this is not the end
SUBJECT ARCHANGEL
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS BRANCH
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY
FILE NO.: OSS-R&A-ANOM/4471-A
DATE: October 17, 1939
SUBJECT:
Lt. Joseph Warren III
Army Air Forces (USAAF)
Service No.: [REDACTED]
Stationed: [REDACTED], European Theater
REPORTING OFFICER:
Cameron Kessler
Civilian Liaison, Strategic Analysis Division
Attached to USAAF Intelligence
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS BRANCH
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY
FILE NO.: OSS-R&A-ANOM/4471-A
DATE: October 17, 1939
SUBJECT:
Lt. Joseph Warren III
Army Air Forces (USAAF)
Service No.: [REDACTED]
Stationed: [REDACTED], European Theater
REPORTING OFFICER:
Cameron Kessler
Civilian Liaison, Strategic Analysis Division
Attached to USAAF Intelligence
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report concerns the identification and assessment of a biological anomaly observed in Lt. Joseph Warren III, hereafter referred to as SUBJECT ARCHANGEL.
Subject presents with fully developed, functional, feathered wings of unknown origin or classification, enabling unaided flight independent of mechanical apparatus. Said capability has been verified through repeated observation in both controlled and combat-adjacent conditions.
Given the unprecedented nature of this anomaly, its potential exploitation by enemy forces, and the inability of current military doctrine to account for or secure such an asset in the field, SUBJECT ARCHANGEL is to be considered a critical national security liability if compromised.
Immediate reassignment and containment are strongly recommended.
II.OBSERVATIONAL FINDINGS
1. PHYSIOLOGY
• Subject possesses bilateral appendages extending from the scapular region
• Estimated wingspan: 15–18 feet
• Structure consistent with avian morphology, though scaled beyond known biological precedent
• Apparent strength sufficient to generate sustained lift under full combat load
2. CAPABILITIES
• Independent flight at variable altitude
• Maneuverability exceeding that of standard aircraft in close-range conditions
• Potential for silent or low-detectability insertion
3. DURABILITY & UNKNOWNS
•Resistance to environmental stressors (temperature, pressure) undetermined
•Unknown regenerative or resilience properties
•Unknown origin: genetic, experimental, or otherwise
III. SECURITY ASSESSMENT
The presence of SUBJECT ARCHANGEL in an active war zone presents the following risks:
A. ENEMY CAPTURE SCENARIO
If captured by Axis forces, subject may be:
• Subjected to invasive study and reverse-engineering
• Weaponized as a propaganda instrument
• Replicated or used as a basis for experimental biological warfare programs
Given ongoing intelligence regarding Axis interest in unconventional weapons and human experimentation, the probability of exploitation is assessed as HIGH.
B. INTELLIGENCE COMPROMISE
• Trigger uncontrolled escalation in biological warfare development
• Undermine current Allied technological advantage
• Create internal panic or doctrinal instability
C. OPERATIONAL LIABILITY
Subject’s capabilities fall outside all known command structures and engagement protocols.
• No existing framework governs deployment or restraint
• Reliance on subject introduces unpredictable variables into mission planning
IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL & BEHAVIORAL NOTES
Lt. Warren remains outwardly cooperative and exhibits strong patriotic alignment. However:
• Subject demonstrates increasing independence in aerial engagement decisions
• Displays a tendency toward risk-taking behavior consistent with overreliance on anomalous abilities
• Shows signs of identity conflict regarding his condition (see attached field notes)
Conclusion: While not overtly insubordinate, SUBJECT ARCHANGEL cannot be considered fully controllable within standard military hierarchy.
V. RECOMMENDATIONS
In light of the above, I submit the following for immediate action:
1. RECLASSIFICATION
• Subject to be reclassified from active combat personnel to RESTRICTED BIOLOGICAL ASSET
2. EXTRACTION
• Immediate removal from the European Theater under sealed orders
• Transfer to a secured domestic facility under OSS jurisdiction>
3. CONTAINMENT & STUDY
• Placement in a controlled environment for:
• Physiological analysis
• Capability assessment
• Determination of origin
4. SURGICAL CONSIDERATION
Should containment prove insufficient or subject present ongoing risk:
• Evaluation of permanent neutralization of anomalous capabilities is advised
• This may include surgical intervention deemed necessary for national security
VI. FINAL ASSESSMENT
Lt. Joseph Warren III represents a phenomenon beyond current scientific or military understanding. While potentially advantageous under ideal conditions, the risk of enemy acquisition or uncontrolled deployment far outweighs immediate tactical benefit.
