Francis drifted through Berlin like a maple leaf caught by the wind, feeling half-empty and incomplete and not knowing why. He knew no resistance plan ever left itself bloodless, and this was no exception, but it had still saved more than any of them had expected. Francis knew he was a bleeding-heart artist, unfit for the resistance, because he bled for everyone else.

Francis stood in the middle of his art gallery and read a letter in lilting prose from his maple leaf hero.

It's okay to hurt, he said. It's okay to feel too much, and to love too much, and to want too much. I feel all of those for you. I felt them for Alfred, too. That's the only crime of love: how much it terrifies you, and how badly you wish that you could stand in the path of danger in place of them.

You're brave, Francis, braver than you know. You did the right thing, and now nothing matters to me except that you're okay. I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you.

I'm teaching again. It's good, I think. The numbers don't usually remind me of the Wall. It's not the most comfortable life, but I like it. I might not be able to give you the world, but I can give you everything I can. I promise.

What I'm trying to say is: do you want to come to Canada, Francis? I promise that if there's any monsters here, I'll be able to handle them now.

Yours, always

Matthew

Francis loved the sky best from the ground, watching it blush lavender from an artist's studio with rainwater-glass windows. He wasn't a pilot, who lived best in the deepest azure where the boundaries of heaven and earth, God and man, blurred. He found those melting boundaries in the arms of a soldier turned lover.

The only time he found it beautiful was now, flying home to an address written on a tiny plush polar bear. He pressed it to his lips and kept his eyes on the horizon line, where day became night with a gentleness. He was flying home to Matthew.

Berlin was a city for people like him, but Francis needed something softer, slower, where war hung further back. In the future, once he stopped thinking of Gilbert every time he thought of the split city, he might go back.

He got off the plane with the bear named Kuma, Matthew's latest letter, and the realization that he should have brought warmer clothes. Canada was in the flush of spring, but it was still colder than he expected. Matthew's address was tucked away in the edge of the woods, and the woman at reception looked apologetically sympathetic when he trudged in, trying to keep his feet dry and the wind out.

'Does Mr. Williams teach here?' he asked, and held up the little polar bear. Her eyes brightened.

'Oh, you must be Francis. He's been speaking nonstop about you.'

'He has?' Francis clutched Kuma tighter, the suddenness of all of this weighing in on him. Matthew was here, in this building, close by after the months of not seeing him. 'Where is he?'

'Room 867, down in the math wing.' She nodded, and Francis rushed off.

He opened the door quietly and the breath was knocked out of him. Matthew stood there, happy and shining and dressed in a red flannel, teaching a class. Francis leaned against the doorframe and watched him with a wide smile, drinking in the sight of him. Matthew felt like home.

Halfway through a sentence, Matthew glanced up and saw him, and the world started turning right again.

'Mr. Williams?' Francis held out the tiny keychain Kuma, barely able to keep from shaking apart. 'I have something for you.'

The book in Matthew's hand clattered to the ground as he ran for Francis and wrapped him in his arms, and the world fell together in the best way, and Francis could finally breathe again.

'Oh,' Matthew whispered against his shoulder. One or both of them was crying, chests heaving, faces wet. 'Oh, Francis.'

'Hello, my dearest,' Francis murmured. 'I'm home.'

They walked home together, shoulders brushing, and Francis was reminded how much taller Matthew was.

'I've missed you so much,' Matthew said. Their knuckles grazed, and Francis ached to hold him, to be closer, but he didn't dare, not while they were in public.

'I've missed you too.' Francis didn't dare say more until Matthew led him home and shut the door, and the soft golden light glowed across Matthew's face.

'Matthew,' Francis sighed. 'Matthew, my dearest, I'm so sorry.'

Matthew sunk against him, there in the hallway, both of them chilled and desperate and wanting. 'I thought- sometimes I thought you had died. I thought- I knew you could be fatally brave.' He blinked, lavender eyes dripping tears. 'Berlin makes people like that.'

'I promise,' Francis breathed, 'I promise I'm not going anywhere now.'

He had too much to say, too many unspoken words of love, too much to apologize for, but Matthew kissed him and everything else melted away.

'Promise me you'll never do anything like that again.' His eyes shone like the dawn. 'At least not without me beside you.'

'I promise, Matthew, the only thing I want to do with you…' Francis wove his fingers into his hair. 'Is of a different persuasion.'

