October 6, 2011
The deck dipped and rocked underfoot as Sarah and Mike emerged from a portal into the inner bowels of the jet; the turbulence over the Arctic was strong this time of year. They both reached out and steadied themselves against the bulkhead as the portal fizzled into nothingness and they took a good look at their surroundings.
The cargo bay was dim and deserted, as they had hoped it would be. This was no Quinjet: it was a much larger cargo plane, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. crew would be up in the cockpit, where they had heat and light and comfortable seats. They weren't likely to come back here during the flight, but Mike had brought along a magnetic lock just to be sure the two of them weren't interrupted, and he made his way over to the cockpit door and carefully attached it with a soft click before coming back to Sarah's side.
Their eyes adjusted quickly to the dim room, and they looked around at the crates and gear stowed back here that had been secured with ropes. Moving with soft footsteps as the deck shuddered under their feet, Sarah and Mike skirted around a wall of crates… and found what they had come to see.
A large freezer unit about 10 feet high, 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep had been secured on the center of the deck, constructed with thick, sturdy insulated walls. Without hesitation, Mike grasped the lever on the door and cranked it down. The door popped open with a metallic groan, and they both shot nervous looks toward the cockpit door and waited with bated breath.
But no one tried to come out of the cockpit, and Mike slowly opened the door the rest of the way and they moved from the cool air in the cargo bay to the frigid air in the freezer, not quite closing the door behind them.
Mike fumbled along the interior wall until he found a light and switched it on. There was only one thing inside the freezer: a coffin-sized crate resting on a platform and well-secured with ropes, with enough room for a person to walk around it.
He exchanged a long glance with his sister. She nodded to him seriously, and he took a quick preparatory breath before pulling a hammer out of the pack he'd brought and beginning to quietly pry the nails out of the lid while she untied the ropes.
It only took a few minutes' work, and then the two of them lifted the lid off the crate and silently lowered it to the floor. Then they unlatched the corners of the crates, carefully lowering each of the four sides down to hang free over the platform. They both paused for a moment to breathe warm air onto their chilled fingers. The contents of the crate had been respectfully covered with a white sheet, but it was obvious by the shape what it was. Mike could feel the hairs on the back of his arms standing up, and it wasn't from the cold, either.
He looked at Sarah standing on the other side of the crate, instinctively wanting to comfort his sister, but somehow she looked more calm than he felt, gazing down at the shape under the sheet. They met eyes and then, without needing to speak, they moved as one to grasp the top end of the sheet and gently pull it off.
Their father lay on the platform, cold and still.
Ice still encased much of his body, although his head and torso were exposed; the white star on his chest shone out clearly in the harsh light of the freezer. His helmet was missing, and although his face was composed and his eyes were closed as if he were asleep, his skin was bluish and frosty and he lay utterly still. Mike could feel his heart galloping inside his chest as if in defiance of what his eyes were telling him. The S.H.I.E.L.D. crew obviously thought they were transporting a dead body, and there was nothing he could see here to indicate otherwise.
"Mike?" Sarah's voice wasn't much above a whisper. He looked up and saw his sister gazing at him steadily.
"He's fine," she said matter-of-factly.
Mike swallowed hard in a dry throat. "I know," he murmured back, even though there was a part of him that didn't know that. He'd seen Dad asleep plenty of times before. It hadn't ever looked like this. Mike could feel himself taking too-deep breaths, his own chest rising and falling with deliberate rhythm, as if he were somehow trying to breathe on Dad's behalf.
"What are you thinking?" he asked Sarah faintly after a beat.
"I'm thinking it's a good thing we didn't bring Mom along," she answered quietly. "This is, uh... she shouldn't see him like this."
"Yeah," he agreed softly.
Sarah took in a deep steadying breath. "Okay. Let's get started," she whispered. "Can you hold that while I work?"
His eyes followed hers, and he belatedly notice that Dad's shield had been placed on top of him, centered over his belt. Unlike him, it had been completely cleared of ice. He could see the scratches in the paint from the tools S.H.I.E.L.D. must have used to do it. Mike reached out and reverently lifted up the shield.
