Chapter Text
Angie doesn’t get out of bed for three days. She lies in Peggy’s bed, occasionally waking from a nightmare. Nightmares that Peggy is always there to soothe; sometimes they’re screams, sometimes they’re quiet whimpers.
When the automat calls to inquire about Angie’s absence, Peggy tells them she’s taken ill. When Agent Thompson calls to yell about Peggy’s absence, she tells him in a cold voice that she will return when she’s fit to and hangs up.
On the fourth day, Peggy helps Angie into another bath. This time Angie is more aware of her surroundings. She shies away from Peggy’s touch, avoiding her own reflection in the large mirror. She crosses her arms to cover her breasts and keeps her eyes on the floor. Peggy tries not to cry when she sees the way that Angie folds into herself, like she’s trying to make herself smaller.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Peggy asks once Angie is settled into the warm water.
Angie shakes her head, still not looking at Peggy.
She doesn’t move while Peggy wets her hair and begins to lather her hair with the expensive shampoo on the edge of the bathtub. Angie relaxes a little as Peggy’s fingers massage her scalp. She breathes into the quiet of the bathroom, allowing Peggy to rinse her hair and run a soapy cloth along her skin.
“Why are you doing this?” Angie whispers.
“Why am I doing what?” Peggy isn’t sure what she’s wondering. Is she asking about the bath? Her acceptance?
“Why haven’t you told me I’m a disgrace? A mistake? Why are you letting me stay here?” She pulls away from Peggy’s touch, wrapping her arms around herself. And Peggy realizes that there isn’t anything between them. Angie has no armor, this her, bare and raw.
Peggy pauses, watching water droplets fall from Angie’s lashes and into the bathwater. She is heartbreakingly beautiful. “This is your home.”
“He’ll come back for me.” Angie says instead of another question.
“This is your home, Angie. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Peggy wishes more than anything she could make Angie believe her.
“He’ll tell my boss what I am. He’ll tell everyone.”
“What you are is not defined by anything those people say.” Peggy’s voice is steady; she reaches for Angie’s chin and lifts her face to look into her eyes.
“You try telling that to everyone I’ve ever loved.” She sniffles, tears running down her cheeks.
“Angie –”
“You don’t know what it’s like, Peggy. To have everyone you love just stop loving you. Like turning off a lamp.”
Peggy is quiet, running water over Angie to rinse her. She’s careful not to touch the scars that have faded into her skin. Angie stands, the water dripping off of her and into the bathtub before she steps out and into the towel that Peggy holds open. She allows Peggy to wrap her in the towel, wrapping her own arms around Peggy in a tight embrace.
“You’re the only one.” Angie mumbles.
Peggy breathes in the scent of Angie. Her clean hair and skin, she feels the way her body is pressed against her own. “You are worth loving. Everything about you is worth loving.”
xxx
On the fifth day their phone rings on two different occasions.
Angie sits at their breakfast table, stabbing at a bowl of sliced fruit.
“Carter.” Peggy speaks into the phone. She’s taken the call in the nearest office in case she needs to yell at Thompson again.
“Peggy, I’m so glad you picked up.” Daniel sounds rushed, out of breath and nervous.
She sighs, “What can I do for you Agent Sousa?”
“A courier just dropped off some files with Rose. Said they concerned you.”
Peggy holds her breath, “And?”
“Well, Thompson didn’t want to bother with them so he threw them at me. Told me to give him the short version.”
“Spit it out Daniel.” She grips the phone a little tighter.
“They’re about your, well, your friend. Miss Martinelli?” He takes a deep breath, “She could go to prison. Hell Peggy, you could go to prison just for knowing her.”
“If you have any respect for me as an agent and her as a person you will burn those files.” Peggy’s voice is cold and even.
“Peggy –”
“She was tortured, Daniel. What you fought for, what you lost part of yourself for? They were doing that to her. They were doing that to her here.”
Daniel sighs again on the other end of the line, “Peggy, I –”
“You don’t have to understand. You don’t have to care. But if you have any respect, any human decency; you will burn the file and forget you ever saw it.” She almost sounds like she’s begging, almost.
He’s quiet for a few moments. She can hear him flipping through the pages of Angie’s file. The file that details her hospitalization while they tried to “cure” her. “Do you love her?”
“Does it matter?”
“Answer the question, Peggy.” He doesn’t sound angry, he sounds like a man who needs closure.
She sighs, “Yes.”
