She still can't forget that terrible night. She only regretted that she couldn't bury the little one, but she knew Audrey was right...Everything had to be cleaned up before anybody noticed...She wasn't exactly friends with the other women at the desert base, not knowing them well, and they would have exposed her, like a traitor breaking rules, like bringing men into the tent, and all since they never knew that she and Steve was more than friendly.
Amanda gasped in horror, her heart breaking to see the sight of her pregnant daughter grieving, and sat beside her, asking gently, "When?". Peggy spoke softly, "F-February.".
"Wha-", Harrison was dumbfounded to hear that. "That's impossible...", he said. The math didn't add up in his head. "How could you lose your child yet still have one? Was it twins?". His mind went to the only logical route left.
Peggy took deep breaths, trying to wipe her tears, "Possibly, but hard to say...I..it was so little, barely becoming a baby...I never...I never got to know if it was a boy or a girl...The pain was so horrible...Steve was on a mission...We were trying a lot, Mum, Dad...You know how much trouble I had getting pregnant...I was having signs before that night...Morning sickness, no period...I was starting to hope...Then I lost hope again...Steve brought me back...And we kept moving on, trying again after I mourned...I kept quiet, not wanting to jinx again if it was my fault...as I noticed things, I was trying not to get all my hopes up yet at the same time, praying that it held on...Then Easter came...This one, my daughter, she didn't know better, but she was hurting me by kicking at her cord, risking herself in danger...If it wasn't for one of my dearest friends, Dr. Sweet, I...I would have also lost her...".
A kick came, and Peggy gave a small smile, "I know, sweetheart, you got stronger, bigger, and smarter, and it wasn't your fault as you were just exploring. You didn't know that the cord was in the way...Thank goodness that you know better now to control your strength you got from your daddy.".
"Maggie...", Amanda wrapped her arms around Peggy tight as she started to tear up by hearing all that. The fact that she nearly lost two children... the pain of losing her son came back to her as well as she couldn't help but find refuge in the only child she had left.
Peggy was surprised before hugging her back as best as she could, "Oh, mum...I'm sorry that I'm...I'm not strong enough to...give you two grandchildren...", and Amanda shushed her, "Don't you dare, Margaret Elizabeth Rogers! I was very fortunate to have seen many wonderful years between you and your brother, and if he was here, he would have been saying the same thing that it wasn't your fault as he would have been a fantastic uncle...Yet, to have my only daughter suffer almost two miscarriages within the same year...You know I and your father would have spoiled that very first grandchild if he or she was still here with your other one...Right, Harrison?", rubbing Peggy's back, looking at Harrison.
"Of course... don't blame yourself for anything... obviously wasn't your fault, right?", he asked as she nodded. Harrison trusted that Peggy wouldn't have done anything to endanger her children if she knew she was pregnant; so obviously this was just one of those incidents where the pregnancy didn't take right, and nothing could've been done. "We would never be upset with you about that.".
Peggy gave a watery smile, "Thanks, Dad...", and Harrison nodded, "We love you, Mag-Peg, never forget that...Now, something still isn't lingering right...If you lost the first one, you would have lost a bit of the baby fat and all, and I would have understood that if the kid there right now is occupying the remaining baby fat and all, but...well...you're already so big...".
"Well, Steve isn't a normal man, but he's a honest to truth man, just a very fit soldier...with gifts he is given into becoming who he is...He wasn't always like this...", Peggy exhaled before getting up carefully, gesturing to them with a finger to wait a minute, as she walked to the bedroom, with them hearing the distinct sound of something opening and closing in a creaky place.
Peggy returned, smiling as she held the picture to her chest, along with the second slide of the photo booth from Coney Island, "As you will surely witness that our child isn't exactly normal sooner or later, you deserve to know the truth bit by bit...", caressing the pictures lovingly before giving them respectively to her parents to look together without squeezing in to see just one picture, as she then glanced at her baby bump, "Since you're on good behavior, how about some ice cream?", rubbing her lower back, feeling a eager kick, and she laughed, "Alright, coming up then...", as she waddled over to the icebox, giving her parents time to process.
"Maggie..." Amanda whispered as her parents looked closely at the photos; the wheels turning in their head as they looked at the couple in them. Obviously, it was Peggy... but the man she was with; a near dead resemblance of Steve... and yet somehow, he looked nothing like how they saw him. Shorter than her, looking like he barely was around a hundred pounds, practically the total opposite of what he is now. "This... is this Steve?", Amanda asked as Peggy had a small smile on her face as she nodded.
"This... this photo's wrong, that's not Steve, I mean, he's all-", Harrison tried to say. "Scrawny, weak, looks like a simple breeze could take him down.", Peggy gave a humorous scoff.
