Vague mentions are made of headcanons expanded upon in my canon-compliant Dylandy fic, 'heaven turns away as the skies come crashing down,' but this can of course be read on its own. The only headcanons you'll want to know are that the bombing happened on Amy's eleventh birthday, and the family (minus Lyle) went to the mall to celebrate; Neil got sick of shopping and went outside for a bite to eat, and that's how he survived the explosion; in the aftermath, with his muddled mind, he tried to move the smoking rubble, thinking only of freeing his family, and destroyed his hands.
This is an AU, but there are still major plot spoilers through the end of season one.
It's a Saturday morning in mid-September—Amy's birthday—and the Dylandy household is abuzz with activity.
Owen, unfortunately, could not get off work for the whole day, and is getting ready to go to the hospital, where he works as an ER nurse; Amy is trying to convince a sullen Lyle that he just has to come to the mall—"It won't be the same without you! Dad can't come, so you have to!"
Lyle, Owen knows, has made plans with his friends to hang out for the day—but both he and Lyndsay have taken Amy's side. It's her birthday, after all, and Lyle can see his friends without question nearly any other day of the year. But today is special, and Amy deserves to have both of her beloved brothers with her for the day.
Neil joins his voice to Amy's, nudging his brother—perhaps a little harshly—by mentioning that "you haven't even bought her a present, yet—we're going to the mall, you have to get one then!"
Lyle's frown deepens and his face colors, but he eventually agrees—and Lyndsay gives Owen a quick kiss (Neil gags, off to the side) as he grabs his keys and his jacket off his hook. "I'll see you all tonight, all right?" he says with a grin, accepting Amy's enthusiastic hug and ruffling his sons' hair—knowing they're of an age that hugging their parents is uncool—before turning toward the garage.
He's got a surprise in store for Amy, and he's coordinated it with Lyndsay—he's cleared it by his boss to get off of work at four, rather than seven, in order to spend more time with his family. Lyndsay will corral the kids out of the mall by then, and if all goes well, Owen should get home soon after they do.
He's anticipating his daughter's reaction—for she moped for days when Owen said he had to work on her birthday—and it brings a wide smile to his face as he turns the key in the ignition, waves to a cheery Amy, standing at the top of the steps up to the house—and drives off to work.
.
.
The ER is hectic, but no more than usual; Owen's morning goes by in a bit of a blur, as it always does, and he's taking his short lunch break, now, in the break room before heading back to work. A few of his friends are there as well, and a TV broadcasting a news channel plays in the background; it's just like any other early afternoon at the hospital.
Owen's mind wanders to tonight, imagining Amy's reactions to the gifts she will receive after dinner—trying to imagine what Neil plans to buy for her at the mall. Even though he has clearly been excited about it for days, he has guarded the secret jealously, even from their parents. Owen and Lyndsay had laughed and agreed that they would wait to see the present, just like Amy, and he had grinned at them then—bright and blinding, the smile Owen loves to see on his children's faces.
He is broken from his musings, though, by a loud noise from the television—and he turns curiously with his friends, wondering what's going on. BREAKING NEWS floods the screen before the news cuts abruptly to a newsroom full of grey-faced reporters—and Owen's brows furrow, leaning forward a bit to hear what they're saying.
He wonders at first whether those efforts to finally end the Solar Energy Wars have gone through—but then he realizes that it's the local news channel, and after a few scant sentences about a recent development in downtown Belfast, the channel switches to an on-site reporter. The woman looks shell-shocked, absolutely horrified as she stands on a street corner, flames roaring behind her as emergency personnel rush every which way in the background.
"There has been some sort of explosion at Eastridge Mall," she says, clearly trying to stay professional—but people are screaming all around her, and the microphone is trembling violently as she clutches it tightly between her fingers. "No one seems to know the cause of the blast, but it was incredibly powerful—more than half of the mall is gone, and though there are survivors making their way out of the rubble, witnesses say the mall was very crowded today…"
Owen can barely listen to more, though, because—he realizes—that's where his family was headed this morning. He feels the color drain from his face even as his coworkers swear heavily beside him, and he pulls out his phone, hits the speed dial for his wife, and pulls it to his ear with trembling fingers.
Lyndsay doesn't pick up.
He swallows—after all, maybe she's driving, or they're home already and she's putting Amy's cake together. His wife has to be okay—his children have to be okay. They can't be—
He dials Lyle and Neil in quick succession, and his stomach sinks as neither of them answer. He tries to rationalize that he's their father—they probably don't want to talk to him on the phone. They're teenagers, after all, and—
But his gut is twisting itself into knots, and his friends are giving him strange looks—"I—I have to go," he chokes out, standing abruptly and forgetting his half-eaten lunch on the table.
One of his coworkers looks at him skeptically, even as his own face is pale in horror. "We're the nearest hospital, Owen—we're going to get the brunt of the survivors. You can't just—"
"My family was there today," he chokes out, and his friends' faces grow paler still. "It's my daughter's birthday, they all went shopping, and…"
"We'll tell the boss," one promises immediately, her voice high and cracking with fear as he chokes off, unable to continue. He can't even nod his thanks as he rushes to his locker, forgetting even his coat as he only grabs his keys, rushing toward the parking garage.
He's just thrown the car into reverse when his phone buzzes against his thigh, and he nearly drops his phone when he sees "Neil" displayed on the screen. He answers after the first ring, holding his phone between his shoulder and ear as he peels out of the garage, headed straight for the mall.
"Neil? Are you all right?"
"Dad?"
Owen has to stifle a sob at the desperation in his son's voice—Neil, too, is clearly trying to hold back tears; his voice has that same shell-shocked tone to it that the reporter's had, and it's lanced with pain that horrifies him. "Neil, I'm on my way to the mall right now," he says, trying to inject as much strength and support into his voice as he can. "Are you safe? What about your mum and siblings?"
Neil sobs again, and Owen's stomach twists on itself further as he says, "I just—I just went outside to get a hot dog, I swear I was going to come right back in, I'm sorry—"
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Owen says instantly, though he feels tears leaking down onto his cheeks as he realizes that Neil was separated from the others. "I'll be there in five minutes, okay? Stay on the phone with me, everything will be okay—"
He has no idea where Neil is; for all he knows, he could be trapped under the rubble of the mall, desperate and terrified and unsure of whether he is going to survive. And it's clear he doesn't have any knowledge of the rest of his family, and so Owen knows he needs to focus on his elder son right now—"Where are you right now, Neil? Are you in the mall?"
