Tempus Fugit

"In public exigencies, there is hardly anything more prejudicial than excessive caution, timidity and dilatoriness,
as there is nothing more beneficial than vigour, enterprise and expedition."

– Alexander Hamilton, "The Monitor" essays
21 December 1775

22 NOVEMBER 1942

The pilot, safe from the sun's glare under the Perspex, shook over the controls. His real home was thousands of miles away, and for all that he had adapted to this new, chaotic life outside of it, the barren, wild fields spread before him brought to mind the pastures he grew up on. If he sat with them long enough, dared to indulge them, he could almost smell the long grasses and birchwood forests carried to him through the breeze, hear the waving rustle of corn stalks on the farm acres where he was raised. An Indiana boy born and bred, an American from a landlocked state. Being stationed in a place where he woke up each dawn to the smell of the ocean and where he could stand in the sand and stare at the sea for miles on end was a dream. If only he was approaching Darwin for a real vacation and not because there was a war.

He jolted at a jarring noise from the plane's engine—protesting loudly against the changes in air pressure as she dipped towards the runway. She was injured, shot in the belly and flanks after being spotted by Japs over Rabaul, and though her sturdiness possessed many a favorable reputation, the pilot was lucky to make it back to Australia alive and he knew it. The converted P-40 was not at all the right plane to conduct a reconnaissance mission in, but after the raid the previous night, it was all that Port Moresby had left with a full drop tank of fuel, and so it was the one he was given.

The expressions on his fellow flyers' faces before he flew out had explained everything: they didn't expect him to return.

But he did survive, somehow, and the proof was in his hands, trembling with the effort of keeping the aircraft upright and on course. The muscles in his arms ached from the constant strain of the last several hours, an exhaustion that ran all the way up his arms and settled firmly between his shoulder blades. Sweat beaded at his temples, dripped into his eyes behind his goggles. He eyed the tiny chip in the Perspex glass, created by a gravity-defying shot of shrapnel, and silently thanked God that the entire window hadn't blown in.

Then he swore and jerked the control column, because the ground had come up much faster than he anticipated.

The red-and-white shark's face painted on the nose of the plane grimaced with the pilot's unsteady landing on the runway, the entire craft shuddering to a stop amid shouts from the ground crew somewhere beyond Alfred's field of view from the open door to the mess hut. He listened intently for the sound of the pilot's—Lewis Wingate's, his brain informed him—harried breath as he climbed out of the cockpit before dropping his cards face-down on the round, rickety table. "Fold."

At his left, Percy Westcott snorted. "You've been folding this entire game, mate. I'm starting to think you're letting us win. Call," he added to the table, a group of seven draftee Australians and one American officer, Alfred.

He shrugged as the next player, a fellow Aircraftman and the man who, along with Percy, had found Gunner in the aftermath of the base's February raid, called as well. "I can't help if I keep getting bad hands." He drummed his fingertips atop his cards, a pair of sevens to make the three Kings in the center a full house. It was, in fact, a good hand, but he hadn't sat down to play for money. He played for friendly terms.

Percy chuckled and responded conspiratorially, "You could always bribe the dealer."

Alfred clucked his tongue. "Sure, but that wouldn't be playing fair, would it?" He cocked an eyebrow and grinned, earning himself a pair of rolled eyes.

"We're in a war. Everyone's got to do their bit or we'll all get shorted, and then we'll all lose. Whether it's fair has nothing to do with it. Yeah?" The men around the table chorused agreement, not noticing as the smile slipped from Alfred's face. Percy looked at him and added, "You remember that provost."

Shifting, Alfred dropped his free hand to rub Gunner's head where he lay between their chairs. The dog trailed his handler like one who had never before known the spirit of company, but it would be an error to say that he hadn't begun to grow attached to Alfred since his arrival, either. At his touch, Gunner lifted his head to nudge Alfred's hand wetly, his dark, miracle ears perked and tail sweeping happily across the warped, dirty floorboards.

Without looking up, Alfred answered quietly, "He wouldn't take the money."

Percy nodded sagely. "Fair dinkum, Captain."

Alfred shot him a silencing look. The last thing he needed was for the other enlisted men lounging at the tables around them to wonder why he wasn't resting in the newly rebuilt Officers' Mess instead.

Regardless, no one was going to call his bluff in the deal if it meant they stood a better chance at winning, and when Percy won ten dollars at the end of the round, Alfred laughed with the rest of them at his surprise. Only when he handed his cards to the dealer and was given a bewildered look in response did he wink and excuse himself from the game. Some cadets were due for practice flights.

Nine days had passed like this, tripping over one another in futile attempts to pass as productive while starless, spotlight-bright nights swept across short, circuitous hours of sleep. There was some blessing to be found in Alfred's demotion—he now possessed ample time to focus on the first objective of his mission—but it felt insufficient compared to all that his fellows, all that his own people were doing, what they were sacrificing in order to protect each other from their own minds.

