The stillness of that night. How clearly he remembers it. Raoul asleep, comfortable at last, his face relaxed for the first time, beyond pain, beyond fever. Safe, and sleeping, his good hand cradled between both of Philippe's, pressed to his lips. Philippe so tired, because he had not slept, not since they'd woken three days earlier to the news that they'd have to go up the mountain to see Lynch. How could he sleep, after they got back, and found Raoul sprawled on the floor, cradled in Christine's arms?

He dozed a few times, Erik knows. A few times, but he can't imagine it was too restful, can't imagine it was anywhere close to proper sleep. And he remembers thinking, remembers whispering to Sorelli, maybe after tonight, now that the fever has passed, maybe tomorrow we'll be able to persuade him to sleep, if only for a few hours.

She nodded against his chest, and he remembers the stillness of her too, the two of them just outside the room, watching. She'd persuaded Christine to go to her own bed, to get some proper sleep, and not just what could be snatched slumped in a chair, and maybe she would have tried to persuade him, too, to sleep, or maybe he would have tried to persuade her, but they knew each other too well for that.

Knew Philippe too well, too, to really think that he would leave Raoul's side for any length of time, unless he had to.

Their talk of tomorrow, their talk of maybe. If they had known what that tomorrow would bring, that instead of Philippe getting proper sleep in a bed he would be—they would be—

If they had guessed at any of it, what would they have done? What could they have done?

They didn't know, they didn't even suspect. And what he remembers best of those nights, what he allows himself to remember best, is being right there, holding Sorelli in his arms, her head against his chest, and watching in through the crack in the door at Philippe holding Raoul's hand. Their lover, and his brother, the boy they claimed as their brother too. He and Sorelli, watching over them, ready to keep them safe.

The weight of Raoul in his arms, two nights earlier, head limp against his shoulder. And he was careful not to jostle him, careful not to wake him. He needed rest, his wound freshly stitched and bandaged, and he didn't want to cause any extra bleeding, so he was careful as he lifted him off the table, and Christine led the way to her father's old room where they had each stayed at different times, apart and together, and opened the door for him, and pulled the blankets back on the bed. His arms aching, his shoulders trembling, his back stiff, but he couldn't drop Raoul, he had to focus on Raoul, as he crossed the kitchen and stepped into the bedroom, and he would have looked back at Philippe, sitting numb in the chair beside the table, but he didn't want to risk any extra move being the thing that would cost him his focus.

Raoul groaned, his face contorting, as Erik lay him down, and with Christine he fixed the boy's shirt so it wouldn't pull on the bandages, and adjusted the sling that held his arm, and tucked the blankets around him to keep him from getting cold. And then he brushed Raoul's hair back from his eyes, and his skin was cool and clammy. And he stood then, fighting against the ache in his chest, and turned to the door, to go to Philippe, and found Philippe already there, framed in the doorway, pale and haggard, his clothes bloody, Sorelli's arm around his waist the only thing keeping him standing.

Erik went to him, and hugged him, just for a moment, just to feel him, and then he let him go and went into the kitchen, and got the chair from beside the table, for Philippe to sit in.

He knew he should rest, knew they should all rest, but he would never try to persuade him away from Raoul's side.

He would have gone out there and found those Tans himself. Would have gone out there and shot every one of them, for almost killing Raoul, for putting that fear into Philippe's face, those tears in his eyes. He never had a brother, never had much in the way of a family, never knew who or what his father was, and he never expected to have a son either, but Raoul was Philippe's little brother and his by association and young enough to be his son and so help him but he would make them pay for hurting him, make them pay for almost taking his life.

He would have, but he couldn't leave. Not when Philippe needed him, not when Raoul was still in so much danger. And if Raoul died (and he hated the thought, hated it) if Raoul died then he would go with Philippe to find them, and Philippe deserved being able to shoot those men himself.

So he decided to wait. And he smoked cigarettes under the stars with Christine, to settle both of their nerves, and told her stories to give her something else to think about, and held her when the trembling started, and in the back of his head he dared those men, dared them to come back now, when he and Sorelli were ready.

When Malley told them the men who had MacThomáis were the same ones who had shot Raoul, he knew he couldn't keep Philippe out of it.

He knew he did not have the right.

If he had gone looking for them, would he have found them?

If he had gone looking for them, would it have saved Philippe?

There are things he has never told Raoul about the night that Philippe died. Things he has never even told Sorelli. They are too much to be spoken of, too much to put words around. And they are such very little things, beside that most terrible thing.

Things like how, when they ducked to run alongside the wall, Malley at the front, he in the middle and Philippe last, Philippe grabbed his hand, and he turned around, and saw the light of the moon so bright in those blue eyes, the flash of a crack of a smile, and Philippe's lips soft pressed to his. The gentlest kiss, the briefest kiss, before they parted and crept on, but how he cradles the memory of that kiss close to his heart.

Or how, before, as they walked out the door, Philippe took his hand and squeezed it, just for the briefest moment, but how it made his heart race.

And how Philippe's muttered "Fuck" when the shooting started caught him off guard. Philippe almost never used such language, his vocabulary was better endowed than that and that was one of the things Erik loved about him, but that night—that night—

His fingers fumbled as he went for his revolver, he's told Sorelli that bit, and how Philippe was already shooting, but he never told her about Philippe pushing him down, after the bullet clipped his head, and the whisper in his ear, "Not letting anything happen to you."

