Wonder Woman Fan Fiction

June 21, 1946

Etta said I should start a journal. She always said her mother kept a diary so she wouldn't lose things. It seemed like a funny way to put it, at the time. But Mrs. Candy raised quite a girl, and so I thought I'd give it the old college try.

Because I've lost things.

It all started when she left. One minute, she was there--and the next, it was like we'd dreamed her. We knew that she was going, but somehow, I didn't expect it to be so sudden. The whole town went crazy, that day. Ticker-tape parades, champagne until sunrise, all of it. Though Charlie Niles and Etta invited me to go out with them that night, I declined. I guess I wasn't in the mood for celebrating.

I went to her apartment, but it was empty. The landlady let me in with a passkey, and then she left and I just stood there for a while. At first, I had the oddest feeling. Like there was something on the tip of my tongue, but it would be gone when I tried to tell anybody about it. And I thought that it would go away. But it didn't. Not for weeks.

The hardest part was coming in to the office the next day, and Phil Blankenship telling me he was already getting a list of girls from the secretarial pool to interview. It just didn't seem real. It didn't seem real for the longest time. Every time I walked into the old D Street offices, I stopped in front of her desk, expecting to see her there. I knew she was gone, but I still expect it. The move helped.

Etta pulled double-duty at first, until we moved over to the Pentagon, and then Private Williams was permanently assigned to my desk. Her husband was still in France--infantry. She's a great girl, really first rate at her job. When I come in, there's always coffee made and she can even read my handwriting--which is surely a test of something.

Etta gave me a copy of the photo from the going away party. Charlie had finally finished the film, and there were three copies--one for each of us. Except we didn't know where to send her copy. She'd gone without even leaving a forwarded address. I found out later that payroll was holding her last check, even. It seemed so... unlike her. She was so efficient, so thorough... My God, there is just an ache when I think of her. But I'm going to tell this story in order, and by God, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I can't lose this too-- not again.

Charlie tried to find her service and personnel records--I'd held the damned things in my hands, I know I did. I remember that much. But they were gone. I don't know how she did it, but she just... slipped away. I kept thinking, we'll mail her the picture--there has to be some kind of address. We finally found one. The Armed Forces Hospital had a carbon on file from the hospital she had worked at in Ohio. It was care of her mother in Akron, and Etta sent it with a letter.

They sent the letter back. They were very sorry, but no one by that name lived there--the house had been auctioned by the bank after the owner's funeral, they were awfully sorry. They'd never even met her, and they'd lived there since before the war.

Carol said she felt the baby kick, today.

July 9, 1946

I can't remember exactly when we first noticed Wonder Woman was gone, too.

As crazy as that sounds, we'd all just gotten used to her appearing just in the nick of time, when we needed her the most. Except, since the Germans surrendered, I guess we hadn't needed her. So we didn't notice she was gone--not at first.

When Charlie Niles popped the question, that was the first time Etta or I even mentioned Wonder Woman. Etta came running into my office to show off the ring, and I congratulated her and Charlie, and we got to talking about how Etta'd had her heart set on Diana being the maid of honor, and I joked that maybe we could get Wonder Woman to stand up for her at her wedding. And then Etta asked me, had I seen Wonder Woman lately? And I realized I hadn't. Not since she got the medal at the White House. No bank robberies foiled, or Nazi spies caught. No newspaper articles, no Wonder Woman sightings. Somehow, with so much going on, we'd all forgotten. And I realized that I hadn't thought of her--not once--in weeks. I felt like such a louse.

Funny thing is, that was the night I met Carol. I didn't realize it then--but she remembers. Heck, she still teases me about it.

Etta was just so happy, and she deserved it too. Etta's a swell gal, and I'd always been fond of her. But I was in such a blue funk, and I didn't want to rain on Etta's parade, so I'd gone back to officers quarters. Matt--Col. Michaels, that is--was there. He talked me into going out with him and Kyle, and I guess I didn't see any harm in it. Kyle brought his girl Nancy along--Nancy was one of those Vassar girls. She joked she'd gone to get her MRS degree, but she and Kyle weren't serious and we all knew it. When she found out Matt and I were along for the ride, she'd called over to a friend's place to have them meet us at the bar.