It was not the first time he had experienced this feeling.

Two days after his failure, Alfred learned that the Japanese were decisively defeated in Ironbottom Sound, following a reorganization of resources by Admiral Halsey with the skill Alfred had neglected to use and with the kind of miracle survival only a battleship christened Washington could have pulled off. Nonetheless, thanks in large part to his embarrassment of a plan, losses had been heavy.

And that's why you're here in the first place. Most of the men here, on this base and beyond, accepted death as their duty, an inevitability when they thought of joining the fight on shores north of them. Alfred learned as much from their own tongues, loosened after a few drinks, but what they never said—what they never could, for an unforgiving masculine pride ran forbiddingly high between American and Australian servicemen alike—was how terrified they were. Like everyone else they heard stories about the fates Allied men faced on the islands, read the news reports and scanned the papers, searching for their friends and family within the omnipresent death tolls. It was the nature of active service, the unfortunate truth of their war, but it was also a mindset that Japan was creating, and a part of Alfred wanted to curse Honda Kiku for allowing it, because it made the idea of living, of surviving, so much more difficult to support. Alfred could utter all the well-wishes and optimistic words he wanted to the pilots and crews who geared up each day for departure, but nothing—nothing, except enemy surrender—would change how cheap they felt. Nor would they replace the resentment in Australian eyes or the twist of their lips when they gazed at him, seeing only the ease of life and preferential status bestowed upon an American officer with access to anything and everything he wanted.

It was as though the captain's bars on his jacket lapel had become a curse, one he couldn't remove without refusing the good faith Roosevelt had placed in him.

Assuming, of course, that MacArthur's report on the engagements in the Slot—which had no doubt reached the President by now—hadn't diminished it already.

Alfred had tried to send his side of the story. His pen never inked anything beyond the date, serving to remind him only of how much time was passing without progress.

It was not the first time in his life he had felt so trapped. Loath though he was to consider it after all the good it had done him in Operations, at night, when there were no distractions to be had, merely curfews and universal fears of another raid, he found himself thinking of his war from ages past—of the closing months in 1776, when Washington confined Alfred to the Continental encampment after he took a shot intended for the general during the chaotic retreat from New York. Alfred had been delusional with fever for weeks after, his convalescence complicated by a fire that consumed a quarter of the City days after Kip's Bay fell to Arthur's troops, leading to infection in the wound.

By the time he was clear-headed enough to stand on his own again, Washington all but ordered him into a seat while he galloped off to tackle the British at Fort Lee. Alfred had remained thus locked in strategy for years, and although it was a position that most would have killed for, he'd taken it for granted. All he'd wanted was to be at the forefront, in the thick of the fight.

In his bunk, Alfred fell asleep with those memories, not for comfort but in the hope that after centuries of storing them they might yield some long-buried insight—until he woke in the dark forgetting where he was, what year it was, and he could swear he smelled the tinge of ash and cinder in the air, feel the sweat beading his hairline from the unbearable heat emanating from his own febrile heartbeat.

Then, one of the boys around him would snore. Then, Jack and his bruised, lost face would surface in his mind, and he would worry for his safety in the same way he once ran in circles about Matthieu after he didn't come home with Arthur from Quebec. And then, when sleep refused to return, he would dress and exit the eldritch barracks, breathe in the eucalyptus breeze and stare at the rising sun on the horizon, until the temptation to simply jump to Port Moresby and thrust himself back into MacArthur's circle, good graces or not, became too loud, and then he forced himself to focus instead on the task immediately at hand.

It was perhaps inevitable, then, that by attempting to obey the rules the general had laid out, his boredom should come to an end.

The skies above both of Darwin's bases remained devoid of enemy craft despite the unrelenting threat of a Japanese raid. Veterans of prior raids were wary nevertheless, distrustful of the silence when this time last month had heralded four successive nights of attacks. So it was, amid this eerie, watchful quiet laying itself over the empty town and its full bases, that midnight on the twenty-third of November found Alfred sleeping shallowly in a bottom bunk, close to the door of the barracks, where it glimpsed a shadow detach from the wood.

Feeling the graze of a hand on his shoulder, Alfred woke with a start, but any sound he made was immediately cut off by that same hand clapping over his mouth and its owner shushing him.

A moment later, mingled scents of eucalyptus and sandalwood just detectable underneath the mud of the jungle reached his nose, and Alfred knew there was no danger.

"Get dressed and meet me outside," Jack rasped. His face hovered mere inches from Alfred's, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark, Alfred began to make out the shapes of scrapes on his cheeks and forehead. His brow furrowed. What was he doing back here so soon?

