Here comes the next chapter! I did my best to make it sad, so I hope I did a good job here. A big thanks goes out to the guest who left a comment on the last chapter3 A little warning: this chapter contains mentions of suicide and some flashbacks to the war, so be careful if that triggers you!

Have fun!

Chapter 3: Ghosts of love

1945

January

"I hate whiskey," Thomas says.

"I know you do."

A bitter smile lies on David's lips as he hands him the glass over. The golden liquid nearly matches his eye colour. Bright and warm. Of course, this is not the current state. In the poorly illuminate room they look blunt, almost like the abyss Thomas feels like getting dragged into more and more with each passing day.

He takes the glass without hesitation just as Thomas took everything David was offering before. Willingly or not – he seems to can't help himself. That's just how the things are. Whatever this is between them, they can't talk about it. Never could.

But we aren't lovers, Thomas suddenly realizes. Not because David was a man. Not because they could never share their affection if someone else was with them. But because lovers stand side by side with the other. Being their comfort and support. Thomas can't truly say that they ever shared the first and David definitely failed in the latter. Both of them did.

He takes a sip of the whiskey which reminds him of the eyes of the man he felt in love with. His face concords. David's gaze lies harder on him than the burning on his tongue. Their eyes meet and Thomas asks himself when the boy with the gentle eyes burning brighter than ember disappeared. It must have happened after he went to India. Of course, this was his fault.

David wanted to prove a point, just as he always does. Forever longing to be seen. And for some time, Thomas gaze was enough for him. Not anymore apparently. How, when they all had their eyes on himself? No, not him. The Nightingale. How many young men died in this war hoping to meet the idealistic version of him, which they made up in their heads? But in the moment, this deceiving moment where Thomas suddenly didn't care about expectations, glory, and honour they closed their eyes.

Not at first, though, they listened to his beginning, hoping for some kind of encouraging speech of their captain. They didn't want to hear, that they were weak. Refused to listen to someone, who was after all just a man. No one seemed to care Ettersberg has after all a danger. So, they fed on David's arguments, his promises of things none of them truly understood. Thomas doesn't either.

"I'm not angry with you," Thomas says and raises the glass to his lips. He drowns in flames. A welcome pain since he is hoping to find some truth in his words in this ocean of denial.

David visibly relaxes. His shoulders look less tense, and half of a smile lies on his face. It reminds Thomas of a time that now seems so far away. The grinning face of a young man resting on a pillow while the light of the sunrise craves through the small gap of curtains, too soon to be caught but too late to go back to sleep.

"Really?" David asks sounding pretty relieved. "Because I would understand it, if you are since I didn't defend you back there. On the contrary. But Thomas – You will see, this was the right decision. I know the experiments are horrible, but the results will help us so much. Think of all the lives we are going to save. Think about all of the questions finally finding answers."

David proceeds to talk about the results of tomorrows mission - Operation Spatchcock -, as if they had already achieved it, while Thomas swallows the whiskey. For a brief moment he finds light in David's eyes, and he looks younger, and it almost justifies the decision he sealed a few hours ago. Almost.

The kiss is short and burns much more than the whiskey. Thomas shouldn't be so horribly surprised about it. He truly needs to pull himself together. Get used to the fact that suddenly nothing is as it was.

"…and it's not like we're going to die tomorrow, Thomas," David chuckles against the sensitive skin of his neck. Thomas is shaking.

His glass is empty, and a sudden realization hits him like a brick. He truly wanted David to defend him beforehand. He wanted him to stand by his side because no one else did. Because tomorrow all of them are willingly throwing themselves in another battle for the promise of success. Thomas feels old and tired as he thinks about the coming day and sends the brief question to heaven if he is going to feel this way for the rest of his life. If the war will ever end.

David fills his glass again and Thomas takes it without protest, even grateful. Because he would take every small gesture, every subtitle smile – hell, even if all David would give him was motivated by anger, Thomas would still show him gratitude. Because it would come from David.


April

David opens the door of the Folly extremely slowly. The medics - both young men - and Hugh are there, while the first are supporting Thomas as best they can, since the wound only allows him to lift one arm and the latter has been hovering around him like a startled mother hen for the past few hours. Thomas can actually stand on his own and even walk a few steps, but his three companions, seeming so horribly young, are too much arranged and Thomas too tired to hold them off. He briefly wonders if the men are also practitioners, but quickly dismisses the thought. Hugh is an exception. Most didn't survive.

