It was a small cemetery. Old stones, half-tilted, weather-softened names. No monuments, no grandiose mausoleums—just earth and grass, a place that asked for no attention but remembered anyway.
Captain Scarlet walked the path like he'd been there a thousand times, though in truth, he hadn't been able to visit in years. Not really. Not since everything changed. Not since he stopped ageing, stopped belonging to the quiet end that every stone in this place had earned.
Destiny followed behind him in silence, her boots light on the gravel. She didn't ask questions. She didn't try to make conversation. He'd asked her to come, and that was enough.
They stopped at the plot—two stones, side by side. Weathered, but clean. Someone had taken care of them. Maybe a neighbour. Maybe no one, and time had simply been kind.
He knelt. Slowly, not dramatically. Just a man putting down flowers at his parents' grave.
"Happy anniversary," he said softly.
Destiny stood a respectful distance away, her hands clasped behind her. The breeze pulled at the edges of her jacket, cool and clean with the smell of damp grass and spring.
Scarlet reached out and traced his fingers over the name Tom Metcalfe. Then Ann Brightman Metcalfe.
"They would've danced today," he said aloud, not looking at her. "Every year. No matter what. Even if there was a storm outside. Mum would put on that old Glenn Miller record, and Dad would spin her around the kitchen like they were still twenty."
Destiny smiled gently. "They sound lovely."
"They were," he said. "Ordinary and extraordinary all at once."
He settled back on his heels, resting his arms on his knees. "They were proud of me. Scared for me, too, when I joined the military. But they supported it. Believed in it. Believed in me. Even when I stopped writing as often. Even when I stopped calling."
He exhaled slowly. "I never told them what happened. What really happened. It was all classified, all buried. When I came back... when I became what I am now... it was too late.
They'd already passed. Peacefully. Together. They deserved that."
A longer silence followed.
Scarlet looked up at the sky, not with hope, not with anger—just weariness.
"I don't believe in Heaven," he said. "Never did. Not in the Sunday school way. But I liked the idea of peace. Of joining the people you loved, someday. Of rest."
He looked back at the stones.
"But I don't get that. That's what the Mysterons took from me. Not just my life. My death. My ending."
Destiny stepped closer, kneeling beside him now, her voice quiet.
"You're still here," she said. "And so are they. In you."
He looked at her. "That's not the same."
"No," she admitted. "But it's something."
She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a folded square of paper. She opened it carefully and revealed a photograph—two people smiling at a garden party, holding hands like teenagers, mid-laugh.
Scarlet blinked.
"You found this?"
"Lieutenant Green did. Digital archives. I had it printed."
He took it in both hands, reverently. "That's their last anniversary."
Destiny nodded. "You told me the story once. I remembered."
He looked back at the grave. His voice was steadier now.
"I'm sorry I couldn't join you today. I'm sorry I can't ever join you at all. But I'll keep coming back. I promise. Every year."
He placed the photo carefully between the flower stems, weighed it with a stone.
Destiny stood, and he did too. She took his hand, wordlessly, and for once he didn't pull away.
They walked back through the cemetery, side by side, two silent figures framed by a rising wind and the warm blush of late afternoon light.
Behind them, the world turned slowly. The flowers stirred. The photo held steady.
And in the stillness, there was love. Remembered. Enduring.