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In a world with an infinite number of ways to get hurt, there is an equal or greater number of ways that pain manifests.
Gale is no stranger to hurt. He’s taken his licks, stood straight under pressures that have folded other men. He wouldn’t say that he doesn’t feel the pain, because that simply isn’t true—everyone feels pain, even those who drink to numb it down (…maybe especially them, to be completely honest). And it’s not that the men who are forced to give in are lesser, weaker—less prepared, maybe, but there’s nothing that sets Gale above them, not really. It’s just that he’s known the sharp spark of a lit cigarette pressed to the soft skin on the inside of his arm, and he’s known the desperate burn of lungs screaming to drag in air past an iron vice of fingers ‘round his throat, and those things are not the same.
This is the truth of it: Gale Cleven knows how it feels to start dying, and he won’t bow for anything less. He can survive anything less, and even the dying won’t kill him until he’s dead. It’d be a goddamn insult to give in to anything short of his final rest. A spit in the face, a raised middle finger. It’s the principle of the thing, you understand.
‘Course, in the infinite numbers of hurts, some shake him worse than others. Hits that land painlessly and only grow to torment once the shock wears off. Wounds that stay numb for a split second before the agony blooms. Whether it’s the lash of a belt wielded by a grown-up’s hand or the strike of knuckles against a wagging jaw, that brief moment between the adrenaline and the ache… it gets to him. Gives him just enough space to wonder, to hope, to convince himself that the pain won’t come, not this time.
But it does. It always, always does. No matter how long the pause, how acute the disconnect, how empty the void, the flood always comes. From all that nothingness it bursts, the big bang, a broken dam. An unstoppable, overwhelming tsunami of everything at once.
…The concussive boom of the fort’s fuel lines igniting is like that. Nothing, and then everything.
It’s impossible to look away. Meters over his head already, falling away into the sky as gravity takes hold of him, the B-17 lights up in a firework display in oranges and yellows and black, rolling smoke. It’s coming apart, the groaning of metal audible even above the cacophony of air gusting past his ears. Gale grunts, his core clenching, trying to pull his flailing limbs into a protective ball as shrapnel flies in every direction. His parachute, not yet deployed, jerks as if struck—something whistles past his cheek, a shooting star falling to earth at a hundred million miles per hour.
He thinks, for a moment, that he’s safe. That the only worry he’s got right now is the way he’s falling, caught in the slipstream over rural Germany, deep in enemy territory. He’ll deploy his parachute, get safely to the ground, and figure it out from there.
Simple.
Easy.
…And then the pain hits.
It’s not bad, as far as pain goes. A little more than a lit cigarette, a lot less than suffocation. But the way it jolts him has his stomach falling away just as his fort did, lost in the dizzying sea of clouds swirling swirling swirling over his head. He makes a sound, lost to the air tearing past as he squeezes his eyes shut—his cheek burns, a fresh, open wound throbbing in time with his pulse.
He lets it. Breathes into the sharpness, keeping time with his heartbeats—
(one)
—wondering if he’s leaving a trail of blood across the skies for the Germans to follow—
(two)
—imagining Nazi fighters, drawn in by the scent like salivating hounds—
(three)
—and what they will do when they catch up—
(four)
—because it hurts, it hurts—
(five)
—please—
(six)
He opens his eyes, his lungs expanding on an inhale. Then, gritting his teeth, he drags his hand up to the parachute’s ripcord and yanks.
***
The parachute is fucked. Gale becomes aware of this as soon as it opens. He’s still falling much too fast, the air still whistling with a wicked, adrenaline-inducing shrill—the ground is expanding under his feet, too quick by far, like a stage set being hastily unfurled.
A quick glance up makes the issue disturbingly clear. There are a smattering of holes in the canopy above him, punched from one side of the chute’s fabric to the other—he can see right through ‘em to the fort’s smoke trail, thick black plumes framed by tattered white fabric. It’s like peering through the neat little windows of a distant house—like watching horrors unfold somewhere locked away inside, too far away to do a damn thing about them.
Not that he can do a damn thing about himself, either. By all accounts, the fort has already been claimed by disaster—Gale Cleven, on the other hand, is stuck in the count-down, every muscle clenched and every breath shallow, tasting the buzz of adrenaline with nowhere to go.
He can’t move. He can’t run. All he can do is watch the ground get closer, the smudged landscape of browns and greens splitting apart into a million distinct shapes, mud and grass and thin, bent trees taking form under his boots as he braces himself for one hell of a rough landing.
It doesn’t help. Not really. No matter how closely he watches or how fast his mind moves, the ground moves faster, rising to greet him with jarring force. He tries to roll with it, to soften the blow, but it still feels like being plowed down by a bus. In all honesty, he barely has time to throw his arms up in front of his face, let alone maneuver himself into the momentum.
It’s a strange sensation. He and the Earth meet as a series of distinct, rapid-fire impacts—feet, knees, chest, arms, head—like his body is a line of dominoes, toppling over one after another after another. He feels it in his ankle when the sudden stop makes it twist—feels it again, different, when something gives behind his clavicle. His head rattles a fraction of a second later, his upper and lower molars colliding with a force that has his vision sparking white.
He’s not sure if he blacks out. His head is spinning, his ears ringing—the world twists around him, a dizzying whirl that only adds to the confusion. All he knows is that he’s down, the weightlessness of free fall ripped away and every molecule of air knocked clean from his lungs. He’s been floored, flattened, just like that.
Gale reels in the lurching stillness, blinking up at the parachute as it flutters down somewhere over his head. For a moment, not even his chest rises—hell, his heart might have stopped. Wouldn’t that just be a kick in the teeth? He frowns, his mouth falling open to taste the humid air.
Air. Shit, air. Thoughts dissolving into static, Gale tries to draw in a breath. His lungs are two wrung-out sponges, flat and limp inside him. It’s like he’s been kicked in the solar plexus by a horse, only he’s never felt a horse kick like this. Gravity hits harder than any hoof he’s ever encountered, and he can feel the watery strain of his own breathless gasps as his mouth gapes open like a fish flopping about on land. His eyes, sightless and filled with tingling black spots, roll up toward the sky.