If he had said the same back, would it have made a difference?

He'd forgotten his head was bleeding.

He hardly felt it, as the doctor stitched it, couldn't look away from Philippe's still face, couldn't look away as Sorelli cleaned the blood from him, and tucked that heavy coat around him.

As if the world was made of water. As if he was outside of himself, watching.

Philippe was dead.

Philippe was dead and that was all he knew.

He has never told her, either, about how in that long night sitting beside Philippe's body, holding his still, cold fingers beneath the coat hiding his wounds, the revolver in his lap and trained on the door, never told her that it was all he could do to keep his breathing even, all he could do not to let his vision blur, all he could do not to keep looking at Philippe's face, so pale, so still, willing him to breathe, willing him to open his eyes, and how the pain in his chest was so terrible, he felt sure he would follow him.

He heard the bullet, both bullets, but he didn't hear the bullets, not consciously. Didn't know they were the ones that had torn into Philippe. They were simply bullets, two bullets in a hail of them.

The choking wet cough—

How long was Philippe on the ground before he realised it?

He hears those gasping, rasping breaths in his nightmares.

The gelignite was Sorelli's idea.

He pulled her to him and kissed her hard and she gasped into his mouth and curled her hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer.

They blew the RIC barracks. And with their faces covered they stood outside and shot every man who came their way.

One bullet scratched her cheek, one bullet clipped his arm, but they were past caring about anything at all.

Philippe was dead. That was the only thing in the world that mattered.

Sometimes, he thinks the world ended and began again during Easter Week. Ended in the clang of bullets, the chipping of stone, the fog and dust. Began, again, when he came back to himself in hospital, three weeks later, and heard that it was all over.

Heard that they were all dead.

(Thought, horribly, that Philippe was dead, too, and Sorelli, that they had killed even Raoul and him only a boy, until news came to him, from who he can't remember, that they were alive, but Philippe was lying low, and Raoul was recovering, and Sorelli was in prison.)

All those fine men, the ones they called their leaders, blindfolded and shot, and him supposed to be one of them, when he was well enough to be moved.

The horrible irony, of keeping someone alive, just so they can die at your own convenience.

When the news came that the executions had stopped, and he would be shipped to a prison camp instead, when he was ready for it, it hardly felt like being spared at all.

They told him he'd almost died.

When he heard about the executions, saw his damaged and broken hand, remembered the ring of the bullets that ended Malone's life in the room beneath him, he almost wished that he had.

He doesn't remember much of his time in hospital, not of the early part.

Mostly, what he remembers is how hard it was to breathe. The shadows of soldiers at the foot of his bed. The surgeon's fingers pressing into his wrist. Knuckles rubbing his chest and he gagged and gasped on the pain, the blood in his mouth and the pain in his hand and that crushing pressure in his lungs, and everything was burning, burning, and all he wanted was to rest, all he wanted was to sleep, to float away, and those knuckles would dig deep into his breastbone, and remind him to breathe.

(If that's what Philippe would have suffered—)

He didn't find out that Thomas Daaé was dead for six weeks after it happened.

He had pneumonia, bad pneumonia, that winter of 1916, and was half out of his head when it happened. Thomas hadn't been well either, the man's chest giving him trouble and Erik was learning what that could be like. He doesn't remember very much, only that they took him out of Frongoch, and he was in a hospital somewhere when he finally came back to himself.

It was one of the boys who brought him the news, Jameson he thinks. They'd let most of them out at Christmas, the whole internment business not too popular, but Jameson had decided to check up on him in hospital, and brought him the news that Thomas was dead.

It was a dull ache in his chest to hear it. He'd liked Thomas. They were both musicians, had the accordion in common, and they'd passed a number of nights talking about it that were made a good deal more pleasant by having someone to talk about these things with, even with his hand splinted, and bandaged, and knowing he may never be able play again.

But Thomas was dead, and there was nothing he could do.

"Did anyone write his daughter?" he whispered, still breathless, throat aching, and Jameson shook his head.

"Not that I know of."

Erik nodded, and closed his eyes. He knew enough of the man's address, knew the girl was called Christine, and many other Daaés could there be?

It would surprise a man the way a small deed can turn the world around.

He wrote Christine to tell her of her father's death, and how he had always liked him, and then left it at that because it was hardly his place to impose on a grieving girl. But when it happened, in that spring of 1919, that he found himself in the area after a raid on the barracks the next parish over, and the bullet that scored along his thigh was still bleeding and aching terribly, he decided he might just knock on her door, and maybe she'd remember him, and let him sit and tend to his leg.

He didn't expect for her to hear who he was, and insist on his sitting down and letting her tend to the leg. The bleeding had mostly stopped, and she gave him whiskey, and made him sit back as she cleaned it and bandaged it, this slip of a girl who could be no more than sixteen, who must surely be only the same age as Raoul, if that, and when she had that done she insisted he go to her father's old bed, and sleep while he could.

"What if they come looking for me? I won't put you in danger."

And she tilted her head, her eyes blazing. "So help me but I'll give them a talking to for disturbing a girl in the middle of the night."

If he hadn't known better, he would have thought she was an old hand at it all, and he insisted she have his gun while he slept.

(If he had had a second one, then, he would have given it to her to keep, but he only got the second one after.)

