"I was building it anyway." He gripped the edge of his stool, and a fire lit his eyes. "We could do it—we could still do it, Peg."
"Do what , Howard?" She wanted to hear him say it—needed him to voice the dangerous idea before she let herself make assumptions and imagine the worst.
"Find him," he said, his voice darkness over gravel. "Stop him. Change it."
For a moment, Peggy really did consider it. She regarded the ruined machine, imagined about Howard fixing it and finishing it, testing it. Probably exploding something he didn't intend to. And that they went back in time—before the plane, before dozens of battles with Hydra, maybe even all the way to Erskine.
And what if they could change it all? What then?
Would she still fall in love if Steve's path was completely changed? Would the Commandos still have formed? And what about Barnes, Steve's best friend? If Steve's journey was altered, would he still be able to rescue Barnes from Zola's clutches?
The questions were endless, and impossible, and she understood the wariness that Clint had carried with him so much of the time. She understood the way he tiptoed around conversations or swore her to secrecy, because messing with time presented not only endless variables for change but also endless variables for unintended consequences—and damage.
She thought back to Clint's first night in the house, when they'd discussed their lives, and Steve.
He finally found his place, Clint had said.
Peggy looked to Howard. "We couldn't do that to him."
"Why not?" He jumped off his stool. "Hell, we could just turn it back enough so that we can find the plane—follow it and get him out, right away. What harm could that do?"
"I don't know."
"Exactly! So why don't we at least try?"
"Because I don't know , Howard," Peggy bit out, and he finally seemed to stop buzzing with possibilities and look at her properly. "And neither do you. Once upon a time, Steve belonged here with us, but history—time, destiny, fate, whatever you'd like to call it…took him on another path."
"Screw fate!" He threw a wrench across the table, and it clanked noisily to the floor.
"This—us, S.H.I.E.L.D? That is our path," she pressed. "History cannot form the same way without it. And...the Avengers need him. He needs them."
"More than us?" Howard's eyes glistened, the fight draining out of him.
Peggy rushed to hug her friend. Hope was a wonderful thing, but it was terrible to watch it sour on Howard's face. She squeezed him tight and blinked the sting away from her own eyes.
"More than us," she whispered.
Tell Steve that Howard and I are going to the Stork Club together next time. He misses you too, as dearly as I do.
Howard sucked in a shuddering breath and backed out of her embrace.
"Well, it was a thought." He dashed his palm over his eyes and retrieved the wrench he'd thrown. He got to work disassembling the machine.
Peggy helped him, and despite Howard's moment of desperation, his shoulders were lighter the more the machine came apart. The potential had been worse than anything, she realized.
Tell Steve that I know I'm supposed to stay here, and that my heart is okay. We will be all right.
Jarvis came to get them for supper, when the lab was almost back to normal. The machine parts were either destroyed or piled in bins for later use, and Howard's warm twinkle had returned to his eyes.
"All right Peg, let's grab some grub." He wiped his hands, black with grease, on a rag.
"Are you sure you don't want to dine with Angie instead?" Her tone was as light and casual as can be, though she had the satisfaction of Howard jolting as though he'd walked smack into a door.
"She's out, isn't she," he said quickly. "Or she might be out—she's usually out in the evenings. I don't know where she is. I don't keep track of her."
Peggy raised her eyebrow.
"Ah…" Howard's cheeks flushed. He was hardly ever embarrassed, and it was quite endearing. "How long have you known?"
"Hmm." Peggy's heels clicked across the lab floor as she walked to the door. "I believe it was after your...third unofficial date."
Howard balked. "That was eight months ago!"
She eyed him. "I would be rather piss-poor at my job if I didn't know what was going on under my own roof, wouldn't you say?"
"But you never said—you never—we've been—you said you'd murder me in my sleep," Howard spluttered, and indignantly added, "It's my roof."