He held it in front of himself, the cracked leather straps stiff with cold in his hands, his breath coming out in white puffs. It was something he'd dreamed about doing from his earliest memories, holding this shield. As a young boy he'd imagined himself charging into battle with it, doing some brave and awe-inspiring deed to the cheers of everyone watching. And afterwards Captain America would thump his shoulder and tell him he'd done well, just like he did for his other Howling Commandos.
Of course, that was long ago, before Mike had known who Captain America really was. Before his desire for the Captain's admiration had been blended with his need for his father's approval. As he'd gotten older, at times the two weights together had been a heavy burden to bear. And yet, he couldn't help but notice now that the shield itself was light. Not a burden at all.
Sarah had moved to the foot of the platform, and with a soft frown of concentration she lifted both hands and spread them slightly apart, exhaling magical energy into the space between her hands where it remained, flat and translucent, like a blue-tinted window. Tilting her head to the side, Sarah moved her hands slowly in the air, looking through the blue at their father's still form, starting with his feet and scanning slowly up toward his head.
Finally, she lowered her hands. "Hmmm," she said.
"What does that mean?" Mike asked, and against his will a muscle in his jaw clenched.
"No, it's good news," Sarah said quickly, glancing over at him. "Physically, he's in good shape. Excellent shape, actually. He's healthier here than he is back home right now. Well... except no vital signs. But we expected that."
"But no, uh..." Mike gestured meaningfully. "No brain damage, or-?"
"No, no brain damage. No organ damage. There's a little bruising on his face and ribs, that's all. Probably from his fight with Johann Schmidt. Looks like the healing process stopped when his heart did." She brushed a blonde wave back from her face. "Let's take a look at his chi."
She lifted both hands and made a graceful swirling motion before pushing her hands outward, sending a pulse of blue light washing over Dad. Then she turned her palms up and gestured upward. An ephemeral human shape lifted up to hover over his body, made of misty lines of blue energy that looked almost like veins, branching through the body from head to toe. But the energy didn't pulse or flow. It was still as ice.
"This is strange," Sarah murmured, looking the phantom image up and down with a frown of concentration.
"You said it," Mike muttered.
"No, not that," Sarah said quickly. "I mean... his chi. Look at it. It's not moving. At all."
"Is that really a surprise?" Mike asked.
"Well, yeah." In response to his confused look, she added: "Chi doesn't stop moving, Mikey. Ever. It gets sluggish when people are sick or injured, or when they have a blockage from some emotional or spiritual problem. But even when a patient dies, I can see their chi moving... someplace. Somewhere I can't quite see, not even with my third eye. But it never stops." She shook her head slowly, staring down at the misty blue image. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"Well, what does that mean?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well, what are you going to tell Dr. Stacey?" Mike pressed. That was the whole reason they had come, after all. As one of Sarah's best magical healers, Dr. Stacey was now undercover as the head physician at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Manhattan Headquarters, and within the next 24 hours she was going to need all the information about Dad they could gather.
"I don't know. I thought I'd be able to identify a specific point of disfunction, the place for her to jump-start his system." Sarah pressed her palm against her mouth for a moment. "But there's nothing here to fix. He isn't sick, he isn't injured, he isn't dead... but he isn't really alive either. This isn't suspended animation at all. It's like... it's like he's frozen in time itself."
They were quiet for a long moment, looking at his still form while the plane rocked beneath their feet, and then Mike said, "Well, maybe all it will take is to just get him warm again. Then the serum will do the rest."
Sarah exhaled loudly. "I don't want to depend on any maybes," she said in dismay. "This is Dad we're talking about. If something goes wrong..."
"We already know it didn't. We're here, aren't we? Unless you want to look at a photo of us and make sure we're not disappearing from it, Back to the Future-style."
He was only trying to relax his sister with a little levity, but clearly her head wasn't in that space right now. "Okay, but what is Dr. Stacey supposed to do once she has him on the table?" she pressed. "Suppose she gets his body warmed up and nothing happens? I mean, S.H.I.E.L.D. never really figured out how he survived this in the first place. By all rights he shouldn't have. This isn't like Hydra putting Bucky in a cryogenic chamber, with oxygen lines and IVs and temperature controls. He was out in the wild, with fluctuating conditions, and no one so much as monitoring him." She looked bleak. "What am I supposed to tell Dr. Stacey?"
