Never Alone - S.R.
„Well, she was the only woman who ever really saw me, before...this“
She froze mid-turn, mouth suddenly dry.
There was a moment of disbelief, before rage filled her. White, hot, blind rage.
And - perhaps- just a tiny spark of regret.
She should have done this a long time ago, she had to admit ruefully.
Her coffee-mug came down on the kitchen-counter, forcefully and with a loud sound.
She could hardly hear it, over the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
They were all looking at her.
It took her a moment to find her voice, but when she did, it came cold, calculated...calm even.
But the more deadly so.
“The only woman?”, she asked
“The only one?
I must have misheard then,because the last time I checked it was I, who was by your side since we met at age 14.
We have been friends for how long now?
More than seventy years, I assure you.
It was I who saw you.
I saw you before the captain.
I saw you, when you were that small, weak boy, desperate for a home.
When you were just Steve Rogers.”
Her voice took on a bitter note at that.
How could he have ever thought of himself as just Steve Rogers?
It pained her to think of him as just anything.
“And I loved you too. I loved you from the moment you were beaten up in that ally for me.
The moment I had to nurse your wounds. When you told me, that we can never run, because if we do, they will never stop chasing us.
I saw you to be the young man whose virtues I adore more than anything in the world.
His mouth was halfway open now.
Not to say anything. It was just pure astonishment that filled his face. For a split second he looked like the boy, she had fallen for. The innocent one.
It took all her willpower to continue.
But you are so blind.
For so many years, I was so obvious.
And yet, you never saw.
Barnes did. He begged me, to let him tell you.
He physically begged me.
But I wouldn’t let him. I wanted you to see for yourself.
I waited.
For years and years I waited.
For decades!“
She took a deep, shuddering breath.
The pain at the mention of their long lost friend, was like a stab to the gut.
But then again she was being burnt alive, by all the other things, she had kept for so long.
“When you decided to join the army, I stood behind you.
Barnes might have told you, that you couldn’t. So did everyone else.
But I was always there.
I told you we could try again.
We. Not you alone. We.
I followed you. Every city, every place you went.
Chicago, San Francisco, New York.
Everywhere.
I followed. I never left your side.
I went with you, because I trusted that somehow, somewhere, your dreamwould come true.
And when the doctor told you, you could, I followed you, as well.
That’s when I signed up.
That’s when I joined the military.
With you.
For you.
For the country you called home.
And when we crashed with that plane, I knew you’d live.
I knew that, despite all odds, you would survive.
Just like I knew that I most certainly wouldn’t.
I would die there.
But I hoped -I so desperately hoped- that you would live to see another day.
And another.
And a thousand after.
I understand that you love Peggy.
She was brave, strong, beautiful.
She saw you, before.
And I loved her too. Not like you did.
But she was my mentor. A friend.
Proof, that I could be a female soldier, in a world dominated by men.
She loved you and she saw you.
But don’t you ever, don’t you dare, say that she was the only one.”
And with that, she turned and left, the super-soldier still staring, gobsmacked, at the kitchen-counter, long after she was gone.