Today is Mother's Day! So, I thought I'd post a chapter of this story all about 2 of our favorite Gravesen moms :)

The Long and Short of It:

Winnifred and George intended to stay for maybe ten minutes while Bucky packed his things from their sleepover and helped clean up, but they ended up at the Rogers' for two hours. It wasn't even the boys' fault; they didn't beg to stay longer, rather she and George got caught up talking to the Rogers and lost track of time. The boys didn't complain about having extra playtime, though.

"How was the wedding?" Bucky asked once they finally arrived home.

"It was beautiful," she said. "Your dad made a very handsome best man."

"What's a best man?"

"The best man is like the groom's sidekick," George explained.

"Cool. Kind of like a best friend?"

"Yeah. The groom usually picks either a best friend or a brother to be his best man."

"How old is your friend?" Bucky asked. Winnifred thought that was a rather unusual question for him to ask.

"He's thirty six."

Bucky paused, a thoughtful look on his face. "I'd better get married sooner than that."

"And why is that?" George asked with a laugh.

"I want Steve to be my best man."

He said it so nonchalantly, but Winnifred's heart nearly stopped in her chest. No six-year-old should already be thinking about marrying young, especially not for that reason. She hadn't even known that Bucky was aware of his friend's shortened life expectancy; to her knowledge, nobody had ever told him about it.

George looked at her with the same fear she felt. What were they supposed to say to that? At this point, she just wanted to know who or what had put that thought in her son's mind. Was it Steve? She didn't even know how much he knew at this age. Sarah wouldn't have brought it up, would she? Winnifred doubted it. She had no idea where or why Bucky learned this particular fact, but she needed to know. "Why do you say that?" she asked.

"I asked the computer how long people with CF live, and it said only about thirty years."

"What made you ask that question?"

"A few days ago was the hundredth day of school," he began. She already knew this—he'd been excited about it for the entire week leading up to it—but she failed to understand how that could've possibly led to this inquiry. "We did an activity about what we would be like when we're a hundred years old."

Now she saw where this was going and it shattered her heart. But it only got worse as Bucky continued, "Steve and I were just minding our own business working, but then Alex asked him why he even bothered to write anything. Steve got really upset, but he wouldn't tell me why. So when I got home I asked the computer how long people with CF live and it told me thirty years."

"Did you tell your teacher that Alex said that to Steve?" she asked.

"Yes I did!" he avowed. "Because he made Steve upset and that's not nice. She talked to him, but I don't think he got in real trouble."

"What did Steve say when you asked him about it?"

"He told me it didn't matter and to stop asking. So I did because I didn't want him to be upset at me too."

"Okay," she said, not knowing how else to react. She exchanged a look of shock with George, both at the brashness of this Alex kid and Bucky's innocent reaction. He clearly hadn't applied the results of his research to Alex's earlier remark and realized the truly despicable nature of the comment.

~0~

Sarah regretted letting Steve postpone his morning vest treatment to play with Bucky. But he'd given her puppy dog eyes and promised to do it afterwards, and she just couldn't bring herself to deny him the universal childhood experience of the morning after a sleepover. She didn't expect the Barnes to stay for so long. He wasn't noticeably in need of a breathing treatment, at least not to her observation, but she knew skipping even one could have cascading effects. But now that his daily routine had been irreversibly shattered, he resisted breaking it further to do treatment so late in the day.

She gave up after half an hour of cajoling and borderline wrestling him into it. Not even a promise of a tangible reward could convince him. Sarah despaired. He wasn't normally like this. "Why are you fighting me on this?" she asked up-front, hoping the calmness of the question would replace his whining with a coherent explanation.

"I don't want to."

"I know that. This isn't something you want to do, it's something you have to do."

"Why can't I skip just one? It's not going to kill me," he said flippantly.

The blunt, uncharacteristic statement shocked her. There was no way his attitude had shifted so dramatically without some external influence. "Steve, what's wrong?"

