A Smile and a Nod to the Past and the Future
First and foremost I'd like to thank othersideoftime for the bang-up job she's done with the layout for this comm once again. I swear, you come up with the most amazing headers. It's a wonder that I ever get any work done, what with your distracting graphics.
Secondly, I know it's been a while but I think the writer's block has finally broken. So here, have a fic...a long one...
Title: All That Has Been and Will Be Again
Authors: m_buggie and melliyna
Fandoms: “Band of Brothers”/”Generation Kill”/”Good Omens”
Pairings: Colbert/Fick, Nixon/Winters, Speirs/Lipton, references to Harry/Kittie, hints of Crowley/Aziraphale if you squint and tilt your head slightly to the left
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,612
Standard Disclaimer: This is based off performances in the HBO miniseries, not the actual soldiers. The only thing I own is the computer I wrote this on. I make no profit and mean no disrespect so please don’t sue. Not real, not mine.
Author’s Note: This takes place in the Big Damn AU of Doom-verse…I think that says it all. Contains references to the Crusades AU by melliyna and I Had It All Figured Out Until You Came Along by m_buggie.
~x~x~
It was a beautiful day out in New York City: the kind of sublime summer day that photographers dream of, a postcard perfect moment in time.
Lewis Nixon hadn't really done many early morning excursions in years prior but these days, as a married man and a present parent, he'd learned to somewhat appreciate the city in the relatively early morning…but he was still glad for slightly later starts. His young daughter, however, had somehow taken after her other father and decided that she liked to attack the day bright and early. Thus, Nix found himself sighing and drinking a second cup of coffee while they all walked down the stairs to the subway at eight o’clock in the morning, because he loved his husband and he loved his daughter and if they both had their hearts set on exploring at that hour then how could he possibly say, “no, I’d rather be sleeping?”
Richard Winters had always encouraged the educational side of recreation and young Ella responded with great enthusiasm, cheerfully pulling her fathers through places like the Museum of Natural History. Her imagination was as lively as any small child’s and everything became an adventure. At the end of the day when exhaustion set in and hunger could no longer be denied there tended to be some pouting and possibly a tear or two, particularly when Dick and Nix told her that no, she could not have a sleepover in the Hall of North American mammals or take the big blue whale from the Hall of Ocean Life home with her. But after some food and possibly a nap the excitement returned and Ella would ask what the next adventure would be.
And while parenthood was something that could be classified as “never a dull moment” it was something that neither Lewis Nixon nor Dick Winters would ever dream of changing for anything in the world; particularly when their small lady Ella was giggling and humming as she skipped along the subway platform in her brand new red and gold summer dress with the matching shoes, hanging on to both her fathers’ hands.
It was the first week of June in New York City and for one little girl that meant watching Grimm’s fairy tales performed at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park and going for rides on the carousel. It meant trying to talk with the dolphins at the New York Aquarium and picking up shells on the beach at Coney Island. And come the next month there would be a trip down to Baltimore, Maryland for a Fourth of July backyard barbeque with her godfather’s family followed by the lazy, hazy month of August spent running around the Welsh family farm playing games of soldiers, knights, and sailors with her unofficial cousins.
But more importantly, on that particular day in June, it meant a birthday. Because on the same day that the Allied Operation Overlord had sent thousands of young men into Normandy, France seventy days prior, a little girl with a big name - Eleanor Isabella Margaret Nixon-Winters - turned three years old. That was something to be commemorated without doubt.
So Dick planned an adventure: an all day expedition to someplace that Ella had never been, filled with new and fascinating things that were sure to make her “ooh” and “aah” in wonder. Something to do with World War II would have been neatly fitting but he got the feeling that her third birthday might have been a tad too young to introduce his daughter to military history and warfare. That was really the sort of thing best left until her fifth or sixth birthday.
Then Dick found that June 6th was also the opening day of a special exhibit on the King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade, his thoughts immediately went to one little girl who loved tales of knights on horseback and just might get a kick out of that sort of thing.
“Are there gonna be horsies there?” Ella asked, swinging her feet back and forth as they rode the A train all the way up to the northern tip of Manhattan.
“Not real ones, no,” Dick Winters explained with a soft grin.
“Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie have horsies.”
“Yes, they do.”
“They have four of them, right?”
“It’s five now, actually. Lady Currahee had a foal.”
“Papa, what’s a foal?”
“That’s what a baby horse is called.”
“Oh, okay.” She paused. “Are Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie going to be there?”
“No, Ella Bella, they’re in Pennsylvania, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Ella Nixon-Winters said, nodding. She tapped her tiny feet together, smiling at how her new red shoes shimmered with their little gold buckles on the side and bows over her toes.
Lewis Nixon grinned and kissed the top of Ella’s head. “Do you like your shoes, Ella Bella?”
Ella nodded vigorously, smiling even more brightly. “Uh-huh, thank you, Daddy.”
“Don’t thank me, baby girl, Papa picked them out,” Nix said.
She looked from one father to the other. “Thank you, Papa, I like my new shoes.”
“He picked out your dress, too,” Nix added.
Ella’s smile stretched from ear to ear and her eyes went wide. “I love my dress, Papa!”
“That’s good, Ella Bella,” Dick replied, hugging her with one arm as she kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you like your new clothes.”
“Red’s my favorite color,” she declared proudly.
Dick nodded. “I know, sweetie, that’s why I picked those out.”
And while Ella went back to humming simple songs to herself and staring out the window at the subway platforms whizzing by, Dick and Nix exchanged a glance over her head and sighed contentedly to one another. If either of them were completely honest, they’d say that there was just something inexplicably right and comforting about seeing the combination of rich red and shining gold in their daughter’s wardrobe. Neither man could put their finger on why, though.
“You know red and gold were the colors of King Richard the Lionheart,” Dick found himself saying for no particular reason.
Ella nodded and said, “oh, okay,” but it was clear that she didn’t recognize the name.
“You know, Richard is Papa’s name, too,” Nix pointed out.
“Really?” Ella perked up at that, clearly amused. She was at the age where the thought of her parents having any names other than “Papa” and “Daddy” was almost inconceivable. She laughed. “That’s silly.”
“You’re right,” Nix added, “Papa’s a much better man than King Richard ever was.”
There was an unconscious edge that crept into Nix’s tone at that moment, one that was lost to Ella but noticed by Dick. The husbands locked eyes again and for a moment the world around them seemed to shift, as though the noises of the subway had been replaced by the hustle and bustle of a city on the other side of the world with a different kind of iron-clad horse as the main mode of transportation. But it was only for a moment, here and then gone like a half-remembered dream.
Ella was already asking for more details about the Cloisters and Fort Tyron Park, both names of which she repeatedly mispronounced but kept trying to say anyway. Would there be any balloons? Could she please have ice cream? And were they sure there wouldn’t be any horsies?
Her fathers just smiled and laughed.
After a little while it was, “Daddy, I’m hungry. Can I have a snack?” from Ella, who was tugging at the backpack that Lewis Nixon had been charged with carrying.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but there aren’t any snacks in there right now,” Nix replied, “just your coloring book, your crayons, and Thomas.”