I wasn't much in the mood for Washington socialites, but I admit, I was in the mood for whiskey. I'd already had a few when the girls showed up, and Nancy introduced us. All I remembered was blonde hair and an easy smile. Carol spent most of the night with Matt, and I don't even remember the name of the girl I danced with. She got bored of my moping pretty darned quick, and left with a Marine if I remember correctly.

Dammit, if I hadn't lost my date to a jar-head, and I didn't care one bit. That's how blue I was. And the funny thing was, or so I thought at the time, it wasn't because Wonder Woman had disappeared. Truth of it was, I missed my secretary more.

I had the mother of all hangovers when I went into work the next day, and I asked Private Williams to hold all my calls until my noon briefing. I shut myself up in my office, and pretended to work. But what I really was doing was writing down everything I could remember about her--every little detail. And I was so shocked at how short the list really was. So many things I thought I knew--like where she was from, who her family was, and most of all, how I actually felt about her. Not a blessed thing.

I'd sworn after Marcia to never ever fall for one of my secretaries ever again. Sworn on a stack of Bibles. But the thing was, I could pretty much guarantee this one hadn't been a Nazi spy.

I can't believe I let her go.

July 22, 1946

It was the photo coming back that got me started. I took a furlough and flew out to Akron. I don't know what I was thinking--but I got directions out to the house from the airport and knocked on the door. I think the couple that lived there opened the door because of the uniform. Not every day an Army Air Corps Major shows up on your front steps. The Wellingtons were nice folks, a little confused by my visit. They remembered posting the letter back to Washington, however.

Mrs. Wellington insisted I stay for a slice of blueberry pie, and I asked her how long they'd lived in Akron. She said they moved here from Cleveland in '39, to work in the tire plant. They'd been very lucky to get the house. I kept looking around, trying to picture her growing up in this house. Had she sat in the window seat, staring out at the stars? Had she walked along this road to school every day? But the mental images just wouldn't come.

Instead, I saw her at her desk, brows furrowed slightly as she worked, or clever fingers dancing over the keys of the typewriter. When I thought of her, it was always in uniform. That was the funny thing. I'd seen her in civilian attire, of course. Only a handful of times over the past few years--that dress she wore for the Miss GI Dream Girl pageant in '42, then in Argentina she wore a blue dress. I remember how she put that Latin playboy Antonio Cruz primly in his place. I never told her how glad I was of that. Even though I went off for a walk with Lydia Moreno, I remember how glad I was that Diana was keeping her head.

When the pie was eaten, and I got ready to say good-bye, Mr. Wellington shook my hand and suggested I go next door to meet their neighbor, Mrs. Gideon. She was almost 80 years old, and had lived in that house her whole life. If anyone knew what had happened to the family that had lived in this house, it would be Kathryn. I thanked them, and walked next door.

For a great-grandmother, Kathryn Gideon was incredibly spry. She was sitting in a rocking chair on the back porch, shelling peas. Her hands were veined with blue and gnarled, but quick and clever. She asked if I was good news or bad, and I laughed. She said the only thing around these parts that came from the War Department were telegrams. And no good news, in her experience, was ever delivered in a telegram.

She handed me a bowl, and showed me how to shell peas. I asked her about her former neighbors, and she asked me why I was such a busy- body. Old women like her were supposed to be busy-bodies, not grown men. It was a fair question, so I told her the truth--or as much of the truth as I knew at the time.

I had fallen in love with a girl. It was the first time I had even been able to put it into words, and somehow, it was so easy to just come out and say it that summer on the back porch, shelling peas with a complete stranger. I'd fallen for a girl, and she'd disappeared. And now I just had to find her, or I'd go crazy.

She asked me how I'd met her, and I told her we'd worked together at the War Department, and that she'd gone home with her mother and sister after the Germans surrendered. She put the bowl down then, and looked me right in the eye and told me that Majorie Prince was buried out in Glendale Cemetery, next to her husband who'd passed on in 1922, and her son who'd died at Pearl Harbor.

Then she'd asked me to help her up, and she took me inside the house and had me sit down on the sofa in the parlor while she rummaged around upstairs. She came back down with a scrapbook, and opened it to a black and white photograph dated April 10, 1937.