He melodramatically laid back on the floor and stared despairingly at the ceiling. "I just want a day off." Her seven-year-old had never looked so old. Old and tired. Sighing, Sarah sat down on the floor beside him. Steve immediately sat up and scooted over to lean against her. She wrapped an arm around his slim shoulders and held him close.

"Everybody who works hard wants a day off every once and a while," she began. "I know I do."

"And you get them."

"That's true. But sometimes, even after a day off, I'm still tired. I always want more days off than I can actually have. But then I think about all the people I help by going to work and that encourages me to do it."

"Treatments don't help anybody but me," he grumbled.

"Maybe not directly. But think about how much more you can do with clearer lungs than with ones all junked up. You can't help anybody if you don't help yourself first."

"I guess so."

"I know skipping one doesn't feel like a big deal, but one is going to lead to more and it'll make you sick. I know you don't want that to happen. I definitely don't want it to happen. So will you help us both out and do your vest treatment?"

"Fine."

She watched him get set up, double checking that everything was in order. As soon as he turned on the machine and she was convinced he wasn't going to fake her out and shut it off the second she took her eyes off of him, she let him be. And not a moment too soon, because she got a call from Winnifred only a few minutes later. Sarah assumed Bucky had forgotten something here when they left this morning and she'd need to locate and return it. She was surprised to learn the reason for the call had nothing to do with it.

"Hey Sarah," she greeted solemnly. "Bucky just told me something very disconcerting."

Sarah's face instantly fell into a worried frown. "What?"

"First I wanted to ask if you heard anything from Steve about this."

"About what?"

"I guess not then. Did he say anything last week? After the hundredth day of school?"

"No. When Joseph asked how it went, he just shrugged and said it was good. It's less detail than he usually gives but I didn't think anything of it. Is something wrong?"

"Bucky was confused because a kid said something to Steve that made him upset but Steve refused to tell him why."

"Which kid? What did he say?"

"Their assignment was to write about what they would be like when they're a hundred years old. And this kid asked Steve why he would even bother thinking about that."

Sarah thought she outgrew what her friends used to jokingly call her 'Irish temper,' but clearly that wasn't the case. Her chest grew hot with rage and she had to pause and take deep breaths to avoid screaming at Winnifred over the phone. Winnifred read her mind.

"It's despicable. Bucky said he reported it, but the kid merely got a stern talking-to."

"Who's this kid?"

"Someone named Alex."

"Steve's never mentioned him."

"This is the same kid that Bucky was fighting when he got in trouble last year."

"You think this is a persistent bullying issue?"

"I do. "

"What do we do?"

"I'm going to talk to their teacher. I just wanted to call you first and make sure Steve's okay. What a horrible thing to say to a child."

"He hasn't said a word about it."

"Does he know?" Winnie asked vaguely. Sarah knew what she was referring to without her having to explicitly say it.

"Honestly, I don't know. It's not a conversation we've explicitly had before, but he might have figured it out."

"Knowing Steve, he probably has."

"I know," Sarah sighed. After the fight they just had over a single vest treatment, she hated to bring up another heavy topic, but she didn't want Steve to stew in this by himself any longer than he already had. She checked the time, seeing that Steve had about ten more minutes on the vest before the treatment concluded. He wouldn't talk to her while shaking, she knew, so she decided to go and keep him company until it was over. When she walked back into his room, she was both surprised and amused by what she saw.

He and Bucky hadn't actually obeyed the curfew Sarah set on the sleepover. She'd seen a flashlight beam go on from the crack under the door and heard them giggling long after she set up Steve's tube feed and turned out the lights. At the time, she and Joseph had debated putting their metaphorical foot down and getting them to go to bed, but they'd decided just to let the boys have their fun. It was a Friday night and they could make up their sleep later.

