Homecoming. The school was abuzz with excitement as the students prepared for the biggest game of the year. They were playing a good school, not their rival by any means, but what should be an easy win for Homecoming. That was, if the school's star player wasn't stuck on the bench all night.
James shoved his books into his locker with a sigh, having already disappointed half the student body by admitting he wasn't actually playing in the big game. Chad snickered as he walked by with Miranda on his arm, some sort of consolation prize to show neither of them needed James Carter. He wasn't even sure if he'd go to the dance at all.
"Stop being such a sourpuss, Carter, at least Principal Bradly is letting you go to the dance." Hunter hissed as he closed his locker, pulling a note out of his back pocket to push through the slits of the locker two down. James drew his brows at his friend and Brent just shook his head with a sigh.
"You know it's an asshole move to break up with her in a note."
Hunter shrugged, "She won't get it until Monday. We aren't really 'dating' so much as we are 'enjoying each other's company'" Hunter said in air quotes as the three started walking. "I feel like it's a good way to let her down easy. I let her know we should pursue all available options before limiting ourselves with labels."
"That's stupid." James blurted and Brent gestured toward James in agreement. "I don't even have a date for the dance, and I'm totally fine with it. I might not even go, like I said, I might have better things to do..."
"Hey, how'd yesterday go? The funeral with the girl, right?" Brent questioned as they pushed through the doors into the cool autumn air.
James licked his lips, clicking the fob for his car, "It went okay. She seemed a little off."
"Maybe because her mother died?" Brent supplied as they stopped by James's car, "Did you ask her to come tonight?"
"Against my better judgment and before I got benched, yes. She said she'd call me. She didn't, so I'm going to assume that's a no... Which to be perfectly honest is fine, because tonight is going to be a shit show." James sighed as he opened his car door. "Wanna ride? I'm just going to grab a burger or two before the game."
Hunter and Brent looked to each other, then Hunter made a big show of shrugging at his friend, "Sure. I mean, who else is going to hold your six hundred and twenty-two cheeseburgers while you drive?"
"That's absolutely ridiculous." James snapped, grinning ear to ear, "I only need six hundred and fourteen."
"Sarah, company's here, come down for dinner!" Kayla called upstairs, pulling her daughter's attention away from her drawing. Sarah squinted at the paper, trying to pull the memory from her mind, but she just couldn't see the funeral again. She'd been trying since yesterday afternoon to remember what she'd seen when she zoned out. It had seemed so real, like a memory, not a dream. For some reason, though, she just couldn't picture it again.
"Give me just a second, I'll be right there!" Sarah called loudly, clearing her throat afterwards as she made another fuzzy line to the small woman she somewhat remembered. Seconds turned to minutes, and the smell of salmon and fried vegetables wafted upstairs, but it still wasn't enough to break Sarah's concentration. It wasn't until a knock on her doorframe that she turned from her work. "Morgan!"
"Hey Sarah." Morgan greeted the younger girl with a hug. She pulled away and studied her friend, and Sarah could tell Morgan was clearly more comfortable than she'd been the day before. "What are you working on?"
"Oh." Sarah looked over her shoulder to the messy drawing, realizing she'd sketched Morgan's home into the picture, "It's nothing."
"Doesn't look like nothing." Morgan said happily as she moved into the room to get a better look. She studied Sarah's art for a moment before asking, "Is this my place?"
"Yeah. I- it's hard to explain." Sarah stumbled, trying to dig herself out of the hole instead of deeper into it. "Do you ever see something in your mind and can't shake it? Like a dream, but you're awake?"
"Like a daydream?" Morgan questioned and Sarah shook her head.
"No. Like... well, maybe like a daydream. I just felt like I was having a memory, but, I didn't recognize anyone in it." Sarah explained, pressing her fingertips together to stretch out her fingers. "Like I said, it's weird. Sometimes I just like to sketch things to get them out of my head."
Morgan nodded, taking in the information, "Dad says your dad loves to draw too. You must get it from him."
"Yeah, he always drew with me when I was a kid. He still does, sometimes. He likes to go up to the attic and be alone." Sarah shrugged, looking at her sketch one more time, "Let's go eat. I'm sure you're starving."
Morgan smiled softly, gesturing for Sarah to lead the way out of the room, allowing her one last good look before following.
"Dinner was absolutely wonderful, Aunt Katie. Thank you so much!" Morgan cooed as she sat her napkin on the table. She sat her hands on her lap, pretending not to notice Sarah feeding chunks of fish to Zawadi under the table.