In the photo were several young girls in party dresses, and she pointed to the third from the left. That was Majorie's daughter, she told me and, pointing to the girl next to her, she said that was her own daughter Cassie and the two girls had grown up close as sisters, like two peas in a pod. Was that the girl I'd known?

I stared and stared at the girl in the picture, and then told her no. It wasn't. Sure, they both had dark hair, and light eyes. And the girl in the photo was coltish and tall, but she had not grown up to be the woman I was looking for. So I thanked her kindly, and walked back to my car even more lost and confused than I had been when I got in my plane to fly out there.

August 3, 1946

Here's how I remember meeting Carol--actually remember meeting her, I mean.

We'd been at the Pentagon building for a few months when I was invited to one of those gala dinners. The kind war heroes get invited to so that civilians can gawk at all the fruit salad on their dress uniforms. I usually skip them--I didn't join this man's army to make small talk with Washington's elite. But General Blankenship asked that I go, and I never could turn Phil down. Not after how he's supported me over the years.

So there I was, utterly trapped by three matrons armed with single young daughters they were just dying to introduce me to, nowhere to run. It was as dire a situation as any I'd ever faced, particularly as Mrs. Hoyne seemed to be deaf in one ear, and kept asking me over and over again if I had ever been to Hiltonhead to summer.

Carol swooped down out of nowhere, calling "Steve, darling! I've been looking for you!" and tucking her arm in mine, excused us from the gaggle of hens and whisked me away to the balcony. As confused as I was, I certainly wasn't going to turn down a rescue by such a lovely lady. And she certainly was a knockout. Her blond hair was done up in a French twist, and she had on the prettiest green silk dress. What could I do but thank her?

She laughed and it was a low, throaty kind of laugh that only added to her appeal, telling me Mrs. Hoyne was a terror, and she hated to see one of our most decorated war heroes laid low by a Daughter of the American Revolution like that. She asked me if I'd lost my date for the evening, and I told her I didn't have one. I must have looked like I'd just lost my best friend, then, because she patted me on the arm and told me she was in the same boat. I found that awfully hard to believe, and told her so, and then it was her turn to lose her smile.

She told me her fiancé hadn't made it home from France. Her best friend with the daughter of one of the chairmen of one of the boards of the types of companies who threw shindigs like this, and she had talked her into coming to the party. Nancy was always dragging her out to try and get her to meet someone. Only she didn't much feel like socializing.

I flagged down a waiter, who brought us two flutes of champagne, and we must have stood out there and talked half the night, and by the time it was over I was a little tipsy from all the champagne and I offered to drive her home. But she said she should go back with her roommate, or else people would talk. She gave me a peck on the cheek, and told me to give her a call some time.

September 3, 1946

There was a letter from Cassie Gideon--Cassie O'Reilly, now--waiting for me at the War Department, a few weeks later. I've no doubt that Mrs. Gideon had a hand in it. Private Williams handed it to me with a smile when I arrived at work that day and I sat at my desk, coffee and morning meetings completely forgotten as I tore into the envelope. Cassie hadn't heard from Diana in years, the note said. The last she'd heard, Diana had been engaged to an Air Force engineer named Dan White, and was that helpful?

Dan White was an engineer who'd been transferred to Venezuela back in the winter of '42. In fact, he'd arrived there the same week my Angel had brought me back to Civilization, or so my hospital records say. I called the embassy in Caracas, trying to track him down. I still had some contacts, and it wasn't too hard to finally locate him. He and his wife had been relocated since the War ended. According to the Air Force, Daniel and Diana White were now living right in my own back yard. They had rented a house in Baltimore two months ago.

I drove out there that week-end, the snapshot Etta had taken of us tucked into my overcoat pocket. It was a wooden frame house, just the sort of house I imagine a couple moves into when they're thinking of starting a family, actually. I have that on good authority. When I rang the bell, a tall, sandy-haired man answered the door with a smile.

I told him I'd been brought into the Armed Forces Hospital back in '42, when his wife had been assigned there, and I was hoping she might be able to help me out. I can't really blame the guy for looking skeptical, then. Heck, if I'd been in his shoes, and some strange Joe showed up at my door asking after my wife with some three year old sob story, I'd have slammed the door right in my face.