Then the door opens and there is David. The bullet wound in his left arm is healed but, although David was discharged weeks ago as fully recovered, his face still looks too gaunt. Both his cheeks are sunken and beneath his eyes are dark circles, but in the last twenty years he has never looked more like that schoolboy who was obsessed with physics than he does right now.

The person who stood in that tent in winter, talking in dim light to officers and captains about the chances of a salvage mission; the confident, proud man Thomas no longer recognised, is gone.

David smiles and exchanges a few words with the men and Hugh. It is his smile that wipes away everything that had happened between them since Thomas returned from India. It is shy and unassuming and so much David. Down to earth. When thoughts came too fast for him, when his head wouldn't let him sleep, Thomas was there to listen. When the world changed, spun on without him following, all David had to do was to smile and Thomas knew it would be okay. This smile is him.

As they lead him across the threshold, Thomas welcomes the change of magic as the protective spells wrap around them. A gentle hug, as if it's greeting an old friend.

Everything is still the same, Thomas thinks, and then immediately: Everything is different.

Tied to a hospital bed for months, he has often imagined what it would be like to come back. To return home. He heard the chatter from the hospital staff that only muffled through to him and thought of the many meetings in David's lab that he had attended. Meetings of men so much smarter, so much more brilliant than he was, but he had simply enjoyed being there just to listen to David. Thomas picked up the typical smell of the hospital, not knowing that this sterile note, almost a vestigium in itself, would not change even in almost seventy years from now. It reminded him of Molly's fastidious cleanliness and how she once almost cut up Nigel when he returned home with muddy shoes. Thomas counted every hour in the hospital and thought of David.

He thought of what it would be like to return home. He imagined how the magic that had been worryingly silent since the last battle - so silent he thought he had forgotten how to hear its melody - would bear down on him as soon as he stepped over the threshold. How it would scream, roar, giggle and whisper. How a thousand variations of werelights, cast for fun, experiment or practicality, would mix with fireballs and impello and some of the unnatural formae of the Germans.

How magic would become so loud that it would break even the very last thing holding him together.

But now the shields sound as always, only the heartbeat is missing. The magic of this house is no longer alive, it is just there. The Folly buzzes subliminally and unchanging, like clockwork. A sound that used to wake Thomas at sunrise when one of them had to sneak back to their own room. But now they are two familiar strangers, in the memory of a... home? Actually, the Folly was never a home. But maybe it could have been, if they hadn't had to depart on a new journey every so often, if there were fewer people to hide from.

Now it is what it is. A big old house that managed to overcome the war without being bombed. A reminder of people who came and went here. A home full of ghosts. Empty rooms, empty beds, empty hallways. And then Molly is standing in the corridor, hissing in that way she had used to frighten Walty, Nigel, Richie and so many after them, and Thomas feels happiness for the first time in months, which is so unexpected it sickens him. Half thoughts of genus loci leave his head as Molly meets his eyes and beneath the cloaks and veils of protective spells, a faint heartbeat begins anew.


Once they are alone, something changes in the air as time goes on. There is something weighing on David and probably on Thomas too, but it is difficult to start a conversation. To talk about it. In addition, it is hard to classify what the problem could be. Too much has happened here in such a short time, but even that is only lining up behind what was already between them before, what caused this distance. However, it is hard now to remember all the problems that played a role for Thomas before Ettersberg. There were too many losses, too much suffering and too much pain.

He saw it in David's face every day when he went to visit him in hospital, that constant pain in his gaze that ironically brings him closer to his real self today. It is what connects all survivors. A reminder of the Fae and the others who fell victim to the Nazi experiments. Of Bill Clark and Percy Smith, who had analysed the results. They both died barely a week apart. Suicide.

The pain is a memorial, a reminder why the very thing they fought so hard for has now been barricaded behind an unmarked door. But above all, it reminds Thomas of the friends they had lost. Of Walty the weak one, the crybaby, who couldn't hurt a fly, who cried when others cry. Walty, who never had a single fight, who apologized before someone even had the opportunity to drag him into something physical. Walty, who died shielding him from a fireball. Walty, the brave.

There is so much they need to talk about, but Thomas can't find the words.