Thomas, of course, was none other than Ella’s favorite plush toy in the world: Thomas J. Tigger, her large stuffed tiger fashioned in the style of A.A. Milne’s Tigger as opposed to Disney’s. The toy had been one of the first ever presented to Ella in her infancy and where it was once a comforting cradle presence it as now a beloved traveling companion.
“I wanna see,” Ella demanded.
“What do we say?” Dick Winters prompted, ever sure that his daughter minded her manners.
“Puh-lease?” she asked.
“Okay, let’s take a look at what’s in the bag,” Nix relented and unzipped the backpack.
Sure as he had spoken, the only objects to speak of in the pack were a couple of coloring books, a jumbo deluxe 120 count pack of Crayola crayons, and Thomas J. Tigger. There were also some items inside such as a digital camera in its case and a paperback novel about US Army Paratroopers in World War II but those were grown-up things and did not interest her at the moment.
“I’m hungry,” she said again, pouting this time.
“I know, Ella Bella, but don’t worry,” Dick soothed her. “We’re going to get something to eat as soon as we get to Fort Tyron Park, okay?”
“It’s all part of your birthday party so just hang in there, okay, kiddo?” Nix added.
“My birthday party?” Ella asked with a little sigh.
“You bet, so just hang tough until we get there, okay?” Dick encouraged. “The train ride’s not much longer and when we get to the park I promise there will be wonderful surprises for you.”
Ella seemed to think it over. “I like surprises,” she eventually said. “But my tummy is rumbly.”
“It’ll all be worth it, Ella Bella,” Nix told her. “And trust me, Papa’s tummy and my tummy are rumbly, too, but it’ll all work out when we get to the park.”
She huffed a little, cranky with hunger, and resumed swinging her feet. “Okay. But can I have Thomas now?” She blinked then, remembering the matter of manners. “Please?”
Nix smiled and retrieved the plush tiger for her. “Of course you can, baby girl.”
Ella wrapped her arms around the toy that had once been bigger than she was and buried her nose in Thomas J. Tigger’s fur. Waiting could be a very hard thing for girls who had just turned three years old to do sometimes.
~
“Are we at the park now?” Ella Nixon-Winters asked, hugging Thomas J. Tigger close as they walked up the subway staircase.
“Yes, we are,” Dick Winters replied.
“Can we eat now? I’m hungry.”
“We’re going to get something to eat really soon, sweetie, I promise.”
“But I’m hungry now.”
“I know, Ella Bella,” Lewis Nixon said as he scanned the area expectantly. “But just sit tight, kiddo, we’ve got a surprise for you coming.”
“Really?”
“You bet, it should be here any minute now.”
Ella sighed again, still cranky and veering towards the edge of meltdown territory, but she was interested in what the promised surprise might be so she hugged Thomas J. Tigger a little tighter and hoped it would arrive soon.
The Nixon-Winters family was walking around the Margaret Corbin Circle entrance of Fort Tyron Park when a familiar rumble and roar could be heard moving in from the south. And just like that, all ill-temperedness and hunger were momentarily forgotten. Ella Nixon-Winters gaped, eyes wide, and stood on her tip-toes in an effort to try and see where the sound was coming from.
“Pick me up, pick me up!” she urged Dick, bouncing up and down while tugging at his arm. “I wanna see, Papa, please pick me up.”
Dick chuckled, “Okay, Ella, but only because you said please,” and obliged her, settling the little girl atop his shoulders. “Do you see anything?”
“Uh-huh!”
She didn’t have to wait long, either, because in a matter of seconds a well-loved 2000 Harley Davidson FXDX Dyna Super Glide Sport came roaring up Fort Washington Ave bearing two figures. The motorcycle pulled up to the curb and the passenger climbed off, removing his helmet.
“Uncle Nate! Uncle Brad!” Ella squealed, giggling and reaching out one little hand - the one not clutching onto Thomas J. Tigger - with excited grabbing motions.
Nathaniel Fick smiled and remarked, as he secured his helmet to the back of the motorcycle, “So correct me if I’m wrong, but we heard that it was someone’s birthday today.”
Dick laughed and lowered Ella back to the ground, holding her hand as she tried to surge forward in the direction of the Harley. “Oh no, you’re not mistaken at all,” he said. “There’s a birthday today.”
“It’s my birthday!” Ella exclaimed, hopping and skipping her way over. “It’s my birthday!”
“Well then it’s a good thing that we came by,” Brad Colbert said, raising the visor on his helmet.
To say that Ella was ecstatic would be an understatement: the only people she adored as much as her two fathers were her two godfathers, Nathaniel Fick and Brad Colbert. Together they formed the core of Ella’s unorthodox but very loving family. There were hugs and handshakes as they all greeted one another warmly. Ella gave a little whoop when Nate scooped her up.
“So do you like your surprise, Ella?” Dick asked, grinning.
“Uh-huh!” Ella responded, nodding vigorously. To her godfather she said, “I missed you, Uncle Nate,” and kissed his cheek.
“Aw, I missed you, too, Ella Bella,” Nate responded.
Brad’s motorcycle roared back to life then and Ella suddenly looked upset.
“Where’s Uncle Brad going?” Ella Nixon-Winters inquired with a great deal of worry, pointing to the departing Harley.
“He’ll be right back,” Nate explained, “he just has to go park the bike.”
“But he’s coming right back, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh good,” Ella said and settled comfortably against Nate. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Nix agreed. “What do you say we head over to the restaurant now and let Brad catch up?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Dick said. He reached over and stroked his daughter’s hair tenderly. “And our Ella Bella’s been so brave about her rumbling tummy so far.” To Nate he commented, “I’m sure Brad’ll understand if we don’t wait here for him while he parks the bike. Do you think he’ll find the restaurant, Nate?”
“Don’t worry about Brad,” Nate commented with a smirk. “He could find a polar bear in a snowstorm.”
And so the little family made their way to the New Leaf Café, which was less of a traditional café and more of a charming restaurant in the shadow of the Cloisters. It was housed in an old stone building from the 1930s and decorated with a Medieval flair, which was more than enough to elicit giddy smiles and squeals from young Ella.
“What do you think, sweetie, is this a good place to have brunch?” Nix inquired as he watched his daughter glance over the menu as though she could actually read it, mimicking behavior she’d seen before and tapping her chin with her index finger.
“Yes, I think so,” Ella Nixon-Winters proclaimed ever-so-properly, nodding her head once and grinning happily.
Brad Colbert found them soon enough, walking in with two more familiar faces that nearly had Ella jumping off her chair and running across the restaurant.
“Uncle Brad, you found Uncle Ron and Uncle Carwood!” she exclaimed.
“That I did,” Brad chuckled.
As with Brad Colbert and Nate Fick, Ronald Speirs and Carwood Lipton held no biological blood ties to Ella Nixon-Winters but they were close friends of her fathers and had been a part of her life since the day of her adoption. It had been those six men who’d circled around Ella three years ago when she was just a tiny pink thing swathed in blankets, freshly home from the hospital; and it was those same six men who gathered around her now.
There were more handshakes and hugs, more smiles, and more kisses from Ella before the unlikely but very happy family seated itself at the table and ordered brunch.
