Come Back With Me

She Holds On To Him

She does something that she never does. She closes her eyes and imagines him. The only time she sees him now is in her dreams. It's always perfect until she wakes up and then she's in pain for days. She used to wish for dreams of him, now she dreads them. She pushed him away for so long but I'm this moment, she hold on to him.

She remembers his laugh and his eyes. She remembers how they were perfectly matched like puzzle pieces.

She remembers his loyalty and his protectiveness.

She remembers the way he would kiss her on the forehead, letting his lips linger.

She remembers how he was abysmal in the kitchen except for tomato soup.

She remembers his tomato soup and how it never failed to cheer her up.

The last thing she remembers is the way he would say her name.

'I love you, Ellie,'

"I love you Jaime, I'm always going to love you. I'll love you till the end of my days and probably even after that. I've said it a billion times but I'll say it again, I don't know if I believe in soulmates but if I did, you'd be mine," she concludes.

She sits on the outlook until the sun is low in the horizon and heads home.

For once, Peggy decides not to disturb her when she goes to her room and locks her door without a word.

She needs this day to mourn Barnes alone.

Three days later, Peggy and Lizzie get up early to celebrate Steve.

They make his favorite breakfast in the morning and in the afternoon they tell story after story about him. They laugh and they cry but most of all they remember the phenomenal man they both loved.

"I feel like I don't deserve to miss him as much as you do. I only knew him for a couple of years but you knew him for 27 years," Peggy confides in Lizzie.

Lizzie didn't know that Peggy felt this way. She never thought Peggy wasn't allowed to mourn as much as her.

"Steve was to you what Jaime was to me. He was the love of your life and no matter the time you knew each other, losing that is a deep pain I know all to well," Lizzie admits.

"Was it harder to lose Bucky than Steve?" Peggy asks.

"When Stevie died, I honestly think a very literal piece of me died. I've learned to tune it out but when I focus on it, I can still feel the ice that is trapped in my body," Lizzie says.

She takes a deep breathe because she never talks about Jaime with other people but it's Peggy. She trusts Peggy with her life and she can trust her with Jaime.

"When Jaime died, my happiness died. I can be content but I don't know if I'll ever be truly joyfully again. I don't know if there's an answer to who was harder to lose because they were the two halves of my heart. I loved them both to the point where I'll never ever recover," Lizzie says.

Peggy has been considering bringing up a topic for some time. She doesn't want Lizzie to backslide but she needs to talk about this.

"You don't think any other man could make you happy?" Peggy starts.

Lizzie instantly knows where Peggy is going with the conversation and she doesn't want to have it.

"Peggy," she warns.

"He's a good man, Beth" Peggy says.

"I'm not having this conversation," Lizzie says.

She gets up but Peggy follows her.