"Well..." Mike trailed off, realizing he had no brilliant ideas to share.
"And she can't do any magic in front of anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D.," Sarah continued. "She won't be able to evaluate him internally, or manipulate his chi, or share any of her own with him." He knew his sister well enough to see that her distress was acute.
"She's a fully trained doctor," Mike pointed out. "She'll have medicine, equipment, nurses, all the usual stuff."
"Yeah, but-"
"Yeah, but you spent half your career treating patients that way, remember?" Mike responded to her glare with a soft expression. "Look, sis, I know you're used to doing it a different way now, and that has its advantages, but Dr. Stacey is a professional. She'll make do with what she has."
Sarah sighed. "I guess so."
She spent a good long time studying the image anyway, hoping to spot an important clue, but at last she waved her hands with a resigned expression and the blue energies disappeared. Pacing back slowly to the head of the table, Sarah leaned over the table and pressed a gentle kiss to their father's forehead.
"I love you, Dad," she whispered softly in his ear. Mike hesitated for a moment, and then reached over to rest his hand briefly on his father's cold one. "Me too," he said gruffly, and then they returned his shield, gently pulled the sheet over him again and methodically put everything back the way they had found it.
October 7, 2011
Steve watched as Peggy paced back and forth across their kitchen, ostensibly waiting for the tea kettle to whistle. A few minutes earlier she'd been pacing in the darkened garden, too, before the frosty autumn air had driven them inside. Here, in the better light, Steve could see she had the same expression of watchful waiting she wore whenever a friend or family member ended up in the hospital for any reason.
"I guess it wouldn't do any good to tell you not to worry," Steve said.
Peggy paused in her pacing and smiled at him wryly. "No, I don't suppose it would," she admitted.
"You shouldn't," he said anyway.
"Sarah was worried."
"I don't think she needs to be. I read the reports from my own revival. Dr. Stacey didn't have to do anything drastic."
"We have no idea what she might have really done," Peggy pointed out. "She may not have put everything in her report."
"There were witnesses, honey. Phil Coulson was watching."
Peggy paused. "Was he?"
"He made sure to mention it to me." His lips curved up slightly, remembering.
Just then the tea kettle whistled, and at the same instant they heard the fizzle of a portal opening. A few moments later, Sarah walked into the room.
"I feel like I'm here to announce a birth," she said with a hint of whimsy, and Peggy's shoulders instantly sagged with relief.
"It went well?" she asked.
Sarah nodded encouragingly as she went to take the kettle off the heat for them. "Yes, he's-" She paused. "I mean, Dad, you're-" She stopped again, and then said with a flash of a dimple showing: "Good grief. I don't even know what to call him. He isn't exactly my dad — not yet anyway — but I don't know if I can call him 'Captain Rogers.'"
"Better say 'he' and not 'you'," Steve advised. "Otherwise you're gonna make me feel like I have multiple personalities."
The corners of Sarah's eyes crinkled with appreciation. "Anyway, Dr. Stacey has him stabilized," she continued. "He's still unconscious, but he's doing fine."
"You didn't show your face in the room?" Peggy asked.
"Oh, no," Sarah said positively. "I left my body in Dr. Stacey's office and watched from the astral plane. I was all set to say a word in her ear if she needed any guidance, but it turned out I didn't need to."
"Then it was like Mike thought?" Peggy asked. "He just needed to be warmed?"
Sarah shook her head slowly. "No. Even after that, there was no pulse. Dr. Stacey tried CPR for a long time, but nothing happened. I got a little nervous, to tell you the truth."
"And then?" Peggy pressed.
Sarah lifted her shoulders a little, looking deeply puzzled. "She tried talking to you, Dad- To him, I mean. To see if he would respond to his name, to orders, something like that. And then, at some point, she told him to wake up, and... his pulse instantly spiked." She shook her head a little, looking perplexed. "After that, it was just a matter of stabilizing him."
Steve and Peggy exchanged looks.