But he didn't slam the door. He held open the screen door for me, and offered me a seat on the sofa. White walked back through the narrow corridor to the kitchen. I heard muffled voices then; his and a woman's voice in hushed tones. I couldn't help it. My heart was in my throat when I heard a woman's footstep on the hardwood floor.

Of course I knew it wasn't her. I knew that before I even rang the bell. It was only for a second that I imagined her walking through that door like she'd never gone. It was only a second, though. One of those foolish daydreams you have that you can't help, and your heart breaks all over again when you're brought back to reality.

Diana White was almost as tall, and she wore her dark hair curled so that it just brushed the shoulders of her dress. She didn't wear glasses. I think she saw the uniform first. It was something that changed in her bearing. She may not have been in the Navy long, but even three years out she stood at attention. I suddenly wished that I'd come in civilian attire. She asked how she could help me, her husband standing beside her with that classic "you hurt her; I kill you" look that I understand all too well, having worn it a time or two myself. I told her I'd been brought in May 1942 to the hospital. She looked puzzled--after all, there had been dozens of men and women in the Ward. How could she pick out just one? Then I told her I'd been brought in by Wonder Woman.

She turned white as a sheet at that. "Oh my God," she'd said. "Oh my God, you're him," and Dan White just looked from his wife to me and back again, confused. But she understood. I could see it in her eyes. I knew, then. Somehow, all the pieces started sliding into place and all the things I'd known before but never said all clicked. But what I didn't understand was how it had all happened. I think--I mean, I didn't dare to dream the why. But this was all about the how.

I tried to ask her if she could tell me something--anything, but she shook her head, spooked, saying she was very sorry. But she couldn't talk to me about it. "I think it's time for you to go," Dan White said then, his face dark as a thundercloud, and what could I do? I thanked them and picked up my hat. But before I walked through the door, I looked back over my shoulder and met Mrs. White's eyes.

"She's gone, you know," I said. "She left. She left me."

September 7, 1946

Just spent the last hour with Carol and her mother. Mrs. Nelson has this crazy idea we should name the baby Alphonse, after her late husband, if it's a boy. Carol and I talked about it, and pretty much agreed no kid should have to go through life with a name like Alphonse, for Pete's sake, and even her dad had gone by "Jack" his whole life, on account of he hated the name. But we couldn't think of a way to let her mom down easy. I think her mom is still sore that we eloped, thus cheating her out of the huge white wedding, so she's just gone to town on the whole grand-child thing. She's been over to the apartment every other night since she got into town, fixing dinners and taking Carol out to go shopping.

Alphonse. So help me, if this keeps up, we're just gonna name the kid Steve Jr. just to get people off our backs. If it's a girl, Carol likes Anne, and Etta says she wishes her folks had gone with something like Anne. Was it any wonder, with a name like "Etta Candy" that she'd gone and joined the Army? Poor kid. She and Charlie moved out to Arlington last month, into a brand new house. She said me and Carol should look into it--there's a real building boom out there, and they're practically handing houses to GIs. I told her we'd think about it. The apartment isn't any place to raise a kid anyway.

Carol's gotten to the point where she's just ready to pop, even though she still has another two months to go. It's funny--while writing all this down, living it all over again, somehow I feel closer to Carol than ever. I know that sounds nuts, but she understands. At least, I'm pretty sure she does.

When I got back from the White's place in Maryland, there was a message from Carol waiting for me. I called her back, and boy did she lit into me. She wasn't the type of girl to sit by a phone and wait for a man to call, she said, so she'd taken the initiative. She hoped that wasn't too forward of her, but I just laughed and said I liked forward girls just fine. I don't know why I said it--but it felt true, too. We made a lunch date for the next day, and I was surprised when I realized I was actually looking forward to it. I guess that it just goes to show that the capacity of the human heart is infinite.

September 9, 1946

It was about a week later that she came to the Pentagon. I'd been in a meeting with General Blankenship all afternoon and when I got back to my office, and Private Williams told me that there was a woman waiting in my office for me. I asked how long she'd been waiting, and Williams told me she'd been here about an hour. She'd asked if she'd wanted some coffee, or maybe to wait in the commissary, but she said she'd wanted to wait. I stepped through the door, and Diana White turned to face me. I told Williams to cancel my afternoon meetings, and I closed the door. I even pulled down the wooden blinds before I sat down behind my desk.