War demands difficult decisions. It is the opinion of this office that no single individual, regardless of loyalty, can be permitted to exist as an uncontrollable variable at this scale of conflict.
Containment is not a precaution. It is a necessity.
Submitted,
Cameron Kessler
Civilian Liaison, OSS Strategic Analysis Division
[SIGNATURE REDACTED]
DISTRIBUTION:
• Director Colonel William Stryker, OSS
• War Department Liaison
• USAAF Intelligence Command (Restricted Copy)
ATTACHMENTS:
• Field Observation Logs (REDACTED)
• Medical Sketches (REDACTED)
• Psychological Profile (REDACTED)
END OF REPORT
happy birthday
The diner is warm, dim, tucked away like it belongs to no one important—Joe chose it for that very reason, sliding into a booth in the back corner with a clear view of the door, setting his gloves down neatly.
7:02.
He orders two coffees, easily telling the waitress, “I’m meeting someone.”
Every time the bell rings, he looks up.
Not him.
Not him.
Not him.
7:41 and the second cup of coffee has gone still, no steam rising up from the rim, and Joe nudges it lightly, like it might matter.
There’s a version of this night that he can picture—Michael walking in late, grinning, apologizing like it is nothing. He slides into the booth and knocks his knee under the table intentionally.
You waited?
Of course I did.
But it is 9:02 and realization comes quietly.
He isn’t coming.
Joe sits with it and doesn’t move.
9:05.
He finishes his coffee, bitter now, paying for both and ignoring the sympathetic look on the waitress’ face as she takes the check.
When he stands, he pauses—just for a second—before leaving.
Not because he thinks Michael will come.
Just because leaving makes it real.
The diner is warm, dim, tucked away like it belongs to no one important—Joe chose it for that very reason, sliding into a booth in the back corner with a clear view of the door, setting his gloves down neatly.
7:02.
He orders two coffees, easily telling the waitress, “I’m meeting someone.”
Every time the bell rings, he looks up.
Not him.
Not him.
Not him.
7:41 and the second cup of coffee has gone still, no steam rising up from the rim, and Joe nudges it lightly, like it might matter.
There’s a version of this night that he can picture—Michael walking in late, grinning, apologizing like it is nothing. He slides into the booth and knocks his knee under the table intentionally.
You waited?
Of course I did.
But it is 9:02 and realization comes quietly.
He isn’t coming.
Joe sits with it and doesn’t move.
9:05.
He finishes his coffee, bitter now, paying for both and ignoring the sympathetic look on the waitress’ face as she takes the check.
When he stands, he pauses—just for a second—before leaving.
Not because he thinks Michael will come.
Just because leaving makes it real.
touch
In the quite of the gym, in that late-hour way with the lights dimmed and the echo of earlier noise long gone, there is only the soft rhythm of breath and the faint creak of the wall, the building around them, settling. Joseph watches Michael for a second—really watching him, the tiredness behind his eyes, hanging in all the spaces one tries to ignore when they want to, and indeed do, reject in few words—finding it impressive how precise he is about trying to not only maintain composure, but distance.
Almost.
Joseph steps closer anyway—not fast and not suddenly, but when he reaches for him, it isn’t missed by a fraction or brushed off or avoided, hand coming up, fingers steady as they settle against Michael’s jaw, thumb beneath it in a guide that is firm and unyielding, but still somehow gentle, until Michael is looking at him.
“Michael.”
It’s said quietly—just his name, given a moment for Michael to pull away until he doesn’t, and that is all it takes for Joe’s hand to shift slightly, thumb brushing once along the line of his jaw—not tentative or unsure, but simply there—before he leans in to close the last inch of distance like the inevitable dance they’ve been doing since day one even under the watchful eye of OSS liaisons.
The kiss isn’t rushed.