Steve chose to get started on making it up now. He'd strapped the nebulizer mask to his face and hopped into bed to lean against his wedge pillow, vest still running. Sarah just stood and watched for a few moments, still steaming over the knowledge that some malicious child had taunted him for a chronic illness completely beyond his control. She got so lost in her anger that she ended up standing there until the machine stopped itself. Steve awoke with the sudden lack of vibration and looked at her confusedly.

"Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing in here? Is it lunchtime?"

"No. I just wanted to talk."

"Again?"

"Yes. Mrs. Barnes called to tell me something, and now I want to talk with you about it."

"What did she say?" He unstrapped the vest, put it back on the top shelf, and placed his nebulizer on the nightstand.

"She told me Bucky said that someone in your class said something to upset you."

He visibly paled.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Not really."

"Well, in my experience, not talking about things that upset me only makes me more upset."

"I'm not upset," he insisted.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Based on what I heard, you have every reason to be upset."

"I'm not."

Sarah sighed and shook her head. He already sounded like a stubborn teenager. "Okay. Even if you're not upset, I am."

"Why?"

"Because somebody was mean to a person I love very much. And I want to make sure that the person I love is not still hurting because of what this mean somebody said."

From under the blankets, he pulled out Rosie and started aimlessly waving her arms, staring at the doll's face intently. Sarah hadn't seen the toy in at least a year and was surprised to find it anywhere but the back of a closet. Its presence alone was suspicious, made even more so by the nervous manner in which he was fidgeting with it. "I'm fine," he said.

"I thought you didn't like to lie," she retorted, crossing her arms.

That did it. He looked up at her, eyes brimming with tears, and dropped the doll to reach for her. Sarah immediately released all of the 'stern mother' attitude and sat down on the edge of the bed to embrace him. She planted a kiss on his head and assured him, "It's okay to not be fine."

"I—I know. B-but I want to be."

"I'm so sorry. I wish I could just make it happen, but it's not that easy."

"'S okay. Not your fault you can't cure CF."

"I wish I could, buddy."

"Alex asked me why—why I should bother imagining what it'll be like when I'm a hundred. And—and he's right!"

"Not too many people live to be a hundred, Steve. Nobody can know for sure how long their life is going to be. All we can do is make every day of that life as good as it can possibly be."

"Why do I get less of one?"

Sarah stifled her own tears. Steve's CF team had never explained that his life expectancy was shorter than average, but she should have known that he'd figure it out. One time he did ask why they never saw anyone her age or older in the clinic waiting room. Sarah didn't even remember how she evaded that question. And she didn't know how to answer the one he'd just posed.

"A shorter life is not less of a life," she decided. Sarah didn't know where that line came from, but she liked it. It was probably some of the wisest advice she'd ever managed to scrounge up in the middle of a parenting crisis like this one.

"Yes it is," Steve retorted.

"No it's not. Your dad is shorter than Mr. Barnes, does that make him less of a person?"

"No."

The two weren't exactly comparable, but luckily Steve was still young enough to take that comparison at face value. Sarah sighed and continued, "A shorter life is not less of a life. But it's still not fair. I know that, and I know you know that. Believe me, I wish more than anything in the world that I could change it."

"That's okay, Mommy," he assured, hugging her tighter. "We can't always get our wish, but it makes me happy that that's yours."

Sarah's heart glowed. She had no idea how much of Steve's incredible spirit could actually be attributed to her, whether genetics or parenting wise, but every day he reminded her why she'd fought so hard to become a mother. He was her favorite person in the world, and it broke her to know that she couldn't keep him as long as she wanted to—as long as he deserved. "You make me happy," she told him. "And do you know what I think?"

He looked up at her with wide innocent eyes still glistening with tears. "What?"

"I think that your life, however long or short it ends up being, is going to be one of the biggest, best lives that has ever been lived."

"Why?"

"Because you've already proven in just seven years that you know how to make it so." She bopped him on the nose. "And that's the long and short of it."

His giggle echoed in her ears for hours. Sarah hoped she never, ever forgot that sound.