"The parking lot," he says, and Owen sobs in relief. "There's a policewoman here, she's—she's holding the phone for me, because..."
"Are you hurt?" Owen asks sharply, horror rising anew, and Neil audibly swallows before saying—
"My hands hurt, and my head..."
"It'll be all right," Owen says instantly, though he thinks he can hear the beginnings of shock starting to seep into his son's voice. "Just—just stay with the policewoman, all right? I'm almost there, it'll be okay—"
Police lights are coming into view on the street before him—a barricade has been set up to stop traffic from reaching the disaster area. As he crests the hill, he realizes he won't be able to pass in the car, so he pulls up as close as they will allow, throws the car into park, and flings open the door. "Just a minute, Neil," he says hastily as an officer approaches him, his mouth downturned, and Owen drops the phone from his ear to confront him.
"We can't let anyone through until the area has been deemed safe," he says, not harshly, but stern enough that Owen thinks he's unlikely to back down. "They're scanning the area for more explosives—you need to stay back."
Explosives. So they think this was deliberate, rather than a gas explosion, or—"My whole family is in there," he says, not bothering to hide the raw horror in his voice. "My wife, our three kids—I have to find them!"
"Not until the area is secure, sir," the man says, though his face falls a bit in empathy. "It shouldn't be more than an hour—"
"My son is on the phone with me right now!" he says sharply, waving his terminal in the officer's direction. "He doesn't know where anyone else is—he's fourteen. You can't tell me you won't let me through to get to him—"
The officer hesitates, glancing to one of his fellows. "The area isn't secure," he says again, with a bit less authority in his voice, and Owen could scream in frustration.
"I don't give a damn if there's another bomb—I need to see my son!"
The man hesitates a moment longer, looking between Owen's horrified face down to the scrubs he yet wears from the hospital. "Are you a medical professional?" he asks eventually—"The paramedics are overwhelmed—I could certainly allow backup through."
Owen lets out a shaky breath—"I'm an ER nurse," he says instantly, and the officer holds his gaze for a moment longer before waving him through.
Owen is running faster than he ever has in his life—his old hospital sneakers don't allow him much traction on the rain-slicked sidewalks, and he almost falls more than once—but he runs the half mile to the mall parking lot like it's nothing, holding his phone to his ear and feeding Neil a steady stream of reassurances that he'll be there soon.
When he finally comes upon the parking lot, it's impossibly chaotic; military personnel, paramedics, and firefighters rush every which way, trying to contain panic and help the injured and douse the flames. "Neil, where in the parking lot are you?" he demands, raising his voice to be heard over the noise. He gives him a parking section, his voice cracking dangerously, and Owen takes only a moment to find it before taking off, scarcely holding himself from shoving his way past all these strangers.
And then he sees him—Neil, his son, looking impossibly small as he sits in a pile on the filthy ground, with a brightly-adorned policewoman sitting next to him, one hand on his shoulder as the other holds the phone to his ear. Owen doesn't waste time telling Neil over the phone—he only rushes over, dropping his phone by his feet as he falls to his knees beside his son.
"Neil!" he's able to gasp out as the two turn to him, and the policewoman flips the phone closed as Neil launches himself into Owen's arms.
Owen can't help but allow the tears to fall, despite his best efforts—he needs to be strong and capable for his son, but Neil is clearly traumatized, and the rest of their family is still missing. And so he takes this moment to catch his breath, letting a few sobs escape his throat, and eventually he pulls away gently, looking his son up and down, trying to determine how badly he's hurt.
His eyes are worryingly unfocused, and when Owen tries to feel his head, he winces at every touch. And when he asks to see his son's hands and Neil holds them out carefully, looking away, Owen has to stifle a swear. It's not the worst thing he's seen—not by far—but it is somehow worse when it's his own son. The skin in places has been charred down to nothing, exposing pink muscle and gleaming white nerves and bones. "You'll be okay, Neil," he says after a moment, putting his son's hands down gently and shifting to carefully put an arm around his shoulders. He should thank this woman, he thinks, for watching over his son when he could not—but he cannot find the words, and only nods to her, his throat thick with tears, as she hands him Neil's phone, standing up.
"I'll make sure he gets in an ambulance as soon as possible, sir," she says, and her voice is drained and horrified, just like the rest. "If your wife or other children show up, I'll direct them to you."
He wants to thank her—but he cannot find the words, and so he only nods to her again, holding Neil a little bit tighter. And then she is gone, and Owen is alone with his sobbing son—and though he knows he needs to be strong and in control for Neil, he has no idea what to do.
.
.
Eventually there is an ambulance free for someone with non-critical injuries, and Owen rides shotgun while Neil is loaded into the back while the paramedics try to do what they can for his mangled hands.
There has been no word on Lyndsay or Lyle or Amy—and Owen tries to rationalize that maybe they're trapped somewhere in the mall, walled in by rubble, perfectly fine but with no way of contacting the outside world. He tries to tell himself this in part because he needs Neil to believe it, too—and he's ignored several calls from both his and Lyndsay's family, likely seeing on the news that there was a bombing in Belfast—making sure everyone is okay.
Owen cannot find it in him to answer them, and he knows it's causing them to worry more, but his wife is missing and two of his children are missing, and if he's forced to relay the news, he's not sure he'll be able to hold himself together for the son with him here and now.
He knows Neil suffered a concussion as well as severe burns to his hands; he knows how his son will be processed as they pull up to the hospital where he works. He follows Neil's gurney in almost a haze—thinks he hears familiar voices calling out to him, but he cannot bring himself to respond right now.
He knows the ER nurses who come through to hook Neil up to an IV, the doctor who ultimately comes in, looking very harried, to determine whether regeneration treatment will be necessary for Neil's hands. The doctor clearly recognizes Owen, knows the scrubs and the face, and as he finishes examining a half-delirious Neil, he turns to Owen with a grave look on his face.
"There's likely nerve damage here—he's going to have to undergo treatment as soon as he can before scar tissue starts to form, if he's to have any hope of using them again."