Seconds pass, sticky and stretched-out. Eons travel like glaciers between each blink. He manages a small sip of air, numb left hand clutching at his chest. Shudders it back out. Another sip, slightly deeper—and he thinks he might be okay in another minute, the creep of black spots in his vision slowly easing. The air is sweeter than sugar, cool water on a blazing fire; he draws it in, eager as he can with lungs jack-knifing in ragged gasps.
He thinks, once again, that he’s safe. That he’s okay, that he made it.
…And then the pain hits.
It’s worse this time. Like it was lying in wait for him, lurking in the shadows—a massive beast of a thing, eyeing him up for the perfect time to strike. He can feel it in every bone in his body, a sting so impossibly sharp that it might as well be a thousand, a million individual shards of glass, each lodged deep in the end of a nerve.
It hurts. Jesus Christ, it hurts. He groans involuntarily, lungs stuttering through it as the largest shards pierce, deep and unforgiving, into his right shoulder. The surge of pain grips his stomach like a vice, nausea a choking pressure in his throat.
He barely manages to wrench himself onto his left side before he’s vomiting into the mud, his entire body seizing from the force of it. Bile, thick and sour, ejects itself out past his tongue in a violent mudslide—his head spins, the black spots returning with a vengeance. He can’t get his breath back, can’t so much as gasp without his stomach clenching. He can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe—
Until, with one final wrench, it’s over. His stomach settles back down where it’s supposed to be, the surge of nausea easing. His lungs, no longer locked behind the heaving vice-grip of his guts, give a dizzying tug—and in response he feel a burst of oxygen rush down his throat, air finally filling his expanding chest, from the bottom all the way up to the top.
It’s relief like he’s never felt before. Greedily, desperately, he does it again, breathing through the sickening waves of pain. More and more and more, until he thinks maybe he’ll die from the euphoria of it, because ain’t that just how it goes. Why the hell not, right? His life’s always been lived in the wrong direction—one where his childhood home was more a war zone than Nazi airspace, and he found more a family dropping bombs than he ever could with the folks whose blood he shares.
…Speaking of said family. What Gale wouldn’t do for a little of John’s luck right about now. That landing could have been worse—a lot worse—but that seems about as far as his own fortunes are going to get him. ‘Course, he’s pretty sure that even John’s lucky charms don’t have the power to get a man home from the depths of Germany unscathed—that bitten deuce couldn’t have lasted much longer, even if he had brought it along.
At least John wasn’t on this mission. He’s in London, he’s safe, and Gale spares half a second to thank a god he’s not sure he believes in for the fact that just this once John isn’t out here with him, claiming space at his side in this desolate goddamn landscape.
Thank god. Thank god. Thank god.
Then, clenching his aching teeth on a groan, Gale forces his head to lift.
It hurts, still, but he’s getting used to it now. Enough that his eyes are sharp on his surroundings, taking in the craggy hills and low-squatting trees sprinkled around him. His panting breaths are evening out now, too—but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s in the middle of fuck knows where, exposed for the whole of Germany to come have a gander.
Thankfully, he’s been trained for this. He knows to hide his chute, knows to load his pistol, knows to keep low and move.
…The problem is that he shifts his right arm to push himself up and nearly blacks out from the pain.
“Son of a bitch,” Gale hisses, spitting the curse out like venom. Before it can get too far, however, he makes sure to bite down, closing his teeth over the tail of it and using its momentum to force himself up, hands to knees to feet.
It’s sheer willpower that keeps him there, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He’s listing to the left, the weight of the parachute lines tugging him off balance and his knees half-ready to give out… but so long as he keeps his right arm tucked up close to his chest he’s okay.
He’s okay. He’s okay. A little banged up, with the bitter residue of acid stinging at the back of his throat and a throbbing in his ankle that he hopes means it’s sprained and not broken…
…but he can do this.
He has to do this.
And he will.
One.
Damn.
Step.
At a time.
***
The sound of the gun cocking doesn’t register immediately.
This is no surprise. Gale’s ears are still ringing slightly from the beating his body has taken, and not even the adrenaline rush of knowing he’s deep in enemy country can keep his eyes focused for longer than a few seconds. All he’s seen for hours are rabbits and ants, anyway, minding their own business or watching him warily as he trudges through the knee-high grass, his good hand scraping along the low trees to keep himself up. His nose has been bleeding on and off for the last hour or so, something knocked loose by the fall—everything smells like copper, covering up any scent that might have given him a heads up.
So he doesn’t hear the gun. Doesn’t see it, doesn’t smell it—doesn’t sense a single damn thing. Not until the cold metal presses to the back of his neck, anyway.
He’s taken, first, to a house. Marched there through the hills, prodded along by sharp jabs and sharper words, the German harsh as it scrapes around in his aching head. He’s shoved down on his knees on the front porch, with a shotgun aimed at his temple while two men behind him argue—still in German, still harsh, still a stark reminder of how far he is from home.
He watches the barrel from under his brow, his chin tucked down against his chest and his good hand held behind his head, a muscle ticking in his jaw. As the minutes tick by, he wonders if maybe one of them is having second thoughts. Waits for an opening, either way—but in the end it doesn’t matter. He’s hardly there twenty minutes before a car pulls up the drive. Black, clean—and with a swastika painted right across the side, visible even in the waning evening light.
The men who get out of the car do not argue. Gale keeps his chin down and his hand up as he rises slowly to his feet, his back teeth pressed firmly together. He walks to the car under his own power, and slides inside.
From there, it’s a holding cell in a building that he guesses must be a prison, or maybe a police station. Then it’s another car, and then a passenger train, and then, eventually, a Nazi interrogator, housed in a large, lavish building that makes Gale want to scoff even before he’s dragged inside by the elbows. His right shoulder grinds against itself, pain lancing up his neck—he clenches his teeth around the mud and grit he hasn’t had so much as a swallow of water to wash away, chapped lips pressed into a line.
The cell where they shove him for the night is small, hardly more than a stifling concrete box with a narrow cot and iron on the windows. The interrogator’s office, on the other hand, is spacious, authoritative—well-lit and fully furnished, from the liquor cabinet all the way down to the plush rug underfoot. The interrogator, too, is authoritative—fastidiously neat, his uniform freshly ironed and each medal on his chest shined to perfection. He smiles placidly, the Fuhrer’s portrait staring over his shoulder, as the guards drop Gale into a dark, delicate-looking chair none too gently.