Jack shook his head minutely. "Just be quick about it." Without waiting for an answer, he took his hand and left. The door shut with barely a creak.

Alfred emerged from it several minutes later in a hastily assembled uniform, smoothing his hair and with boots in hand. Despite the searchlights, the wooden buildings that surrounded the barracks were tall enough to drown his immediate surroundings in shadow. If Jack was there, Alfred couldn't distinguish his silhouette, no matter how much he squinted. He fumbled for the electric torch in his belt with his free hand.

"Leave it off. You'll attract the night guard." Jack's voice cut in from his right, followed in a beat by his appearance. Immediately, Alfred noted that he looked somewhat worse for wear than he had two weeks ago. He no longer moved with a limp, and the gauze was gone from his nose, but fresh bruises—either from sleeplessness or fighting—rimmed his eyes, and the scrapes on his face were joined by others on his arms beneath the short sleeves of his jungle uniform, as well as a nasty split on his top lip. All of them seemed freshly given.

When he noticed Alfred's eyes lingering, Jack's mouth and jaw tightened. "I need you to come with me."

Hope, already seeded by Jack's mere presence on the base, lodged itself under Alfred's sternum. Perhaps MacArthur had seen through his mistake and wanted him back in Operations, or else Roosevelt had ordered him. Either way, it was a welcome command, and a fortunate change.

Alfred dropped his boots on the pavement and bent to put them on. "Why, and where?"

"It's, ah—an undisclosed location, but there is something you need to see, and he can't come here."

"Is it High Mucketie?" said Alfred, glancing up with a wry grin.

Jack did not respond in kind. "No."

The grin fell, and Alfred froze, his laces half-tied and all hopes dying with his focus on them. "Then who?" Please don't let it be Arthur. Not tonight. If he found out what he'd been doing—

Jack sighed irately. "We don't have time for this, mate. Just—come on." And before Alfred could protest, Jack grabbed his jacket, took a step back and jerked him into a land-jump. Between one moment and the next, the concrete he'd braced himself to trip over became something soft that the soles of his shoes sank into, and he crashed into it, burying himself in weeds and long, swaying grasses.

He sat up quickly, scanning the perimeter on instinct. Behind him, situated in the center of an overgrown lawn, lay what appeared to be an upgraded shanty, shambled together from wattle-and-daub plaster and bearing a steel drum for a chimney atop the sagging roof. The skies above it were clear, absent artificial light, and the ocean breeze that was a permanent fixture at the Station had been replaced with the humid earthiness of inland soil. Several blooming native trees stood in scattered sentry around the area, but otherwise, they were alone.

Which was for the best, because Jack was not in any position to fend off questions from locals about their sudden, inexplicable presence. He was bent on his hands and knees, clutching his nose. Blood dripped from between his fingers.

Alfred swore and pushed himself closer, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Jack. Deep breaths." This was exactly why he'd wanted to know where they were going, so he could take the brunt of the travel. The pressure inherent in compressing distance for not just one but two representatives would have targeted Jack less if he had.

"I'll be fine," Jack wheezed, cursing and spitting blood. He wiped his nose gingerly. It did nothing to stop the flow.

Alfred watched him intently, trying to make sense of events. If this was a consequence of the same injury that had been fresh over a week ago, why wasn't it fully healed? He supposed the state of affairs in the jungle could have exacerbated the old break momentarily, and the scrapes on his flesh were cause for reason to that effect, but… it didn't make sense. Even young nations were quick to heal.

"Can you walk?" Alfred asked, increasingly certain that some of his recent wounds were not merely the work of friendlies or regular enemies up north.

"I said I'll be fine," Jack snapped, shoving off Alfred's hand. His face was mottled red and blue as he pushed himself to his feet. "Go round back. I'll meet you there." And he marched up the lawn without a backward glance, his free hand clenched at his side.

Alfred stared after him until it became clear that Jack was going inside whether he followed or not. By the time he rose, started wading and subsequently became stuck in the sticky grasses clinging to his slacks, Jack had already disappeared through the loosely-hinged front door, all but slamming it behind him.

Alfred bit back the urge to sling curses. The entire scenario—Jack's injury, his temper and his insistence on taking care of himself—even the natural landscape around them, as yet unfettered by industry and human touch—was almost like looking into a mirror, and as he battled the weeds for the use of his pants, he began to see scraped, bruised knuckles, mud on the ruins of his buckle shoes, the ones he was made to wear with a proper tailcoat and cravat. The muscles in his arms ached from being held in tension for hours.

He gnashed his teeth. The seams ripped as he freed his leg. He didn't care; it was worth the sewing he would have to do later.

Now was not the time to be reminiscing, not that it was a time he even remotely wanted to remember.