When he left, she promised he would always have a place to stay if he needed it.

He told Sorelli and Philippe, when he caught up to them, and of all the things he's ever done, he considers writing that letter from hospital to be one of the very best.

He considers her a sister, in every way but blood.

He's never regretted helping Raoul leave school. At sixteen, he was already a year older than he himself had been when he set off on his adventures. The boy needed advice about running away, about where he could go that would help him to find Philippe, and Erik advised him about Christine, and told him he would be welcome there. Christine knew Philippe, and nobody who ever saw Raoul could deny that he was Philippe's brother.

So Raoul went to Christine, and caught up to Philippe, and when Erik found his way there in time, Philippe glared at him, and then that glare turned into a smile, and he pulled him into his arms.

"Thank you," he whispered, and his breath was soft against Erik's ear. "Thank you."

The good of things is mostly mixed with the bad.

Marrying Sorelli, knowing Philippe was not there, and a little part of it felt wrong to marry her at all, when they were both still grieving. But they needed to feel something good, both of them, needed to show the world that they could still find their own happiness, needed to make it known that for all that happened, all they had suffered, they still loved each other.

Standing beside Raoul as he married Christine, knowing it was where Philippe should have been standing, knowing Philippe would have been so proud to watch his brother getting married, to see Raoul so happy. And Erik has wondered, once or twice, if Philippe knew that Raoul and Christine were just starting to love each other, if he had seen it too, and he thinks he must have, thinks it was there in his slight smile to see them talking together, thinks it was there in how he asked Christine to stay with Raoul that night, and how, as he lay dying, he asked her to look after him.

He knew Raoul was thinking of Philippe that day. Knew they all were, and how he could not be there with them, but he would have been so happy for them, and Erik whispered that to Raoul, as he hugged him before they went to stand before the altar, and Raoul nodded against him.

("I know," he whispered.)

The only one Erik let see him cry that day was Sorelli, and she dabbed the tears from his eyes and kissed him.

Some of the longest days and nights of his life were watching over Sorelli as she lay sick from that bullet wound. Holding her hand close, stroking back her hair, answering her softly when she asked for him and trying not to cry when she asked for Philippe, when she saw him through the haze of her fever.

His Sorelli, his beautiful Sorelli, and that she might not live—

But she did live, she did. And when she opened her eyes, and saw him for the first time without that sickness in her face, he couldn't help but ask, "when this is over—" but he never got to finish asking, because she smiled a weak smile and whispered, "yes", and both of them knew they meant marriage, but neither of them mentioned the word.

Christine gave herself up, let herself be arrested, to hide Sorelli when she was sick from that bullet. Either he or Raoul would have been condemned for execution, but they would not execute a woman, and he could never make it up to her, for how she saved all three of them.

When Raoul and Christine came to them from the Phoenix Park, with their cheeks flushed, wearing matching grins and their hands twined, Erik took one look at them and knew they had just gotten engaged.

Sorelli saw it too, and stayed silent just long enough for Christine to say, "we're going to get married", then she laughed and threw her arms around them and he hugged them and kissed each dear cheek, and went to get the champagne.

(They had had it in, and ready, just waiting for when it would happen.)

Connie was so small, so perfect in how she fit in his arms and against his chest, on that first night of her life. His tiny newborn baby girl, one of her hands curled so small around one of his fingers, her lashes making delicate shadows beneath her eyes. And as Sorelli slept, he sat with their baby girl by the window, and held her close as he whispered to her about Philippe, about how he had been the best man in the world, and he loved her too, though she could not see him.

The happiest night of his life, holding her close, so new, and perfect, and safe, this great swelling love in his chest, and that she had not inherited the warped half of his face felt like a sign that Philippe was still with them, however distant he could sometimes feel.

And he kissed her forehead, and added her to the list of people he would die for, the list of people he would kill for, if he had to.

(Sorelli, Raoul, Christine, and now Philomena Constance, his darling sweet little Connie.)

A little less than six years later, he added Ruairí.

The hardest work of his life, keeping Raoul from panicking, as Christine laboured and gasped and cried in the other room with Sorelli and the midwife, and it reminded him of the job that Raoul had had with him, when their places were reversed, but he made him sip brandy for his nerves, and ordered him out for a walk, a short one but fast to burn off the tension, and then home again for tea and he insisted he play records and smoke, and they went out into the garden for a while, that warm day on the first of September, and when Raoul trembled Erik hugged him tight, and promised him that everything would be all right.

He had no way of knowing of course, but Raoul had to believe. They both did.

And then they heard the baby's cry, and the tears rolled down Raoul's cheeks, and it was only a little while later that Sorelli slipped out to tell them it was a son, and Christine was alright, and wanted to see him as soon as she was cleaned up.

Raoul laughed, and hugged them both, and insisted on champagne.

Philippe Ruairí, and when, later, Erik held his new godson for the first time, he knew he would do anything to protect this little boy in his arms.

He smiled at Christine, exhausted after her ordeal, and it was all he could do to keep the tears from his eyes.

(That Philippe should have been alive to be named godfather, and not him, made his throat ache.)

Connie doted on Ruairí from the first minute, and insisted with all her almost-six year old powers of insistence, that he was her brother.