It’s a show of force. Intimidation, Gale figures—a display of the strength and opulence of the Nazi regime. He keeps his back straight, jaw squared and shoulders as high as he can get ‘em with his hurt arm held against his chest.
He loses track of how many times he states his name and ID number. More times than the second hand circles the clock on the interrogator’s desk, but less than the number of sweat droplets that trickle down the back of his neck, his skin long since gone clammy from the strain of keeping up the military-perfect posture.
It’s a game he’s played before. As familiar as the smell of bourbon or the clink of a lighter—and Gale hasn’t lost this one since he was six years old. Teeth gritted and tears streaming down his face, staring straight ahead even as the red-hot cherry of a cigarette seared like a brand against his skin. His father’s slurred voice in his ear, leaning in to tell him to take it like a man. The interrogator can manipulate and wheedle and bluff as long as he wants—the deck was simply never stacked in his favor.
He’s in and out of interrogation for two days, drifting into a painfully light doze whenever he’s dropped back into the cell. His shoulder swells, as does his ankle—he’s fairly certain that if he had any reason to strip out of his mud-splattered uniform, he’d find a series of dark, lurid bruises painted across his body, marking each and every place the Earth rose up to greet him. His cheek aches in the chilled air, tender blisters rising where the shrapnel struck.
By the second afternoon, they’re losing patience. It’s a stalemate, a cold war—tensions are escalating and Gale can almost feel the brass breathing down the interrogator’s neck.
He knows what’s coming. Feels almost… vindicated when it gets there. When they finally put their hands on him for more than a rough handling from one room to another—finally play the game within the full scope of the rules.
He doesn’t give them anything. Not even as the guard drags the honed edge of the knife across his cheek, carving a long line across the meat of it. It’s an exact mirror of the burn on the other side. “See now—like a flower. Same on both sides,” the guard says, his accent curdling around the English words. Gale stares straight ahead, ignoring the drip of blood down his jaw.
…They give up trying to get information out of him at some point on the third morning. It’s just as well.
Gale doesn’t bother to look back as he’s shoved along later that night, taking his place in the long queue of prisoners under the careful watch of the guards. They’re waiting to board another train, cargo this time, the chill of dusk descending on them all. It’s a production, with a dozen shouting German voices all overlapping each other, grim faces with guns at every side. Gale stares straight ahead, meeting no one’s eyes.
He feels… numb. Like there’s a fog in his head, thick and white and dulling the parts of him that are usually more vigilant. The lack of sleep is plucking at his limbs, dragging them down—his boots scuff against the ground, too heavy to properly lift even as he keeps his chin held high.
He makes sure his face stays neutral as he uses his left hand to haul himself up into the train car, teeth silently gritted. There’s no space to sit—they’re packed in tight, shoulders bumping as the train starts forward, the allied soldiers stumbling and awkward and tense in the confined space. Gale keeps close to the wall, his bad shoulder turned in toward the corner—he’s thinking about trying to doze again when suddenly he hears his name.
He frowns, raising his head. Someone is moving through the crowd, or trying to. “Shit, sorry, I just—Buck!” they call, a stage whisper that has the other men muttering and attempting to duck out of the way.
They’re uneasy. Shuttered. Scared. Like the Nazis will stop the train for a single rowdy American, maybe come in guns blazing for the simple crime of speaking aloud. Because they could—they can. They have the firepower to do whatever they damn well please, and the fact that he’s back under the thumb of someone who thinks might makes right has not been lost on Gale.
…His teeth are starting to ache from how tightly he has them clenched. What he wouldn’t do for a toothpick right now. Breathing out, he forces himself to relax his jaw, bracing his good hand against the boards.
It takes a moment for the face of the man still struggling through the crowd to become visible between the other soldiers. As soon as it does, Gale feels a flush of chagrin creep up his neck—he’s heard that voice from the right side of the cockpit every damn mission since his arrival at Thorpe Abbots, how did he not recognize it?
No time to dwell on it now. “DeMarco,” he says, letting a small smile lift the corners of his mouth.
“Thank fuck,” Benny says, quieter now as he presses up against Gale’s side. His wide eyes scrape up and down Gale, working methodically from top to bottom. “I thought you were dead, Buck—thought I was gonna have to look Bucky in the damn face and tell him I managed to get his favorite person in the whole world killed.”
Gale shakes his head, pulling his hand from the wall for a moment to clap Benny on the shoulder. “Got us out alright, Benny. Could’a been a hell of a lot worse.”
“Yeah. Ain’t that the truth.” Benny lets out a low exhale, a bit of the tension easing out of his shoulders at the reassurance. The words can’t help with the air whipping past, though—it’s gusting in through the slots in the wooden boards, making Gale’s eyes water from the sharpness of it. Benny is faring worse: he’s missing his jacket and his uniform shirt, arms bare from the undershirt down and shivers wracking his frame in the October chill. After a moment, he crams his hands under his biceps, hunching up around them.
Gale frowns at him for a moment, mind sluggish. It takes a moment longer than it should for him to think through the problem. Eventually, though, it gets from one side of his brain to the other, and with a low hum, he starts working one-handed at the zipper under his collar.
It’s crusted with dried blood, congealed and dark red between the zipper’s teeth. Gale clicks his molars together, tugging harder.
“What are you…” Benny starts, only to grunt as the train rattles over an uneven bit of track, trying to keep his balance.
“Got my long sleeves on underneath,” Gale says, keeping his voice low. “No point in letting you freeze to death when we can both be mildly cold.”
Benny stares for a moment. His face is pale and shadowed with scruff, the dark purple of a shiner smudged under one eye—he’s got the look of a dog that hasn’t seen a kind hand in three days, and isn’t sure what to do with it now.
He shakes himself out of it when the train car jerks again, Gale unable to help the hiss as his bad shoulder bumps the wall. “You sure?” he asks, his hands raised hesitantly at Gale’s front.
Gale nods, swallowing a pained grimace. He wants to reassure Benny, to soothe the unease and stress in the lines of his face. Wants to be the commanding officer he’s supposed to be—to stand tall, stand strong, keep a clear head and lead his men—man—through it.
…More than that, though, he wants to sit down. Unfortunately, that one isn’t an option. He grinds his back teeth together, frustration rising as the zipper doesn’t budge.
