Before he'd even surfaced properly from his sleep, Alfred was pushing himself up. "Channel x304-D, 20.18, on the 18th!" he said urgently.

He felt a lurch of surprise when nobody replied. He was alone in the room. The chair where he remembered Arthur sitting was empty.

But the clock glowed at 20.11, and the numbers sent a renewed jolt to his brain. He had to get it to an input. He didn't even know what the channel would do, but he had been sent here with that message and he was going to deliver it. He grabbed his overalls, ignoring the healing twinge from his side, and paid no attention to the way it crackled and shed dried cakes of regen-gel.

The corridors were silent. Alfred flicked a glance at the now-familiar info screen as he passed the mess, and got his second unpleasant shock. It was blank.

All right, sometimes screens had to go down for maintenance. Maybe androids would bring them a replacement – Alfred had given up any hope of seeing a human. He turned down another silent hallway and wondered uneasily where the hell the others were. A faint ringing sound grew louder as he approached the rotum.

He turned the corner to see another blank screen.

"What the hell?" Alfred said aloud. He punched open the door to the rotum and stopped dead. The ringing resolved itself into a high, urgent alarm. The walls were lit up with red screens and warnings. INCURSION. OUTER ARRAYS AT 5%. INCURSION. FACULTY SHIELDS BELOW 50%. MAINTENANCE REQUIRED. INCURSION.

Arthur was standing with his hands skating over the main input board, grim and drawn. Lancaster's hatch was gaping open. The others had launched, their hatch lights dull - Lancaster and Eagle were the only ones left.

"Arthur!" Alfred called, breaking into a jog. The clock was at 20.16. "Channel x304-D!" Another siren blared, flicking up a display, but he didn't spare it a glance. They were under attack, that was all that mattered. "We can- I don't know, stave off the attack, bolster the defenses- it's very important!"

"Alfred," Arthur said, not moving. "The defenses are almost all already gone."

Alfred froze.

"This is the eighth hour of this attack," Arthur said. "They're out there in their hundreds." He finally turned to look at Alfred, paper-gray and exhausted. "We don't have a hope."

Alfred stared at him, a leaden weight dropping in his stomach. "What?" he said. It came out very small. He had thought they might somehow – no, he had been certain he had time. It was only 20.17.

"We took out the first few hours of them in shifts, but they just don't stop," Arthur said. He turned back to the interface, his hands still moving. "We shoot down two and three take their place. They're coming on carefully, though – we think they want us alive." He glanced back at Alfred. "We're not letting that happen."

Alfred stood there numbly, his grip on the staircase railing turning his hand white. He had been waiting for the miracle. But no miracle had come to save his cidome, and no miracle had come here. He was wrong, and it was too late.

But the numbers still nagged, from the small white place deep behind his eyes. It was transmitting them like a constant chatter of data, over and over. x304-D, 20.18, 18th. It was a neural itch he couldn't scratch.

"Arthur," he said. "Try manual channel x304-D."

Arthur paused. "What?" he said. "We don't have time. I have to shut us down so they can't get any data—"

"Do it anyway! This is important!"

"More important than our impending destruction?"

"Please," Alfred said, as the numbers scrolled behind his eyes. He nearly touched Arthur's shoulder, but that didn't seem fair, so his hand hovered a centimeter above his overalls and then fell away.

Arthur took a short, sharp breath, and entered the string.

"Put it on the display," Alfred said urgently. "Audio as well." The chattering in his head was overwhelming. He put his hand to his eye and pressed until he saw white sparks.

"Alfred, what are you expecting?" Arthur said. He cut the alarms with a violent gesture and the alarms dropped into silence.

"I don't know," Alfred whispered into the sudden hush. Something. A miracle.

Arthur made a final gesture, and the screen threw up a refusal. "It's protected," he said, in the flat tone he used in battle. "Nothing will be getting through apart from Elite orders."

"Strip the protections," Alfred said.

Arthur hesitated, then his hand flicked out in a quick motion. "I supposed we're all going to die anyway."

The silence filled up with low static. Alfred pulled away from the railing and leaned over Arthur's shoulder. Nothing. Nothing. Then –

A sharp burst of white filled the input screen and numbers and letters started to appear on it, a long string. They spilled out of the speakers in synthesized vocals, overlapping, loud enough to deafen, ten E fifteen one-five-nine hash D twelve, on and on while Alfred and Arthur clapped their hands over their ears. Arthur was staring at the screen round-eyed. Then, as the string rolled to an end and started to repeat, he burst into life, pulling up screens and lists and inputters faster than Alfred could follow.