And Erik laughed to himself, watching her whispering to the baby, half-asleep and gripping her fingers tight in his, and Sorelli snorted and turned away, and he wished he had his camera, to take a photo of this most perfect moment, Connie's dark curls hiding her face as if she didn't care what happened around her, only that she had claimed this baby for her own.

Christine was grinning, propped up in bed, and when his eyes met hers, she laughed.

He could have taken up the accordion again, if he put the effort in. It might have freed his fingers out in time. But the pain was more than he could stand, and the thought of playing something, with all that happened, knowing Thomas Daaé was dead and could never play again, made him feel sick to his stomach.

He could still compose, could hear the notes in his head and write the music for others to play, and that was enough for him.

Writing eased the restless ache in his chest, and putting words down on paper was a way to take the thoughts out of his head.

Philippe persuaded him to start writing the recitations, not long after he was home after Frongoch and the hospital and before they were involved with each other, but he never meant anything to come of them, never thought anything would. That he kept it up was mostly to ease his own mind.

But Sorelli thought it was good, and Philippe thought it had potential, and after everything was over, when they were putting together that first collection of Philippe's poetry, Sorelli insisted he try his own pieces, as well.

He never expected people would like them, but they did.

He wears one of Philippe's rings on a chain around his neck.

Philippe had a whole collection of rings, built up over years, from his travels. Some had come from the Congo, some had come to him from South America. Some he bought, some he inherited. Most of them he didn't wear, not that often. But there were always a couple on his fingers, until they went to war, and then he decided they were safer hidden away.

Raoul wears his signet ring on his little finger. And someday it will be Ruairí's.

Sorelli wears a slim gold band on the ring finger of her right hand.

She wears the ring he slipped onto her finger the day they were married on her left.

It is not, really, customary for men to wear a wedding ring. But he wears her ring on his left hand, too. And he wears Philippe's on the chain.

His skin warms the silver, and sometimes he holds it, just to feel it.

Just to be close to him.

If he had known that last night would be the last night—

If he had known that when he held Philippe to ease his trembling would be the last time he really held him—

If he had known as they walked out the door that they wouldn't both be walking back through it—

If he had known—if he had known what would he have done? What could he have done? Kissed every inch of Philippe's face and told him a hundred times, a thousand times, that he loved him? Held him as tight as he could and pressed his face into his hair? Learned every inch of him and kissed him and swore never to let him go?

Tied him into the chair so he couldn't go with them, couldn't get hurt. Talked him into staying with Raoul, like he did when Raoul was sick in '16. Told him that they'd need someone to be ready, in case the Tans got past them, never mind Sorelli was doing that and Sorelli was always ready, has always been ready as long as he has known her.

If Philippe had only stayed—

Even as he thinks about it, even as he lets himself pretend he could have done it, he knows it would never have worked. Philippe would never have stayed, not when those were the men who had shot Raoul, the ones who had tried to kill him. And Erik would never blame him for that, would never want to persuade him otherwise.

(That night they found Raoul, bleeding in Christine's arms, and Philippe fell to the floor beside him, it was all Erik could do to draw breath, all Erik could do not to kneel down too, to go for the doctor instead, and he rushed out the door and borrowed Christine's bicycle, and cycled faster down that lane than he had ever cycled in his life. He had never been a praying man, but as the wind whipped the tears from his eyes he prayed harder than any man ever could.)

In all his dreams, all his nightmares, he sees the blood trickling from Philippe's lips, and how bright the moon was, shining in his eyes.

In all the things he remembers of that night, the one he remembers best is Philippe's breath hoarse in his ear as he carried him on that long walk back. His ragged coughs, and odd moans of pain. He didn't try to speak, which was as well because Erik would have shushed him, and Erik might have thought him unconscious, if his hands were not holding on so tight.

He could feel the blood trickling down his neck, soaking into his back, and when he stumbled and his knees buckled and threatened to give way, all he could think was that he had to keep going, he had to get Philippe home.

The stars overhead, the moon so bright. The fluttering of bats' wings, low hoot of an owl. And Philippe breathing, still breathing, as he carried him.

It might have been for the best, in the terrible, awful, worst way that it was, that Philippe died. That he did not linger, that he did not have to struggle through fevers and infections and terrible pain and still die at the end of it. That it was quick, as quick as it could have been.

That he never had to suffer the knowledge of what had happened to his spine. That if he had lived, he would never have been able to walk again.

Erik would have still loved him, even confined to a wheelchair. Sorelli too, he knows. Philippe crippled for the rest of his life would still be better than no Philippe at all, a hundred, a thousand times better.

(Just to have him alive, however damaged, however changed, for him to be alive…)

But Philippe himself was always such a proud man. Pride in every line of him, every angle, even in the way he carried himself. It would have tormented him, Erik knows, tormented him to the end of his days.

(The doctor himself, after, thought there was no way for Philippe to have survived, that the blood loss, and the internal damage, were too great. That the hours it would have taken to get him to a proper hospital, and the strain of travel on rough roads, would have been too much, even had he been able to stop the bleeding.)

And Erik hates himself for thinking it, hates himself for how it lives deep in his head, but he has always been selfishly, horribly, relieved, that Philippe did not suffer any longer than he had to.

That whole long night sitting by Philippe's side, did he think anything at all?

What room was there left for thinking?

What could he do, or say, only stroke back his hair, and kiss his face, kiss his lips, hold his hand, and he was so cold, so cold…

I'm sorry, he thought, he whispered, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I couldn't save you, I'm sorry.

