A/N. This fic started out as a simple companion piece to Ash Like Snow. Then it stole a couple of plot mecha and mutated before finally eating my brain sometime last year. This fic, unlike ALS, is not finished. I'm still working on it and it takes a long time to write so updates will be sparodic at best. I have eight chapters typed but far from polished and who knows how many more to go. Also, let it be known that, like ALS, there are times I have ignored what is now known as canon for one reason or another, either because it wasn't known when I was writing, did not fit with what had been written and would have been dificult to change or it plain did not make sense to my mind. And, as final last point, the fic title comes from a song by David Bowie, every chapter title is a line from it, not in order, it's from the recording that was done for BBC Radio back in 1970 and it differs slightly in lyrics from the version that was released on the Space Oddity album.

That said, on with the show.

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.

Chapter 00: As The Sparrow Sings Dawn Chorus

There were gun shots, people yelling, screaming in pain and panic, people in uniforms trying to help or hinder or both, he couldn't quite tell which, but it all seemed to amount to the same thing: people carted away in ambulances and police vans and a street full of frustration and anger, littered with torn banners, scrap metal and tears.

He watched with a mixture of fear and awe, wanting so much to look away but unable to do so as the reporter droned on in the background. He'd only come down for a glass of water, and if he was gone too long Lyle was sure to come and see what the hold up was, he knew that, but he was still stood in the doorway watching the news.

It was one thing to hear about it second or third hand, but another thing entirely to see it like this. He heard about it all, day in and day out, warnings from teachers and reports on the boards, front-page headlines of newspapers, no one ever had anything good to say about the people warring on the streets and tearing up the city, but no one could agree on who was right and who was wrong, everyone had different opinions. Sometimes he'd even heard their father cursing one group or another when he thought that they were all safe and asleep in bed.

As a young child that was when he'd known these people were bad, and, staring at the TV screen now five years later he could see it too, and agreed and had to wonder why it was happening. Why did people purposefully go out of their way to hurt each other like this? It wasn't like the times when he and Lyle would fight over the remote or the game controller, or even that one time they'd got into a fight with that one group in the playground last year over something derogatory one of them had said. It had been short and rough and had ended in skinned knees and split lips and all of them had been lectured repeatedly and put in detention for a week, but it was nothing like this. This was just brutal and the people in the street were outnumbered by those in uniform and there didn't seem to be any reason why they should still be fighting.

"Mam," he said, voicing the thoughts on his mind, still staring at the screen, "Why're they still fightin'? It's stupid."

His mother looked up from her careful work fixing the hole Amy had torn in her jeans when they had been playing in the park before dinner. Amy had never been afraid to try and match her two older brothers step for step and blow for blow. For a child of little more than ten years of age Amy Dylandy had one hell of a right hook, but she refused to tell anyone which of the twins had taught her it.

Neil could never quite be sure if their parents had been angry or quietly impressed when they had found out through a letter from school, detailing a fight their daughter had been in and won, hitting another student for saying things which did not belong on school grounds, or anywhere else for that matter. Both children had been lectured by the school, and the twins too by their parents, whichever one of them it had been that had taught Amy to punch, because they weren't telling either and personally both of them had never been prouder of their little sister. They now knew she could take care of herself once they'd gone on to secondary school and wouldn't be able to keep an eye on her from across the hall as they had done before.

An almost sad smile crossed Lindsay's face at the look in her son's eyes as she put down her darning, "Some people are just foolish like that, they can't see there's better ways ta do things."

"Then someone should tell 'em."

"People've tried, love, but they just won't listen to reason." She shook her head. "It's all been goin' on for too long, I don't think they know any other way ta communicate anymore."

"But," he gestured towards the screen, "they're involvin' innocent people out there; at least when we get in a fight we don't go hurtin' anyone that don't deserve it."

"You still shouldn't be fighting at all," she replied sternly, but the rebuke was lacking some of the usual fire. She sounded more tired, and maybe even worried.