Owen blinks at him for a moment, his jaw clenching, ultimately looking away. The doctor's hand falls on his shoulder, and Owen can't bring himself to look up as he says, "If anyone else from your family comes in, I'll be sure you're the first to know."
"Thank you," Owen is able to croak, and then the doctor is gone.
.
.
The next several days are spent in a sleepless haze, splitting his time between Neil's bedside and joining the other nurses on shift when they need an extra pair of hands. He's been told more than once that they can manage, that he should stay with his son—but Lyndsay's sister Kathryn has come to sit at Neil's bedside while Owen is working, and he knows that if he spends too much time in that silent room, looking between Neil and his roommate (a man in his twenties with burns over much of his ruined face who came in screaming), he is going to go insane for the waiting and the grief.
He knows that rescue teams are working tirelessly to find any and all survivors, working with machines and dogs to find life signs as well as bodies—and new patients from the mall are admitted for the first few days. But he also knows that with every passing day, the likelihood of the rest of their family surviving grows slimmer and slimmer—and though he tries to stay optimistic for an often wandering Neil, he realizes after five days that they have to prepare for the worst.
Kathryn's face has grown drawn as well, realizing that her sister, niece, and nephew are likely not making it out alive. "How long could they survive in there?" she demands of Owen one day, her eyes red with tears. "How long until we know they're gone?"
It depends on what injuries they've sustained, of course, and whether they have access to food, water, or first aid in whatever place they're trapped. He cannot give her an answer with so many unknown variables, and she knows it—but her face grows more desperate by the day, and though they've tried to keep it from Neil, he is recovering from his initial daze—is able to answer questions—and is able to realize that something is definitely wrong.
"Where's Mum?" he asks Owen one day, his hands bandaged and lying in his lap as his gaze wanders.
"She's on her way," Owen says again, for Neil asked this the last time he woke, too. "She'll be here with Lyle and Amy very soon."
Neil blinks before nodding slowly, looking away again, and Owen has to swallow down the growing dread as he knows that, more than likely, his wife and two children will never make it out of the mall.
.
.
Owen wants to punch something when the military personnel come into Neil's room, solemn expressions on their faces.
His son has been doing much better—though the concussion could have been severe, the neurologist expressed astonishment that Neil is recovering as well as he is. The real problem, of course, remains his hands, which are yet bound in gauze and pumped full of antibiotics while they wait for more critical patients to be finished in the regeneration cells.
Neil is aware, most days (though he doesn't remember much of the day of the bombing), but Owen wishes he wasn't when the two men come in in their sharp military uniforms, looking barely ruffled by the surely sleepless nights they've had recently, and ask whether they are Owen and Neil Dylandy.
"Yes," Owen says slowly, hesitantly, eyeing the box carried by the younger man with some trepidation as the older soldier swallows, looking Owen in the eye as he brings their whole world crashing down.
"We have positively identified three bodies... "
The younger man leaves the box gently on the table before they leave, but Owen has not the presence of mind to open it. Money, funeral expenses, condolences—they mean nothing to him, because he would take them all and shove them in the military's face if he could, because Lyndsay is dead and Lyle is dead and Amy is dead and—
God help him he cannot do this and Neil is sobbing, his blanket pulled up over his head, and Owen is staring and there are tears on his face when he has long thought them run dry, and they are the only two left, he can't—
How can they possibly go on without the rest of their family?
He does not know when he reaches for the box but it is driving him insane not knowing—but when he opens it, with his blurred vision, he is not sure what he's looking at. He lifts the wad of fabric and fluff from the box gently, mindful of the fact that it is coming apart at the seams. It's—it was once a stuffed animal, he can tell that much, and his heart tears as he realizes that Amy will never again go home to sleep on her bed that is more plush toy than blanket, but—
He is brought out of his own musings by an awful sound from beside him; he turns to see Neil staring at the stuffed animal with wide eyes, taking in the rips in the fabric, the horrifyingly dark stains across much of its body.
"I—bought that for Amy, for her birthday... "
Owen chokes on a sob—this, this, was Neil's big surprise for his sister on her eleventh birthday, and he's sure Amy loved it. And if the recovery team knew it to be hers, she must have been holding it, and—and the stains on the fabric must be—
He readily hands the animal over to Neil when he reaches for it—and Neil hugs it close to his body, turning away from Owen with unchecked sobs wracking his body.
When Owen goes outside for a breath of air, that night, he can't help but let out an agonized scream.
.
.
.
.
Neil is nineteen years old, and Owen is worried for him.
The last five years have not been easy for either of them—the casualty list was not released to the public for quite some time, and so when Neil returned to school weeks after the bombing without his brother, he was bombarded with questions—people who thought he was Lyle—people with well-meaning offers of sympathy who only enraged him further.
Owen does not know what to say when the school calls him and says he punched a teacher for calling him Lyle, except that Neil isn't handling his grief well at all.
He and Lyle were never especially close, but he's sure Neil loves his brother—and is reeling from the deaths of his mother and sister, beside. Owen, who has taken to sleeping on the couch since the bombing (for their bed feels far too cold and empty without Lyndsay sleeping beside him), has woken more than once to see Neil curled up on the ground beside the couch, tears staining his face as he cries in his sleep.
Eventually, he sets up a sleeping bag on the ground and takes it for himself, hoping Neil will take the couch… But when he wakes the next morning to feel Neil curled impossibly close around him, shaking from some nightmare and begging for his mother, he decides to set up two sleeping bags instead.
Neil is not handling his grief well at all, but Owen is equally reeling, and though he talks to the school counselors (who suggest a therapist) and to Lyndsay's family (who do not know what to do beyond offer their help in any way that it's needed), he feels entirely out of his league, dealing with Neil's uncontrollable grief. He hopes—he hopes, as the months pass, that he will get a handle on it, that he will learn to move on... But as the months turn to years, he's not sure that will ever happen.
Neil graduates from high school with a low B average when he once earned nearly straight A's; he does not even try to apply for university, only throws himself into whatever anti-terrorism activism he can find, on top of the odd jobs he picks up to sustain himself.
Owen still works at the hospital, but he is home as often as possible to make sure Neil does not spend too much time alone. The first time Neil asks him if he wants to go shooting together, six months after his high school graduation, Owen is concerned that he's planning to use the guns for another reason entirely—and he is not ready to lose his only remaining son. But when he alludes to this in his stuttering denial, Neil only laughs bitterly—"I'm not going to kill myself, Dad. I want to learn to kill the people who did this to our family."