She'd been crying, she told me. She'd missed all the excitement because she'd been outside in the alley between the hospital and the coffee shop next door. It was the craziest thing, she'd said, but she'd heard a girl's voice had asked her what was wrong and she looked up and saw a woman in a red white and blue bathing suit in the alley with her. She'd never seen anything so bizarre, but something about the girl's kindness made her just spill the whole story right there.

She'd only been in the Navy for a year--since her brother had died. She'd been a nurse in Ohio and volunteered. She and Dan met when she'd been transferred to Washington. It had been love at first sight, and they'd become engaged on a few weeks before he'd gotten the news that his company was transferring him to Venezuela. She didn't make enough at the hospital for the trip, and he wouldn't have been able to buy her passage for weeks and weeks. He had left the night before, and she hadn't been able to concentrate on her work at all. She kept turning into waterworks. So she'd escaped outside.

I was riveted. She told me that Wonder Woman had asked her her name, and told her that she understood how she felt. That she'd traveled a very long way for love. I tried not to move, not to breathe when she said that, but she must have seen my face. But she went right on with her story. There, in that alley, they'd struck a deal. Wonder Woman would find a way to get the money so Diana could go to South America to be with her fiancé, and then she could assume her identity in Washington and work at the hospital as a nurse. It had been crazy-- insane. But it seemed like a dream come true. An impossible dream come true.

She'd given her her spare uniform to wear, and she took her back to her barracks at the base, which was empty because all the girls were working. They'd spent hours over cups of tea made on her hotplate, as Diana Prince had told Wonder Woman every detail of her job at the hospital, everything she could think she'd need to know, to pass herself off as a Lieutenant in the Navy Nurse's corps. She'd been terrified--but excited too. It had seemed like a game, then. Never mind that impersonating an officer was a crime--heck, they both could have ended up in jail. But all she'd cared about was seeing Dan again, and all Wonder Woman cared about, she said, was sticking close to her wounded Major. She'd gone in the morning and swapped shifts with another girl, and when Lt. Prince arrived that afternoon, well-- all that mattered was that a Lt. Prince arrived that afternoon. No one would know it wasn't the same one who'd worked swing and graveyard for the last three months, now would they?

The next night, Wonder Woman had met Lt. Prince with a bag full of money. Literally. She'd told her all about how she'd met a man named Ashley Norman, and she'd gone up on stage and done her "bullets and bracelets" trick, and would this be enough? She laughed then, as she remembered. Enough? Heck, she said, she could have gone around the world on all the money in that bag. Where did this girl come from, that they didn't have money?

An island, I said--only I didn't know how I knew that, then. Just that I did. An island far away.

So she'd taken out just enough to cover the air ticket to South America, and given the rest back. She told Wonder Woman she'd have to get some clothes besides the nurse's uniform, and she should take a flat because all the girls in the barracks would know straight away that she wasn't Military, but she'd be able to fool everybody in no time. After all, girls were joining up all over--there were WAVE recruiting posters all over the hospital.

That was the last she'd ever seen of her, she said. She'd packed her bags and gotten on a plane that night. Dan had never known. She'd told him it was an inheritance from some uncle, and he'd never known any different. That was why she hadn't been able to tell him at the house. Because she'd never even told Dan. She was driven, now, to tell me, because if she was gone--then it was safe. Because if I'd felt the same way about her that she'd felt about me, well . . . It was safe to tell me, wasn't it?

I didn't know what to say. I guess I didn't have to say anything-- Diana White had had this secret bottled up inside her for over three years, and this was the first time she'd ever told a living soul.

I told her it was safe. I thanked her--for everything. If it hadn't been for her, I didn't know how things would have been different. She smiled then, and looked so relieved. She's said it was so thrilling, the first time she'd ever seen Wonder Woman's picture in the paper. That somehow, it made her feel good. If she'd helped in even the tiniest part, then it made her feel like she'd done something important with her life. And I understood just what she meant.