"What is it?" Alfred shouted over the noise.

"An unlock code!" Arthur shouted. "I'm trying it in the systems now!"

An unlock code. Alfred felt this should have been making sense to him, but nothing did. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. How had he known?

Arthur's hands dropped back. "Nothing," he said, disgusted.

"Try it in the Aurea's own systems," Alfred said. They'd have protections, but - "Isn't there some kind of direct port?"

"Downloading!" Arthur said, shoving a memory ball in the hopper. It beeped once, then threw up three FORBIDDEN messages on the screen at once. Arthur swore and turned all his attention to circumventing them while Alfred kicked the base of the railing to relieve his feelings and wished he could just shoot something. But whatever Arthur was doing seemed to be working: the ball started beeping again. "Finally!" Arthur said.

Then cut off. The screen went black. The hopper snapped shut, trapping the ball inside. [change-]as Arthur grabbed it. All the lights in the room had dulled.

Words scrolled across all the functioning screens. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS – PILOTS IN ROTUM TO CONNECTING BAY.

"Now?" Arthur said, in a strangled tone. "In the middle of a battle?"

Alfred hit the hopper with his fist. The plastic vibrated, but held. "Nearly all of this is automated!" he said. He could feel the sickening swell of the mind wipe the moment he said it, but if he kept the numbers churning around his head in a subvocal stream, it seemed to hold it back. The white space in his head was expanding, protecting his thoughts. He hit the hopper again. It cracked under the blow. "We're operating thousands of klicks from the center - everyone else retreated years ago. Most of this is machines!" He balanced himself and leveled a kick at it. His heel connected solidly with the cover, and it shattered into sharp pieces.

Arthur was staring at him with his mouth open. "Then how—"

Alfred interrupted him before he could trigger his wipe. "We've got minutes before the androids come. Get Eagle and Lancaster opened up!" He pried the crack further apart and grabbed the ball.

"They'll kill us for this," Arthur said, but he had got the screen working again and was already programming open Eagle's hatch.

"Like we were coming back alive anyway!" Alfred said. A whine had started in the air, so faint it sounded like speaker feedback. His heart was pounding so hard it could just be the blood threatening to burst from his ears. He was quivering with the need to move, but he damn well wasn't going anywhere until Arthur was away. "Hurry up!"

Arthur pulled up the battle status. "When you shoot out the tunnel, take Eagle north-west at 40°, there's a clump coming up there: ETA in six minutes. You won't get backup. The other Aurea are already shot to hell. Ludwig's down to his last shields in Leviathan, Antonio's got none at all."

The high whining was getting louder. "Arthur," Alfred said, distracted by a sudden dread. "Shut the door."

"We've got at least two minutes, we'll be gone by then," Arthur said, as Lancaster finished powering up. Eagle was slower.

"Shut the door!" Alfred lunged to the interface. It took him a precious second to work out the control gesture, and in that time the whining rose to a scream. The door slid shut and there was a battery of sharp, metallic thunks. One of them got through the closing gap, airborne and metallic, and it zipped into the room and hurled itself at them with a piercing shriek.

"Arthur!" Alfred tried to lunge, but he was too slow. Arthur saw it coming and threw up his arms – protecting him – and the skimming disc cut into his flesh with a spray of blood. Alfred' stomach curdled in horror.

The disc whirled around for another pass, Arthur falling back with a cry of pain. "Fuck," Alfred said, and swung an emergency oxygen canister at it. It hit with a crunch and sent it spinning into the ground. Alfred hit it again and part of its casing cracked and fell off. He ground the base of the canister into it until it stopped moving.

Alfred caught the thunk, thunk at the door. "They're still trying to get in," he said. "We have to go!" The door gave a crack as it buckled.

"I can't move my arm," Arthur snapped. He was bent over against the interface, setting off commands at random. His face was grey with shock, contrasting with the blood staining his sliced sleeves. "It will take me too long to connect up. Get in Eagle."

Alfred half-helped, half shoved him up the staircase to the hatches. Arthur fell into Lancaster's hatch. He shoved the memory ball into the hardware input with his good arm before he even moved to the connections. Alfred frantically pulled them loose from their docks.

"That's the door!" Arthur said, at another crack below. "Go! Leave!"