Owen is horrified, immediately refuses, but when he's driving nineteen-year-old Neil's car several months later and finds the handgun in the glove compartment (and the rifle in the false bottom of the trunk, when he goes to search), he realizes that Neil may have fallen too far already.
Both twins took up sharpshooting as a hobby, a year or so before the bombing. Lyle had been very good, but Neil had been better—and so the younger son had quit in rage and jealousy. Neil had quit as well, ostensibly, saying it wouldn't be any fun without his brother around. But now Owen wonders whether he didn't pick it up again after his brother was no longer able to shoot with him—whether he's been shooting for years, with Owen none the wiser.
He wonders if Neil's offering to go shooting together had been an offer of trust, one he had so callously thrown away—and he realizes that he's right when he goes to Neil the next day, saying he'd like to learn to shoot if he has the time, and his son's face lights up in rare, true cheer.
They go to the shooting range the next day, and Neil is more animated than Owen has seen him in months; he brings in his pistol and says they can share it, he'll pay for the ammo they use—and though Owen knows his son is not old enough to legally own a gun, the workers at the range treat him familiarly, don't bat an eye at his appearance—only say that it's so good to finally meet your dad, Neil!
Owen isn't stupid enough to bring it up while there, and only makes a mental note to confront him once they're home. He will spend this time with his son while he can—he is nineteen, after all, and even if he isn't away to university, he's been talking about finding his own apartment once he's saved up the money. Owen isn't happy about it, but knows he needs to let his son go... Even if it will mean being alone in the house that holds too many memories of those long gone.
They walk onto the range, and Neil throws on the headphones with practiced ease. "All right, so the first thing to know about guns is..."
.
.
Owen is impressed, despite himself—Neil certainly knows his way around a gun, well enough to teach a man in his fifties who's never handled one in his life. Soon, Neil has Owen lined up on a lane, adjusting his grip and stance as Owen looks down the sights at the target, five meters away. "Remember, don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot," Neil says again, and Owen huffs. He can appreciate Neil trying to teach him gun safety, but Owen likes to think of himself as intelligent—that seems like common sense to him.
He lines himself up, tries to breathe as Neil suggested—looks down the sights at the target—and pulls the trigger.
He knew to expect the recoil, of course, but it still catches him by surprise—and when he looks at the target, he's dismayed to see that despite it being set so close, he only barely managed to hit the edge of the paper—he wasn't even close to the target.
Neil catches his expression and barks a laugh. "That's way better than most people do their first time! It takes practice—the first time Lyle—"
He cuts himself off, though, turning away—and Owen looks around in mild alarm to see his son schooling his face into that forced cheer he so often wears. "Anyway, you'll just have to shoot more if you want to get better."
"So how good are you?" Owen asks, half joking, half honestly curious—after all, he hasn't seen his son shoot since he was thirteen (only knows that he now owns several more guns than he should), and he'd imagine that he's very good, if he's been working at it for so long. And Neil—he blushes, just a bit, turning his face away to look down the range.
"Oh, uh, I'm all right—nothing to write home about."
"Let's see it!" Owen says, allowing a little smile to grow on his face. After all, the two of them have precious few things to be happy about, even so many years on, and if Neil is so interested in this hobby, Owen wants to learn more about it to support him.
Neil accepts the pistol, deftly swapping out the magazine, and stares at Owen for a moment before moving toward the target mechanism, pushing it back another twenty meters.
Owen is already impressed—Neil can hit from this distance? He watches, crossing his arms, as Neil lifts the gun—and with scarcely a moment to aim, he begins to shoot.
Owen can only blink at his son in astonishment—and when Neil reels in the target, he can see that every shot is within the two center circles. "Holy shit, Neil," Owen whistles, raising his eyebrows. "Nothing to write home about, huh? I'm damn impressed!"
Neil gives a bit of a half-shrug, crumpling up the paper and throwing it into the trash bin nearby. "Like I said, just practice—it gets easier as time goes on."
But Owen is suitably impressed—and though Neil spends the rest of the afternoon declining Owen's offers to shoot some more, he seems more than happy to help his father improve his form and his aim. A few hours later Owen has decided Neil's spent enough money on ammo and paper targets—he declares himself exhausted, says they should go get a bite to eat before heading home for the night, and Neil agrees easily, sliding his gun into its case at his side.
"You havin' an off day, Dylandy?" one of the workers calls out as they re-enter the shop, an easy grin on his face as Neil turns. Another customer nearby, his shoulder-length brown hair streaked with purple, turns curiously. "That was shit shooting, by your standards—what, don't want to show up your old man?"
"Don't worry about it, Sam," Neil says, even as the other customer turns toward Neil, interested. "I'll see you this weekend, yeah?"
Neil heads quickly out the door, gesturing to Owen and suggesting a pub just down the block for dinner. Owen agrees cheerily enough (though he wonders—if Neil truly was downplaying his skill with a gun in front of his father, how good of a shot is he really?) and throws the car into reverse, catching a glimpse of the man with the strange purple hair leaving the store, staring toward their car for a moment before turning away toward a motorbike.
Owen thinks it's odd, but quickly forgets about it in favor of spending time with Neil—his son offers to pay for dinner, too, and Owen's wondering what's going on while Neil knocks back a Guinness. "Is everything all right?" he asks eventually, squinting at his son.
"Course it is," Neil says, sending a smile toward his father that's not quite so fake as the others. "It's just great to spend time with you, is all. This is really fun."
Owen feels his face relax into a smile, because truly, they don't have enough days like this—and he puts his worry out of his mind, only enjoying this rare, cheerful Neil as it comes.
Distracted as he is, he doesn't notice the strange man from the shooting range sitting several tables down—he doesn't notice him stand up as they're heading out the front door. But Neil does, and he frowns as Owen begins the drive home, wondering whether he's going to have to have a talk with the man—after all, he's caught glimpses of him for the past week, always just out of sight.
.
.
A week later, Neil comes home in higher spirits than Owen has seen since before the bombing.
"Neil?" he asks, rather nonplussed; Neil only calls a cheerful hey! as he rushes up the stairs toward his bedroom. "What's going on?"
