Cecily (Prince!SteveRogers AU)

6

"Well?" Comes the King's voice from outside my chambers. "Has she bled?" 

Steve has been gone for only a few weeks and already they are expecting news of an heir. It's down to me to secure the bloodline. The Kingdom's fate, and yet now that is about to be dashed. 

"She has your majesty..." 

Those words alone cause silence. 

I sit in bed and feel ashamed. I can't even make an heir on the first try. They had such high hope for me as well. Even Steve. He's probably expecting to return home to find me round with child and instead I can give him nothing. 

I am a disappointment, and I can hear it in the King's voice as he now sighs. "Well...let's hope that Steve comes back soon to put a child in her belly". 

The door opens and Sarah comes in, closing the door quietly. I glance at her from where I'm sat in bed and look away, too ashamed to look at her. She settles in a chair by the side of the bed, and I feel her take my hand. "Why didn't it work?" I ask quietly. "Is there something wrong with me?" 

"There is nothing wrong with you my dear. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't". She says kindly. 

"The King is angry..." 

"No, no... he is simply worried that's all. Though he won't admit it. He wanted that sense of security, knowing that you were carrying our son's child, but he will be fine. His focus is on Steve safely returning to us". She tells me and then pauses. "I never conceived on the first time around, and I spent as many nights in my husband's bed as I could. It didn't happen the next month, but the next? It happened finally...and then? We lost the child". Her voice cracks. "My husband's confidence in me was wavering, and I felt like I had failed in my duty, like something was wrong with me. But it wasn't, because then Steve was born, and everything was right in the world - and that is what he is. My world". 

She speaks of him with such love and joy that I wonder whether I will be able to feel such a thing for another human. 

I now look at her. "Do you think that I could ever have that?" 

There is a smile on her lips. "Yes...I believe so". 

**

ONE YEAR LATER

The army has been gone for longer than we had expected. The war simply raging on and King Johann not giving up. Our men take cities, villages, try to close in on him. But still he lives, leading them further from home and striking ours where it hurts. 

He does not attack the city. Instead choosing small hamlets, farms, anything to cut our supplies of food and water. And their people make for our city for help, so much so that it is becoming overcrowded. 

I make my way to the chapel, the colder mornings setting in for winter. I see a lone figure knelt at the altar, muttering into her rosary. 

The Queen. 

I turn to leave but she calls me back. 

"Cecily..." 

Stopping, I turn back to her. "I did not know you were here. I can pray later..." I make my excuses, knowing she much prefers the solace of prayer like I do. She prays for her son, for his triumphant return. She prays for his life...

And me? 

I pray for my father, and Steve. Of course I should, he is my husband after all. 

"Come, join me. I'd like some company" Sarah says with a smile. "And I can always reply on yours to make me feel at ease". 

I set myself down next to her, taking the rosary from my pocket and clasping it in my hands. I close my eyes. 

Please keep my father from harm...please let him come home unscathed. Please let my marriage work when Steve does return. I would give anything to have just a little affection. 

I open my eyes and realise Sarah is watching me. "You look like you were praying hard". 

"I suppose I was" I say, making the sign of the cross before getting to my feet, Sarah also doing so. "Have we heard nothing?" 

"Not since two weeks ago...all we can do is wait and hope that they close in on King Johann and kill him". She tells me as we walk out and make out way from the chapel to go and take breakfast. "I hope that this doesn't go on for too long. I miss Steve greatly..." comes her sigh. 

"Yes..." I say, "I do too". 

Do I? I don't know any different, just that we were married and then parted within less than twenty-four hours. 

I barely know him, whereas by now I should've grown to know everything. His likes, his dislikes, what he does when he's not undertaking duties. 

I should've given him an heir...and yet nothing came from our union. 

As we walk the halls to the royal apartments, we're stopped by the guards. "Your majesty, my lady, the King requests your presence in the great hall immediately". 

"Steve?" Sarah now ponders out loud and pulls me along, both of us hurrying to the doors of the hall, the guards quickly opening them to let us inside. 

We stop as we see a bruised and mudded Knight turn to look at us, and it does not look positive. 

"Well?" Sarah now demands. "Is he back? Have we won? What's happened?" 

The King is rubbing his temples and then looks at the Knight. "Sir Peter...tell them what you told me". 

Sir Peter simply looks at us, broken. "The prince is dead..." 

Sarah's anguished scream fills and echoes around the halls. It can probably be heard all over the castle, and she collapses to her knees in sobs. I look at Sir Peter. "That is not possible? How?"

He swallows, now stepping aside to show the blood-stained circular shield that bares the crest of Auburndale. The star in the middle dirtied and with specs of red staining it. "I tried...I really tried to fight for him, they killed him, Bucky, dragged their bodies away as some kind of trophy to keep, the rest of us? We couldn't stop them, because there were too many we had to fight off if we wanted to win, and we did, but it's cost us a lot..." 

"And King Johann?" I demand.  "What of him? Did he kill Steve?" 

Peter shakes his head. "They killed him because he was the one to kill Johann".

On hearing this, Sarah wails even more and I go to help her up from the floor. She is frozen there, crying, her whole body violently shaking as I place an arm around her. 

As I look up, I can see the King look at me, the grief clear. "Cecily..." He says, "we didn't just lose my son...your father was lost too..." 

And on this, my world begins to fall apart in slow motion. 

I am an orphan. 

I am a widow. 

I am no one.