Cruel Summer

Chapter 22

A/N: Meg and Rosie meeting and beefing over God? Maybe more likely than you'd think. Meg writing to Marge? Literally the best thing to come out of this fic tbh! Today is just a single update since I've gotta prep for my finals and work out some last assignments w/my professors. Let me know what you think though!

Chapter Text

When Meg finally made her way back to Thorpe Abbotts, it wasn't intended to be for very long. No, she knew that as soon as Bucky was gone, there was nothing that was left for her there. Nothing to wait for, no one that would be a friend to her, and no one that she trusted. Everything that she had was simply gone.

It would be easier for her to transfer to London permanently, or at least until this war was over. At least there she wouldn't have to deal with her father breathing down her neck, the pitied looks from the rest of the men who would hear about Major John Egan or her brother Alex. It would simplify all of those messy and complicated emotions if she just ridded them from her chest like some sort of common cold.

At least in London, she could disappear into the crowds of SOE Agents. She could be nameless, faceless, unimportant, just another cog in the greater machinery. And she would be busy—she could do things for the war, she could feel as though she were doing something .

Truth be told, it didn't take her long to pack up her things. It wasn't as if she had come to London with much—beyond the very clothes on her back and a stab wound. And so now, packing up the few books that she had and the clothing, it went by quickly. How strange it was that everything one owned could be packed up in a single setting and afternoon. She wondered what it would be to actually own things .

Wondered if at some point in the future, she would have a closet full of nice clothes and things. That she would have a house of her own—one that Bucky would buy her. The thought seemed so outlandishly far away from their current circumstances that it almost made her heart hurt .

She should've just listened to her instincts and taken him far away from this place and ran . But the thing about running? Once you start, you never stop. And Bucky wasn't the type to back away from a fight. Wasn't about to leave his men, wasn't about to give up on this fight. And neither was she. In another life, perhaps, if they were more cowardly, it would have been their life. But not now.

Meg didn't say goodbye to her father, didn't know what she could even possibly say to the man to try and get him to understand how she was feeling or why she was leaving. What would have been the point of it all?

She stood there, suitcase in hand and waiting for the car to be pulled around so she could leave for London. And as she stood there, another car came into the base—this one being exited by the very crew that had made it through the hellishly disastrous mission that had taken her husband from her. For a moment, their jovial conversation seemed to stop at the sight of her, standing there—

And she knew they were connecting the dots. Major Egan and her had been seen at that party together and now Bucky Egan was gone. And she would be gone too.

"Car needs a few minutes to refuel, but then it should be good!" The one in the front said. Meg vaguely recognized him as Robert Rosenthal—the lawyer turned pilot. The other men shuffled in, and he just stayed put, feet glued to the ground.

Meg wondered why the hell he was lingering—everyone else (sans Crosby) who had looked her way seemed to want to run as far away from her as they could. She was the very omen of death yet again and it was a clear warning to everyone who she interacted with. Run while you still can. Before you're marked like all the others.