There was a sparkling lit candle stuck into Ella’s strawberry waffles a la mode when the food was presented and half of the restaurant staff came out to sing “Happy Birthday” to the wide-eyed small child who didn’t think her day could get any better. But that was exactly what happened when it was revealed that Nix had arranged for Ella’s birthday gifts to be taken out of the trunk of Ron’s car and stored behind the scenes for after she blew out the candle, at which point the waiters brought the multitude of beautifully wrapped boxes out and stacked them on a neighboring table.
Ella squealed and giggled, clapped her hands and cheered with every present unwrapped. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you, Papa! Thank you, Uncle Nate! Thank you, Uncle Brad! Thank you, Uncle Ron! Thank you, Uncle Carwood!”
And the whole of the table just smiled serenely back at her, basking in the warmth that was a little girl’s joy, and said, “You’re welcome, Ella Bella, Happy Birthday.”
~
“Where’s Uncle Carwood going?” Ella Nixon-Winters asked worriedly.
“He’ll be right back, sweetie, he’s just putting all your presents in Uncle Ron’s car for later,” Dick Winters explained, holding her hand as they made their way from the New Leaf Café to the Cloisters. “It’d be silly to carry everything with us around the museum, don’t you think?”
Ella just smiled and said, “I love all my presents.”
She particularly adored the bright pink and purple Hello Kitty backpack that Nate Fick had gotten her, the perfect size for carrying Thomas J. Tigger around in. Ella wore it proudly now, her favorite plush toy safely secured inside with only Thomas J. Tigger’s head poking out, “so that he wouldn’t get scared.”
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked next.
“He’s taking care of our admission to the Cloisters,” Dick replied.
“Are you sure there aren’t gonna be any real horsies at the Coy-sters?”
Dick chuckled. “No, no real horses.”
Ella sighed, sounding disappointed. “Oh.”
“But I promise you that this summer we’re going to visit Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie in Pennsylvania and then you can see their horses, okay?”
“And the baby horsie, too?”
“Yes, you’ll get to see Lady Currahee’s foal, as well.”
That was enough to lift her spirits again. “Okay, Papa! I like horsies.”
Dick smiled and gave her hand a squeeze.
A couple hours later it was clear that the Cloisters had been a good choice for a third birthday activity, because while Ella didn’t understand everything that she saw she was very interested and asked multitudes of questions. They hadn’t even approached the special exhibit on King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade yet and already she was enchanted. The gallery containing the famous unicorn tapestries captured Ella’s imagination in particular and she stared at the images in a hush.
“Why are they hurting the unicorn, Uncle Nate?” she inquired, tugging at his wrist in the unspoken gesture that meant she wanted to be picked up.
And on the tip of Nate Fick’s tongue were a dozen different explanations ranging from Christian interpretations about Jesus Christ to pagan symbolism to metaphors for marriage, but they all fell dead in his throat. Instead he just stood there, Ella propped up against one hip with one little arm resting on his shoulder, staring at the old tapestries as transfixed as his goddaughter.
“I don’t know, Ella Bella,” was all Nate could say, his voice more hushed then expected.
Ella eventually got restless and wiggled her way out of Nate’s grasp to giggle and tug at her fathers’ wrists but from that moment on Nate seemed to exist in his own world, entranced as he walked in a circle around the room and carefully went through the entire series of tapestries from the start of the hunt to the creature’s ultimate fate.
“Unicorns and Damascus roses,” he murmured under his breath, the words slipping out before he even realized he’d thought them.
“What was that?” Brad Colbert inquired, leaning down to speak quietly into the ear of the young man who wore his engagement ring.
“Nothing.” Nate sighed, shaking his head lightly as if to cast off the momentary mental images of ancient family coats of arms and a garden somewhere else, long ago and far away. “I was just…it’s nothing.”
Brad raised an eyebrow but didn’t pursue the matter, instead watching as Nate moved back out into the Cuxa Cloister where Ella was darting about - a giggling blur of red and gold. Nix was following her around, smiling and patiently holding her Hello Kitty backpack with Thomas J. Tigger’s head still poking out. Dick stood by, camera in hand, capturing a succession of images to be saved to the family photo albums. The setting was idyllic. So why the strange tension in the air?
No, not tension; that wasn’t the word for it. Energy: that was more like it. There was a peculiar brand of energy in the air and Brad couldn’t quiet place what and/or where it was from. It was more than just Ella’s birthday, more than the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing. There was something else going on, something coloring the atmosphere of the day.
Was there a full moon that night? No, that wasn’t it. Nate’s sister Stephanie was into that astrology business; she read all about the lunar phases and what this planet was doing in that part of the sky then sent Nate monthly e-mails about what dates were auspicious for him and when he shouldn’t even both to leave the apartment. Brad wasn’t the sort of man to give that nonsense any credence but he did make a mental note at some point that the full moon wasn’t until the 13th of that month. So, that line of reasoning was out.
So, what was it? Why the inexplicable energy?
Brad spared the subject another moment’s thought before shrugging the whole thing off and stepping into the gallery set aside for the special exhibit on King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade. Nate and the others had already ventured in and there was no sense in him lagging behind because of some ridiculous “feeling” he had. He was at the Cloisters to spend time with his friend and their daughter but also to see the museum itself. On the long list of things that irked Brad Colbert were people who visited locations and didn’t bother to actually pay interest to their surroundings. He wasn’t about to become one of those people.
“Oh dear me, would you look at that? They actually found the ring. I didn’t think they’d ever be able to locate that.”
A vaguely familiar voice somewhere close drew Brad Colbert’s attention and he found himself turning in its direction. He knew that voice. He couldn’t figure from where but he knew it in a hazy, half-remembered dream or faded memory kind of way. And it aggravated Brad on some irrational level that he hadn’t been able to identify the speaker within ten seconds.
It was a precise and proper voice, the kind of elegant diction that was either the product of Britain’s upper classes or the result of years of privately funded education. It belonged to the pale man behind Brad who was staring into a glass display case. He had neatly coiffed yellow hair in a cream-colored short-sleeved Oxford shirt and pressed khakis but it was the bowtie that triggered Brad’s recognition. The last time he’d seen that bowtie was in a seedy bar back in Charlestown, Massachusetts a full decade ago.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Brad muttered and shook his head.
Because standing alongside the blond was another figure that Brad hadn’t seen since that same Boston bar back in 2004 - sharp all-black fashion sense and dark sunglasses included.
“Don’t be so naïve, Angel, of course they found the ring,” the man with the slicked back black hair commented. “These people can be remarkably clever when they need to be.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” the blond called Angel responded. “They can be quite surprising with their resourcefulness.”
The pair noticed Brad’s observation of them and turned to face him with the precision of mutual recognition.
“Speaking of resourcefulness,” the man in black remarked, “how the Devil have you been? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Brad gave a chuckle. “Yeah, it has been. You still tending bar at that hole in the wall?”
“Not by a long shot,” the man in black answered, grinning toothily. “You ever make it to Hanover?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Did you find true love there?” Angel asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Brad Colbert arched an eyebrow and smirked. So the odd couple remembered Caroline after all this time? Well, he had tracked her down to that quaint college town in New Hampshire but the “true love” that Angel spoke of turned out not to be her. Not that Brad was about to tell them that. They were still strangers despite their having met ten years earlier. His smirk widened into a half-smile and he hazarded a glance in Nate’s direction.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well good on you, man,” Angel happily proclaimed.