What did he know, only that Philippe was dead and it was his fault and so help him but the Tans could not take his body, could not disturb his rest, could not—

And in the grey light of dawn he lay his head on Philippe's chest, too tired to keep it up, and closed his eyes and decided if they wanted to shoot him too they could, but they would not take Philippe, and they would not hurt Raoul again.

What did it matter if they killed him as well?

He should have died instead of Philippe.

He told Christine, once, that when he was in Frongoch that Philippe had written him a letter half in Kikongo, and he couldn't read it so he sent it back and asked for a translation, but it was only half the truth.

After the South African war ended, he drifted north, nowhere to go, nothing in mind. Who was he but someone who had fought on the losing side of a war for a time? To the great, vast world, he was not someone who existed. He had no ties to anyone, to anything, his mother dead, and he hardly had ties to her when she was alive.

So he wandered. Worked where he could, fought if he had to, browned beneath the sun and grew into a man where he didn't matter to anyone.

He found himself in the Congo, learned the language of the people. Languages, a necessity. And there was one night in Brazzaville, or was it Boma? Or was it a place with hardly a name? He doesn't remember, not the details, hardly knew them then either, too drunk, too tired, a little weak from a recurrence of malaria that he was having trouble shaking and it was playing with his head.

And on that night, he shared a cigarette with a young man, golden hair, face browned by the sun like his, and the young man smiled and spoke of Dublin, and it was the first time Erik heard of it since Major MacBride, the first time he really thought of it since he'd heard about his mother, and then they shared a second cigarette, and he wanted to kiss this young man but he held it back, and went on his way, and got so drunk that he forgot about that night until the day in Frongoch, late August, when Philippe's letter came.

It took a moment, the distance of thirteen years, to remember the language, but when he did he remembered that night, and it struck him in a strange sort of way beneath his ribs, that Philippe De Chagny was that young man from somewhere that he had shared a cigarette with, once upon a time.

That the young man he had to hold himself back from kissing that night was the very man he dreamt of kissing, on the nights that his dreams were pleasant.

25 August 1918 when they did kiss, for the first time. That strong setting sun, that long white grass, and he gasped into Philippe's mouth, tears on his cheeks, and Philippe lay him down, and his fingers were so careful, fumbling open the buttons, and when he slipped his hand down Philippe's trousers, cupped him, the warmth of him, felt how he wanted it too, so badly, wanted him, and he shifted beneath him, there in the grass, as Philippe stroked him, and kissed him, and breathed into his neck, and pressed himself close, and when he came to release, he choked on his breath, and Philippe's cry was muffled by his throat as he bucked in his hand, and they lay there as it grew cold, and dark, lay there as the first stars twinkled against the dark blue of the sky, as their sweat dried on their skin, lay there in their own stickiness, whispering and kissing, and holding each other.

—wanted so badly—

—for years—

—dreamed of you—

—thought of you—

When I was in that terrible place—

And Philippe kissed him, on the corner of his mouth, and whispered that it was over now.

And Sorelli?

Both of them her lovers, and when she first kissed him she promised him Philippe wouldn't mind, and the first time he made love to her, her soft body covered in his kisses, she whispered that it would be all right, more than all right, that she hoped he would allow her to kiss him the same, and Philippe would never mind.

And he mentioned her, and Philippe's smile above him was soft. I think she knew before we did.

They made it back to where they were staying, and slept in the same bed. And where the night before it had been chaste, that night they held each other, and kissed, and brushed hands over delicate skin and whimpered into each other's throats, and after, as he watched Philippe sleep, he was not sure that he was not dreaming. It would not be the first time he dreamed of him, of loving him. But Philippe's face in the darkness was as real beneath his fingertips as his own scars, and the tears were damp on his cheeks as he closed his eyes, and willed himself to never forget a detail of this night.

(It had been the same, the first night he slept with Sorelli, and when he woke, it was to her hand cradling his face, and her smile soft in the watery light of dawn.)

He thinks he must have loved her since he first met her, but he can't quite remember.

He hadn't wanted to love her. To let himself love her would be to let himself think she would ever let him love her. So he contented himself with being friends with her, and making her smile was always the highlight of his day.

To discover that she loved him, or was willing to try—

For her to kiss him, and brush her fingers over his cheek, and declare that she didn't care—

Never could a man be so blessed as he.

To have been blessed twice. That he loved Philippe in that secret place in his heart, and Philippe loved him too—

For it to have ended the way it did. For Philippe to have died as he did—

But Erik would never change what they had had. Would never change a moment of how they had loved each other, all three of them, together and apart as the changing tide dictated, as the war necessitated. That they could not have had longer, his only regret.

If they had realised sooner, before the Rising— If they had been free to love each other in a world something like peaceful—

What he would not give, for just a few extra hours, a few extra days. Just to hold Philippe in his arms one more time, and feel his breath against his neck.

He felt outside of himself that whole long car journey back to Dublin.

Ached for Sorelli, ached to be on the train with her and Philippe's body. But someone had to protect Raoul and Christine, and better that it be him, and someone had to travel with the body, and better that it be her when she could play the part of the widow that was hers in all but name.

Malley had some of his boys on the train, in case it should be stopped.