It was crazy to think, but if Wonder Woman really had stayed here because of me, then I guess maybe somehow I'd been a part of something bigger than myself. That whatever had passed between us, even the missed opportunities and broken hearts on both sides might have been somehow worth it. That we'd helped win the War despite ourselves, if that makes sense. Of course, I couldn't help but wonder that, if the war had gone on for another year, I might have married Diana instead of Carol. I can't imagine it. I mean, I know we've only been married since April, but when I wake up next to my wife and see her sleeping next to me, her hair spread across the pillow, I can't imagine waking up next to any other woman. Yet at the same time, I think a part of me will always wonder what it would have been like to wake up with Diana in my arms.

October 2, 1946

Etta and Charlie got married at Christmas. Her whole family came up, even her uncle from Texas I'd always thought was a myth. I took Carol-- we'd been going out for about three months at that point. Charlie Niles looked like the happiest guy in the world, I remember. He just lit up when Etta's dad walked her down the aisle. General Blankenship was there too--I think Phil had always kinda of thought of Etta as a surrogate daughter, since he had never settled down. Charlie's brother Sam was best man, and one of Etta's cousins was maid of honor. But when we danced at the reception, Etta told me she still wished Diana could have stood up at her wedding. We'd had a bit of champagne, and she asked me right out if she was crazy for thinking it, but Diana had been Wonder Woman, hadn't she? Just flat out asked me, and I didn't even try and deny it, and we just kept on dancing.

It was three of us, then, that knew. One that loved her, one that missed her, and one that had never even known her--just given her a name.

Etta's wedding was really the beginning, I think. Before, I'd just thought of Carol as a swell gal to go out with, but after, I realized I was looking forward to talking with her every night. Telling her about my day, and listening to her tell me about hers. It had been a long time since I'd had that. She was just so easy to talk to, to be with. We doubled with Matt sometimes, but most of the time, it was just us. She was a terrible cook--I remember the first time she tried to make us a candle lit dinner for two. If the Italian place down the street hadn't been open, we would have starved. I didn't care that she couldn't cook--that fact that she'd tried was enough. She went out with Phil and Etta and Charlie and I a few times, and I think Phil was impressed with her grasp of politics. I was just impressed by her, period.

But best of all, she made me laugh. I loved her for that most, I think.

October 15, 1946

I don't remember when the dreams started. I've had them, off and on, since she left. I always figured that it was my subconscious trying to tell me what I already knew. I know that sounds like head shrinker nonsense, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me. In the dream, we're surrounded by cherry trees. Except I think they might be apple trees. But the white and pink petals are the same, so I'm never sure. They're falling down all around us like snow. Her hair is loose, down--even thought I never saw her wear it that way, not once. Except I had, hadn't I? I had and I've never thought about it, but I dream about it. She's dancing in the blossoms, and she's not wearing any shoes. She's dancing barefoot, and smiling, and we're together. But then I wake up alone. And every night, I tried to hang on to the dream, go back to sleep and slip back in. But it never worked.

I don't wake up alone any longer. The first time, I remember there was a terrible storm and the rain was half frozen. I worried it would be like one of those ice storms I remembered from when I was a kid. Where you'd hear the branches snapping like gunshots under the weight of the ice. It was just miserable and bleak and Carol and I got caught out in it on our way back from some fancy shindig out in Maryland. The car just wasn't going to make it back to town. We found a bed and breakfast, and pretended we were newlyweds. It felt like it, actually. I offered to take the chair, but I think we both knew that wasn't going to happen. But it would have, if she'd wanted me to. And I would have. Because I was crazy about her. I really was.

When I woke up from the dream, it was pitch black outside--and for a minute I couldn't tell where I was. I know that most of the time, you wake up from a dream and it just slips right out of your mind. Gone, just like that. But I can still remember that night. The dream that night had been different. It had started out the same, but then it had changed. Maybe it was the storm--for some reason, I always seem to think about her more when it rains. Or maybe it was just being with Carol. But I dreamt that we'd made love. And when I woke up, it was as if I'd lost her all over again. I felt like I was going to die- -just for a second there, I really did. And then Carol rolled over, and whispered in my ear, asking me what was wrong.

