Written in July for a SpyFest 2016 prompt (the poem lines it was based off of are right below). Didn't get around to posting it until now... It feels kind of strange, cuz I haven't published anything in years, but... eh. It's already written, so why not?
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them." - Laurence Binyon, excerpt from For the Fallen
It was raining, a light drizzle that cleansed the atmosphere of dust and heartache. The clouded sky cast an eerie gray luminescence over the melancholy grounds. As the rain beaded on slender grass blades, tear drops that gathered and then slid down to the ground, a solitary figure entered the cemetery. Soft footsteps wound their way among weathered gravestones, soon coming to a halt in front of a marker that was unremarkable among the rest save for the rose-coloured Gladiolus flowers laid neatly before it.
The man, loneliness drawn around him like a cloak to ward off the autumn chill, stood silently for a long moment. Then, after a heavy exhale of breath, he knelt.
"Hello, Jack," he began, then broke off with a choked sound. "Good morning."
Around him, the earth came alive with the waking of the day. In nearby trees, birds trilled cheerfully, a few proudly warbling their lilting songs with no regard to the natural somberness of the location. A squirrel darted up a tree trunk, sparing the man a wary glance before winding its way up the bark. The grass glimmered emerald under the subdued reflection of the rising sun behind the clouds.
"I… found out, you know. That you were pregnant."
He paused for a reply that would never come, then continued. "I don't know why you never told me – maybe you didn't get a chance to, maybe it was just never the right time. I guess there's no way to know. But, Jack…"
Flashes of fire and explosive force and screaming (and breaking into multitudes of jagged shards falling to the ground and never able to be repaired, the fracture lines in the glass as wrinkles on weary skin) overwhelmed his vision for a second, and he bowed his head.
"I got you killed, Jack," the man whispered in anguish. "And your baby, too. Because of me, your child will never say their first word, never make their first friend, never graduate high school, never go onto college and find a job or get married and settle down or grow old," he vaguely noticed that his fists were clenched and his arms shaking. "Never live their life. Instead, I'm here, and I shouldn't be. You guys – you guys deserved better. Than me."
The cemetery abruptly seemed even more desolate and empty than before. The man looked out upon the featureless grave markers, indistinguishable from each other as they blurred into the distance. So many lives lost, cut short. So many memories and experiences never made, so many souls that would never grow old, forever remembered exactly as they once were by those left living.
The drizzling rain had started to soak through his clothes. The man stood up, movements clumsy and slow as if a great weight burdened his shoulders. "I'm so tired, Jack," he said. "I feel as if, every year, more of who I used to be slips away. I fear that you might not even recognize me, at this point. I don't." He uncurled his fists and thrust his hands into his pockets, affecting a casual slouch to hide his disquiet. "I'm as old as you were now, Jack. Isn't that funny? Maybe… maybe it's finally my turn to die. And if it's not, then I'll grow old for the both of us, and never forget."
He turned and took a few halting steps away, then stopped. His back still to her grave, he said, "I found a poem called "For the Fallen" with a few stanzas that you might like. The lines go,
'Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.'
Doesn't that sound nice? It makes it sound like there was some kind of - greater purpose. To your death. I know there wasn't – but it's comforting to think. Is there music where you are, Jack? I hope so. I know you loved to blast the radio at home."
This time he didn't wait for a reply, but strode out of the graveyard with grief visibly dogging every stop. At the gate, he whispered, "I'm sorry, Jack," and then he was gone.
At 0900, Agent Alex Rider was at his desk at MI6, proofreading a mission report and intelligence analysis from a standard recon in Bulgaria the week prior. The lines of his face were drawn and weary. Though his eyes were focused on the computer screen in front of him, a disturbing kind of blankness lurked within his gaze. At 1100, he presented the report personally to the Intelligence Command chief (third in command to MI6 after Mrs. Jones' rookie deputy, Howard Kentz, who no one wanted to deal with because he was an arrogant, uncompassionate man appointed solely through the politics of outside influences). At 1200, he ate lunch, dispassionately consuming the sustenance while still seated at his desk, emotionless gaze fixed on the far wall. At 1230, he began the task of pulling together intelligence on a nearby hotspot to prepare for another recon mission the following day. At 1700, he safely secured anything that was clearance level two or above and left the office.
He was doing fine. Alex was a skilled, experienced spy, and had the recognition and responsibilities within MI6 appropriate to his level. He was good at danger, good at dealing with powerful people, good at functioning in intense, pressurized environments that others would have no hope of coping with.
So why did it feel increasingly often like he was dreaming? He found himself fantasizing with more and more frequency that he was a drop of the drizzling rain in the graveyard, plummeting to earth and being absorbed by the ground. What would it feel like to disappear into the soil?
He saw glimpses of Jack everywhere, sometimes accompanied by a silvery, charming laughter that could only be her lost baby.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, she would chant, sing-song, at him – just around the corner, but never there when he hastened beyond it. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn, she would continue as his thoughts wandered to her when he wrote the section of the report for the most recently disastrous mission that ended in six casualties. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.
She knew him too well, knew that at the beginning of every day he recited to himself the names of all the lives that he had a responsibility to live for, knew that at the end of the day he recited to himself those same names before retiring to a restless, uneasy sleep.
One day, Agent Alex Rider checked himself into the suicide watch ward at St. Mathews' psychiatric ward with only a slight tremble in his shoulders and a paleness in his face to betray his shaken composure. It was exactly one year since his last visit to the graveyard. That day he had turned 28. This day, he turned 29. His face was set and hard, resembling the features, aged and altered by the stresses of violence and war, of combat veterans decades his senior. He was not the Alex Rider, teen spy extraordinaire, that most of his previous life (his normal life) remembered him as.
A few particular lines of conversation stuck in the mind of the first doctor to conduct a psychological evaluation of the enervated man.
"Why did you come here, Mr. Rider?"
"Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn," Alex said. "I am weary, and condemned for my actions many times over. It is so tempting – to become one of them."
The doctor blinked. "I see."
Alex's mouth twisted upwards in a dark, sardonic smile. "Do you, Dr. Hathaway?" Do you really?
For those who don't know, Jack presumably died at 29 years old (we are never given a date of birth for her, so it's a little unclear). That's why the years 28-29 were significant to Alex.
If you liked it, please let me know! And while you're at it, please click that li'l Story Fav button - it only takes a second, and it makes me happy... don't you want to brighten someone's day? *puppy-dog eyes*