goodbye, my darling

[womanofvalue]

WHO: Peggy Carter
WHERE: Outside the fountain
WHEN: February 2nd, Evening
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Ice Powers, Grief
STATUS: Open

---

It's been days of searching, to the point that even for a woman of Peggy's stubbornness, there are boundaries as to how much she can take and how long she can go denying the truth. She's searched every possible crevice the village will allow her, looking for bodies alive or dead, but it's becoming painfully clear that she's not going to find her friends because they're not here any longer. She'll miss Barnes and Natasha, of course she will, but that's not what hurts so badly.

Peggy's been at the fountain, her last resort. Perhaps whatever cruel joke this is will vanish and Steve will pop up again, like he's never been gone. She'd honestly thought that something might be going right in the universe again, if only to give her back the best man she'd ever met, but that's all gone too. Inhaling sharply, Peggy can't keep back the grief any longer. Her sobs are a choked sound that she muffles with the collar of her cloak, trying to brush away her tears.

Tears, unfortunately, that are crystallizing on her cheek. Reaching up, Peggy stares in confusion and wonder as she holds an icy teardrop on her fingertip. It ought to melt away with her body heat, but a quick touch to her skin proves that she's just as cold as the weather around her, something that shouldn't be possible by any means.

Swallowing another sound in her throat, Peggy finds herself sitting heavily on the edge of the fountain, not sure she has the energy to cope with this on top of everything. She's been accused of being an icy bitch before, but she'd never thought it would end up being so literal. "You'd laugh," she says aloud, not sure which departed friend she's speaking to now, whether it's Steve or Howard or Jarvis, "it serves me right. The one moment I need affection and compassion, this place drives ice into my heart to keep people at bay." Letting her head hang forward, any tears that come turn to ice nearly immediately, dropping to the ground like a miniature weather event right in front of her, but she can't make herself move just yet.

Steve is gone. He's gone again and she's not sure how to say goodbye so quickly, this time.

Comments

[ex_assertiveness90]

It's about midway through the day that Stella realizes she hasn't seen Peggy all morning. Considering they're sharing living space, that's quite a feat. She'd been out of the house for longer and longer periods of time over the past few days, but it's got to the point where Stella is beginning to wonder.

She stops by the inn in the evenings, normally, and so on her way there she decides to see if Peggy is anywhere nearby. It takes her a little time to spot the other woman sitting on the edge of the fountain, and a few moments longer, as she starts to approach her, to realize that she's clearly upset by something.

If Peggy were someone else — someone, perhaps, whom she hadn't known since she'd got here over two months ago — maybe Stella might leave well enough alone. She is not precisely the sort of person to intrude on upset strangers. But Peggy is, she's had to admit to herself recently, the one person here who's the closest to being her friend; and by that token she can't simply walk away.

"Peggy?" She stops a short distance away, gloved hands tucked into her coat pockets. "Is everything all right?"

[womanofvalue]

Peggy raises her head in alarm, inhaling sharply so that she can push back everything she's feeling in a rush. She's sure that it hasn't been quick enough. Her hair has fallen out of its curls, her eyes are rimmed red from crying ice, and she must look pale (though that's not the grief, but rather the cold). "Don't come too close," she warns, extending a hand to try and get Stella to keep some distance from her.

She longs for something as simple as an embrace, but at the same time, she also doesn't want to hurt anyone. "I don't know what's happening, but I have the feeling it's not going to end well if you touch my skin." She shows the teardrop in her palm, that perfect little shape of ice. "It's been like that for minutes."

[ex_assertiveness90]

Stella recognizes that — she's done it herself, the quick stifling of emotional reaction when she can't afford to be seen a certain way. It's still plain as day that Peggy's been crying, but Stella doesn't call attention to it. At Peggy's warning she stops where she is, not entirely sure what's going on, but willing to wait till she receives an explanation.

She looks at the tiny teardrop-shaped bit of ice in Peggy's hand, and there's a slight furrowing of her brow as she tries to parse what's going on. Stella had heard of other people experiencing strange powers over fire, ice, and the like, but hadn't had such an experience herself — and in any case, she is disinclined to believe in anything as fanciful as magic. On the other hand, neither does she have a good explanation for it — which seems to be the case with quite a lot of things around the village, come to think of it.

