Archive of Our Own

Just take the day to rest.

That’s what his CO had said.

But all Collins has been doing since he got back is sit here, half-dressed, on the edge of his unmade bed. He ignores the twinges of hunger pains and sucks on cigarette after cigarette until he’s practically choking on smoke and shaking from the nicotine. His leg won’t stop bouncing, not unless he’s leaning his elbows on his thighs and burying his head in his hands.

Rest. What a fucking joke.

How the hell can he, after yesterday?

It’s why he refuses to drag his eyes up from the floor. Not across the room, not to the empty bed that hadn’t been empty just yesterday morning.

Not the vast emptiness of a space that still has all those lingering memories of a man Collins may never see again. His books, his last pack of smokes, the half-empty bottle of whiskey hidden under his bunk, the photos of his folks and his dog back home. Not to the sheets that are still slightly rumpled and practically stink of familiar aftershave that tempts him to bury his face in the pillow.

It’s too soon to think of it as nostalgic.

All that’s missing is the man himself; one would think Farrier never left, looking at it now.

It only makes Collins feel nauseous. But even buried in his hands, the darkness behind his eyelids offers no reprieve. All that flashes by is moments: gunfire, trails of smoke, the rattle of bullets, too close for comfort. The feeling of icy water lapping up his body, rendering him weightless, sapping his strength and crawling its way into his lungs. The smell of petrol and ozone and seawater.

Then, through it all, his face, in those final seconds before they went up, when Farrier grabbed his arm and spun Collins back around to face him, with eyes full of cautious resolve, and a shine that betrayed his eagerness to spread his wings.

“I’ll see you in the air, Collins,” Farrier had said.

And Collins felt it, as he had every time before, like a promise or a prayer. The latter, neither of them puts much stock in, and the former is something Farrier doesn’t do lightly. But Collins believed him all the same. He always did, because it was impossible to dread anything when he had Farrier at his side.

“Aye.” Collins had let a small smile overtake him, back then, because how could he not? “I’ll see you on the ground, Farrier.”

It was the closest they could come to a declaration.

Fight hard. Be safe. Come home. Come back to me.

Now, as he sits on his bed, in a room that was once just the right size, but now feels unholy empty, he understands why Farrier hates making promises.

“You’re such a liar,” Collins mutters to the empty air.

Because of course Farrier was right all along, like always: promises are dangerous things. They can do irreversible damage.

Every time they said those silly little words, they were tearing their own hearts out and handing them off to be kept by the other. To be cradled and protected in the hopes that they would be returned.

But not this time. Collins tore himself apart. He gave his heart and soul to Farrier, and now they’re both lost forever on some foreign shore in some distant land. He can almost feel it now, this tautness in his chest: a pull, like a tether, cast miles out across the Channel, leading all the way back to his missing pieces, and to the man he entrusted them to.

He would gladly let Farrier keep those pieces of him, if it meant he could come home.

Maybe Collins can pretend for five minutes to believe in some higher power—that some deity would allow him that trade. Can’t kill a man with no heart, anyhow. May as well already be dead.

Christ, Farrier would smack him upside the head for thinking something so pitifully macabre.

“It’s your goddamn fault,” Collins mutters again. And again, the room doesn’t answer.

His only saving grace, perhaps, is that he’s not seeing ghosts. Not yet anyways. It’s still early days.

It’s in this room that Collins had spent countless nights staring at Farrier’s broad back. At first it was with vague disinterest. Then curiosity. Then admiration. Then fondness. Then something else. Something more. Yearning.

It was in this room that Collins realized how foolish he was. He was well and truly fucked, and yet he was glad for it. In some insane delusion, he was happy to be called to war, to meet a man who slotted so well within the crevices of his own soul, inspiring and encouraging and enthralling, making him feel like he’d sprouted wings of his own.

It was in this room Collins started to dream of all the ways Farrier could make his body sing. All the ways his hands and his mouth could tear him apart and leave him desperate for more. All the ways Collins could eagerly return the favour.

It was in this room that Farrier first kissed him. Or maybe Collins kissed him first; he can’t quite recall anymore. All he knew was that they were meant for the sky, and they were meant to soar it together.

It was after they lost a man; their first since the war started. They’d both been on that sortie, both come away with their own fair share of scuffs and bullet holes, limping back to England’s shores.

That night, something happened, as they looked at each other with nothing but the dim, autumnal light of their lamp. Not a word was said, but something danced in the breadth of space between them, drawing them in, drawing them closer, until Collins had hands on his face and lips pressed desperately against his own. Farrier had tasted of whiskey, and he had tasted of smoke.

It had been sudden, and yet at the same time, it had been inevitable. Building for months, maybe from the very start. The moment they met, they were binary stars, twirling and dancing around each other, gravity pulling them closer and closer, faster and faster, awaiting the cosmic collision.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Collins had told Farrier between desperate kisses.

He’d never said it before; not out loud. But it swam in the recesses of his mind, tormented his dreams on occasion. And in that moment, in the wake of the reality of the war that was suddenly knocking on their door, he crumbled.

Farrier had only clung to him tighter, cradled his head, and kissed him deeper. He hadn’t spoken a word. He hadn’t needed to—he was always good at saying a million things without ever opening his mouth. Each shared breath, each brush of hands and soft press of lips had been a soul-bearing truth, the kind of thing Farrier didn't do lightly. Ever, really. That night, he pushed Collins down onto the bed and brought him to the height of bliss, stripping away all fears and doubts. And Collins knew he was loved.

Two weeks. Two bloody weeks since then.

And now this.

Not enough time. Never enough time.

All he has left is the lingering memory of those lips, those soft words uttered in his ear in the twilight hours, daring to cherish him even at the end of the world.

Now he’s alone. It’s never been more painfully obvious that he wasn’t meant to be alone.

With a guttural noise, Collins throws himself back, flopping onto his bed with his arms splayed. Tears won’t come, though he almost wishes they would, just for some kind of release. But he’s too hollow even for that.

“Fuck you, Farrier,” he grumbles to the ceiling. “Had to go and be a hero.”

Don’t we have enough of those? The world doesn’t need any more. I’m certainly not trying to be one. Farrier had been the one to say that, once. What a goddamn hypocrite.

Collins stares at the little folded paper on his bedside.

A note from that old sea captain, the one who had rescued him at Dunkirk just the day before.

"If you ever need anything, son," that old man had told him—Dawson, his name was, "this is where you’ll find me."

Rolling onto his side, Collins tucks an arm under his head and stares at the innocuous piece of paper like it holds all the answers to the universe.

He doesn’t want to rest. If he sleeps, he’ll drown in the Channel all over again. He'll hear men scream as they burn alive. Or he’ll watch Farrier disappear over the horizon, dragging his heart with him.

No, he won’t rest. But he’s done sulking.

Maybe he can’t get him back.

But he has to try.

Farrier never backs down from a fight.

Neither does Collins.

His fist pounding against the door almost makes him reconsider what he’s about to do. He must look strange, standing in full uniform outside this old sailor’s home. But the only people who notice him are a middle-aged couple, who offer him a ‘Good morning’ and nothing else but a quick look as they pass him by.

He stands on the step and waits.

No turning back now. Not that he could.

He turns his face to the sky, into the breeze against his cheeks and the sun peeking out between the clouds and the wafting of sea air invading his nostrils.

Maybe Farrier told himself the same thing, back then.

Collins closes his eyes, forcing his lungs to keep working, trying not to choke on the lump climbing up into his throat.

Footfalls from within, then the door swings open. Collins jumps, hauled back down to earth, and is suddenly faced with the reality of his plan. The human factor.

He’s not just risking himself for this foolish endeavour, but this man’s as well. It’s one thing to risk his own life for the sake of a wounded heart, but it’s another to drag someone down with him. How could he forgive himself? This is exactly why he went off to fight: so others wouldn’t have to. Farrier had always said that too, that it’s their duty to protect those who can’t protect themselves.