“Okay.” She hears the phone click into its cradle.
Peggy replaces the phone quietly, taking a moment to calm her nerves before returning to Angie in the kitchen. She’s just as she left her, of course. Staring at the fruit she’s barely eaten.
“You should eat.” Peggy sits next to her, picking up her cup of tea and taking a sip.
“Who was on the phone?”
“Work. Nothing to worry about,” Peggy lies. She doesn’t need Angie to worry over her. Not when she’s so afraid of losing her own job and being turned out of her own home again. It’s one of the few lies that don’t burn.
The second phone call comes later in the day. Angie has fallen asleep in one of the armchairs, music from the gramophone softly filling the corners of the room.
“Carter.” Peggy is quiet, watching Angie sleep from the opposite end of the room. She doesn’t hear a response but she can hear someone take in a breath. “Hello?” Peggy sighs, waiting another moment before hanging up the phone.
It rings a minute later.
“Hello?” Her voice a little more forceful when she answers.
“Hello.” A woman on the other end replies.
“Can I help you?”
The woman pauses, takes in a deep breath, “Does Angela Martinelli live at this number?”
“Who is asking?” Peggy gives as an answer.
“Her mother.”
Peggy gasps, “She’s not available at the moment.” She takes in the way that Angie is curled in the armchair; her hair falling in gentle waves, feet tucked under herself, peaceful and relaxed.
“I’d like to speak to my daughter.” Peggy doesn’t say anything, instead she waits. “Did you hear me?”
“Of course I heard you. She’s not available at the moment.”
Behind her, Angie stirs and opens her eyes to see Peggy gripping the phone.
“Peggy?”
She covers the receiver with her hand, “Just a moment, darling.”
“Who’s on the phone?” She stands and comes behind her.
Peggy sighs, she doesn’t want to lie. Not about this. “Your mother.”
“What?” Angie takes a step back, afraid her mother might step out from behind the bookcase and take her away.
“Your mother would like to speak to you. I can tell her to leave her number if you wish. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
Angie takes a step closer and eases the phone from Peggy’s grip. Peggy doesn’t move from next to her, watching the way she slowly raises the receiver to her ear.
“Mama?” Angie’s voice cracks, and suddenly she is seven years younger. She is twenty and standing alone to face the cruel world before her. She’s the young woman desperately needing her family to love her when all they see is someone broken.
Angie doesn’t speak for a while, listening to her mother on the other end. She nods a few times and reaches for Peggy’s hand at her side and wraps it around herself, silently asking Peggy to hold her.
“I, yeah. Okay.” She sucks in a sharp breath, “Bye Mama.”
Angie returns the phone to its cradle; a moment later she turns in Peggy’s arms and holds her close. Peggy fits Angie’s body against her own, cradling her head against her neck as she starts to cry.
Peggy whispers into her hair, “You’re safe, you’re loved. I’ve got you, darling, I’ve got you.”
It takes Angie a while to calm down, breathing in the scent of Peggy’s skin and feeling her hands sooth the tension from her back. “She said she loved me. She said she loved me and I couldn’t say it back.”
“Angie, you don’t have to.” Peggy holds her face gently between her hands, watching the way the low light reflects gently in her glassy eyes.
“But she’s my –”
“You don’t know owe her anything. You don’t have to love her back.”
Angie gasps, pressing a hand against her chest like her heart may explode. The realization sending her body into a shock. Peggy catches her, and eases the two of them to the ground where she can pull her sit on her lap, rocking the two of them gently.
xxx
Angie agrees to meet her mother, only her mother, at a park bench in Central Park. Peggy sits next to her, holding her hand under her folded coat so no one can see the way Angie grips her like a lifeline.
“We can leave whenever you want.” Peggy squeezes her hand when she sees who must be Mrs. Martinelli stop a few feet away.
Neither of them stands to greet her.
“It is good to see you Angela.” Mrs. Martinelli goes to pat Angie’s knee until she flinches away from her touch. Peggy doesn’t miss the hurt look on her face at not being able to touch her own daughter. “Who’s your – friend?”
“Margaret Carter.” Peggy provides, seeing as Angie remains frozen on the bench, staring at the trees across the path.
“How do you know Angela?” Her eyes flick to Angie and to the folded coat that rests between them.
“We live together.” Peggy doesn’t elaborate; she doesn’t tell her that they’re only roommates, not lovers.
Mrs. Martinelli sighs, “Angela, I thought you were better.”
