Katherine Baker had better things to do with her time than watch over Captain America, like finding the murderer who single-handedly took out her entire family in one fell swoop. But Director Nick Fury is determined to make sure Steve Rogers has a f...
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CHAPTER SIX WHITE CHRISTMAS
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Captain Rogers had been gone for three hours.
This shouldn't have been alarming. He was out with Lionel, on a trip he had requested and gotten cleared a week ago by Fury himself. Lionel had picked him up, surprising Katherine, who had no idea about the little outing, and had left. After weeks of constantly being by his side and making sure he was adjusting accordingly, she felt almost lonely in the safe house by herself.
Their problems weren't magically solved with the picture of the giraffe and the circus monkey. She still had trouble sharing information about herself, and he still woke up from nightmares in the middle of the night. Their mornings in the home gym were served as their neutral ground, where they both sweat and worked in silence until Katherine eventually left to take a shower. Captain Rogers had taken it upon himself to be their official post-workout breakfast maker, and she was happy to see that he was learning his way around the kitchen pretty well.
Overall, there was a nice routine that Katherine had found herself getting used to. Which is why the silence in his absence seemed that much more deafening.
Christmas was in two weeks, which meant Katherine was starting to feel the loneliness seep in. She was used to Christmases without her family, but it never got easier. Having decided that whoever first said "time heals all wounds" was full of shit, she had long since accepted that Christmases were just going to be hard. But this Christmas was different. This time, she had to pull herself together to make sure it was a decent day for Captain Rogers. Which meant, of course, decorating the safe house.
The attic had a bunch of old Christmas decorations (something she'd have to ask Fury about, because she had no clue why they were up there) that she'd found when she hadn't been able to sleep at three in the morning the previous week and had wandered up to the attic. She'd have to get a tree, but there were ornaments and generic stockings in some red and green boxes that sat untouched in the corner of the small attic space. She crouched into the small space and dragged the boxes to the lip of the ladder that led upwards, carefully grasping one and lifting it out of the attic. Once she was sure she wasn't going to drop anything, she set the box on the floor and went to retrieve the other one.
Briefly, she wondered if she should even bother. Maybe he didn't even celebrate Christmas. It's not like his S.H.I.E.L.D. files mentioned anything about a religion. But then she decided that even if he didn't celebrate, it would still be nice to spruce up the house a little bit. Make it feel like it was somewhere he could come and relax instead of a safe house for an assignment.
