Work Text:
'You have to stay strong. For your sister. Becca, she needs you now, more than ever.'
She won’t remember.
“Hey, sis. Brought company.”
He had moved her away. It was the whole point.
She’d get a better, safer-- well-learned life, while he worked in the army. She’d get adopted by some good-natured folks and forget it all.
Her thinned, gray hair lays limp as she turns her head toward him. Recognition a faint spark, it’s gone as quickly as it had come.
She had lived a full life, from what he had gathered. Ninety-three, as of last month.
She’s old now. As he’s able to remember her, her vision of him fades.
Now that he’s found himself again. Found her, again, she is lost.
So much has changed.
So much growth and not enough time.
“Her name’s Kate.” Holding up the four-year-old, he wiggles her a little in place. Smiling with her bubbled giggles.
Glad the monitors and wires don’t scare her just yet.
Family should never be scary.
Natasha sits beside him. The pregnancy at its last month, it’s only a matter of time that Jason will greet them all.
Her exhausted figure lays slumped in the provided cushion seat. Her legs bent and folded this way and that, she continues to rub her stomach in soothing circles within the quiet.
Crusted eyes squinting her own smile at Kate’s joy.
Even with this, Rebecca won’t remember.
Not the carnival rides and grocery store trips. Buying her that teacup set with the rest of that week's allowance simply because she loved the little seahorse designs. Helped her catch butterflies in the community gardens, and playing dollhouse with her...
And despite lacking in school, he’d study and teach her all he could learn on periods so she wouldn’t feel scared. Embarrassed or even disgusted with herself when she had bled through her pink shorts on that random Tuesday evening.
All of it, any of it, she doesn’t-- won’t, remember. Not anymore.
But that’s okay.
He will.
His wife and children, right after.
“Jason isn’t here yet. He’s a little shy.”
Natasha shifts a little, and he places Kate near her Aunt’s limp hand. Attempting to poke one of her crayons through the older woman’s loose fist.
Turning his head to Natasha, his eyes never leave Rebecca. Her faded irises lazily tracking Kate’s face.
Her eyes grasping at clouded memories that continue to evade her.
To his wife, he murmurs, “He hungry again?” Rubbing Kate’s back while providing a slip of paper for her to color on. The thin sheets all too tempting for her.
“Always.” Natasha grumbles, reluctant to move at all and cut the visit short.
Not enough time.
Never is, and never will be.
Blinking away the beginning puddle of tears, he stands. Leaning over to kiss Rebecca’s forehead, he shifts to let Kate leave her own kiss too.
The memory of his father doing the same for their mother before she had past isn’t lost on him.
Their mother had given Rebecca her life, and she had lived it.
Long, loud, and happy-- where he wasn’t there for most of it.
She doesn’t remember over half of it, but her family say she lived a good life and that’s all he could ask for.
Turning, he offers his hand to Natasha, and helps pull her up. Her stressed grunt more disgruntled than anything, he beckons Kate with his open hand.
Her young eyes never leaving her aunt, the small expectation of parting words have her stumped. It’s then, that the child speaks. “I don’t know what to say.”
Blunt in this realization, Rebecca smiles. Her frail arm coming up to brush at those vibrant red strands.
“Kate” Rebecca whispers. Another, labored breath, “Just you being here, is enough.”
Brittle and shined with clarity for that bleeding moment of joy. Shared between them all, he doesn’t stop his tears from falling, or his mouth from twisting as their eyes meet from across the room.
“Thank you.” he trembles, shaky and unsteady and raw, but Rebecca simply shakes her head. Plain and simple, just as she’s always been.
“Thank you.” she affirms. Pointed and there, she’s said her piece and closes her eyes to the rest of the room. The exhaustion claiming her into another dreamless slumber.
Kate finally catches his hand, and he guides them all out of the room. The cool hallways clinical, he feels a piece of him solidify.
The last memory he-- and his family, will have of her, crystallizing with the dimmed radiance of a sibling kept within his heart; shining brightly under the hospital lights.
Natasha wipes a few of the lighter tears away with their conjoined hands, Kate swinging theirs this way and that.
He finds his voice when they’ve made it past the reception. Stronger than before, the sun’s shine a lot warmer-- brighter, than when they had arrived.
“You thinking the diner or something homemade?” he asks, walking them out the doors, and down the provided sidewalk. Their car just in sight.
“Diner!” Kate exclaims, Natasha sniffing and nodding along. “Diner, and then a homemade hamburger.”
“Yes ma’am.”