Bygone

In 1981, Howard meets her with a grim face.

She takes a deep breath. “John?”

“Aw, kid. We lost him just after you left.” Howard helps her into the car. EJ is driving. “We’re going to go so you can be with Rebecca. JJ is going to need you.”

Darcy’s heart shatters in her chest. “Rebecca?”

“She’s got a day or two at best, kid. There’s nothing to be done except make her comfortable. She’s at home, that’s what she wanted.”

JJ hugs her and burrows into her when he sees her. Andrew looks uncertain as JJ clings.

“Drew, this is my Aunt Darcy.” JJ says firmly, and leads Darcy into Rebecca’s bedroom. He must explain it later, because Andrew accepts it.

Rebecca smiles when she wakes up and sees Darcy there.

Darcy crawls into bed with her and does her best to keep a smile on her face. She talks about crossing the pipe and that week with Bucky and keeping the radio turned up loud to preserve Rebecca’s dignity.

“Dignity? My mother?” JJ quips from the chair next to the bed.

Darcy is holding one hand and JJ has the other when Rebecca passes away. Howard, Peggy and Gabe are waiting in the hall.

Peggy runs the house, and handles the arrangements. Gabe’s wife Grace makes sure there’s food.

Darcy helps JJ plan the funeral. It’s a small affair, with the extended Prescott family, the Commandos, Peggy, Howard, and most of the employees from the two New York shops in attendance.

JJ holds Darcy’s hand tightly with Andrew on his other side. Darcy goes back to the Prescott house with them to help sort through things.

She ends up staying up late with Andrew one night, packing boxes of pictures. They’d found an entire album of pictures of Darcy.

“The first time I met you, I thought you had some kind of weird swinging relationship going on.” Andrew says, and Darcy looks up from a picture of her with Rebecca at the old house. “You were dancing with Mr. Prescott, and at first I didn’t see Mrs. Prescott.
He was holding you like he loved you. I thought JJ was going to go through the roof, or something.”

Darcy blinks away tears.

“Then I see Mrs. Prescott watching the two of you and smiling, and JJ wasn’t angry. He was teasing you.” He tapes a box shut and stands. “I’ll bring you some tea. Want anything in it?”

“Whiskey.” Darcy answers, turning the page to find pictures from JJ’s fifth birthday party, when all the children had been airplanes.

JJ offers to keep the house for her, but Darcy can’t imagine coming to spend time there alone. So they pack everything, and then Howard has a company take over. Darcy stays in the New York apartment so she can be close for JJ.

She goes out for drinks with him and Andrew, helps select the headstone to pair with John’s, and catches a cab over to his apartment late one night when Andrew calls.

They have brunch on Sundays, and she works with Howard at the New York office. She works at home too, because when she’s not busy her grief threatens to swallow her whole.

She attends Gabe’s son Davis’ graduation from law school with Gabe and Grace. Peggy and Charles are there as well. Gabe and Grace invite her back to their house for the party, and Peggy firmly tells her to go.

It’s a yard party at Gabe’s lakefront house. There are lights strung up and loud music that only gets louder as the night goes on. Darcy dances on the dock and swims and eventually she looks around and realizes everyone over forty is gone.

Davis is on the boat with his girlfriend Shonda, and Gabe’s daughter Tina is still on the dance floor.

Darcy climbs out of the water unsteadily, ignoring the hand a man in neon green swim trunks offers her. All the faces are unfamiliar as she makes her way back up to the house.

There’s a smaller group in the living room, drunkenly playing cards. They look up at her and away again when they realize she’s not one of their friends or one of the older people come down to tell them to keep it down.

She feels so alone as she crawls into the strange bed. She hugs Gabe goodbye the next day and congratulates an obviously hung over and suffering Davis.

When they get off the plane, Peggy stops her with a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry.”

Darcy nods, because that’s all she can give. She checks in with JJ and Andrew, and then she catches a cab. She passes Broad and Halls Ferry and has him drop her at the old apartment.

“You sure, honey?” The cabbie asks. “I can wait.”

“I’m sure.” Darcy tells him, paying him.