"'Tis only if they really deserve it, well, 'sides for that one guy last week that thought Lyle were me…" He paused for a moment, remembering the look of frustration bordering on something else entirely that he couldn't name on his twin's face and changed his mind. "Nah, he definitely deserved it too."

"Neil!"

He had the decency to look at least a little guilty, "I know, sorry Mam, but still, what we did, it's nothin' like them…" He trailed off, back to watching the news broadcast, his smile slipping.

"What's wrong?"

The concern was impossible to miss, and as much as he wanted to say it was nothing, get the water and go before Lyle came looking, he couldn't. Surely by now Lyle had been roped into telling Amy a story or two before an overdue bedtime. He had a little time yet, right?

"They're fightin' over what that politician said the other day ain't they? It's been all over school all week an' Lyle and me weren't the only ones gettin' in trouble. A lot of people were sayin' things they shouldn't have, sayin' we shouldn't be here only with more words and cursin'." His own words were getting faster as he recalled the fight which had only been avoided earlier that day by the timely intervention of their history teacher reminding them that class was about to start and to get gone if they didn't want to be in any more trouble than they already were. "Danny were sayin' that his brother was goin' ta find 'em an' show 'em, an' they'd all get what were comin' to 'em, an' that the lot down at the protests wouldn't the last, an'-" He stopped himself dead, not knowing what his mother would make of what else the other boy had said. Danny's brother was only a couple of years older than him and Lyle, not even out of school.

"And..?" she asked, putting her work down and gesturing for her son to leave the doorway and come and join her, something which he gladly did, perching on the arm of the sofa. Normally he'd have been told off for such a thing, despite how much of a habit both he and Lyle had made of it, granted it was partly just to wind their mother up, but it had become habit nonetheless. "What else did he say, Neil?"

"Danny said he's got a gun."

"Did you report him?"

He shook his head, "Nah, I think Mr Richards overheard him, or at least heard enough given the way he were lookin' at him when told him ta stay behind after class, but it don't change anythin', there's nothin' he could've done about Danny's brother and there's nothin' that can be done about the people on the news that're gettin' hurt just for bein' themselves an' asking for fairness, 'cause others are stupid and can't see it's all wrong, so the politicians go makin' bad decisions an' it all starts over an' it's just gettin' worse and worse, ain't it? It ain't right, and," his voice dropped to barely more than a whisper as he stared at the floor, "I'm scared, Mam, for you an' Da an' Lyle an' Amy, an' for Grandma and Grandpa, it's just not…right. It's not supposed ta be like this." He looked up again, meeting his mother's gaze as she wrapped her arms around him and he was glad Lyle was still upstairs. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. "It's meant ta be peaceful now, that's what they're always sayin' in school an' at church, right? So, why ain't it? Why ain't it true, Mam?"

"As you said, people are foolish, love, they can't see what's right in front of them, and most of them don't even want change as sad a fact as it is." Her voice was gentle and he could hear her kind smile it in. "But there's nothin' for you to worry about, okay? They're not here and we're not going there and those children at school are all talk, an' I can tell you Danny's mother will have had his hide by now, and his brother's as well for such foolish rumours, so I want you to do something for me: leave them both alone, just ignore them okay? They're not worth your time, and it's not worth you gettin' in trouble as well."

"He would've deserved it if we'd hit him."

"Violence isn't the answer ta everythin', you know that, you an' Lyle both. You need to set a good example for your sister."

"I know all that, and I try, really I do, but they don't and they say stuff that'd get me in more trouble if I repeat it so I won't, they're the ones that need ta be told, not me, they're the stupid ones."

