Title: At The Going Down Of The Sun.
Word count: 1900
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Thomas Nightingale, Peter Grant.
Warnings: Spoiler for Broken Homes.
A/N: Thank you to Philomytha for betaing this for me. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
The crowds had departed and the streets around the Cenotaph were almost deserted as the vintage Jaguar pulled up a street away, the weak evening sunlight reflecting off the puddles at the edge of the road.
After they had parked, Nightingale took a wreath from the boot and then waited while Peter locked the car. He hadn't expected Peter to come with him, but since Lesley's apparent defection to the Faceless Man, Peter had begun to spend more and more time in his company. Why he had chosen to do so Nightingale hadn't yet discerned, however he was grateful that Peter seemed to be coping with what had been a horrible shock to them both.
Stopping under one of the huge, ancient trees that lined Parliament Road and Whitehall, Peter said, "I can wait here, if you want."
Nightingale nodded, relieved to have a moment of privacy without specifically having to ask for it. He would probably have to explain to Peter later why he hadn't come to lay the wreath as part of the service. Peter always had questions. The answer, that he no longer felt he belonged there, and while he might have been able to lay one of behalf of the Met, that wasn't who he came to remember.
He had made the decision to stop attending the Remembrance Day service and parade in nineteen eighty-five. It hadn't been an easy one to make, but Nightingale was of the opinion that the right ones seldom were. Yet there was no other choice he could have made. Nine years of ageing in reverse had meant he'd looked in his mid to late sixties rather than his actual eighty five years. While Nightingale knew that he could have either claimed to be his own son or that he'd served in a more recent conflict, he did neither. Lies, especially unnecessary ones, had never sat well with him. It was too easy to find yourself trapped by them.
He knew the names of all those who had been part of the magical reserve units. He knew which of them had fallen in the war and which had departed it afterwards, and that he was the last who remained. Whether all those names were recorded anywhere else or if the Ministry of Defence even acknowledged their contribution to the war effort after all these years, Nightingale didn't know. As long as their names did not fade from history entirely he was willing to be the one to bear those memories, terrible as they were.
The wreath felt heavy this year, the paper poppies crowded under his hands. One for each of them that had served in his company, less one for himself. Would there be anyone to lay that final wreath, the one where all they were all together again at last? He looked back at Peter waiting for him, reading whatever it was that was written on a plaque on the bench by the tree. He should probably take the time to tell Peter that he thought the way that he absorbed facts, worked harder when he didn't first succeed and never gave up despite everything being against them succeeding were actually admirable qualities.
There had been so many young men like him once, apprentices learning their craft. There had been women too, not at his school, but there had been a few girls only institutions elsewhere in the country. It had been a product of the times however that the majority of those who had been given permission by their parents to study had been male. And as men they had been expected to do their duty, to fight for their country and to die for it if necessary. And die they had. Many had been lost in the Great War, his elder brother included. Edward hadn't studied magic, he'd been expect to follow in their father's footsteps and become a barrister. He'd done what he'd seen as his duty to King and country, and for that he never came home.
It was the story of so many young men. They might not have been called on to fight as wizards, but having magical ability was not a reason to escape conscription when it came in. Not that many had waited for conscription, the middle to upper class background of those who had studied magic meant they were destined to be officers. Society expected it of them. It was what had doomed them. At the height of the conflict a junior officer had an average life expectancy on the front line of just six weeks. Every year of the war saw one in seven of them killed and one in five wounded badly enough to be returned home. Some fought again. Some did not.
The War to end all Wars they had called it. Yet just a generation later the world had been pulled into a far greater conflict that would herald the end of the magical world. Perhaps those in power decided that their predecessors failure to use wizards in the Great War had in part been responsible for it dragging on over so many terrible years. However they came to the decision when the Second World War broke out wizards were not given the option to remain on the sidelines.
