Chapter Four

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The ceiling was richly burnished metal.

Somehow that didn't look familiar at all.

Steve Trevor tried to blink, discovered that he could, and then shifted his gaze a little to the right.

There was some kind of design hammered around the edge of the ceiling - something martial perhaps, with a lot of helmets and swords and horses' legs and things, but his vision kept blurring in and out, and his eyes would keep trying to close.

This was unacceptable. He was a spy, for heaven's sake! Steve mentally shook himself, and then experimentally tried to turn his head. That worked too. Evidently his bed was placed next to a window, with a stunning view of - well, the sky. Anything else was below the level of the windowsill, and right now the last thing he wanted to do was sit up.

Okay, maybe he'd better try turning his head to the other side.

Alternatively, he could get forty winks in, and then try.

He was just beginning to seriously consider the second course of action, when somebody on his other side caught their breath and shifted, fabric sliding against fabric.

"Are you awake?"

Forty winks forgotten, Steve turned his head faster than he'd thought possible, blinking as the world swam into focus again.

"Diana?" he croaked, and then had to stop and clear his throat. Diana beamed, crawling across the bed to get a cup off the bedside table, and then crawling back to kneel beside him again. Her hair was in a long braid once more, swinging over her shoulder as she looked down into his face. The sense of deja vu was so strong that he could almost taste the sea salt, almost feel the sand beneath him from their first meeting.

"Here, drink," she urged, holding the cup to his lips. It was very embarrassing, but when he raised his hand to take the glass, it didn't quite work for some reason. So he obediently drank - something smooth, definitely not water or alcohol or milk or…

Wait, was he on that island of hers again?

"Where are we?" he asked.

For the first time since he could remember, Diana looked genuinely nervous, biting her lip. "We are on Themyscira. What do you remember?"

"Um." Steve frowned. His head felt funny, but when he lifted his arm to scratch his head, nothing happened. Puzzled, he looked down - and then froze.

"Diana? Diana, where's my - my hand, Diana. Diana, my…"

He tried to sit up, panicking, and she was instantly there, hands on his shoulders, helping him. "You lost it," she explained. "You lost it when we fought Ares. I'm sorry - I couldn't find it after."

Steve wasn't listening, staring down at his half-arm in fascinated horror, mouth running on almost hysterically. "Lost it? Diana, you don't just lose hands - they're kind of attached, they're..."

Fire.

He remembered it suddenly - the feeling of pulling the trigger with a sharp click - the last heartbeat before the bombs ignited - the numb shock as the explosion enveloped his extended hand and arm before striking the rest of him. He panted, open-mouthed, overwhelmed, unseeing eyes trained blankly forward as the events of that night flooded through his senses in almost painful clarity.

Eventually, he discovered that Diana was kneeling next to him, patting his arm soothingly, leaning forward so she could look better into his face. "You remember?"

"I - remember." Steve ran his tongue across his lips. He felt sick to his stomach, and his mouth was dry again, but otherwise he felt reasonably normal. A quick inventory told him that his other hand seemed to be all right, and the twin lumps under the blanket moved reassuringly when he wiggled his feet around. "Some things. Look, are there any more pieces of me that are missing?"

"No, no, everything is there." Diana tipped her head to one side. "Well, all but your hair, but that is growing back."

"My hair!" Steve yelped, and put up the wrong hand to feel his head. Of course he felt nothing - there wasn't a hand on that arm anymore. This was going to take some getting used to, but he didn't want to think about that right now.

Reaching up with his left hand instead, he gingerly felt around his scalp. It seemed to be covered in a short crop of hair - almost fuzzy. Curiously, he moved his hand down, touching his face, his ears, his neck, his chest under the collar of his - nightgown?

He was wearing a nightgown. Oh, he was never going to live this one down.

"Why," he demanded, "am I wearing a nightgown?"

Her forehead puckered in confusion. "What else does one sleep in?"

"Pajamas," he told her, with great decision. "Men sleep in pajamas. Not nightgowns. Never nightgowns."

"All right," Diana agreed comfortably. "I do not know what a pajama looks like, but I am sure we can make one, if you like."

Steve barely heard her - he had finally put a finger on what was bothering him. His skin was firm and smooth like it had always been, and when he breathed in and out, there was no discomfort. Even the stump of his right arm was only lightly bandaged, cleanly healed over and pain-free.

This wasn't adding up.

He had known he was going to die. There was no way to survive such a blast. He had faced a battle with himself in the cockpit of that plane, all his hopes and dreams and love for living lined up against the terrible cost of human life otherwise. He had fought that battle, and he had won, and pulled the trigger knowing full well that it would be the last and hardest thing he would ever do.

"Diana?" he breathed, the words coming more slowly and shakily than he would have wished. "How am I still alive?"

She told him then. Simply, straightforwardly. He swallowed convulsively when she got to the part about finding him, when she described his injuries. He had seen what was left of pilots who burned alive in their own machines when a flight went wrong. To think that had been him, not so very long ago - it made his stomach turn.

