The Choice

Rekindled

After the mind boggling news of Daniels whereabouts, Peggy leaves the SSR offices  and drives away in her car. As she rides on the road she takes familiar turns until she reaches a familiar house, one that is not her own. Instead home she arrives at its Daniels. For a moment she stays seated behind her wheel hands gripping until her knuckles turn white, a few loose tears falling down her cheeks. She wasn't aware where she was driving to until she had stopped, it seemed her mind and heart knew exactly where she needed to be. Home.

What does shaking breath and hand she opens her door and makes way to the house. Seeing as she has a spare key it isn't difficult to get inside. It's been a long time since she's been here, a long time since she's felt at home. She always has him, and even though he's not home everything there is his.

Absent-mindedly Peggy steps inside and closes the door gently behind her leaning against it with a deep breath. Everything smells like him.

Her senses are overwhelmed as her heart starts beating out of her chest. How could you let this happen? How could she not see the signs sooner? Something needed to be done. And Peggy Carter was not going to give up without a fight.

As the days go by Peggy starts staying at Daniel's house every night. She does stop by her own house every now and then to check on Steve or grab a few change of clothes, but she never sticks around for too long. In doing so Rogers begins to worry. He even stops her from leaving the house a few times. 

"Peggy what's going on?" She pulls away to create a safe distance, her eyes not exactly meeting his. 

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Peg. You're staying away for days at a time, you never sleep here anymore-"

"You're not my keeper, Rogers. The only people needing to be concerned about where I go and what I do are either dead or across the world on a different continent. None of which are you."

She stares daggers towards him until he backs down, shoving his hands in is pockets as his eyes become glued to the floor. But he doesn't drop the subject.

"Is it something I did? Are... are you avoiding me?"

Peggy sighs deeply before rolling her eyes and walking past him. "This has nothing to do with you." She states before closing the front door behind her.

She goes back to Daniel's house and flops on his bad, breathing in his scent. She holds his pillow close to her as a sob escapes her throat. No one was around to hear her fall apart, so maybe it was time to let loose.

When she wakes she sighs, happily, he may not be there but it was close enough. Peggy gets up to shower before heading back to the SSR for the day and going about her usual routine. Go to work, handle a mission, come home. Even if Daniel wasn't here, it will always be home to her.

For weeks its like this, her waking up in Daniel's bed, going to work, sometimes returning to her own house  to check on Steve, but it happened less and less as time moves on. Steve Rogers is her past, a door that closed a very long time ago, and she had moved on. He needed to accept that.  

They had talked a great deal of their past and what had transpired between them; all the unsaid feelings exposed. But Peggy never acted on those past ghosts. They were simply that. Ghosts. And she tried to make it quite clear to Steve what they had was over, even if he struggled to accept it. Peggy was never going to leave Daniel behind, it would be too much. Just imagining a life without him was overwhelming enough, let alone living it.

No. She couldn't. It was an endless cycle for weeks of the same routine. That is until it was broken...

One night as Peggy lays in Daniel's bed, a hand startles her awake. She jumps unexpectedly and reaches for the gun she kept under her pillow, but drops it instantly when she sees the intruder- or not so much as an intruder as she thought- but the man of the house himself. 

"D-Daniel?!" He nods and nearly tumbles over when she springs from the bed and tosses her arms around his neck. He hesitates for a moment before wrapping his free arm around her back, keeping her close. 

"Hey, Peg." He breaths in her hair as she tugs him closer, her nails scratching at the base of his hair. Daniel barely registers his shoulder growing damp before pulling away and cupping her cheek in his hand. 

Her cheeks are wet with salty tears, and her eyes red and puffy. He sighs and pulls her in again, enjoying the feeling of her against him. He may have been hurt, even heart broken, but seeing her again, feeling her against him, just wasn't something he could ever tire of.

"Y-you came back." She says, her words muffles by his shoulder. 

"Of course I came back, Peg. You think I could stay away forever?" She sniffles at this and squeezes tighter, not having the voice to answer.

After a few moments the break apart and gaze at one another, silence wrapping around them. Neither one knows what to say, and Peggy Carter being Peggy Carter was always more of a woman to act than speak. She grasps his face in her hands before leaning in to meet his lips with hers, placing a searing kiss there. Daniel is shocked beyond measure, but doesn't dare pull away.

"I love you, Daniel."

Daniel Sousa's smile could have lit all of Los Angeles after her declaration.