Sorry I didn't update last week. I meant to, but I didn't have any extra time to write this out. But now it's here, so yay!

I know that a lot of you are probably a little concerned after the events of the last chapter, and you very well should be. There's something in this one that might make you a bit more saddened by the situation too.

Anyway, hope you really enjoy this chapter!

3

"Jack!"

Jack ran down the dark alleyway in the direction of Peggy's screams. It was dark, and he could barely see where exactly he was going. Twice he ran into some garbage cans, falling over the second time. With a groan, he pulled himself up.

"Jack!"

"Peggy?" Jack yelled, scrambling to his feet. "Peggy, where are you?"

"Jack, please!"

The cry sounded closer to him this time. Jack started running toward it, squinting in the darkness for any sign of Peggy. Up ahead, he saw the yellow glow of a street lamp illuminating a portion of the street. Something was lying in the middle of the light, unmoving. As he approached it, Jack felt his steps falter. It was Peggy, pale-skinned and bloody with a cluster of bullet holes around her heart.

"No," Jack sank down beside her body. "Oh God, no."

Jack awoke with a start. He wasn't in an alleyway, just his apartment. There was no blood pooling on the ground, no dead Peggy. He could see where everything was. It had just been another nightmare.

Except Peggy was still missing.

Rubbing his eyes, Jack rolled out of bed and started getting ready for the day ahead of him. His thoughts, however, remained on Peggy. It had been over two months since she'd been taken in Russia. In the first few weeks after her disappearance, everyone had been chipping in to help with the search. Even Howard Stark had given the SSR a large sum of money to help fund the hunt. But the trail had quickly gone cold, and people lost hope. Only himself, Sousa, and Stark were still searching for her now.

With each passing day, Jack felt himself getting more and more worried. Every night, he found himself subjected to horrible dreams, all which ended with him losing Peggy. He would always hear her calling out his name, screaming for him. But every time, he was always too late, and she would be dead. Every time he failed to save her in his dreams, Jack felt it eating away at him on the inside.

Pulling his suspenders up over his shoulders, Jack made his way over to his desk and pulled out one of the drawers. Reaching inside, he pulled out a black velvet box. Sitting down in the chair beside it, Jack flicked it open, gazing at the ring inside. He'd purchased it two days before he and Peggy had gone to Russia. The plan had been to propose to her a few weeks after the assignment in Russia. Unfortunately, that was now on hold until Peggy was found.

Jack sighed and closed the box, putting it back in the desk drawer. If Peggy was here right now, she would tell him to keep going on with his life. Jack knew he would tell her the same thing in a heartbeat. But there was a piece of himself missing along with her. He felt incomplete, empty. The feeling had been there since he had woken up in that hospital bed and Sousa told him that Peggy was missing.

People were treating her like she was dead. They were already beginning to move past her. But he just couldn't do the same.

"I know you're out there, Peg," Jack murmured softly, looking at the drawer. "I'll find you and bring you home."

"How is she progressing?"

A dark haired man in a doctor's coat turned and nodded at the other speaker. As the new person took his place beside the other man, he turned his head to look through the gym door at the scene taking place inside A young woman with brown hair tied back from her face was sparring with one of the soldiers of the base. An older, severe woman was watching the brunette's progress with a careful eye.

"Since she was wiped, there's been incredible improvement," the doctor said, watching the woman twist the soldier's arm behind his back, eliciting a cry of pain from him. "Her previous SSR training has been very helpful to her training here. She's mastered so much in so short a time. Pity that the girl we send after Stark wasn't her. Leviathan's plans would have succeeded then."

"Does she remember anything about her past life? Or him?"

The doctor shook his head. "We showed her a picture of him, the one we snapped of him when he was coming in to enter the meeting point. There was no recollection of him whatsoever."

"So if he gets in the way of her mission, then she'll have no problem killing him," the other man said, a small, nasty smile creeping across his face. "Excellent, but the question is do we keep her after the mission is completed?"

A short gasp broke out from inside the gym, followed by a stomach-churning crunch. Both men looked back into the gym casually. The brunette stood over the dead body of the soldier she'd been fighting with. The older woman in the room gave her a small nod of approval.

"We release her from the brainwashing," the doctor responded as their newest agent was led off by the older woman. "The SSR needs to be destroyed entirely. When she wakes up, she will see what she's done and who she has killed, and that will be what will kill her in the end."

So Peggy's been brainwashed and they want her to destroy the SSR! *gasp* Anyone worried?

Please review and tell me what you think! Also, has anyone been following the AOS/Agent Carter dubsmash battle!