Alfred found the calm white place had filled his mind. "No," he said, and finished the connections Arthur couldn't reach with sure hands. Only when he saw the screens light up did he race the last few steps to Eagle and connect himself up.

As Alfred hit the hatch to seal himself in, the rotum door gave way, and the lethal fliers came in in a swarm, but they were already launching, Lancaster and then Eagle. The first flier made it though the hatch. Alfred felt the deep shock of it digging into Eagle's casing, but Eagle was built for missiles. It fell away.

He shot out of the tunnel into a whirl of Aurea and Cree. The images of the others flickered up in front of him. Ludwig was as set and grim as an android himself, blood trickling from his nose. Roderich was bent over from some injury invisible to the camera; Gilbert a blazing mass of fury. Antonio was bleeding heavily from his forehead. His eyes were confused and barely conscious, one rimmed with blood. Of Feliciano's screen, there was only ominous black.

It was a struggle to readjust his senses to Eagle's. Alfred extended his sensors out past the immediate battle, into the waiting sky, and found the horizon black with Cree. His beam-enhanced senses touched the other Aurea, burnt, damaged, leaking liquids. Dying.

"Last stand?" Ludwig said, his voice as clear in Alfred' head despite the crack Alfred could feel running the length of the Leviathan.

"Not yet," Arthur snarled. "Romano, read inputs!"

"What the fuck?" Romano looked uninjured so far. "What the hell is this data you're feeding – shit," he said, his eyes glassy as he trawled through it"This is for Aurea."

"Kirkland, what are you doing?" Ludwig demanded, even as Leviathan wheeled to take out an encroaching Cree on Gilbert's tail. Shrike was in a bad state, as if Gilbert had finally thrown all personal safety to the winds.

"Brace!" Arthur said, and Alfred automatically settled in. "Enacting code – now!"

Data streams flooded out from Lancaster to the rest of them, and as their systems responded, the chittering of the Cree filled their cockpits. Connected up, Alfred couldn't block his ears. Ludwig's image opened its mouth to bellow at Arthur, but before he could, the sound changed.

The chittering started to change form, to flow together into words. Human words, with human voices.

... Nations to Aurea pilots. Allied Nations to Aurea pilots. This is a diplomatic message. Allied Nations to Aurea pilots. Please disengage your weapons. We wish to parley. Please disengage your weapons. Allied Nations to -

"Parley?"Ludwig said in shock as Arthur cut the comm.

Alfred felt as if he was flooded with light. Everything was starting to fall into place. "Disengage," he said, suddenly certain. "Disengage and they'll fall back!" He cut all Eagle's weapons systems. Something strange was happening to the sky outside.

"No!" Gilbert snarled, and Alfred saw Shrike whirl into a clump of Cree, spinning to take them out one by one with the exploding puffs of short-range missiles. "Murdering scum! No tricks! We can take them all!"

"Gilbert!" Roderich said, and dived after him.

"They're not attacking," Ludwig said, sounding utterly baffled. "They're only using their anti-artillery."

Alfred finally realised what he had been feeling outside. "The sky's clear," he said. "The fog's just gone. How did that happen?"

"Our sensors," Arthur breathed. "Fuck, there was a scrambler on us."

"Tricks!" Gilbert shouted, pulling Shrike around for another run.

"Get back here!" Roderich said, his color high and furious. The Cree were leaving them a clear space. "Do you want to take us both down?" Gilbert tore his attention away from his target and seemed to realise that Roderich was right on his tail. He rolled away from the Cree, swearing.

"We parley," Ludwig said. He brought Leviathan's bulk around and the smaller Aurea flocked to them, Antonio in the limping Tracer half-towing Feliciano. "Open the comm channels, Kirkland."

This time there was no chittering. The calm tones had changed to multiple transmitters. They've cut us off! Has Jones failed? No, comm says we got through. Look, they've disengaged! Calling Aurea pilots! Calling Aurea pilots!

There was a soft click as Ludwig opened an outward channel to the Cree for the first time ever. "We hear you," he said with commendable steadiness. "Can you give us assurance that this is not a trick?"

We are sending an unarmed transport, said the comm.

"Show us you're human," Arthur said harshly.

Transferring, the comm said, and clicked, and a soft male voice came out of it instead. Transport capsule Delta Key to Aurea.

Alfred's heart lurched into his throat. He leaned forward uselessly, as if he could get closer to that voice, but he could only watch as a sleek dark shape detached itself from the black mass of Cree ships. Of human ships.