A kick came, "I know, I know, impatient one, but hold your horses.", as Peggy is preparing the ice cream, and she glanced over, smiling fondly, "That was when I learned that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, or a person by their size and such...He was so sweet and so kindly to me...heck, he was so surprised that a woman like me would even come to him near the dance floor when we first met...He did care to make sure that my first date with him was wonderful, showing me sights of New York City...He gave me his coat and paid for a meal and a warm drink that night...He only dared to hold my hand, to rest by my side when I scooted closer, and opened any door for me, and took me home to my temporary apartment building without taking advantage of me and made sure that I went in safely as he stood on the sidewalk before leaving...".
"Certainly sounds exactly like him from the brief time we met him the first time.", Amanda chuckled as Peggy sighed, "Strangely, a part of me kinda misses that, those early days when we still never really knew each other that well...".
"Where the war was a distant worry, a faint memory?", Harrison suggested, and Peggy chuckled, "Yeah...All those rare dates between camp and everything before his body changed...it felt like an adventure getting to know each other...".
Amanda replied, "Was it steroids like Bucky said?", and Peggy, finished with preparing the ice cream, headed out of the kitchen, walking steadily to one of the chairs within the dining/breakfast table, sitting down with a relieved sigh, began to slowly eat between explaining, "Not exactly pills as you'd think, but it was more of an energy booster with the aid of science, and some powerful energy that's stronger than coal or fuel or even electricity...Granted, we took a long time to get to that point...".
Harrison replied, "The classified mission where you spent more time with Steve?", connecting the dots like his wife, still a bit awed that Steve was somehow still a gentleman despite his past looks, and he truly loves Peggy from the looks of the pictures.
Peggy took a deep breath as she nodded, "Yes... I technically can't tell you some things... but; I think I know of some decent work arounds to it since I know you two would never breathe a word about it.".
"If it is to protect you, Steve, and our grandchildren, we would take it to our graves.", Amanda replied with a mother's instinct with a narrowing of her eyes, and Harrison nodded, "And you know I was a soldier, daughter, like your brother, and all. Family is more worthy than duty.".
"Depends on the family..." Peggy muttered under her breath. Some folks would find their duty more of a family than their blood relatives; something she noticed with a few soldiers she had encountered. Army life was a welcomed relief compared to what they had before. "Anyway... how exactly shall I put this gently...?", she asked herself as she looked back to her folks.
Harrison said, "You don't have to say the specific location for this classified information if you can't, if that is sensitive per sec, daughter.", and Amanda replied, "Take your time, honey...After all, we are visiting for the weekend.", with a reassuring, gentle smile, her heart warm to see her eating ice cream with strawberry jam which must be a dessert craving for her, as she usually prefers a fruitful popsicle when she is not pregnant.
She honestly thought Peggy had changed her mind viciously of marriage and children after canceling the wedding and that argument with her ex-fiancée, taking up a risky job in honor of her brother which Amanda wouldn't really blame her for, but she was worried that in the midst of all, she would end up married to the job, not bothering to love again...And now, somehow, with Steve bringing life back into Peggy's eyes and everything, Amanda was relieved to have her daughter back, and she is going to be a grandmother!
Though, looking back, maybe it was just because it was the wrong man. Peggy took another breath before she finally decided to speak, "Okay, well, for starters... you two are familiar with Atlantis, right?".
Harrison and Amanda blinked in confusion yet curiosity of why she asked that question, as Harrison replied, "Of course we are, through it was just a story, a myth in Greece when I mentioned it to your mother, when I toured through Greece there when I was in the war before you and your brother was born.".
"Well...", Peggy rubbed her arm before chuckling. "It wasn't actually a myth... it was real... and we went there.", she explained as she just decided to rip off the bandage there and then and not give them a run around.
They widened their eyes as they heard their daughter, and seeing that she isn't joking by the look of her eyes, and Amanda exhaled, "We could've heard rumors of a U-boat being stolen or something by the Allies...", and Peggy smiled, "You'd think that, but luckily, we got high class people in America like in good ole Britain here...One of them was eccentric enough to have money and people and a great dedication to even ask the president for permission, and he did it...It was an amazing and huge submersible...The myth of it sinking under the sea was proven right...For I and Steve, it was incredible to see how much the ocean was so big compared to us mere small humans...Sea creatures, the formations of the floor, pillars and mountains...", before feeling two kicking feet at the same time.
She laughed warmly as she stroked her baby bump, "Easy, sweetheart, I know you love the water, thanks to my soaking baths in the tub. Be patient if you want me to take a bath later, is that clear?".
