Chapter 2
“Pregnant.”
It was Therese who repeated the word, like something foreign and unheard of. She’d set Lizzie up with a puzzle and the record player, and now sat with Carol and Angie at the table. “She, she’s pregnant and she took a mission?”
Angie shrugged. Her fingers shifted in agitated patterns. Carol had cut her off from cigarettes. “Depends who you ask.”
Therese looked at Carol, saw her confusion mirrored. “I don’t—”
“She says she isn’t. She’s been sick and the smell of the paint Steve was using the other day made her sicker, but she says she isn’t. She’s late, but she says it’s stress.”
Carol and Therese exchanged another look. Carol spoke up. “You don’t think it is?”
“Peggy’s whole damn life from the moment I met her has been stress, it’s always stress. Bit of a convenient time for it to be getting her physically, getting her like that.”
“Convenient?” Therese asked.
“She wants this guy. Badly. So yes, convenient.”
“Because he shot her,” said Carol.
“No, not just that. Don’t ask me, I don’t know, but there’s something else. She said Steve can’t be trusted on this.”
Therese frowned. “She said that to you, Steve can’t—”
“She said it in the pretty, polished, diplomacy way she has when she’s talking around me to avoid something. Or talking down to me.”
Carol glanced at Lizzie with her puzzle. Superman of all things. “Does it matter what she says or doesn’t say?”
Angie laughed, a hard, bitter sound out of place from her. “All that matters is what Peggy does or doesn’t say.”
Carol took a breath, closed her eyes a moment. “I only mean making sure. It’s simple enough to know one way or the other if—”
“She took a test. No results yet, at least none I get to know about. Time sensitive, she said, whatever this guy is doing, she doesn’t have time to wait, he only hits the radar once in a blue moon, blah, blah, blah. And because no one’s said she is and ‘she knows her own body,’ she’s not.”
“Steve,” Therese said after the brief silence that followed. “If Steve thought she was carrying his child—”
“Steve is SHIELD. Steve is Peggy’s employee. And Steve,” Angie shook her head, voice softening just slightly. “And Steve…somethin’s wrong there, she’s not lying about that.”
“But you think she’s lying about other things.”
Angie laughed again at Carol’s comment. “Peggy lies about other things all the time. That’s what Peggy does, that’s how it is. Peggy is always lying. Steve too, to a point, but he’s bad at it so it has to be Peggy.”
Therese watched Angie’s eyes go to Lizzie, linger on the puzzle, the red and blue of the uniform. She didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure she’d be brave enough to try even if she did. Thankfully it didn’t matter. Carol took over, took Angie’s hand and told her things. Angie said she needed a smoke and a drink, Carol said she’d get the drink if she took a bath first, a long one. They argued and Therese found herself with Lizzie again while Carol half cajoled, half forced Angie upstairs.
She was supposed to be helping Lizzie with her puzzle, though honestly Lizzie didn’t need it. Mostly Therese sat on the floor with her and handed out pieces when asked. She was quieter than usual, apparently concentrating on her task. It was a good ten minutes before she said anything beyond asking for this section or that.
“Is this what it’s like when you make your pictures come together?”
Therese smiled a little though she didn’t think Lizzie was really looking at her. “Sort of. I’ll show you sometime, if you like.”
“Yes please.” Lizzie’s tongue poked out as she concentrated on fitting a piece of red between two others. “Mama’s sad.”
“Is she?” Therese tried to keep her voice even, neutral.
“Yup. Sad and mad and sad. Mommy and Daddy are sp’osed to say bye to me when they leave, if they can. Sometimes they can’t.”
“And did they this time?”
“Nope. Don’t think they really said bye to Mama either. Mostly it was yelling.”
“Oh?”
“They thought I was sleeping and they were yelling quiet but I wasn’t and they weren’t.” Lizzie finally looked up from her puzzle, lowered her voice. “Well, they kind of were but sometimes I hear better than other times. Sometimes I hear better than they think.”
Therese thought about that, about the serum, about the record that was playing when they talked earlier and Lizzie sitting here quiet the whole time.
“Rindy says her parents yelled a lot. Then they weren’t her parents anymore.”
Therese sighed, closed her eyes, missed Carol desperately. This was too dangerous for her, Carol should be here for this. “They’re still her parents, Lizzie.”
“But not the same, they don’t live together anymore.”
“No, no they don’t.”
“Now you live with Aunt Carol and Rindy doesn’t all the time and that’s why she can’t play with me more.”
Therese knew she should say something, correct something. Except none of it was wrong and Lizzie didn’t sound particularly upset and was back to working her puzzle. “Yes.”