“Here, let me get it,” Benny says, leaning in. Gale’s skin prickles with the proximity, his hackles rising without his permission—but with two hands the operation is quick, the zipper pulled down nice and easy. Gale moves as efficiently as he can, letting the jacket slide down off his shoulders so he can hand it over.
Benny wastes no time shimmying into the warm jacket, soaking up Gale’s discarded body heat. The only problem now is that Benny can clearly see the way Gale is holding himself—or, more accurately, holding his arm, which has started to feel like someone jammed a screwdriver up under the bottom of his shoulder blade and is corkscrewing it right up into the joint there. The ache in his ankle is starting to ease off, but somehow the shoulder only seems to be getting worse.
Not that there’s anything he can do about it here. Even so, he can tell that Benny is going to say something about it—his worried gaze is sweeping from Gale’s shoulder to his eyes and back, skirting along the edges of the wounds on his face in between.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Benny is the sort of man who cares—even when it would probably be easier not to, even when it clouds his judgement. He’s a good man, kinder and less brash than most pilots you meet, but Gale… he just doesn’t want to dwell on the injury. Not now, anyway, when his body is aching for him to rest, the shaking of his knees only held at bay by the way he’s locked the joints in place.
So he tells a lie. A small one. The sort that he used to tell to teachers and coaches and pastors, shrugging off their concerns with a bit of redirection.
“Got it looked at already, Benny,” he says, and wonders when the last time anyone but John saw through his deflections. “Just focus on warming up, now. Unless that jacket’s too rank—been a minute since I put on my aftershave.”
Benny, shoulders up by his ears and arms wrapped tight around his chest, stares at him for a moment longer before he snorts and shakes his head. “Three days ago it was seventy degrees—today I’m just happy that none of my fingers have fallen off yet. It’s like the universe has it out for us, I swear.”
He’s not wrong. Far from it, really—because despite the muttering all around them about the Nazis taking them out into the countryside to shoot them all dead, Gale is pretty sure he knows where they’re heading now, and it’s not to their graves. If he’s right…
Gale hums, bracing his good hand against the wall. In some ways, he figures, it might be easier to be dead than trapped. But hell—he’s never known how to back down from a challenge. He might not be flashy about it, might not seek out fights and flirtations and drink to excess…
…and yet.
When push comes to shove, he knows he won’t go down first. For better or worse.
***
The Stalag is massive, a sprawling array of bunk houses and guard towers and barbed wire fences. Hundreds of men, a thousand, maybe more, are all packed in like sardines—Gale frowns at the restless faces pressed against the barbs, a mass of shifting eyes and hoarse voices calling out as their ambling procession is led in to be processed.
“Jesus, it’s like my first communion all over again,” Benny says, squinting at them. “I haven’t had this many people watching me since I fumbled the body of Christ.” Then, before Gale can respond, he perks up and shouts, “Crank! Hey, CRANK! Holy shit, you’re here!”
“BENNY!” Lt. Cruikshank shouts back, throwing both hands into the air. He laughs aloud, keeping pace with them on the other side of the fence, ducking around the other men. “Major! Hell, it’s good to see you guys!”
Gale feels his mouth twitching into a half-smile. “Who else is here?” he calls, glancing around once more, like he can pick more familiar faces out of the mud-colored sea of ‘em.
“Graham and McKay. Oh, and Gaspar, got here yesterday! No sign of anyone else, though, I think they might’ve got shuffled to a different camp,” Crank says. His smile falters a little as he nears the inner gate, glancing over at the guards who are waiting there for the new prisoners. “Hey, before I forget, Buck—you’re gonna want to report to the Lt. Colonel after you’re processed. He’ll be at the officer’s bunk, number four-eighteen, you can’t miss it!”
“I’ll do that,” Gale reassures him. “We’ll see you again in a bit here, alright, Crank?”
Crank nods and salutes. A moment later he’s gone, taking off into the rows of bunk houses. Best guess is that he’s going to tell everyone about who just arrived—they’ll likely have a welcome party, or as welcoming a party as it’s possible to put up in a camp like this, ready for Buck and Benny as soon as they make it to their bunks.
Benny, near-buzzing in his shoes, shoves his fists into the pockets of Gale’s jacket. “Fucking hell,” he says, and suddenly there’s a raw edge in his voice, digging into the soft meat of Gale’s white-knuckled hope. “When we left for Bremen, Crank and all them were still at Thorpe Abbots. How many missions do you think we’ve missed?”
With a grunt, Gale tucks his arm closer to his side. “Too many,” he admits, hating himself a little for the twinge of frustration that’s leaked into his voice. How many men have gone down since we left the fight remains unsaid, but it’s a vicious undercurrent to the atmosphere here. Men like them, men like all the ones around them, weren’t made to sit still and cool their heels. Even injured—cold, sleep-deprived, and dehydrated, too—Gale feels his body preparing as if for a mission, his eyes sweeping across the camp like they’re on the look-out for enemy combatants, prepared for anything from flak to fighters.
It’s an itch in his hands, a push in his gut. He grits his teeth, biting down on the impulse to snap and bite at the guard who prods him toward the German officer waiting to take down his information.
The only relief he has is the fact that John was in London. Two days of leave—two days, safe from all the worst the war has to offer. It’s two more than can be said for the rest of them, but hey—if there’s any man who deserves a moment of freedom, no matter how short, it’s Bucky. Gale can hold onto that.
Their intake is quick, an impersonal shuffle from officer to officer. They’re given some used clothes, half a bar of soap each. Given a rundown of the layout of the areas that the prisoners can access. The rules of Stalag Luft III are laid down by sharp German voices, in no uncertain terms—what not to do, what punishments to expect for doing those things anyway, dire warnings to stay back from the fences—and then they’re in, left to their own devices under the cloud-darkened skies as a desolate wind wheezes past, rattling the shingles of the bunk-house roofs.
“…Ain’t much,” Gale says, pursing his lips. He wonders idly if he could lay down for a bit, half-dead on his feet, before he remembers Crank’s instructions. “Tell you what, Benny—how about you go find the others and I’ll go have a chat with this Lt. Colonel?”
“Sure,” Benny says, sounding somewhat less-than sure. “Maybe you could see about getting another look at your arm, then, too?”
Gale makes a noncommittal sound. Then, nudging Benny off with his good elbow, he heads away to seek out bunk house four-eighteen.