"Coincidence?" Peggy asked at last, sounding hesitant.
"I don't know," Sarah admitted. "Maybe. But it happened the moment the words left her lips: 'Wake up.' And I saw something strange for a split second. A flash of green light."
"From the medical equipment?" Peggy asked with a frown.
Sarah shook her head. "From him. I barely had time to register it. But it looked... unearthly. I assumed at first that I'd seen something out of the corner of my third eye, something from the astral plane. But one of the nurses mentioned it to Dr. Stacey, too. Whatever it was, it was visible in our own dimension."
"Perhaps, in the tension of the moment, Dr. Stacey inadvertently did something with her chi-" Peggy started, but Sarah shook her head firmly.
"The healing energies we work with all manifest in the blue spectrum," she said. "Dr. Stacey said it didn't look like any spell she'd ever seen, much less learned." She paused for a long moment. "To be completely honest, Dad: we still have no idea how you were revived."
"Well," Peggy said after a long pause, looking up at Steve and squeezing his hand, "the important thing is that he was."
"One way or another, it was a blessing," Sarah said in fervent agreement. She shot an odd look at Steve, one he couldn't quite interpret, before she took Peggy gently by the arm and said, "Mom, it's been a long day. You look really tired. Let's get you to bed."
Peggy didn't look remotely sleepy and she hadn't even had her tea; Steve fully expected her to insist on sitting down to talk the matter over more thoroughly, but to his surprise she let Sarah usher her toward the bedroom without resistance.
"You'll thank Dr. Stacey for us?" Steve called back as Sarah headed toward the stairs and her own bed.
"You can tell her yourself," she said, turning back for a moment. "I'll bring her over to the house once she's discharged you- I mean, Captain Rogers." The name sounded a little awkward in her mouth, but she smiled at him wryly once she'd gotten it out.
Steve nodded. "Good night, then," he said.
"Night, Dad."
It wasn't long before Steve and Peggy were alone in their bedroom, with the rest of the house dark and still. As soon as Steve had finished undressing, he glanced at the closed bathroom door, where he could hear Peggy brushing her teeth. Feeling oddly furtive, he opened his nightstand drawer, reached in, and reverently drew out a small, round object that he had put in there long ago for safekeeping.
He was extremely careful as he opened the lid: the compass was very old now, and the hinge was stiff and the metal a little tarnished. But the needle inside still pointed north and, more importantly, the photo tucked inside was still intact.
The photo was only black and white, but Peggy's beauty shone out anyway, her dark hair and lips in dramatic contrast to her porcelain skin. It was strange, but he could hardly see old photos of Peggy now without being strongly reminded of their granddaughter Maggie. There was even something of Maggie's daughter Aisling to be seen in the curve of her cheek. As if Peggy had somehow become more than just herself over the years, but the sum total of all their family as well.
Steve held the compass cradled in the palm of his hand, feeling the metal grow warm against his skin. Once this small object had been all he had left of Peggy, and it had never left his possession, not even when he went to battle. He hadn't looked at it much since coming home all those years ago. Not much need for it when he had the genuine article by his side. But the sight of it stirred old memories in him. Of tender moments with Peggy during the war days — far too few of them — and aching regrets afterward. Far too many.
And more than anything else, memories of loneliness.
The Steve Rogers of yesterday was about to be thrown into that black abyss. He remembered it well. More than he wanted to. And his grief had been complete: not even a glimmer of hope that he could ever get back what he had lost. Yes, he'd missed his own time. He'd missed his buddies from the Army. He'd struggled to get used to modern times. But in time he had adapted to all those things.
But he had never gotten over Peggy.
The sound of running water stopped, and Steve quickly laid the compass back in the drawer and closed it just as the door opened and Peggy emerged.
She was wearing a new nightgown, a long white one that buttoned up the front, with exquisite embroidery across the front and around the ends of the sleeves, and tiny perfect pleats where the fabric cascaded from her chest down toward the floor. It was beautiful, almost a faint echo of the wedding dress she had worn for him so many years ago... but that wasn't the only reason it looked familiar to Steve. Suddenly it was as though his heart had skipped a beat: he had seen that nightgown before.