"All right," she says, at a bit of a loss. She allows a few moments, then, "Should we get you indoors? Would it help?"

Even if not — surely it would be better to go back to the house than to sit out here by the fountain in the cold.

[womanofvalue]

"I don't feel cold," Peggy says, not sure whether to be even angrier at this for happening or perhaps somehow grateful. It's given her an out, some way to be upset without having to focus all that anger on Steve. She's not entirely sure why it's been triggered now, so close to the heels of her ability to ferret out lies, but as another stream of tears hardens on her cheek, she has to wonder if all this isn't tied to her emotional state.

The question she's beginning to ask herself is whether this might have manifested at home, as well. "I don't want to hurt you," she clarifies, "and I fear if you touch my skin, I might accidentally cause frostbite or something worse. I've no idea what's happening."

[notabirdcostume]

Sam left the house with a weight on his shoulders that he couldn't properly explain. It wasn't like Steve was dead -- but still. It was difficult to adjust and Sam realized that he had been relying a lot on Steve to bring some much needed order to this place.

Sam hated that he was starting to get used to people arriving and leaving. It just seemed to be a part of life here without much of an explanation as to why. And yet, somehow it still troubled him a lot, especially when it was so many people he knew and cared deeply about. Why all three of them at once? Where did people go? It was just as mysterious as when people arrived and, just like arrival, no one ever saw them go -- they just went.

He knew this had to be the case, because he had joined Peggy on a few of her searched and conducted some of his own. He knew Bucky and Natasha were both good at covering their tracks, Steve too to some degree, but they wouldn't have disappeared without saying something.

And what was he supposed to do? Pick up the pieces again it seemed. He'd been sharing a house with Steve recently and would need to do that eventually. Right now though it was probably more important to pick up the emotional pieces their departure had inevitably caused. Sam wasn't too worried about Clint, seeing as the archer had only recently arrived and probably wouldn't be too torn up about Natasha's departure -- it wasn't their relationship. The person he was worried about though...well, Peggy was strong, but this would technically be like the second time she'd lost Steve without a proper goodbye. The jerk.

Sam stopped walking when he heard a broken sob. He hadn't been paying attention to where he was goind and apparently his feet had led him to the fountain...and Peggy. He didn't say anything, though the scene gave him a weird sense of dejavu. He swallowed, that weight on his shoulders moving to become something caught in his throat. He hadn't meant to ease drop, but Peggy was apparently so upset that she was vocally expressing her distress. How a woman as caring and kind as Peggy could think she was ice cold was beyond him. He forced himself to move forward, closing the distance to the fountain in few strides. He didn't comment on the ice tears, he didn't care about the snow either, he just dropped onto one knee in front of her, kneeling. He brought his hands up, resting them reassuringly on her arms and giving them a squeeze.

He was here for her. He didn't say anything at first, just trying to be a calming presence for her. He hesitated a moment and then thought 'To hell with it,' and went from just giving her arm a squeeze to pulling her into a hug. It was an awkward position from his kneeling position, but Peggy needed it.

[womanofvalue]

"I'm going to freeze your skin right off," she protests through her grief, the way her voice shakes something that she resolves to immediately fix before anyone can perceive Peggy as being weak, because that's the very last thing she wants (or needs) to happen. Still, even as much as she's said that, she finds herself collapsing, lilting forward to wrap her arms around Sam's neck, knowing that he must be feeling some of this, too.

"I don't suppose you've come to tell me that Steve is sitting at your house, the late, stupid, stubborn idiot and he's just forgotten to tell us that he, James, and Natasha went exploring?" she suggests, that last shred of hope shredding before her eyes.

She already knows the answer. She knows as well as she had the day the Valkyrie went down.

[notabirdcostume]

Sam was never going to see Peggy as weak. He wasn't worried about himself right now. The ice power manifesting was a concern. Peggy breaking down was a concern. Peggy hurting him? Doubtful. All he said was, "I'm not worried about that. You're just cold." Sam stayed where he was, hugging her for comfort, because what else was he supposed to do? It wasn't like he could jump in the fountain and drag Steve's dumb ass back here.

Would he want to do that to him anyway?

Yeah...maybe a little.