Alfred could feel Shrike's guns training on it. "Gilbert! Don't shoot!"

Roderich gave Gilbert a sharp look and he unwillingly cut power.

We are unarmed, the voice said. A hatch at the side of the transport was opening to show a human figure, dressed in an unfamiliar airforce uniform. Wind started to whistle into the microphone of his headset even in its half-casing. Alfred froze at the half-remembered shape. Eagle started to drift off course. Please grant safe conduct. There was a slight change in the tone of his voice, a crack in the professionalism. It was a young voice. You have my brother with you.

The bright space set off like a blast in Alfred' head, flooding his eyes with white.

"Brother?" Ludwig said, baffled. "What, we don't-"

"Matty," Alfred said, and drained Eagle's remaining power to broadcast the surrender signal to the entire fleet.

()()()

Alfred was first to dock to one of their carriers, slipping in ahead of Ludwig's protests. Hands helped him with his connectors and manual docking, medical personnel in cool green overalls, and Matty – Matty who was so achingly familiar. Memories were flooding back: not enough, not fast enough, but there. He was prepared when Matty threw himself at him and wrapped his arms around him in a bear hug. All Matty said was, "Please don't do that to me again." Alfred hugged him.

He watched the others dock, anxiously following Lancaster's grey bulk in this new, blue sky. The others stumbled out of their wrecked Aurea one by one, Ludwig wary and looking around for tricks, Romano stiff and prickly. Antonio came out like a dead boy walking, falling over his own feet, unable to see. Feliciano was brought out on a stretcher, totally limp, and Alfred tried to lunge forward before Matty caught him.

"He's alive," Matty said, holding him firmly by the arm. "Let the medics do their job."

"I am a medic!" Alfred said indignantly, then blinked, and realized it was true. He could read the blinking symbols on the stretcher monitor. Feliciano was unconscious, not dead, and the signs weren't anything to panic about. Yet. He went back to tracking Lancaster on the exterior visuals.

Shrike refused to dock, circling around Albatross, and Alfred could imagine the furious argument going on there. Roderich solved it by docking himself, stumbling out holding his chest entry site, soaked with blood that hadn't been visible in the head images. After that Shrike couldn't swoop in fast enough. Gilbert tumbled out of his cockpit, ripping the connectors off so fast they left bleeding patches. He tore into the group of medics surrounding Roderich and had laid out two of them with furious punches before interventions from Roderich brought him to some sort of heel.

"He's been down there too long," Alfred said urgently to the nearest medic. "Don't hurt him. He can't help it."

"They're not going to," Matty said. "Alfred, we're the good guys."

Alfred didn't relax, though, couldn't relax, until Lancaster docked and Arthur unfolded himself from the cockpit and half-ran across to Alfred.

He didn't mean to hug Arthur like he'd nearly died, but he'd nearly died, and anyway, Arthur was hugging him right back.

"Hell – Arthur, your arms–" he said, when the relief subsided enough to let anxiety get the upper hand. There was already a medic hovering to work on them.

"I'll live, you idiot," Arthur said, but looked relieved when they smeared them with pain gel and started to bandage them.

The docking ramp sealed itself, leaving them standing there in the grey stretch of shipboard corridor with their shoulders pressing lightly together, as if neither of them had noticed. There were still a handful of medical personnel flocking around and getting Antonio to sit in a hospital wheelchair and plugging tubes into Feliciano before his stretcher went any further. Now that the whistling wind was shut out, Alfred could near the shocked murmuring, Scalpel scars, thought that was all propaganda… Biojump signals at injections on this one, some sort of trauma there… Good Lord, why would you do this to children… Alfred turned his head away, trying to block them out.

"Alfred Jones and Arthur Kirkland?" a voice said, and they both turned with a start. It was a woman, this one with grey cropped hair and an unmistakable air of seniority, even if it wasn't for her arm banded with a General's gold.

Alfred saluted, because he was in uniform, even if it was apparently the wrong side's. Arthur came to a wary attention.

She returned the salute. "Congratulations on your survival."

"Are we going to get medals?" Alfred said.

"Are we going to prison?" Arthur said, at the same time.

The General looked between them, her brow lined in puzzlement. "Ah," she said. "I see Jones hasn't recovered everything. Well, it was experimental."

"Uh," Alfred said. "Should I understand that?"