The Lt. Colonel, he finds, is a commanding officer from the 31st known as ‘Bub’. A no-nonsense kind of man, he’d become a sort of liaison between the prisoners and their German guards, helping to keep the prisoners in line so he could advocate for their needs to the brass. Gale is halfway through a very sloppy and incredibly painful salute before the Lt. Colonel waves away the formality.
“You’re a Major, huh?” he asks, giving Gale an appraising once-over. “Shame your group lost you, but I sure could use your help. I’ve got five thousand men to look after, here.”
“You can count on me, Sir,” Gale says. He clenches his teeth as they shake on it, his shoulder grinding against itself in a way that makes his stomach lurch sickeningly.
In front of him, the Lt. Colonel sighs as he leans back into his seat. Then, gesturing one of his officers forward, he gives Gale a pointed look. “Lieutenant, I want you to take the Major to the barracks with the other men from the 100th and see if they’ve got any rations stored away from the last Red Cross drop. We’ve got nothing but potatoes left up here, and I’ve a feeling they weren’t too hospitable to the Major at interrogation.”
Gale knows a dismissal when he sees one. He nods, following the lieutenant out. His appetite has shrunk down to a mild twinge in his gut telling him that he’s gone too long without refueling, but he doesn’t know if he could stand to eat anything at the moment. His pulse is pounding behind his eyes, his teeth aching from the effort of standing upright.
Somehow, he makes it to their bunk. It’s getting on in hours, now—the train ride was long and slow, and they’re coming up on the fifth night since Gale and Benny’s fort went down. Gale can’t help the huff of gratitude that escapes him when the boys show him to his bunk, his weight lifting off his feet for the first time in too goddamn long.
“Here—got some tuna and saltines,” Graham offers, holding them out. The others are there, too—all of them are huddled around Gale, leaning in as if they’re waiting for him to give some grand, morale-boosting speech.
“How about you hold onto ‘em for me,” Gale says instead, pushing the food back toward Graham. He does take the tin of water that Crank offers, though, sipping it slowly. Benny is hovering off to his left, still wearing Gale’s jacket—he’s gotta be just as tired as Gale feels, the shiner on his face near-overshadowed by the dark circles under his eyes.
They’re still waiting. Antsy, anxious—the stress of it all plays across their faces, some more than others. And Gale… he’s never been good at this. Being present, sure—being right there with his men, offering a helping hand, being approachable. He’s never held himself above them like some commanding officers do, always tried to keep a level head and pave a path toward confidence for each successive mission. But finding the right words? Finding the correct thing to say, the magic phrase that will keep them from spiraling? That’s never come easy to him.
He wonders for a moment what John would do in his place, what he’d say. John is a man of action, same as Gale—but he never seems to find himself falling short when it comes to words, not like Gale does. If he can’t make things right, then he can at least provide a distraction, tell a joke. He lives like every day is his last—nothing to regret except the hangover, and even that can be drowned out by another toast.
Gale swallows, breathing slowly through his nose. His voice is rough, but it stays steady as he looks at each of them in turn and says, “It’s getting late, boys. Gotta rest while we can, we’ll sort everything else tomorrow.”
It’s not the best thing he could have said, but it’s also not the worst. The tension doesn’t quite break, but it eases off, the men nodding along as they start collecting the necessities to prepare for bed.
The last to wander away is Benny, still leaning next to Gale’s bunk. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks, his voice low. An ever-bleeding heart, even here, in the midst of so much frustration and uncertainty.
“I’m good,” Gale says. “Just need a kip and I’ll be good as new.”
It’s another little lie. Not so much because it’s not true—he does need sleep, his eyes gritty and dry from the lack of it. Wants it, desperately, with the kind of simmering frustration that makes him want to sink his teeth into something just to release the tension.
He needs to rest, he wasn’t lying about that. It’s just not the whole truth.
The bunk is quiet that night, but not silent. It’s not too different from the barracks at the airbase, really—familiar with the sounds of men shifting, snoring, the occasional sleepy murmur or a shuffle across the floor to piss in the bucket in the corner.
Gale, flat on his back with his left arm thrown over his eyes, tries to keep himself as still as possible. Breathing is about all he’s got it in him to do right now, and even that has to be done slow and steady, lest he jar his right arm.
It aches. Throbs. More and more as the hours slowly creep by. It seems that the longer his shoulder is left to its own devices, the more it hurts, locked-up and stiff. The swelling is only making it worse—hot and tight, like his skin might split open if he moves it the wrong way. They’re not allowed out of the bunk houses at night—locked inside, with guards watching at the end of every row—so he knows he’s got to at least bear it until morning. He’s got no idea what the medical situation is here, but he can seek out a doctor or a medic at first light. He’s just got to keep his breathing even ‘til then.
(…in)
(…out)
(…in)
(…out.)
(one…)
(two…)
(three…)
(four.)
Again.
And again.
And again.
…He’s pretty sure it’s one of the longest nights of his entire goddamn life.
***
“Buck. Hey, Buck. You want to come fetch morning rations with us?”
Half-dozing, Gale jerks into full consciousness with all the abruptness of getting a bucket of water to the face. He winces as his shoulder throbs—drags his hand down his face to cover the way his entire body seems ready to fold into itself, instinctive and vulnerable.
It takes him a moment to understand what Crank is asking. By the time he muddles through it, he can see that most of the other men are ready to go, just one or two yanking on worn gloves and lacing up the last few loops of their boots.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice coming out thick, hoarse. He clears his throat. “Give me half a second.”
Sitting up has him grinding his teeth, working them in circles until he can feel the ache at the hinge of his jaw. He’s got a coat on already, the threadbare blankets hardly enough to ward off more than a slight draft. That and the fact that he never took off his boots are his saving grace—means he gets a minute to sit still with his hand braced on the bunk’s edge, waiting for his head to stop spinning.
Son of a bitch, he thinks to himself. Then, get it together, Gale—you’re a leader still, even here. Fucking act like it.
He’ll eat with the boys, he decides. Keep up morale, listen for what’s what, get the lay of the land. Then he’ll head out in search of a doctor. Easiest mission plan he’s ever had—not even the worst navigator in the 100th could get them lost on that route. He’ll be fine. Just gotta stick with it.
