sharon "doesn't use her last name" carter (undercover) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2014-11-10 22:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, antoine triplett, sharon carter / agent 13 (mcu) |
Who: Sharon Carter, Antoine Triplett
When: Saturday, November 8th; long after everyone left the wake
Where: The house the wake was at. AKA Steve's house now.
What: Trip comforts Sharon. Stuff happens.
Rating: PG
It had been the longest day of the longest week of the longest year for Sharon Carter. Five years ago, Peggy had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but it wasn't until last year that things really deteriorated. It was a long journey to this ending, and while Sharon knew that Peggy was no longer suffering, no longer losing herself piece by piece, she couldn't help but feel that hollow ache in her chest. That was it. That was the last of her family. All of her immediate family was gone. She was now it when it came to the Carters. The head of the house. That might have been more frightening if there were house members, truthfully. Sharon could be responsible for herself and no one else. That was easy enough. After the dishes were done and the food put away, Sharon allowed Peggy's ghost to slowly fill the room she was currently in. It was a bedroom that Steve had let her use in case she didn't want to spend the nights alone. She hadn't used it much, save as a place to collect her thoughts, reign in her emotions, or change her clothing during this whole ordeal. The room was full of memories. Some things had changed. The sheets weren't the same at all, though they had that old world feel to them. While the comforter was new and pristine, the quilt on top of it was not. Sharon remembered pulling that quilt up to her neck the nights she stayed here with her Aunt Peggy. Sharon knew that one day, this room and everything in it would be comforting, but right now, it only inflated her chest with emptiness. She stripped down to her pants and the camisole she wore underneath her silk blouse when her arms suddenly felt as if they were weighted down. The weight forced her knees to buckle, and she plonked down on the edge of the bed. Her head in her hands, it was difficult not to just let go and have a good cry, to just let it all out. After the day she'd gone through, she deserved to not have to stand up straight and say thank you anymore. Throughout the past week Trip had spent quietly doing whatever Sharon had needed, aided and abetted by his mother. Today had been the longest of them all, and almost as emotionally draining as his own granddad's funeral had been. He'd kept himself busy throughout the day, trying to subtly and not-so-subtly support Sharon. He'd known she was flagging halfway through doing the dishes, and had been glad when she'd gone upstairs to change, but when she didn't come back, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and went to find her. She was in her bedroom, and after a quick knock, let himself in. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, exhaustion and grief evident in every line of her body. The beer he put on top of the dresser; then he sat beside her on the bed, close enough that their thighs touched and he could jostle her elbow if he wanted. "Hey." Sharon knew that of all the people she knew, Trip was the one she didn't have to pretend with. She could let her guard down. She'd been there when his grandfather passed. She'd known that things weren't all that peachy with his father. He wasn't like most spies; he didn't get so immersed in the job that he couldn't be himself. Maybe it was because he knew exactly who he was. Without a word, she leaned against his arm and dropped her head onto his shoulder. Her hand found his and her fingers threaded through his. "I'm glad this is over," she said. She squeezed his hand. "I'm glad you're here. Thank you, Trip, for everything. You and your mom… I couldn't do this without you." It was the matter of a moment to slip his arm around Sharon, hugging her to him securely and gripping her hand with his. Trip dropped a kiss onto the top of her head, then rested his chin there. “You wouldn’t have been able to keep me away, Sharebear.” He squeezed again. “I hate that you had to go through this.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking about the times he’d stayed in this very house, intimidated as hell by Peggy Carter for the first few days, but never ready to return to D.C. at the end of his two weeks. “I brought you up a beer, but I don’t know if I remember you eating anything today. You eat anything?” "I ate." Okay, so it wasn't the normal amount, but at least she'd been eating and drinking. There was nothing worse than finding yourself crying and then ending up dehydrated at the end of it. Thankfully, Sharon wasn't really the kind of neglect herself. At least not intentionally. "Could probably stand to eat something before having a beer, but I did eat." Despite the arrangements and the graveside memorials, Sharon felt comforted, which was a lot harder to feel when you'd lost someone than one might think. Looking back on the week, she'd discovered that she had more family than she really realized. The Howling Commandos had come to her aid, treating her as if she had been there all along, Steve Rogers looking out for her. Sometimes it overwhelmed her. "What about you?" Sharon tilted her face upward, though she didn't move from her spot. "Have more than beer in you?" “Good. We’ll go down and raid the fridge in a little bit,” Trip decided. He’d eaten. His mother had seen to it, but he could always eat. “Yeah, Mom shoved a sandwich into my hand before she left. But I could stand to have more of those potatoes.” He looked down at her and smiled faintly. “Will you be staying here tonight, or do you want to stay at my place?” He paused. “I don’t want you to be alone, unless you tell me to get out.” "I just haven't decided what I'm doing yet," she answered, reaching her free hand up to rest against Trip's neck. Her thumb stroked his jaw idly. "Your place is probably a little crowded with mom around. I could stay here, but -- kind of think there's too many ghosts around. Might stay at my place -- the one Nick left me." There were a lot of things she'd wanted to do around the house, some cleaning up mostly. She realized she'd gone into some sort of fugue state in which she walked around numbly, handling the things that needed to be handled and going through the motions. The realization set off alarms inside her head, things were about to get really ugly really fast. “Hey.” He reached up to cover her hand. “There’s always room for you, Sharon. Mom has the spare bedroom, and if you stay with us, I’ll take the couch. It’s a nice couch, I made sure of that. Took a nap on one in a furniture store in North