Fourth in the Timeline series |
Clara Lewis never expected to be back in the 1940s and Howard Stark never expected to have to help her get back...again. But with Howard branded a traitor Clara knows of only one person who can help her: Peggy Carter...
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"It's going to be so nice having you stay, Peggy." Clara chirped as she lead Peggy down the long, glamorous halls of Howard Stark's mansion.
"We can gossip and watch tv and eat cookie dough or whatever it is women do at sleepovers. I never had a proper sleepover before, never had space in the tiny apartment I grew up in. Wait do people in this time eat raw cookie dough? Or, you know...rationing?" Clara asked, throwing down her coat across the back of one of Stark's fancy arm chairs.
His sitting rooms were all designed as if the English royal family would pop over any minute for tea. The intricately designed rugs by the marble fireplaces cost more than a family car. And Howard bought them in batches of twelve.
"So," Clara began, throwing her hands wide in an open gesture, "What do you want to do first?"
"Oh, it's so nice of you, Clara, to be so...welcoming but I can't stay." Peggy reasoned, waving as she thought up a viable reason.
"But Peg, you don't have anywhere else to go?" Clara pleaded, "Where would you stay if not here? And why not here? It's like staying in a palace!"
"I have to admit, if I could, I'd love to stay. What I need right now is long hot bath and to sleep all day in a four poster bed. But believe me, I can't stay here."
"Why not, Peg? Is it me? I know we never talked a lot but you're one of my closest friends here. I don't know anyone else..." Clara mumbled, she thought she was over the initial shock of suddenly being transported 70 years into the past and still having no idea how she was going to get home. But it had suddenly all hit her and it was rapidly threatening to overwhelm her.
"No, of course it's not you, Clara. It's just..." She paused.
"Tell me the truth, Peg. You don't need to lie to me." Clara implored.
"All of the people I get closed to have a nasty habit of getting killed." Peggy admitted, raising her eyebrows in the alarm the both of them should have felt, "And besides, I can't stay at the home of a traitor, especially in my line of work. If anyone found out, I'd be headed straight for the electric chair!"
"They have that?" Clara asked, appalled.
"They don't in the future?" Peggy asked bewildered, "Well, that's certainly a step in the right direction."
"Don't change the subject-" Clara protested.
"You changed the subject." Peggy retorted.
"And quit interrupting me." Clara teased, "Where are you going to go Peg? You look done in, at least stay the night."
