Written for an exchange on the 9 forum. Post-move AU, implied 5x6.
The piano is old, and weathered. An upright in dark and pitted wood, it stands on the ground floor of the ruined house against a wall, surrounded by debris, shielded partially from the elements by the floor above it. Its matching stool stands in front. Sheet music litters the floor around it, swirling in eddies along the currents of invading wind.
It hadn't been Five's idea for them to come here; Six had merely started walking, and Five had followed. Perhaps Six had known he would follow. Perhaps he hadn't. But either way, it was best not to let him wander off alone.
He's been strange ever since the victory. Having one's home of many years destroyed, one's life nearly taken, and one's prophetic visions come to pass after decades of waiting might do that to anyone. But Six is strange even in his strangeness. He's restless, unsatisfied. He's looking for something. Five can tell.
The rest of them had gone their whole lives without knowing there was something they were supposed to be looking for, something they were supposed to do. Six, who was built for seeing – built for showing – always knew, but the discovery of it seems to have left him at loose ends. He needs more to see, more to show. He needs another task, now that the one he was made for is complete. Or so Five believes.
Does he still see? Or did that gift die away with the light of the Machine's eye? Five doesn't know, and if the past week has taught him nothing else, it's to observe instead of assume. True, Six's fingers haven't touched ink in days. But walking behind him, following him as they traveled the short distance to this place, Five couldn't help but feel that they were being pointed.
The piano is scarred, but well-crafted. Ornate scrollwork stands out in relief in the light from the broken window. Candelabra are set into its front, above the keyboard on either side.
Six looks up at it. Five looks at Six.
Spending so many years so near to a person can fool you. It can make you believe that you know them. But proximity isn't understanding; Five knows that now. So he waits.
Six begins to climb. It's not easy, and without Five's help he might not have made it, even with the debris and the scrollwork on the bench legs. He then turns and assists Five, hauling him up onto the seat of the bench. They sit for a moment, regaining their breath.
The bench's cloth surface is thick brocade, and Five's feet barely sink into it as he gives Six a boost onto the keyboard. A shrill jumble of sounds starts up within the instrument, loud and jarring, as he scrambles to his feet; he then makes his way down the row, ivory keys dipping down under his steps in a series of descending notes.
He then begins to play.
Five doesn't realize that's what he's doing, at first. The piano is far out of tune, and there is a pause between each thrumming note, as though of consideration. But it soon becomes apparent that the order is intentional, and that as Six presses down on them, stepping each to each, these keys are being looked for – and found.
When Six finishes, he looks at Five a bit morosely.
"Again," Five says.
From the surprise on Six's face, he had not expected that answer. Five could hardly blame him, after so many years of his messages going unheeded. But they are all determined to learn from the mistakes of the past, and this is as good a place to start as any. Six begins again. Faster this time, now that he knows the way. A melody emerges, picked out note by inharmonious note, deep and familiar.
"Wait," says Five. "That last part, one more time."
Six obliges, and then plays the whole phrase again from start to finish. Somewhere in the middle, it hits Five: moonlight in the clock tower. Ink and paper. A hollowed-out shelter between stone and stained glass.
"That's that song. The one you always... " On his knees, hunched over. Scratching and swirling. Hunched over on the floor.
The last note hangs in the air for a moment before fading away.
"What about it?" Five asks. "What does it mean?"
A look comes over Six's face that Five knows very well. The look of seeking, of casting about. Searching helplessly for words that would not come. Finally: "It's wrong... it's wrong. We missed."
"What? Missed what?"
"We missed," Six repeats.
More riddles. Five had hoped that they were past this. They found the Source. They learned who they were. They defeated the Machine. It's over, now. "We went back," Five says, trying his best to hide his crushing disappointment. "We found it, remember?"
Six begins playing again.
"What? What did we miss?" Five's words are drowned out by the music.
The piano is out of tune, but its tones are rich and resonant. They resonate inside of Five, rattling him, and for a moment it almost feels as if they'll tear him apart. He turns away, so that Six can't see his face. Looking down, he sees the sheet music littering the floor, scuttling along the wooden boards, swirling in a current of invading wind. Ink and paper, swirling.
The idea strikes Five like a hammer on string.
"Six," he shouts over the noise, more sharply than he means to. The song stops. He turns around, and finds Six looking at him. "Can you read music?"
Moments later find the two of them back on the floor, chasing down the crinkled yellow sheets and dragging them into a loose pile in the center of the room. For good measure, they search the neighboring rooms, finding still more hiding in dusty corners, wrapped partway around table legs, in crevices between the furniture and walls.