"Howard, really. The mere fact that you, of all people, have been working so hard to keep it a secret shows me exactly how serious it is." She pushed open the door to the lab and Howard followed, muttering under his breath. "Hence why I never said a word."
"You could've saved us the trouble of lying to you all this time," he grumbled.
"And what fun would that be?" She linked her arm with Howard's and he pouted all the way to the kitchen.
Ana greeted them with a sunshine smile, and Jarvis directed them to the dining room, where Angie was already wolfing down a plateful of pasta. She was halfway out the door by the time Peggy and Howard sat, and neither of them had a chance to inform Angie that the gig was up.
Peggy rather suspected that they both enjoyed the secrecy all the same, so when Howard groaned, "Are you going to tell her?" she replied innocently, "About what?"
Howard grinned and passed her the salad bowl.
Peggy looked from Howard to the little collection of photos on the wall: Peggy and the Commandos, Angie at the diner, Jarvis and Ana's wedding portrait, Steve. Her chest bloomed with warmth.
Tell him…
Tell him I'm glad he's all right. We're both where we belong.
[ CHICAGO, 1977 ]
Irma cast a sideways glance at Michael in the passenger's seat. While not normally a chatterbox, he had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole drive to the bus station.
"Did you want to talk about it?" she asked, for the third time since they left her apartment this morning.
Michael looked out the window, frowning. "I just don't understand how he...disappeared. "
"Well, angels can't stay forever," Irma replied. "Once their job is done, they move on."
Michael shook his head. "He wasn't an angel."
"What else could he have been, then?" said Irma, pulling into a parking space.
Of course, she knew Steve had really been Captain America—impossibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly —because of some sort of time travel nonsense. But it was a helluva lot easier to simply attribute his presence the last couple weeks to "act of God" rather than science fiction mumbo jumbo.
"I don't know," Michael murmured. "It just doesn't make sense." He pushed open the passenger door and climbed out.
Irma suppressed a knowing smile and retrieved his duffel bag from the trunk. Michael didn't have much to his name, but Irma had filled his bag with snacks, clothes she'd been intending to donate, and a package of comic books she'd bought him for the road. She tucked her arm around his shoulders and walked him to buy his ticket, then waited on the bench with him.
Michael's ears reddened. "You don't have to wait," he said mildly. "I promised Steve I was going to go home, and I meant it."
"It's giving me something to do on my day off," Irma replied, ruffling Michael's hair. Maybe she had taken the day off in order to drive Michael to the bus station, but he didn't need to know that. "Besides, if Steve went home, then it's my job to make sure you get home safe, Michael."
He stifled a sniffle, hastily wiping his face, and Irma pretended not to notice.
"You don't have to call me Michael anymore," he mumbled.
Irma thought she might melt on the spot as she looked at this incredible fifteen-year-old boy. He'd fallen into her life—busting into her diner, becoming a regular, bringing out the mothering side of her that had faded when she'd lost her son to Vietnam. Not to mention trying to take on a crime lord, all by himself. At fifteen.
Deep blue eyes, still making his way in the world, still figuring out how to leave his mark. She was going to miss him deeply.
"I know, Phil," she murmured. "But you've been Michael to me for months. It's a hard habit to drop."
When the bus pulled up, they stood, and Michael—Phillip, but he preferred Phil—scooped up his duffel and bid her goodbye. He'd taken about seven steps away from her, and Irma was trying damn hard not to cry, when Phil rushed back to hug her.
"Thank you for believing me—for everything." He held her tight. "I'll write. I'll call."
Irma patted his back. "Of course you will."
She knew he might at first, but a fifteen-year-old boy would have more important things to do than write to an old diner owner in Chicago. He'd soon forget, and she'd miss him, but they'd move on and keep their memories close. She waved to him until the bus was out of sight, and she drove home in Sal's old beater with a fond smile on her face.
