Author's Note: The last of the chapters dealing with the extended, deleted scene of Peggy's funeral in "Captain America: Civil War."

Time to Say Goodbye

Chapter 5

"Cap."

Steve turned to see that Sam was standing behind him, having apparently just left the church along with what appeared to be most of the mourners. "Hi, Sam."

Sam was regarding him with enough sympathy that Steve felt the absurd wish to run and hide–his emotions were too raw right now and Steve didn't like the sensation of being pitied. But at the same time, he also felt oddly… better. He remembered what Sam had said, about feeling like the only man in the world when he had gone to his wing-man's funeral. There was something to that. Sam might not know exactly what Steve was feeling but he was still there and that meant something.

"It was a nice service, I thought," Sam offered after a moment, his tone conversational. "Respectful but not overly maudlin the way some funerals are."

Steve felt his lips twitch a little. "Peggy wouldn't have wanted anything maudlin."

"And how about her niece, I guess, turning out to be your old neighbor, the SHIELD agent?"

He grimaced faintly. "SHIELD had her keeping an eye on me. And she's Peggy's great-niece," he corrected half-absently. He wondered, with a sudden pang, if Peggy had known about it. It would hardly have been surprising if Peggy's own great-niece, on one of her visits to her "Aunt Peggy," had mentioned that her latest assignment was keeping an eye on her Aunt Peggy's old friend, Captain America. Had Peggy known, in all the times he had visited her, but never told him? The thought made him feel a little sick.

No, not Peggy. Even as he wondered it, something, some deeper part of his mind, his heart, rebelled. No, he couldn't believe it. He didn't believe it. He trusted Peggy. Had always trusted her. More, he knew she could be trusted because no matter what, she had always shown that she had his best interests at heart. The woman who had remembered him, even towards the end of her life, and cared enough to ask her son to make sure he wasn't left alone during her funeral–that woman had always cared about him, as a person. Peggy of all people had never viewed him as just a hero, a symbol, or worse, just an asset to SHIELD, even if it was the agency she had helped to found. No, Peggy–his Peggy–would not have kept something like that, someone spying on him, from him.

Sam snorted a little. "SHIELD not trusting even Captain America, should have told you something right then."

Sam was mostly joking but Steve sighed and made a face. "Yeah, I guess." He wasn't exactly up to making a joke out of SHIELD's downfall or about how it had been infiltrated by Hydra, of all organizations. "Sounds dumb now but SHIELD wasn't just some impersonal organization to me. I knew its founders, all of them, not just Peggy but Tony's father, Howard, and Colonel Phillips. I didn't want to believe anything bad about the organization they started. Yeah, I know, they weren't around and organizations change with their leadership but–" He shrugged.

God knows how many times he had been over this territory in his mind in the last couple years since SHIELD's downfall, wondering what, if anything, he could have picked up on earlier. But in the end, what Steve always came back to was that SHIELD had been founded by Peggy, his Peggy, and maybe he was naive but he could never, would never, have suspected anything bad of an organization she had helped to found.

When he had told Peggy that knowing she helped to found SHIELD was half the reason he stayed, he'd meant it. Oh, there had been other reasons; working for SHIELD had been easier, given his life a structure and a purpose and other people to organize his life in a world he didn't know how to navigate. SHIELD had arranged for his housing and given him an income, taken care of the logistics of his life when he didn't know how to take care of it himself. But more than all that, what he had never forgotten, was that Peggy had helped to found SHIELD and being part of the organization she had helped to found had felt like a way to stay connected to her, close to her, and he had wanted that, needed it even, when he had still been reeling from the loss of even a hope that he and Peggy could ever be together.

"Don't sweat it, Cap. Sometimes loyalty is all we have and when it comes to taking orders, we have to believe that the ones who are giving orders can be trusted because otherwise we'd go crazy. Hindsight might be 20/20 but we never know that at the time."

"Yeah, I know."

Sam hesitated before asking, "You about ready to go? I was talking to one of the extended family, a second cousin, I think she said, and she told me there'll be an unofficial informal gathering for some extended family, friends, over at a pub a few blocks away."