They still moved together in harmony. Francis remembered him, every part of him, had dreamed and daydreamed of him. Matthew arched over him in the pale light, and Francis ran his fingers over his scars and through his hair and kissed him until neither of them could breathe.

'I love you,' Matthew panted, in the dawn. His body shimmered, slick and hot. 'I love you, Francis, I was so scared for you.'

'I'm safe now,' Francis promised. 'I know I'm safe with you. I'm not going anywhere anymore.'

Matthew buried his face in Francis' neck, warm enough to burn. Inside Francis, he was hot and gentle. 'I want-' His voice broke. 'I want to be home to you.'

'You are.' Francis felt sore and overwhelmed and so, so alive. 'You always have been, my dearest Matthew.'

0o0o0o

Life in Canada was strange and wonderful and exciting, and Matthew even more so. Francis fell in love with him every single day, with the sight of him in his favourite red flannels and the high, clear sound of his voice when he sang their song. The monsters of their past stayed outside in the cold, outside the walls Francis built with letters to Feliciano. He heard Antonio was alive in the West with his lover, as easy to hear of and as hard to catch as a song. He didn't know if Gilbert was alive or dead, and didn't care.

Matthew taught, and Francis sold his poems and his art about Canada, maple leaves during fall and rivers talking to themselves and the majesty of mountains, but his favourite muse was Matthew.

'I feel like it's a little...arrogant to have poetry about myself up around the house,' Matthew teased, nosing into Francis' neck as he hung the piece up above their dining table. 'I'm sure you could use your talents for more than this.'

'It's called self-love, my dearest,' Francis corrected playfully. 'I'll write poems about you until you see yourself how I do.'

'Francis.' His smile was the sweetest sight in the world, more awe-inspiring than nature itself. Francis reached up and cradled his chin, trying to capture every crinkle and glimmer in his eyes so he could memorialize it in a poem. Matthew was beautiful in a way that Francis could only describe piecemeal, lest it overwhelm him completely.

They kissed in their kitchen, Francis stretched up on the balls of his feet. Matthew rumbled happily into his mouth.

'I'm going on a hike,' he said when he pulled away. 'I promise it's an easy one. Want to come?'

'Never again. Not after last time.' He shuddered at the memory of the terrible raging river, which Matthew had falsely described as a creek.

Matthew laughed, bright and clear and unafraid, and kissed Francis one more time before he left. 'I'll be back soon.'

He came back with pictures of inked skin and flowers and the description of a shop downtown that does tattoos, eyes glowing.

'I fell in love with your art,' he said, nuzzling into Francis. 'Would you let me have it this way?'

Two months later, they danced through their living room as a song spins around them like moonlight and lace, and Francis' first poem for his love glowed in reds and golds all across Matthew's bicep. It was beautiful and gentle and vibrant, just like him.

'Blue moon,' Matthew sang, and he laughed like nothing can ever go wrong, and Francis loved him, loved him, loved him.

0o0o0o

London, 1963

'How can Alfred stand it here?' Francis asked in disgust. Another yawn caught him, his jaw popping. His head felt pressured-up from sleeping on the flight.

'I'm sure living with Arthur has its benefits.'

'Unfortunate that they don't outweigh his many, many disadvantages.' Francis turned the corner and Matthew knocked on the door.

'Mattie!' Alfred exclaimed, and Matthew caught someone who blazed burnished gold. Francis looked in at the little house behind the bookshop.

'Bonjour.'

'Not in this house.' Arthur said, shutting the door behind them. Francis much preferred to look at Matthew, laughing with Alfred. There was only sunny history there, with only a few stormclouds.

'Sit down,' Arthur said, interrupting his thoughts. Francis regarded him evenly. He knew that despite their differences, they had more in common in this little house full of warmth and late evening light. They knew what it was like to love and lose in the midst of a war.

'So, was it a long flight?' Alfred asked.

'He wouldn't know, he slept through most of it,' Matthew teased. Arthur shook his head beside him, but he smiled slightly at Francis. They understood each other.

Francis was fairly sure that Alfred and Arthur were both a little drunk and getting drunker on wine and each other, but he forgot to care because he was doing the same with Matthew. The cuisine was palatable when he was drunk.

'Hey, Francis?' Alfred's blue eyes were hazy and warm. 'Thank you for everything. Everything. With Feliciano, with Ludwig, and with Mattie.'