Instead, they sleep together. A bad, rough solution to their problems. Something they've done so many times in the last few years that it became the only reason to make time for each other at all. They used and hurt one another in the process, but there was a brief satisfaction at least. It was much easier than having to talk. But it only increased this difficulty, which started at some point where David stopped talking and Thomas stopped listening. Where they used each other and ended up not understanding the other anymore, and it takes the first time they are able to spend the morning in bed together for Thomas to realise that he is in love with this man.

It's something he hadn't felt since they were young, something that had faded away with each night they spent cold and alone. But now he realises the full truth, knows he loves David so much he would even talk about his feelings. So much to tell David. However, it takes almost a week, of silence, of brief conversations and the dust layer of hopelessness that slowly builds up everywhere, before it finally comes to them really talking.


It is already evening and they sit in the library. It is too summery to switch on the fireplace, even though the first raindrops of the approaching storm are just wetting the few people passing by. It seems as if half the city is in ruins; there are very few people who need to get from A to B at this hour anyway, but certainly enough who don't have a roof over their heads at this very moment. War, as everybody knows, always has a long shadow and there is a lot to do. Still, Thomas is somehow grateful for the fact that they took care of the survivors on a daily basis, helping as much as they could in rebuilding London, mostly in a financial way rather than anything else. It meant he doesn't have to deal with what comes after now.

The last few years had always been dominated by orders from the Folly. One had not had a choice in which office one came to, no choice in where and with whom one had to work. It was much easier to just follow orders, like a simple soldier, than later, when he was a captain. When he had responsibilities.

And now it's much worse, where it was just David and him. Most are dead and the others have broken their staffs. A London with no control over magic if David and he were to break away too.

"I'm glad you're here, David," Thomas says, because he has to start this conversation somehow.

David gives him a quick glance over his book, very similar to the one Thomas gets when he dares to walk more than a handful of steps on his own. It usually means checking to see if he's taken too much of his painkillers.

Fair enough, Thomas thinks in his mind. He's really bad at this. They both are. Probably best to let it go. Minutes pass and Thomas is sure David has come to a similar conclusion, but when he sighs and closes the book to look at him, life once again crosses his path.

"You shouldn't be glad," he says sternly and only now does Thomas realise the meaning of his previous words.

"I- oh dear Lord no, I'm not glad about it. I'm happy about you. By my side."

"I know how you meant it," David says and it should have reassured him, but his serious face sends Thomas into a panic. The constant sadness in the man's once warm eyes is more present than ever. He wants to say something else, but then David closes his mouth and mumbles something about it. About how Thomas should forget it and gets up to leave, to leave him and that is suddenly scarier than tiger tanks and werewolves.

Thomas gets up and has to claw at the back of the sofa to keep from falling. David, thankfully, doesn't notice, only turning to him when he is standing safely again.

"It's just..." the other man stammers, seemingly embarrassed, avoiding his glance. He hides the sadness in his eyes. "Just don't."

They stand facing each other, staring as if seeing each other for the first time, and Thomas almost tastes whiskey on his tongue as he remembers the last time, he felt like this. Back in that tent in January. With a stranger who had taken David's place. But not this time, he wouldn't let it get that far. Thomas would fix it.

So, he took a deep breath. Tightens his shoulders. Braces himself for the fight.

"After so much time, we can live together again. It's like this is an ironic second chance." Thomas exhales and finds he was shaking when he finally musters the courage. "I care about you a lot, David. I... I lov-"

"No, please Thomas, don't do this. Please..."

"David. I love you."

"Why are you saying this?" Anger suddenly bubbles up on the man's face. It makes Thomas flinch. This is odd. It hardly matches the other times he made David so upset.

You only care about your work. We should bomb everything. And now I love you.

But maybe David's question is valid. Maybe what they had is already so broken that he thinks Thomas is trying to manipulate him, when in fact the opposite is the case here. He tries to put things right.

"Because I should have told you more often. But I hope you knew anyway. That you knew that I-"

That's as far as he gets, because the simmering anger boils over, hisses hot and loud. David shouts.

"You couldn't say it then, when we were going to die back there at any time, you didn't fucking say anything. Not like me."

He's right about that. Thomas couldn't tell him then, couldn't return the favour.

