Part 4:

I took to the air as first light broke over the city, leaving my perch in search of breakfast. There was a cold bite to the morning air that didn't quite fade as the sun climbed. I realized then that it was truly time to go South, I could delay no longer. I flitted about, stretching my wings and alighting every couple of blocks on convenient perches to look for likely spots to catch breakfast.

It hadn't frozen hard yet, but the trees were ready for winter and the insects were becoming noticeably thinner on the ground. I managed to find and catch my fill anyway. While I crunched a particularly juicy stinkbug, I began to make plans for my departure. I decided that I should go see the man earlier today and bid him farewell. Then I could take my last looks around the city for the season, pay a final visit to the library and be on my way South before sunset

My thoughts wandered as I finished off my breakfast, and I wondered if the man had eaten yet. Was he hungry? Where did he hunt for his food? I didn't know humans that well, but I certainly saw a lot of them, and I supposed this one looked like it could stand a little fattening up. After giving it several minutes of careful thought, I decided that I would bring the man something to eat. After all, he had shared his delicious bread with me before, I should repay the favor.

I hunted around, passing up several smaller, less choice bugs until I found something worth of presenting to the man. I plucked up a juicy grasshopper, pinching it securely in my beak undaunted by its desperate wriggling. I flew over the city, seeking out the alley where I had met the strange human, finding him just where I had left him. I chirped around my full beak to get his attention. The man startled a little but when he saw me he made his smile face-expression at me. I fluttered down and dropped my gift in front of him, trilling happily as I hopped back so that he would know that it was his to take. The grasshopper was still alive, fresh, though one of its back legs had been mangled by my beak and it squirmed futilely on the ground, trying to tip itself upright.

He watched it, but didn't move to take it right away. I encouraged him with another trill, bobbing up and down a little. Finally, he reached slowly down and picked it up between two fingers. He stared at it for several seconds, looking back and forth between his present and me as I watched him expectantly. He slipped the grasshopper into his coat pocket and patted it, saying something to me. It was the pocket where the bread was before, where he must keep his food. I had seen humans keep food before – it was a silly mammal thing.

He withdrew a small piece of bread from the same pocket and offered it to me. I wasn't particularly hungry, having had breakfast on my way there, but I could hardly turn down tasty bread and I'd be flying a great ways soon. I might not have time to stop as often as I'd like to eat, so I took it and snapped it up.

The man offered his hand to me and I hopped up onto it, wrapping my claws securely around the proffered digits. I realized that I had to tell him I was going south. I couldn't really speak to him but surely humans were aware of our seasonal movements, they themselves certainly noted the change in weather, donning thicker coverings when they moved about outside their dwellings. I tried at first to explain with some simple signals, chirps and hops, lifting his hand slightly and twisting to the South. He did not seem to understand and simply watched me with obvious confusion. When I had exhausted all my ideas, I simply perched, with my head dipped in disappointment. I was entirely at a loss for a means of communicating my meaning to the man.

My saving grace arrived just at that moment through. As a flock of Canadian Geese flew almost directly overhead, their distinctive "V" formation pointed determinedly south. We both lifted our heads to follow the path of the noisily honking creatures. I seized my chance and fluttered for his attention, opening my wings and pointing my beak after the geese as they disappeared over the rooftops. Finally he seemed to understand – or at least I hoped he did. I could hardly telegraph my intentions more plainly then that.

He said something that had my name in it and stroked one of his fingers, (longer than my whole body), more gently than I'd have thought him capable, over my head and down my back. He made a small, calculated gesture with the hand I was sitting on, tossing me carefully into the air. As I lifted myself above the rooftops, I looked back at him and silently promised to come back for him in the spring - promised not to forget him.

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John blinked down at the bug on the ground in front of him. The bird, Harold now, he supposed, chirped and bobbed its head in a way that he strongly suspected was meant to be encouraging. He picked up the insect gingerly and inspected it. It struggled, one leg dangling uselessly while the others kicked and wriggled in a vain struggle for freedom. He looked back at Harold, but the bird merely chirped at him again.

Realization dawns. It's a gift. Not just a gift, its food.