'I would have done anything for them.' Francis had always thought his love was a weakness, but especially in this little house it seemed anything but. 'Feliciano is getting better now, you know. He's as fluent with his hands as with words now.'

'I'm glad,' Arthur said, softer than Francis expected.

'They told me that they could forgive me. I'm doing my best to deserve that.' Francis closed his eyes, reaching out in hope. Ludwig deserved a better future, and Francis had promised Gilbert he would try to give him that.

'That's good,' Alfred said. Francis held his gaze, seeing all his past in sky-blue eyes. They understood the tragedies and loves and wars of Berlin that kept the city alive and burning. They had made it out, burned and singing with it, ready to love again.

Here, Francis could almost forget that the world was not perfect. Matthew kissed the corner of his jaw. The golden light danced in his eyes. Francis traced the slope of his nose, the place where his neck and shoulder met.

'I love you,' he whispered.

'I love you too.' Matthew kissed the tip of his nose. Across the table, Alfred was whispering poetry.

'I know that poem. Keats, right?' Matthew showed his tattoo, sleeplike and wonderful, smiling at Francis in bright, open love. 'I have poetry, too.'

0o0o0o

France, late 1960s

'I know I can't have him in marriage,' Francis whispered to his best friend, Antonio's legs slung across his lap. 'Not yet, at least- we fight for it, and I've heard in America there are whisperings…'

'When have we been the kinds of people to follow the law, rather than our hearts?' Antonio asked. He laid his head on Francis' shoulder. 'I know you want to be his, and he wants to be yours, but both of those are already true.'

'I know.'

'I know you want the world for him,' Antonio said gently. 'But you don't need the courts for that. I didn't, with Lovino.'

He raised his hand, and the band of gold around his finger gleamed in the soft light.

'I'm his,' he said, and he shone with his love. 'I always have been.'

It took a long time before Francis knew how to do it. Any ring he thought of never seemed good enough for Matthew. Any situation he could imagine seemed insufficient. He was an artist starving for beauty, and how could he find it anywhere but in the man he loved so much it struck him breathless?

But slowly, slowly things fell into place on the side of a mountain, because Matthew gasped and pulled Francis to him, and they both tumbled into the snow together. Francis felt his warm lips press to the side of his neck, and both their hearts in tune.

'Oh,' Matthew said, with the most wondering voice. 'The aurora borealis. I haven't seen them in so long.'

'They're beautiful,' Francis said. The bands of light played over Matthew's face in purples and greens and blues. The sky was lit in heavenly light, but far and beyond the most beautiful thing was Matthew. It had always, always been him, ever since Francis saw him moon-drenched and wandering through the streets of Berlin.

Oh, he loved him like nothing else. He loved him past war and art and the endless blue future. He loved him in a way he could only dare to capture with his poetry.

'Matthew?' His voice was hoarse. 'Matthew, my dearest?'

'Yes?' Matthew turned to him. Above them, the sky shimmered. Francis could feel tears pooling in his eyes.

'I love you, Matthew. I love your gentleness, and your bravery, and your strength. You make me stronger than I can imagine. You feel like home when I have nowhere else.' His voice trembled, and he pulled the pale golden ring from his pocket with chilled fingers and held it out. 'I promise you the future, Matthew Williams,' he said, as everything within him sang, 'If you will have me.'

Matthew kissed him in the snow with the auroras above, sweet and warm and everything, everything. Francis sobbed into the kiss, tears streaking down his face.

'Yes,' Matthew gasped. 'Yes, yes. I love you, Francis. You make me brave, you make me want things I never envisioned. I love you, I love the world you give me. Yes, Francis.'

He slipped the ring onto his finger, and Matthew traced a finger around the word carved into it.

'Trouvaille,' Francis breathed. Matthew kissed his tears away. 'It means a lucky find, a diamond in the rough. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Matthew.'

Matthew kissed him again, whispering all his love, and Francis was warm. The future shone, and he felt wholly, wonderfully safe in the arms of his maple-leaf soldier turned lover. They'd found their way here to this perfect place of happiness between war and tragedy, and Francis knew that he was home in Matthew's arms.

0o0o0o

I loved writing them finding each other and a place of safety in their tragedies. Thank you for reading, it was amazing to write.

:: Watching the auroras with wonder, because nothing seems so magical as to live in a place where the sky lights this way