"Got a job offer," Neil calls down, and Owen follows him up the stairs, his eyebrows rising high as he sees Neil throwing clothes and essentials into several duffel bags. "Plane leaves tomorrow."
Owen wants to congratulate him—he really does—because nothing's gotten his son this excited in a very long time. But a job far enough away that he has to fly there—? "Where are you going?" he eventually settles on, figures it's straightforward enough that Neil, in his excitement, will be able to answer it. But his son slows his movements suddenly, and when he turns to Owen, he can see the sheepish—almost apologetic—look there, and Owen knows he isn't going to like the answer even before he voices it.
"It's in space," he says, giving Owen a half shrug. "Top secret, I can't say anything about it—but I'll visit and call when I can, yeah?"
Owen can only blink, though, because top secret means either military or engineering, and Neil has no degree to support the latter... And with his supposedly great shooting—"You don't have to join the military," he says, not sharply, but Neil turns to him with a furrowed brow. "I don't care how good of a shot you are, that's far too dangerous, Neil—"
"Dad—Dad," Neil cuts him off with something like a hysterical laugh. "I swear I'm not joining the military—really," he emphasizes as Owen gives him a look. "I'd tell you all about it if I could, but—I really think I'll be able to do good, here."
I'll be able to avenge our family, Owen reads between the lines easily, because this has been Neil's mission since that awful day five years ago—but his son has turned away again, nearly emptying his closet before moving on to his dresser, hesitating, deciding what to bring. "Neil, I don't understand," he says, because he's rather lost—and if his headstrong, single-minded son thinks he's going to change the world, he feels like he deserves to know what he's going to do and why.
"I'm sorry, Dad," Neil says, and there's true contrition on his face as he turns again, stepping forward to give him a hug. "Maybe—maybe when it's over I can tell you, yeah? But I can't tell you anything now."
Owen isn't all right with this—not in the least—but he can't deny the excitement on his son's face that has long been absent. "You promise me you'll come home?" he asks, because if he can demand one thing of his last living son, he thinks it should be this. "You promise you won't get yourself killed out there?"
Neil's face falls in understanding, and his eyes soften as he gives his father another, tighter, hug. "I promise."
.
.
Neil keeps his promise to keep in touch; though his phone calls are months apart, and his visits even more rare, he makes a point to call on Owen's birthday, on Christmas...on that day in mid-September they both hold sacred in their hearts.
It's been years, and Neil has only visited a handful of times; Owen knows this house is too large and too gaping and too lonely, and he knows nobody would blame him if he moved out, moved somewhere smaller. After all, this house was designed for five people...and now, he is only one.
But this house is full of old memories, of scuffs on the wall from when the twins chased each other around corners and didn't quite clear them—when Amy took to the wall with her markers and neither Owen nor Lyndsay had the heart to paint over the childish art in the upstairs hall. This house is too big and too echoing but it is theirs, and almost ten years on, it is some of the precious little he has left of his family.
He visits old bedrooms, sometimes. They donated much of Lyndsay's and Lyle's and Amy's things, but kept those most precious to their owners—Amy's most prized stuffed animals yet sit on her bed (old and ragged, now, though Owen does his best to keep them in the pristine shape Amy left them in). The bear Neil bought her sits in a place of honor atop her pillows, ragged and stained from where no one could get all of the blood out, but stitched back together painstakingly by a Neil who has never known how to sew. Kathryn offered to do it for him, and even Owen was willing to give it a shot after he found Neil swearing under his breath and bleeding from several needle pricks, but he had insisted he do this himself. "It was my present to her," he said, his voice low, "and I'm going to fix it for her."
Lyle's video game consoles stay in the living room and on his dresser (they're dated and several generations behind, now, but he and his friends played those games until the cows came home), and though Neil enjoyed the same games as his brother, he hasn't so much as touched a console since the bombing. Lyndsay's sewing machine, her eclectic collection of crafts, paints and threads and canvas stay piled in the office; Owen has been finding homes for her beautifully finished pieces throughout the house, and has not the heart to give away her beloved tools.
Neil's room is mostly bare, now (though he still sleeps there when he comes home to visit), but he left many of his posters, the collectibles and trinkets he didn't destroy in his rage in the weeks after he came home from the hospital. He left most of those home when he left for space, saying he wouldn't need them all, but Owen treasures them on those days when he feels the emptiness of this house a little too keenly.
It has been almost five years since Neil left for space; he would be twenty-four now, though Owen hasn't seen him in person in nearly two years. Neil had explained apologetically during their last phone call that work is ramping up, that he might not be able to visit for another few months—but he'd talk to his boss about getting some time off as soon as he could.
Neil has changed, in these years since he left for space—he's grown into himself, filled out those last few inches that finally made him taller than Owen. He's been growing his hair out, too, though Lyndsay always teased him for it when he was younger...
But most of all, Owen is gratified to see some semblance of that spark back in his son's eyes—the energy he hasn't seen since his brother and sister and mother were yet alive. He talks sometimes, vaguely, of the friends he's made up in space—and though some of them sound less than friendly, it's clear Neil cares for every one of them. He speaks of them like—like they're his younger siblings, like he used to speak of Lyle and Amy before they were so cruelly ripped away.
Owen worries, still, for his son, but he realizes that Neil is happy there—happier than he has been on Earth, in recent years. And so he does not voice his concerns or the nightmares that keep him up at night, and only smiles at his son as he promises to change the world.
.
.
Owen isn't a stupid man, or so he likes to think.
Neil is working a top-secret operation in space that he cannot tell even his own father about, and he is an excellent shot with his pistol and his rifle, and he has pledged to end terrorism by any means necessary to earn a lasting peace.
Owen isn't stupid, and when Celestial Being's message first airs, his first thought is that this is exactly the type of organization that Neil would sign up for.
He tries to shake it off, at first. After all, Neil swore up and down that he wasn't joining the military, that he wouldn't be in any danger...that he would absolutely, absolutely come home once the job was done.
And sure, Celestial Being isn't the military—but it is a militia, and Owen's stomach turns at the memory of that conversation, upset that he didn't press Neil further—upset that he has failed his son so utterly that he thinks the only path forward is to kill people to accomplish his goals.