Raoul was trembling, too sick really to travel but they couldn't leave him behind, and Erik pressed close to him to keep him from collapsing, ready to steady him if he should slip from the seat.

And his eyes met Christine's, and he knew she was ready too, ready to fight if she had to, ready to protect Raoul, if she must.

The last time he saw Philippe, cleaned up and dressed in that suit, lying in his coffin, he kissed his forehead and kissed his closed eyes, and kissed his lips, and promised that he would always love him, and he would love Sorelli to the end of his days, and as long as he was living no harm would ever come to Raoul.

"You can rest easy," he whispered, "rest easy. I love you."

How he could stand up straight, how he could carry that coffin on his shoulder, one arm under it to support it, linked with Malley's, other hand in front of his face to balance it—how he could carry that coffin and not buckle under the weight of carrying his own heart in a box, he will never understand.

Philippe was dead, and it was a damp drizzly day, and he was carrying him to his grave. And there was nothing right about it, nothing right at all.

How could Philippe be dead?

He could hardly breathe for trying to stay standing, hardly breathe for trying to walk.

He helped to lower him into the ground, and he could hardly see the coffin for the tears in his eyes, hardly swallow with the ache in his throat, and Malley squeezed his arm as they stepped back, but his eyes went to Sorelli, to Sorelli and how pale she was with her dark hair and the red rim of her eyes, and Raoul beside her, half-swaying, bundled up in those heavy layers that could not hide how frail he was, Christine holding his arm to keep him from falling.

The secret of that night, the memory of that night, bound up in the four of them.

And in Philippe, committed to the ground.

The Metropolitan Police came that night, and Christine made him hide and Sorelli was already with Raoul, keeping him from fretting, so that was where he went.

They had to keep Raoul safe. Above all else they had to keep Raoul safe. Philippe would never forgive them if they let something happen to him.

He kept the door open just a crack, and stood inside with his ear against it, waiting for the raised voices, the footsteps on the stairs, his hand on his revolver, cocked and loaded. So help him but he'd shoot every one of them as they came through the door if he had to. Philippe was dead, he would not let them take Raoul.

He saw the glint of the candlelight on the revolver in Sorelli's hand, and when her eyes met his, she nodded.

Both of them ready, both of them waiting, the only sound their own breaths, as they strained to hear the voices in the hall.

The shots down the street, distant and muffled, a shout downstairs and he was ready, he was ready, ready to kick the door open and shoot down over the bannister, but then he heard the front door bang, and the only footsteps on the stairs were soft.

Christine.

He stepped back, and when the door opened, she nodded. "They're gone."

He and Sorelli agreed, after that, that if the police should come again, or the soldiers, then she would stay with Raoul, and he would lead them in a fight down the street, get them as far away as possible.

"So long as you're careful," she whispered and kissed him, and he swallowed.

"I'll make sure of it."

He would not let her bury him too.

It never came to them needing that plan, but they were ready if it did.

People always think he should be self-conscious about his face. Why would he be? He's worn this face his whole life and whether or not he had had a normal face he still would never have fit. He never had a name to call his own, never had a family, never had any money. Nobody would ever have let him fit.

(The only time he was ever really aware of it was the day he first met Sorelli, and that only because she was a famous actress, and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she had just smiled at him.)

He headed for Africa, and fought in a war and travelled a continent, and spent a little while in India and Australia, always searching for something to ease the ache in his chest. And there were men, and women, but none of them mattered. None of them ever really mattered.

Not until Brazil, not until Casement. And Casement awakened that desire to go back to where he started, to the place where some would have said he ought to have stayed, and there he found what he was looking for in a language and a people that he thought would never have him.

So he's never cared that he looks the way he does, though he admits it would have been useful not be so distinctive during the war, but he came through all right in the end. He just never wanted to pass this face on to a child. A child that would fit in the world, a child born into a family who would know their father and their mother and never doubt but that they were loved. To give that child something to separate them from the world where they belonged—

It never struck him as right. And so he was happy the night they decided that if there was ever to be a baby in their three-way union, then Philippe should be the father. It was a relief to have an agreement like that.

But Philippe was dead. And Sorelli was expecting a baby, his baby.

The thought that he could have passed this face on to that baby...

Those months of waiting, of wondering, of worrying and trying not to think about it, and there were nights he could hardly sleep for thinking of it, and remembering Philippe.

And none of it mattered, when Sorelli whispered, "she's perfect" and he looked down at the bundle wrapped up in her arms.

His daughter. His daughter.

Her face perfect in every way.

To the end of his days, he will never understand how he did not break down.

That he should hear of Ireland on a dark night in Rio de Janeiro, from the lips of a man that he had just made love to and was now sharing a cigarette with.

That that man should be the British consul no less, who was now whispering of the wrongs done to the country by the very empire he was representing.

To say it beggared belief is to put it mildly.

Erik took another one of the fine cigarettes, and lit it, and felt the first smoke warm in his lungs, and bid Casement continue telling him of the land he had not seen in ten years, that he had left at the age of fifteen when he knew there was nothing there for him.

They smoked, and talked to near morning, and Erik resolved to go back, to join this Gaelic League, and ready himself for the fight against the British oppressor that must surely be coming.

Ireland, come to him twice from the lips of men he might love, if he let himself.

(And he did love Casement, a bit, deep in his heart. What started as business turned into more, and though he did not love him to just the extent that Philippe had, he loved him enough, as much as he could.)

