um. ok yeah so this is almost a year late and i am very sorry. i started writing this and almost didn't finish, but i decided to post it anyway because i had said i would. anyways, enjoy this little tidbit :)

Soundtrack: "You"— Keaton Henson.

Disclaimer: now im even broker than before so i still dont own this

Note: nada

Warning: nada

peace out readers~

Epilogue (Et Ende)

"If you must leave,

Leave as though fire burns under your feet

If you must speak,

Speak every word as though it were unique

If you must die, sweetheart

Die knowing your life was my life's best part

And if you must die,

Remember your life."

In the cold chill of a brutal London morning, two grey figures moved silently over the cobbled ground. The pavement was cracked with bloated blocks of ice, and the sky hung like a heavy death shroud over the grey, dull city. The blots of grey moved slowly, lingering by a lamppost, and their hands touched only pinky to pinky. They shuddered in the wind, holding upturned collars to their red chins. They stood waiting at the door of a large and ancient building. About them swarmed a few men with notepads, a few others with bulky cameras. The reporters huddled by the steps of the buildings, the newsboys and the journalists veering to the back.

There was going to be a verdict.

One of the journalists was complaining about the weather. He caught sight of the two kids dressed in such drab garb, lingering by the entrance, and frowned at them.

"You hear for the verdict?" he asked, and the boy with the dark hair nodded.

And then, the doors swung open. The flurry of reporters pounced at them, jumping at the figures storming from the building. First there was a stout man—a lawyer, probably, screaming over the journalists that his client would not be answering any questions. Behind him strolled a young man with hair so red it looked like blood against the oncoming grey storm. He stood straight, smug, adjusting his tailored suit, and then he was smiling, waving at the reporters as he was rushed into a car.

Jack Merridew had been found guilty on all counts.

His mother wept behind him—not for her son's stolen life, but for the shame that fell on her name. His father, as redheaded as he, scowled, pushing one reporter's camera into his face so that he stumbled and fell backwards.

Slowly—more slowly than anything—others filed out. A blonde woman clutching a handkerchief, leaning half-heartedly against her slender and handsome husband. Mr. and Mrs. Thorne were good-looking folk, of course, but so was their son Bill.

Simon's family were small and slight. His mother was a disarray, mostly unsure about what was happening, and it was his bearded father that managed to tear the reporters from her. They'd decided against bringing his seven-year-old sister—she was, after all, never as batty as Simon. These weren't things any child needed to witness.

And then of course was the stout and sobbing form of Ms. Eileen Wimble, the mother of a brave and clever boy named Nathaniel.

Nobody recognized her nephew's name when it was read with the other names of the dead. When she asked why, she learned it was because he'd had a different name—Piggy, as it went. Her Nathaniel, who went tumbling to his grave, did not even have a name in death.

The rest followed, the mothers and fathers of dead sons, the many boys who had been executed by the chief, who had died of sickness and injury, who had lost their lives in the final battle before they were rescued. There were more than anyone imagined, and they'd all been pinned to one person—which, if anyone was being honest, was not entirely true.

No one was sure why Jack Merridew had claimed the deaths of those he had not killed—Piggy, for one thing, and a few in the battle. He wove a tale of absolutism, said he'd had his second-in-command, Sebastian Morse, stabbed. He'd taken culpability for all of it, everything, and he'd done so with a smile on his face.

Maybe it was the cameras, flashing in the dim afternoon, or maybe it was the headlines—Stranded Boy Leads Dozens of Boys to Death. Oh yes, he'd always liked the attention. He'd always liked being the best. He'd always liked for everyone to know his name.

He could, after all, hit the highest note in choir.

As the families of the deceased dispersed, content but somehow disparaged by the verdict, and as Jack Merridew was escorted into a car that would whiz him away to his life long imprisonment, the reporters eased back into their trucks and their cars and they too disappeared. The cameras stopped flashing, the newsboys stopped peppering questions, and the journalists grew bored of the vague statements the lawyers gave.

But the two grey figures remained.

When all the people had left, one last figure descended down the cold, grey stairs. He was tall, his blonde hair swept up beneath a dusty cap. He walked with a limp he'd incurred from a nasty war injury in the Mediterranean. The rugged features of his face were waxen and pale, and the smirk he used to have somehow simmered away. It wasn't surprising, after all—

He was alone.

He walked with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, itching for a smoke, and when he rounded the corner, he caught sight of the two people standing below.

"You hear the verdict?" he asked. He knew who they were.

The girl nodded. "Yeah. Guilty, as it should be."

The man scoffed. "Right."

And then he was off, wandering aimlessly to another pub, hoping that the gin and the bourbon and the vodka would ease his pain (it wouldn't).

The two grey figures watched after him, and then second turned to the first and whispered, "Who was that?"

There was a long moment before the former answered in a meek, small voice: "Ralph's dad."

Peter Adler lost his wife to an affliction of the lung, his eldest son Jeremy to a German fighter pilot, and his youngest boy to a redhead who called himself Chief. In the end, he'd stopped counting God's grievances against him.

It had started to rain.

Somewhere, in some place not so far away, things were probably better. They knew this now—those two sad, grey figures—and as they clutched hands, they teetered down the frozen sidewalk, hearts heavy and heads bent in thought. They didn't talk much, not really—

There wasn't much to say.

Far away, their friend Maurice was in another military academy, learning French and studying the Mayans and hating Hitler. Far away, their friend Sam was sitting in his room, quilt drawn to his chin, shuddering and lonely and not okay. Far away, their friend Robert was traveling to Asia, to Australia, to America—anywhere but England.

Far away, things were probably better.

Or at least, that's what they liked to think, laying side by side in their shoddy bed, the small and quiet snores of their son soft in the distance. They liked to think that Maurice didn't contemplate bashing his head against the wall everyday, that Sam didn't linger by an open window for a minute too long, that Robert never looked at the open ocean and wondered where everybody went after death.

They liked to think that Peter Adler wouldn't go home and drink too much of this, take too many pills of that, cut deeper than he had before.

In the grey twilight, the girl looked at the boy, into those grey eyes, and remembered she was alive. And then she squeezed his hand and smiled.

Far away, things would get better.

And Roger and Louise would be happy.

A/N: adios.

Ende.