Time was, though, Irma enjoyed the letters from Phil that came regularly for the next six months, and the six months after that. When it was going on three years, she realized he wasn't going away anytime soon, and she kept all his letters in shoeboxes in her closet. When Irma was seventy-three, she was shocked and thrilled when a young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent visited her on her birthday. He came to Sal's funeral in 1998, and four years later, Phil—now living in New York—even came to Chicago for her birthday.
Two weeks before Irma passed away in her sleep at Briar Meadows retirement home, Phil's eyes twinkled with unbridled excitement when he visited.
"You're not going to believe it," he said, and he looked so handsome in his black suit and blue tie—it really brought out his eyes. "Irma, we found Captain America in the ice—we found his plane. And he's still alive. Can you believe it?"
Irma patted his hand and smiled. "Well, now, how about that?"
[ NEW AUSTRALIA, 2176 ]
The room was cragging white when he opened his eyes, and panic shot through Garrett like he'd been jabbed with a Pocker's baton. They got him, and he couldn't remember how, couldn't remember when—
The images slipped through his mind like sand through his fingers, and he couldn't hold any long enough to latch. There were gunshots and a bright light and brilliant red hair and shit, the compound, the tech, the—holy cragging hell, this was what being bleached must be like. His memories swirled and blurred and he was so, so damn dizzy.
A nurse rushed into the room as Garrett practically threw himself off the bed.
"Garrett, hey—whoa, calm down, lay down—" She waved her hands at him.
The world tilted and the floor wasn't stable.
"You've had an accident—Garrett, lay down. "
"You call getting shot an accident?" He snarled. Shit, he was in no condition to fight her. He crashed into the IV stand. He didn't feel shot—bruised and hella sore, yeah, but not shot. That was Coal tech for you. Sew you up, shiny and new, send you on your little repurposed way to…
To…
Where the crag do they send you? He couldn't remember. And weirder, when the nurse hurried over to help him, her wrist wasn't tattooed. Neither was his.
Everything was so damn foggy. Why would his wrist be tattooed? Red mountains and a bunker…
No. EMPs and Coals and Scuds and…
Ems ...
Wasn't his father shot? Wasn't he shot? Who was shot?
He couldn't remember. Everything was blurry, but at least the room wasn't pinwheeling anymore. What the hell had he just been dreaming about? Damn vivid, that.
"You were under anesthesia," said the nurse. Her touch was gentle but firm as she eased him up off the floor. "You just woke up—you need to give yourself some recovery time, Garrett. Breathe."
"Oh my God, Garrett," another voice sounded from the doorway. He had an impression of wavy, sun-gold hair rushing at him, and then between the nurse and the other woman, he was back on the bed. "Are you okay?"
"Keen," he spit out, eyes shut. Ribs hurt, head hurt. He wasn't in danger after all—whatever nightmare he'd been having had packed a right after-punch.
And then, he opened his eyes, and holy cragging shit—it was Ems. He grabbed her arm to verify she was real and she looked at him like he was completely sideways or mega-ill, and either way, her skin was true under his fingers.
"Please don't fling yourself out of the bed—I was just trying to get you a little caff." She pointed to the generic coffee cups on the tray table.
He let go of her, relaxing into his piled up pillows. "I thought...I dunno. Just a real intense, bizarro feeling. Opposite of deja vu." To the nurse, he grimaced. "Sorry."
The nurse stepped back from checking him over and exhaled. "No harm done, but I really wouldn't recommend anything strenuous this right quick after surgery."
Garrett touched his hand to his side, above his hip where the bullet…no, where the…There was nothing there, but there wasn't supposed to be, either. That dream had been damn vivid.
"Surgery?" he said and it was normal that his sister was here, with her long golden hair and secret smile. It was normal, it was impossible, it was real.
"He's bound to be groggy and confused at first," the nurse told Ems kindly. "But it'll wear off." She moved to check Garrett's chart on a holoscreen along the wall, and Garrett watched her every move, though he wasn't sure why.
"Hello? Earth to Garrett?"