Though he was ready to fight for her, to die for her if he must, Ireland never felt like home until he met Plunkett and McDermott and McDonagh and Hobson and Bigger and the rest.

Until he met Sorelli, and Philippe, and it was friendship with them, only friendship before the Rising, though he knew they loved each other and sometimes dreamt of if they would love him, but they made Ireland home for him.

And he always brought sweets for Raoul when he visited, and hoped that that boy would always be protected from the horrors of the world.

It was sometime in August that the news filtered through that Casement was dead.

He doesn't remember the date. Dates and time often hardly seemed to matter in Frongoch, and it was the letters that came to him, from Sorelli, from Philippe, that gave him some sense of being, some sense that time was passing, in the outside world.

But the news came that Casement was dead, and for a horrible moment he couldn't breathe, could feel the pressure in his lungs that was the same as when he was in the hospital, the same as when he was ill.

That that man—that they had hanged him—

He had a box of cigarettes that had come to him in Sorelli's last letter, and he shouldn't have been smoking because it made his chest tight and he wasn't fully recovered yet, was still weak and tired, but what else could he do with his shaking hands? What else could he do?

He took a drag of that cigarette, and blew the smoke slowly out, breathing through his nose to try to steady the pounding of his heart, and all he could think of was all of the time he and Casement had stood beside each other, smoking, and not saying very much at all.

He didn't sleep a wink that night.

He was always a man of adventure, seeing the world.

The years of war were more than enough adventure for him.

He's been thinking more and more of Philippe lately, more and more of those years that feel so distant and yet so close. It is thirty-six years, now, since Philippe died. Thirty-six years, and yet, sometimes, it feels like he could reach back and touch him, take his hand one more time.

On the anniversary itself he and Sorelli go to visit him. They do every Sunday anyway, have ever since they were married. It feels, sometimes, as if they are trying to make up for the times they could not visit him, when they were on the run from the Tans, on the run from the Free State army. They bring him fresh flowers (purples, blues, reds), and Sorelli clears away the old ones (his hips are too stiff to let him stoop, now), and sometimes they speak but they don't need to, really.

They've said all the things they need to say.

But it's nice to visit him, nice just to spend a few minutes thinking quietly, remembering. And they never ask each other what it is that comes into their heads at those times, and he thinks it better that way. What matters is that they love him, still, and how that feels, to both of them, is a sacred thing.

More of his writing, too, lately, has been about Philippe. Things that he doesn't expect the world will ever see, because the world would never understand. Things like the precise slant of sunlight across his face, and the spark in those blue eyes, and how gentle his fingertips were, as they brushed his wrist. How he was soft-spoken, in that aristocratic way, just a step away of being accused of an English accent, but no one would ever accuse him of being English, not with the things he'd said. How he never knew just how handsome he was, never cared when a splinter of timber tore his cheek and left him with a scar along his jaw.

How, when they were in Kerry in the spring of 1920, and Raoul was not long after joining them, a raid on a barracks saw a bullet tear through the flesh of Philippe's arm, and in spite of the cleaning, and stitching, it still got infected, and his skin was burning as he insisted they go to Banna Strand, and Raoul's face was pale, worried, but Erik couldn't deny him.

Couldn't deny he had some curiosity about the Strand himself, and the beach Casement first set foot on when he finally got back from Germany, just before they arrested him.

Erik doesn't remember where Sorelli was that day they went to the Strand, undercover maybe, but he remembers how Philippe trembled, from pain and fever and their shared half-unspoken grief, and sick as he was he was still fierce, still so terribly beautiful, and Erik's heart ached just to see him.

He writes, too, about himself, and how he has always been prone to the occasional malaria relapse, a legacy of the Congo, of India, and South America. And he suffered one, a terrible one, when Connie was just a baby, just a couple of months old, and as he thrashed in the depths of his fever, his muscles and bones aching, Philippe came for him, bloodied and broken, and the fear that tore through his heart was more than he could stand.

(Sorelli thought he'd die, and it was only after Raoul found a doctor who gave him quinine and morphine that he slept peacefully, and the stillness was almost worse than what had gone before.)

(When he didn't wake for two days, the fever still high, the doctor suggested a priest, and he heard the Latin through the haze of his dreams and the echo of Philippe's voice behind it, soft, and far away.)

He remembers waking, sick and weak, to watery pale light, to Sorelli's face damp with tears, and she stroked back his hair, and kissed his forehead, and whispered for him to sleep, that she loved him, and he would be all right, now.

He writes, too, of a relapse years earlier, when he was on the run with Philippe. They were in the mountains, he thinks, or close to them, and they were trying to get somewhere safe to spend the night, but he could feel it coming in his bones, and the headache left him almost blind, and when he stumbled, and fell, Philippe felt how his skin was burning, and knew he could go no further, knew it was foolish to even try. So Philippe built a fire, and lay back against a big tree, and pulled him close, and covered him with his own coat, and held him there all night, whispering to him, kissing him, and by dawn the fever had passed, but he was too weak to travel.

(Mostly he remembers Philippe's voice low in his ear, and the gentleness of his hands.)

Sorelli found them, had come looking for them after they missed the rendezvous, and together she and Philippe got him to where he could sleep.

They lay either side of him, and held him, and with them close by he knew he did not have to fear the ghosts behind his eyes.