And that was it. Lizzie finished and let Therese give her a bath and got two bedtime stories out of her before Therese stood firm and told her to sleep.
“Are you and Aunt Carol staying, are we having a stayover?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll see what your Mama wants.”
Lizzie shrugged and yawned. “You should have a stayover, Mama’s sad. The big kind of sad she gets sometimes and I can’t fix, and Mommy and Daddy can’t fix either, but usually one of them is here to keep the sad from getting too much bigger. I think Mommy told Mr. Jarvis to do it, Mr. Jarvis is always here more when they’re not, but he can’t really fix the sad. And Mama already told Mommy how it doesn’t matter what she wants anyway, so you should stay over.”
Lizzie rolled over and cuddled her teddy bear, effectively ending the conversation. She didn’t ask for Angie to come say goodnight, didn’t ask if Angie would. Therese kissed the curls that were so much like Angie’s, adjusted the blankets switched off the light, shutting the door behind her. How much noise would it really keep out?
She hadn’t seen Carol or Angie since they came up here. If Carol did manage to coax Angie into that bath, she’d finished it before Lizzie had hers. It took a bit of searching before Therese heard the voices in the guest bedroom. Carol’s voice, she realized. Carol talking and Angie crying.
Therese debated for long moments, finally risked turning the knob. She barely opened the door, just enough to see Angie curled in on herself, sobbing into Carol’s shoulder. The extra blanket that usually stayed at the end of the bed now covered both of them.
“It’s not fair,” Angie choked out.
“No, it’s not.”
“She almost died last time. I only got in because of Steve. You don’t think those results are back, after this long? They’re back, and I can’t know. I might never know, if—”
Carol hushed her, rocked her softly, said something Therese couldn’t catch.
“He died already. In every way that mattered, he might as well have died. And he killed part of her right along with him, more than she’d ever admit. I saw it, how destroyed she was. Even after we were together there’d be times. He crashed that plane and took some of her with him.”
“He came back though,” Carol said, pushing strands of Angie’s hair from her face. “He came back.”
“Yeah. And what should I do with that, huh? If he ever goes away again, stays away, if they both do. What do I tell Lizzie, who’s just going to keep waiting and waiting for him to ‘come back,’ like before? How long do I let that go for, Carol?”
Carol pulled Angie closer. “I don’t know, darling, I’m so sorry I don’t know.”
“I’m not Peg. I can’t, can’t lose both of them on some stupid goddamn suicide mission and just go on. And she…damn her. Goddamn her this time.”
Carol murmured things Therese didn’t quite hear about Angie and how strong she was. Then Carol looked up and saw Therese and so did Angie.
Angie tried to pull away from Carol, Carol didn’t seem to be letting her. “Hey, Shutter,” Angie mumbled. “This uh, not what it looks like.”
Therese stepped properly into the room at Carol’s soft smile, much more convincing than Angie’s. “Looks like you needed a hug and a nap.”
Angie made a strangled noise that couldn’t realistically be called a laugh. “Alright so, what it looks like then.”
Therese walked carefully to the bed, climbed in on Angie’s other side. It was too much like seeing Carol cry in her apartment that first time and not knowing how to help, how to fix anything. Angie always seemed to have kind words, the perfect words when Therese needed them, and here Therese was with nothing. She rubbed Angie’s back and felt it shudder under the strain of more tears.
“I can’t do this,” Angie gasped. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“Angie…”
“I can’t, Carol. There’s, maybe there’s a reason most people have just one person. One hurts enough, let alone two.”
Angie went silent then except for her tears. Therese held her as best she could, felt how hard she shook. She closed her eyes, fighting her own tears, felt Carol’s hand reach around to tangle with hers. They listened and held on as Angie cried.
Edwin arrived at the house with his usual selection of fresh groceries. It was rare for Miss Carter and Captain Rogers to depart at the same time, but when it happened his task of looking after Miss Martinelli and Miss Elizabeth became that much more important.
He knocked several times before hesitantly making use of his key. The things he’d borne accidental witness to before weren’t likely to be happening with two of three out of the country, but one really never knew.
He realized almost immediately that something was wrong. The bin in the living room where some of Elizabeth’s toys were left was half-empty. The curtains were drawn, something he should’ve noticed before. The house was too cold. He took the groceries to the kitchen and found spoiled milk in the fridge.
Feeling very much the intruder and with a mounting sense of dread, Edwin headed upstairs. The closets in the master bedroom were open, had clearly been looked through, there were clothes on the bed.
Two of the suitcases were gone, two in a matching set Miss Carter had sent back in ’47, a gift he’d seen to personally.
“Oh dear.”