They’re not heroes. Not really. It’s their job to do what they do.

But men like this—the innocent folk who sailed to the beaches that day to bring their boys home? They’re the real heroes, the ones who deserve to have their names carved on plaques and have monuments erected for their acts of valour. They deserve peace.

Yet Collins can’t move. He’s too selfish, too desperate for whatever closure he’s fooled himself into thinking he can find here. His feet keep him rooted to the spot as Mr. Dawson’s mouth forms a gentle smile.

“Ah, It’s you.” Right, he’d never given the old man his name. “I wasn’t sure we’d be seeing you again. Not so soon, at the very least.”

Collins had assumed he’d just be a passing face, one of countless men to come and go through his boat only to disappear into the war, never to be seen again. He’d even considered tossing out the man’s address, but something had stayed his hand. Maybe the tiny part of him that already knew where this would lead.

“Collins,” he says—a belated introduction—then with a renewed breath he stands tall. “You said I could ring you up. Is it too early to call in that favour?”

Mr. Dawson looks him up and down, curiosity sinking into the folds of his aged face. “I’d hate to turn a man away. What is it you need, son?”

So simple, so kind in a world that is desperately trying to kill civility. Men like this should be the ones leading them on, not those stuffy aristocrats who’ve never seen an ounce of tragedy in their life.

That does bring the twinges of a smile to Collins’ face. “I need to go back.”

“Back?” Mr. Dawson repeats.

Collins nods, resolute. “To Dunkirk.”

Silence greets his words, and suddenly all he can hear are the screech of seagulls and the roll of waves down on the pier. He shudders at each caress of cool sea breeze tickling his neck and tugging at his hair.

Mr. Dawson is a sturdy man, letting nothing show on his face.

“I know what I’m asking,” Collins says, determined not to shirk like he’s a schoolboy again, facing down his headmaster. “I know it’s dangerous.”

“It may be a fool’s errand, son,” Mr. Dawson says, still without any indication of opinion, though his eyes betray his sympathies.

“Aye. I’d understand if you said no. You’ve got your lad, after all. But… there’s no one else I can turn to.”

No one: not the lads at the station, not his CO, not his folks. They won’t understand, and they couldn’t fix it if they did. He doesn’t even have Farrier here now.

By that same token, there’s no one to tell him what he can’t do. No one to stop him.

“Why would you want to go back?” Mr. Dawson asks.

Collins’ eyes flick down between his feet, lips curling. His next breath is a struggle, like there's a boulder on his chest.

“Because I need to know.”

Because I left my heart behind on that beach.

“You’ll not likely find what you’re looking for.”

He’s a kind man, voice dripping with sympathy, to the point Collins almost laughs at how pitiful it is. Obviously he’s not trying to trample Collins’ naïve heart, merely soften the blow of a cruel reality.

Kind, but misguided. Collins may be a fool, but he’s no child.

“Aye. But I’d hate myself if I didn’t try.”

Even if all he brings back is an empty chest and a memory, at least he won’t have abandoned Farrier. Not again.

Mr. Dawson’s eyes search his face for a moment. What he’s searching for, Collins can’t say, but he stares back, unblinking, unflinching, burning with want and purpose.

Then, “Alright, son. I’ll take you back.”

Collins exhales loudly, and the tension seeps from his shoulders.

“We best get on our way,” Mr. Dawson says as he steps back inside, disappearing somewhere just behind the door. “We’ve got a long trip ahead. Luckily the wind’s fair today. Let me just leave a note for Peter…”

“Thank you,” Collins breathes, almost a whisper, drowned out by his own racing heartbeat.

Mr. Dawson reappears around the door with his overcoat on, stepping past Collins and out onto the street with a pat to his shoulder.

“Thank me once we’ve found what it is you’re looking for, lad.”

“I’d leave the uniform if I were you, lad,” Mr. Dawson says just as Collins is getting a leg over the gunwale of the Moonstone. “Or at least the tunic. If you’re found over there, it’s better you look the part of a civilian.”

Collins looks down at himself. The full uniform is a bit out of place for an endeavour such as this; it was a right pain getting it wrung out and dried and free of the stench of sea salt before. But it seems wrong to be in anything else. He is a pilot—he is his wings.

This is how Farrier last saw him.

Not that there’s any illusions. There’s no reason to think he’ll find Farrier there on the beaches, just standing there waiting for a timely rescue. Even that’s a fool’s hope.

Which begs the question again—the one that’s been swirling inside Collins’ head since he’d concocted this hair-brained scheme.

What the hell is he expecting to find?

As Mr. Dawson goes down below decks, Collins stands awkwardly on the deck, staring off across the choppy waves towards the foggy horizon. The sun comes and goes behind trailing clouds, and if he squints, he can see the dim contours of the French Coast in the distance.

There has to be something to find.

Even if it’s only Farrier’s kite. Or his kit. Even just his footprints in the sand.

Or his… No.

Dunkirk has enough bodies as it is; too much English blood staining it’s shores. It doesn’t deserve Farrier’s as well.

Steps come back up the stairs and across the deck, and Collins turns just as Mr. Dawson hands him a worn overcoat. With wavering fingers, Collins undoes his buttons and shucks his tunic, folds it, and tepidly hands it to Mr. Dawson. Handing off a piece of himself, more like, but the old man takes it with care, bringing it down to the galley with the precious handling it deserves.

The overcoat sits a little too wide on Collins’ shoulders and too short to reach his knees. It smells faintly of mothballs and the sea, musty, with deep creases in the folds like it’s been tucked away and unused for some time. But it’ll do.

Standing in the middle of the deck, uncomfortably useless, he shoves his hands in the deep pockets and watches Mr. Dawson in the wheelhouse, cranking the engine.

“Get the line, would you lad?” he calls over his shoulder as the engine rumbles to life.

Slippery wood vibrates under his feet as Collins climbs out and tugs the thick ropes from their mooring. Just as he hops back in, there’s footsteps, hurried and slapping down the old wooden ramp of the quay.

“Dad!”

Collins goes rigid, wincing.

There’s a flash of that familiar red sweater, the flop of bright blond hair and a face like a mirror into his younger days. He stares holes into the waxed wood of the gunwale, shoulders high and hands balled into tight fists.

Shit. He didn’t want to face this lad.

“Peter.” Mr. Dawson steps out onto the deck. “I thought you’d gone out—”

A note is crumpled in Peter’s hand as he stumbles to a stop next to the boat, swaying further from the pier with the waves. he must have run all the way here, what with the way he's heaving and read-faced and his hair is all a mess.

“You’re going back? You’re going back there?”

Eyes land on him, burrow through him, but Collins doesn’t dare meet them.

“I don’t want you coming along this time, Peter,” Mr. Dawson says, firm but gentle, stepping up to the gunwale so as not to yell over the wind.

All Collins can see is that young lad, lying on the deck below, dazed and bleeding from his head. Peter, asking if there was anything he could do. But Collins was no doctor, and what little he did know of medicine was no use out on a boat in the middle of the Channel. He wishes he could have helped, truly. But he’s not responsible.

No, the tension lies elsewhere, knowing what he must look like to Peter, just as he must look to his father.

“It’s too dangerous,” Peter says, almost dazedly. “Dad, you can’t—”

“I won’t turn a man away,” Mr. Dawson says.

You should learn to, Collins almost chimes in. That kindness may get you killed one day.

He’s been told the same, more than once. Never followed that advice well, either. Something he and Farrier have in common.

Collins looks up then, and is faced with Peter’s youthful face, twisted with fear and distress. He was so brave that day, holding himself tall and steadfast like a man well beyond his years. He’d have made that brother of his proud.

But now, he’s just a lad, not even eighteen, and he’s floundering.

