| Coming Home to Danny | |||||
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| What: After finding out that her husband is still alive in an old age home, Peggy Carter rushes to a long over due reunion. | |||||
The address is a nursing home - a very fine one, it seems. When Peggy tells the receptionist who's she's come to see, the young man looks surprised but pleasantly so. "Mr. Sousa doesn't get visitors, really. Sometimes the Boy Scouts will have the kids come and spend time with the folks here."
Peggy Carter pulls up at a ridiculous hour of the morning, actually, somewhere around 4:30 am. Of course, there is always a receptionist, but it still might be a strange time of night. Especially since she's arriving in a Rolls Royce, the driver taking it away a minute after he drops her off. She gives the woman a shaken sort of smile, "I know he must be asleep but, if I may, I'd like to wait? Until he wakes up? I... I'm an old family friend."
The receptionist smiles. "Of course, ma'am. He tends to wake up around dawn - even at his age." The man peers at Peggy. "...You're a relative of his wife, aren't you?" He smiles. "He keeps a picture of her in her youth by his bedside. You look just like her - was she your great aunt?"
'That comment makes Peggy blink against a sudden sting of glassiness in her dark eyes. She nods quietly, "Yes, f-from the Carter side of the family." Peggy answers without actually lying. "I can wait out here, if it's best. How is he... he doing?" She has an awful lot of emotion for some great grand niece who has never previously visited.
The receptionist might be a bit confused, but he doesn't press. Prying into family matters wasn't his job. "No, it's okay ma'am - there's a bed for visitors in every room. I'll show you the way." The man leads Peggy to a nice room, that seems more like a home than a medical ward, which is good. There's a sleeping figure laying in bed, with a small privacy curtain hiding him from view. "Make sure you don't startle him when he's waking up, ma'am - he fought in WWII, and hasn't lost his soldier's instincts."
'A bittersweet smile cuts across her ever-ruby lips. She's still wearing the same shade of red she did 60 years ago, or as close to it as she could find. She nods to the man, "I know. He was a hero. Still is." She chimes in softly, tilting her head in thanks for the escort to the room. She waits until the door is shut behind her, looking across the place quietly. Daniel's home now. The little bed, sitting area, and that sleeping figure there. She blinks hard against another wave of tears, unable to look away from his aged face and gray hair.
The old man in the bed shifts in his sleep. Beside him, on his table, is a picture of Peggy - on the day of their wedding, so many years ago. He seems peaceful in his slumber. Resting against the nightstand is a cane.
Peggy Carter presses her hand across her mouth as she sees the picture, not daring to make a sound and wake Daniel before he's ready to get up. She just stares for longer minutes than she can count. Silent tears streak their way down her cheeks, peeling away some of that very carefully concealing make up she constantly wears across the scar she got the night before the first time they shared a bed. Silent as snowfall, she makes her way over to the chair nearest his bed so she can at least sit. She will keep vigil there, as long as it takes.
Hours pass, and when dawn starts to color the sky, Daniel starts to wake. It's a slow process for him, peppered with sounds of pain. When he opens his eyes, they seem rather more cloudy than she remembers. "...You're back again, eh sweetie?" he murmurs, as if seeing Peggy right next to him just as she was over half a century ago isn't so odd. "...I'm... not asleep." he realizes. "Who are-?"
Peggy barely breathes as she sees him beginning to stir, not wanting to dare wake him faster than necessary. Each sound of pain tears at her, she having to blink a few more times to cast away more tears before they actually escape. The last thing he needs to do is see her crying at his bedside. His question of her being back again draws a long smile to her red lips, sweet and sad. She sits up a bit straighter, leaning close so she can put her elbows on his bed. She's in a cream silk blouse and a pair of high waisted, wide legged dark brown slacks, just like she'd have worn to the office ages ago. "...Danny..." She breathes out softly, one of her hands slipping up to try and take one of his. "It's me. I...I'm back. It's Peg."
There's something akin to distrust in Daniel's eyes. Even as her hand goes for one of his, his other is reaching towards her face - to trace along the hidden scar on her cheek, under the eye. Only when he finds it does the distrust vanish from his eyes. "Oh god - you're real." he breathes, his voice strained. "Just - just like Steve came back. Oh god, Peg..." He starts to weep. "Peggy-!"
She leans closer, making it easier fo him to find her face, still slightly damp from the tears she'd shed earlier. Sure enough, that scar is there, slightly faded and flat with time, but it's absolutely her. As he begins to cry, her own tears return, unbidden, but she cannot stop them. She turns her head as his hand still rests on her cheek, pressing a soft kiss into the base of his palm. "Y-yes. Oh, Danny... don't cry. You're going to make me cry too." It's too late, really. She cups his hand warmly against her cheek, leaning into that touch.
Daniel sits up, slowly and stiffly, legs still in front of him. "God, Peg - I didn't want to stop looking for you. I *didn't* stop. But..." He trails off, coughing. He pulls Peggy close in a surprisingly tight hug from such a frail man. "My Peggy, my dear sweet Peggy..."
