Epilogue
That morning, a few minutes before noon, Jaime quietly opened her eyes. "Mornin', Beautiful," Steve whispered, his fingertips brushing the hair from her eyes and lingering to caress her cheek. Jaime smiled weakly but radiantly at him, and he stayed perched on the edge of the bed, speaking to her softly as she slowly regained her senses.
"Steve...can I ask you a really weird question?" Jaime began, once she was finally 'all there'.
"Anything you want, Sweetheart."
"When we were kids, right around the time we met..." God, how do I say this without sounding like a crazy person? she wondered to herself. Might as well just spill it. "Steve...did you ever swipe the shoes off one of my dolls?"
He blushed (at least, the Colonel Steve Austin dignified version of blushing) and took a second to collect himself. "Where on Earth did that come from?"
"Did you?" Jaime persisted.
"You must've had some pretty weird dreams under that anesthetic -"
"Steve...?"
Steve gave a little chuckle, shaking his head in amusement. "Yeah, I guess I did. Haven't thought about that since – well, since we were kids."
"What happened to the shoes?"
"Well, I sort of...lost them," he admitted, hedging just like the little boy who'd dropped the shoes.
"And you never found them again?" Jaime persisted.
"You know, it was the weirdest thing. You were so upset that you threatened to never speak to me again. Then all of a sudden, there was a shoe, right on the ground by my feet. Maybe it fell out of a hole in my pocket."
Jaime smiled reassuringly at him. "Maybe it did." Under the blanket, her left hand quietly fingered its contents: one tiny, perfect black Mary Jane.
END