“You can’t.” There’s an accusatory anger behind Peter's eyes now. “You can’t drag him into this.”

“I need to go,” Collins says. “I need to go back there. I’m sorry, lad.”

“He’s my dad. He’s all I have…”

“I know. I know, son.”

I’m the worst kind of man. Selfish.

But love makes men mad, or at least that what they always say.

Peter clenches his jaw and steps froward, as if he intends to grab at Collins, shake him to his senses, perhaps even strike him. The lad doesn’t seem the type, but what does Collins really know, especially after these past few days?

No, he does know; he knows what men will do, when faced with despair and death, and an overflow of emotion. With a love they refuse to let die.

But despite the flex of his hands, Peter doesn’t touch Collins at all, just comes to stand as close as he can, toes hanging off the edge of the quay.

“Whatever you’re trying to do,” he says flatly, “whatever you’re looking for, you know there’s almost no chance you’ll find it, right?”

So he keeps hearing. But while the poor lad’s voice is steady, his face is a flurry of open desperation, and his shoulders quiver with tension.

“We both lost someone that day.” Collins meets his gaze, cool-headed for the first time in days. “The difference is you were there with him. It hurts, aye, but at least you know.”

Peter sucks in a breath, wincing. “It’s not fair…”

“Aye, son, it’s not. None of it.”

“Then why are you bothering?”

Collins lets his face turn plaint, eyes crinkling and mouth quirking with sad resignation. “Because it’s all I can do.”

Because I need to. For him.

They stare at each other for a moment longer, each second counted by the blood pounding in his ears. Sharp eyes—as blue as his own—traverse his face, as if trying to piece together a puzzle, solve the great mystery that is Collins. It’s almost funny; he’d like to know the answer some day too, if the lad manages to figure it out.

Farrier may be the only one who already knows.

“Peter.”

Mr. Dawson breaks the hold they have on each other, and Collins steps back from the edge, swaying with the boat.

“Take care of the house,” Mr. Dawson says. “Finish that article for the papers. You’ll be doing a good thing for George.”

Peter flinches, wincing like an open wound has been assaulted.

George. Collins has a name to the face of that poor lad, now. It would be so much easier if he didn’t.

“Let me come with you then, dad,” he tries instead, stepping over to his father now. “Let me help.”

“You did enough of that.” Mr. Dawson takes Peter’s hands in his, squeezing, offering a kind smile. “You did good, lad. Made us all proud. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“But dad—”

“This isn’t your fight,” Collins says. “Don’t be so quick to risk your life.”

Peter stares at him again, gives him a once-over. Something flickers in his eyes as hovers on Collins’ new overcoat, almost like recognition, and he glances to his father again, then back. Disbelief quickly morphs into discontent.

“You’re not my brother,” he says.

Collins frowns. This again…

He didn’t ask to be the phantom of these people’s past.

“No, he’s not.” Mr. Dawson tugs on Peter’s hands gently to regain his attention. “But I’m your father, and I’m asking you to stay here. To be safe.”

Teeth sink into Peter’s lower lip, then finally, with slumped shoulders, he steps back from the boat, hands hanging limp at his sides.

“Fine, dad. I… Just go. But be safe. Please.”

“We’ll come back safe, son,” Collins says. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Farrier’s voice echoes in the depths of his mind.

Yet it would have been nice, to have that kind of promise for himself back then. Even if it was a lie.

“You better,” Peter says, though there’s no bite to his words anymore. “For what it’s worth, I… I hope it works out; whatever it is you want.”

Whatever I want, indeed. Who even knows?

Collins can only nod, mouth stuck in a tight line, neither a smile nor a frown.

He stands like that, frozen under Peter’s watchful eyes as Mr. Dawson pulls away from the pier, away from Dorset, and England, and safety, towards the enemy, a collapsing country, and a past he wants to forget.

But also, maybe, just maybe, by some divine mercy, he can find the heart he’d abandoned in the sky.

It’s a long journey, and Collins has no interest in filling the silence with discussion, nor is he obligated to entertain anyone’s boredom. Yet, after almost two hours of sailing, with the white cliffs far behind them, and surrounded by empty blue-grey seas, his curiosity overtakes him.

“You’ve not asked why I’m going back.”

“I’m sure I did,” Mr. Dawson says nonchalantly from where he stands at the wheel, watching ahead.

Collins frowns. “Aye, but I didn’t give you a real answer. You haven’t asked for one.”

“I didn’t know it was any of my business. I thought I was simply helping a young man find some peace.”

“You don’t think I’m a fool, then? I could be getting us both killed.”

“I said this may be a fool’s errand, but no, lad, I think your heart's in the right place. I suppose we all do strange things for the people we care about.”

Collins tenses, hands clenched tight between his knees. “How do you mean?”

“This is about your friend, isn’t it? The one flying over our heads that day? You couldn’t keep your eyes off him. Thought I heard you calling his name, too. I assumed that’s what this was about.”

The man’s perceptive. Or perhaps Collins is simply too obvious—he’s been accused of that more than once in his life, despite his best attempts at reclusiveness.

“Aye,” he says with a sad smile. “His name’s Farrier. He’s a… a friend.”

Liar. Such a goddamn liar.

He can still feel the press of his mouth, the heat of his breath and the taste of his lips. Feel the rough calluses of his fingers running over every inch of skin, digging into his muscles. How his voice sounded, rumbling deep in Collins’ ear as Farrier moved inside him, took him in hand and made him see the universe in brilliant explosions of light and sound.

Mr. Dawson doesn’t face him, but the smile is evident in his voice. “A good one, I take it. If you’re willing to do this for him.”

“Aye, he’s… We are. Close, I mean.”

His words changed me, I’ve ripped out my heart for him, his hands and his mouth have torn me apart and put me back together. His breaths have filled my lungs, and mine his. We’ve stretched our wings together, shared our deepest fears and most guarded secrets, told our pasts, and dreamed about our futures.

To hell with "close". We’re the same fucking soul.

“My oldest had a few friends like that. Peter, too. That young lad you saw when we fished you out. Thick as thieves, they were. Like brothers.”

He remembers, of course he does. That poor boy couldn’t have been eighteen yet, and Peter had asked Collins if he could do anything. And in saying no, he saw that tiny flicker of hope disappear from Peter’s eyes.

Collins is useless, stuck on the ground. All he can do is contend with his own youth and inexperience. He should have never left the sky—should have never left Farrier’s side. Then maybe none of this would have happened.

“Aye.” Collins hums absently. “Brothers, if you want.”

“Is that still not right, then?”

No, it bloody isn’t.

Collins’ eyes flick from the hazy horizon to Mr. Dawson’s face. He doesn’t say a word through the clenching of his jaw, trying not to let anything show in the burning of his eyes. The old man would go deaf if he could hear the rage of Collins’ heart, beating against the cage of his ribs, or go blind if he could see the typhoon of thoughts raging in his head.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, son,” Mr. Dawson says simply, kindly. “But if you’d like to speak candidly, just know you’ve nothing to fear aboard this vessel.”

Well, that’s new. Not something he’s used to. Still, there’s an old, rusted vice around his throat, stopping him from speaking.

But Mr. Dawson meets his stare with earnestness; a silent, open offering of peace. A chance to lay his heart out without fear or judgment. A chance to let it all spill out.

Collins swallows and opens his mouth. “He… we were… are…”

Damn it. How the hell can he just say it? He’s never been able to, not easily, so afraid of such an innocent and profound word.

Love. It’s only dangerous for them. How cruel.

“I don’t think we’re wrong,” Collins mutters instead, staring at the slick deck to avoid the heavy gaze upon him.

How could love ever anything but beautiful? How could its essence be deemed wrong simply by the nature in which is shows itself? It bloomed in the hollow space between two wild and boundless souls; the body shouldn’t matter.

Ha, he’s sounding like a ruddy poet now; he’s been skimming too many of Farrier’s books.

