fleetwide video + action »

[mucked]

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. ]

Comments

[reconstitution]

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? ]

[mucked]

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.

[reconstitution]

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. ]

[mucked]

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.

[reconstitution]

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.

[mucked]

[ 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. ]

[reconstitution]

[ 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.

[mucked]

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. ]

[reconstitution]

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? ]

[mucked]

-- 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.

[reconstitution]

[ 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?

[mucked]

[ 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.