He thought he knew his son. He does, still, hope and pray that Neil is still the three year old who looked at his new baby sister with such wonder—the seven year old who tried to make nice with his brother even when Lyle was angry that Neil had more Valentines—the eleven year old who held his sister as she cried because bullies wouldn't stop bothering her for her thick hair and her braces—
He hopes Neil has not changed so much that he will not recognize him, but he is not sure—Neil has not called since Celestial Being appeared, since Owen's only remaining family became a mass murderer. He does not want to believe his son pilots a Gundam, but he knows Neil too well; the green Gundam, the sniper—it moves in ways that are just too familiar to Owen's eyes, and its shots are nearly always perfect, and -
And Neil promised he would change the world, not destroy it, and Owen cries in the silence of this too-empty house, screaming for Lyndsay to help him—
But his wife is dead and his daughter is dead and his youngest son is dead, and he is alone with only extended family and friends, anymore, to support him. They are wonderful but they are not family, and he would give anything—anything—for his wife's steady hand and his daughter's cheery smile and his sons' identical, kind eyes if only to support him through this because he can't—he can't -
Neil wanted to make the world a better place, but he is so far gone that he thinks the only way to do it is to build it again from the ground up. Neil—his son, his wonderful, headstrong, irrepressible son who he has loved with all his heart—is fighting against humanity instead of for it, and—
Owen is lost and terrified and grieving anew for the boy he used to know, and how is he to continue on, here, when his last bastion of happiness has torn itself apart?
.
.
Five months into Celestial Being's reign of terror, Neil shows up, unexpected, on the doorstep, an apologetic look on his face and a large present held under one arm.
It's Owen's birthday, of course it is—and though he had planned to spend it alone (because Neil didn't call on his own birthday or St. Patrick's Day or any day in between), he is not sure he's happy to see his terrorist of a son appear on his doorstep.
"Hey, Dad!" Neil says cheerfully, pulling him into a hug, and Owen forces himself to return it as naturally as he can. "I'm really sorry for not calling, we've been super busy—but I told my boss I needed the whole week off to make up for it, and she eventually agreed! So I'll be here until Saturday—"
Neil stops abruptly as Owen pulls away, though, standing in the front hall and staring in concern at his father. "Dad? Everything all right?"
Owen swallows, stepping to close the door before walking into the living room in silence. Neil follows, clearly worried, and Owen seats himself heavily on the couch, not able to say anything for several moments.
"Neil, look me in the eye and tell me you've never killed anyone."
"What?" Neil looks honestly confused, but he doesn't answer the question—and Owen's stomach twists further as he continues, "Dad, where's this coming from?"
"I used to think that I knew you pretty damn well," Owen says, trying desperately to keep the lump in his throat from surfacing, blinking quickly to keep the tears at bay. "I thought Lyndsay and I raised you better than this."
"Dad?" Neil's voice is concerned, now, and he leans the present gently against the coffee table before sitting in the armchair nearby.
"I never thought I'd raised a terrorist," he says bluntly, gets it out in the open. Neil flinches harshly. "If someone had told me a year ago that's what you were doing, I would have decked them—but now I guess I'd have to admit they're right, huh?"
"Dad," Neil starts, though his face has drained of all color, and his hands are clenched in his lap, shaking. "You don't understand—"
"I'm not sure there's much to understand," Owen says, and it comes out harsher than he means it to. But he is hurt, and grieving, and the shock of Neil coming home for the birthday he had planned to ignore has pushed him over the edge. "You're killing people in the name of peace. I'm not sure how that could ever be justified."
Neil hesitates, his jaw clenching, such pain on his face that it hurts Owen to see it. But he has been brooding, these past months (a bad habit Lyndsay swore to break him of in their twenty years of marriage—it would be thirty this year, were she alive to see it), and he does not understand—he cannot understand. Neil has hated terrorism with such overwhelming passion since their family was torn apart, and Owen doesn't blame him.
What he does blame him for is joining a group that does exactly the thing he's sworn to destroy.
"The KPSA," Neil says, very quietly, and Owen's frown deepens at the mention of that awful group. "They killed 288 people in Belfast. Do you know how many people they killed in Krugis?"
Owen is silent, unsure of where this is going. "Krugis wasn't even really a country," Neil continues, grimacing before looking Owen in the eyes. "They were all but wiped out during the Solar Energy Wars. Less than ten thousand people lived there, before..." He swallows. "More than half of them were killed by Azadistani soldiers, but we think up to two thousand were killed by children."
Owen blinks; he's kept up to date with world politics as best he could, of course, but even when discussing the Solar Energy Wars, few people ever discussed the Middle Eastern countries as anything more than armies of angry, bearded men. This is awful, of course—these statistics are mind-shattering and terrible—but he does not understand their relevance to his son's affiliations.
But before he can voice this, Neil continues, "The KPSA isn't the only group out there, either. You know about the IRA. They're nothing compared to the Azadistan uprising happening right now—the awful groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Krugis is gone, but that region is less stable than ever—people are dying in the hundreds every day. Imagine, living in a country where the bombing was an inevitability, every single day of your life."
Owen can't find anything to say to that; Neil sighs explosively. "We kill people because we have no other choice," he says, very quietly, and Owen can see in his hunched stance that he is not proud of this fact. "These conflicts—they're what we're trying to end. Life in Ireland, in the United States—it's so wonderful, people here can't even imagine the lives others lead." He glances up as Owen tries not to bristle. "There are children dying every day in Azadistan—and you think I'm going to stand by and do nothing?"
"Killing people for killing isn't going to stop anything," Owen says, because even if—even if he understands Neil's train of thought, he can only see it as misguided—because his son—his son is a terrorist, he has admitted this openly, and there is no redemption for the awful things that Celestial Being has done.
Neil doesn't say anything for a moment, looking at the toes of his boots, and Owen is about to continue when he says, "I just couldn't sit by and let them keep killing. I'm—I'm sorry, Dad, I know I'm not who you wanted me to be, but this is the only way I could see to move forward."
There are so many paths to peace that don't induce more bloodshed; Owen has never been more sure of this in his entire life. Neil—the little boy he raised as best he could, the teenager he tried to hold together with glue and desperation and love—is not a killer. Neil is a twenty-four-year-old man still haunted by the ghosts of his mother and his brother and his sister, and Owen realizes all at once that even if he claims to fight for these strangers around the world...he's fighting for another reason entirely.