“I don’t think you are either,” Mr. Dawson says.

Collins lifts his head slowly, carefully guarded and mute. But the old man is an open book, smiling sadly with creases around his eyes. He’s slumped, somewhat, like the weight of it is more a burden to him than to Collins.

“I’ve seen too much in my life,” Mr. Dawson goes on, now that he’s got Collins trapped by his gaze, “to think we should deny whatever happiness we can find for ourselves. I suppose that’s a surprise to you?”

Collins chuckles incredulously. “Just a bit, aye.”

At least Mr. Dawson is good-natured enough to smile too. “There’s only so much time, and you never know how or when it will end.”

“Aye, I know,” Collins mumbles.

“You’re young, son. It’s a shame you ever had to know it.”

“So you think I should have just stayed home? Not involved myself?”

Never spread his wings. Never bothered to try and help, to protect anyone.

Mr. Dawson shakes his head. “There’s no running from this, I’m afraid. Besides which, you don’t strike me as the type to sit around and do nothing. You or that friend of yours.”

“Aye, well, that’s why we’re in this situation.”

“As long as you don’t regret it.”

Collins frowns.

“We may not know how we’ll die,” Mr. Dawson says, “but we can decide how we live. It’d be a shame to deprive ourselves of what we want. Not much point in that, is there?”

“I don’t,” Collins mumbles. “Regret it, I mean. Him and me.”

None of it. Not for a single moment.

Mr. Dawson smiles slightly. “Are you proud of him?”

Collins chuckles, incredulous. “Of course I am.”

Doesn’t even need to be asked, that one. His answer will never change. Even as his heart continues to bleed from the open wound Farrier left that day, Collins could never be anything but proud of the courage and tenacity of the man he’s chosen to love.

“And what about yourself?”

That makes him pause. His smile slips.

Him? Proud of himself? Well, that is the question, isn’t it?

Of what he’s done in the war? It’s hard to say; yes, perhaps, but he hasn’t done nearly enough yet. He wants to do more; needs to do more. So much more. He’s been gifted wings and the means to take to the sky, now he has to make that brevet on his breast mean something.

Before this? At school or at his football club or his lessons or at home? Suppose it’s all been good enough. It’s not like he’s made anything too magnificent out of his life yet.

As for how he feels about Farrier, what they have, well…

“Aye,” Collins says with a forlorn smile. “I am proud.”

Mr. Dawson nods. “Then that’s enough.”

“Whose coat is this, anyways?”

Mr. Dawson’s back tenses only for a moment as he stares out across the bow. “It was my son’s. My eldest’s, I mean.”

Collins breathes long and slow, rolling that around in his head. A new pit sinks into his stomach, just as it had back then.

“The one who died?”

Sighing, Mr. Dawson settles into the small seat inside the wheelhouse, facing Collins through the doorway. “Peter told you then, did he?”

“Only that your lad flew Hurricanes, and he died early.” Collins bites into his lower lip, bows his head as if praying for a lost soul; for a fellow man of the skies stolen away by a God he doesn’t even believe in. “For what it’s worth, I… I am sorry.”

Hollow now—nothing but some meaningless platitude. But there’s no point in placation or trying to apologise for an apology.

“What was his name?” Collins asks instead.

Mr. Dawson smiles, sadly, and the worst of it is that it fits too well on his face, like he’s had years to become familiar with it. “Jack, his name was.”

Collins’ lips thin, and his teeth clench. Of course it was.

“He was a good man, my boy,” Mr. Dawson goes on. “It looks good on you, that coat.”

“I’m not him.”

Mr. Dawson’s face remains passive, but his shoulder’s rise slightly. “I know, son.”

“But you look at me like you wish I was.” Collins is mindful to meet his eye this time. “I’m not, and I can’t be.”

“I admit, you bear a striking resemblance. I loved Jack. But I know he’s gone. He’s gone because men my age in some nice, safe office in London signed a piece of paper. He’s dead because no one was there to save him, and you’re alive because I didn’t see the sense in letting another man die that way. And you came to me with that same conviction. Everyone deserves a kind hand. We should all do whatever we can, as best we can.”

Collins bites his tongue and stares between his feet.

“And your mate up there—Farrier, was it?” Mr. Dawson continues. “He did the same. Helping, even if we never see the fruits of our labour. That’s all there is to it.”

“So then why help me? I’m not doing anything for anyone but myself.”

“Hmm, maybe not. But never forget, you’re someone, too. It’s alright if the only person we save is ourselves.”

Is it? Haven’t they sworn their lives to others? God, his head is spinning, throbbing at the temples where he’s unable to stop grinding his teeth. It shoots clear through to the base of his skull, tight and piercing down to his brain.

“Have you decided what it is you want, then?” Mr. Dawson pointedly arcs a brow. “In doing this?”

Collins swallows, curling and uncurling his fingers between his knees. The steel rod of his spine gives out, and he slump sideways, head thumping lightly against the wall. He sighs.

“I don’t know. I don’t expect to just find him standing there on the beach waiting for me or something like that. Suppose I… I just want to find something, to know what happened. And then I can say goodbye.”

They never said goodbye to each other—it was as good as promising to die, and no less arrogant than a promise to live. He never wanted to say it. It’s frightening; one more excruciating reminder of their mortality. But now Collins can only bid farewell to a memory, whisper his hopeless words to the land, the sea, the sky. There’s no way for Farrier to hear him, or the millions of things left unsaid, or the things that deserved to be heard over and over and over again, until they’re ingrained deep under the skin.

“Even closure is a fine enough reason,” Mr. Dawson says. “My son was like that, too. That’s why I agreed to help you. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Ah, there it is again; standing in the shadow of a man he doesn’t even know. A dead man. Perhaps it's the universe’s twisted way of warning him of what’s to come, like a prelude to his own fate.

Collins sighs. “You saved me, that day, because of him. I’m alive because your son isn’t. And you’re helping me now because you couldn’t do the same for him. That’s atonement more than anything, aye?”

“Hm, I wonder. Maybe you’re just the one person I can help.”

Collins scoffs. “You saved a lot more than just me.”

“Ah, you’re right. Then I suppose, in the end, our reasons don’t matter. Only our actions.”

Sighing, Collins stares off across the water, then up into the endless sky, aching to fly.

“I guess that’s true enough.”

“Tea,” Mr. Dawson offers, startling Collins out of his stupor.

Lord knows how long he’s been slumped as he is, arms folded, staring off into the middle-distance as his dazed mind wanders. Hours maybe, judging by the crick in his neck and the stiffness of his joints. His foot’s fallen asleep.

He takes the offered cup, steam wafting into his nostrils along with a soothing herbal aroma, and his chilled fingers tingle with renewed warmth. “Thank you.”

Mr. Dawson settles by the tiller, adjusting their course slightly against a sudden crosswind.

“You should eat as well,” he says. “I’ve got biscuits below. Bread and jam, too. She’s not too stocked up these days, but there’s enough to get us through.”

“I’m alright,” Collins mutters.

In truth, his stomach had gone long ago, rolling with anxious energy and a waning appetite. He’s empty, but the idea of being full is much more unappealing. He may not keep it down.

“Some sleep would do you some good too, I’d say,” Mr. Dawson says, looking at him more closely now. “We’ve still got a ways to go.”

“It’s fine.”

“When was the last time you slept, son? I mean a good and proper rest?”

“It’s fine,” Collins snaps, then swallows and slumps, unable to look anywhere but the clouds.

Mr. Dawson sits back with a tired sigh, that old familiar sound of a parent dealing with a stubborn child. Collins has never felt more childish.

“What do you plan to tell your folks?” Mr. Dawson asks, taking a sip of his own steaming cup of tea. “About today.”

Collins scoffs. “Who knows? I haven’t written them in ages. Been longer since I last called or visited.”