“Come along now, Angel, we should be off,” the man in black said to his companion who, in turn, pulled an antique pocket watch from one khaki pocket and replied, “Oh good grief, yes, would you look at the time? Of course, dear, we should’ve been on our way half an hour ago.”
To Brad the man in black said, “Nice seeing you again,” and tossed off an impromptu salute as he began to stride away.
“Take care of yourself,” the blond in the bowtie added and smiled again. “I’m so glad things worked out for you in the end.”
And with that, the eccentric duo vanished down the corridor and into the crowd, leaving Brad to shake his head again and marvel at how the weirdest people managed to find him time and time again. He also caught sight of the ring that Angel and the man in black had been talking about: gold and tourmaline, simple but beautiful, the sight of the ring took him aback for a split second. For some reason the stone in the ring reminded Brad of Nate’s eyes.
Gold ring with Afghani green tourmaline cabochon, late 12th Century AD circa Third Crusade - that was what the accompanying plaque read. The ring, apparently, had been recovered along with a sword and other knightly accoutrements from the Battle of Jaffa.
For all of a moment Brad’s mind flashed on bright red blood splashed on desert sands and the chaos of clashing blades amid the screams of man and steed. He thought again of Nathaniel’s eyes and how if he were to ever die he’d want that to be the last thing he ever saw. Brad grinned faintly then, as he identified the presence and footsteps coming up behind him.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Nate Fick remarked.
Brad said nothing but draped an arm around Nate’s shoulders, pulling the younger man close and kissing his temple.
“Apparently only one-third of the collection is on display at the Cloisters,” Nate declared of the special exhibit. “The rest of it is down at the Met. Ella really wants to go and Dick’s not about to say no to her today. What do you say?”
Brad Colbert’s smiled more broadly and kissed Nate again, this time on the forehead. “I would follow you to the ends of the earth, to the gates of Hell, to death and beyond.”
Nathaniel Fick sighed softly, a smile of his own creeping across his deceptively young-looking features, and countered, “Well, today you’re just going to have to go as far as Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. Can you handle that?”
Brad wrapped a hand around Nate’s, toying with the silver engagement band on one of Nate’s fingers. “Roger that.”
~
As it was, paying admission to the Cloisters also gained to admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - which was where the birthday conglomerate for little Miss Ella Nixon-Winters was off to next.
After a snack of sliced apples and a quick nap on the subway she was ready for more exploring and had her small heart set on viewing the rest of the Crusades and King Richard exhibit. She had listened carefully as Dick Winters held her up and read every tag description to her, explaining words and meanings as they went along. He, in turn, sighed and grinned to himself about how he’d chosen the right activity for his daughter’s birthday. She gazed in awe of the old swords, cheered when she realized that her dress and shoes were the same colors as Richard the Lionheart’s.
“But Thomas J. Tigger is a Tigger, not a lion,” she said quite firmly.
They stayed until Ella was nodding off on Lewis Nixon’s shoulder and the museum was set to close within fifteen minutes time.
“Well, I’d say that today was a good day,” Carwood Lipton stated contentedly. “Wouldn’t you say so, Ella Bella?”
“Uh-huh,” was her sleepy response.
Carwood laughed softly and petted her hair affectionately. “What a big adventure for a little girl.”
“We’ll give you guys a ride home,” Ronald Speirs told the Nixon-Winters family as they headed towards the East Side garage where Ron and Carwood’s car was parked after they decided to head south from the Cloisters, along with Brad’s motorcycle. “There’s no sense in you having to take the train back at this point.”
“Besides, we have all Ella’s presents in our trunk,” Carwood added.
“And to think, once upon a time you weren’t sure if that child car seat would be a worthwhile investment,” Nix quietly chided his friend, shifting his slumbering daughter from one shoulder to the other as gently as possible.
“I find it ironic that this is coming from the same man who once berated me for driving a Volvo,” Ron countered.
“Oh come on, it’s a station wagon. I’m practically required to mock for that at least once.”
“I think it’s technically called a ‘sport wagon,’ actually,” Carwood pointed out.
Nix shook his head. “It’s still got the word ‘wagon’ in its description. That’s more than enough ground for mockery.”
Richard Winters laughed and took his daughter from his husband’s arms. “Well, whatever it’s called we should probably get the little princess into it as quickly as possible,” he said. “She’s had a very exciting day and should be in bed soon.”
“Yes, let’s try to avoid any over-tired tantrums if possible,” Nix concurred.
Ella Nixon-Winters’ eyes had already slipped shut but Nathaniel Fick smiled and whispered, “Good night, Ella Bella, and Happy Birthday,” to her regardless.
“May you dream of horses and pretty things, kiddo,” Brad Colbert said in addition.
Thus, just as there had been a round of handshakes and hugs earlier in the day there was another such round now, but in farewells instead of salutations. And as Ron’s Volvo and Brad’s Harley Davidson exited the garage, heading off in opposite directions, two seemingly ordinary man-shaped beings with extraordinary identities watched.
“What do you make of that, Angel?” Crowley inquired, adjusting his sunglasses.
“I think…” Aziraphale sighed, hands going into the pockets of his khakis as he cast a glance skyward. “I think it’s a rather marvelous thing to witness all that has been and will be again…and I like happy endings.”
“I know you do,” Crowley murmured deviously, resting a hand on his companion’s shoulder as they began walking.
The innuendo was lost on the angel, however, and Aziraphale went on to say, “Everyone deserves a happy ending now and then, don’t you think?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” the demon replied. “But not everyone gets them.”
“No, I suppose not. But this time…”
“Yes, this time…”
“Everyone lives, just this once…”
Crowley arched an eyebrow, visible above the tops of his dark shades. “Oh come now, there’ve been other times when they’ve all lived.”
“Yes, but this time it’ll be in peace and happiness.”
“All things are relative, Angel.”
Aziraphale stopped in his tracks and folded his arms with what looked suspiciously like a pout. “Really, must you rain on my parade? Now, of all times?”
“Just my lot in life, I guess,” Crowley replied with a smirk and a shrug.
Aziraphale did not look amused.
Crowley coughed, clearing his throat, and then amended, “Right, happy endings where all angst and trauma ends on a not-tragic note and no one dies a bloody and painful death because they all live to be cheerful, if slightly eccentric, old folks yammering to one another about the ubiquitous ‘good old days.’ Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale said with a firm nod.
They drifted into anonymity among the masses then, the angel and the demon, and became just two more in the ceaseless rush of New York City’s streets.
~
And that night: dreams, many dreams.
Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon, Brad Colbert and Nathaniel Fick, Ronald Speirs and Carwood Lipton - they all had dreams of the hot desert sun beating down on bleached Jerusalem sands, of banners heralding King Richard the Lionheart and the Templar Knights fluttering in the dry, scorching wind. Dreams about valor and camaraderie on the battlefield, of bonds being forged in blood between brethren; and of respect and admiration giving way to deeper affections - in some instances. There were dreams of love and loss and solemn vows for the men who were willing to kill and die in defense of the lovers at their sides.
Though for one little girl there were dreams of horses and pretty tapestries…and of brave young knights who looked an awful lot like her fathers, godfathers, and uncles.