"I just–give me a few minutes," Steve responded after a moment. "I want to… say goodbye." He just wanted some time to be alone, as he hadn't been all day really. Some time alone to mourn Peggy, now that the worst, hardest, part of the day, the service itself, was over.

Sam's expression softened but all he said was, "Sure thing. Take as long as you want."

Steve briefly clapped Sam on the shoulder and then turned to head back inside the church, hanging back for a few minutes by the entrance as he waited for some last few stragglers to leave and then, once they were gone, he slipped inside the now-empty church. The wreaths of flowers and the pictures of Peggy were still there up at the front of the church and he guessed that her family would no doubt send someone to collect them later but for now, they were still there. He could still see her face.

He focused on the picture of her youthful self, the beautiful, fearless Agent Carter of the SSR, even though the black and white photograph could not do her justice. She was so vivid, so bold, with her crimson lipstick and her nail polish, the brightness of her eyes. He could picture her so clearly every time he closed his eyes, could still hear her voice in his mind.

It seemed so… unutterably wrong to think that he would never see her again. Fresh tears welled up in his eyes and he tipped his head back, shutting his eyes against them, as a shuddering sigh escaped him.

Peggy. His Peggy.

He'd told Sam that he wanted to say goodbye but he honestly didn't know how. How did anyone say goodbye to the love of their life? He felt as if he were being asked to say goodbye to a part of himself, as if he were being asked to cut off his own hand and just walk away from it.

It was absurd, tragic, but it occurred to him that the one person he would have wanted to talk to about this, about saying goodbye to someone he loved so much, would be Peggy. Peggy, the person who had comforted him after Bucky's supposed death in the war, the last time he had felt even close to this devastated. Peggy, whose mere presence had somehow made him feel better, less alone.

He heard a faint sound and turned to look, stiffening a little as he saw Nat walk in, dressed more formally than he thought he'd ever seen before, wearing a conservative black dress coat and heels. She must be on her way to Vienna, to the UN summit, and had stopped off here to have one last try at convincing him to sign, he thought with a sudden wave of tiredness. He knew Nat meant well. It might have taken him some time to really trust her–her cynical, coolly ironic demeanor had been off-putting as had the fact that she appeared to have no real beliefs, no ideals, and a flexible relationship with the truth, as it were. But after everything that had happened with the downfall of SHIELD and since then, he had seen enough glimpses of the person behind the covert agent, seen how much she cared about the mission, about doing right, seen her fierce loyalty, and she had probably become one of his closest friends on the Avengers. But today, he wished Nat hadn't come. He didn't feel up for an argument, not now, not today of all days.

But as always, he didn't get what he wanted.

He rested against the side of one pew and waited for Nat to approach, not bothering with a greeting and only found himself saying, with some vague idea of putting off the coming debate, "When I came out of the ice, thought everyone I had known was gone, and I found out she was alive…" It had felt almost like a miracle, had been… a gift. To be able to see Peggy again. More, discovering that in spite of all the years that had passed for her, she had never forgotten him, still cared about him. He turned to look at the drawing of her somewhat older self. "I was just lucky to have her."

Nat looked at the drawing too and then back at him. "She had you back too."

His throat felt tight and he had to look away, remembering the way Peggy had looked at him in the times when her memory of his return had failed her and she'd recognized who he was for the first time, again, the poignant wonder, the emotion.

"After everything that happened with SHIELD, during my little hiatus," Nat began quietly, "I went back to Russia and tried to find my parents."

He stiffened slightly, something like shock momentarily breaking through his grief. Nat almost never mentioned her past before she had joined SHIELD, never talked about family of any kind unless it was to refer to the makeshift family of the Avengers.

"Two little gravestones by a chain-link fence." She paused, her gaze becoming distant, picturing the gravestones, he guessed. "I pulled some weeds, left some flowers. We have what we have when we have it."

It was true but the truth hurt. He'd had so little time with Peggy.

He sighed a little but couldn't say anything more about Peggy and instead changed the subject to the Accords. If they were going to have a debate about it, there was no point putting it off further. "Who else signed?"

"Tony, Rhodey, Vision."

"Clint?"

"Says he's retired."