Jack was not on the shambling back porch when Alfred finally stepped onto it, but the moment he raised his fist to knock on the thin wooden door, it whipped open and there he stood, visibly exasperated and holding a dirty cloth to his face with one hand. Folded into the other was—

"Matt?" Alfred blinked to be certain he wasn't imagining him, seconds before he realized that something must be very, very wrong indeed.

Matthieu smiled weakly in response to his brother's near-shrill greeting, his eyes glazed and absent lenses to correct his far-sightedness. His head lulled heavily onto Jack's shoulder, where a towel pressed to the side of his face. The blood on it spilled down the front of his shirt, fading pink into the water or sweat that clung to the rest of his skin.

All from his head, where he'd been shot three months ago.

What had Matthieu done?

Alfred absorbed all of this in a state of slowly receding shock as Jack half-dragged, half-carried Matthieu onto the groaning floorboards and reached behind himself to shut the door.

"He Landed here about thirty minutes ago," he grunted. "Said he needed to talk with you—something urgent. He wouldn't say what."

One glance at the heavy-lidded gaze Matthieu slanted towards him, and Alfred understood immediately.

"Right—yeah, okay." He looked around quickly, spotted a weathered rocking chair perched on the corner of the porch and helped Jack lower Matthieu into it, acutely aware of how tightly he clutched his arm for balance and the smell of seawater wafting from his damp hair and clothes.

As soon as he was settled, chest rising and falling in great gulps against the pain twisting his face, Alfred slid off his A-2 and wrapped it around Matthieu's shoulders.

"Here, Matt—let me see." Prying his brother's fingers from the towel, Alfred cautiously drew it back to examine the damage. He wasn't a doctor by any means, certainly not to the level of Matthieu's expertise and training, but he knew how to place a bandage, and—even as the sensible part of him knew it was foolish—he hoped a bit of gauze and tape was all he'd need.

No sooner did he remove the makeshift poultice, however, than the small, round hole underneath filled with glistening blood.

"Shit," Alfred swore, pressing the cloth hastily back against Matthieu's temple. It was already soaked through, all but dripping incarnadine down Matthieu's neck and into his collar, itself a dull maroon color.

How much blood had he already lost? It was a wonder that he was even still conscious.

What kind of message from Ludwig—assuming Alfred was correct in his assessment of Matthieu's stare—was important enough to warrant the risk he took in jumping halfway across the damned globe and setting back his recovery—something so stupid only Alfred would do it?

Matthieu groaned as if in answer, allowing the back of his head to fall against the wooden slats of the rocking chair while Alfred applied pressure—perhaps too much—to the cloth on his temple. He turned, ready with an order for Jack to retrieve medical supplies, when a roll of gauze, tape and an amber glass bottle of antiseptic were thrust over his shoulder.

"Nicked 'em from the infirmary when I picked you up," said Jack, voice muffled. "I'll fetch a fresh cloth, too."

Alfred's mouth still hung open as he wrapped his hand around the three items, so he formed it around a "Thank you", to which Jack nodded solemnly and went inside.

He reappeared, clean cloth in hand, just as Alfred pried off the cork to the antiseptic with his teeth, handing it off and moving to replace Alfred's grip on the soiled one.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Tell me what happened." Alfred spit the cork onto the boards and dumped a liberal amount of disinfecting solution onto the fresh towel. Clean seemed a relative term for it: rust-colored stains patterned the bleached fabric. None of them appeared new, though; the only smell that breached Alfred's nostrils before he soaked it was must.

"He showed up on the beachhead at GHQ," Jack stated bluntly. Alfred's head whipped up, stunned into silence as he continued in a low tone, "Crawled out of the water like some bloody amphibian, mumbling your name and bleedin' all over the sand. Only reason I got to him before he was packed off to the field hospital and interrogation was because I was in the middle of giving a report to MacArthur, and he was alerted to the disturbance.

"I…think he suffered a bit of shock from the jump," Jack went on, his forehead creasing as he glanced down at Matthieu, limp in his seat. "Like I said, he was bleeding quite a bit, and I think the pain and the panic his appearance made got to him. When I brought him here, he was…not himself."

"How so?" Alfred said, and the question became a demand as Jack, quite abruptly, clammed up. With each passing moment of reluctant silence, Alfred felt anger and frustration nurture themselves inside him, gritting through his teeth, "What happened, Jack?"

"I thought he was a German," Matthieu croaked, eyelids sliding open. They found Alfred kneeling in front of him, or more likely the moonlit outline of him, and settled there. "During…during the Jubilee Op." He swallowed, the entire motion accompanied by a grimace as he shut his eyes again. "Can someone…put on a bandage, please?"

Alfred's irritation dissipated, and he glanced upward. Jack had lowered the towel from his nose, and Alfred assessed the fresh scratches to his face and arms with new astonishment. Most of the blood was gone save a few dark, drying flecks in the creases of his nostrils and the facial scruff around his mouth and chin, alongside his split lip.