It’s deliberate, warm and steady as if he’s been holding it back for far too long and has finally decided that, whatever happens, he really isn’t going anywhere.
It’s just enough.
A breath shifts, someone moves a fraction closer, and the smallest tilt turned it from something desirous to something done, something he’s a part of, and Joe’s grip adjusts, not tighter, but far more certain—anchoring, grounding, like he has something to prove after their last meeting, before all this, had turned into coffee in an off-white ceramic mug gone cold.
When Joe pulls back, it’s only far enough to look at him, hand still on his jaw, not letting him disappear into distance.
Not again.
Not this time.
There’s no smirk and no teasing, but something steady and certain, like he’s already decided this was going to happen and he’s not letting it be undone.
In the quite of the gym, in that late-hour way with the lights dimmed and the echo of earlier noise long gone, there is only the soft rhythm of breath and the faint creak of the wall, the building around them, settling. Joseph watches Michael for a second—really watching him, the tiredness behind his eyes, hanging in all the spaces one tries to ignore when they want to, and indeed do, reject in few words—finding it impressive how precise he is about trying to not only maintain composure, but distance.
Almost.
Joseph steps closer anyway—not fast and not suddenly, but when he reaches for him, it isn’t missed by a fraction or brushed off or avoided, hand coming up, fingers steady as they settle against Michael’s jaw, thumb beneath it in a guide that is firm and unyielding, but still somehow gentle, until Michael is looking at him.
“Michael.”
It’s said quietly—just his name, given a moment for Michael to pull away until he doesn’t, and that is all it takes for Joe’s hand to shift slightly, thumb brushing once along the line of his jaw—not tentative or unsure, but simply there—before he leans in to close the last inch of distance like the inevitable dance they’ve been doing since day one even under the watchful eye of OSS liaisons.
The kiss isn’t rushed.
It’s deliberate, warm and steady as if he’s been holding it back for far too long and has finally decided that, whatever happens, he really isn’t going anywhere.
It’s just enough.
A breath shifts, someone moves a fraction closer, and the smallest tilt turned it from something desirous to something done, something he’s a part of, and Joe’s grip adjusts, not tighter, but far more certain—anchoring, grounding, like he has something to prove after their last meeting, before all this, had turned into coffee in an off-white ceramic mug gone cold.
When Joe pulls back, it’s only far enough to look at him, hand still on his jaw, not letting him disappear into distance.
Not again.
Not this time.
There’s no smirk and no teasing, but something steady and certain, like he’s already decided this was going to happen and he’s not letting it be undone.
twelve years
The room smells like iron and old stone–Joseph notices that first. It isn’t the guard or the scrape of the chair as he’s directed to sit. It isn’t even Michael–
Not yet.
It’s a far cry from the last place he saw him.
That had been light–golden and warm, laughter spilling out too loudly from rooms that had never known silence, Joseph at the center of it all without realizing how temporary it was. Michael slipped away between one breath and the next, like something that didn’t belong to the world Joseph lived in.
And then gone.
No letter.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
Just a cold cup of coffee.
Twelve years later, Joseph sits and only then does he look at him.
Michael is sharper than he remembers–not older in the way Joseph expected, but carved down to something harder and cleaner, like everything unnecessary had been stripped away and only the essential parts remained.
It does something strange to Joseph’s chest.
He ignores it.
Of course he does.
He folds his hands loosely on the table, posture easy, controlled–the kind of composure that would come from boardrooms and briefings and knowing exactly how he looks from across the table, but when Michael smiles–soft and careful for such dreadful confines–Joseph feels something in him shift before he can stop it.
Joseph exhales through his nose, slow and almost amused at the words that come out of his mouth, but there’s something underneath it–something tighter. His gaze flicks down briefly, then back up to Michael’s face, steady.
“...That what you think this is?”
Joseph leans back slightly in the chair, one arm resting along the edge of the table like he has all the time in the world, like he didn’t cross oceans and bureaucracy and things between left unnamed to get here, like he didn’t touch the sky only to be shot down in what he may have once claimed to be “friendly fire.”
“Funny,” he continues, a faint tilt to his mouth. “I remember it a little differently.”