And he does. All the way up onto his feet, through the door, down the hall, and then—
Alright. Yeah. Maybe he should have seen this coming.
“Shit!” someone curses, as Gale’s knees fold just over the threshold of the door leading out into the grounds. His head has gone fuzzy, his body distant—the only thing he’s really sure of right now is the sharp whip-crack of pain that’s lancing through his shoulder.
It hurts. Fuck, it hurts.
When he comes back into himself, he’s lying on his back, just past the steps leading down from the bunk house. His breath is rasping in his ears, thick and unpleasant—cold, wet dirt presses into every crack and crevice his clothes have to offer. He blinks skyward, frowning as half a dozen faces swim past.
He’s not sure who caught him. He should probably thank them, whoever it was. Likely saved him a cracked skull from toppling right over the short railing.
“—get Sgt. Wilkers,” someone is saying above him, urgent. Closer, another voice is swearing, a sharp, rapid-fire volley of words that would enrage any grandma within a hundred miles.
That, Gale figures after a moment, must be Benny. Damn, but Brady must be rubbing off on him. Gale squints over, his lips pressed into a thin line, to meet his eyes—they’re wide as ever, practically bleeding fear as he leans over Gale.
Gale hums. Then, swallowing, he raises his left hand for Benny to take.
“Are you okay to move?” Benny asks. He’s already clutching at Gale’s wrist—more, maybe, to settle his own racing heartbeat than to help Gale up. His palm is cold, fingers twitching with anxiety.
“Ground’s wet,” Gale says. It’s not an answer, not really—but it’s enough to have Benny exhaling, his mouth twisted as he starts to pull Gale into a more vertical configuration, the others leaning in to help.
They don’t move him far. Just over against the bunk house, where he can sit propped up with his back to the boards. He settles with his right arm propped up close to his chest, shoulder throbbing, one knee folded. He hasn’t smoked in years, now, having fought off the urges with gum and toothpicks way back when he and Marge first started to look at each other, but he finds here that he wants a smoke. For the familiarity of it—for the way they calm that buzz inside of him, give him a moment to himself where he doesn’t have to think.
At his side, Benny stares out at the bunk house across the way. Tense, maybe angry. It’s hard to tell for sure, but if Gale were a betting man he might bet on that.
Not that it’s so strange. Aren’t they all tense, after all? Aren’t they all angry? Gale sure is—he forces himself to breathe, slow and even. The air whistles through his nose, bitter cold—his jaw might well be locked shut for the pressure of his grinding teeth.
“…Never seen someone go so pale so fast,” Benny admits, after a long moment of silence. When Gale half-glances over, he’s chewing on his thumbnail, worrying at it like Meatball might work his way through a bone. “Why didn’t you say it was that bad?”
“It’s not,” Gale grunts, breathing carefully through his nose as he turns his gaze back to the front. The cold sweat slowly beading at his temples is chilling even further in the early morning air. A droplet breaks free, prickling like ice as it slides down the hinge of his jaw. Another catches on the blisters on his cheek—he hisses at the slight sting, his upper lip lifting away from his teeth in a snarl.
Benny scoffs, a muscle in his jaw flexing for a moment. “I just…” he starts. Pauses, searching for the words. “I know that I’m not Bucky. None of us are, except, y’know, Bucky, and he isn’t here. We get that. But you can still tell us if you need some help, alright?”
Gale closes his eyes. Thinks about cigarette burns, belt buckles, bruises around his neck in the vivid shape of fingerprints. Take it like a man, spits a voice in his ear. A game, always a game—and he can’t afford to lose.
“Not trying to make trouble, is all,” he says, after a long moment. Too long for it to be shaped like the truth.
…They stay quiet until someone comes around to take a look at Gale, two men sitting side by side who maybe, probably, don’t know much about each other at all.
***
Dislocated. That’s all it is—just dislocated. No breaks or tears, far as Sgt. Wilkers can tell—though he warns Gale three times that he only got through half his medical degree before changing tracks to navigation.
“There’s an actual doctor with the Nazis,” he’s informing Gale. They’ve made it back into the bunk room, Gale perched on the edge of his bunk as the sergeant frowns his way around the room, looking for whatever he needs to help get Gale’s shoulder back into its socket. “Wouldn’t go to him unless you really have no other choice, though—he’s a little too scalpel-happy, you ask me. Not that it’s much better out here, mind. We’ve barely got bandages to spare.”
Gale hums along, watching as his men skitter out of the sergeant’s way. They’re hovering again, the whole lot of them—every attempt to convince them to go get their morning rations has fallen on deaf ears. Might have been somewhat charming, if the insubordination were directed at literally anyone else.
“What, uh—what are you looking for?” Graham asks, as the sergeant makes a third pass ‘round, eyes narrowed.
“Getting the joint back in place,” the sergeant says, heaving a weary-sounding sigh, “is going to take some maneuvering. I’m just trying to think of the easiest way to do this, for everyone involved. Longer we put if off, though, the worse it’s gonna be, so…”
Benny swallows audibly at that, glancing over at Gale with a touch of panic in his eyes. Gale raises a brow right back. Deep breaths, he tries to project across the bunk room, taking steady inhales and exhales through his nose to set an example.
Thankfully, they don’t have to wait much longer. The wooden table in the center of the room is the only piece of furniture both sturdy enough and roomy enough to accommodate the procedure—Gale lets the sergeant arrange him to his liking, keeping his body loose and his face calm even as the wood grain bites into his bare back. It’ll be over soon, he knows.
…’Course, first there will be the pain to contend with. They don’t have any painkillers, and the flat pity in the sergeant’s eyes tells Gale everything he needs to know about that. Just because a hit lands easier when he knows it’s coming doesn’t mean that the sliver of leather from god-knows-where feels any less ominous between his teeth.
“You—there,” the sergeant says, pointing. “And you—yes, you—right here.”
Gale breathes past the leather, staring up at the water-stained ceiling as Crank takes up a position at his knees. Benny has come up on his left side, resolutely not looking at the swollen mess of his other shoulder. At prompting from the sergeant, both set their hands on Gale, ready to hold him down.
“Ready?” the sergeant asks, his mouth pulled down in concentration. He takes hold of Gale’s right arm, warm fingers resting on his bare skin like brands.