And somewhere out there, an angel and a demon were smiling…
Secondly, I know it's been a while but I think the writer's block has finally broken. So here, have a fic...a long one...
Title: All That Has Been and Will Be Again
Authors: m_buggie and melliyna
Fandoms: “Band of Brothers”/”Generation Kill”/”Good Omens”
Pairings: Colbert/Fick, Nixon/Winters, Speirs/Lipton, references to Harry/Kittie, hints of Crowley/Aziraphale if you squint and tilt your head slightly to the left
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,612
Standard Disclaimer: This is based off performances in the HBO miniseries, not the actual soldiers. The only thing I own is the computer I wrote this on. I make no profit and mean no disrespect so please don’t sue. Not real, not mine.
Author’s Note: This takes place in the Big Damn AU of Doom-verse…I think that says it all. Contains references to the Crusades AU by melliyna and I Had It All Figured Out Until You Came Along by m_buggie.
~x~x~
It was a beautiful day out in New York City: the kind of sublime summer day that photographers dream of, a postcard perfect moment in time.
Lewis Nixon hadn't really done many early morning excursions in years prior but these days, as a married man and a present parent, he'd learned to somewhat appreciate the city in the relatively early morning…but he was still glad for slightly later starts. His young daughter, however, had somehow taken after her other father and decided that she liked to attack the day bright and early. Thus, Nix found himself sighing and drinking a second cup of coffee while they all walked down the stairs to the subway at eight o’clock in the morning, because he loved his husband and he loved his daughter and if they both had their hearts set on exploring at that hour then how could he possibly say, “no, I’d rather be sleeping?”
Richard Winters had always encouraged the educational side of recreation and young Ella responded with great enthusiasm, cheerfully pulling her fathers through places like the Museum of Natural History. Her imagination was as lively as any small child’s and everything became an adventure. At the end of the day when exhaustion set in and hunger could no longer be denied there tended to be some pouting and possibly a tear or two, particularly when Dick and Nix told her that no, she could not have a sleepover in the Hall of North American mammals or take the big blue whale from the Hall of Ocean Life home with her. But after some food and possibly a nap the excitement returned and Ella would ask what the next adventure would be.
And while parenthood was something that could be classified as “never a dull moment” it was something that neither Lewis Nixon nor Dick Winters would ever dream of changing for anything in the world; particularly when their small lady Ella was giggling and humming as she skipped along the subway platform in her brand new red and gold summer dress with the matching shoes, hanging on to both her fathers’ hands.
It was the first week of June in New York City and for one little girl that meant watching Grimm’s fairy tales performed at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre in Central Park and going for rides on the carousel. It meant trying to talk with the dolphins at the New York Aquarium and picking up shells on the beach at Coney Island. And come the next month there would be a trip down to Baltimore, Maryland for a Fourth of July backyard barbeque with her godfather’s family followed by the lazy, hazy month of August spent running around the Welsh family farm playing games of soldiers, knights, and sailors with her unofficial cousins.
But more importantly, on that particular day in June, it meant a birthday. Because on the same day that the Allied Operation Overlord had sent thousands of young men into Normandy, France seventy days prior, a little girl with a big name - Eleanor Isabella Margaret Nixon-Winters - turned three years old. That was something to be commemorated without doubt.
So Dick planned an adventure: an all day expedition to someplace that Ella had never been, filled with new and fascinating things that were sure to make her “ooh” and “aah” in wonder. Something to do with World War II would have been neatly fitting but he got the feeling that her third birthday might have been a tad too young to introduce his daughter to military history and warfare. That was really the sort of thing best left until her fifth or sixth birthday.
Then Dick found that June 6th was also the opening day of a special exhibit on the King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade, his thoughts immediately went to one little girl who loved tales of knights on horseback and just might get a kick out of that sort of thing.
“Are there gonna be horsies there?” Ella asked, swinging her feet back and forth as they rode the A train all the way up to the northern tip of Manhattan.
“Not real ones, no,” Dick Winters explained with a soft grin.
“Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie have horsies.”
“Yes, they do.”
“They have four of them, right?”
“It’s five now, actually. Lady Currahee had a foal.”
“Papa, what’s a foal?”
“That’s what a baby horse is called.”
“Oh, okay.” She paused. “Are Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie going to be there?”
“No, Ella Bella, they’re in Pennsylvania, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Ella Nixon-Winters said, nodding. She tapped her tiny feet together, smiling at how her new red shoes shimmered with their little gold buckles on the side and bows over her toes.
Lewis Nixon grinned and kissed the top of Ella’s head. “Do you like your shoes, Ella Bella?”
Ella nodded vigorously, smiling even more brightly. “Uh-huh, thank you, Daddy.”
“Don’t thank me, baby girl, Papa picked them out,” Nix said.
She looked from one father to the other. “Thank you, Papa, I like my new shoes.”
“He picked out your dress, too,” Nix added.
Ella’s smile stretched from ear to ear and her eyes went wide. “I love my dress, Papa!”
“That’s good, Ella Bella,” Dick replied, hugging her with one arm as she kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you like your new clothes.”
“Red’s my favorite color,” she declared proudly.
Dick nodded. “I know, sweetie, that’s why I picked those out.”
And while Ella went back to humming simple songs to herself and staring out the window at the subway platforms whizzing by, Dick and Nix exchanged a glance over her head and sighed contentedly to one another. If either of them were completely honest, they’d say that there was just something inexplicably right and comforting about seeing the combination of rich red and shining gold in their daughter’s wardrobe. Neither man could put their finger on why, though.
“You know red and gold were the colors of King Richard the Lionheart,” Dick found himself saying for no particular reason.
Ella nodded and said, “oh, okay,” but it was clear that she didn’t recognize the name.
“You know, Richard is Papa’s name, too,” Nix pointed out.
“Really?” Ella perked up at that, clearly amused. She was at the age where the thought of her parents having any names other than “Papa” and “Daddy” was almost inconceivable. She laughed. “That’s silly.”
“You’re right,” Nix added, “Papa’s a much better man than King Richard ever was.”
There was an unconscious edge that crept into Nix’s tone at that moment, one that was lost to Ella but noticed by Dick. The husbands locked eyes again and for a moment the world around them seemed to shift, as though the noises of the subway had been replaced by the hustle and bustle of a city on the other side of the world with a different kind of iron-clad horse as the main mode of transportation. But it was only for a moment, here and then gone like a half-remembered dream.
Ella was already asking for more details about the Cloisters and Fort Tyron Park, both names of which she repeatedly mispronounced but kept trying to say anyway. Would there be any balloons? Could she please have ice cream? And were they sure there wouldn’t be any horsies?
Her fathers just smiled and laughed.
After a little while it was, “Daddy, I’m hungry. Can I have a snack?” from Ella, who was tugging at the backpack that Lewis Nixon had been charged with carrying.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but there aren’t any snacks in there right now,” Nix replied, “just your coloring book, your crayons, and Thomas.”
Thomas, of course, was none other than Ella’s favorite plush toy in the world: Thomas J. Tigger, her large stuffed tiger fashioned in the style of A.A. Milne’s Tigger as opposed to Disney’s. The toy had been one of the first ever presented to Ella in her infancy and where it was once a comforting cradle presence it as now a beloved traveling companion.