And there it is–something real slipping through the polish.
It wasn’t anger–not quite–but something sharper and twelve years suddenly sits between them like a third person at the table until he shifts, straightening just enough, the controlled version of himself settling back into place like armor.
“I didn’t fall anywhere,” he says, voice smoothing out. “The government sent me and you–you don’t have a lap worth landing in anymore.”
It’s not cruel–not exactly–but he hopes it lands, Joseph tilting his head slightly as he studies Michael not as a memory or something lost, but as something present, useful and dangerous, familiar in all the wrong ways. He plucks a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, the quick snap of a lighter burning the end.
“You’re stuck in here, yet they want your help,” he said, figuring Michael would be keen enough to pick up on the obvious, “so let’s not pretend this is a coincidence.”
The room smells like iron and old stone–Joseph notices that first. It isn’t the guard or the scrape of the chair as he’s directed to sit. It isn’t even Michael–
Not yet.
It’s a far cry from the last place he saw him.
That had been light–golden and warm, laughter spilling out too loudly from rooms that had never known silence, Joseph at the center of it all without realizing how temporary it was. Michael slipped away between one breath and the next, like something that didn’t belong to the world Joseph lived in.
And then gone.
No letter.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
Just a cold cup of coffee.
Twelve years later, Joseph sits and only then does he look at him.
Michael is sharper than he remembers–not older in the way Joseph expected, but carved down to something harder and cleaner, like everything unnecessary had been stripped away and only the essential parts remained.
It does something strange to Joseph’s chest.
He ignores it.
Of course he does.
He folds his hands loosely on the table, posture easy, controlled–the kind of composure that would come from boardrooms and briefings and knowing exactly how he looks from across the table, but when Michael smiles–soft and careful for such dreadful confines–Joseph feels something in him shift before he can stop it.
Joseph exhales through his nose, slow and almost amused at the words that come out of his mouth, but there’s something underneath it–something tighter. His gaze flicks down briefly, then back up to Michael’s face, steady.
“...That what you think this is?”
Joseph leans back slightly in the chair, one arm resting along the edge of the table like he has all the time in the world, like he didn’t cross oceans and bureaucracy and things between left unnamed to get here, like he didn’t touch the sky only to be shot down in what he may have once claimed to be “friendly fire.”
“Funny,” he continues, a faint tilt to his mouth. “I remember it a little differently.”
And there it is–something real slipping through the polish.
It wasn’t anger–not quite–but something sharper and twelve years suddenly sits between them like a third person at the table until he shifts, straightening just enough, the controlled version of himself settling back into place like armor.
“I didn’t fall anywhere,” he says, voice smoothing out. “The government sent me and you–you don’t have a lap worth landing in anymore.”
It’s not cruel–not exactly–but he hopes it lands, Joseph tilting his head slightly as he studies Michael not as a memory or something lost, but as something present, useful and dangerous, familiar in all the wrong ways. He plucks a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, the quick snap of a lighter burning the end.
“You’re stuck in here, yet they want your help,” he said, figuring Michael would be keen enough to pick up on the obvious, “so let’s not pretend this is a coincidence.”
REASSIGNMENT
The barracks are quiet in that fragile, pre-dawn way—where even breathing feels like it might carry too far. Joseph is asleep—not lightly and not the way soldiers are trained to be, but fully—spent down to the bone. One arm thrown over his eyes against the dim overhead light, the other hanging half off the side of the narrow cot. His shirt, wrinkled, and his collar open, boots still on like he never made it past the intention of resting.
For once, he looks his age.
Younger, even.
Unarmored.
The door opens without ceremony. It isn’t loud, but it isn’t careful either.
Authority doesn’t need to be quiet.
Two men step in, two in uniform and one now, but it is the one not in uniform that carries the weight of it.
“Lieutenant Warren,” one of them says, voice flat, precise.
Joseph doesn’t stir.
For a second, it almost looks like they might leave him like that, caught in something softer than the world he’s been living in, but they don’t.
“Lieutenant.”
A hand comes down firmly on his shoulder—firm. Joseph inhales sharply, body jolting back into itself like something snapping into place. His arm drops from his eyes, blinking against the low light, disoriented for half a second before instinct takes over—posture straightening, awareness flooding in all at once.
