AN: I was re-reading Richard's description of Henry right before he shot himself, and thought it would be interesting to use that as a starting point, but from Francis' point of view.
The expression Henry had just as he raised the pistol is an image that Francis will revisit almost obsessively. There was concentration etched into the lines of his face, but also joy, or something akin to it, something Francis had only ever seen on Henry's face when he finished a long translation, or had some sort of insight that had escaped the rest of them, pedestrian as they were. Francis wishes he could know what passed through that astonishing brain in those precious few seconds before Henry fired the gun. He will never know, of course, but he still thinks about it, at 4 am when peace is elusive and the glare of the streetlight his only companion.
Francis hears the gun go off, but the noise seems muffled, like the air had grown thick (with fear perhaps, fear and coming death). It's not until Henry falls to the floor, red blooming over his face, that Francis reacts. Henry is on the ground and there is blood and glass and the gun lies limply in his hand and maybe someone should see to Richard and make sure he is okay but Henry is not, Henry is not okay and Francis is not going to leave him.
It was not his first time seeing death, but Francis had never been so close. He had never felt the stale breath of departure on the back of his neck, had never noticed a presence only in its absence, had never witnessed such a stillness, until then. The experience fractured something in him, and though he walked away whole in body, there were fissures, buried fault lines that would become apparent only with time.
Henry is declared dead and the first fault line widens.
His grandfather discovers Kim and he can feel the fissures spreading.
Francis wakes up in a hospital bed, wrists bandaged and mind foggy, and the cracks continue to grow.
He stands at the altar. It pains him to say the words, but he does. He says the words and the lines begin to multiply.
He is growing brittle, and at some point, like the avalanche triggered by the earthquake, his pieces will fall. But what is falling, really, other than flying, with a more permanent destination?
One day, when the spider web of splinters is ready to collapse at the slightest movement, when Francis must tiptoe and whisper to stay whole, and package himself in warning labels, he will be ready. He will be ready, and he will fly.