Matt did that? Had his brother spent more of his life on battlefields, this new evidence of his ability to fight would have been less of a shock. As it was… Alfred never knew that he could inflict that kind of damage. Like freeing a caged animal, one that kept boundaries nevertheless.

Jack met Alfred's stare and raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth drawing tight.

Feeling like a heel, Alfred dropped his focus back to the task at hand. "In a minute," he muttered, and waving Jack's hand away, he swiftly exchanged the towels.

Matthieu hissed, his fingers clenching into fists on the arms of the chair. "Don't—mfph—"

"What is it?" Alfred asked, immediately withdrawing the cloth. The wound, thankfully, was slower to bleed than before, but it filled nonetheless, threatening to spill over, down his cheek. Alfred eyed the movement with fraying nerves. "What's wrong, Matt?"

Matthieu exhaled, all the fight draining out of him. "Daub it…on the edges, not…not the wound itself."

Instruction. Instruction on how to tend to his own wounds, that was all. Alfred could have laughed were he not so relieved that his brother was still here.

"You're the field medic," he remarked idly, the grin sliding off his face as he did what his brother advised, wrapping the damp towel around two of his fingers and swiping gently along the ragged edges until, after several long minutes—minutes in which Jack went back inside the house and returned with a fresh bandage across the bridge of his nose; minutes in which midnight settled around them, carrying the sibilance of leaves and the chittering of nocturnal creatures buried in the brush—the wound finally began to clot.

Belatedly, Alfred registered that this was the first time he'd truly seen the damage the bullet had caused—the first time he'd seen his brother at all since the failed operation.

It didn't look good. Had Matthieu not done what he did, the small, circular wound surely would have been in better far shape by now, but as it was, the red, swollen skin and blue, bulging veins around its epicenter—made all the more vivid and purple by the pale pallor of Matthieu's skin underneath—simply made Alfred wish he had tried harder to keep his brother from taking the command four months ago.

"Do Français and Ar—Britain know that you're here?" he asked eventually, once the finishing touches on Matthieu's bandage—an almost obnoxious thing comprised of long strips of gauze wrapped around his head—were placed.

Without opening his eyes, the corners of Matthieu's lips twitched. Still conscious, still aware. Thank the gods. "If they did…do you think they wou…would've let me?"

"That's what I thought." Alfred swore under his breath and turned to Jack. He hovered next to the chair, the tension in his folded arms conveying the anxiety that his face, for once, concealed. "Can you go to the nearest communications office and send a message to London? Britain will want to know that Matt's here, and safe."

"Wait," Matthieu interjected before Jack could respond. Both men looked at him warily. "There's—there was some…thing I wanted to…tell you."

"Me?" Alfred asked, dumbly.

"No. Jack." Matthieu swallowed, his eyelids crinkling in concentration, trying to think beyond the sluggish pace of his communication. The slowed rate of his brain, ordinarily so quick to remember—as many nations' were—was painful to watch, and it took Alfred a considerable amount of restraint not to try and finish the sentence for him. Before he even began.

"Tobruk has been liberated," he declared finally, the words bursting forth with the force someone firing a weapon, pulling the trigger quickly for fear of losing his nerve.

Alfred frowned. News of the African port's Allied reclamation was something he had heard in the last week and read about somewhere in-between, a tiny headline in a long string of ongoing successes, but when his eyes swung up to peer at Jack, he was surprised to see a jarring cross of emotion in his crinkled forehead, his wide eyes and agape lips, struggling to form an appropriate response.

Of course. The war he saw before him was not the one that the rest of the world saw. Stories and victories occurring in other theaters were known few and far between on the frontlines.

Joy. Relief. Guilt. All were present when Jack finally closed his mouth, cleared his throat and said hoarsely, "Has it?"

Matthieu, eyes open and listening for Jack's reaction, nodded once. "On the…oh, damn." He grunted and drove his fingers into his bandaged forehead, his thumb practically pressing into his temple. Alfred fought the urge to slap his hand away before he dislodged the clasps holding the gauze in place.

Quietly, Jack moved to stand in front of the chair, his hands in loose fists at his sides.

"It was…on the thirteenth, I think." Matthieu dropped his hand and leaned back, looking—for the first time since Alfred's arrival—clear-headed, as though he'd stepped across some threshold into complete lucidity. His eyes were glassy, but they focused readily on the man standing in front of him. "Sizwe's troops retook it practically…without a fight. Commonwealth forces joined them…not long after." Matthieu shut his eyes briefly, blinking quickly back into focus, and he cast Jack a small, worn smile.

In response—seemingly on impulse—Jack ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Good to know," he muttered. "Thanks." Glancing at Alfred, he cleared his throat a second time and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'll, er, go send that message you wanted."