"They're gone, Neil," he says, very quietly, leaning forward and forcing himself to meet his son's eyes. "I miss them just as much as you do, but—killing terrorists isn't going to bring them back."
Neil is silent for even longer this time—but then he stands abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning away. "I know that," he says. "I know Mum would never forgive me for this, either—but I don't see how I could live with myself if I didn't do something."
"Neil," Owen says, concerned, standing quickly as his son begins to step back toward the front door.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Neil says, pausing in the front hall and turning to look at him one last time. "I just hope you don't hate me, when everything's over."
Owen knows he should stop him—knows he needs to pull Neil back by the elbow, and hug the life out of him, and apologize for jumping to conclusions—but he yet sees the toddler with the bright eyes, and the schoolboy with the cheery smile, and the teenager with grit on his face and blood on his hands and -
Neil Dylandy stands before him a fully grown man but Owen can only see his son, and before he can reconcile the two he is gone, shutting the door quietly behind him and walking down the driveway to that old green beater, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head bowed. Before Owen can recover himself, before he can rush out onto the porch and call him back, Neil has backed out of the driveway, speeding down the street with that reckless way of driving Owen could never break him of.
He watches down the street long after he disappears, but Owen never sees his son again.
.
.
He plans to spend much of the afternoon in the cemetery, as he is wont to do when he needs to think. He deflects calls from his siblings, from Lyndsay's siblings, from his friends as he sits reeling in the living room after Neil leaves—says he's at work and will call them back later.
He has no intention of doing so, but it gets him badly needed peace and quiet on a day where everything has turned on its head.
He stares at the package Neil left behind, wrapped in bright paper with a gaudy bow on top. It's a decent size but nearly flat, and Owen wonders what it is as he picks it up, testing the weight. His son—Neil remembered his birthday, between fighting the entire world, between—between killing people in the name of peace.
He's trying, but he cannot get past the hypocrisy, and he cannot get past the thought that his son is a mass murderer when his family was torn apart by the same type of monsters. He wants to understand, but Neil is gone—thinks himself unwelcome in his childhood home—and his old phone, of course, has long been disconnected. Owen knows that even if he tried, he wouldn't have a chance of contacting his son.
He hesitates, holding the package for a moment longer, before slowly beginning to tear the paper.
It's a frame, he realizes quickly—embellished but tasteful, and wrought in beautifully stained wood as he pulls the paper off. But once he gets to the contents of the frame, his breath catches in his throat, because—
It's a picture of the five of them, years ago, back when they were whole and happy and safe. It doesn't look to be dated long before the bombing, for Neil and Lyle's hair is scraggly, and they've started to grow uncomfortably long in the way teenaged boys always do. Amy's hair, too, is growing out—Lyndsay's arm is around Owen's waist, and the twins frame their sister between them, standing before their parents.
It's a photo he forgot they took—nothing stuffy from the professional photographers, but a spur-of-the-moment request by Lyndsay during that last Easter, celebrated with her family. Their smiles are wide and bright and genuine—even Lyle's, who was ever moody and prone to irritation in those days—and Owen can only stare at the picture for a moment, drinking it in hungrily.
The frame is large, nearly three feet long and two feet tall, but the image is crisp in quality and vibrant in color—and Owen wonders how Neil managed to make it so when the original photograph was surely only a standard four-by-six. He wants to ask, but his son is long gone, probably planning his too-early trip back up to space, and though Owen thinks he would do anything to call him back and clear the air between them, there is nothing he can do for it now.
He leans the frame reverently against the coffee table, plans to hang it above the hearth as soon as he can, and grabs his keys before heading for the cemetery.
.
.
It's a windy, chilly day for mid-May, and there aren't many people there; Owen walks the familiar path to his family's headstone, stopping several paces away as he sees the fresh flowers laid upon the grave.
White roses—the flowers he and Neil ever picked out to honor their family—and fresh enough, not wind-blown at all, to have been placed recently.
Neil was here—likely visited after he left the house—and Owen feels his throat closing in as he steps forward carefully, glancing over the too-familiar names and dates on the headstone before crouching down beside it, ignoring his creaking, aging knees as he carefully, reverently lays his own roses beside Neil's. He sees a thick envelope, addressed to "Mum, Amy, and Lyle," but he will not disrespect his son any more than he already has by reading it. He only tucks the letter more firmly beneath the bouquets to ensure it is not blown away, and then seats himself on the grass, leans against the headstone, and closes his eyes.
It's several minutes later that he opens them again, and the tears flow unashamedly down his cheeks. "I don't know what to do," he croaks to the memory of his wife and children. And in that moment, he can imagine Lyndsay's lips soft and reassuring against his own; he can imagine Amy's tight, tight hugs as she promises everything will be okay; he can imagine Lyle's occasionally awkward but crushingly heartfelt habit of doing his best to do right by his family. All of them, he is sure, would know what to do, here—they would know how he could fix things with Neil. But they are all dead, and whatever whispers they have sent to his ears are carried away on the wind, and Owen has never felt more lost in his entire life.
Owen stays in the cemetery for hours, that day—spends hours of the celebration of his fifty-fifth year of life leaning against an old headstone, sometimes listening to the wind and sometimes speaking in undertones to those who have left him behind. He is in the cemetery, and he is alone—his son is long gone, and the rest of those who matter to him are nothing more than bones beneath his feet. He does not know what to do, and he wants to wail to the heavens, beg the gods to give him his family and his life and his hope back, from the grave and from beyond the reaches of the stars.
But Neil is long gone, and Lyndsay and Amy and Lyle are dead—and eventually, as the sun begins to set, Owen must pick himself up off the ground, ignore his creaking joints, and go home to an empty house full of memories and too-fleeting ghosts.
.
.
Operation: Fallen Angels takes place six months later, and Owen has never been so equally horrified and proud of anything as he is of Neil.
(But as he watches his son's mobile suit go up in smoke, outmatched and outmaneuvered by that AEU pilot in the stolen Gundam, he can only desperately pray that his son was able to make it out alive.)
.
.
Celestial Being is dead, and the world rejoices.
Owen calls in sick, the day it's announced; he feels sick to his stomach, lightheaded, completely overwhelmed by the fact that Neil was not a part of that final battle... And he knows that, should he have been alive to see it, his son never would have left his friends to fend for themselves.