Swallowing around the bitter leather, Gale forces himself to stay relaxed. His body thrums, anticipation breaking out in a sweat across his chest. He locks eyes with the sergeant, nods his head.
“On three, then. One…”
It’ll be over soon.
“Two…”
It’ll be over soon.
“Three!”
Oh, god, please let it be OVER SOON—
The pain… it’s exquisite. Deep, like a blunted drill bit being forced through his chest from the side, the agony only spreading further as every connected muscle stretches and burns. The sergeant’s hands are a pair of heavy vices, and Gale can’t help the way his body tries to arch off the table as those iron-hard fingers turn—and twist—and pull—until his arm feels like it’s going to tear right off—and he can’t even beg for him to stop—because all he can manage is a guttural scream—low and rough—wrenched up from the very bottom of his gut and squeezed out through his teeth—jaws locked so tight around the leather scrap that he might just punch right on through—
—and then, suddenly, the pain just… stops.
“Right, well there we are,” says the sergeant, panting. He carefully moves Gale’s arm around, testing that he’s got his full range of motion back. The shoulder twinges, muscles sore from the ordeal, but it feels lifetimes better than it did before. “You’ll want to see about binding your arm against your chest for a week or two, make sure the muscles have a chance to heal before you put it to use. If you feel it slip out again, I want you to grab me immediately, you hear?”
God. Gale lets his head roll to the side, eyes sliding closed as a series of aftershocks raise the hair on his arms. He doesn’t even have the energy left over to pry the leather from his mouth, every last drop now focused on staying conscious long enough to get back to his bunk.
“Yes, sir,” Benny says in his stead, voice thready with relief. “Thank you, doc. Anything we can do for you, you just say the word.”
A murmur of agreement goes around the room. Sgt. Wilkers accepts this with a tired grace, and turns to leave—only to pause, frowning, just inside the door.
“One more thing,” he says, patting down the pockets of his ratty brown pants. He comes up with a tiny white tube, carefully rolled up from the bottom to eke out every last drop. “Those wounds on your face—they’re trying their level best to get infected, specially that burn. Clean them out as best you can with clear water and dab a little of this on overtop, should keep it at bay ‘til they heal up enough to close.”
Hand about as steady as a deflated rubber ball, Gale reaches up to get the leather out of his mouth. “Thank you,” he says, voice rasping across his aggravated throat, as Crank accepts the tube of medicine. And he means it—well and truly, he might owe this man his life. Or, at the very least, every good night’s sleep that’s now in his future.
The sergeant waves him off. “Get some food into you. All of you. And don’t let me see you again for a while yet, you hear?”
A flurry of nods all around, and then he’s gone, leaving a palpable aura of relief lingering in the room.
It takes a moment for someone to break the silence. It’s Benny—because of course it is, a strange sort of pride starting to shine in his eyes that Gale isn’t sure he deserves. “Tell you what, Buck—you don’t do a single thing by halves,” he says, with a half-wet laugh.
“No-Engine Cleven, back at it again,” Crank agrees, and suddenly there’s a chorus of ‘No-Engine Cleven’s across the small bunk room, followed by the slow rise of normal activity starting to pick up again.
Gale huffs, one corner of his mouth tipping up into a smile, small and exhausted. He feels… unmoored. Like he’s waiting for a loud crow in his ear, a heavy arm around his shoulders, the sure tug of a big hand to guide him back to his feet. He wonders how John will react once he hears this one—figures, after a moment, that he’ll let out that bright, delighted laugh that he seems to save just for Gale. The one that sounds like Gale has surprised him, but in the best way possible. It’s easy to imagine the stretch of his mustache as he grins until his eyes crinkle up, his fingers pinching at Gale’s chin. ‘Course you did—Buck here’s gotta go and show everybody up!’ he’d say. Gale can almost hear the words, the exact inflection that John would use.
“…Could do a lot worse for myself, I suppose,” he murmurs to the ceiling, his voice buzzing low in his chest. All around him the men are talking—loud, rambunctious, their laughter expanding into this small space, filling the gap between the last moment of violence and the next.
It’s good. Gale… he can do this. He knows he can.
And, just to prove it, he pushes himself up off the table to go grab his damn shirt.
***
He finds himself alone in the long, cold building that houses the bathrooms later that afternoon. His right arm has been bound to his chest with strips from an old, fraying blanket—in the dim light of a bare bulb hanging over his head, he double checks to make sure they aren’t twisted, running his fingers over the fabric.
He’s… not sure how he’s feeling now. Tired still, he guesses, even after a few hours spent napping in the bunk room. He’s got half a bowl of potato soup in his belly, warming him from the inside out—but there’s also a tightness in his chest, slowly growing more and more pointed as he turns to the grimy mirror over the troughs that serve as sinks.
The cut, on one side, is neat and, strangely, almost delicate in its shape. It’s scabbed over in deep crimson, balanced on its edge like a single long stroke from a pen dipped in ink. It stings as he cleans it, but the pain is only skin deep, hardly even enough to wince about.
The burn, however… on the other side…
Gale breathes in, washing and wringing out the rag several times before he leans in and slowly, slowly, starts to prod at it.
It hardly takes any pressure for the blisters to burst. He winces, biting the inside of his lip as a bit of puss starts to seep out—the edges of the burn are red and irritated, tender under the rough cotton fibers. It’s not a particularly large burn—hardly wider than the cut, really—but as he wipes away all the ooze and mud and grime, he realizes that the tightness in his chest is pulsing with every breath he takes.
Because this burn, this mark… it came from the remains of his fort. From a fiery explosion that tore through the lines of jet fuel pulsing through the veins of a monstrous machine, strong enough to wrench metal from metal, fast enough to puncture a parachute even through its protective container. It could have killed him midair—it could have severed his head from his body, or punched right through his heart.
And somehow, in the end, all it did was leave a small, tell-tale mark. Like the brush of a single downy feather from a phoenix, burning burning burning.
He’s not expecting the pain, this time. Has no reason to—it’s been so long since the wound opened that he’d figured it just wasn’t the sort to bleed. But there it is—and here he is, a vast chasm cleaving through his insides, filled with pain, pain, pain.
Gale swallows, his hand dropping from his face. In the mirror, his lips quiver, corners turning sharply down. He doesn’t see them. Instead, he sees a large, dark shape, blotting out the sky. Hears it, smells it, feels it. Like it’s still there, suspended somewhere over his head. A mistake—an impossibility.