“Why’s that, then?”

Collins curls his lip. “We didn’t have the smoothest goodbye, last time.”

“Not a fan of your joining the war, I take it?”

“Hmm, aye. That’s part of it, I suppose.”

“Ah.” Mr. Dawson nods sympathetically. “They know about him too, then?”

Damn this old seadog’s perceptiveness.

Collins sighs. “I didn’t mean to tell them. It was before him and me were even… Anyways, suppose they worked it out themselves with how I was talking about him. And I couldn’t lie. Not about him.”

“You’ve found yourself a rough spot in life,” Mr. Dawson says; a benevolent statement that Collins can only laugh at bitterly.

“Aye, seems I’m good at it.”

“I think you should call them, when you get back.”

Collins lifts his head from between his shoulders with a furrow between his brow, but Mr. Dawson just smiles thoughtfully.

“It seems a shame to lose your folks over something like that. After all, there’s no way of knowing what’s to come.” Mr. Dawson’s smile fades to a shallow frown, eyes dull and distant as he glances from the sea to the sky. “Be a shame to leave things unsaid. No good having any regrets, in the end.”

Those words rattle Collins to the core. He drops his head back between his shoulders, inhaling the steam rising from his cup, letting it sting at his eyes so he has an excuse for their watering.

I am a sea of regrets, and they all look like him.

“Aye,” he mutters absently, still not looking anywhere but between his feet. “Suppose they deserve a proper goodbye.”

“I think they deserve to see their son come home,” Mr. Dawson amends. “And they deserve a chance to love him as he is.”

“I don’t know if they ever could.”

“You haven’t given them the chance to try. Don’t leave a single thing left unsaid, a single wound left open, or a single regret. That’s a good way to live, son.”

Collin stares at him for a long time, unblinking, counting his own heartbeats as his body sways with the rocking of the boat.

“What do you regret?”

It’s a shameful thing to ask, driving salt into an open wound, twisting a knife that’s not yet been removed. And it shows on Mr. Dawson’s face; a thousand canyons appearing in his skin, eyes reflective, mouth a thin frown. His fingers shudder momentarily before he stills them with sheer willpower. He’s a man of experience, this one.

“That I wasn’t there to save my son. I couldn’t even be there to hold him when he died. I didn’t tell Peter about the telegram for three days because I couldn’t bear it.”

Christ, Collins is unbelievably cruel for dredging up these memories. But before he can open his mouth, Mr. Dawson swallows and speaks once more.

“But the one thing I don’t regret is that I loved Jack. And I said goodbye to him like I meant it, every time. I didn’t stop him from fighting, I never tried to keep him from what he wanted or from being who he was. It’s the worst thing a parent can do to their child.”

Collins almost chokes on his breath, suddenly lodged in his throat. Cotton fills his head, and he’s dizzied with the motion of the waves. A shiver runs along the length of his spine, and his stomach swells picturing his mum and dad’s faces, coiled with confusion and anger and despair when they’d found out the truth about him. But even further back they were only ever smiling. They beamed the day he’d come home in his uniform for the first time and cried when he’d gone off to war; that awful juxtaposition of pride and terror.

They loved him through it all.

“I think your folks will come to see that, in time,” Mr. Dawson says. “You just have to make them.”

The smile that tugs at the corners of Collins’ mouth is weary and not quite able to form. But he nods along anyways, clinging to those old memories of their bright faces and smiles, trying to banish the awful things that’ had been flung about when last they’d spoken.

He does love them, despite it all. How could he not? He loves them like he loves his home, and his sister who’d accepted him so warmly. Loves them like he loves the skies and his wings. He loves them like he loves football and their cat and walking the hills and lochs and playing the piano late into the night or a good smoke or a fantastic novel or even his ruddy sketches he hasn’t touched in years.

How could they deny him one more love? Farrier is as much a part of his life as anything else. A part of his heart. His soul.

No matter what he finds on those beaches, that will not change.

“Thank you,” Collins says, barely more than a whisper, thought lost on the wind until Mr. Dawson smiles.

“It’ll work out, son.” He pats Collins’ shoulder as he rises to his feet. “Try and get a bit of sleep if you can. And call them when you get home. Tell them everything. Including what you’ve done today.”

Collins nods stiffly, vision blurring as his thoughts are swallowed up in a haze of memories. It’s been so long since he’s heard their voices or seen his mother’s fine, swirling handwriting in a letter.

Maybe one day, if he’s granted one final swell of luck, he can take Farrier home, and his folks can meet him.

Then maybe they’ll see.

They’ll understand how Collins came to love a man like him.

The anchor sinks deep into the sand and the boat rocks in the shallows of Dunkirk beach. As the engine rumble dies away, all that’s left is the water lapping at the hull and the screech of seagulls. The roll of the tide is becoming as familiar as the sounds of Collins’ engine and the wind whipping along his fuselage and the radio static in his ears.

Maybe, if he had not found his yearning passion for the skies, he would have stuck with his profound love of the sea. A lesser love, now that he’s nearly lost his life to it, but she is still beautiful and nostalgic all the same.

They’re a ways from the town, and from the last beachheads to fall; the Mole that Collins had heard so much about. The smoke plumes from the oil fields still choke the sky, and the town’s colourful building pepper the horizon, but they’re fa away from the disaster, from the death and destruction and remnants of armies and lives that Collins would much rather not think about. Not now.

No, he’s here, on this lonely, deserted stretch of beach—where Farrier last glided into his memories. Into legend.

Collins used to love reading about legends, enthralled by the tales of saints and heroes, of great feats that saved and bettered the world. But he never had any illusions that they really existed like they did in the stories, or that he could be one.

Farrier would hate the title too. It’s why he didn’t make a fuss when he made ‘Ace’, why he wears his DFC out of obligation rather than personal pride, why he vehemently avoids discussions of promotion despite the fact he’s well overdue for that second stripe.

But it’s how he will be seen now: a hero. One of a thousand born in this war.

Heroes shine bright as the sun, carving their names into the earth. And they burn out as fast as comets, as glorious as supernovas. Extinguished too soon, too young, leaving nothing but echoes and the people they love behind.

Heroism is tantamount to tragedy. It only ever ends in loss.

Collins scoffs under his breath.

Maybe you really are a hero after all, Farrier.

“It’s best you stay here.” He hops over the gunwale, cringing as he splashes into the cold, knee-deep surf. “No point in both of us risking our lives.”

Mr. Dawson frowns. “What is it you’re expecting to find, son?”

“I don’t know.” Collins stares across the empty golden sand, towards the dunes in the distance. “Maybe just a memory.”

“Just be careful, lad. I’ll wait here, until you return.”

“Aye…” What makes you so sure I will?

Because the war needs him? He thought it needed Farrier too, but clearly it has every intention of going on without him. One man makes no bloody difference—why should two?

Except he knows better; there’s nothing waiting for him here. Maybe he’s only here to prove that to himself.

Collins smiles tightly and pulls up the collar of his borrowed coat against the wind.

And he walks.

One foot in front of the other.

Leaving footprints in the sand until Mr. Dawson’s lonely boat is reduced to nothing more than a spec on the horizon. Closer and closer to the dunes, yet the sand stretches on seemingly without end.

The city has long faded to empty countryside and open fields and scraggly weeds. The occasional puddles of kelp and sea foam are the only indication that he’s making any progress at all, and not stuck in an endless void.

The sun has dipped below the horizon, dragging deep blues and purples down in its wake, slowly revealing the moon and the first of the night’s stars.

He’s often thought of Farrier as the brightest of stars, a guiding star, even. Perhaps the night will reveal him, too.

Ludicrous. Collins shakes the thought from his head with a laboured sigh.

His calves burn as his heels sink deep into wet sand, but still, he presses on. The leather of his shoes squeak as he walks along the water’s edge, the Channel lapping at him as if in threat. It had tried to take him once before; its grip is gentler, this time, easier to escape.