"You had to let me go, David. You had to or you wouldn't have taken my place. Please understand, I had to make you do it..." He wishes that was the whole truth. Wishes he wasn't terrified at the time. But whether it was fear of admitting those feelings or fear that they would quickly turn into a goodbye, he can't tell now.

"You don't love me." David's voice is firm and icy. The cold is worse than the biting anger. It awakens something.

"I do!" shouts Thomas now, unable to believe how loudly his own voice echoes off the bookshelves. "You know perfectly well. I've been loving you since we were kids. You're the most important thing in my-"

"Don't fucking do it!" shouts David, but it's not a command this time. It's more like a cry for help. "Please just stop..."

The man starts to walk away again and Thomas stumbles after him. His steps are no longer so shaky.

"David..." he tries again and sure enough, the other spins around.

"If you really loved me, you would understand," David says bitterly and his eyes narrow to slits as his voice grows louder. "Don't think I don't know what you thought of my work. And you know what? You're worse than the others, because they never pretended to care about me. Not like you. You cared oh so fucking much, encouraging me to impress you in some way. As if that were possible for a mere mortal."

Thomas winces. He doesn't know what to say, tries to suppress the impulse to run away. This isn't David... It's not David talking, it's the war-.

"It's only because of you that I've come this far, only because I wanted to get close to you and then when I needed you to stand behind me you let me down."

"That's not fair!" Thomas snaps. He loses control, the war, and lets his own anger win. "You say you wanted to impress me? What did I have compared to you? As you always so kindly told your friends, I'm not a man of the cloth. But I never once complained when you were up all night, no, I listened to you!"

It feels good to say all the things that have become taboo in recent years. Right. "Even after you ditched me over and over again, after you left for Glasgow for six months without saying any goodbyes, without leaving a goddamn note, I forgave you because I love you, David."

It's no longer a confession. It's a declaration of war. Thomas enjoys the way something in David's face twitches as he speaks the last words. The truth is on his side and all these things he has listed, all Davis's faults only reinforce the feeling inside him. He loves David. That makes him strong enough to get through this.

But David's face darkens as he utters something Thomas couldn't even think of.

"Oh yeah, you've always supported me?" he hisses dangerously, taking a step towards Thomas. "Then please explain where your fucking love for me was when you voted against the evacuation."

The words strike him as hard as if David had actually hit him. Thomas is stunned for a moment, surprised to still be standing on solid ground. Then suddenly there is smoke in his lungs and screams are echoing in his ears as his hands clasp David's shirt collar.

"Really? After everything, you're going to hold that against me?" Thomas tries to keep his voice steady but fails miserably. "You can't be serious! After God knows how many have died, you have the nerve to tell me-"

"One thousand nine hundred and seventy-one. Goddamn right, Thomas, I've killed one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one people. And I almost killed you too. Even you can't love this."

Oh, so that's it, Thomas suddenly understands, and his chest constricts with sudden compassion. He lets go of David's shirt. A tremble pervades his body as he suddenly stands alone again.

"This is not your fault..."

"There were my theories and my friends who used them," David says, his voice beginning to break. "Did I ever tell you that I wrote down some of these experiments as hypotheses? That I've already thought about doing what the Germans did?"

Something cruel resonates in David's tone, seizing Thomas's heart in an iron grip. His chest begins to ache.

"No... You would never have done that, David," Thomas murmurs, knowing that the truth lies somewhere in his heart. The room begins to spin.

"Are you really so naive as to believe me then?" the alien thing in his lover's body asks viciously. Hugh Oswald curses, David lies bleeding on the floor. There is hissing and shrieking everywhere, and Thomas can't run, he can't breathe. Everything is on fire while cold snow falls and mixes with ashes. And David keeps talking: "Did you think that all I cared about was not having the documents in Russian hands? Oh yes, that's right, Thomas. I risked the lives of our friends - risked your life - Because I was just curious about the results of these experiments."

"No...", Thomas keeps repeating as David continues to speak. He can't hear him over the ringing in his ears anyway. His hand tries to protect his chest. He's got to stop the blood after all, he's got to keep going to the border - but it's so damn cold! Pull yourself together, soldier! But he can't, he can't, because they'll come and find him-

"Thomas!", David's voice is higher and alarmed and so very David as the pain in Thomas' chest intensifies and he falls to the ground. David catches him. He always catches him.