Peggy had been wearing it the first time he'd visited her after awakening from the ice.
"It is rather fancy for bed, isn't it?" Peggy said, misinterpreting his expression as she looked down at it. "Amanda made it for me. I almost feel I should save it for special occasions."
"Amanda?" Steve asked, surprised. Amanda hated sewing. She'd never had the patience for it.
Peggy frowned. "Amanda what?"
"Amanda made that for you?"
Peggy laughed lightly. "No, darling. She hates sewing. Don't you remember?"
Steve hesitated. "You said-"
"I said Natty made it." Peggy turned down the bed and plumped up her pillow. "She's testing costume designs for her next Clara. Her students are putting on 'The Nutcracker' this year."
"Oh. Right."
Peggy looked at Steve from across the bed and cocked her head to the side knowingly. "This is all very strange for you, isn't it?" she asked. "There being two of you in the world now."
Steve sat down on the edge of the bed with a soft groan. "The last time that happened," he said wryly, "one of us got his lights knocked out by the other."
"Well, we'll be sure to keep the two of you well apart," Peggy said crisply as she sat down on her side of the bed. "I wouldn't want the younger you to get hurt." There was a glint of mischief in her eyes.
He tried to smile at her quip, and mostly managed it. "Isn't it more strange for you?" he asked after a beat. "You have two husbands now."
"Yes," Peggy agreed readily, "and I love them both with all my heart."
They gazed at each other for a long moment.
"You look tired," Peggy said at last. "You should sleep."
He knew better than to argue with her, and he was tired, and so they laid down together, heads close together on the pillow and arms wrapped around each other as usual. Gradually, it became comfortably warm under their shared blanket, and despite the strangeness of the day's events, Steve felt his eyelids grow heavy.
He smiled sleepily at Peggy before reaching out to gently stroke her cheek with the back of his knuckles. Her eyes smiled at his, and she took his hand in hers and pressed a soft kiss against his fingers.
"Good night, sweetheart," he murmured.
Then his eyelids slid shut and he drifted off to sleep, feeling the warmth of Peggy's hand clasped in his as she whispered back: "Good night, darling."
Peggy waited until Steve's breathing was slow and steady and she was sure he was completely asleep. At last, she carefully disentangled her legs from his and slipped out of their bed, pausing only to don her slippers before padding out of the bedroom and into the dining room.
Sarah was waiting for her there, fully dressed.
"Ready, Mom?" she whispered, standing up expectantly.
She nodded once, eager to get on with it. "Ready."
Sarah made a quick flicking motion with her wrist, and suddenly the air in front of them cracked as if she'd thrown a rock against a window. Then she put both hands together and fanned them outward, and in response the cracked "glass" crystallized into dozens of sharply angled facets, as though the air itself had turned into a glittering diamond.
Turning toward Peggy, Sarah offered her arm for support, and together the two of them paced deliberately toward the shattered air. Without hesitation, Sarah walked straight into it, and to Peggy's surprise she felt no immediate change as she was enveloped by the phenomenon and then, only a step later, emerged from it again, still holding her daughter's arm.
The furniture in the room looked exactly the same on the other side... only in reverse.
"The Mirror Dimension," Sarah murmured. Her voice echoed strangely, as if they were standing in a large open room and not the cozy dining room that still appeared to surround them. "Nothing we do here can affect the real world. It'll be safe to watch. No one will see us or hear us." She looked at Peggy. "Here we go."
She pulled out her sling ring and used it to open a golden portal. Peggy stepped closer to it and saw that it led into a spacious warehouse-like room that was mostly empty except for a set that had been constructed in the center. The two of them could see the back sides of the hastily constructed walls, and a spotlight shining on a tall cardboard "building" placed outside a false window.
Sarah and Peggy exchanged a long look, and then they stepped through the portal together.
There were S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel moving in and out of the set with a quiet haste, carrying in props: a vase filled with flowers, a bedside lamp, an old-fashioned radio. A man in a suit was setting up a speaker outside one of the false windows, and when he switched it on, it began to broadcast street noises. Not far away, a young woman with dark wavy hair, dressed in 1940s attire, was holding still to have makeup applied to her face by an older woman. None of them, of course, saw Peggy and Sarah watching from the other side of the Mirror.