"...and then I brought you home, and my mother and her sisters healed you," Diana finished at last. Her eyes were sober. "I am truly sorry I could not find your arm. There never was much hope, but we always could have tried…"

Steve shook his head. Thinking back, he was pretty sure his arm had been incinerated in the terrific blast. It was only a miracle that the rest of him had not followed suit - or maybe it was due to the fact that hydrogen was lighter than air, directing the explosion more upward than outward - or it could be because he had washed in the Amazon's pool once before and the effects had lingered. But that was not something he wanted to dwell on, so instead he changed the subject.

"So let me get this straight - you confronted a god, beat him in a riddle contest, and then got his flying shoes…"

"Sandals," Diana interrupted, nodding.

"... flying sandals," Steve corrected himself, and then craned his neck to get a better look at the sandals in question as they darted past the open door, golden wings flashing as they chased each other down the length of the hallway outside. "Is this - is this all in a day's work for you? I guess there's a reason why your people are the stuff of legends."

He had meant it as a figure of speech, but Diana took it entirely in stride.

"I am of the Amazons. It is what we do," she said simply, shrugging. Then she looked away, and her voice dropped. "Besides," she breathed, "I could not let you die."

She was not crying, but there was a set to her lips that made him think she was not far off from tears - and that was actually rather terrifying. Steve looked at her for a moment, and then reached across the covers to take her hand. She immediately turned her hand inside his, their fingers interlacing, and then they both held tight. There was something very precious in the simple contact.

"So," Steve said, after a moment. "What was the answer to that riddle?"

Diana's eyes sparkled again. "You would not care to guess?"

"I would not be able to guess," Steve countered immediately. "Not in a million years."

"Neither could Hermes. It was an answer he never learned, I think. Sometimes I do not even think mankind knows it either, which discourages me. It was the answer you taught me." Diana's face shone. "The answer is Love."

It was a surprising way to think about it, but now that Steve considered the idea, he supposed she had a point. Sure, there was plenty of hate and everything else out there, but it was love that won through in the end - love of family, of friends, of country - not to mention the way he felt about the woman kneeling next to him now.

Since she'd mentioned their flight, he thought he remembered a little of it. Mostly he recalled the vague blur of her face above his, moonlight tracing the fine lines of her features as he lay locked in an agony that his mind now struggled to comprehend.

"You saved my life," said Steve after a minute of looking at her - the curve of her high cheekbones, the dark warm pools of her eyes. She was the most sincere, beautiful woman he had ever known. "I don't know how to thank you."

She settled into a more comfortable position, and squeezed his hand. "You do not need to thank me. Besides, now that mankind's war is over, who will show me what life is like afterwards?"

Her innocent question snapped Steve's mind into sharp focus, and he swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, remembering their conversation the night he had taught her to dance. "I - I think a lot of men would be happy to help you out there," he confessed honestly.

"Yes," agreed Diana artlessly. "But I don't love any of them."

The implications of her statement were plain. The warm, wonderful look on her face was even plainer. Steve distinctly felt his heart jolt.

He hadn't known whether or not she had heard his last words to her. She'd been so dazed when he'd left her on that airfield, reeling as if in a dream, struggling to focus as he tried to say goodbye. He had ached for more time, but time was up, and he'd had to go.

"I love you," he had confessed, pressing his watch into her unresisting hands, leaving her with the only thing he had left to give - because he'd long since lost his heart to her, somewhere along the line.

He hadn't known then if she'd comprehended his words.

And he certainly hadn't dared hope that she would ever return the sentiment.

Steve stared incredulously at her for a moment, and then he cleared his throat and hitched himself a little higher in the bed. Tearing his gaze away, he stole a cautious peek at the empty doorway, and then looked back into the face of the woman he loved, filling his soul with the sight of her.

Then he let go of her hand and wonderingly raised his fingers to her cheek, lightly tracing the curve of her jawline, calloused fingertips barely touching her skin.

"What do you think the chances are," he asked in a low voice, "that I could kiss you without your mother or one of your aunts coming in to chop more pieces off of me? Because I think I really, really want to, right about now."

Diana's eyes laughed conspiratorially back at him, and the sunlight through the window turned her skin to living gold. "Try, and find out."

There was a pause - a breathless, heartstopping moment filled with mingled light and hope and understanding - and then Steve Trevor took her challenge and met her halfway.

Because some things, he thought rather distantly, pulling her closer with what remained of his right arm as she slipped her own arms around his neck, were worth losing a hand for.

And Diana Prince was one of them.

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The End

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Well, folks - that's it! Thanks for all the love and support. If you have enjoyed this story at all, then please take a couple seconds to leave a review and let me know! It doesn't have to be much, but you have no idea how happy it makes me. :)

*Dusts off hands and looks around with satisfaction, then nods and scurries back to the Captain America fandom*

Guest: Thank you so much!

Verafenestra: That is, hands down, one of the most flattering reviews I've ever received. :) You totally made my week with it. Thank you!