(Listen to Bella's Lullaby while you read, this song is so beautiful it's unreal and it envokes so much emotion. I listened to it as I wrote this one and it adds a whole other level of heartwrenching beauty to the story.)

Pale shades of peach and lavender painted the sky, streaks of light color casting out the deep sky blue that disappeared along with the clouds. The sunset created a mural in the sky, one that seemed to soften the world if even for a short moment. The last few burning rays from the setting sun shone across Steve Rogers, as his boots carried him gently down the sidewalk. The wind had picked up the scent of the descending dusk in air, and it swirled around him as he walked steadily. His slightly clammy and nervous hands shoved into the pockets of his brown leather jacket that covered his tensed muscles, and his eyes focused themselves on his surroundings. 

The neighborhood was small, warm and inviting. It had grown since the last time he had passed through this place, and yet he couldn't say much more had changed. The lamp posts had been updated along with the looks of the houses he passed, but the essence of the street he traveled down stood the test of time. It was as though he had stepped through a time machine, right back in the forties when he was visiting this certain house for the very first time. 

His feet soon brought him to a halt, as the very tips of his boots brushed against the grass of a freshly cut front lawn. The bright and lush green grass was encompassed by a white picket fence, one that he knew had been repainted since his last visit, and yet not a thing about it looked new. It still looked as every other neighborhood fence in that decade had. And the sight of the short fence caused a warmness to flutter inside of his anxiously tight chest. 

Steve drew in a deep breath, as he forced his feet to take a timid step forward. Inching past the front gate that pushed open easily, due to it's unhooked clasp. And he listened to the soft metal bang quietly behind him. His boots soon on familiar ground as he walked forward across the small bit of sidewalk that led up to the front porch. Rows of brightly colored flowers were planted around the wide and also white painted porch, and watching them rustle in the wind made the fluttering sensation in Steve's chest grow. Pale pink carnations and deep wine red roses lay planted together in bunches, and the sight of them reminded him of the bouquets he brought to this very house every so often. 

He stepped up onto the first step of three, leading to the front door. And looking around the wide wooden porch, he spotted that nothing that was once there had been changed. The rocking swing in the right corner still swung in the soft breeze, and the flower pots and shovels still sat in a pile by the left side of the door. It was as though time had not touched this house. Despite it's updated furnishings and modernized neighbors, the house felt exactly as it did seventy some years ago. 

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, as Steve allows his hands to fall free from them, he clutches onto a small black and white photograph he had brought with him. Staring at the face that had burned it's way into his memory, yet still somehow looked unbelievable to him on the small square of paper. Swallowing deeply, as Steve peels his eyes away from the picture, he raises his right hand towards the door. Letting his knuckles fall softly against the pale painted wood. And it isn't long before the door before him slowly opens.

Steve wasn't sure who he had exactly expected to open the door, who he thought would be standing in front of him when it opened to answer his knock. And still, he felt a sinking feeling in his chest the moment it opened and revealed a woman he knew he had never seen before. 

"Can I help you?" 

Her voice was soft, polite and she eyed the man with curiosity and caution in her pale green eyes. Her right hand still held tightly to the door, as if she might need to suddenly slam it quickly in his face. But she didn't regard him as though he was a threat, instead she looked at him like she saw the lostness behind his eyes as he looked up at her. 

Steve shook his head softly for a moment, to clear away the clouds that had temporarily begun to fade his thoughts. And tried to offer the woman what he hoped came off as a kind warm smile. 

"I'm sorry to bother you ma'am," He began cordially, before dropping his gaze once again to the picture that still laid clutched protectively in his hand. "but I'm looking for someone, and I wondered if you may be able to help."

The woman hesitantly began to loosen her grasp on the door as her eyes fell to his hand, as Steve began to hand the picture over to her. The very tip of her finger brushing against his hand as she slid the small photograph from his grip. Her eyes must not have been on the photo for more than a few seconds, before they snapped up to lock with his own anxious awaiting blues. And something in her face had softened completely. Not that she hadn't radiated a certain warmth towards him before, but it was as if by looking at that photograph she had managed to see his entire life story. Softening instantly at the understanding.

"You're Steve," She inquired suddenly, her voice breathless and he could hear the slight disbelief in her soft tone. "aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am, I am." He replied calmly with a nod of his head, and she handed the photograph back to him. Her hands visibly beginning to shake softly as she passed it back, but not long after, a smile spread across her delicate lips and she moved in the doorway. 

"Please," She said with her sudden wide and ever so warm smile. "come in."

She held the door open wider for him, as he hesitantly followed the woman inside the familiar house. He listened to it shut behind him, but his eyes had already begun to take in the sights around him. Everything he remembered inside of these walls suddenly screaming out to him loudly the moment he entered the residence. 

The furniture was different than it was back then, as was the carpeting his boots walked across as the woman led him into the far sitting room. The one wrapped in windows to allow the natural sun light to warm the room. But the wall paper that covered the walls was still somehow the same as he had remembered. 

"Can I offer you anything?" The woman asked, cutting through Steve's heavy thoughts as they sat down on the old loveseat he sat in so many times long ago. "Tea perhaps?"