Steve looked back to the entrance of the church, towards where Sam waited. Sam, who also did not plan to sign the Accords, not only because he would follow Steve's lead on the Accords out of personal loyalty, but because Sam, too, as Steve knew, had his reasons for not wishing to follow the orders of any faceless organization any longer. "Wanda?"

"TBD."

That didn't really surprise Steve. Wanda was so young and not only in the sense that everyone around him was young years-wise compared to him but more than that, he still saw her as a kid. She'd still been a child when her parents had died and she and Pietro had still been kids when they had agreed to become subjects of Strucker's experimentation. At least he himself had been an adult when he had agreed to Dr. Erskine's experiment. For Wanda, she had never had the chance to grow up in any normal way. He felt a twist of something like guilt at having brought her into the Avengers at all but it was what she had chosen, what she felt she needed to do after losing her brother. And then, with her powers, she was safer with the Avengers, with other people with special powers and skills, and he had thought, hoped, that the Avengers could help her, teach her, and look out for her now that she no longer had her brother or any other family. It had worked for at least a little while but now, with these Accords causing problems, he wasn't surprised that Wanda was conflicted. It was a hard choice, especially when he knew she was racked with guilt over what had happened in Lagos, and she was still so young.

"I'm off to Vienna and there's plenty of room on the jet," Nat offered.

He sighed, studying his shoes because that was easier.

Nat took a step or two closer. "Just because it's the path of least resistance doesn't mean it's the wrong path. Staying together is more important than how we stay together."

Yes, he could understand why Nat would think that, believe that. He knew what the Avengers, this small group of individuals with their disparate skills that had come together to form a team, meant to her. They weren't just her friends, they were her family. Nat, who had been alone until SHIELD had come along and then the Avengers. For Nat, personal loyalty was probably her truest guiding principle.

But he could not think like that. The Avengers might be the closest thing to family he had too but he could not sign a document he did not agree with, could not commit himself to following the orders of an impersonal organization he did not know if he could trust, just to agree with the Avengers or anyone. He sometimes wished he could but he could not simply go along to get along. He never had been able to do that, even in the days when all his conscience had done was earn him a beating for his troubles.

It was something he remembered his mother telling him years ago when he'd been very young and had asked why his mother couldn't work in some other ward rather than in the TB ward, something less dangerous. His mother had sighed a little and ruffled his hair with her hand and told him that if she did that, she would be asking some other nurse to put herself at risk by working in the TB ward and she couldn't have that on her conscience, any more than his father had been able to sit by and watch his friends go off to fight in the Great War while he stayed behind with his wife and unborn child. In this life, Stevie, she had told him, the most important thing is to do the right thing. It won't always be easy–in fact, it will often be the hardest thing to do–but always do what's right. Doing what's right is the bravest, most important thing, any of us can do.

Steve had no memories of his father and even his memories of his mother were becoming somewhat indistinct but he remembered the way his mother had inculcated a sense of pride in his father's memory, his courage, knowing that his father had fought and died for his country, remembered more his sense of his mother's quiet strength, her perseverance. His parents had done what they believed to be the right thing, no matter the cost, and he, as their son, had long ago decided that he would do the same.

He remembered what Dr. Erskine had made him promise, that no matter what happened, he would stay who he was, "not a perfect soldier, but a good man." It had been a deathbed promise to a good man, a man of principle, and that too was another promise Steve could not break.

He had to do what he thought was right. He still had his soldier's instinct of following orders which meant that he did not, could not, lightly disobey orders he was given by any authority he had promised to obey. When he gave his allegiance, he gave it fully, and to him, such promises were sacred. But after what had happened to SHIELD, he could not do that again, agree to simply follow orders given by some organization again. No, he had learned his lesson. "But what are we giving up to do it?" he countered mildly.

Nat made a sort-of resigned grimace, not surprised.

"I'm sorry, Nat. I can't sign."

She sighed a little. "I know."

Wait, she wasn't going to try to persuade him? "Well, then, what are you doing here?"

She hesitated a moment before meeting his eyes. "I didn't want you to be alone."