And there, apart from all the hushed hubbub, was Nick Fury himself: dressed in a black turtleneck and a knee-length dark coat and pacing in front of a row of agents armed with stun guns. Fury's hands were clasped behind his back, and he wore a frown of concentration so fierce it was almost a scowl.
"Tell Fontes to extend the perimeter out another block," he abruptly told one of the agents, who nodded and then lifted a radio to his lips to pass along the order.
"If he runs, let him run," Fury continued. He rubbed his face and added more quietly, almost to himself: "He won't run for long."
Peggy ignored Fury and the agents and moved past them to enter the false corridor that had been set up outside the door of the set, with Sarah following her closely.
Dr. Stacey was standing at the doorway of the set, dressed in a medical coat and watching the proceedings inside with her arms crossed and her eyes thoughtful. Standing just behind her, Peggy hesitated, but Sarah met her eyes and gestured with her head for Peggy to enter the room anyway.
"It doesn't matter if you touch anyone," she said, her voice still echoing strangely. "They won't feel it."
Peggy nodded, and with renewed confidence she slipped past Dr. Stacey and entered the room. She did have to brush up against the doctor, but Dr. Stacey's expression didn't change in the slightest as she did so. Once inside, she could see that preparations were nearly complete. The room looked convincingly like a 1940s hospital, down to the last detail: the style of the furniture, the radiator under the window, even the newspaper folded on the nightstand.
And then an agent moved out of her way, and Peggy saw him at last.
Steve Rogers was lying on his back on the bed, eyes closed and limbs relaxed, dressed in khaki pants and a snug-fitting white T-shirt emblazoned with the SSR logo. There were no bandages or visible marks on him, not even an IV in his arm, and his cheeks had a rosy flush of health. Peggy had braced herself to see the pale stillness of a man in a coma, and she couldn't deny the sudden rush of relief she felt that Steve looked merely asleep.
A nurse dressed in scrubs was perched beside him on the edge of the bed, holding up Steve's official Army photo in one hand while with the other she carefully parted his hair and then combed it neatly into place, eyes flicking back and forth between the photo and her task in a business-like way. Moving as if in a dream, Peggy left Sarah standing by the door and slowly paced to the other side of the bed. She carefully sat down on the edge, the folds of her new nightgown brushing against her ankles.
She could feel the softness of the mattress sinking beneath her, as surely as she had felt the firmness of the ground as she walked on it, and yet in the faint double outline of the bed — like what you saw when you looked too closely into a mirror — she could tell she hadn't moved the real bed at all, only the Mirrored one.
She leaned over her husband and looked him over with a quickening pulse.
He was painfully young to her eyes. Somehow she had been picturing him as she remembered him from the day he had come home to her, subtly aged by his years in the future and all the terrible things he'd seen. But here he was only a young man, even younger than their youngest grandchildren now. His skin was smooth and firm, and his hair a brighter shade of gold than even their grandson Steven's. He did not look old enough to have fought a whole war already, much less to have spent decades buried in ice awaiting this unlikely rescue.
She could hardly believe that for him, their first kiss had happened only hours ago.
Tears pricked Peggy's eyes as she thought of that moment: how she had hesitated and almost not done it. How many times afterward she had thanked God that she had, no matter how terrible the timing had been, with Colonel Phillips sitting right there and Schmidt slipping away from them and the car heading full-speed toward a cliff...
And Steve had been so stunned by it that he hadn't had time to show anything on his face but surprise. Peggy had spent the long dark months afterward wishing with every fiber of her being that they could have had even a few seconds more. Long enough to see him smile. Or long enough for him to muster the courage to kiss her in return. If only...
If only.
But at least he had gone off knowing for certain how she felt about him.
Peggy leaned further over him to study his face a little more closely. His eyes were closed and his face utterly relaxed, in the deepest of sleeps. Not a twitch of his eyelids. He wasn't even dreaming.