"You're quite welcome. Thank you for coming to visit! We've missed you." Kayla answered softly. She smiled sadly then added, "Please call me Kayla. We've told James and Sarah a bit more about our situation... I'm sure your father's talked to you about it."
"Yes. Yes he has." Morgan answered carefully, trying to gauge where Kayla wanted the conversation to go. "I don't know a lot of details though."
Kayla took a long swig of her water, lowering her brows when she saw Sarah feeding her dog, "Well, neither do they. But when we went into witness protection we were told we could tell them when they reached eighteen. There's a small window where they both are, but perhaps we can bend the rules a little bit. Sarah isn't the one to make trouble."
Sarah snorted, stabbing a bite of beans with her fork and munching on them happily. "Yeah, I actively try not to get arrested."
"Arrested?" Steve lifted his head to Kayla and she looked to their daughter in annoyance. Steve tilted his head to his wife, but she waved him off, turning back to Morgan and Sarah across the table.
"So are you two coming to the game tonight or..." Kayla trailed off, ignoring Steve's questioning glare about the previous comment.
Morgan opened her mouth to answer, looking to Sarah questioningly, but the blonde just continued eating her vegetables now that her fish was dog food. "I, uh, thought that was kind of the point?"
"She means because James isn't playing. He got in trouble for skipping school yesterday." Sarah supplied casually. When she caught Morgan's surprised look, she shrugged, "He said it was worth it to see you. Not sure how he'd feel about you coming to his game though, since he's not playing and he's kind of embarrassed."
"Oh, I mean, what do you want to do?" Morgan questioned, looking over to Steve and Kayla, who were whispering back and forth on the other side of the table. Kayla turned her face to Morgan, wondering what she'd said. "What are you guys going to do?" Morgan repeated and Kayla looked to Steve.
"We'll still go. It's his last Homecoming, and we want to support him. But you two don't have to go. You can stay here if you'd like." Kayla said, gesturing to the living room, "You'll have the house all to yourselves, and you're more than welcome to stay over if you'd like Morgan."
"On the couch. Or you can bunk with Sarah." Steve clarified and Sarah literally dropped her fork on her plate to stare at her father. He looked to her and mouthed "what?" but didn't say anything more about the matter.
"We'll stay here. Hang out. Watch movies. Catch up!" Morgan said quickly, beaming at Sarah, "Plus, I'd like to see more of your work."
Sarah pushed herself from the table, ready to get back to work and maybe pick Morgan's brain about who she'd seen. "We'll clean up while you guys are at the game. Get out of here, you don't want to be late."
Kayla smiled gently, grabbing Steve's hand and giving it a squeeze, "If you change your mind you can always come late. We'll see you both after the game."
"Thank you again for dinner, Aunt Kayla." Morgan said, careful to say the correct name, and the beaming grin on the woman's face told Morgan she'd done the right thing.
Kayla turned to Steve once the girls were gone and he answered her question before she could ask it, "We'll tell them tomorrow. Or perhaps Morgan will let it slip tonight and save us the trouble."
"She never slipped growing up." Kayla remembered, fondly recalling weekends by the lake.
Steve grabbed his and Kayla's plates and carried them to the sink, "Adults usually slip up more than children anyway."
Morgan took a seat on Sarah's bed as Sarah picked up her pencil. She heard the door close, signaling Kayla and Steve had left for the game, leaving the two young women to their own devices. Morgan studied the framed photos of the family, lingering especially long on one of Sarah and Steve together. They were working with clay, forming some sort of mug, but Sarah had wiped the excess on Steve's nose, causing him to grin mischievously at her in response. The more Morgan looked at it, the more she started to see the fabric of it, realizing it wasn't a photo, it was a drawing. "You are really talented Sarah." Morgan gawked as she stood up to get a closer look, realizing everything on the wall was hand drawn. "You could do this for a living you know."
"That's what Dad says, but I always just brush it off as him stroking my ego. He's the really talented one." Sarah retorted, finally pressing the pencil to paper. "His style is like, 1950s newspaper comic style. I'm more into photo-realism. But I enjoy his work. There's a little book over there with all the drawings he did for me... and eventually with me. You'll be able to tell when I joined in." Sarah laughed as she shaded the eyes of the woman who had looked right at her, remembering her more clearly than anyone else other than Bucky.
