32 Funeral

The funeral came quickly, because the days passed in a blur for Steve. He went through the motions, with Natasha's help getting dressed and she did his hair nice for him and Bucky joined them in his only good suit, his hands clasped behind his back and a solemn look on his face. They were about to leave, but Steve hesitated in the hallway upon seeing Sharon's door and it occurred to him to stop.

"What is it?" Bucky asked and Steve forced himself to knock on Sharon's door before he could tell himself to stop. Sharon opened the door after a while and her hair was tied back and she wore a veil, but Steve could see the redness of her eyes underneath the material. He could sense Bucky and Natasha's eyes on his back.

"Hey," Steve said gently.

"Hi," Sharon whispered, looking up at him. Steve glanced back towards Bucky and Natasha, waiting for him apprehensively, then turned back.

"You're all alone," he said to Sharon and Sharon looked behind her at her empty apartment and managed a smile and a shrug.

"It's fine," she said and Steve looked into her face and this time, he didn't see Peggy. This time, Steve saw himself.

"It's not," he replied and then offered her his arm. "Come with us," he said. "Don't be alone." Sharon looked at Steve and at his bent arm, extended to her, and he could see her withdrawing already.

"No, no," she began to say, shaking her head, and blonde hair began to fall in her face underneath the black tool of the veil separating them. "No, it's fine. I'll be there in just one minute, I'll see you there."

"Sharon," Steve said, dropping his arm. "You don't have to do this by yourself." Sharon looked down so he couldn't see her face anymore and let out a breath.

"You may be scared of being alone," Sharon said pointedly, a pain settling behind the cruelty of her words. "But some of us have learned to get over it." Steve felt like he had been hit and suddenly, where there had been nothing but a veil between them, there rose a thick wall of barbed wire and Sharon glared at the floor. Steve felt himself take a step back with the weight of her words making him suddenly ashamed for feeling empathetic. "I'll see you at the funeral," Sharon finally said and shut the door and Steve swallowed and stood there, staring, his shoulders hunched forward, until Bucky took his arm back from Natasha and stepped forward to retrieve Steve, touching his shoulder lightly.

"Come on," Bucky said quietly. "Come on, you tried. That's all you can do, you tried."

The funeral was not much better. Surely, it was a lovely service and it was all Steve could do to avoid letting tears fall in public, but he was singled out among her mourning family as someone who didn't quite fit. He was unusual, he stood out, and he didn't want to. All the rest of Peggy's classmates were dead, and Steve should be, too, and he was reminded of that in every long stare and every uncomfortable hello.

He thought, throughout the funeral, of the icy water freezing him stiff, the darkness and the split in the ice fast growing small above him. He thought of his fear, of how it seemed Bucky had come back to save him, and how he should be having a funeral too.

Sharon sat in the front row with the rest of her family and Steve watched the back of her head bow to wipe tears away and Steve hoped she didn't feel alone, up there in the very front. He knew the fact that she was surrounded by family was meaningless regarding true loneliness and he figured there was no way to tell. After all, she'd push him away. And she'd sworn that of aloneness, she wasn't afraid.

After the funeral and after they'd stood in the freezing, dry air and lowered her casket into the ground, Steve wanted to stay at the gravesite and do something for Peggy. But Peggy's family was standing around her grave and he couldn't intrude. So as the rest of the attendees rose to leave, Steve stood too and he looked through the crowd to find Sharon's eyes seeking his. She made a pitying face and he could see her open her mouth to sigh as she nodded her head to him, beckoning him over.

Steve told Bucky and Natasha he'd meet them in the car and Bucky didn't seem to want to leave Steve, but he backed off out of respect for him and once Steve was watching their backs walking away, he turned and approached Sharon.

Sharon stepped back and stood next to him as they stared at the headstone being placed. Sharon's family mumbled and sniffled around them, and Sharon leaned into Steve and spoke.

"You can," she said and swallowed and her voice was thick. "You can say goodbye, too."

Steve looked over at Sharon, shocked to be shown this kindness, and eternally grateful.

"Oh, thank you," Steve said. "Thank you." Sharon just nodded and Steve knelt in the grass, nearer to the open grave, watching the smooth, gleaming headstone being set. He looked down and kissed his fingers and pressed them to the dirt and felt his face grow hot and silent tears fall. He'd cried so much already that these tears, they just came and they were thick and silent, as those kinds of tears always were, the kind that came after everything else, after there was just you and the pain because you'd cried everything else away.

In fact, the pain was so acute that he for once hardly noticed the cold.

Margaret "Peggy" Carter

1919-2014

Loved wife, mother, daughter and aunt

"What we kept in memory is ours forever"