Alfred nodded. "Thank you."

Jack reciprocated the gesture jerkily before spinning on his heel and disappearing around the side of the shanty, shoulders stiff.

"Jack was captured with Sizwe…and his troops in Tobruk, back in June," Matthieu explained, somewhat haltingly, and yet there was a fondness in his tone that reminded Alfred how friendly Jack had insinuated they were beyond their diplomatic relations. "He felt awful having to escape and leave them. It was…nearly the entire garrison."

Alfred turned back to him. "I didn't ask."

"You were thinking it, though." With a great deal of effort and grunting, Matthieu managed to get comfortable in the rocking chair, so long as Alfred stilled it whenever it inevitably swung to his adjustments. "I'm glad you sent him away. There are…things we need to discuss"—he paused to take another stabilizing breath—"that aren't for him to know."

Alfred shook his head adamantly. "It can wait, Matt. You need to rest—"

"Français a disparu."

Alfred paused. "What do you mean?"

"He's gone. Back to France." Again, the rushing, hair trigger rhythm of Matthieu's words pulsed under Alfred's skin, prickling with alarm. This time, however, Alfred had the sense that his brother was afraid, if he didn't, that they would disappear, too. "Two weeks ago, the Nazis moved into the southern half of his country—to occupy it—and he…" Another pained look crossed Matthieu's face. Another shuddering breath, and he closed his eyes, his brow crumpling. It was difficult to tell, in that moment, whether he was repelling the memory or trying to recall it.

Alfred watched his brother's hands, clutching the arms of the chair so tightly that the pads of his fingertips glowed white. There was too little nail on each to make a dent or scar the wood further. Matthieu had bitten them down to their beds.

Whatever happened after the landings—whatever unreported consequence came from the Nazis' occupation and Ludwig's visit to Matthieu—must be too terrible to contain in a written message. It was the only explanation that made a certain sense as to why his brother was here in Australia.

Did Français, in a pique of confused loyalties, betray Allied secrets to his occupiers? Did Ludwig?

Was London no longer safe? Was that why Matthieu jumped?

Alfred bit his lip. He didn't know. He didn't know anything, and it was driving him mad, because he just…wanted to make things better.

When Matthieu opened his eyes again, irises the color of the midnight sky above them glistened with stars. Alfred stared as one slipped down his cheek, wanting to speak but unsure how.

"I've never seen him so…so angry," Matthieu whispered. "He's always kept it on the battlefield, away from me…" His lips twisted into a tremulous grin as he looked down at his lap. "Now I know why. It's a hell of a lot scarier than Arthur's."

Oh.

Now he understood.

"I know he'll be fine…. He has to be." Matthieu sniffed, and despite the softness of his voice, his tone was one of utter conviction—a sound more familiar than anything else that had happened since Jack woke Alfred tonight, and one that allowed the latter to breathe a little more easily as he continued, "He's been through worse before. I just…" He flapped his hands once, helplessly.

"You're his son," Alfred finished, and his voice was like a stone dropped into the water. Matthieu looked up and met his gaze, eyes liquid and wound solid. "You worry."

Matthieu pressed his lips together. "Yes." Another tear began sliding down his cheek. He reached up with one shaking hand to wipe it away.

Alfred turned away, occupying himself with gathering the leftover medical supplies and recorking the antiseptic—anything so he wouldn't have to watch as his elder brother pulled himself back together, become once more the rock that Alfred had leaned on since the day their mother told them to hide in the trees.

He could recall one of the first times he saw Arthur genuinely, unforgivably incensed: his hands curled into bone-white fists and his lips pulled into a snarl when, standing apart from the crowd on the wharf, he realized that Alfred was among the guised protestors hurling three East India Company ships' worth of tea leaves into the Boston Harbor. His fury was a cold, righteous one, a shield he generally reserved for war and particularly irksome people, but even distanced from those triggers, he never withheld his anger. He couldn't. Like the cool touch of a knife to one's neck, he inadvertently warned the victim, prepared him for the worst before he cut in deep.

Français, by contrast, was masterfully deceptive. Ugly thoughts, intentions, and feelings were often hidden beneath cutting remarks and artful tactics. Alfred couldn't imagine how harrowing it was for Matthieu to witness him lose complete control.

Matthieu didn't need America, the nation with the means to end the suffering. If he had received any communication from Ludwig, it wasn't his main concern—at least, not right now.

He needed Alfred, his little brother. Someone who understood how it felt to be frightened by the actions of his own father.

Alfred shut his eyes. All the time he had wasted these last nine days. All the time he could have spent finally reaching out to his own brother, at least once, before it was too late.

"I should've written you," he said hoarsely. He felt rather than saw Matthieu focus on him, the crown of his bowed head. "As soon as I knew you were safe in London. I'm—I'm sorry." I'm sorry you had to risk your welfare again for my sake. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.