Sam pulled back when Peggy asked about the others, already shaking his head, "I wish I was." He took a seat next to her on the fountain's rim, placing a hand on her knee because physical contact is reassuring. They're still here--together. They arrived here together actually, now that Sam thinks about it, and maybe that means something. They're in it for the long haul it seemed. "I wish I could tell you that I dragged his ass back to the house and gave him a good lecture about making us worry," he let out a sigh, "but I can't."

He fell silent for a moment, thinking over the past few weeks. "It doesn't have to be that bad though. We still have no idea what happens when people disappear like this. Bucky's hopped back here a few times -- from different points in time no less. Not to mention look at what happened with Kylo Ren." It was very likely that Steve would come back, that Natasha and Bucky might as well. He probably shouldn't get their hopes up, but it was a possibility.

"The point is...we can grieve now. But we'll get through this. We don't have a whole lotta other options."

[hawkeyesniper]

Even after confirming that the parasites and the vision of Pride she'd seen was a hallucination -- there was no evidence of either after that week, no matter how much she looked -- she still couldn't shake the vision of Harry. The other two had been nightmares from her past, but he...he had been different. It was a month ago and even now Riza was having trouble shaking the feeling that he had been ore than a dream. Yet, at the same time, as days ticked by she started to feel that he, too, had been a vision like the others. Harry wasn't coming for her, at least not here. She was on her own in this.

But, she was still going to visit the fountain. She just had to keep checking, even when most of her had accepted the fact that he wasn't coming. The fountain was still her only tie to that and while more people continued to arrive, it was never him. She paused as she reached the clearing where the fountain was located and noticed a woman sitting on the fountain's edge. She almost didn't recognize it as Peggy, not at first.

"Peggy? What's wrong?" She knew it had to be a lot for the woman to be crying like that. She wondered if it had anything to do with rumors she'd heard that more people had vanished.

[womanofvalue]

Sniffling quickly, Peggy tried her best to use the collar of her coat to dab away at icy tears, but it turns out that it's much harder to hide something that you have to chip away from your cheeks versus a little bit of red eye that you could mask with enough make-up. When she felt like she had composed herself at least enough to be presentable, she raises her head to regard Riza, breathing out slowly and trying not to let the focus remain on her.

"You're seeming much calmer than the last time I saw you," she observes, wondering if Riza will let her get away with the obfuscation of the truth. She doubts that will be the case, but she's making an attempt.

[hawkeyesniper]

"Considering the last time we spoke I was seeing monsters in the forest..." Riza replies, trying to sound light about it for Peggy's sake. This isn't about her though or her problems. In a lot of ways, Riza is like Peggy, which makes it easier sometimes to read between the lines. She can understand the need to hide tears and try to brush off problems.

"Unrelated, but around that time I was also upset by the fountain," she glanced over to a nearby bench where she'd had a conversation with Moana while trying to keep her composure. "I think I could understand. If you wanted to talk about it. But I could also understand if you didn't--something tells me neither of us is big on sharing our own problems."

[thesavior]

Emma was such an expert on grief that she could have honestly wrote a book if she wanted to. It is never something that someone likes to experience, but she has taken it in stride and her life has somehow managed to balance itself out just a little bit.

She came across Peggy and honestly couldn't help but reach out to the woman who had once reached out to her.

"What can I do Peggy?"

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's torn between two warring faction of emotions within her. The first is that clear, desperate need for affection, especially that of a female friend. The trouble is that the second feeling is the fear that comes with the turmoil of seeing something so strange. If she could think clearly, she'd recognize it for what happened to Jean when she'd arrived, but Peggy's mind isn't so lucid at the moment.

"I don't want to hurt you," she warns Emma, keeping a hand out as if she can somehow keep her at bay. "I don't know what's happening to me." If suddenly she turns into an ice statue there to greet new arrivals, she's going to be terribly cross.

[thesavior]

Emma looks at the ice forming on Peggy's hands, frowning slightly. This was unusual, to say the least, she didn't remember Peggy ever having magic or any type power before. She also knew that dealing with wild magic could be frightening and a pain in the ass.

She didn't know what she would have done without Elsa.

She concentrated on warming her hands, just a little bit. Her magic was definitely not at full strength here, but after living without it for so long, it was enough to get by.