“I wanna see,” Ella demanded.
“What do we say?” Dick Winters prompted, ever sure that his daughter minded her manners.
“Puh-lease?” she asked.
“Okay, let’s take a look at what’s in the bag,” Nix relented and unzipped the backpack.
Sure as he had spoken, the only objects to speak of in the pack were a couple of coloring books, a jumbo deluxe 120 count pack of Crayola crayons, and Thomas J. Tigger. There were also some items inside such as a digital camera in its case and a paperback novel about US Army Paratroopers in World War II but those were grown-up things and did not interest her at the moment.
“I’m hungry,” she said again, pouting this time.
“I know, Ella Bella, but don’t worry,” Dick soothed her. “We’re going to get something to eat as soon as we get to Fort Tyron Park, okay?”
“It’s all part of your birthday party so just hang in there, okay, kiddo?” Nix added.
“My birthday party?” Ella asked with a little sigh.
“You bet, so just hang tough until we get there, okay?” Dick encouraged. “The train ride’s not much longer and when we get to the park I promise there will be wonderful surprises for you.”
Ella seemed to think it over. “I like surprises,” she eventually said. “But my tummy is rumbly.”
“It’ll all be worth it, Ella Bella,” Nix told her. “And trust me, Papa’s tummy and my tummy are rumbly, too, but it’ll all work out when we get to the park.”
She huffed a little, cranky with hunger, and resumed swinging her feet. “Okay. But can I have Thomas now?” She blinked then, remembering the matter of manners. “Please?”
Nix smiled and retrieved the plush tiger for her. “Of course you can, baby girl.”
Ella wrapped her arms around the toy that had once been bigger than she was and buried her nose in Thomas J. Tigger’s fur. Waiting could be a very hard thing for girls who had just turned three years old to do sometimes.
~
“Are we at the park now?” Ella Nixon-Winters asked, hugging Thomas J. Tigger close as they walked up the subway staircase.
“Yes, we are,” Dick Winters replied.
“Can we eat now? I’m hungry.”
“We’re going to get something to eat really soon, sweetie, I promise.”
“But I’m hungry now.”
“I know, Ella Bella,” Lewis Nixon said as he scanned the area expectantly. “But just sit tight, kiddo, we’ve got a surprise for you coming.”
“Really?”
“You bet, it should be here any minute now.”
Ella sighed again, still cranky and veering towards the edge of meltdown territory, but she was interested in what the promised surprise might be so she hugged Thomas J. Tigger a little tighter and hoped it would arrive soon.
The Nixon-Winters family was walking around the Margaret Corbin Circle entrance of Fort Tyron Park when a familiar rumble and roar could be heard moving in from the south. And just like that, all ill-temperedness and hunger were momentarily forgotten. Ella Nixon-Winters gaped, eyes wide, and stood on her tip-toes in an effort to try and see where the sound was coming from.
“Pick me up, pick me up!” she urged Dick, bouncing up and down while tugging at his arm. “I wanna see, Papa, please pick me up.”
Dick chuckled, “Okay, Ella, but only because you said please,” and obliged her, settling the little girl atop his shoulders. “Do you see anything?”
“Uh-huh!”
She didn’t have to wait long, either, because in a matter of seconds a well-loved 2000 Harley Davidson FXDX Dyna Super Glide Sport came roaring up Fort Washington Ave bearing two figures. The motorcycle pulled up to the curb and the passenger climbed off, removing his helmet.
“Uncle Nate! Uncle Brad!” Ella squealed, giggling and reaching out one little hand - the one not clutching onto Thomas J. Tigger - with excited grabbing motions.
Nathaniel Fick smiled and remarked, as he secured his helmet to the back of the motorcycle, “So correct me if I’m wrong, but we heard that it was someone’s birthday today.”
Dick laughed and lowered Ella back to the ground, holding her hand as she tried to surge forward in the direction of the Harley. “Oh no, you’re not mistaken at all,” he said. “There’s a birthday today.”
“It’s my birthday!” Ella exclaimed, hopping and skipping her way over. “It’s my birthday!”
“Well then it’s a good thing that we came by,” Brad Colbert said, raising the visor on his helmet.
To say that Ella was ecstatic would be an understatement: the only people she adored as much as her two fathers were her two godfathers, Nathaniel Fick and Brad Colbert. Together they formed the core of Ella’s unorthodox but very loving family. There were hugs and handshakes as they all greeted one another warmly. Ella gave a little whoop when Nate scooped her up.
“So do you like your surprise, Ella?” Dick asked, grinning.
“Uh-huh!” Ella responded, nodding vigorously. To her godfather she said, “I missed you, Uncle Nate,” and kissed his cheek.
“Aw, I missed you, too, Ella Bella,” Nate responded.
Brad’s motorcycle roared back to life then and Ella suddenly looked upset.
“Where’s Uncle Brad going?” Ella Nixon-Winters inquired with a great deal of worry, pointing to the departing Harley.
“He’ll be right back,” Nate explained, “he just has to go park the bike.”
“But he’s coming right back, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh good,” Ella said and settled comfortably against Nate. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Nix agreed. “What do you say we head over to the restaurant now and let Brad catch up?”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Dick said. He reached over and stroked his daughter’s hair tenderly. “And our Ella Bella’s been so brave about her rumbling tummy so far.” To Nate he commented, “I’m sure Brad’ll understand if we don’t wait here for him while he parks the bike. Do you think he’ll find the restaurant, Nate?”
“Don’t worry about Brad,” Nate commented with a smirk. “He could find a polar bear in a snowstorm.”
And so the little family made their way to the New Leaf Café, which was less of a traditional café and more of a charming restaurant in the shadow of the Cloisters. It was housed in an old stone building from the 1930s and decorated with a Medieval flair, which was more than enough to elicit giddy smiles and squeals from young Ella.
“What do you think, sweetie, is this a good place to have brunch?” Nix inquired as he watched his daughter glance over the menu as though she could actually read it, mimicking behavior she’d seen before and tapping her chin with her index finger.
“Yes, I think so,” Ella Nixon-Winters proclaimed ever-so-properly, nodding her head once and grinning happily.
Brad Colbert found them soon enough, walking in with two more familiar faces that nearly had Ella jumping off her chair and running across the restaurant.
“Uncle Brad, you found Uncle Ron and Uncle Carwood!” she exclaimed.
“That I did,” Brad chuckled.
As with Brad Colbert and Nate Fick, Ronald Speirs and Carwood Lipton held no biological blood ties to Ella Nixon-Winters but they were close friends of her fathers and had been a part of her life since the day of her adoption. It had been those six men who’d circled around Ella three years ago when she was just a tiny pink thing swathed in blankets, freshly home from the hospital; and it was those same six men who gathered around her now.
There were more handshakes and hugs, more smiles, and more kisses from Ella before the unlikely but very happy family seated itself at the table and ordered brunch.
There was a sparkling lit candle stuck into Ella’s strawberry waffles a la mode when the food was presented and half of the restaurant staff came out to sing “Happy Birthday” to the wide-eyed small child who didn’t think her day could get any better. But that was exactly what happened when it was revealed that Nix had arranged for Ella’s birthday gifts to be taken out of the trunk of Ron’s car and stored behind the scenes for after she blew out the candle, at which point the waiters brought the multitude of beautifully wrapped boxes out and stacked them on a neighboring table.