Steve smiled politely, as he tried to regain his focus on the woman. "I'm alright, but thank you."

She nodded as she stared at him with some kind of awestruck wonder behind her soft eyes, but it didn't make him weary. In fact, as he stared back at the woman, there was something undeniably familiar in her features. 

"The woman I'm looking for," Steve began, realizing he should begin to explain his reason for being in this woman's house. "you know her, I presume. The way you looked at her photograph--"

The woman smiled kindly and nodded her head. He could spot just the beginning stages of gray appearing in her soft locks of a chestnut brown. But still the curled tendrils pricked his heart with remembrance. 

"Yes," She confirmed softly. "I know her very well in fact."

Steve took a deep breath as his heart began to quicken it's pace. "It's been a very long time since I've seen her, and I don't know if she even lives here anymore but I was hoping whoever was here might know where I could find her."

And as his question hung in the air, her expression changed slowly. From a warm welcomeness to a bittersweet sadness that he knew all too well. 

"You were right to start here," She began by saying gently. "she never moved from this house. No matter what the times brought or how hard she struggled to afford it some years. She wouldn't move, she said she couldn't."

Steve smiled softly. She always did love this house. The warmth and love that radiated inside of the walls was unique to this place. But Steve knew for him, the warmth and love in the house was because she lived within it. Without her, this structure would have just been four walls and a roof. 

"She said there was too many memories inside of the walls to just give it away to someone new."

Steve looked down at his lap before a question passed through his lips, that pained his heart to ask. "When did it happen?"

He looked up then, locking eyes with the woman he sat beside. And with a sorrowful purse of her lips, she answered him in a calm and tender tone. 

"2003..." She swallowed deeply. "she held on as long as she could. But then one morning in May, the pain was just too much. And she had to finally let go."

Steve felt as the breath he was breathing was stolen from his lungs, leaving his chest to sink into his stomach and his heart to skip a beat. He knew it was a possibility as he began his search for her, he knew that seventy years was a long time and so many things could happen within that window. And yet, he held onto the small bit of hope she had always given to him. But here it was, slipping through his fingers and dissipating into thin air. 

Steve heard as the woman beside him sniffed and he saw from the corner of his eye, how she dabbed the edges of her eyes with a tissue. The sight only making his heart clench harder.

"But my mother," She croaked through a lump of tears. "she talked about you all the time. Right up until the very end."

But it was one single word, that caused Steve's head to jerk up and stare at the woman in disbelief and realization all at once. Mother. This woman was her daughter, and the recognition he saw in the features of her beautiful face filled him with a warmth that slowly allowed him to breath again. 

"Did she?"

The woman nodded with a smile beginning to shadow itself back across her pale lips. "I don't think there was a day I can remember when she didn't mention your name."

Steve let out a low throaty chuckle, one he knew was prompted by the tears that were growing inside of him. 

"I think..." Steve looked up at the woman as she stared off suddenly, pressing her trembling lips together at the overwhelming thought she was thinking. "I think she was holding on because she still had this crazy idea that you were still out there. Maybe it wasn't crazy, maybe it was just something she could feel that no one else could. I think she held out this hope that you would come and find her before she had to go."

"But that last day," She shook her head. "I think it finally hit her that you weren't coming for her. But that she was going to be the one to go find you."

Steve ran a hand over his jaw as he forced himself to look away from her, the emotion on her face too strong that it was beginning to break him from the outside in. 

"Was she happy though?" Steve spoke up softly, through tears that he had allowed to flow freely down his face. "Tell me she didn't live her life in regret that I wasn't there."

The woman shook her head immediately, and shut down his fears as fast as she could. "She lived one hell of a life. One that she looked back on and knew you'd be proud of. She missed you, it was evident in every day she lived. But she never once let that loss take away the life she still had. She knew it wasn't something you would've wanted for her."

Steve nodded his head, as he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. 

All he wanted was for her to be happy. And the thought of her mourning him, even on her death bed, devastated him. But to hear that even as she kept his memory alive in her heart, she still went on to live a life, made his own heart sing.

The woman met Steve's saddened gaze as he looked up slowly, from his hands that were twisted anxiously together in his lap. She reached her hand out hesitantly, before resting it on top of his own. And it felt as though it was her mother's hand that touched his own. The memory of her touch seeming to flow through the woman who sat beside him now. 

"She loved you."

The woman's eyes were kind as they looked to him and her voice was soft and melodic. But somehow her words still made him crumble to a million pieces on the floor.

"Even after you were gone, she loved you. And even as she herself was beginning to fade, she still loved you."

"I think that that love got her through the pain," She said softly. "and I always wanted to thank the solider who gave her that gift."

"So thank you Steve Rogers, for loving my mother enough to keep her going all these years, even after you were gone."

A/N: I'd been waiting to write this idea for a while now, and I finally did it! And wow, am I proud of this one!💙 I knew it was going to hurt my heart to write, and yet that only made me want to write it more!😭I hope you all liked it! I'm so so happy with it and I'm just so glad I was able to get it written the way I had imagined it! Also, how beautiful is that GIF of Steve?😍This is definitely one of my favorites!💙