"A friend once told me that in order to control the power, you have to accept yourself, or something like that," She said with soft smile. "Go ahead and take my hands."

[turned_to_steel]

It had been the sound of heartbreaking sobs that caught Sansa's attention first and drew her closer to the fountain when she might have continued by without a thought. Skirting around the edge, she wondered if she would find a new arrival sitting on the ground and crying because they felt lost. What she wasn't prepared for was the sight of Peggy sitting there crying and talking to herself.

Concern was immediate then as she hurried towards her friend, Akira right on her heels. "Peggy? What's wrong? What happened?"

Because, clearly, something must have happened to make the other woman break down. Not because Sansa thought she was an icy bitch but because she thought Peggy was strong. Compassionate and a good friend but still strong. Which meant that something bad happened to upset her and Sansa wanted now to fix it.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy quickly realises that she's in public and rather close to the fountain, a public place, when she hears Sansa's voice. She's grown closer to the young woman through their training sessions, but still not enough that she wants her to see Peggy like this. "Don't come too near," she warns. "I'm afraid I might hurt you, I don't understand it, but I seem to have developed some sort of...ice abilities," she says, thinking of Howard's inventions and wondering if this is just a long-delayed side-effect from one of them.

She deliberately doesn't mention the part where Steve is gone (again) and how poorly she's coping with that, but only because she's not sure how to even begin to understand her feelings.

[turned_to_steel]

Sansa stops dead at the warning from Peggy not to come too close, her brows drawing together as the look of concern deepens. Then she seems to relax at the mention of ice abilities, blowing out a little breath. "That sort of thing has been happening lately. I know of someone who had the same ability while others got a fire one. They had trouble controlling it at first but they were able to after awhile."

Not that the powers seemed to last for long.

Taking another step closer, she tilted her head again while looking Peggy over. "I'll just make sure that I don't touch you, okay? We can just sit and talk."

lmk if this is okay!

[repressings]

Credence knows that sound. He's heard it in his adoptive mother's foster home, he's heard it on the streets. Once, when he was near what he was sure was a speakeasy, he heard it from a girl breaking up with her boyfriend. She had been beautiful, in a rich green flapper dress, and Credence had felt a strange pang of envy. He wishes he could be sad because someone loved him.

This is different. He's on one of his walks--he likes walking, walking clears his mind--and he hears the same sort of crying he'd found in that alleyway.

It's Peggy, he realizes, and when he looks at her form it's with distress and alarm. People cry, yes, but Peggy Carter should not be one of them. She is too fierce, too strong, too beautiful--if she's crying, something is definitely, definitely wrong.

He steps closer and that's when Credence hears the words. It's grief, he realizes. Credence knows about grief. He knows about sadness, too. Mostly, he knows that being alone when you're feeling those types of emotions is the worst thing you can do. He knows--you begin to feel isolated, you begin to feel cold, and Credence takes a step forward.

What he's going to do, he doesn't know. But he knows Peggy is in distress.

"Miss." He doesn't ask if she's okay--of course he's not--but he does try his best to smile, trying to look comforting.

"You don't have to be alone," he says quietly, and that's when he's close enough to see it. Those tears--he gasps, and it's one of surprise and delight, and he says the first thing that comes to his mouth:

"Miss Carter, you're crying pearls."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy does manage a smile, though it's tremulous and brief, but she thinks that of all the people here, Credence is one of the few that could move her to such determined lengths to insist that she's all right, mainly because she wishes to protect him and watch out for him, which she very well can't do if she's weeping icy tears. "So I appear to be," is what she says, turning away from him briefly to try and compose herself, using her thumb to brush away each of them.

They fall to the ground, the dirt absorbing them silently, and she swallows back her words and her grief, knowing now that Steve isn't coming back, but that she's not sure how to say goodbye to him again, so soon. "I'm afraid I have no idea why."

[repressings]

"Because you're sad," Credence says immediately, his voice soft and gentle. He knows the feeling on an instinctual level, even before his arrival to the village. It's the type of crying that's not the very attractive kind, but the guttural wails that Peggy is trying very hard to stifle.

"May I sit?" He asks, and he presses his lips into a thin line and joins her, sitting on the edge of the fountain. Peggy doesn't have to be alone, and he knows the other's probably going to insist she's fine and can handle it.