Three times he had uttered those two words in the last ten months. They all meant different things, and it was beginning to feel like a curse he was doomed to repeat for decades unending.

Because he didn't consider the consequences of his actions before he did them.

Because he was irresponsible, and careless.

Because he became too absorbed in his own affairs and his own goals to even remember to respond, as Arthur had explicitly suggested.

I'm sorry. It wasn't nearly enough.

"It doesn't matter, Al." Matthieu's voice was accompanied by a light touch on Alfred's head, smoothing his hair. Always soothing, always caring.He didn't deserve it, especially at a moment when Matthieu needed Alfred not to think of himself, but, of course, that didn't seem to matter. "There's no way I can go back to London in this state. I'm not going anywhere soon."

Good, thought Alfred, guiltily. They had a lot to catch up on from the last four months.

Once the burning behind his eyes subsided, Alfred lifted his head. Matthieu grinned back at him. Faint color had returned to his cheeks, and he seemed aware enough to intentionally avoid touching his bandages, but his eyes remained as glazed as marbles and were beginning to drift closed. Whether from exhaustion or another symptom of his condition, it nonetheless presented a clear need.

"I need to find a place for you to rest." Alfred looked around, rather pointlessly. There was nothing to stare at but an overgrown field and the collapsing carcass of a home. Entirely unsafe for Matthieu to remain at. Why had Jack behaved like this was a protected location? "This place is too open. We shouldn't stay here much long—"

A sudden bang echoed from the side of the house, startling the birds nesting in the trees to flight with aggravated chirps. Both men jumped, Matthieu's accompanied by a hiss. Alfred squeezed his knee and rose to investigate but stopped at the sound of—laughter?

Yes. That was children giggling, followed quickly by elder hushing noises.

"What…?" Alfred made to jump off the porch and go round the house, until Matthieu grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Leave them be."

"But what if they're—"

"They're not." Matthieu grinned wanly. "Trust me. You have no need to worry about security. They're safe, and so are we."

"The last time you told me to trust you, you wound up half-dead on the French coast."

"And where would you have me go, Al?" Matthieu lifted the one brown eyebrow that was not covered by gauze. "Do you even know where we are?"

It was as if Matthieu read his brother's thoughts. Unsurprising, given how frequently they played out on his face. Alfred scowled. "Do you?"

Matthieu's grin stretched, and the expression was so like Français that there was no question who had truly reared him. He knew, without a grounding destination to begin, that it was too dangerous to attempt jumping anywhere else. Tonight's events were the primary reason why.

Frown deepening, Alfred opened his mouth to respond, until another rustling sound caught their attention—this one moving towards them, and quickly. Matthieu's smirk fell.

Spinning around, Alfred positioned himself in front of his brother and braced for the worst.

The intruder shot into view moments later from the side of the house, taking the form of Jack as he skidded to a stop in the grasses next to them and panted, "Gener—Jones—fuck, Alfred—"

"What happened?" Alfred lowered the fists he'd raised for defense, but they remained clenched.

Jack bent over on his knees, swallowing gulps. His nose was bleeding again; he barely seemed to notice. "I don't think Mac—High Mucketie wants you to know, but—but the division you have out there, it's—it's—"

"It's what, Jack?"

He sucked in breath, swore and shoved himself upright, swiping his hand under his nose and looking Alfred dead in the eye. "The Thirty-Second needs your help, mate. We're losing them in droves. They're in deep trouble up north—and it's only going to get worse for them."

"Japanese snipers?"

"That, and disease. They can't protect themselves. They don't know how—they're not equipped for it. Some…" He bit his lip, wincing as his teeth scraped the split in it. "There's a rumor that some may refuse to fight."

Bottom of the barrel morale. Alfred's hands cinched tighter, enough to rip the seams on his gloves had he been wearing them. "Has High Mucketie sent reinforcements?"

"They are the reinforcements." Jack's expression turned grim and more than a little irate. "And he thinks they're just not moving fast enough."

Alfred swore, raking a hand over his face. "Of course he does…" Here was the shot he needed to get back into Base Operations, to continue the President's mission and achieve tangible results, and it had arrived at the worst possible time. "Jack, I need you to stay here with Matt—"

"What? I was willing to do your bidding once for his sake, but I'm not your—"

"I'll be fine, Al," Matthieu interjected, far more calmly than the other two, who rounded on him. "Go, and take Jack with you. He'll be more useful up there than here with me."

Alfred fixed his brother with a hard stare. "I am not leaving you alone like this—"

"I'm not alone." Matthieu's eyes slanted towards the flimsy porch door, occupied by slight, shifting shadows on the other side. "As I told you, this place is safe. The people in there will help me if I need it."