I love him, Thomas thinks hazily as they both kneel on the floor. He breaks free of the embrace, leans against one of the bookshelves so he can see David's face. He looks so hurt. I did that.

David follows his example, crawls to him and keeps his gaze lowered, almost like a scolded dog. His hand hovers briefly over Thomas's knee as he sits in front of him, but then it moves to his face as he begins to sob into his palms.

Thomas' first instinct is to stop this immediately, but his body hurts too much, his breathing is too uncontrolled to curl a single finger. So, he lets David cry for a moment and forces himself to be in in the present. This is the library of the Folly. The floor is clean, the books are old, and the magic is buzzing and chattering. It's not crying. This isn't Ettersberg.

"Look at me," he says at last, surprised by how calm his voice is. "You would never have voted for this if you knew what was going to happen there. You know that and you need to listen to me, okay? You didn't kill them."

"Yes, I did, it's my fault." David stops sobbing but continues to keep his face covered. He is also shaking, and Thomas forces himself to be calm. Someone has to stay in control.

"You couldn't have known what was happening. No one could. But we're here and it's over."

"It's not just Ettersberg, it's Bill and Percy too..." Their recent losses. The practitioners who evaluated what they recovered in Ettersberg. The results of the experiments. Stop. This is not David's work. Thomas needs to focus on this truth. None of these documents have anything to do with David. It was not his research that drove Bill and Percy into committing suicide.

Thomas sees the broken man in front of him and reaches out a trembling arm, pulling him closer.

"Shhh. That's why it's locked now," he whispers as David leans into the touch and crawls to him. "Their work can't hurt anyone anymore. But you are here, David. You can create something good, like you always have. You survived."

David's arms wrap around his back, careful not to strain his injury, as if Thomas were made of glass.

"But I shouldn't have..." he chokes out at last, half about to bury his face in Thomas's neck, but Thomas suddenly goes cold as he grasps the meaning of David's words. He can't say he hasn't had such thoughts himself. It is different with him. He was much more useful in the war than he is now. But David can still do so much good.

"Hey. Look at me," he says tightly, putting both hands on his cheek to meet his eyes. "We made it and yes, so many didn't and it's not fair, but war isn't fair, David. There's nothing we can do about it now, but we can keep going for them. But I need you to do that, do you hear me?"

"Oh Thomas, how can you ask that of me after you-"

"I know. It was my decision," he interrupts quickly. David talks about the glider. Still, he can't let him say it. Thomas can't talk about Ettersberg. Not about the battle. Not now. Instead, he says, "It was my decision and I would do it again. I would let you go if I knew it meant you were safe."

He means every word as he pulls David into a hug. His weight is too much, and the familiar ache runs through Thomas's body, but it doesn't matter at the moment. He's been through worse.

"It was the worst moment in my life to leave you in that hell. How could I have carried on in a world without you?" murmurs David against the fabric of his shirt. It feels wet on his skin.

"I'm here. I'm not leaving," Thomas promises, because where else is he supposed to go? This is where he is needed. Of course, though, he understands David's fear. He sees him lying bleeding on the snow-covered ground almost every night, hears his scream when he was shot. It was no different before the war. He always feared that David would disappear from one day to the next. A well-founded fear.

"I understand, David. I really do," he says softly because he does. "You, leaving for Berlin, me, going to India, the glider... Let's just stop this, okay? It's just you and me now. No more leaving."

David lifts his gaze. Something foreign is in his eyes for a second as he takes in Thomas' words, but the unknown spark disappears and there is only warmth as he pulls Thomas into a kiss. It tastes real and honest and so much like life that it is Thomas who is almost tearing up now because he simply doesn't remember the last time, he felt like this. Alive.

He can't tell how long they spend intertwined on the wooden floor. At some point, however, just as he is admiring how the reflection in David's eyes makes even the ugly electric light look beautiful, something occurs to Thomas.

Their journey through the house is circuitous and exciting. It's almost like one of those nights twenty years ago when they were young and couldn't get enough of each other. When it was rare for them to be in London at the same time and they usually only kept what they had alive by exchanging letters almost daily.