John's stomach rolled as he watched the grasshopper in his grip. He imagined it kicking and twitching its way down his gullet. John realized that he hadn't felt that sort of sensation in a long, long time. Not when he'd executed men and women, when he'd shot guard, target, and witnesses alike - Not even when his own partner had shot him in cold blood. He'd been so cold and then so empty when it was all over. He hadn't thought he'd be able to feel like that anymore, but none the less, he felt that twist in his gut over a maimed bug of all things. He could hardly believe it… Maybe there was hope for him yet.

He slipped the grasshopper into one of his coat pockets and patted the outside of it lightly, hoping that the bird would think he was saving it for later and stop giving him that disconcertingly intense stare. (It was actually starting to become a little unnerving.) He could dispose of the poor insect later when Harold had gone so he wouldn't hurt his friend's feelings. He fished out a morsel of bread from his pocket, offered it in thanks, and when Harold accepted it he offered his hand as a perch.

John lifted him up and inspected him closely, turning his hand slightly to get a better look at Harold's sides and back. The ghost of a smile crept onto John's features as he observed the bird twist its neck to keep watching him steadily, tilting it's head in that distinctly avian way. John leaned in close to see the edges of the fine chocolate colored feathers that covered Harold's head and back. His smile broadening as he noted the stark stripe of white that arched over each of Harold's eyes like an eyebrow giving the bird a permanently concerned and slightly fierce expression. Harold seemed to return John's scrutiny, head twitching minutely from side to side as he studied the human's strange, featherless face. Taking in the soft fleshy beak above the mouth and lingering on slightly hollow grey eyes.

John was startled when Harold began chirping and flapping animatedly, twisting his body. He stopped after a minute and fixed his expectant gaze on the human. John was at a loss. He couldn't even begin to guess what Harold was trying to communicate. After a few more minutes of confusion they were interrupted by the distinct honks of a flight of geese passing overhead. John looked up at them, noting the V of their flight formation pointing due south. A frantic flutter of activity on his hand drew his attention back to Harold. When their gazes me again, Harold abruptly stopped his fluttering, instead throwing out his wings and pointing with his beak steadily after the departing geese. Suddenly it dawns on John exactly what Harold wants him to understand. He sized up the little bird perched on his finger and couldn't imagine such a delicate creature braving the bitter New York winter. As it was, the downy feathers covering his body were already perpetually slightly puffed to ward off the steadily cooling weather.

"I guess it's time for you to fly south then. Huh, little finch? Guess I'll see you when you get back then, Harold."

In truth, John held little hope of seeing the bird again. Surely the fact that it had returned to him so many times already was just some kind of fluke. The separation of a whole season would surely be time enough to make the creature forget, or at least lose interest in him. Though years of practice in espionage kept entirely off his features, there was a decidedly bitter twist in his stomach at the realization.

John reached out and with impossible care, stroked down the feathers of Harold's back and silently wished him a safe trip to whatever, more temperate destination he had in mind. With the slightest tossing gesture, he lofted Harold into the air as the bird caught the idea and spread his wings.

John watched him go with a decidedly wistful smile on his lips, gazing out into the cloudless, blue sky long after the shape of the tiny bird had disappeared over the rooftops. He reached blindly down and picked up the half full bottle that had been resting all but forgotten against the wall there. Gazing at his own distorted reflection in the glass, he also noticed the reflected flashes of pale blue along the neck of the bottle. John spent a moment pondering the endless sky and his only friend that had disappeared into it before he brought the bottle to his lips and drained it in one go.

No doubt about it, it was going to be a bad winter.

Notes:

This chapter was actually supposed to end with something even more tragic than this, if you can imagine, but this chapter just sort of wrote itself to a natural close and it didn't seem right to tack the next part on to it.
I finally to to talk about wren eyebrow markings, you don't even know how long I've been waiting for an appropriate opportunity to slip that in there.
Also I'm going to come clean and admit this now, and this may forever scar your tender memory of the scene in this fic... But I've clearly read to much fanfic smut because while I was writing the bits about Harold perching on John's hand, every time I tried to mention John's fingers it kept sounding like porn, no matter what I did. The next morning my best friend was treated to about three texts of me flipping out about it at 3am.

Anyway, hopefully the next chapter shouldn't be such a long wait, I've got it partially outlined already and I know pretty well how the rest should go, no great looming dilemmas to hold it up.

Thanks for reading guys, and feel free to leave me a review and/or drop me a line about anything, including spelling, grammar, typos etc. I have one reader who is kind enough to send me corrections pretty quickly usually, but I don't actually have a beta, so they're there...