He spies the tracks first.

A few dark patches of churned sand, already starting to fade under fresh grains.

Then a few more steps ahead, the patches become solid lines. Two, a fair width apart, and deep enough to have left their impressions down deep into the muddy layer of silt. A third smaller trail splits the space between the lines.

It’s a familiar pattern; he’s seen in in the grass, the mud, the snow on those cold winter days.

Tire tracks, from the undercarriage of an aircraft. Relatively fresh, too—within the last couple days, surely. Even far enough from the high tide, the wind would have covered them by now otherwise.

Collins rakes his eyes across the lines as he walked adjacent to them, squinting into the low-hanging sun but unable to look away. It’s too little to be hopeful, but it’s something. It has to be.

Then again, how many kites have they lost over these beaches?

Yet he continues to follow those lines in the sand, leading him on, and on, towards what, he doesn’t know. He can almost hear himself being beckoned.

Just a little further. Just a little longer.

Or perhaps he’s going mad. He is quite parched, sweating under the sun but shivering with the sea breeze, running on little sleep and a cloying stomach that leaves him aching in both muscles and joints. It’d be better if he just collapsed right here.

But he’s not that feeble. Too stubborn, he’s always been told.

Wearied eyes follow the tracks ahead, towards the dunes blocking his view beyond.

There’s a large mass of something sitting on the beach.

It comes into view almost like a mirage, so out of place Collins almost mistakes it for a delusion. But as he nears, he’s assaulted by the smell of embers, singed metal and melted rubber, and the awful stench of petrol. Nearer still, and there’s smoke trailing from this burned carcass too, billowing with the breeze.

Must have been quite an inferno, whatever it was…

He starts running.

Sand is too much like molasses, making every step feel like ten, making him clumsy and his legs burn.

He’s panting by the time he reaches the wreck. Even scorched and dilapidated and melted into this ugly mass, it’s unmistakable. It’s the shape of mangled metal.

A Spitfire.

Collins stares, panting and sweat-stained. Blood pounds so loud in his ears he can hardly hear the ocean.

This is Farrier’s, it must be. The fuselage is blackened and falling apart, any paint long since melted away. But he’s sure: it’s too recent, too isolated, too coincidental.

It must be.

Which means…

“You’re alive.” Collins practically chokes on the words as he doubles over with hands on his knees. There’s no unholy stench of charred flesh, no signs of a corpse among the flames.

He’s alive. He landed her.

But he cannot laugh, cannot smile. He just blinks back the welling of his eyes, irritated by the assault of the smoke.

There's footprints all around him. A particularly heavy indent set into the sand—a familiar tread right under Collins' own feet—facing the dying Spitfire.

Farrier’s, no doubt. Bidding farewell to his beloved bird. What a tragedy, sending her off so brutishly.

But there’s more prints. Plenty more. They appear from down the beach, several trails stomping all around, kicking up sand into an indistinguishable mess.

Farrier is alive.

And they took him.

“Went and left me alone after all.”

Collins bows his head.

 He knew. He always knew Farrier was this kind of man. Collins never wanted to change that; never wanted to chain him to the ground. He’d rather let the Channel take him all over again than steal Farrier’s wings away.

And yet, standing here, for just a moment, all he can think is, why didn’t you stay?

Farrier had asked something like that, the first time he’d taken Collins to bed, held him, buried himself inside him.

Would you stay with me, if I asked?

Collins recalls the simplicity of his answer, clear as the night he’d laid the words against Farrier’s mouth.

Aye. It’s all he needed to say at the time—it was everything he could say.

Yes. Always. Forever.

He never fancied himself a liar. Nor Farrier.

Fuck, it’s all too much. He wants to scream and shout and curse until the taste of iron flows between his teeth. Until he can’t feel a bloody thing.

Something in his periphery catches his attention. A small mound of sand, clearly piled by human hands, and marked by a blackened and warped piece of metal. Yanked from the Spitfire while she was still burning, no doubt. But it’s clearly deliberate, stuck up out of that sandpile as a marker. Like the cross over a grave.

With a sharp inhale, Collins drops to his knees, buries his hands into the rough grains, and digs.

It doesn’t take much to destroy the crude little pile, but his hands are sand-stained and there’s grains irritating under his nails when he finally breaks the mound apart.

Its contents are simple: a folded, yellowing paper, and a small disc.

Collins sucks in a breath, leaning heavily on shaking arms just to keep himself upright.

The disc is familiar; two of them hang from his own neck. Even in the golden glow, even with his own shadow cast over it, he can still read Farrier’s name etched into the disc, the rope fraying where it’s been hastily torn free.

A piece of himself, left behind. A final, desperate plea for remembrance, screaming into the void, I was here.

Collins’ hands tremble as he takes the ID disc, and he grabs the paper too before falling back to sit on the sand.

Leaving his tag like this stings worse than a body.

All that’s left of Farrier: a name.

He doesn’t even have a photo of them. Farrier has a few: some of the squadron, of the two of them, and one candid headshot of Collins too, though Farrier thinks he doesn’t know. Lord knows when it was taken; he doesn’t recall the moment at all.

Collins’ has caught a flash of his own black and white face stuck to Farrier’s instrument panel on more than one occasion, before it was hastily tucked back into his inner pocket. Probably took it with him all the way here, too, and wherever he’s been carted off to. The sentimental fool.

As if Collins wouldn’t so the same, but he’d never had the chance. He would have gone out and bought his own bloody camera if he knew, taken a million snaps of them. Maybe he would have tried to take up sketching again, desperate to capture Farrier’s likeness even in something as impermanent as graphite. It wouldn’t be the same—it never could be.

He unfolds the paper Farrier’s left with his disc.

And nearly laughs aloud at the irony.

“Of course you would.”

It’s a familiar photo.

Him and Farrier, sat upon the wing of a Spitfire, smokes between their fingers, caught in the middle of smiles and laughter. It was the cold wind of early spring that caught their hair and tinged their cheeks that day, and why they’d sat almost shoulder to hip, Farrier tucked up in his Irvin and Collins making rare use of his flying scarf.

An intimate little shot: one that was tacked to Farrier’s wall with the others, or so Collins had thought.

Though come to think of it, he had noticed it missing a few days ago—left a patch of clean space on the wall where it once sat between all the others. He never would have guessed Farrier had begun taking it to the skies too, as if he suspected something like this, as if never wanting to be parted from that beautiful, shared moment, frozen in time.

As if the photo of Collins alone wasn’t enough. But maybe this is why he took it: to have something to leave behind, if he needed, just like his disc. Something to show he was real, and he was here. He existed.

“Thank you, Farrier,” Collins mumbled, staring up from the photo to the charred remains of his kite.

No way this photo was left for him; no chance in hell Farrier would have ever even entertained the notion of Collins following him to this place. He would hate it.

All the same, luck is on their side, if only for the moment. Nothing else about his goddamn life has carried an ounce of luck, but at least he has this. Though it’s not as if he could ever forget Farrier’s face; he’d carved out a space in Collins heart long ago, burned his face into his memory and etched his name into his soul.

The warmth of that thought is almost worth smiling over—a tired, hysterical smile, tasting like blood and acid, tearing the muscles of his face until it’s a perpetual presence. Perhaps that’s the only way he could ever bring himself to truly smile again.

The world needed you, Tom.

But I need you, too.

Collins flips the photograph over more out of morbid curiosity, or maybe just habit. He isn’t expecting anything to be there, but he sucks in a breath at the hastily scrawled note left on that yellowed paper, written in thick black pencil.

It’s Collins’ name, squadron number, and their station address. That’s simple enough—a request to return this back home, left open to whomever may find it, hopeful enough that they’d respect the silent wish.

But it’s what’s written underneath that almost brings him to tears. He almost chokes on his breath, fingers shaking as he scans the words over and over, almost hearing Farrier’s voice.

