But seas between us braid hae roar'd

Sin' auld lang syne…

(But seas between us broad have roared, since old long since…)

They made quite the strange party, Langley imagined. Massachusetts loomed over men and women alike, while Langley… did not. Of all of them, she supposed that Ranger was the least remarkable in that aspect. Normal height, hair that could almost pass for normal if you ignored the pink coloring at the ends. In contrast, Langley's was pale green and Massachusetts bore a mane of brilliant white. Not exactly subtle.

Their original outfits were swapped out for something a little more formal, today. Massachusetts seemed a bit uncomfortable in the long, formal dress she had been given for the day, but she would have been refused entrance in her usual outfit, so…

All of them wore black. It was only fitting, considering that they were walking down the long, grassy aisles of a cemetery, peering at the headstones, sunlight shining on the pale marble.

"I believe it was supposed to be this row? By the poplar?" Massachusetts said.

"In front or behind, Massy?"

"They said around."

They slowly worked their way out from the tree. At times, Langley felt she was doing them all a bit of a disservice. Each of them had been somebody once… but if she were to weep over all the dead, she'd never stop crying. There was just one to find.

Constellation would have found it immediately, but she wasn't physically up to it. Some bumbling incompetent had given her cube to a battleship man. His low expectations for carriers as a whole had left her sickly and perpetually lethargic, although she was the finest scout of all of them. On their way here, one of her planes flew over their heads, a constant companion until its fuel ran low… but for this mission it was just the three of them.

After a few minutes of searching, she spotted it. Someone else had already left flowers, a bundle of dark red roses. Langley laid down her own paltry offering of edelweiss, the white-grey flowers shamed by that rich red in the same way that her own feelings toward the dead were probably outshone by the mystery mourner.

"I found it." Langley wouldn't have shouted in a graveyard, but thankfully, she didn't need to. The silence let her voice carry, so that Massachusetts and Ranger joined her. The former set down a bundle of red cardinal flowers, the latter set down a ring of morning glories. Red, white, and blue… pretty good theming, for whatever they could get from the gardens of the naval officer's wives.

(Massy and Ranger didn't do as much asking. Langley was a bit more amenable than the former- iceberg that she was- and stuck her foot in her mouth less frequently than Ranger. Langley also had the 'benefit' of being so meager that some of the less savory rumors about shipgirls didn't apply to her.)

Regardless, they were here, and Langley felt something well up in her breast, reading the chiseled name:

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

Was it right of her, to feel as if she stood before the grave of her father? He had actual sons and daughters, robbed of a parent at a young age; although she supposed that she was that young, by a sort of technicality.

Massy stood silently. Langley knew her… quasi-sister, or perhaps fellow carrier, processed these sorts of things silently. That left her and Ranger.

Langley laid a hand on the marble. "Thank you." She whispered, any feelings of silliness superceded by the weight of that headstone and the name attached.

"I think he would be proud of us, Langley," Ranger said. "There are no doubts about carriers anymore."

It wasn't as if they wouldn't have come into existence without him, but without his belief in the air arm… well, who knew when cubes would have been spared for them?

"I suppose," Langley said. "Thank you both. You didn't have to indulge my fancies."

"I think I learned something today." Ranger consoled her. "I didn't have any doubts before, but I'm going to keep on being the best carrier I can."

Because… because of Roosevelt? Because her time was limited, especially as a warship? Langley couldn't quite say, but she smiled at Ranger regardless.

"Should I? I mean, care so much about what he would think." Langley asked. "We don't have anything like parents, after all."

"All life is given," Massachusetts remarked quietly. "From mother and father to child, from officers to us."

"Yes," Langley nodded, "then it is not odd, to want to come…"

"You wouldn't pay a visit to every worker who made Jupiter, would you?" There no was no ill intent behind the words, but Massy cut deep whenever she spoke.

Langley gulped. "No. I suppose you're right, Massy."

"Well, it isn't like normal parents, is it?" Ranger mused, "I mean, you could point fingers at Congress, Navy Admirals, shipwrights… you can't have that many parents. I checked."

For a moment, Langley wondered what that meant, but decided that she didn't particularly want to know. Again, she looked to the grave.

She had heard he had plans for going into politics before he came down with his fatal case of polio. It was all speculation, but she liked to think he would be one of the good ones, as politicians went. Would he have been a big navy man even then? Would he have pushed for more shipgirls, 'fathering' fleets?

They would never know, but that thought had her thinking of something more depressing. "His poor family." Again, she got caught up in the death of this perfect stranger while his actual family suffered.

"We could write," Ranger suggested, "you could say how much he meant to you."

Langley nodded. "Are you going to write one? Let me check it first."

"One time, Langley." Ranger flushed. "I didn't know…"

"Then someone needs to teach you."

Unfortunately, they had schedules to keep, and couldn't spend all day standing before the grave of a civil servant, no matter how much unknowing influence he had on their lives.

It was a tragedy, Langley thought, that he had not lived to see more of the peace beyond the Weltkrieg. The irony of that thought coming from a warship did not escape her.

The poplar eventually shrunk into the distance, and they returned to the car. They had a chauffeur- none of them wanted to use their limited free time on something as extraneous as driving a car- who drove the car away from the cemetery and back into the world of war games and training runs. Langley had a group of naval aviators who would be trying for landings later this evening…

And they owed their busy lives, in part, to the man in that cemetery behind them. Why had Roosevelt caught her attention above any other higher-ups? She wasn't quite sure.

Perhaps it was his death. The passing due to polio… it was more familiar than she liked to admit. Sometimes, shipgirls didn't come out right. There was talk of imperfections in the cubes or hulls, but Langley leaned towards the manifestors of the ships being responsible. Maybe she just wanted someone to blame for Constellation's miserable state, but it was what anecdotal evidence seemed to point to. Attitude and expectation shaped a ship.

For a carrier to be made properly, faith was needed. Faith that this all wasn't a waste, that investment would make something great out of them. Maybe not of Langley, but out of Ranger, out of Massy, out of all their successors.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had that faith.