In the very early hours of December 17, Wolfgang Mittermeyer has a dream.

He walks outside at night, down a cobblestone path, through a garden. He thinks it is perhaps one of the many courtyards of Neue Sanssouci, but it isn't one that looks familiar to him. Perhaps distinguishing landmarks are obscured by the darkness, or perhaps it is simply unrecognizable in the way that dream landscapes often are, being stitched together from bits and pieces. It is a warm spring night and the sky is cloudless, filled with far more stars than usual.

Something is troubling him, but in the space of the dream he can't remember what it is. Perhaps that is a relief. He keeps walking.

After some time, he becomes aware that there are footsteps behind him, matching him step for step. This doesn't bother him at all. In fact, he is glad to have company.

"Do you mind if I walk with you?" Reuenthal asks.

"Of course not," Mittermeyer says. He finds himself unable or unwilling to turn and smile at his closest friend, but he feels comforted when Reuenthal steps up next to him, and they continue side by side.

"You were too slow, Gale Wolf. I had hoped to have a drink with you before I left."

"We can go inside and have one now," Mittermeyer protests, though he knows even before he hears Reuenthal's response that the answer will be no.

"I'd rather stay out here," Reuenthal says. "There are many simple pleasures in life, including a last walk at night in the garden."

"Hm. You always get morbid when you get poetic. I'd rather you didn't."

"It's a little late to warn against morbidity." Late again.

They are silent for a long time, and gradually Mittermeyer becomes aware of what has been troubling him, and aware that this is a dream. He wishes that he could turn and look at Reuenthal, see him full and alive once again, but the fear that he would see no one, or a corpse, prevents him. It is the sound of footsteps and quiet breathing beside him that provide the only reassurance that he has. The world seems hyperreal around him, crystal clear despite the gloom of the night, and he tries to fix it in his memory, to hold onto this dream for when he will inevitably wake.

"I'm sorry," Mittermeyer says, breaking the silence.

"There's no need to apologize," Reuenthal says. "I've been too proud to ask for forgiveness. Why should you start now?"

"Because I want your forgiveness."

"There's nothing for me to forgive you for."

Mittermeyer doesn't believe that for a second, but he doesn't want to argue. "Why did you do it?" he asks instead, perhaps an even more deeply fraught conversation topic.

"History is written in blood," Reuenthal says. "This time, it happened to be written in mine. I had to play the role that was given to me."

"You could have asked Kaiser-"

"I was not going to beg," Reuenthal says. "Please don't tell me that I should have." Mittermeyer is silent for a second, and Reuenthal continues, filling up the silence with his rich voice. "Even if I had bowed my head this time, it would have been something else later. You don't need me to remind you to watch your back." Bergengrun had already reminded him of that fact.

"Why you, though?"

It takes a moment for Reuenthal to answer. There is a bitter kind of smile present in his voice. "Because I am not a good person. It's easy to make a man like me into the enemy. It's been that way since I was born."

"It shouldn't have been this way."

"No? What way would you have preferred it to be?"

Mittermeyer doesn't have an answer. There is a feeling inside his chest, living somewhere right below his collarbone, that held all his previously fervent hope and his current aching regret, but he can't turn it into words. He is, like Reuenthal had said once, also just a coarse warrior, and not a poet.

Reuenthal continues. "It might have been better if the Tristan had taken more of a direct hit. Faster, anyway. But I was able to put my affairs in order, and spare you too much trouble. So you can pay me back for the favor of living that long."

"How?"

"You know how."

Mittermeyer remembers the child, who is so new as to have not inserted himself deeply into the fabric of his thoughts, at least not in this dream. "Oh. Yes." He spares one moment for a practical consideration. "Where do you want to be buried?"

Apparently, Reuenthal is startled by this line of questioning, because he laughs. "Bury the dead where they're found."

"On Heinessen?"

Reuenthal sighs. "No. It would only cause you problems if my grave there became a symbol against the Empire. Phezzan then, if Mein Kaiser will have me. Or Odin. Not with my family. It doesn't matter." It seems to amuse him, the idea that an Imperial Fleet Admiral's grave might be a troublesome gathering spot for republicans.

"It does matter," Mittermeyer says.

"Then you pick. Don't inconvenience yourself on my behalf."

There are so many things he wants to ask, so many things that he wants to say to his best friend, but he doesn't want to somehow say anything that would cause the dream to collapse.

"You were always my better half," Reuenthal says. "I trust that you can go on."

"I don't have half your talent."

"But you beat me."