Jack, if you don’t see me in the air, then I’ll see you on the ground.

Another damn promise. How dare he?

Fuck… Fuck!

Collins grits his teeth, sucking in air and rubbing at his eyes. He could cry, but honestly, he wants more than anything to scream, to throw his fists into something until his knuckles bleed.

He wants to be back up there, in the cradle of his Spitfire, emptying his guns into every enemy plane he finds.

He kneels next the charred remains of this Spitfire, eyes glimmering with unshed tears and his jaw clenched so tight his teeth hurt.

You didn’t have to turn back, you bastard.

Collins doesn’t need a hero—he just needs Farrier.

He’d buried this photo as if to bury the memory. As if he wants Collins to do the same: to forget. To preserve all they have and are, as it once was, before all this.

“If you were just going to do all this,” Collins hisses to no one but his own bleeding heart and trembling hands, “should have just come home, you bastard.”

I wasn’t supposed to lose you. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Ah.

Ah, no, he knows.

He’s always known, deep down.

Collins stares into the dead mass of Farrier’s Spitfire, eyes stinging at the corners, tag crushed in one hand and photo pinched in the other. He’s holding parts of Farrier’s being, just as Farrier still has hold of his heart.

That’s what Collins has been following all this time; a tether, a lifeline, a golden thread of his own.

And he’s not finished yet. He’s not found the end.

From the beginning, maybe this was always what he wanted—what he intended.

In the back of his mind is Farrier’s voice, soft as wind in his ear, whispering, Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself. Not for me.

To hell with what he wants.

Collins has never been so sure of anything in his life. He’s almost hysterical with the thought. His body shudders and tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as he stares up into the encroaching night with a madman’s smile.

He’s on his feet before he can think twice—before he even has any chance to doubt. Spinning on his heel, he marches back to the Moonstone with a fresh spark in his eye and a rekindled flame in his chest.

It was always going to end this way.

He doesn’t say a word to Mr. Dawson when he wades back out through the surf, water sloshing into his shoes, and hauls himself up over the gunwale of the boat. Then he’s down the steps and below deck, shrugging out of a dead man’s overcoat.

No thinking. No questions. No looking back.

Every movement it quick and assured, simple and easy.

He ties Farrier’s tag with his own, and all three clatter against his chest as he moves as a constant reminder of his resolve. Then he finds his tunic, folded neatly on the bench seat, and slips the familiar weight back over his shoulders. It feels right, sliding back into his own skin, back to the man he’s supposed to be. Like he’s coming home.

His brevet rests over his breast, gold-threaded wings reminding him of his oath to the sky.

Farrier matters more.

As he climbs back up the steps, Mr. Dawson is still there waiting on the deck, swaying with the ebb and flow of the tide. With the low-hanging sun throwing the sky into an array of pinks and oranges, and with the silent sentinel of the town behind him, he looks like an oil painting come to life, looking at Collins like he’s staring out from the canvas with the familiar melancholy of the old baroque artists.

“You’re going to stay,” Mr. Dawson says dourly.

It’s not a question.

Collins joins him on the deck, a cool breeze tugging at his messy strands. “Aye. I have to.”

“Now you are being foolish,” Mr. Dawson says, and there’s real concern in his voice now. “There’s nothing more to be done here. Go home and do what you can, son.”

Collins smiles sadly as he does up the last of his buttons and brushes the creases from his tunic. His thumb catches the thick stitching of his brevet, stroking the golden wings he’s always been so unashamedly proud of.

“Aye. But that’s just it. I am.”

Farrier’s a ruddy expert at tossing his life away. He needs someone to look out for him.

He needs me.

And I need him.

“This isn’t the way, son,” Mr. Dawson says dismally, with a hint of resignation like he knows this is a battle he cannot win. “I’m sure your friend wouldn’t want this.”

He doesn’t give a damn what Farrier wants. He’s not here to argue, and that is exactly the point.

“You should go,” Collins says, glancing out across the waves. “Get home. Go see your boy. You can tell him you saved one more life, today.”

Let me keep my promise to him.

Mr. Dawson frowns, lines deepening around his eyes. “I’m not sure I have.”

Where the hell were you? that bloke had spit in his face.

“Trust me.” Collins meets Mr. Dawson’s eye. “I’m right where I need to be.”

He’s supposed to be in the air. That’s what Farrier would say. And he’s right; Collins has known it since the first time he took to the sky. There is nothing more freeing, nothing more invigorating, and nothing that fills him with purpose more than that.

But they both belong to the sky, as much as they belong to each other. Wherever they go, they go together. It’s impossible for a bird to fly with only one wing.

Perhaps he is a fool. Farrier will certainly think so; probably give him an earful for clipping his own flight feathers like this. But perhaps then he’ll see how much he means to Collins, that he is willing to chain himself to the ground just to stay by his side.

He’ll miss his wings.

But it’s worth it. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Mr. Dawson sets a hand on his shoulder. “Collins—”

But he doesn’t speak another word. Something passes between them, in the intensity of their eyes, in that space where age and experience meets youth and wildness.

Sighing, Mr. Dawson’s hand slips from his shoulder.

“Go then. I hope you find him. I really do.”

Something lodges in Collins’ throat. He blinks, forcing himself to smile. All he can do is shake Mr. Dawson’s hand when it’s offered, allowing those aged hands to curl around his with care.

“Take care of yourself too, son.”

Collins nods, once, still lost for words. There’s nothing else to say.

He turns and drag himself against the pull of the tide, towards the town, towards whatever fate awaits him.

Hang on, Farrier.

“Collins,” Mr. Dawson calls just as he’s hauling himself free from the water, slipping through thick sea foam. “Think it’s only right I know the name of the man whose life I’ve supposedly saved.”

It’s the least of what he owes this old captain.

Turning, Collins faces him in the gleam of the setting sun, with a slight grin and weary eyes.

“Jack. My name’s Jack.”

The look on Mr. Dawson’s face is not unlike the one Collins had first seen at Dunkirk, when he’d come up from below decks only to be met by the stare of someone seeing a ghost.

Then he smiles, wide but sad, creasing his face. It may just be the light, but his eyes appear to glisten as he chuckles.

“Good luck then, Jack.”

If Collins is glad of one thing, it’s that he’s given this man the chance to remember his son, free of the tethers of tragedy.

“Thank you,” he says, “for everything.”

Again, he turns, and this time he doesn’t stop, and he doesn’t look back.

Not to Mr. Dawson, not to the Channel, not to home.

Home is ahead of him now, waiting somewhere in these lands.

The sun touches the horizon, and eyes follow his back the whole way, right until he climbs the bluffs and disappears into the town.

It’s deathly quiet.

He walks the empty streets of Dunkirk with an eerie loneliness, straining his eyes now that the last vestiges of sunlight have faded.

Posters spewing wild propaganda flutter past his feet with the breeze, scattering among splinters of broken glass and wood. Walking in the shadows of buildings, he traces fingers along bullet holes in bricks and climbs around the crumbled walls of sandbags.

This place used to be alive. People lived here. People died here.

Now, all that remains are the echoing sounds of his own footfalls.

“Come on,” he mumbles as he scans each side road he passes, straining for any signs of life. “Where the hell are you?”

Of course, he could easily just be shot for his trouble. The thought crosses his mind over and over, as consistent as the tide coming in and out. He’s shaking with anxious energy, overflowing with so many emotions he couldn’t possibly recite them all.

But he’s counting on whatever luck he has, and the same youthful ignorance that brought him here.

It’s as if they’ve been beaten out of France by ghosts. Maybe there is no enemy, and they’ve been chased by shadows this whole time, and a threat that doesn’t even exist. Somehow the idea doesn’t sound completely out of the realm of possibility.

