Author's Note: I really have no excuse for this one. There's a Russian terrorist out there who specializes in using the people in his victims' lives against them. So, of course, there was a really mean plot bunny that bit and didn't let go, and this is the result. Shamelessly, ridiculously cliche story; I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Also, this could be the finale. *Squeee!*

Dance With A Dead Man

The time had come.

Peggy walked out, calmly, into the street, firing two blanks into the air and then reloading her sidearm. People instantly began to run. It was, by far, the quickest way to clear a street, if also the rudest. Cocking the weapon, she took aim at Evchenko. "Put your hands in the air," she ordered. "Don't speak."

"I can help you," the Russian mole hinted in his deep, measured voice. Peggy gave a thin, knife-edged half-smile.

"I'd rather not, thanks," she said.

"No, no!" the man insisted. There is someone in your past, yes?" Peggy blinked.

"That's of no consequence to you." she said. "You're under arrest.

"I'm trying to help you," Evchenko insisted sibilantly. "You remember him. You want him back. I want you to focus on him. What was he like?"

"He had a big heart," Peggy said hesitantly. "But that's not—" She raised the gun.

"Focus. Focus on your missed time. Might you find him again?"

"He's dead," Peggy spoke, dreamlike.

"What did you want from him?"

"Only the very best he could be." She tried to raise the gun again. Why did it seem so heavy now?

"What do you remember most about him?" Peggy blinked. The gray world of mists around her had rolled away, revealing a sun-drenched world. She was back in a forest in Normandy—only that day had been cloudy, she remembered. Steve was beside her, looking much smaller than the six-foot-two warrior he had become and much younger than the legendary Captain America, childlike in wonder as snowflakes drifted down. The memory seemed different, somehow… "We walked," she said quietly. "There weren't many peaceful moments in the war, so when one came we took advantage of it."

"Good," Evchenko's voice drifted to her, and what was he doing here, in this light-drenched oasis of calm? "Focus. What happened then?"

"Silence. Until he told me that we should go back. He was always so devoted to duty…" Steve simply looked at her, absolutely silent.

"What did you hope for, with him?" A soft blending in and then out of scenes. A moment when she was dancing, at the Stork Club; a date he never missed. Then, back home, in the forest. It was springtime. They were having a picnic in a patch of sunlight, just like she used to picnic with her father when she was a little girl. Steve, his hair immaculately parted, handed her a small bunch of violets, offering her a shy smile. Peggy closed her eyes for a moment. This was what could never be.

"You can remain in this moment for as long as you like," Evchenko's voice came, perfectly soft and soothing. Peggy closed her eyes and shook her head. There was something wrong—what was wrong?

Suddenly, the man beside her, still silent, seemed hollow, depthless, the eyes slightly wrong, fixed. This wasn't Steve, it was a shadow, a copy. And then, Steve, exactly as he had been just before the procedure, was there with her. "Peggy, get up!" It was the first time she'd heard his voice in… Slowly, Peggy stood, obediently. The young man looked pleadingly, urgently, at her. "You have to move! There are lives in danger."

"You're… dead…" Peggy said, confused.

"Which is why I need you, now, more than ever. Your faith, your strength. Hurry!" The space around her was fake, a hologram cast, projected around her. Peggy moved toward him. "I can't help you," Steve whispered, sounding choked. "But I know you can do this." She reached for him, but it was as if an invisible barrier separated them.

"I want you back," she whispered.

"Peggy, I'm in the past. You have to make the future." Steve put up his hand, resting it on the unseen wall. "Go save the world for me," his lips formed, but the roaring around them swallowed up his words. She raised her hand in response.

"I'll see you in Heaven, Steve," she whispered, and then the whirlwind swept her up and back into the street.

"Very good," Evchenko was saying. "Now, I need you to—"

"No," Peggy interrupted. Evchenko looked at her, shocked. "No," she repeated. "I won't let you kill them all."

"How—" Peggy smiled.

"The man whose memory you tried to use against me would never want me to selfishly lock myself in the past when there were lives to be saved," she said. "He was a true hero. Now, shut up or I'll blow your brains out."