He pulls away and she goes to sit on the steps. They’re stone and in poor condition, but still the same. Darcy laughs. Just like her.

She leans her head against the rail and closes her eyes. “Fuck.”

She can almost hear Rebecca saying it back.

“Steve.” Darcy whispers. “I’m not sure I can do this. I know I always said that I was strong, but I think I might have been wrong.”

She lets out a ragged breath. “It’s just, I’m not sure what to do anymore. I’ll take care of JJ, of course. I know I have to do that. I will.”

A knot rises in her throat. “It turns out I need people. I’m better with people, and I was the best with you. You told me to take care of Rebecca, and I did. I did.”

“Come on, kid. It’s time to go home.” Howard says, and she opens her eyes and he’s standing right in front of her.

“I am home.”

“Not anymore.” Howard picks her up, an arm under her knees and one around her back. She feels him strain, but he manages it.

EJ stands at the car door holding it open, and Maria Stark sits inside the car. Gleaming dark hair pinned back, fur wrapped around her neck, spicy perfume filling the air. She’s warmer, softer than she seemed in the society photos.

“Hello poppet.” Maria says, smoothing a hand over Darcy’s hair. “It’s alright now.”

Howard and Maria take her back to the mansion. Her old room, Steve’s old room, is the same as she’d last seen it. All of her clothes, from every visit, are in the wardrobes. The few bits and pieces of Steve’s things are still mixed in, like the old radio and a pair of cuff links.

Her grief has sucked her down into a pit. It all merges together. John and Rebecca, Steve and Bucky. She’s ripped open again, when she’d just managed to get herself mostly stitched together.

She’s the only one left with those memories of the two apartments four stories up but right next to each other. Of Mrs. Barnes’ knowing look that made you as good as confess.

How in the hell is she supposed to keep going without Rebecca to keep and share her secrets? Without John’s even presence keeping them both steady through it all? Hell, how she needs him to come in and pick her up and carry her into Rebecca’s room. Leave them in bed with a breakfast tray.

For weeks she really only manages to pull herself together enough to ride into the city for brunches with JJ and Andrew. Even those leave her wrecked for the drive back because JJ is the perfect mixture of his parents. He has John’s pale hair and Rebecca’s dark mischievous eyes. He makes expressions that scream the both of them. He has John’s way of looking at you like he sees you at your core and likes you just fine, and he has Rebecca’s laugh.

Howard and Maria are always there. Howard with a glass of whiskey for her, Maria with tea.

They go with her to Barcelona to be at the finish line of the International Sailboat Race, with tickets that Rebecca had bought a year back. They watch JJ, Andrew and their team take first place. JJ drags her into the victory photo, with the rest of the team’s family members. His arm around her middle, Andrew’s hand on her shoulder, sun and sand and laughter.

Back at the mansion she finally thinks to ask where Anthony is and learns that Howard and Maria had compromised on boarding school. Howard had wanted tutors, but Maria insisted Anthony needed peers. None of the traditional schools challenged him.

After two months, one day Falsworth just shows up at the breakfast table. Darcy comes down, and there he is.

She hasn’t seen him since the funeral. He has her in the air that afternoon. He brings in a plane like the one she’d first learned in, and the next week there is a different kind, and the week after that another type. It’s challenging and interesting and something to look forward to.

When she returns from a flight and sees Howard’s white head up on the patio, she starts that way. Then she slows, seeing a boy with black hair sitting between Howard and Maria.

“Darcy!” Maria motions her forward, then leans her head down to whisper to Tony. Anthony. Anthony, Darcy reminds herself.

“Hey kid.” Howard greets her, motioning to the lunch spread on the table. He wears a pair of glasses that he’s too vain to wear most of the time.

“Tony, darling, this is Darcy.” Maria says.

Tony looks at her doubtfully. Darcy isn’t sure she’s ever felt so scrutinized, or has been found so wanting. Especially not by an eleven year old. “But how is she my sister?”

“She just is. You two are going to take care of each other.” Maria says firmly. She looks at Darcy over Tony’s head and nods.

“She’ll keep you from blowing off any important appendages.” Howard tells him.

“Howard!” Maria chastises. “Sit, Darcy. Have lunch with us.”