Ella squealed and giggled, clapped her hands and cheered with every present unwrapped. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you, Papa! Thank you, Uncle Nate! Thank you, Uncle Brad! Thank you, Uncle Ron! Thank you, Uncle Carwood!”
And the whole of the table just smiled serenely back at her, basking in the warmth that was a little girl’s joy, and said, “You’re welcome, Ella Bella, Happy Birthday.”
~
“Where’s Uncle Carwood going?” Ella Nixon-Winters asked worriedly.
“He’ll be right back, sweetie, he’s just putting all your presents in Uncle Ron’s car for later,” Dick Winters explained, holding her hand as they made their way from the New Leaf Café to the Cloisters. “It’d be silly to carry everything with us around the museum, don’t you think?”
Ella just smiled and said, “I love all my presents.”
She particularly adored the bright pink and purple Hello Kitty backpack that Nate Fick had gotten her, the perfect size for carrying Thomas J. Tigger around in. Ella wore it proudly now, her favorite plush toy safely secured inside with only Thomas J. Tigger’s head poking out, “so that he wouldn’t get scared.”
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked next.
“He’s taking care of our admission to the Cloisters,” Dick replied.
“Are you sure there aren’t gonna be any real horsies at the Coy-sters?”
Dick chuckled. “No, no real horses.”
Ella sighed, sounding disappointed. “Oh.”
“But I promise you that this summer we’re going to visit Uncle Harry and Auntie Kittie in Pennsylvania and then you can see their horses, okay?”
“And the baby horsie, too?”
“Yes, you’ll get to see Lady Currahee’s foal, as well.”
That was enough to lift her spirits again. “Okay, Papa! I like horsies.”
Dick smiled and gave her hand a squeeze.
A couple hours later it was clear that the Cloisters had been a good choice for a third birthday activity, because while Ella didn’t understand everything that she saw she was very interested and asked multitudes of questions. They hadn’t even approached the special exhibit on King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade yet and already she was enchanted. The gallery containing the famous unicorn tapestries captured Ella’s imagination in particular and she stared at the images in a hush.
“Why are they hurting the unicorn, Uncle Nate?” she inquired, tugging at his wrist in the unspoken gesture that meant she wanted to be picked up.
And on the tip of Nate Fick’s tongue were a dozen different explanations ranging from Christian interpretations about Jesus Christ to pagan symbolism to metaphors for marriage, but they all fell dead in his throat. Instead he just stood there, Ella propped up against one hip with one little arm resting on his shoulder, staring at the old tapestries as transfixed as his goddaughter.
“I don’t know, Ella Bella,” was all Nate could say, his voice more hushed then expected.
Ella eventually got restless and wiggled her way out of Nate’s grasp to giggle and tug at her fathers’ wrists but from that moment on Nate seemed to exist in his own world, entranced as he walked in a circle around the room and carefully went through the entire series of tapestries from the start of the hunt to the creature’s ultimate fate.
“Unicorns and Damascus roses,” he murmured under his breath, the words slipping out before he even realized he’d thought them.
“What was that?” Brad Colbert inquired, leaning down to speak quietly into the ear of the young man who wore his engagement ring.
“Nothing.” Nate sighed, shaking his head lightly as if to cast off the momentary mental images of ancient family coats of arms and a garden somewhere else, long ago and far away. “I was just…it’s nothing.”
Brad raised an eyebrow but didn’t pursue the matter, instead watching as Nate moved back out into the Cuxa Cloister where Ella was darting about - a giggling blur of red and gold. Nix was following her around, smiling and patiently holding her Hello Kitty backpack with Thomas J. Tigger’s head still poking out. Dick stood by, camera in hand, capturing a succession of images to be saved to the family photo albums. The setting was idyllic. So why the strange tension in the air?
No, not tension; that wasn’t the word for it. Energy: that was more like it. There was a peculiar brand of energy in the air and Brad couldn’t quiet place what and/or where it was from. It was more than just Ella’s birthday, more than the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing. There was something else going on, something coloring the atmosphere of the day.
Was there a full moon that night? No, that wasn’t it. Nate’s sister Stephanie was into that astrology business; she read all about the lunar phases and what this planet was doing in that part of the sky then sent Nate monthly e-mails about what dates were auspicious for him and when he shouldn’t even both to leave the apartment. Brad wasn’t the sort of man to give that nonsense any credence but he did make a mental note at some point that the full moon wasn’t until the 13th of that month. So, that line of reasoning was out.
So, what was it? Why the inexplicable energy?
Brad spared the subject another moment’s thought before shrugging the whole thing off and stepping into the gallery set aside for the special exhibit on King Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade. Nate and the others had already ventured in and there was no sense in him lagging behind because of some ridiculous “feeling” he had. He was at the Cloisters to spend time with his friend and their daughter but also to see the museum itself. On the long list of things that irked Brad Colbert were people who visited locations and didn’t bother to actually pay interest to their surroundings. He wasn’t about to become one of those people.
“Oh dear me, would you look at that? They actually found the ring. I didn’t think they’d ever be able to locate that.”
A vaguely familiar voice somewhere close drew Brad Colbert’s attention and he found himself turning in its direction. He knew that voice. He couldn’t figure from where but he knew it in a hazy, half-remembered dream or faded memory kind of way. And it aggravated Brad on some irrational level that he hadn’t been able to identify the speaker within ten seconds.
It was a precise and proper voice, the kind of elegant diction that was either the product of Britain’s upper classes or the result of years of privately funded education. It belonged to the pale man behind Brad who was staring into a glass display case. He had neatly coiffed yellow hair in a cream-colored short-sleeved Oxford shirt and pressed khakis but it was the bowtie that triggered Brad’s recognition. The last time he’d seen that bowtie was in a seedy bar back in Charlestown, Massachusetts a full decade ago.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Brad muttered and shook his head.
Because standing alongside the blond was another figure that Brad hadn’t seen since that same Boston bar back in 2004 - sharp all-black fashion sense and dark sunglasses included.
“Don’t be so naïve, Angel, of course they found the ring,” the man with the slicked back black hair commented. “These people can be remarkably clever when they need to be.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” the blond called Angel responded. “They can be quite surprising with their resourcefulness.”
The pair noticed Brad’s observation of them and turned to face him with the precision of mutual recognition.
“Speaking of resourcefulness,” the man in black remarked, “how the Devil have you been? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Brad gave a chuckle. “Yeah, it has been. You still tending bar at that hole in the wall?”
“Not by a long shot,” the man in black answered, grinning toothily. “You ever make it to Hanover?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Did you find true love there?” Angel asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.
Brad Colbert arched an eyebrow and smirked. So the odd couple remembered Caroline after all this time? Well, he had tracked her down to that quaint college town in New Hampshire but the “true love” that Angel spoke of turned out not to be her. Not that Brad was about to tell them that. They were still strangers despite their having met ten years earlier. His smirk widened into a half-smile and he hazarded a glance in Nate’s direction.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Well good on you, man,” Angel happily proclaimed.
