Chapter Text
Sarah
When Peggy had sent the telegram saying she was getting married the Carters had been seated in the living room. Sharon, 19 years old and sprawled on the rug, was reading the telegram out loud.
"Wanted to let you all know that I've met the most wonderful man in the world and seeing as there's no real end in sight to the war we've decided to get married."
Short.
Succinct.
Very cousin Peggy.
Harrison had chuckled from behind his newspaper. Her mother, Amanda Carter, was having a conniption.
"IS THAT THE WAY TO TELL NEWS LIKE THAT YOUR ONLY LIVING FAMILY?!"
Harrison was folding his paper "Now, Amanda-"
"Don't 'Amanda' me! Suppose Sharon did something like that?"
"Well, what could we do my love? If my daughter wanted to marry 'the most wonderful man in the world' there's little I could do to stop her."
Sharon shared a smile with her father. That was what they would come to refer to Steve as, months before they ever saw a picture of him or even knew his name.
"Missus Carter?" Amanda's shouting had brought Cal to the parlor. "Everything alright?"
"Peggy's getting married" Sharon piped in, while her mother continued to hyperventilate.
Cal smiled. "Sounds like wonderful news. Lord knows that girl's had enough pain in her life. She could use some good."
In the months that followed Sharon would get letters, sometimes many at the same time, because of the slow post during the war from Peggy at the front. She sounded happy. She talked about Steve Rogers like he'd hung the moon.
And one day a photograph of Captain Steven Grant Rogers. He had full lips and was wearing his uniform. Sharon thought him dashing.
Haverford, Sharon's hometown, had been far from any fighting but Sharon worried about Peg every day. She worried every day that when she came up the path arm in arm with Nat Barton her best friend that her father would be standing on the porch with another telegram and an unhappy look on his face. And about 10 months later that's exactly what happened.
"I'm gonna go." The red-head untangled herself from Sharon, both of them looking at her father.
She barely registered Nat promising to see her the next day. Just walked up to the porch and put her arms around him.
"How did it happen?"
Harrison sighed into his daughter's blond hair. "Childbirth."
Sharon drew back immediately. "What? She never said-"
"She told me", Harrison sighed. "Your cousin hadn't been keeping too healthy. She worried that the baby might not live."
Sharon stared expectantly at her father.
"The baby is fine. Perfectly healthy." He smiled, sadly. "Sarah will be here in a month or two once she's big enough to travel. Your mother and I will go to New York and bring her here ourselves."
Sharon frowned. "But what about Captain Rogers?"
"Steve has been missing since the day before your cousin went into labor. He was involved in a skirmish. He's either been killed in action or taken prisoner. They're not holding out hope that he's still alive."
Sharon had begun to cry now. Hot tears spilling over her cheeks when Dr. Carter took his only daughter's face in his hands.
"Darling," he said gently, "There's nothing for any of us to do now except cherish her daughter. She's family."
And through all that agony 'The Most wonderful little girl in the World' became theirs. She was blonde and blue-eyed and Cal, who had raised Sharon since she was a baby herself, was glad to have another baby in the house.
The first night Sarah Mae Rogers was fast asleep in Sharon's old crib, she'd sat by in the rocking chair and made Peggy a promise that Sarah would never want for family. She'd been like a daughter to Amanda and Harrison after her own parents had passed and the Carters looked after their own.
She glanced at the photos on the dresser. There was one of Peggy when she was young. A few others of the girls growing up and even the one of Captain Rogers. His lips were pouty despite the relaxed posture and faint smile. He wasn't looking directly at the camera.
Sarah would grow into her childhood and Sharon into true adulthood saying good night to those pictures on her dresser. She wouldn't look anything like Peggy the older she got and each night Aunt Shari, as she was now known, would kiss her niece's smiling face before turning off the light and think it was a shame that she'd never got to meet Steve. If only to give her niece something of the man she so clearly resembled.
Until one day, not long after the war was over and Sharon and her family had wept in a strange mixture of grief and relief, another telegram arrived. This one didn't come from the war office. It was sent by a Sargent James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th. Sarah's father was alive. He was coming home and he wanted to see his daughter.