When they were going to execute him, January 1923, it almost seemed like a relief.

He was just so tired.

His only regret was that it would leave Sorelli alone, and she never deserved to be alone.

But then Raoul and Lynch orchestrated his escape, and the escape of three more condemned men, and when he got back to Sorelli they held each other, just held each other a long time.

"Don't ever do that to me again," she whispered into his chest, and he kissed her hair and breathed, "I won't."

"I couldn't stand to lose you."

Her hand soft, curled around the back of his neck.

He's given one of those Witness Statements they want the survivors of the fight for independence to give (Sorelli has too, and Raoul and Christine, all of them). He's given five of them, in fact, to cover everything from joining the Volunteers in 1913 to the end of the Treaty War ten years later. And there are things he could not speak of, things he could only tell a little of, things the world is not ready to know of and things he could only put into words for Sorelli, but let what he could say stand as a testament to those who cannot speak for themselves anymore, those whose voices were taken from them in those ten long years.

(Philippe, Casement, Malley, Plunkett, MacBride, Lynch, and so many hundreds, thousands more.)

He cannot write his own story, cannot write their stories for them, but let them be known, and never forgotten, for what they did to build this country, what it cost.

Let some future historian find them and put the pieces together, someone untainted by what happened who can sleep at night without the voices of ghosts, and let them come to understand some small piece of what it took, some small piece of what they were to each other.

He regrets not a thing of what he did. He regrets only that he could not save Philippe, and do more.

(How many nights has he revisited it in his nightmares? Every detail, the cold chill of the air, Philippe gasping beneath his hands, the blood, so much blood welling up between his fingers, soaking the towels through, "want to see you…" "you don't need a priest!", Philippe gasping, coughing, half-smiling, the frothy blood trickling from his lips and he bundled up another towel for under his head but the blood still came, still he was choking, his eyes so blue, so blue, Sorelli's whispers, Raoul's whispers, Philippe's own whispers but all Erik could see was the blue of those eyes, slipping closed even as he watched and he wanted to shake him, wanted to keep him awake but he didn't want to hurt him and he gripped his hand instead and squeezed it tight and Philippe's answering squeeze was feeble, and when his eyes closed he could hear himself whispering but he couldn't hear what he was saying, could only listen to that breathing, and kiss those fingers and press himself as close as he could to Philippe's side, his legs too weak to hold him up, and when Philippe's breath gurgled and stopped he felt the room spin and his head fell against Philippe's side, and all he wanted was to take him in his arms and hold him tight but he couldn't move, couldn't move, couldn't breathe—)

(How many nights has he woken sweating, heart pounding, gasping for air? And it's all he's been able to do to get his legs under him, to stumble to the window and pull it open and stick his head out, raining or not, and breathe in the cool night air, feel the tears damp on his cheeks. How many times has he felt Sorelli's arms come around him, her body pressed to him, holding him tight as he shook, trembled? Sometimes his legs were too weak, and he sunk to the floor and brought her down with him, but she just held him tighter, cradled his head to her chest and rocked him, rocked him until he could breathe again. And some nights she brings the bed sheets with her, and wraps them both in them when he has eased, and they sleep there on the floor, beside the open window, and when his bones ache in the morning, she rubs the ointment in to take the pain away.)

(How many nights has he woken to her thrashing in the bed, and moved away to give her space, and turned the light on when she stilled, and got water for when she would wake? Both of them sitting there after, holding each other, and neither speaking because they both knew what was in the nightmares, and speaking about it never made it easier, when it had been real, once, and putting it into words could not change what had happened.)

(All he could do was to stroke her hair, and kiss her forehead, and hold her close.)

He felt it, that cold grey dawn, as Sorelli passed through the room, felt it as she eased the gun from his hand, felt her warm and real as she kissed his hair and leaned over him to kiss Philippe's cold, pale forehead. Heard the birds louder as she opened the door, and she stepped outside.

And then she was back, and he felt it as she sat on Philippe's other side, and her hand was warm against his cheek, and when he lifted his head, just to see her, her face was pressed close to Philippe's own, and her eyes meeting his were damp with tears.

He reached across Philippe's chest, and took her hand.

A promise, a whisper.

She squeezed his fingers, he brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

A tear trickled down his cheek. She swallowed.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them could. They did not need to. The only sound their own breathing.

Philippe's body lying still between them.

He gazed into her dark eyes, and kissed her fingers, and knew.

He keeps three photographs in his wallet.

Philippe, the summer of 1918, smiling just slightly as he looks at the camera, squinting against the glare of the sun.

He and Sorelli's wedding day, Raoul and Christine at their side, all of them managing to smile, though they look so tired.

Connie and Ruairí at the beach, her head thrown back laughing, Ruairí grinning after telling some ridiculous joke.

All of these people he has held most dear, tucked into his pocket, close to his heart.

He has not told Sorelli, but he does not think Connie will ever marry.

She is too much like them, and how they were. But the world is different, now.

She has had any number of potential suitors, but he has always known each one was wrong for her, from the moment they first shook his hand.

Boys, who would never really know what it took. But his little girl, this young woman she's become, so like her mother, she understands.

She has her music, she has her art. And if their story, the true story of those days, is ever to be told, then she will be the one to tell it. Her and Ruairí both.

It could be no other way.