Bye, my darling.
Monday February 5th, 1945
With most of hydra members in the facility either captured or killed, Peggy, Morita and Colonel Phillips waited for word from Captain Rogers in the radio tower.
Suddenly Steve's voice could be heard emanating from the radio speaker, "Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?"
Morita, who had until that point been manning that station began to answer, "Captain Rogers, what is your..."
Peggy comes up beside him, places her hand on his shoulder and he moves aside for her as she asks him her own questions, "Steve, is that you? Are you alright?"
"Peggy! Schmidt’s dead." A strain was in his voice, it was easy to imagine the battle as being hard. Even for a super-soldier.
"What about the plane?"
"That’s a little bit tougher to explain."
"Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site."
"There’s not going to be a safe landing." there was a pause in his voice, like someone about to deliver bad news, "But I can try and force it down."
'This can't be happening', Peggy thought, she turns and sees the colonel and orders him to, "Get Howard on the line, now!" even though he outranked her, he got right to it. Returning to the radio she told Steve, "I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do." She knew if anyone could think of something to save the man she loved, it would be Howard.
"There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York." He takes a moment, barely believing that this is all real, "I gotta put her in the water."
"Please, don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out." She was trying to put enough confidence into her voice so he would believe her, and try to save his own life.
"Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die." Peggy could no longer hold back the tears that had been threatening her for a while now, "Peggy, this is my choice." Silence meet Peggy's ears as she imagined her love working to force the control column down, "Peggy?"
"I’m here." She tried not to let her true feelings come across in her voice, he didn't need to hear that.
Trying to not let his feelings at leaving her like this through in his voice he tells her, "I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance."
"Alright. A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club."
"You got it." As much as he wanted to make that, he knew he wouldn't. But he was grateful to her for doing this.
"Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?"
"You know, I still don’t know how to dance."
"I’ll show you how. Just be there."
"We’ll have the band play somethin’ slow. I’d hate to step on your..."
The line went dead, that term carried extra meaning to the woman on this end of the conversation, "Steve?" She tried, hoping he wasn't truely gone, "Steve? Steve?"
*
Colonel Phillips felt a bit like a voyeur, listening in to the couples private goodbye. He hated feeling useless.
"You know, I still don’t know how to dance."
"I’ll show you how. Just be there."
"We’ll have the band play somethin’ slow. I’d hate to step on your..."
"Steve? Steve? Steve?"
Phillips heard a click from his radio as he moved to give Carter some privacy, "Yes?
"Just heard, what's the situation?" Came Howard's voice. Phillips couldn't bring himself to say the words, they were like knives to his heart. "Colonel? What is the situation?"
When he thought that Howard was about to ask again he finally answered, "Roger's is gone."
Howard remained silent for a moment, trying to process what he had just learned. When he finally spoke it was full of self-recrimination for not joining them.
Phillips understood where the man was coming from, he felt the same way. That there was something more he could have done.