Nightingale closed his eyes, the drone of central London traffic fading away, memories crowding in. He had been one of the few without an apprentice, something for which he'd been profoundly glad during the last battle. So many of them had died in the space of a few short hours, two generations gone, leaving behind either those too old to have fought or schoolchildren not yet finished with their studies. Too many masters had been left without their apprentices. The young, half trained wizards had been unable to shield themselves from the worst of the battle. Masters had died too, some holding formae beyond what anyone could or should do, burning their own minds to save others, even disobeying orders and sacrificing their own lives for that of their apprentice.
During the war those high up in the Ministry of Defence hadn't seemed able to comprehend what drove them to such desperate acts. All they could see was a highly skilled person laying down their life for somebody who'd had a couple of years training, somebody who was ultimately replaceable. How wrong they had been. Apprentices were so much more than pupils. To train more than two in a lifetime was unusual. For some they became like family, brothers or sons, while occasionally it became a relationship that society would have abhorred. Yet as they had to live much of their lives in secret anyway an added level of secrecy was a burden that those who felt that way were willing to bear. Not that he had any plans to tell Peter about such things. It belonged to a world consigned to history as far as he was concerned. There was also the matter of the connection between them, whatever it was. It was ill defined as yet and Nightingale was willing to let Peter be the one who would decide the direction that it would finally take.
Before the war he had liked his independence, his job that allowed him to travel and felt himself too young to have the responsibility of an apprentice. Afterwards, in those first few years after Ettersberg, when the horror that he'd seen played out in his mind with frightening regularity, it had been hard enough just to live, without taking responsibility for another. Magic fading away had made it easier still to justify. There was no point in training somebody when there wasn't enough magic left to show them anything.
It had never entered his head that he would change his mind. Not until that cold, late night when he'd seen Peter by in Covent Garden hunting for a ghost and willing to admit to the fact. He'd known then what he had to do. That Peter wanted to learn, that he challenged him about things, that he actually thought about things, about the future and actively looked for new ways of doing things, secretly pleased him. It made him feel young and interested in how magic worked and just what the boundaries of it were. It was how it was meant to be. Teaching an apprentice wasn't just a case of getting them to do exactly what you said, although sometimes it was useful when they didn't question every tiny detail. No, they were meant to challenge you, make you look deeper in how things worked, and Peter certainly kept him on his toes in that regard. Barely two years into his apprenticeship Peter was progressing well in the practical use of formae, although not as well as he'd have liked in more academic side of it. He would become a formidable wizard by the time he completed his apprenticeship, Nightingale was sure of that.
Peter had brought a joy back into his life that he hadn't realised was absent. And as exasperating and confusing as Peter could be sometimes, Nightingale couldn't imagine going back to the life he had before. Which was a lie. He could imagine it all too easily. After each near miss the fear that next time their luck would run out bled from waking into his dreams. Nightmares of Ettersberg, of friends and lovers dead or dying around him and of fire raining down from the sky, turning the world into a living Hell, returned to haunt him. Only now Peter was there, shield failing amidst the firestorm. It didn't do to dwell on such things, but Nightingale knew with terrifying certainty that if anybody were to end Peter's life there would be no law or hiding place that would protect them. He would rain down destruction on them the likes of which he hadn't cast since the war. He would have vengeance no matter the cost to himself.
Now was not the time for such thoughts, he told himself. There had been more than enough death, both recently and in the past. As the sun set he laid down the wreath, while the clouds above finally released the rain that had been threatening to fall for most of the day. A more poetic soul might have likened it to tears, but he had little time or inclination for such things. It did seem fitting though; it had rained the first time he had attended nearly seventy years ago.
The rain falling on him, soaking through both his coat and suit, stopped abruptly. Puzzled, he turned to find Peter standing beside him, holding an umbrella over them. He must have returned to the car, Nightingale thought, uncertain now of how long he'd stood head bowed and heavy with the weight of memory.
"I said I didn't mind waiting," Peter answered in response to the unasked question. Holding the umbrella higher, he moved a little closer so that they were both sheltered from the rain.
"Thank you," Nightingale replied, surprised, but grateful that Peter would think to do this for him. Standing shoulders almost touching, the rain falling softly about them as the city darkened into night, Nightingale let the memories of past sacrifices slowly drift into hope for the future. Because surely all those years ago, that was what they had been fighting for.