People do stupid things, in the dark, in the middle of the night. I was just damned lucky. I asked her to tell me about the man she'd loved, and how'd she'd been able to go on. She was silent for a long minute--probably trying to suss out why I was asking. Then she told me about her fiancé who'd died. She and Mike--that was her fiancé's name, Mike--she and Mike had been together since they were sweet sixteen and it had just about killed her when she'd got the news his transport had crashed. I remember asking questions, and she answered them. Sometimes her voice would get rough, and I couldn't see in the dark, but I can guess that she was getting misty.

I told her about Diana. Told her just about everything, everything that I could tell her. As we lay there, side by side, only our arms and shoulders touching underneath the blanket, I told her all about realizing too late that I'd loved her. She listened to the whole story and the only thing she asked me was why I hadn't gone after her, to tell her how I'd felt. I told her the truth, then. I would have. I'd have been on a plane in a minute, except that I couldn't. Diana was gone, and she wasn't coming back, and I couldn't go after her because I didn't know where she'd gone.

I expected her to be upset, or angry, or accuse me of using her . . . It would have been fair, though not true. But fair. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but there was something about her--something that made me want to tell her everything flat out, brass tacks. But I held that one thing back, because it wasn't my secret to tell.

I know it sounds nuts. But losing the first woman I think I'd ever really loved made me realize how precious love is. I'd be a fool to throw it away again. The worst kind of fool. I loved Carol. I never would have gone to bed with her if I hadn't. I think, maybe, once it wouldn't have mattered to me. But it mattered. Whatever else that had happened, that much had changed.

October 31, 1946

We moved into the house in Maywood a few weeks ago. Carol's mother helped out--she insisted on setting up the baby's room herself. She's staying in the guestroom downstairs until the baby is born. I'm sitting in my "office", the tiny corner bedroom that faces the garden. I've got a brand new desk--a wedding present from Phil. And Carol got my medals framed and they're hanging on the wall.

We've asked Etta and Charlie to be the godparents. It was funny-- before the wedding, Etta'd always called me "Sir" but after that, it; always just been "Steve." Even though I'd always said that there was no rank around the office, I never called Private Williams "Sherry." But from then on, Etta is just Etta, and I'm just Steve. And no one else really understands the secret that was between us. I don't think Etta has even told Charlie--I don't know if I could tell Carol. I mean, I told her about Wonder Woman. Hell, she even gave me a scrapbook to put all the newspaper clippings into for my birthday. One of those big leather bound jobs, and we actually spent an afternoon puttering around the apartment with a pot of glue, putting it together. She had a million questions--who in Washington didn't? After all, Wonder Woman was fast approaching mythic status, especially now that she'd disappeared.

I think Carol wondered for a while, but she understands. I think that's part of the reason I fell in love with her. She wasn't jealous of a memory. She didn't try to pry it out of me, or eclipse it. She said once she understood that it was a part of me, and how could she not love every part of me? How could I not a love a woman who said something like that and meant it? Really meant it--not just saying it. That's Carol. She's bold as brass, and says just what she means, and I wouldn't have her any other way. I really wouldn't.

November 19, 1946

It just seems amazing to me that Carol and I could create anything so amazing as this little pink, wrinkled guy we've named Steven Leonard Trevor, Jr. Actually, that was my fault. I was so distracted when I filled out the paperwork, I put my name in the wrong blank. I'm sure Mrs. Nelson thinks I did it on purpose--Carol's playing peacemaker now. The delivery was hard--for a while there, I was afraid I'd lose them both, and that scared the hell out of me.

My God, he's perfect, from the tiny fingernails to the wisps of blond hair on top his head. His eyes are blue, like his mother's--though the Doctor said they might change. He said all babies eyes are blue. I'd never known that before. I get the feeling that this little guy's going to teach me a heck of a lot of stuff I didn't know before.

I've lost so many things. But I've gained so much. I hope that wherever Diana is, she understands. I think she would. I think that's maybe part of why she left--but I guess I'll never know for sure. But I wish I could share my happiness with her, let her know how profound an impact knowing her has had on my life. I think that's maybe why Etta suggested I start this thing in the first place. To get it all down on paper, and straight in my own head. Because this way I can let go of the sorrows, and only keep the joy.