Oh. He abruptly felt ashamed of himself for simply assuming that Nat was here only because of the Accords along with a rush of self-consciousness at how stripped bare he felt, how openly vulnerable he was.

Nat took another step forward, her hands coming up to rest on his shoulders, and he stepped into her hug, wrapping his arms around her, a little sigh escaping him. He wasn't entirely alone. He had Sam, who had insisted on accompanying him here for that very reason, and Nat, who had come out of her way, even while they were at odds over the Accords, to provide a measure of comfort. And there was Tony too, who had set aside their disagreement over the Accords to talk about Peggy after the news of her death had arrived. These friends, who were the closest thing to a family he had found in this future time.

And he could only hope, desperately, that in spite of their disagreeing over the Accords, this would not split them up completely. Families disagreed with each other at times too, did not always get along, but the familial bond remained. And after all, it was hardly as if he and Tony or the other Avengers had never disagreed before. They had clashed in the beginning before finding common cause after the death of Agent Coulson and then in fighting Loki and the Chitauri. They had disagreed again over the whole issue with Ultron and what Tony had inadvertently created in Ultron, but they had come together, united, to fight Ultron. And surely, surely, that would still be true and the Avengers would find their way past this. He could only hope.

He released Nat and stepped back. "You'd better be leaving for Vienna."

"Yeah, I know."

He wanted to thank her for coming, making sure he wasn't alone, but he knew Nat too well to think she would appreciate any such tribute to her friendship, her loyalty. Instead, he only said, "Tell Tony I'm sorry and that… it's not personal."

Nat nodded, her lips twisting a little. "I'll tell him."

"And Nat? Take care of yourself."

"I always do. You take care of yourself too."

"Yeah, sure," he agreed but thought, again, that he wasn't even sure what that meant. What would he even do with himself if he no longer had the Avengers, their missions? He didn't know what his life would be like if he weren't Captain America. He didn't have a life outside of being Captain America.

He watched Nat walk out of the church and tried not to feel as if he had just lost the Avengers, tried not to feel as if the disagreement over the Accords and the future of the Avengers signaled the beginning of the end of that team, that family.

Maybe he simply was not meant to have a lasting family. He hadn't had any actual family since his mother had died when he was 18 and then he had lost Bucky during the war and while Bucky might be alive, he still didn't have Bucky, not the Bucky he really knew, back. And now, he had lost Peggy too.

In his mind, he heard her well-remembered voice, so clearly he almost turned to look and see if she was there. You're always so dramatic, Steve.

He smiled faintly even as he felt tears pricking at his eyes, the rush of emotion at how clearly he could still hear her voice in his mind and not even her weaker voice from recent years but her voice from when they had first met, the elegant accents and her crisp tones. Oh, Peggy…

They're still your friends, Steve. They might be disappointed and a little angry now but even friends disagree at times. They'll understand in time and until then, you still won't be alone.

Steve supposed he was being fanciful but he could hear her voice so clearly, could imagine what she would say, how she would find a way to comfort him, reassure him. The way she always had in life.

He remembered what James had told him of Peggy's reassurance to her children, that she would always be with them, in their hearts. And he thought about Peggy asking James to make sure that Steve wasn't alone today.

Even after her death, Peggy had found a way to be there for him. And at that moment, he believed that she would continue to do so. Peggy was not entirely lost to him because she lived on in his heart. She would be, as she had always been, the voice of his conscience, his hope.

He turned to look at the picture of the young Peggy, his mind easily filling in the color, the vividness, that the photograph lacked. He could see her in his mind so clearly, the brightness of her eyes, the delicate color in her cheeks, the vivid red of her lipstick. And he thought about all that James had told him. Peggy had named her son after him. She had told her children about him, even including the story of the dummy grenade back in Camp Lehigh what seemed a century ago, a story when he had just been himself, Steve Rogers, and not Captain America at all. She had never forgotten him, even towards the end, when her condition must have progressed.

And he thought with a certainty he had never felt before–never really allowed himself to feel before–that Peggy had loved him. He remembered, with a clench of his heart, the sound of her voice over the radio when he'd been on the plane, remembered the emotion in her tone, the almost imperceptible quiver in her voice as she "rescheduled" their date. Yes, she had loved him then and–in spite of everything, even if she had found another love and happiness with another man in the long years of her life without him—he ignored the tug of pain at the thought–she had never forgotten and she had still loved him even at the end. A different sort of love, perhaps, but she had still loved him.