Carefully, she laid a trembling hand on his chest. She could feel the warmth of his skin radiating through his T-shirt, the taut muscles underneath, the steady beat of his heart. It was all she could do not to lie down next to him, to lay her head on his chest and feel his hand coming up to sleepily stroke her hair, as he had done so many times before. But there was a wall between them now, and she would have to live with that. She would have to learn to share him with the world all over again.
"Steve," Peggy breathed out softly.
There was a sudden intake of breath through his nose, and he turned his head on the pillow ever so slightly toward her.
A little taken aback, Peggy glanced back at Sarah still standing back by the door, whose brow creased in puzzlement. Peggy looked back at Steve; his head had relaxed on the pillow again, but his breath had subtly quickened. The nurse who was combing his hair had paused in the very act, comb hovering in midair as she looked at her patient uncertainly.
"Dr. Stacey?" she said with a hint of tension in her voice, glancing across the room. "I think he's coming around."
Dr. Stacey nudged aside an agent in her way and came over to the bed. The nurse stood up, and Dr. Stacey leaned over Steve and put her stethoscope to his chest. There was a long moment of silence — even the others in the room paused with what they were doing to watch — and then Dr. Stacey took the stethoscope out of her ears and said with quiet authority: "We need to clear the room. Now."
The nurse and the agents in the room instantly obeyed, moving out with silent efficiency, one of them pausing only long enough to start a recording of a baseball game announcer on a small device hidden inside an old-fashioned radio. For a brief moment Sarah and Peggy were the only ones left in the room with Steve, but Peggy locked eyes with her daughter and nodded her head toward the door, and Sarah nodded knowingly and slipped out, too.
Steve and Peggy were alone.
He moved his head slightly on the pillow again, making a soft sound in the back of his throat.
"Steve?" Peggy whispered. "It's time to wake up, darling."
Slowly, his eyes opened, and his blue gaze rested on the ceiling for a long moment. His eyebrows quirked together in faint puzzlement.
"I know," Peggy said softly. "You didn't expect to wake up at all, did you? Not after that crash." She took in a long, slow breath. "I'm so glad that you did." She felt tears prickling her eyes. "And I'm- so sorry it had to happen this way."
Slowly Steve sat up, looking around himself blankly, taking in the hospital-green walls, the white roses on the side table, the window where sunlight streamed in. The voice on the radio chattered away about the Brooklyn Dodgers. He didn't look frightened. Only confused.
"Everything's different now," Peggy whispered, and she couldn't stop herself from reaching out and putting a comforting hand on his arm, even though she knew he couldn't feel it. "You'll see soon enough. It isn't a world of soldiers and spies anymore. Not even a world of heroes. And you'll think it a cruel twist of fate that you lived to see it. Some... terrible mistake."
She dropped her voice a little lower. "But darling, it isn't." She tightened her grip on his arm. "It's a miracle."
The recording outside the set played a car horn honking, and Steve turned to look out the false window with a faint frown.
"You're needed here," Peggy whispered. "That life you wanted to live after the war was over... it'll have to wait a little longer. There's work to be done. Wrongs to avenge. But when you're finished..." A single tear slipped down her wrinkled cheek. "I'll be back home, waiting for you."
There was more she wanted to say, but she hesitated. Steve was breathing quicker now, his eyes darting around the room, a faint distress growing in his eyes. He knew something was wrong. He knew something was off. He was too bright to be fooled this way, even if Fury didn't know it yet. And from the hallway outside, the click of approaching high heels could be heard.
Peggy reached out and squeezed his hand where it rested on the bed. "I love you, darling," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "I love you. And whatever happens, I promise you this: You won't be alone."
The door opened, and Steve's head swiveled to see a young woman dressed in a 1940s-style white shirt with an olive green skirt and matching tie enter the room. He regarded her with subtly narrowed eyes, but she smiled at him in a friendly way.
"Good morning," she said in a low pleasant voice, and then glanced at her watch. "Or should I say afternoon?"
He fixed her with the gaze of a man uneasy from the approach of impending catastrophe, even if he didn't yet know the nature of it.
"Where am I?" he asked her faintly.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's note: Reviews welcome! I'd love to know what you think so far.