"They are, but there's nothin' we can do about it. However, you an' Lyle can still set a good example for them. Otherwise it just has to be left to the authorities to deal with-"

"But Da says they're all useless! They're no help, they just ignore it and it gets worse and when they do help they're no help because they go an' do things like that!" He pointed at the TV, the news recap, and the chaos that was printed all over it. "An' more people get hurt because everyone starts fightin' and yellin' and killin' again and-"

He had to try hard not to start yelling as well, he couldn't be scaring or worrying Lyle or Amy, he didn't want anyone to worry, but he could still hear the reporters and see the images on the screen of something that was happening not so far away and it was just report after report, just because of something stupid someone had said about things which weren't meant to matter anymore. It should have all been history, nothing but words on the pages of textbooks. He'd seen what had happened in the past, he'd paid attention in class when Lyle had fallen asleep and he could see history on the TV again only now they had more weapons, bigger weapons, and it was a frustrating and terrifying prospect and he hadn't even known there were tears in his eyes until his mother was silently wiping them away.

"'Tis okay, Niall, shhh…" She spoke softly and he felt like a child, especially when she called him that, as she had when he'd been small and Lyle had been ill with flu and he'd stayed up all night by his brother's side. She had called him Niall and said they hadn't been wrong, he was their little champion, and he'd liked how it sounded. Only his mother and grandmother ever got to call him Niall though, the first student who had tried had found themselves with a black eye. He wanted to live up to his name, he wanted be strong, for her and for his brother and sister, he was the eldest, it was his responsibility to be strong for everyone else when their father was away at work. "Everyone's here an' safe, there's nothin' ta worry yourself about. Those people'll protest and argue and yes, they'll fight, but we won't and we'll be safe, and all the fuss'll fade away again."

"But it don't ever go away completely, there's still stuff on the news, it just don't make the headlines, does it? It's still there an' it keeps on comin' back."

There was a hesitation but she still answered honestly, because she knew he knew the answer already.

"No, it doesn't end, but we can still hope an' pray for it."

"But when will that be, when will it end?"

"I don't know, Niall, no one can-"

"Neil, what's takin' you so long?" Lyle hollered down the stairs, his tone less than amused and more than slightly annoyed.

"Just comin'!" he yelled back, jumping down from the arm of the sofa, scrubbing at his eyes. "Please don't tell Lyle, or Da when he gets back, what I said?"

"I won't." Lindsay had already picked up her work again, smiling in her all knowing way and he knew it wouldn't matter if she told his father; she'd still keep his tears a secret. "And don't stay up too late, either of you, remember we're going to the shopping centre tomorrow – Amy needs a new summer dress after your adventures in the park last Sunday."

He managed a guilty smile in return at the subtle reprimand, "Sorry about that…"

"That's okay, just be more careful in the future."

"We will," he agreed and, quickly kissing his mother on the cheek, adding before running off to grab the water and argue with his brother, "I love you, Mam."

There was nothing but the sound of his breathing and the ticking of his watch to break the stillness of the afternoon inside the cold, dusty apartment where he'd set up. Crouched with his back to the broken window occasionally looking up to watch and listen with only half a mind as to what was happening down below. The room was perfectly still and quiet. He'd also found the cold didn't bother him and he closed his eyes, the familiar weight of the rifle in his gloved hands, just content to wait and listen and not hear a thing as he counted slowly to ten.

He opened his eyes again, turned and took aim, careful and measured as his hands moved through the now familiar routine, thinking nothing of it at all, coming to rest lightly over the trigger. He could see the target clearly, sticking out like a sore thumb among the others in the street, a fake grin on his face, lies on his tongue and a gun in his back pocket which he'd stolen at sixteen and wielded badly in a protest which had become a riot the day before the bombing. The brother of someone who once might have been a friend, but was now six feet under, just like so many others.

"Feckin' bastard deserves it."

He didn't hear anything in the silent, dusty room, but the crack of a gunshot was heard all down the street as the body hit the tarmac, bullet to the head, dead before he knew it, and everything was thrown into chaos, people running everywhere, scattering, confused and scared. People in suits, people with guns, people spouting nonsense and insults and no one saw him leave, bag slung over one shoulder.

There were gun shots, people yelling, screaming in pain and panic, people in uniforms trying to help or hinder or both, he couldn't quite care which, but it all seemed to amount to the same thing: people carted away in ambulances and police vans and a street full of frustration and anger, littered with torn banners, scrap metal and tears.