"Matt," said Jack warningly. Alfred turned in time to see him cover the sudden, urgent fear that overtook his expression, although it lingered heavily in his glare.

Matthieu shook his head as much as his injury and the bandage would allow. "I'm only revealing that which he needs to hear in order to be satisfied that I will come to no harm, and neither will they. Now go, both of you. You're wasting time by lingering here."

And as though it had simply been waiting for someone to give the word, the clock from the Red Room revived, loud and clear, inside Alfred's ears once more.

Tick, tick.

Life, life. Infinitely shorter than Matthieu's.

Dammit.

Alfred spoke lowly, boring into his brother's face. "If anything happens that is beyond their control, you send for me, understand?" Whomever they were that Jack was protecting and so fearful of being discovered. His reaction belied everything that he wouldn't put to language about the precise nature of this safe haven. If it wasn't for the fact that he no longer had the time, he would march in there and drag the promises of secrecy from their lips himself.

If not for the fact that he trusted his brother's judgment, perhaps this time he would have put up more of a fight.

In response, Matthieu nodded once, firmly, and leaned back in the rocking chair. His fingers splayed over the flaking paint on the arms, untensed.

Go, he mouthed. He didn't have to say anything else.

Footnotes:

1. The Second Naval Battle of Ironbottom Sound, on the night of 14/15 November 1942, is considered one of the brutalist naval engagements of the war, following one of the most chaotic and disorganized engagements on the night of 12/13 November. Nonetheless, the crew of the USS Washington that Alfred references in this chapter was well-trained and well-commanded. Together, they were able to prevent a superior Japanese force from landing reinforcements and supplies on Guadalcanal, becoming the only American ship (out of a task force of two battleships and four destroyers) still servicable by the end of the battle and almost singlehandedly sinking the strongest ship in the Japanese task force that night, the battleship Kirishima.
(Sources: "The Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal" – Seth Paridon for the National WWII Museum; World War II: The Definitive Visual History, by DK Publishing)

2. Alfred's experience in the Continental Army's retreat from New York in September 1776 is also recounted briefly in my one shot, Tell Me How, albeit from Arthur's point of view. The fire referenced occurred on the night of 21/22 September, beginning in the southern tip of Manhattan and sweeping northwest through the city for ten hours, in the process destroying nearly 500 buildings. It is unknown to this day whether the fire was intentionally set and, if so, by who. Both sides blamed the other, though this theory seems to have been largely disproven, as it was noted that the winds were exceptionally strong that day and therefore it could have sparked from an uncovered housefire. Regardless, thousands were reduced to poverty, and several burned areas of the city were not rebuilt until after the war, becoming hotbeds for the black market and prostitution. As written by Alexander Rose in Washington's Spies, after the Great Fire, "A narcotic, poisonous atmosphere pervaded New York, whose inhabitants were forced to compromise their principles [i.e. their loyalties and beliefs towards the Revolutionary cause or to the Crown] to survive the war" (39). I am of the belief that New York City at this time would have represented Alfred's heart, so, perhaps needless to say, the fire, the choices of its inhabitants and Patriots, and the fact that the city was now occupied by the British military would have significantly hampered Alfred's ability to recover from a gunshot wound. For an idea of the amount of time it took, the British attack at Fort Lee that Washington rushes off to began on 16 November 1776.
(Sources: Washington's Spies, by Alexander Rose; The American Revolution: What Really Happened, by Alan Axelrod)

3. "Français a disparu" translates literally to "he has disappeared", but it can also mean "he's gone". The former is generally reserved for poetic, dramatic or deliberately archaic sentences.

Additional Sources:
a. "All About History Book of Australia" – Future Publishing Ltd
b. A Concise History of Australia, by Stuart Macintyre
c. The Historical Atlas of World War II, by Alexander and Malcolm Swanston

Quote source: Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow

AN, 1 May 2023: Hi all. Four years have passed since I last posted an update to this story. A lot has happened in that time, for all of us. It seems rather surreal to write that, looking back and knowing that even the every day is no longer as normal as it was when I finished Chapter Thirteen. I would imagine this is a common theme among the community as a result of some of these events, but I've been a little at a loss when it comes to writing. Editing the previous chapters certainly took much longer than I'd hoped it would, as did composing this chapter. Unfortunately, I can't promise that updates will be as frequent as they were prior, either. Life responsibilities and personal affairs tend to get in the way these days, and since this story is being written and published on a chapter-by-chapter basis - largely due to the amount of research involved, and because I'm impatient - it will likely take several weeks to finish each one. But I have many ideas going forward to complement the primary plot, (some of which already have rough drafts,) and I am excited to share them with you as the story progresses.

Thank you all many times over for your patience.

I hope everyone who continues to follow this story is living as well as they can, given the circumstances. I know it isn't easy.
Take care. I will see you again soon. :)