"Apparently," Arthur said, his tone unfriendly. "How did he know that unlock code was coming?"

The General looked impatient. "Obviously we sent him with it."

"I was – wait, are you telling me I was there on purpose?" Alfred said.

"You let this happen to him?" Arthur said furiously. "You sent him out there to be brainwashed and shoved into those things and shot at by our own side?"

"He volunteered," the General corrected him. "Apparently, to follow you. Something you should be thankful for, since his actions mean there may be commendations for you, rather than a treason charge."

"You mean this idiot—"

"And the others?" Alfred interrupted, before Arthur could actually talk himself into a treason charge. He had a crystallizing certainty that he wouldn't have agreed to this, unless—

"They are being offered citizenship," the General said. "As explained before your mission, although I understand your memories haven't fully restored. They're victims of the Elite from other alliances, not enemy combatants. For Heaven's sake," she added with more asperity, "None of them – none of you – are even over sixteen. Have the medics released you?"

"No," Arthur said before Alfred could answer. He was giving the General a look of deep distrust. "They haven't checked Alfred, either."

"Are you harmed, Jones?" the General said.

Alfred wanted to say yes, to get a few more precious moments with Arthur, but he wasn't going to lie to a superior officer. And there would be time for that after. They'd have all the time they needed now. "No, ma'am."

"Report to Intelligence immediately," the General said. "And you, Kirkland, as soon as you're cleared. The others will be dealt with." She turned on her heal without waiting for further answers.

"I'll go ahead," Alfred said cheerfully. "Save you a seat. Hey, you know what'll be fun?"

Arthur gave him a look of total bemusement. "What?"

"We get to introduce Ludwig to pizza," Alfred said. He waved and fell in behind the General.

()()()

A week later, somewhat subdued, Alfred dawdled by the back gatehouse of Allied Intelligence and drummed his fingers on his knees. His civvies felt strange, familiar in the way they fitted, but his brain kept nagging him that he should be wearing pilot overalls. They didn't even wear overalls here.

He glanced back at the looming bulk of the building where he'd spent the last week being debriefed and having them mess with his head again. He was technically free to go, now.

They'd saved the day, him and Arthur. He hadn't considered that saving the day meant there would still be problems the next day. Or that the people who ran things would make sure that on that next day you'd be sitting in the cheerless confines of the deep military, answering question after question only broken up with medical tests, and you wouldn't be allowed to see the one person you wanted to see above everything.

He'd been allowed one visit from his brother. Matty had been the one who'd brought him his own clothes, and pajamas, and his smallest superhero figurine nestled in a pair of socks. Matty was one of the more vivid memories, like a patch cleared on a fogged screen. Everything else about the cidomes was still weird, as if they were memories of a place he'd lived ten years ago, rather than just weeks ago.

It didn't seem fair, that you could save the day, and not even end up with all the memories you'd started with.

He looked up reflexively as yet another person came out of the side doors. Another one in fatigues and the soft blue Intelligence cap. He looked away again, disappointed.

Then he looked back.

Arthur came to a halt, stiff and uncomfortable, a few paces from Alfred. He gave Alfred a glare. "You got out early," he said, when the silence threatened to stretch out into awkwardness.

Alfred was staring openly. "You're in uniform." He'd been afraid that when he looked at Arthur, he'd only remember their time as Elite dupes. But he had the opposite problem: when he looked at him now, memories of him came back in a surge, bright and colorful and overwhelming. And he knew he'd never seen Arthur in uniform. He wanted to be a politician.

Arthur pulled the cap off, as if it had never sat comfortably in the first place. "They gave it to me! How did you get civvies?"

"I just, y'know—" Alfred waved a hand. "Asked."

Arthur crossed his arms, his face settling into that familiar scowl. "You must have screamed bloody murder to get your own clothes. I was fobbed off with security risk. Why bother?"

Alfred shrugged. "Didn't want to start off with you on the wrong foot. You don't like uniforms."

"Start off?" Arthur said. "Start off?" He covered the remaining distance and grabbed the front of Alfred's jacket. "We have been friends for four years. Do I have to remind you of that?"

His voice was edged with a scraping note that Alfred understood. It was fear. Fear that Alfred had really forgotten him, that Arthur was just another loose wire in the rat's nest the Elite programming had made of both their minds.

Alfred put his hand on Arthur's shoulder. He took a moment just enjoying that he could feel the sharp curve of Arthur's shoulder under the borrowed uniform. "No," he said, making sure his voice sounded firm, because there was no room for doubt now. "I remember you. I always remembered you. I just lost the important stuff, like how we got there."