As gentle but also as quick as possible, Peggy shifts out of the chair and into perching on the side of his bed so he can hug her without having to stretch to far. She returns the embrace, not quite so tightly as he does, but not out of any lacking love. Mainly out of lacking fear of breaking him. She holds him tight and close, her cheek pressing against his. She even smells like she used to, fresh, clean soap hinted with vanilla and just a dab of Chanel No. 5. "No, Danny, no, it's alright. It's not your fault. I... I should have never gone in alone. I was so, so bloody stupid... I'm so sorry. I... I'm sorry." She can't say it enough, a thousand apologies echoing in that lead pit of her stomach.
Daniel buries his nose in her hair, letting the familiar fragrances take him back to bygone days. He tells her she doesn't need to be sorry - after all, she didn't freeze herself on purpose. "Hey, Peg..." he says after a long while. "Wanna see the kids?"
No, she didn't freeze herself on purpose, but she did go off on a mission and not tell anyone where she was going, because she knew they'd try and stop her -- especially Daniel. She did go up against a man she knew to be supernaturally strong and immortal. There will never be enough apologies. But this wasn't the time. Peggy pulls slightly back from him, remaining on the edge of the bed, her side gently brushing his arm. "K-kids? Yes, Danny, I...I'd love to see the kids." She whispers, suddenly wondering if he remarried. Maybe he moved on.
Daniel chuckles, leaning over and opening the nightstand drawer slowly. "After - after you-" he coughs a bit. "We tracked down a HYDRA facility, in '64 I think it was. They had a bunch of kid there..." He withdraws some old photographs - children of varying ethnic backgrounds. And some newer photos of the children grown up. "There are a bunch of Carters and Sousas in the world now."
If there is room, Peggy will gently scoot back to sit against his headboard and a bit closer to him, like they were sitting together in bed as they did so many nights when they were first married. She helps him with the dresser, not entirely able to stop herself from treating him like he's made of fine glass and could shatter at any moment. She begins to page through the photos, blinking away some bluriness from her eyes. "Danny, they... They're beautiful. I always knew you'd make a wonderful father. You were so much better at that than I." It had been one of their biggest -- and only -- fights. His want of children, her thinking she'd be awful at it and not certain she ever wanted to do that.'
Dan rests his head comfortably against Peggy, for a moment forgetting his age, the gulf of years that exists between himself and her. "Still think you'd make a good mom. Hell, you kept the 107 in line." he comments. "...This girl, here?" He points to a African child. "When I told her about you, she said she didn't know women could be so strong. From what her son's written, she founded a school for teaching diplomacy in South Africa."
At the weight of his head against her, she tilts her head a touch to the side, resting her cheek against his temple. Then she turns her head, kissing there for a moment. He was still her Daniel, beneath all that age and all those years. Too good for her by far. Her cheek returns to its place, looking over the photos one at a time, "She's the strong one. I had a whole unit at my back all the time. To go and start something like that... all alone. God, Danny, you... You changed the world with these kids."
"You built SHIELD, Peggy. Have you seen it now?" Daniel asks. "What it's become... Nothing short of a miracle. The world's gone through a lot - and survived because there was somebody watching over all of us."
"I...I have. They're they ones that found me, finally. Steve, James, some new young ladies... They got me out." Peggy admits quietly, not entirely wanting to think about it right now. She gently puts the photos back in the dresser so she can shift her frame and, tender as possible, wrap one arm across the front of him, curling up in the bed together as much as she can manage in that space. "Were you...Happy, Daniel? Did you find a way to be happy?"
Dan kisses the top of Peggy's forehead tenderly, supressing a pained grunt as he reaches around to hold her to him. "Yeah. Knew would be pissed at me if I kept dragging my feet over you. Kept you in my heart though, Peg. You were my guardian angel. Whenever I doubted myself, I'd think about you."
Peggy Carter's body can almost be felt relaxing as he admits he was happy. Some of the guilt in her slightly unknots, even if it won't all disappear. She hears the pain in his breath, even if he's hidden that grunt. She still knows him so damn well. "Shh. Gentle. Lay down, Danny. Relax. I'll stay here. I'll stay all day, not going anywhere, I promise..." She gently runs a hand up and down his arm, trying to get him to relax down into the bed.
Dan keeps his grip on Peggy firm. "I'm not letting you go. For all I know... I died in my sleep, and I'm going to heaven soon. I'm not letting you disappear again." He coughs again, a dry hack that shakes his entire body.
The comment about having died in his sleep sends a slight shiver through Peggy, Daimon's words about the fact that Dan didn't have long coming back to haunt her. The cough just makes it worse. She holds onto him a bit tighter, still not constrictive, but also not wanting to let him go. "...I'm sorry it took me so long, Danny. But, I'm here now. I'm not disappearing. I promise." She rasps out quietly. They just sit like that, for a long while, eventually falling into a light rest together.