David supports him all the time. He is so much stronger than Thomas thought and not in the slightest like the downed man in his nightmares. This makes it much easier to let go, to rely on David. Because Thomas doesn't fight his vulnerability... All right, at least he tries his hardest not to. It's not that difficult in front of David. He has seen every part of him. Always relied on him. They all did on the battlefield.

But when Thomas finally arrives at that particular commode and pulls the bottle out of a drawer, horror briefly creeps over David's face and he surely reconsiders all the times in the last thirty years when he thought Thomas was responsible.

"You're on painkillers, little bird," he says and there is the struggle of a pinched grin on his face.

Thomas has to laugh at the nickname. It's been ages since it was anything other than the Nightingale. He presses the whiskey into David's hand and winks, feeling alive enough to act young and stupid.

"I've been through worse." But David hesitates and his face darkens at the loosely spoken words, so he grabs his hand, pulls the man into a kiss and allows him to hold him, let himself be vulnerable.

"We're alive, David," he breathes against the man's lips. The words tremble in his chest, so much that he wants to shout it out so that all of London would hear. The stars of their first night would know they still existed.

We're alive.


June

It's not always easy afterwards, but that's part of life. They argue and laugh together because they can, because they can finally live together without fear of being abandoned by the other.

They sleep together, they get up together. The Folly doesn't have many visitors. Too many ghosts live here. Therefore, there are only a few hours when they have to pretend.

It's not always easy because they both suffer from scars. Because Thomas doesn't talk about what he experienced on the way to the border and something also seems to haunt David's dreams, waking him up in the middle of the night. But it doesn't matter, because Thomas is not alone when he wakes up in the dark, drenched in sweat. Because he would never be alone again.

With time, his body gets stronger and the dose of painkillers smaller. It is even nicer to laugh with David when there is no pain anymore. They still take it slow. There is too much to do and they cannot rebuild the Folly in one day. However, it is easier now that they are on the same path.

It is all the worse when Thomas startles up one night and the other side of the bed is cold. The old house creaks and cracks, the magic hisses softly as Thomas listens quietly, desperate to get his breathing back under control.

He tries to convince himself that everything is all right. That they are both here, alive, but the anxiety makes him just lie there for a while until he can finally move.

His greatest fears blur together as he makes his way down. The pain in his chest is now just a dull, annoying thing letting him walk without needing to many breaks. Briefly he sees David's bleeding body lying in the corridor, but he forces himself to look past it, to keep walking. The cold of winter makes him pause at the stairs and he has to lean on the banister for half a minute to tell himself that this isn't real. Just a memory.

He sees the ghosts that stop Hugh and Robert and the other survivors from visiting the Folly. The creaking of floorboards mixes with the echo of explosions as he makes it into the atrium.

The war is over, Thomas keeps telling himself.

He wishes he hadn't when his worst fear instead catches up with him. David leaving without a message, just leaving him alone- Maybe he should check if his coat is still there?

Thomas wavers on indecisively, but then a slit of light falls through a door. Someone is there. David is there.

He wants to cry with happiness when he sees David sitting at the table in the library. Happy or silly chatter leaves his lips as he walks to him. David drops the piece of paper he was reading when he notices Thomas. There was so much strangeness on his face. Something is wrong.

As if in a trance, Thomas takes the paper he was studying in his hand. Reads it without being able to reproduce a single word later but understands what it is in the moment.

Thomas throws the document away as if he had burned himself. The pain that runs through him is worse than being shot, almost as bad as David being hit. It is betrayal and fear and so much more.

"Why?" he asks, his voice echoing between the walls. So many ghosts. And he hears them all when David doesn't answer. "Was it worth it?"

Walty dies the very second, he casts the protection spell. Blood splatters on snow while Thomas is still casting his own shield over them. He is too late. David's eyes are dark and empty. His voice is dead. Documents that drove Bill and Percy to their graves lie fanned out on the table in front of him, almost like the notes scrawled with physics formulas and failed approaches of the boy he once was. Thomas is too late.

"Was it worth it, David?!" Thomas asks again, only now realising he is crying.

But he doesn't answer. There is something in his strange dead eyes that Thomas cannot read, but the fear that it is a yes makes him back away, walk away, until he finds himself in the kitchen, a half-empty bottle of burning fire in front of him. Thomas always hated whiskey.

But he hurts and there is no one to catch him as he falls and falls and will eventually break.


158 days after Ettersberg Thomas hears a shot.