Carolina while doing some surveillance about a year before I got my apartment here.” Something about Sharon’s face broke his heart. She was exhausted and grief-stricken, trying to hold everything together, and all he wanted to do was gather her into his arms and let her fall apart, even if just for a little while. Instead he kissed her forehead. “That other place will still be there tomorrow, you know?” "I know. It's just…" Sharon trailed off, not really sure what she would say. It was just what? Fucked up? Hell yeah, it was. Over with? Thank God. There just weren't words for the way she was feeling, but it was better than not knowing what was going on or watching Peggy slowly being erased. The truth was that she was tired more than anything. She hadn't realized how pent up, stressed out, and wired she was from this whole ordeal. She was grateful for the time she got to spend with Peggy, but that still didn't change the fact that it was like an over-inflated tired suddenly ran over a very large nail and all the air went running out. Sharon could fix it, she knew she could (and that was all thanks to Aunt Peggy), but all she wanted was to rest. Just for a little bit. Let someone else take the wheel. No, scratch that. She just wanted to feel something. Even though she knew it was Grief 101, she wanted to feel alive. Trip was warm and the emotional tug toward him had always been there. It just seemed to be amplified in a way it hadn't before. Sharon straightened her back while she pulled him down to her. Her lips were slightly hesitant at first, but it didn't take more than a single second for her to kiss him hard. It took a moment for Trip to register what was happening, that Sharon was going to kiss him. And he let it happen, returning the kiss for a moment before reality asserted itself. This was Sharon, his wonderful best friend who also happened to be beautiful and exactly the sort of person that, were he the relationship type, would be exactly the type of person he would gravitate towards. She was utterly competent, intelligent, with a sassy sense of humor and a smile that could light up a room. And if this were any other time, he wouldn’t have a problem with kissing her. But this -- this was wrong. Sharon was grieving, and grief did things to your judgement, made you do things you’d ordinarily think through a little more. It wasn’t fair to either of them to continue, and the idea that he would be taking advantage of a person in a fragile emotional state was enough for Trip to break the kiss not long after it had begun. He pulled away, setting Sharon far enough away from him that he could look her fully in the face. “Sharon…” he was all compassion and sympathy, his hurt for her showing in the slight squint of his eyes and the way that while he firmly held her away from him, his hands were nevertheless gentle, his thumbs brushing gently against her shoulders. “Baby, we can’t. You’re not... Not right now, Sharebear.” Okay, that stung a lot more than she thought it would. All sorts of feelings had opened up the instant her lips brushed his, and then it was ripped away just as quickly as she'd started it. He was right, though. She wasn't in the state of mind to jump into anything, especially not with her closest friend in the whole world. Sharon knew all the statistics when it came to relationships forged from peril. She knew that friendships were likely ruined with this kind of thing. That was more horrifying than the rejection. The rejection, she could handle. The fact that she'd just taken advantage of her friend because of her grief made her realize that she wasn't in a good mental position. "I didn't mean to -- I'm sorry, Trip" She rose from her spot, paced to the other side of the room, where she'd kept her jacket neatly over the back of a chair. "That was wrong of me." Trip let his hands fall to his lap, and sighed. “It’s just the wrong time. That’s all. I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.” Whether he would regret it wasn’t really an angle he wanted to explore at this moment. He’d already taken a moment to tuck away his reaction. She was his friend, and right now she needed a friend, not a complication. “But you know, it was a hell of a lot better than the last time we kissed.” That kiss, however, had ended with them looking at each other for a minute before both of them burst out laughing -- underwhelming was a good word for that kiss. The first for either of them, shared out of sheer curiosity about what the attraction was to all of this sex business, and ending with the conclusion that it was just wrong to even think that way about the other. It was easy to laugh about it now, but Trip remembered being vaguely uncomfortable around Sharon for a good month afterwards. She remembered that, and maybe under other circumstances, she'd be able to shrug this off and laugh over it. As it was, she wasn't sure how she was going to be able to look Trip in the eye for the next few months, let alone right now. There was an embarrassed smile on her face, but her eyes never quite reached his. "I gotta -- " She slipped the jacket off the chair and tugged it over her arms. The motion was awkward and twitchy, as she was trying to rush herself out of the room. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the door. "I need to get some air, cool off. I need to check on Miss Maisie too." It was hard to remember that cat. How had Jasper done it all those years with missions? "She's been alone all day." Trip nodded. While a part of him wanted to urge her to stay, the other part, the one that was not sure what to think about this, was willing to let her go, so that they each could regroup. “No, I get it, I get it. Just -- the offer stands, if you want company tonight.” If she wanted his company. At this point, he wouldn’t blame her if she instead gravitated towards Rogers or even Blake. “Hold on and I’ll walk out with you, make my way home.” Sharon forced herself to look up at him, a wide smile on her face. He'd understand that she couldn't wait and walk with him, right? This was just too embarrassing and a tad bit on the mortifying side. She needed to be able to scold herself, and she couldn't do that with Trip there. God knew he'd try to make her feel better about it, and right now, she just didn't want to talk. She shook her head. "Nah, I kind of need to go before I start babbling like I did the last time we kissed." There'd been way too much babbling. About nothing. She gave the door knob a yank and slipped out into the hallway. "I'll talk to you soon, Trip. Again, though, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean anything…" Before he could reply, Sharon was gone. Trip sat in silence for a long minute before falling back onto the bed with a loud “Argh!” Because just what his life needed was this. |