He watches it, filled with the dread and awe of a man free-falling, unable to do anything but surrender to the mercy of nature. Watches all of it, from the blooming flames to the billowing smoke, unable to stop himself from hearing the groaning, wrenching screams of metal tearing apart as the B-17 starts to fall from the sky.
He was burned by it. Burned by his own bird, suspended, helpless, in the air beneath her. Like he was simply too close to the phoenix as it burst into flames, a mythical beast writhing in the throes of death. That fort had come back from the dead more times than he could count, coaxed back to brilliant, fiery life before every new mission by the clever hands of Lemmons and his crew of mechanics…
…all the way up until this moment. Until this flight, this one last mission, wild, desperate, and white-knuckled. Bremen, somehow his first and also his last bomb drop, now both fading away in the rear view mirror of his life.
Because this… god, there’s no coming back from this, is there. He’s good and trapped, now—caught just as surely as any animal in any cage. The fog of it is lifting, a stark reality exposed. One where he doesn’t know who lived and who died, who made it back or if any of them did. He’s caught on the wrong side of the battlefield, mired in the brutal stagnation of a German prison camp.
It hurts. Like a sucking wound, his heart torn asunder, its innermost chambers exposed to the freezing air. He grips the edge of the sink-trough, curling desperately around the pain, his chin tucked down close to his chest and his teeth bared in a silent rictus, snarl and scream and savage, hysterical laughter all at once.
He gasps. Chokes. Forces air in, and out, and in again.
Then, swallowing heavily, he straightens his back and gets back to it.
His hand is steady as he smears the ointment on his cheeks. As he walks back out into the camp and scopes out the lay of the land. As he gets involved with the radio, with putting together smuggled parts into something useful. He helps keep the men safe and occupied—mediates when fights break out, reports to the Lt. Colonel, stands tall at his side as the man brings up the prisoner’s concerns with the German guards. Mostly, he tries to keep his nose clean—physically and metaphorically, as much as it’s possible in a place like this.
The wounds on his face heal. The scabs fall away, the skin knits. He watches the scars form in snapshots, caught in the bathroom’s mirrors. It’s fine—he’ll get through this. Moment by moment, day by day by day.
Because that’s what he does. He swallows the pain, and he stands up straight, and he gets on with the rest of his goddamn life.
***
The sirens at the gates are wailing, the sound reverberating across the grounds. They go off whenever new prisoners arrive, Gale has learned—a Pavlovian sound that draws the men inside toward the gates like moths to a flame. And there Gale is, right there with them, every damn time: waiting at the fence, barbed wire pricking at his palms.
It goes about the same every time. Sometimes they’ll see someone they know—sometimes they won’t. It’s a give and take either way, this ritual. Filled with the tension between knowing that a friend is safe, even if they’re trapped… and the great, expansive unknown, where everyone else is either free or dead, and they may never know the difference. The world beyond the fences is vast, impenetrable—filled with truths and actions caught only in snippets, clipped from contraband radio signals.
It’s here that Gale often finds himself drifting. Wishing, unerringly, like the pull of an ocean current, that John will come walking up—that John will find his way here. He can see it in his mind’s eye, crystal clear: John, with a cocky smile on his face, that goddamned sheepskin jacket zipped up right to his chin, stride sure. Gale wants it, wants it more than anything—
—which is why he always stops himself short when he notices himself doing it, his mind jerking back like a feral dog caught at the end of its chain, breathless and foaming at the mouth.
Because he can’t wish for this. He’s not allowed. He can only have one thing here, in the gaping mouth of Hell. Just one—just the vicious, bloody hope that John Egan will never, ever, EVER step foot in Stalag Luft III.
Gale is no stranger to hurt. He knows how it feels to start dying, and he knows how deep the pain goes when you have no choice, when you have to fight anyway. He knows the agony of a reality where suffocating, freezing, starving, dying, inch by ragged inch, is the only way left to fucking live. He knows how to swallow the pain, and he knows how to not give up… and somehow, that’s what scares him the most.
This is the truth of it. Nestled down in his chest, a splintered thing digging into his heart, piercing a little more and a little more with each pump of blood through his veins. So deep that some days he thinks he’s drowning in it, his breath caught under the seeping muck of his own life-force.
It’s as simple as it is devastating. Gale Cleven can weather anything, from the spark of a lit cigarette to the desperate burn of strangulation. He can bear the pain, the hurt, the agony, the ache—can keep going until his entire body is an open, bleeding wound and then some, because he can survive anything short of death. He will live through anything less than his final rest—so long as it’s his.
Which is where the crux of the issue is, isn’t it? This world… it knows how to hurt him without even touching him. Knows how to drive a knife through his heart without laying so much as a single finger on his skin. There’s no doubt in his mind—it’s clear as day. The worst thing this world could ever do, the worst pain it could ever inflict… would be to force him to watch as John walked through those gates.
Breathing in, the sound of the sirens ringing in his ears, Gale lets the fence take a little more of his weight and turns his eyes up toward the sky. No… truly, there’s no doubt at all. Gale knows himself too well. It’s a poison inside of him—thick and toxic, seeping across every good memory of every kind touch.
If John were to come walking up right now, he knows how he would feel. Relieved. Joyous. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself, buoyed up by a presence that has always seemed larger than life. John is a beacon in the dark, a guiding light—everything that Gale isn’t, everything he loves so desperately. Which makes it really rather simple: the moment it finally hit that the Nazi bastards managed to clip John’s wings, the moment the grief finally set in… that would be it for Gale. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that is the moment that any last speck of happiness left inside his own chest would die.
It’s like the concussive boom of a fort’s fuel lines. Like a too-hard landing, or being trapped behind these fences, or the final death of something that was never meant to die. Only this drop? This hurt? God, he might never come back from it. There’s a real chance that would be it—that there would be just the right amount of rope strung between joy and grief for him to hang himself.
…’Course, that’s a problem for a Future Gale. One who has to contend with the bloody, inevitable truths of the world. He’s not naive—he knows it might be coming. Just… not yet.
He has time yet. He’ll be okay. He always is. Because, after all…
…in a world with an infinite number of ways to hurt, and an equal or greater number of ways pain manifests…
…there’s also an endless sky, filled end to end with hope.