This time last year, these men weren’t his enemy. Then one day, someone told him they were—told him to hate people he’s never met, to kill strangers who probably didn’t even deserve it. The same people who gave him the means to fly also gave him the means to die.

What a terrible time to realize they’ve all been tricked into such a deadly game.

Turning onto a main road, he passes several bodies. Englishman, all dead, shot through the backs. The splay of their bodies startles him, the way they’re stretched unnaturally and plastered to the pavement almost doesn’t look real.

If only.

He keeps his head high as he passes between their outstretched limbs, looking not unlike marionette’s cut from their strings. He forces himself not to look, not to think. Only to breath.

Who asked for this, anyways? Why don’t they come down to fight if they want this war so bloody much?

He’s long passed the bodies by the time he allows his head to fall, eyes burning straight ahead once more.

Lord knows how long he walks among unfamiliar streets, losing himself up and down the roads, dangling himself like a worm of a hook. All sensation has left him, from hunger to fatigue to the burn of over-tired muscles. He walks like the undead, compelled forward by a simple, unyielding conviction. Driven by a single face, and a name on the tip of his tongue.

It surprises him when he finally hears the echo of voices—German, without a doubt—and sees the flickering light of a fire just ahead, beyond a still-standing barricade of sandbags and debris.

Some will call him a coward for this. It doesn’t matter.

“Oi!” he calls out, crackling up from his parched throat.

The voices ahead fall silent quickly, and after a beat a single helmeted head pops up from over the top of the barricade.

All he can do is smile, wide, eyes shining, bubbling with some slough of fear and excitement and masochistic pride.

“I’ve been walking ‘round here for hours,” he yells, and more heads pop up to stare at him. “What does a man have to do to get himself caught?”

There’s a flurry of voices and scuffling as four men hop over the barricade, rifles in hand, and quickly surround him.

He puts his hands up with almost casual disinterest, watching each of the faces contort with confusion. A few of them shoot nervous glances around to the dark corners of the side streets, hands tightening around their guns.

“Sorry lads.” Collins smirks. “All on my lonesome. Your lucky day.”

He has no reason to feel as empowered as he does now. It’s the same adrenaline he has after he’s won a hand of poker or a football match. In the hands of his enemy, he is still the victor.

One of the Germans grabs his lapel, jerking him forward as he mumbles something Collins has no hope of understanding. What he does understand, though, is that the man has caught his ID discs in his grip and is tugging violently on the line. The cord burns his neck, but all Collins can focus on is how that hand inadvertently yanks at Farrier’s tag, threatening to pry the knot loose and rip it away from him.

Collins barely has time to think before he reels his arm back and punches the man clean across the jaw with all the strength he has left in his body.

With a yelp the man goes tumbling back, releasing Collins as his hands fly to clutch at his face with a pained moan.

“Hands off, you Jerry bastards,” Collins grits between bared teeth.

There’s another yell behind him, and the butt of a rifle drives into his back, swiftly followed by another blow to his stomach. He chokes as the air is forced from his body, and he drops to his knees, folding in on himself as he wills his spasming lungs to fill again.

Rifles point at his head, accompanied by scattered barks of orders. But it’s not a threat he cowers to. Even reeling and gasping for breath, he’s still smiling with grit teeth, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. Blood thunders in his ears, pulsing through every vein, making him shiver like a live wire.

He’s still smiling, finally sucking in a full breath when the bloke he hit stomps back over and grabs a fistful of hair. With a hard yank he forces Collins’ head back so sharply it strains his neck, but he meets the flaming eyes of his enemy with cool defiance.

“Shall we go then?” he says, casually, whether they can understand him or not. “Don’t know about you, but I’ve got somewhere to be.”

That earns him a fist to the face, cracking across his nose and splitting his lip. The man’s packing some muscle; the force of the blow snaps Collins’ head to side with surprising force, rippling all through his skull. It takes only a moment to start smelling iron and tasting blood on the back of his tongue.

He groans, still dizzy from the blow when the German releases the grip on his hair. Leaning forward, he swishes a mix of blood and saliva around his mouth before spitting it out onto the cobbles.

“Rough-handed pricks,” he grunts, wincing at the throb of his nose. He’ll be lucky if it’s only bruised.

Hands on his shoulders drag him clumsily to his feet. He’s hauled away down the street, at the mercy of his enemy, surrounded by guns.

All the while, he’s still smiling.

He doesn’t know where he’ll end up. But if it’s not right, if he’s not there, well then, Collins will just have to keep pitching a fit and stirring up trouble until they transfer him off where he needs to be.

For almost a week he’s carted around on various trucks, bunched together with a handful of other prisoners at a time before they’re all split and sent off to whatever shabby prison camps the Hun have managed to piece together since the war started.

All Collins is sure of is that he’s crossed at least one border by the time he’s hauled through the wire gates of a camp that looks more like a shanty town than a military installation. He and the three others with him are still bound at the wrists, and their arrival is clearly an attraction, drawing a crowd with all the yelling from the goons.

A particularly hard shove sends him stumbling forward, and his foot sticks into the uneven mud, still soft from last night’s rainstorm. He has just enough wherewithal to twist around before he hits the ground flat on his back, gritting his teeth against the bruising shock up his spine.

He will give the Hun credit; they don’t seem to find his little stumble amusing, and the man who shoved him looks at least somewhat concerned, as if he hadn’t meant it to be so hard. It’s a strange look to see on an enemy, but Collins glares up at him all the same, ignoring the mutters from the crowd of prisoners gathered to get eyes on their new unlucky comrades.

There’s a particularly hurried set of heavy footfalls slapping through mud and puddles.

Louder, and louder. Rushing towards him.

He flinches at the splash of mucky water as those boots stop next to his head, and the blinding sunlight is suddenly blocked out by the silhouette of someone leaning over him, breathing as if he’s run a mile. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, and in that time, he hears it.

“Christ. Collins?”

Ah, what a melody. The most beautiful sound. It feels like an eternity since he’s heard that voice.

Collins can’t help but smile, even laugh, despite the pain shooting clean through his lungs, and his bodily exhaustion, and his dust bowl of a throat.

“Afternoon.”

He did it. He fucking did it.

This is why Collins could never be a hero, because he’d gladly give everything up for one man. Who’d have thought he’d practically be in hysterics after ripping himself from the skies he loves and getting himself tossed in a prison camp?

Certainly not Farrier, staring down at him now like he can’t decide if he wants to punch him for being so stupid or kiss him for all he’s worth, consequences be damned. He drops to his knees, one hand sinking deep into the mud while the other comes to rest on Collins’ cheek and gently tilts his head, forcing their eyes to meet, staring into brilliant, unending blue.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Hot breath strikes Collins’ face, and that smooth baritone rolls over him in a gentle caress, tinged with panic and wonderment.

Farrier’s haloed by the sunbeams forcing their way through parting clouds, glowing like an angel descended from Heaven. He’d called Collins that once; said that must be why he was always so eager to return to the sky.

“I couldn’t let you go alone,” he says, smiling and snickering in the last place he should be doing either.

The most wonderful part is that, despite it all, Farrier smiles back at him.

Even chained to the ground, at least they are here, together, away from the death and dangers of the war. The sky will always be there, waiting for them to return—until the day they can spread their wings again.

For now, Collins can’t do anything but grin up at Farrier like he’s gone mad. Maybe he has.

But it’s worth it.

Farrier stands, holding his open hand out in offering. When Collins takes up that familiar grip, it feels like home. He’s hauled right up out of the mud and into Farrier’s arms, wrapped in an embrace so strong it nearly crushes the air from his lungs.

And he hugs back, just as strongly, just as eager, smiling widely, almost laughing as he buries his face into Farrier’s shoulder. Between the press of their chests, he can feel his heart being returned to him, sewing up the hole left in its wake, taking up a steady beat once more.

To hell with the war.

He’s right where he needs to be.