She can't. And that doesn't make her any weaker, but he can't find the right words. he's never been good at this, even when his sisters have had nightmares or a new child comes to the house.

He doesn't pry, doesn't ask--if Peggy wants to share she will--and instead, he very carefully raises a scarred hand to touch her shoulder. His next words really are a whisper: "sometimes, if you close your eyes and think of sometihng happy, it helps."

(If still taking new tags…!)

[candor1]

From the Falls to the hospital to the inn. Medical advise would be to stay indoors and rest. Cassian's urge remained to stay outside and continue to avoid the prospect of settling in. It was some kind of compromise between the two, though a bit at odds with both: Cassian was spending the day on the move, looking for an available solitary indoors in which to rest.

His path needn't necessarily have gone by the fountain. But perhaps a similar urge to Peggy's to say goodbye brought him here. (Since it was his suppressed hope that she might appear that had kept him coming back.)

Ever since the town meeting, he'd been looking for an opportunity to talk with Peggy alone.

He'd decided against slipping out after her then because of her expressed need to process something alone.

Perhaps this timing was just as bad.

On the other hand… it could be welcomed just to check.

So Cassian hung back, deliberately tuning out whatever words she actually spoke to the water. Professional courtesy. Only listening enough to hear when the words stopped.

At which point, he emerged from the treeline, at a vector within her sight so he wouldn't take her by surprise (he was fairly certain she'd catch the motion even with head bowed), and closed the distance between them. If she let him get that far without reaction, he'd sit—favoring his beslinged arm—leaving enough space not to be too invasive, but close enough to still be beside her.

Using the same words and gentle intonation as she had to him on the spot, he said softly, "Are you all right?"

[womanofvalue]

At the sound of someone coming, she startles somewhat and makes haste at making herself look presentable, trying to dry her eyes through the fear and the wonder of finding icy tears on her cheeks. It's certainly not normal, but she's quickly learning that normal is something she left behind long before she arrived here. Swallowing back that grief, she regards him, trying to recall his name. "I'm sorry, it was Jer-something," she says, inhaling and exhaling and finding herself as composed as she gets.

"I don't exactly remember your name," she offers apologetically.

[candor1]

He smiles and ducks his head. "It's good that you don't." More apologetically: "I gave a false one. I felt good about you but not yet about…" He lifts his head to indicate… everything around them.

So he extends a hand (the unbandaged one) in atonement and new introduction. "My real name is Cassian Andor."

[ottimismo]

He doesn't know her. He's seen her around, sure, and has maybe even said 'good morning' to her a few times in passing, but they've never spoke. They've never held a conversation, have never exchanged names. But in a place like this, where they're all stuck here in this place and this situation together, it doesn't much matter if they know each other or not.

Besides, Sonny's heart hurts to see someone in any sort of pain. And every bit of him is itching to help.

So he grabs the warmest blanket he owns, an extreme weather blanket he received for Christmas, and gets some bitter but hot tea from the Inn, and makes the short trek outside to where she sits crying at the fountain.

"I won't stay if you'd rather be alone," he says, and holds out the blanket and tea towards her. "But it looked like you could use a little bit of warmth."

[womanofvalue]

It's strange, really, that the blanket doesn't change her temperature at all. Stranger still is that even though she wants nothing more than to enjoy the tea in her hands, the minute her fingers close on the cup, it begins to ice and freeze over, denying her even this small comfort. It appears that even now, she's attempting to ruin just about everything with whatever these strange powers are.

"I don't think alone is really what I want, but warmth is something I am currently being denied," she says, frowning as she stares at the now firm surface of the tea. "Bloody Nora," she curses. "I really wanted that."

[ottimismo]

"That's--" Weird. That's very weird. He can tell, even as their fingers are just barely brushing when he hands over the blanket and the tea, that her skin is icy cold. Sure, they're outside, where the temperature and weather are less than kind, but it feels as if she's had her hands buried in the snow for hours.

Which, he supposes is possible, although improbable.

"Wow. Is that like, one of those weird side effects from being here? Like when Cougar had all his weird fire powers." He frowns. "I can go make you another cup. Maybe it won't freeze if I hold it while you drink it. Is that weird?"

It's probably weird. And he's doing that rambling thing again.