A tendril of water, twisting and floating in the air like gravity didn't exist, moved past his eyes. Garrett turned to see Ems twirling her fingers in soft, elaborate patterns, the water trailing from her cup. She curled her fingers and spun her wrist and the water looped to form the word Hi.
Garrett grinned and the muscles felt rusty—must be the anesthesia. "Show off."
"You got, flaunt it, as they say." Ems floated the water back into her cup. "Glad you're keen. Had me worried for a minute."
"Can't latch what happened," Garrett mumbled. He could've sworn that everything was wrong, but...nothing was wrong. He glanced at his wrist, still void of any tattoos. He couldn't picture ever having a tattoo in his life, so his wrist shouldn't feel blank without one.
"That might be because you decided to drive your own skiff to the med center while your appendix was bursting," Ems said, glaring at him. "And you basically crashed on the front lawn. So they had to fix your insides and your head, you idiot."
He vaguely recalled that, now that she said it. Why the crag had he thought he'd been shot?
"I think I had a wacko dream," he said slowly, trying to sort his confusion. "Something...hella apocalyptic and...dystopian." He frowned. It was a vague, muddy afterimage fading away, now. "You were gone...and then Dad, he…I think I punched him?"
"Dad?" Ems raised her eyebrow. "Well, since he passed away from a heart attack about nine years ago, I'd say your imagination was definitely working overtime."
Right. He remembered the funeral.
Slowly, his memories began to meld back together, and the fog receded. Mom and Dad moved to England two years after Garrett graduated college, and Ems stayed in Australia with him—they beamed back for birthdays and holidays. Garrett and Ems had rented a cozy apartment in Port Augusta—he had an engineering job, she was applying to be a physical therapist, catering to EP's—Enhanced People—like her.
"I missed you?" Garrett blurted, and he wasn't sure why. He'd only been under for a short time, but there was a sideways kinda ache in his heart when he looked at Ems.
"Okay, weirdo." She got up to grab him his caff.
A woman passed by the door—another patient, glancing idly in his room as she went—and Garrett's heart sped up.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Wait!"
She paused in his doorway. "Who, me?"
She had long dark hair and sweet eyes, but he knew she was wicked smart and could be cuttingly sarcastic. He had never seen her before.
"Yumi?" he asked, trying the name on his tongue.
She quirked her head. "Sorry, do I know you?"
Garrett stared, and realized Ems was watching him like he was right sideways again.
"Sorry, I thought…" He tugged his fingers through his hair. "Never mind."
She gave him a confused sort of nod, and a weird little wistful smile, and went on her way.
"What was that about?" Ems handed him his caff.
Garrett shook his head. The anesthesia had really cracked his brain. "I think she was in my dream. Cragging vivid, that."
"Weird." Ems sipped her water.
"Yeah… Hey, could we go for a walk or something?"
"Walk? Pretty sure the nurse wants you to stay put."
Garrett tossed her a wink. "Me, I'm a rebel."
Some sort of heavy, unnameable emotion panged in his chest. Everything was as it should be, as it always had been. He brushed away the last sensations of the sideways, anesthesia-induced dream, thankful he didn't live in that kind of a nightmare reality.
As Ems brought him outside into the Australian sun, she promised him ice cream and a trip to the holo-theatre once he was free of the med center. She toyed with the water from the fountain, making patterns and shapes to entertain other people out for a walk. A little boy no more than eight or so touched the water trails to turn them to ice, and giggled with glee when they fell in ice chunks all over the grass.
As the wind blew, Garrett thought of the color red.
A/n: it. is. done. \o/
(About Steve and Peggy: I know, I know, Endgame, and I loved that for them. But I said what I said, and I stand by it.)
Thank you for reading, thank you for kudosing and commenting (it literally means the world to me!), thank you for sticking with me through any part of this - whether you read part 1 back when or are just reading this now or binged it in between, whatever the case may be: thank you. \o/