Prompt 556 - Serendipity - Dragon's Phoenix - s1 rewrite - Agent Carter

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Fandom: Agent Carter
Prompt: 556 - Serendipity
Rating: PG
Word Count: 772
Note: Locked to members of Taming the Muse

You lost people in war. Not just the people that mattered but even casual acquaintances drifted away. You heard rumors, so and so had gotten married, another had run off with a young man and nobody'd heard of her since. Many had died. And many you just didn't know. They were gone and there was no one to tell you where.

At the start of the war, Peggy Carter had belong to a vibrant community in New York City but now, after the war, she'd found only one soul, Alice, a wispy srpite of a blonde interested not in art, not in philosophy, not even in saving the world for democracy, but interested in young man and interested in dancing. Beggars couldn't be choosers. Finding an apartment in post-war New York was all but impossible. Peggy had gratefully taken Alice up on her offer to share her small space.

Peggy had almost turned around, thanked the girl, and gone off to find someplace else, almost but not quite. There was only one room, bathroom down the hall. The one bed folded up into the wall and wasn't wide enough to fit two. Alice had taken one look at the shock on Peggy's face. “You can take the bed. I'm sure I'll be fine on the chair.”

“No. Definitely not. I'll pick up a sleeping bag and a mat, maybe a cot, at the Army Navy store. I've slept on worse during the war.”

“Geez, I heard it was bad in London, but I didn't know it was that bad.”

“Only sometimes.” Peggy's smile felt weak. The truth was, she hadn't spent the war in London. She'd been in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, sometimes on the Allied side of the front but often working as a covert agent in German occupied territory. It was classified, not shared even at work.

“Well, if you say so.”

“I insist. You were generous enough to share your home with me. I'm not taking your bed. In fact, if I rush, I should be able to pick up bedding before the stores close.”

Peggy would have preferred a mat. The cot she returned with took up too much space in the small closet, but, based on how Alice tossed and turned at night, was more comfortable than the Murphy bed the girl put up with. <Alice goes with her, curious about items in Army Navy store, but no connection to them. While out, suggests Peggy get a dress for dancing.>

“Out?” Peggy suppressed a shudder. She'd conquered her stutters. Damned inconvenient for the to show up now.

“Dancing! There's this great club …”

“No, no.” At the girl's dismay, Peggy didn't quite relent. “I'm, well, tired. I've been living out of hotels. Honestly, I just want a good night's rest.”

Alice's face fell. “You sure? There's nothing more fun than swirling around in your best boy's arms.”

“I thought you weren't seeing anyone.”

“Well,” the girl shrugged. “Any guy can be your best boy, right?”

Peggy thought of Steve, of how they'd seemed to be of one mind, both weak or seen as weak, both struggling to overcome limits, of how he'd sacrificed himself, driving his airplane into the sea to save New York. So funny that she'd ended up here, the one place he'd sacrificed his life to save or perhaps not, perhaps she was here to take up his shield, to protect the city he'd loved. She knew she'd never meet another like him. “Sure, but I still think I'd rather sleep. Tonight at least.”

“Okay,” the girl shrugged. “You don't mind if I go out, do you?”

“No, of course not. You have fun.”

The cot wasn't bad, but Peggy couldn't sleep. What was she doing here, where he'd been from, trying to prove herself once again? She could be in Europe, fighting the good fight with <name of troop formed after release from Red Skull's prison?>.

Alice drifted in around two in the morning. “Still up?” she queried into the dark room. “Oh, you should have come with. I had such a time! I met Bobby and his friend Greg. Greg was a bit upset I didn't bring a friend for him but he found a girl easy enough. It's too bad so many soldiers died in the war, makes it harder to find someone to dance with. There's always another girl ready to take a guy.”

As the girl blathered on, Peggy wondered if finding the girl had been as serendipitous as she'd first thought. Sure, the hotel'd felt unsettled, but at least she'd been able to sleep the night through.