“Come along now, Angel, we should be off,” the man in black said to his companion who, in turn, pulled an antique pocket watch from one khaki pocket and replied, “Oh good grief, yes, would you look at the time? Of course, dear, we should’ve been on our way half an hour ago.”
To Brad the man in black said, “Nice seeing you again,” and tossed off an impromptu salute as he began to stride away.
“Take care of yourself,” the blond in the bowtie added and smiled again. “I’m so glad things worked out for you in the end.”
And with that, the eccentric duo vanished down the corridor and into the crowd, leaving Brad to shake his head again and marvel at how the weirdest people managed to find him time and time again. He also caught sight of the ring that Angel and the man in black had been talking about: gold and tourmaline, simple but beautiful, the sight of the ring took him aback for a split second. For some reason the stone in the ring reminded Brad of Nate’s eyes.
Gold ring with Afghani green tourmaline cabochon, late 12th Century AD circa Third Crusade - that was what the accompanying plaque read. The ring, apparently, had been recovered along with a sword and other knightly accoutrements from the Battle of Jaffa.
For all of a moment Brad’s mind flashed on bright red blood splashed on desert sands and the chaos of clashing blades amid the screams of man and steed. He thought again of Nathaniel’s eyes and how if he were to ever die he’d want that to be the last thing he ever saw. Brad grinned faintly then, as he identified the presence and footsteps coming up behind him.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Nate Fick remarked.
Brad said nothing but draped an arm around Nate’s shoulders, pulling the younger man close and kissing his temple.
“Apparently only one-third of the collection is on display at the Cloisters,” Nate declared of the special exhibit. “The rest of it is down at the Met. Ella really wants to go and Dick’s not about to say no to her today. What do you say?”
Brad Colbert’s smiled more broadly and kissed Nate again, this time on the forehead. “I would follow you to the ends of the earth, to the gates of Hell, to death and beyond.”
Nathaniel Fick sighed softly, a smile of his own creeping across his deceptively young-looking features, and countered, “Well, today you’re just going to have to go as far as Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. Can you handle that?”
Brad wrapped a hand around Nate’s, toying with the silver engagement band on one of Nate’s fingers. “Roger that.”
~
As it was, paying admission to the Cloisters also gained to admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - which was where the birthday conglomerate for little Miss Ella Nixon-Winters was off to next.
After a snack of sliced apples and a quick nap on the subway she was ready for more exploring and had her small heart set on viewing the rest of the Crusades and King Richard exhibit. She had listened carefully as Dick Winters held her up and read every tag description to her, explaining words and meanings as they went along. He, in turn, sighed and grinned to himself about how he’d chosen the right activity for his daughter’s birthday. She gazed in awe of the old swords, cheered when she realized that her dress and shoes were the same colors as Richard the Lionheart’s.
“But Thomas J. Tigger is a Tigger, not a lion,” she said quite firmly.
They stayed until Ella was nodding off on Lewis Nixon’s shoulder and the museum was set to close within fifteen minutes time.
“Well, I’d say that today was a good day,” Carwood Lipton stated contentedly. “Wouldn’t you say so, Ella Bella?”
“Uh-huh,” was her sleepy response.
Carwood laughed softly and petted her hair affectionately. “What a big adventure for a little girl.”
“We’ll give you guys a ride home,” Ronald Speirs told the Nixon-Winters family as they headed towards the East Side garage where Ron and Carwood’s car was parked after they decided to head south from the Cloisters, along with Brad’s motorcycle. “There’s no sense in you having to take the train back at this point.”
“Besides, we have all Ella’s presents in our trunk,” Carwood added.
“And to think, once upon a time you weren’t sure if that child car seat would be a worthwhile investment,” Nix quietly chided his friend, shifting his slumbering daughter from one shoulder to the other as gently as possible.
“I find it ironic that this is coming from the same man who once berated me for driving a Volvo,” Ron countered.
“Oh come on, it’s a station wagon. I’m practically required to mock for that at least once.”
“I think it’s technically called a ‘sport wagon,’ actually,” Carwood pointed out.
Nix shook his head. “It’s still got the word ‘wagon’ in its description. That’s more than enough ground for mockery.”
Richard Winters laughed and took his daughter from his husband’s arms. “Well, whatever it’s called we should probably get the little princess into it as quickly as possible,” he said. “She’s had a very exciting day and should be in bed soon.”
“Yes, let’s try to avoid any over-tired tantrums if possible,” Nix concurred.
Ella Nixon-Winters’ eyes had already slipped shut but Nathaniel Fick smiled and whispered, “Good night, Ella Bella, and Happy Birthday,” to her regardless.
“May you dream of horses and pretty things, kiddo,” Brad Colbert said in addition.
Thus, just as there had been a round of handshakes and hugs earlier in the day there was another such round now, but in farewells instead of salutations. And as Ron’s Volvo and Brad’s Harley Davidson exited the garage, heading off in opposite directions, two seemingly ordinary man-shaped beings with extraordinary identities watched.
“What do you make of that, Angel?” Crowley inquired, adjusting his sunglasses.
“I think…” Aziraphale sighed, hands going into the pockets of his khakis as he cast a glance skyward. “I think it’s a rather marvelous thing to witness all that has been and will be again…and I like happy endings.”
“I know you do,” Crowley murmured deviously, resting a hand on his companion’s shoulder as they began walking.
The innuendo was lost on the angel, however, and Aziraphale went on to say, “Everyone deserves a happy ending now and then, don’t you think?”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” the demon replied. “But not everyone gets them.”
“No, I suppose not. But this time…”
“Yes, this time…”
“Everyone lives, just this once…”
Crowley arched an eyebrow, visible above the tops of his dark shades. “Oh come now, there’ve been other times when they’ve all lived.”
“Yes, but this time it’ll be in peace and happiness.”
“All things are relative, Angel.”
Aziraphale stopped in his tracks and folded his arms with what looked suspiciously like a pout. “Really, must you rain on my parade? Now, of all times?”
“Just my lot in life, I guess,” Crowley replied with a smirk and a shrug.
Aziraphale did not look amused.
Crowley coughed, clearing his throat, and then amended, “Right, happy endings where all angst and trauma ends on a not-tragic note and no one dies a bloody and painful death because they all live to be cheerful, if slightly eccentric, old folks yammering to one another about the ubiquitous ‘good old days.’ Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale said with a firm nod.
They drifted into anonymity among the masses then, the angel and the demon, and became just two more in the ceaseless rush of New York City’s streets.
~
And that night: dreams, many dreams.
Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon, Brad Colbert and Nathaniel Fick, Ronald Speirs and Carwood Lipton - they all had dreams of the hot desert sun beating down on bleached Jerusalem sands, of banners heralding King Richard the Lionheart and the Templar Knights fluttering in the dry, scorching wind. Dreams about valor and camaraderie on the battlefield, of bonds being forged in blood between brethren; and of respect and admiration giving way to deeper affections - in some instances. There were dreams of love and loss and solemn vows for the men who were willing to kill and die in defense of the lovers at their sides.
Though for one little girl there were dreams of horses and pretty tapestries…and of brave young knights who looked an awful lot like her fathers, godfathers, and uncles.
And somewhere out there, an angel and a demon were smiling…