"Only because-"

"It doesn't matter, Wolf," Reuenthal says, which shocks Mittermeyer into silence. "Don't blame yourself for my loss. It was destiny, and a role that we both played, and we played it well, didn't we?"

Mittermeyer silently nods.

"If it had been your blood that history was written in, it would have been a worse story, and a longer one." Reuenthal trails off for a second. "And I wouldn't be able to conduct myself well," he says finally. "You can."

"Why do you say that?"

"You have something else to live for. What did I have? Myself, my staff, the Kaiser, you." Again, Reuenthal pauses. What follows seems to Mittermeyer like a non-sequitur. "Pride is a selfish emotion, and I indulge in it because it is easy."

"But it must not have been easy."

"No. It wasn't." He laughs, a sound which shatters the tight ball in Mittermeyer's chest. Hot tears are in his eyes but not yet on his cheeks, and, for the first time, he turns to look at his friend. Reuenthal seems alive, just the way that Mittermeyer remembers him, a strange and wondrous light in his mismatched eyes. Reuenthal smiles at him, but Mittermeyer can't smile back. If he moves his face at all the wall will crumble, and he'll be crying like a baby. He wants to reach out and touch Reuenthal, but he can't move. He's frozen in place in the dream, trying to drink this image in for one last time.

"You and Kircheis were always the best of us," Reuenthal says. "The universe is a cruel place." He shakes his head. "If the universe was asking us to choose, each of our pairs who would live and who would die, Kircheis and the Kaiser, you and I… I am glad that at least our half ended this way."

"Reuenthal!" Mittermeyer says, again shocked, but this time into his familiar anger. "Why do you have to say things like that? You say your pride is your problem, then act like it!" He shakes his head, unwilling to hear Reuenthal speak this way about himself.

Reuenthal smiles again. "I'm glad this hasn't quenched all your fire. I'm sure you'll need it."

Mittermeyer's fists are clenched. "You can't leave me," he says. "I need you."

"No, you don't."

In a move that surprises Mittermeyer, Reuenthal reaches between them and takes one of Mittermeyer's hands in his own. Reuenthal's hands are soft and cold. "I should go," Reuenthal says. "I won't darken your doorstep any more."

"It was never darkening it," Mittermeyer says. His throat is closed with emotion. He wants to grip Reuenthal's hand, but Reuenthal is holding it in such a way that prevents him from moving.

Reuenthal looks at him and smiles, a genuine emotion. "Goodbye, Wolf," he says.

In a move that he would have never dared to make while he was alive or real, and in a motion that will haunt Mittermeyer's thoughts for the rest of his life, Reuenthal raises Mittermeyer's hand and presses it to his lips, placing a light kiss on Mittermeyer's fingers. Slowly, he lowers it and lets go. Mittermeyer is frozen in place, unable to speak, and Reuenthal looks into his eyes for a second, then turns, vanishing into the darkness of the garden.

When Mittermeyer tries to run after him, he stumbles, feeling the sensation of the ground vanishing from underneath him as it often does as wakes from dreams. And then he's awake, in his thin bed on the Beowulf, taking shuddering breaths in the suddenly oppressive darkness. There are tears in his eyes, and he's kicked off all his blankets.

He stands and walks over to the "crib" that's been put together for the baby, sleeping soundly, little fists clenched and toes curled. He's so perfect and small, and all that's left of his father.

Mittermeyer sits down at his desk, leans his head in his hands, and weeps.

Reinhard also dreams of Reuenthal, though his dream is a feverish one, and short. He lays in bed, drenched in sweat. In the moments between consciousness and unconsciousness, he feels an ice cold hand on his forehead, perhaps the breaking of his fever.

"Mein Kaiser," Reuenthal says, his voice warm and full of affection.

Reinhard stills, eyes closed, and sinks down into a dreamless, sound sleep.

Author's Notes

The episode titles "Live by the Sword..." / "Die by the Sword" is a variation on a quotation from Matthew 26. In that quote, Jesus rebukes one of his followers for cutting off the ear of one of the soldiers who come to arrest him. Anyway, that scene in the bible takes place in a garden, Gethsemane, hence the garden here. Of course, Reuenthal is not a very good analogue for any particular biblical figure :p

Third person present is a very dreamlike tense imo.

Title is from Sufjan Stevens' song, Death with Dignity.

Is it ridiculously self-indulgent to write a story like this? Oh, almost shamefully so haha. I never write fanfic, so enjoy my self-indulgence while it lasts. If you like my writing in general, though, feel free to check out my original space opera, In the Shadow of Heaven, over at royalroad [ /shadowofheaven ].