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fleetwide video + action »

Who: a newly canon-updated peggy carter and YOU.
Broadcast: fleetwide video
Action: ss starstruck for crewmate and any visitors.
When: beginning today, but feel free to forward date something if you like.
VIDEO (FLEETWIDE)

[ stern-faced, peggy appears upon the network. ] Does 'zero matter' mean anything to anyone? Pointed, I know, and a bit a long shot...but -- if there's anywhere I might find some resource or knowledge about such matters, then the fleet is my best hope. Otherworldly mysteries are not well within my wheelhouse.

[ there are other questions she could ask -- but no, zero matter might be the safest inquiry out of a great many others. and even then, it's barely safe at all. but it must be asked, for now she feels most preoccupied with the work conducted back home. the fleet is almost a secondary thought -- a distant, archaic priority. ]

Alternatively -- [ she sighs. until now, she hasn't been agent cater within the fleet, much preferring to be the more social and civilian version of herself. ] -- I wouldn't mind hearing a bit more about worlds. Different worlds, universes, what have you. I know none have been successful in creating a rift between this place and any other but -- surely, such rifts must exist elsewhere.

ACTION (STARSTRUCK)

[ long story short: peggy carter took a nasty spill inside one of the sr shuttles, and is now back on her feet after being out cold for nearly a day. on the surface, it seems like nothing's the matter. not seriously so, at least. but as she goes about her ship duties, there's a glassy-eyed quality to her gaze. it takes her a little too long to remember someone's name -- as though she's reaching back by weeks or maybe months to recall details she'd been living every day.

find her in the kitchen, where she's preparing one of her two or three or sometimes four daily cups of tea. or find her in the cargo bay where she's trying to use the recreational equipment. she quickly gives up on the punching bag because although she no longer has stitches holding her guts together, there persists a tight ache in the flesh. she settles for the treadmill.

wherever else she might be encountered, her crankiness is persistent. ordinarily patient with her crew, peggy's kindness has been thinning out all week. she appears tightly wound and disengaged. ]

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You're not the mad one.

[ radio silence for a long moment. and then -- like a knife's edge: ] Is he gone, still?

Yes.

[ Blunt and immediate, sparing no feelings. He honestly doesn't know how he's supposed to feel with the information. ]

Right. Of course. [ a hard swallow. a pause. ] Would you do me a favour?

What?

Come to the Starstruck. I could do with some company and -- believe it or not, you manage to be less monosyllabic than my nursemaid.

I'll be there soon.

[ When he does show up, it's twenty minutes later. When he finds her, he tries to remember to actually make some sort of noise on his approach. ]

Are you alright?

[ how prompt. when winter arrives, he finds her in her quarters. she's had time to shower and dress herself in something other than the clothes in which she'd been sleeping comatose for eight hours. her hair is still drying, but she's perfectly decent. she sits at a low metal vanity table crammed into her room's corner.

it appears she's considering nail polish colours. but when he arrives, she turns her chair (but does not stand). ]

I'm on the mend. [ she doesn't quite know how to explain what's befallen her, so instead she gestures to the low chest at the end of her bed. ] Sit. Make yourself comfortable. Please.

[ It's odd seeing Peggy disheveled, and he feels like he's interrupting something. Even though he can't recall it, he's probably witnessed her much the same back in the war.

Winter nods, stepping into her quarters and sits on the chest he was offered. His shoulders relax after a moment, and he looks over her, assessing damage. She'd said she was on the mend, but what exactly did that entail? ]

What did you want to talk about?

I've been remiss. Distracted. After -- [ steve disappeared ] -- I ought to have checked in on you. But I was angry and then I hit my head. [ she touches her hair (or more accurately her scalp?) with a ginger fingertip. ] And now all of this feels months away. Does that make any sense?

[ likely not. she hasn't had the time to properly pull her thoughts into order. peggy sighs. ] I should have called you sooner.

You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. People leave.

[ It's pretty constant around here, and it seems no one can control when it's their time to leave.. Winter does have to admit that this is a similar feeling to waking from cryo. Almost every time, there were different faces. They all tend to blur together, but it's no different.

Yes, Steve is gone, and he absolutely refuses to talk about it. It's not like they were close- not the way he and Jim were, or even he and Peggy. What right does he even have to complain about it? ]

He isn't just people. He's -- [ she shakes her head. peggy knows what she's doing: she's projecting. willfully reading her own loss into winter's more blank expressions. ]

I suppose I ought to have seen it coming.

I'm sorry he's gone.

[ It's the bare minimum he can say to her, really. He knows they were close and she must be devastated. Hasn't this happened twice now? ]

So am I. [ she tries to tighten the emotion in her voice -- reel it in, and set it in wire. ] Immensely. But we may take heart in who remains alongside us.

People are leaving by the dozens. It's foolish thinking we won't be familiar with someone in the crowd.

[ It's happened before, and it will surely happen again. ]

Foolish. Yes, well. [ she inhabits the silence for a moment. perhaps it's accurate to say she's always been a bit foolish where steve rogers is concerned. ] You make a very good point, Winter.

Maybe I don't understand quite like you or Jim.. We didn't talk often.

[ A beat. ]

I didn't know him like you did.

[ but you did, once. peggy doesn't speak it aloud -- she doesn't need him feeling lesser. she doesn't need to highlight the phantom limbs of his memory. ]

I -- ah, loved him. [ although remarkably stoic, there are the small tells: the flutter of her eyelids and the slight grit of her teeth between words. ] Still do. Don't bloody know why I used the past tense. Clumsy, that.

[ why is she telling him? it's not something that needs to be said. the only people who ever needed to know had seen it from the outset. no one else matters. except -- she is growing so weary of living the shiftless life, where her solid connections to other people get blown to dust when they leave. perhaps it's the memory of watching jason wilkes disappear before her eyes. or else of learning about sousa's impending engagement.

it makes her want to say something. to make it real. ]

[ He's acutely aware of his deficiency in proper memory. Hell, what he wouldn't give for just a year's worth of happy memories.

It's no secret that Peggy loves him. One of the memories he does have is Peggy turning him down to talk with Steve instead. Bucky wasn't the right partner, and for once in his life, it was Steve. ]

You can still love a person after they're gone, right? Doesn't make what you're feeling invalid.

You can. And -- it doesn't. But, [ she looks wistful. distant. ] If you're not careful, those feelings can hold you back. It's important to move on, I suppose.

[ and she's really struggling with that part. ]

How do you decide when to move on? Or how?

[ It's not something he's really had to acknowledge yet, so he's grasping at straws on how he should act in this particular situation. He and Steve weren't particularly close, but there could have been potential to be friends again. What do you even do with that kind of information? ]

-- I'm not always the best to answer that question, I'm afraid. It's about knowing the difference between honouring the departed and wallowing in their departure. For a long time I did the latter while mistaking it for the former. It isn't an easy distinction.

[ That's all well and good, he wants to say, but how do you go about doing that in the first place? He hasn't really had anyone disappear from the Fleet that has really impacted him one way or the other, so this is throwing him for a loop. It's bittersweet, mostly.

Winter has gotten better at comforting, but honestly, he's still terrible at it. ]

How did you figure it out?

[ such a frank question. and she wants to respond with a frank answer -- but her chin dips, and her eyes look anywhere but him. thoughtlessly (or else with too much thought altogether) her fingers find her left pocket. there's something there, creating a narrow line in the fabric.

an empty vial. she carries it with her in secret -- even now. ]

I realized how holding onto the past can endanger those in the present. Unfairly. If I wanted to live by even half the example he'd left behind, I realized I couldn't let myself be distracted by...wants. Old wounds.

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