Once they have gathered them all, they kneel by the hoard and search. Sheet after sheet, page after page. Six searches, scanning the papers with a furrow of concentration on his brow; Five searches, scanning Six's face for a spark, any spark, of recognition. It has to be here, he thinks. It has to be. Six saw this place, he's sure of it. There has to be a reason.
When it happens, Five sees it immediately. The change in Six's face. The motion of his pupils, the slackening of his mouth. Match.
The page, about halfway through the pile, is much like the others, as far as Five can tell. Smoothed out under Six's reverent hands, it bears line after line, staff after staff of musical notation. Printed at the top, the title –
Five stares at it. And stares.
Two words. In that other language, that older language, from the cathedral.
There had been sheet music there, too, once. Until One took it all away. Said they had no use for it, since they couldn't play the organ; the noise would have put them in too much danger. Five had always wondered if that organ would have worked. It had been damaged, but not too badly...
Those sheets had been different than these. These have the music only. But on those other sheets, there had been more words, lyrics written underneath the music, in the church-language, and again, in their own. Translated.
Dies Irae. Day of Wrath.
Five remembers. He had only read the first few lines, but he remembers. Who could forget a thing like that? After those bombs, that gas, that smoke and fire? Who could forget heaven and earth burning in ashes?
"This?" Five finally says. "This is what we missed?"
Six looks confused, as if he doesn't know quite how to answer.
"But how is that possible? How could there have been another war? There's only us... left..."
Of course. Of course.
"The Machine..." Five says slowly, never taking his gaze from Six's face. "The Machine was still here. Is that what you saw? You saw it... you saw it hurting us..."
Six bows his head. A terrible sadness comes over his face, as of an unimaginable loss. Five has never seen him look that way, ever. Not knowing what else to do, he shifts closer and puts an arm around him. Six barely seems to notice.
"So that's it?" Five eventually asks, as gently as he can. "We missed it? That thing you saw... it isn't going to happen now?"
A slow shake of the head. No.
"So... we're safe? All of us?"
Yes. His eyes are haunted.
Five gets it. He does. He gets it now. They were supposed to lose. But instead – somehow – they won.
No wonder Six has been so strange. He had thought they were all going to die. What terrible things he must have seen, and believed, and... and all the while unable to do anything about it, or tell anyone... of course he'll need some time to get used to it. Five's been having a little trouble believing they were safe, himself. Until now.
Because they won. Whether they were supposed to or not. They won. And if they could do that – if they could win, even with all these mysterious and terrible forces stacked against them – they could do anything.
Smiling, Five rises to his feet. He helps Six up as well, and then embraces him. Six's arms hang at his sides for a long moment before he returns the hug, squeezing tightly around Five's waist.
"It'll be all right," says Five. "Everything's going to be all right."
The piano is silent and still, and looms over them as they walk past. Five doesn't spare it another glance as they head back outside.
It's nearly sunset, and the murky sky is a deep orange-red. Dry dust swirls in eddies on the ground. Five takes an oddly satisfying breath and starts out at a brisk pace – only to stop a few moments later, when he realizes he isn't being followed. He turns. Six is standing in what must have once been the house's front garden, holding something.
"What's that?" Five asks, anxious to get going.
Six shows him. It's the brown remains of a dead flower, crumbling a little in his grip.
"Oh," said Five, frowning. "Well, there are lots of those around, if you want to look at them. But let's do that tomorrow, all right? Otherwise we'll get stuck waiting for moonrise."
Six makes no indication that he's heard him. Instead, he tips his head back and looks up at the sky; stares at it, long enough that Five begins to wonder if it might not be wiser to spend the night at this house, even with the papers and the piano.
"We missed," Six finally says, turning his gaze back down to the flower. "It's wrong."
And then he's back, dropping the flower and coming over to take Five's hand. For the first few paces, Six actually drags him a bit, as he struggles to work out what just happened. It seemed significant, somehow.
But time for that, later. Five recovers himself, and his pace, and hand in hand, the two of them begin the journey back to the others. Everything will be all right. They're all alive, and safe, at least for now.
And what could be more important than that?
Notes on the music:
Just in case anyone reading this doesn't know, the tune 6 hums in the film is credited as the Dies Irae, a traditional Latin hymn.
The opening verse, from the 1849 translation by William Josiah Irons, as taken from Wikipedia:
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
You can see/listen to the melody there, too, but what 6 hums actually sounds a lot closer to the opening music from The Shining (you can find it on YouTube). Same basic melody, but slowed down/made much creepier. That's what I had in mind for the music he's playing. :D