A gentle kick came, and Peggy smiled, "That's my smart, good girl.", before looking up at her parents as Harrison spoke, "Was it all water on the entire journey or partly?".
"Partially... getting there required going under the water, but once we reached a point, it was traveling through tunnels under the ocean floor; had to make a few ourselves to reach certain places...", Peggy said.
Amanda replied, "Was it difficult at times?", and Peggy replied, "The temperatures changed in and out at times, but it was like...perhaps around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and the terrain was not the same all the time, but we managed.".
"How long was it?", Harrison asked, and Peggy replied, "About a week. It was easier and a bit faster on the way of returning back within a day or two shorter of the usual.", not going to mention the narwhal transportation, or the few days' vacation after the whole volcano battle.
Amanda exhaled, "So, you actually found Atlantis. It must have been both beautiful yet bittersweet...I mean, sinking under the ocean, people perished...yet ruins must have remained, right?".
"You're right about that on all counts, Mum.", Peggy said. "Of course; the biggest surprise wasn't just it being real, the ruins and all that... but rather... they survived.".
"Come again?", Harrison asked. "The Atlanteans... they survived. There were still people living there; almost all were witnesses to the catastrophe that claimed the civilization in the first place.", Peggy replied.
Amanda widened her eyes again, "Hold on, wait, are you saying that immortality is real too?", and Peggy shook her head, "No, not entirely. Just more of specifically longevity. They are as human as you, me, Dad, and this little sweetheart...", stroking her baby bump as she kept eating the last of the ice cream, satisfying her dessert cravings, knowing that she will have to eat a normal meal of snacks later on.
Harrison exhaled, "But how?", and Peggy replied, "Technology of their time which was very advanced. They forgot how to really grow crops and such, how to maintain their culture...A friend there, she said that it was like a stone that the ocean beats upon, and with each year, a tiny bit erodes away. Of course, we had people with us the whole way, and one of them strived to help bring Atlantis back to its greatness it was, or at least better and cleaned up than it looked when we got there, and his adoptive father was a scientist, a former Jew whose life strived to find a way to help stop the war, and he thought Steve would be the beginning of it.", with a nod.
"He... he was the one that helped Steve become... well, what he is?", Amanda asked as Peggy nodded. "Well; at least in terms of his body and all. Steve obviously never changed with his personality and such.", she chuckled.
Harrison chuckled, "And he's happier because of it, yes?", and Peggy replied, "Yes...He was afraid if we did get married and all before all of this, our children would be...well, teased or bullied if they had some of his previous problems, like he was...I convinced him that I grew up healthy and well, and if that happened, they would be better off now as they would be stronger because of me, and of course, with technology becoming better and more ways to have food, they would have a better life, if not best-quality, but it would be good for them...He was partially convinced, but he was still scared...And now, with the changes in his body and all, he is more relieved, more sure, and more hopeful that any children now would be healthy, strong, and a bigger newborn size at birth and all...Of course, he's still a mother hen, which is kind of sweet yet annoying!", with a small huff.
"That's just a sign that he truly cares and all...", Amanda chuckled. "Your father was very much the same with you and your brother; I don't know if you truly remember.".
Peggy hummed, "I vaguely remember trying out Michael's bike one time, and I scrapped my knee...I think Mum was shopping at the market...", and Harrison chuckled, "Oh, you were just six...I was worried yet so proud...I got relieved when I saw that it was a minor scrape...You nearly gave me a heart attack when Michael was only two years older than you, and that bike was almost the size of you...I think I realized that I got two adventurous kids that day, and that you were more than what your mother was trying to help you to be...No offense, Amanda...", glancing at his wife.
"None taken...I should have known that I was stopping you from being yourself when I saw you battling toy swords with your brother when you were 7...You are so full of life, Maggie...", Amanda replied.
"It's okay, Mum... You and Dad were trying to give us the best life we could have than you had when you were kids...That's what I feel for this darling girl...", Peggy smiled as she stroked her baby bump.
Harrison smiled, "And you shouldn't worry...You are a good mother as far as we could see, and everything will be alright...Yes, you might make mistakes as they grow up and all, but mistakes are lessons, and lessons help you learn, and be a bit wiser and maturer in a way. Any well-meaning parent can do that every day in the whole world, and you aren't alone, for you have us for advice, and Steve to support and be there and be involved.".
Peggy gently got up from her chair, walking to the couch, and slowly sat down between her parents, hugging them with her arms, "Thank you...", as they hugged their daughter gently, smiling as they kissed their daughter on the temples, and they blinked in surprise as an eager kick came.