Angie snaps from her trance and finally turns to face her mother. “Do you know what they did to me? What you sent me to? Do you?”
“We were trying to help. You are sick, Angela.”
“They beat me. Did Christophe tell you that? Did he tell you about the electrocution? Did he tell you that they wouldn’t let me eat for days? You let them take me away for two years, two years that I can’t get back, that I can’t erase.” Her grip on Peggy’s hand is painful, but she doesn’t stop her. Peggy lets Angie ground herself through Peggy.
“We just wanted you to be better, Angela. We still do.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m finally starting to understand that.”
Mrs. Martinelli’s face turns hard, “You are a child Angela, you don’t understand.”
“No! You don’t understand! You made me what I am. This is who I am because you let them take me away. I wake up screaming sometimes, thinking I’m still in that hell. You want to know why I wanted to meet you here? I slept on this bench the night they let me go. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I came here.” Peggy’s eyes widen, Angie was released in December. She thinks of Angie curling up on the very bench she occupies; frail and afraid, most likely welcoming of death after the hell she’s escaped.
“You could have come home.” Her mother replies.
“I did. Didn’t Papa and Christophe tell you?” She turns to look at her mother again, tears burning in her eyes. “I went home and they told me to leave and never come back. Said I didn’t have a place there.” Angie breathes for a moment, when she speaks again, she is quieter. “So I walked here. And I was tired, so tired. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I sat down and I couldn’t get up again.”
Angie lets go of Peggy’s hand under the coat and stands from the bench. She doesn’t look at her mother or Peggy before she takes off down the path.
“One day she will see that we tried to do what was best for her.” Mrs. Martinelli sighs, folding her hands together in her lap.
Peggy studies her; the lines on her face, her eyes that are so similar to Angie’s, and the same frown that Angie has when she’s upset.
“One day you will see that there was never anything wrong with her. That she was worth loving all along.”
“You think I don’t love my daughter, Miss Carter?” She sounds insulted and Peggy doesn’t feel any remorse.
“I think you don’t know how to love someone you don’t understand. And because of that, you hurt her. You turned her into someone she doesn’t love anymore. And I will happily spend the rest of my life helping her learn to love herself again.”
Peggy leaves Mrs. Martinelli before she can respond. She isn’t interested in anything she has to say. Instead, she focuses her energy on finding Angie. She’s fairly certain she will have returned to their home, craving the darkness of the room they have been sharing for the past week.
When she arrives at their penthouse, Angie is curled on the ground outside the door.
“You have the keys. Guess I shoulda thought about that before I ran off.” Her voice is even, she tries to smile but her tone betrays her.
Peggy helps her to stand, brushing a loose curl behind her ear, “How about we figure out something to eat for dinner?” Peggy asks, pushing her key into the lock and ushering Angie into the foyer.
“M’not hungry.” Angie shrugs off her coat, hanging it on the rack and kicking her shoes off.
“You need to eat something.” Peggy sighs, following Angie to the bottom of the staircase. “Please.”
Angie’s shoulders slump, turning around to face Peggy from her place on the bottom step. “I still don’t understand you, English.”
“What is there to understand?”
“Why don’t you care about what I am?” Angie pulls at her sleeve, still not looking Peggy in the eye.
Peggy studies her for a moment. The shape of her face, her lips, the way her eyes flit from place to place, the quiver in her lower lip. “I care that you’re kind, and brave. I care that you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.” Angie scoffs. “Did you know you recite Shakespeare in your sleep? Ophelia, Helena, Oberon, Gower. They’re mostly mumbles, but you sigh through the words in your sleep.” Angie finally looks at her, but Peggy can’t read her expression. “I care that you are impossibly stubborn and that you are a fierce and loyal friend.”
Angie breathes, quiet tears begin to make their way down her face, carving an all too familiar path.
“I care about you as a whole, Angie. Not just the individual parts that make you who you are. Although I’m beginning to love all of them for their own reasons. And I’d like it very much if you’d allow me to love you, every part of you.”
Peggy doesn’t move towards her, instead she extends her hand, waiting for Angie to make her own choice. When she reaches out, her hand shakes and feels soft in Peggy’s. Angie slowly takes a step towards her, closing the distance to stand toe to toe with Peggy.
“You are worth loving, Angie.” Peggy tells her, brushing her free hand against her cheek. “I’d very much like to prove it to you.”
Angie nods, “Okay,” her voice quiet as Peggy pulls her into an embrace.