"Let me remind you," Arthur said. He was still glaring, but he didn't shrug Alfred off. Alfred didn't pull his hand back. "When there was an Elite attack here and you found I was in the breach zone, you pulled your whole cadet group from the tunnel train and chased the spider drones out into the periphery. Then you decided I must be alive, just because they hadn't found any remains—"

"Hey," Alfred protested, "I was right about that."

"—when you got yourself off the medic cadet program and volunteered as a test subject, to have your genetics altered—"

"That's not really how it works—"

Arthur prodded Alfred in the chest. "Shut up! I'm telling you off!"

Alfred grinned and caught his hand. "For what? Intelligence knew the Elite were selecting their abductees for something. They made me into that."

"They made you bait!"

"I volunteered," Alfred said. They'd had to tell him that he'd volunteered, because he didn't have any memory of it. He didn't really want to think about how he must have been feeling to do that. Arthur's hand was still in his, so he focused on that instead. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to turn it over and to raise the wrist to his mouth, and kiss it.

Arthur's face seemed to catch in a freeze frame just as he was about to start shouting.

"And it worked," Alfred added, still grinning. "You're alive."

"You are an idiot," Arthur said. His hand in Alfred's grasp was thrumming with tension. "There is not enough time in the universe for me to tell you how much of an idiot you are."

"Then how about—" but Alfred was saved from completing that, because that was when Arthur ducked in awkwardly and kissed him.

It was quick, and clumsy, and a confusion of tongues and teeth and trying to fit together. Arthur pulled back, trying to keep any expression off his face, but Alfred said, "Wait," and leaned in, and tried again.

The second time lasted a lot longer. It was only broken by the click of a shutter sound.

"No, carry on," the reporter called out, angling his camera for a better shot. "You're Jones and Kirkland, right?"

"Uh," Alfred said, before Arthur grabbed him and kissed him again. Alfred snatched another breath after that one. "No comment!"

The reporter flashed him a grin and started speaking into his headset.

Arthur reluctantly let go of Alfred's jacket. "We might want to get out of here. I thought there was a reason they told me to use the side entrance."

Alfred's whole body was tingling like he was in an Aurea. He felt giddy with it. "Let's take the back ways," he said, and grabbed Arthur's hand. A capsule splashed with a network logo was nosing its way around the tunnel corner.

They picked a tunnel at random and dashed down the walkway, choosing turnings at random, until they ended up on a pedestrian stairway with nobody else in sight.

Alfred ducked down and peered through the railings, checking the tunnel below as well as the tunnel above. "We lost them."

Arthur was stuffing his military cap into a pocket. "For now." He jerked his head to a public news screen playing on the tunnel wall below, flashing up photos of Ludwig, Feliciano, Romano, Alfred himself. "We'll have to face them eventually." He turned away from Alfred, leaning on the rail. "Or I will, at least. How long do you have before they ship you off to the warzone again?"

"Arthur," Alfred said. He came and leaned on the rail beside him, and fitted his arm around Arthur's shoulders. "I didn't re-enlist to the warzone placement. I'm not going anywhere."

Arthur's head came round, eyes widening in shock and dismay. "You bloody fool," he said. "You are not throwing away your career for me."

"Nope," Alfred said. "I can take placements here. Most of the fighting is just drones, now that Aurea support is down – they reckon they won't hit anything inhabited for another six hundred klicks past the border. I can be more use here." Arthur's career was going to be here, after all. And the other six were here.

Arthur half-lidded his clear green eyes. "Did I just hear something sensible out of you?" he said. He was clearly trying for dignity, but Alfred was distracted by the faintest suggestion of freckles at his hairline. "Alert the presses."

Movement in the tunnel above caught Alfred's eye. "Think someone already did," he said, as a capsule heaved into view and started disgorging reporters. He grinned at Arthur. "Running's getting kinda boring. How about giving them something to film?"

"We could do that," Arthur said magnanimously. He turned his head in, catching Alfred's lips.

The third kiss left the first two in the shade. Alfred wrapped his arms around Arthur's shoulders, and remembered what it felt like to fly.

"I don't get it," Arthur said, when they broke apart for breath. "You've been obsessed with this war hero thing since you were fourteen."

"Yeah," Alfred said. "But you know, maybe there's more than one way of being a hero."