Before We Rise

Chapter 15

I jumped awake and I looked around, holding a hand to my heart. I swung my legs off the couch that I was sitting on and looked out the window to my left. Something tapped my leg and I looked down. Blue eyes stared back at me.

"Hi, pretty girl." I said as I ran a hand through her hair. She looked away from me then back at me, lifting her arms up in the air.

I stood up as I picked her up, settling her on my hip. She tapped my face, smiling. I walked out the open door, seeing a man chopping wood. She let out a loud scream, laughing afterwards. The man looked up as she did that and put down the axe, walking towards us. As he got closer, I saw familiar features. He stopped in front of us and smiled down at the little girl in my arms.

"Glad to see your awake, doll." Steve said, kissing me on the cheek. "And how is my littlest doll?" He took the girl from my arms and held her in his. "Hmm, did you wake momma? Did you?" I looked around at the land, the house then back to Steve and the little girl.

"Where am I?" I asked. He looked up at me, confused.

"You're home." He answered me. I shook my head.

"No, no, no. What the Avengers? What about them?" I asked them, reaching up and holding my head as I became stress out.

"Doll, you need to calm down." He told me.

"Where's our family, Steve? Where's Tony, Wanda, everybody?" I asked him again.

"This is our family, Riley." His voice stern, angry.

"Where are they?" I asked him again.

"They're dead. All of them." He yelled. The little girl in his arms started crying and he started to sooth her.

"What?" I looked at him shocked. He looked back at me as the little girl calmed down.

"You don't remember?" I shook my head at him. "You don't remember what happened in Sokovia. I had a choice between saving you and all those people. I choose you, I choose our family over those people."

"How could you do that? They were our family, Steve. Our family." I cried. He suddenly grabbed my throat, jerking me forward.

"This is our family now." He hissed in my face. Tears slid down my face. He loosened his grip and kissed my lips. "Now, I'm going to go finish chopping the wood we need for tonight. Why don't you take Cara into the house and give her a snack before dinner. I can hear her stomach grumbling." He passed me Cara and rubbed his thumb on my cheek. "I love you, Riley. I did what I did for what was best for us. For our Cara. Not them."

Steve's point-

I sniffed as I stared at her emotionless face. Her pale sunken face. I rubbed my thumb over her small hand as Dr. Cho looked at some papers near her bed.

"Her brain activity is off the charts." She said.

"What that mean?" Wanda's accent rolled off her tongue as she sat next to me.

"She's dreaming. Which is a good thing." Dr. Cho smiled at us. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a flash light. She reached over Riley and opened one of her eyes then shine the light in them. Cho shook her head then the monitors around Riley started to light up and make noise. Cho turned to the both of us. "I need both of you out of here now. I have a code blue, 319. I repeat, code blue 319. Both of you, out."

Cho forced us out of the room as many more doctors came rushing in. They put a mask on Riley's face and I looked at the heart monitor. It was flat, nothing. I pressed a hand to the window.

'Please, Riley. Don't leave me.'

Normal Point-

"You need to wake up, Riley." I heard a voice say from behind me. I turned around and saw my mother. "You need to wake up. Wake up, Riley."

"I am awake." I told her. She grabbed my head and pressed her hands into my temples.

"WAKE UP!" She screamed.

"Nooooo!" I jerked her hands off my head and turned away from her. I looked around confused. I was in my home when I was child. Everything was like I remembered it.

"You don't remember what happened, do you Riley?" I acknowledged my mother but didn't look at her. "He made you forget, didn't he?"

"Made me forget what?" I asked her.

"What really happened to me. Your father, after our deaths, realized that the only way to protect you from what you did was to make you forget, to morph it into something totally different." She said. I finally looked at her. She reached up and brushed a piece of hair out of my face, smiling at me softly.

"What did I do, momma?"