He does not understand Neil's motives, and he does not agree with his methods—but he has never, never, wished harm upon him for it—has never, even in his darkest moments, wished for anything but peace and happiness for his son. But Neil was a Gundam pilot, and now he is dead—and Owen is left adrift, because what can he possibly do now?
His co-workers call, concerned for his well-being when he takes a week off work; his brother calls, asking if he'd like to go out for drinks sometime, because we haven't talked in weeks!; but he does not receive a phone call from the boy (man) he so desperately needs to see, and he throws his phone in a fit of rage after the third text message from a friend, asking if everything's all right, if he needs anything.
He needs four somethings—four somebodies—who are gone, now, and he has no one to talk to and nowhere to turn, because his wife is dead and his daughter is dead and now both of his sons are dead, a decade apart but reunited at last. In a fit of insanity he envies Neil his death because he has finally, finally been reunited with those they have both so desperately wanted to see again—
He is angry and lost and grieving and utterly overwhelmed, and so when someone leaves an unmarked package on the porch for him in the middle of the night, he only drops it roughly in the front hall and forgets about it for days because what does anything matter, anymore, when he is the only one left—?
Eventually he tears into the box with righteous fury, late one night and wandering the house, unable to sleep—wondering who would possibly dare to send him a present or a surprise when his son is dead, but—
But the contents of the box stop him cold, because it is full of Neil's possessions. It's full of treasures from his childhood that he carried with him to space, that old brown vest he always loved, the gloves he wore down to threads because he swore they made him look cool—
The box is full of keepsakes and old photographs and right on top is a terminal and a typed note—no signature, no identifying information, but Owen reads it hungrily—
"We are sorry for your loss, Mr. Dylandy. Here are all of your son's possessions that we could salvage before the battle. He left a recording for you on our systems; you can watch it on the terminal."
Short, direct—and Owen scarcely realizes that this note must be from Celestial Being as he picks up the terminal with shaking hands, suddenly unsure of whether he wants to watch this. After all, he hasn't spoken to Neil in six months; his son surely thought himself estranged, cast out by his own father. He does not want to listen to his son berate him, but at the same time, if Neil took the time to record a message specifically for him while his world was coming apart at the seams...well, he owes his son this much, at least.
He carries the box carefully into the living room, setting it down on the coffee table—and he looks to the beautiful portrait above the fireplace for several seconds before he pulls up the video and pushes play.
"Hey, Dad," Neil's voice says, and an image appears on the terminal of his son, floating in low gravity on some sort of spaceship. Owen's breath catches as he sees the eyepatch, black and ugly, obscuring his right eye. "Yeah, I know you're freaking out about my eye," Neil says with a wan smile, and Owen starts terribly, with the sudden, insane impression that Neil can see and understand him. "I'll be fine—the others don't want me to go into battle like this, but I figure we're all goners if I don't, so..." He shrugs a bit. "What's the loss, right?"
The loss is a great deal, Owen wants to scream at him. The loss is the life of Neil Dylandy—the loss is the life of his son. "And I guess if you're getting this message at all, I'm dead," Neil continues, his smile turning rueful as he looks away for a moment. "I'm sorry I couldn't explain things better to you, when I dropped by for your birthday. I don't mind if you don't understand—I just hope you don't hate me for everything I've done."
Owen stares at the image of his son desperately, trying to pick up on every tick of his face, every inflection in his tone, because it has been months but this is Neil—this is his son—this is the boy who died scarce days ago, trying to change the world. "You were right, you know," Neil continues, glancing up to the screen again. "About why I'm fighting. I want to believe I'm fighting for the rest of the world, but all I've ever wanted was to avenge Mum and Amy and Lyle. Makes me selfish as hell, I guess, but..."
He trails off, looking away. "I—I know you understand, but I haven't gone a day without thinking about them, what they'd be doing now, if they were still alive. Because I bet Amy would be in college, like I never was—she'd be doing great things for the world. And Lyle would have found himself, I think—stopped comparing himself to me so much, because—because he was..." He chokes off, swallowing and reaching up hastily to wipe at his remaining eye. "I'm sorry, I just..."
In this moment, Neil looks, more than anything, like that fourteen-year-old boy in the hospital bed, confused and scared and wondering where the rest of his family was. "I can't take this anymore," Neil chokes out, wiping more vigorously at his face. "This world, it's so disgusting—we've thrown everything we have into changing it, and it's not enough. People are killing and dying for no reason at all, and I...I can't stand it. I..." He hesitates again, breathing deeply, swallowing against a lump in his throat, and Owen thinks he can hear some sort of vague beeping in the background. "I just want this all to be over. Nobody deserves this—we don't deserve this. The others—they think it can be saved, but...I'm starting to think they're wrong."
Owen feels a lump rising in his own throat as his son's voice cracks, as he takes several seconds to compose himself. "I believe in them," Neil says, with such conviction that Owen doesn't doubt it for a single moment. "I don't believe in this world, but I believe in them, and—I believe in you, too, Dad. I'm gone, and Mum and Lyle and Amy are too—but you're stronger than I ever will be, and you'll be fine. And—and if I can ask one parting wish, before this world kills me..." He swallows once, twice, trying to hold back his tears. "If our best isn't good enough—if the world keeps turning the way it has, I want—you to change it, if you can. Because it's what—what Mum would have wanted, and you knew her better than I did, but..." his voice cracks again, "I think—I think she would have wanted a peaceful world."
He is silent for a moment, his gaze far away, before he swallows again, blinks, rubs at his eye once again. "I've gotta go, in a second," he says, though he sounds reluctant to do so. "But—Dad, I need you to know that I love you, more than anything. I—I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I probably wouldn't even be alive."
He hesitates again, glancing to one side as he thinks, and Owen leans forward, almost unconsciously, waiting for his son's next words. "You're a better man than I could ever be," Neil says eventually, choking down on a sob. "I'm sorry I disappointed you, but I—I couldn't just sit by and do nothing. I really hope you understand that, someday. I just..."
There's a faint banging on a door nearby, and Neil jerks, glancing to the side and rubbing furiously at his face. "I love you, Dad," he says, his voice thick with emotion as he stares straight at the camera with tears in his eyes, and then Neil is gone.