And he realized, too, that Peggy had known that he loved her. It didn't matter that he had never told her in so many words but she had to have been able to see it in his expression; she always had read him better than just about anyone he'd ever met. She had to have known because she had realized just how deeply he would grieve over her loss and had asked her son to make sure he wasn't alone. Yes, he was suddenly sure that she had known that he loved her.

It was a strange, bittersweet sort of comfort, this certainty that no matter what else, no matter the way fate and time had stepped in to separate them, they had both loved and known it too. And their love had lasted more than 70 years and would continue to last as long as he was alive–no, longer than that, even. He already had proof that their love would outlast death. Their love had endured long after his own supposed death and would continue to endure now after her death.

Slowly, he walked forward until he was standing just in front of the picture of her youthful self. The picture of his Peggy. The drawing of her older self that had been done by her husband–that was the version of Peggy that belonged to her husband, he could acknowledge that, albeit with a twinge of pain. But this picture, the one of the young Agent Peggy Carter of the SSR as she had been–this picture was of his Peggy, the one who had loved only him, the woman he had fallen in love with so many years ago and who he still loved, would always love.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he blinked them back, finding an odd sort of peace, of calm, settling over him.

He thought about what he'd told Sam, that he wanted a few minutes alone to say goodbye. But that wasn't it. It wasn't–could not be–a final goodbye. He was suddenly sure of that. He would see Peggy again, would be with her after his own death, whenever that might be. They would be together again at the end. She was the love of his life. And he was the love of hers, he believed that. Because she had always loved him. He remembered the way she had looked at him in the moments when her memory of his return had faded, when she'd been faced with the reality of him for what, to her, was the first time. Yes, she had always loved him, no matter what else.

He had to believe that they would be reunited one day. He could hear her voice in his mind saying, You're late, and found his lips twitching a little at the memory, the thought. Yes, his Peggy, his tartly humorous Peggy, would say something like that to him when they met again.

"Goodbye, Peggy," he managed to whisper only to find his voice cracking in spite of himself. He stopped, swallowed hard, blinking back tears.

For all his high-minded resolute hope, he couldn't help it, the enormity of his loss abruptly rising up and gripping him by the throat. He loved her and he would have to go through the rest of his life without her–and God only knew how long the rest of his life would be. What sort of life span would he have as a super-soldier already 100 years old but without his body having aged accordingly? It could be centuries before he saw Peggy again, could be with her again. He couldn't do it, he thought with sudden, wild futile desperation. How was he supposed to go on, always fighting, always being Captain America, without her? The thought sounded inexpressibly bleak to him.

But what choice did he have? Being Captain America was all he had, the only life he had open to him now. Peggy was gone. He could not imagine loving anyone else, could not imagine a life with anyone who didn't know where he came from, who he really was inside, not this image of the perfect hero created by Dr. Erskine's experiment. No, he would just have to go on, being Captain America, until, he supposed, he came up against an enemy he could not defeat.

The thought, the prospect of such a defeat, held no terrors for him. He'd been prepared to die in the plane crash and it wasn't as if he had ever cared much for his own physical safety.

And afterwards, afterwards, he would find Peggy again, could be with her again. He believed that, had to believe that. Just as he believed that his mother had been reunited with his father after she had passed.

"Wait for me, Peggy." He paused, added softly the confession he had never been able to give her in life. "My love." He swallowed. "I will find you again someday, I promise. I couldn't leave my best girl, not forever."

He touched his fingers to his lips and then touched his fingers to her lips in the picture, a last kiss.

And he could swear he heard her voice in his mind. I'll always be with you, Steve.

He managed a faint twitch of his lips, lifting a hand to swipe away the tears from his face. He wouldn't be alone, not completely. She would always be with him, was engraved on his heart, his soul. His hand went to the inner pocket of his jacket where his compass was.

He turned and walked slowly out of the church.

~To be continued with an Epilogue…~