Morgan flipped through the scrapbook, taking in Steve's drawings of Sarah and James and Kayla with her kids. After a while, there would be random crayon colors inside the lines, signifying Sarah had entered the picture. Crayon marks turned to colored pencil marks and suddenly the pages were perfectly in sync. Morgan noticed the signatures at the bottom of the drawings and frowned when she realized they all said Steve. Not Steve Carter. Certainly not Steve Rogers. Just Steve, and eventually Steve and Sarah, and finally just Sarah Carter. Morgan imagined it was hard for Steve to sign something he'd worked so hard on as somebody else. "This is really cute. I like the additions of your colors." Morgan giggled, closing the book and setting it back down on the bookshelf near the window.
Sarah responded with a frustrated groan, "I can't do this anymore tonight." She flipped over the cover and turned to Morgan with her hands on her hips. She pursed her lips thoughtfully as she stared back at her guest, then her teeth broke through her smile at an idea, "Let me show you some more of Dad's old drawings. Maybe it'll help get the inspiration flowing..."
Maybe he knows who some of those people were...
Morgan followed Sarah into her parents' room, not really needing to see more of Steve's drawings and unsure why Sarah felt the need to go looking for them. "Whatever you want, I'm really fine with anything."
Sarah pulled open Steve's dresser drawers, then stood and looked around, her mind made up. Zawadi rested on Steve and Kayla's bed, looking up at Sarah with big eyes as she rifled through her father's things, "I know Dad used to draw when he needed to think. He had a book, a big black book..." Sarah looked up, "I think I know where he keeps it."
"Which is..." Morgan trailed off as Sarah darted into her parents' walk-in closet. She looked up at the ring in the ceiling and Morgan followed her gaze, realizing what Sarah was planning, "I, uh, don't think we're gonna get up there."
Morgan didn't realize Sarah had wandered away until she reappeared with her rolling desk chair, "Sure we are. That's what chairs are for. Hold it steady for me please?"
"You sure we should be doing this? We could watch a movie? Or play a game..." Morgan suggested as Sarah heaved herself onto the chair, using her left hand to hold the back while reaching up and grabbing the ring. She pulled on it, but it didn't budge, wedged back into place by her father.
"No. I'm determined. I never get to go up here and they'll never suspect a thing because James isn't home. He's the only one of us who gets into trouble." Sarah grit her teeth and carefully reached up her other hand, looping both hands around the ring and bending her knees so all her weight pulled against the door. She was just heavy enough to dangle from the attic stairs, eventually pulling the door loose and allowing her to pull down the ladder. "See. It's fine. We just have to put it back up when we're done."
Morgan stared at Sarah with wide eyes as the seventeen-year-old climbed the ladder to the attic. Zawadi appeared at the base of the chair and started barking, warning Sarah not to go. Morgan stared at the dog for a moment, then sighed and followed behind carefully, regretting it more and more with every step.
Once in the attic, Sarah looked for her father's sketchpad around all the boxes. Morgan looked around, noting all the cobwebs and dust. Apparently Sarah's dad hadn't been up here in a while. She peeked into the closest box, reaching in slowly to pull out an elegant blue dress.
"Found it!" Sarah lifted a black book up near the window, blowing on it to clean it off. She sat it down on her father's chair and crouched down to flip through it. Morgan carefully tiptoed her way to the window, looking out to see the sun was almost over the horizon. Sarah creased her brows in confusion, "Could you pull the light switch? Over by the door?" Morgan obliged, turning on the light above her to cast an orange glow around the attic.
Morgan watched Sarah's expression morph into utter confusion. Her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly and she let out a heavy cough. Morgan returned to Sarah's side, rubbing her back, "You okay-" Her voice died on her lips when she looked at the sketch Sarah was gazing at.
"I'm not sure." Sarah whispered quietly, closing the book. "It's nothing right? This- this is nothing. Dad's just a fan. Of course he is, I mean, lots of people are." Sarah wheezed a little, coughing again to try and loosen her chest, "Sorry, it's all the dust."
"Maybe we should go back downstairs then?" Morgan motioned toward the stairs, hearing Zawadi continue to bark at them, but Sarah didn't budge. She looked to her right, taking in the closet that didn't quite close all the way. Something jagged shone from the crack and Sarah stood slowly, taking a step toward the object. Morgan saw it too and grabbed Sarah's arm, "Come on, let's go. You said it yourself, we don't want your parents to realize we were up here." Sarah took another tentative step and Morgan mumbled to herself, "I should have gone to the football game."
Sarah reached the closet and looked down through the crack, breathing heavily. She grabbed the door to pull it open, but hesitated. She could leave it be. She could walk away and pretend she never saw anything. Or she could open the door, and understand who she was for the first time in her life.