Chapter Four

The world was ending.

Peggy didn't remember falling asleep. She hadn't thought she could sleep tonight, but she must have dozed off after all because she stood beside a river, water lapping at her shoes. The sky was on fire; flaming metal crashed into the river all around her.

And there, wading to shore…

Peggy's heart caught in her throat and she started to run upstream, scrambling over the rocks and through the underbrush that bordered the river.

She caught up just as they reached the shore, and the man dragging Steve's body dropped him. Peggy dropped to her knees at her captain's side, trying to assess the damage, trying to stop the bleeding even though her hands just kept slipping straight through into empty nothingness.

It was bad. It was really, really bad. And if this truly was more than just a dream…

"Go for help," Peggy demanded, looking up at the man who still stood over them. "Go for…"

And that was when she recognized him.

Bucky. Beneath the water and the lanky sodden hair, beneath the armor and the metal and the leather, it was Bucky Barnes.

And one horrified look at his bloody knuckles told her who was responsible for Steve's condition.

Even through the horror, Peggy felt a gulp of hysterical laughter rise up in her throat. So these were just dreams after all. Because more impossible than monsters or machines or anything else she had yet dreamed was the idea that Bucky Barnes would ever turn on his own brother.

"Sergeant Barnes," she demanded anyway. "Bucky. Go find help."

And to her utter astonishment, his eyes flickered in her direction.

It was only the briefest of moments—too quick for her to decide whether it was all a coincidence or not. Then the furrow deepened in his brow. With one last look at Steve, he turned and began pushing through the underbrush.

Somehow she knew he wouldn't come back.

She turned her attention again to Steve—Steve who was bleeding out right there on the riverbank. This time her subconscious had got his uniform right, she noticed vaguely, more preoccupied with the terrifying amount of blood staining his midsection and puddling beneath his thigh. There was water in his mouth, dribbling down the side of his face as he feebly struggled for air. Peggy suddenly wished she'd ordered Bucky to turn the captain's head so the water could at least drain out of his mouth. She tried, but as always in her dreams she was unable to touch him.

And this could only be a dream.

Because otherwise Steve was dying in front of her, murdered by his own best friend, all while she stood by powerless to help.

Yes, this fell squarely into nightmare territory.

"Steve," she whispered. She laid her hand against his cheek, trying to imagine the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, trying to will herself into tangibility. Her voice sharpened. "Steven Grant Rogers, don't you dare give up on me."

His eyelashes were wet and clumped together in little spikes. Based on the bruising she guessed he had a broken cheekbone or orbital, and even in unconsciousness he looked unutterably weary. Peggy smoothed her thumb across his split lip and felt her heart break in her chest all over again.

He looked so, so real.

"You've already died on me once, Steve," she begged. "Don't make me watch you die again."

His mouth moved in another attempt for breath. Then, either on his own volition or at the urging of her intangible hand on his cheek, his head tipped sideways. Water and blood spilled out of his mouth onto the sodden ground. His whole body spasmed against the water still in his lungs, but the next breath sounded a little clearer.

Peggy found tears of relief suddenly clouding her vision. She dashed them away.

"That's right, my darling," she said very softly. "You just keep breathing. Help will be here soon."

For a moment she thought his lips moved, soundlessly shaping her name. It was impossible to tell for sure, but a part of Peggy wondered if he'd been able to hear her.

She hoped he had.

He had found courage and comfort once before in the sound of her voice, as he drove the doomed Valkyrie to his death. But today—perhaps today he might hear her voice and live.

Even though it was only a dream, after all.

She sat beside him on the riverbank as the world fell apart around them both, metal crashing and groaning over their heads, but Peggy didn't bother to look up. She was totally unable to touch him or even attempt to stop the bleeding, so she simply used this time to look at him, to speak words of care and encouragement, to memorize the beloved face, the shape of him laid out on the bank beside her.

There had never been a chance to say goodbye. This, in a way, was her opportunity—her last chance to simply be with the man she loved.

It was impossible to tell how long they sat there. In any event, it was long enough that Steve's wounds began to clot, and the bleeding slowed, though his breathing remained worryingly shallow and he still showed no signs of regaining consciousness.

Bucky never returned.

Peggy hadn't expected him to.

Eventually the clamor overhead seemed to be drifting to the south, and Peggy realized that no pieces of metal had fallen in the last few minutes. Then a new sound entered the scene—the approaching whump-whump of helicopter blades.

Evidently things had cleared up enough to send in aircraft.

Looking up, Peggy squinted against the sun. A sudden wind caught at her hair and set the leaves of the shrubbery dancing, as a helicopter came around the bend of the river, flying low. The redheaded women Peggy had seen in a previous dream hung precariously out of the open side, a pair of binoculars trained on the shoreline. Peggy could tell the moment she saw Steve; the woman shouted something indistinct and the helicopter changed direction, heading directly for them.

Help had come at last.

Peggy looked back down. Already she could feel the dream growing thin, but she fought to keep hold for just one instant more, long enough to ghost her fingers across his hair, to drift across his softly parted lips.

"Goodbye, my darling," she breathed.

The last thing she saw was his lips moving—but if he said anything, it was lost in the clamor of the approaching helicopter and the distance of the receding dream.

Peggy woke with tears on her cheeks, one hand curled protectively around the little box that held the last vial of Steve's blood. After Mr. Jarvis had surreptitiously given it to her, she had taken it home and set it carefully on her nightstand. Apparently at some point during the night she had reached for it, drawing it into bed with her.

Opening the box, Peggy withdrew the slim vial, dark scarlet against her sheets—the same blood that had drenched Steve's uniform in her dream only moments before. A familiar tightness constricted her throat, but for the first time in a long time, she experienced a sense of calm in her heart.

At long last, she'd had the chance to say goodbye.

Now it was time to let him go.

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! This is one of my favorite chapters. If you're enjoying this, please take just a second to drop a quick review? I'd love to hear from you. :)