“Yeah…” he rasps, voice rough. “Yeah, I’m up.”
His gaze flicks up and between them quickly—uniforms first and then the man in civilian clothes. The one that matters.
“What is it?” He’s already upright, fee hitting the floor, but there is no immediate answer.
That’s the first sign something is wrong.
“Lieutenant Joseph Warren III,” the civilian-clad man says at last, pulling a folder from under his arm. “You are being reassigned under authority of the Office of Strategic Services.”
Joseph frowns, the words not quite settling. “Reassigned? Now?”
“Immediately.”
There’s no room in it. Joseph stands fully now, running a hand back through his hair, trying to wake the rest of himself up enough to make sense of this. “With all due respect, I’d like to see the orders.”
The folder is already being opened—papers, stamps, signatures, and all are real. All are final.
He scans them quickly, picking up on key words: Reclassification. Restricted Asset. Transfer.
Joseph’s brow furrows.
“This doesn’t—” he looks up, panic sleeping in. “There is a mistake.”
“There is not.”
“What is this about?” He asks quieter—not afraid but trying to understand the shape of what is about to close around him.
“Security.”
It is the kind of answer that isn’t one and Joseph exhales slowly through his nose, his chest tightening, wings shifting behind him instinctively from where they’re strapped down in efforts to ensure they aren’t seen. The sound, however soft, is noticed and Joseph stills.
“This is about that.”
There’s a brief moment, flicking away, where something in him considers pushing back. He could. He knows the angles of the room, the distance to the door, the way their weight is distributed and how fast he could clear an expanse—but it dies quickly.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not without understanding.
“Fine. My commanding officer needs to be informed.”
“It’s already done.”
They don’t rush him out—they don’t need to when everything has already been decided, the barracks quiet as he is escorted out, rows of sleeping men, undisturbed and unaware, and the life he’s been a part of—structured and defined—is left behind in the span of a few minutes for the openness of cold air and, shortly thereafter, the confines of an official, unmarked vehicle.
He’s silent for a number of moments until his voice breaks through the din of silence.
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
The civilian officer across from him doesn’t answer right away.
“This order didn’t come from your commanding officer.”
“I figured.”
“It came from Washington.” A pause. “Colonel Stryker reviewed your file personally and determined your continued presence in active duty constitutes a security risk on the grounds that if you were captured, you would become the most valuable asset the Axis has ever laid hands on.” “I’m a pilot—same as any other man in that barracks.”
“no,” the office replies, calm and certain. “No, you’re not and Colonel Stryker doesn’t deal in uncontrollable variables.”
“Uncontrollable? I follow orders.”
“When they align with your judgement. He believes men like you destabilize command structures. That you invite escalation. That if the enemy becomes aware of you, they won’t stop at capturing you—they’ll try to replicate you, and it might not be your problem now, but it becomes your problem when it becomes the country’s problem.”
“…And if I can’t be controlled?”
The officer doesn’t hesitate. “Then you’ll be made manageable.”
When they reach holding, it doesn’t look like a place meant for any sort of recovery—it’s too clean, too quiet, the air sharp with antiseptic and something colder underneath. When Joseph is led inside, the door shuts behind him with a soft, final click that echoes louder than it should, furnished with white walls, steel fixtures, and a bed that feels more like a restraint than a place to rest. The space is too narrow space, and for the first time, built with his wings in mind, but not to accommodate them.
The orderly lingers just outside the door as it seals, watching Joseph through the small, reinforced window like he’s something already filed away and labeled. There’s no fear in his expression rather thin, practiced disdain.
“Get comfortable,” he says flatly, tapping once against the glass. “They say you people think you’re special,” he adds, almost conversational. “Up there above everyone else, but you won’t be flying anywhere from here, mutie.”
A pause, then something colder.
“Down here, you’re just a problem we’re fixing.”
The barracks are quiet in that fragile, pre-dawn way—where even breathing feels like it might carry too far. Joseph is asleep—not lightly and not the way soldiers are trained to be, but fully—spent down to the bone. One arm thrown over his eyes against the dim overhead light, the other hanging half off the side of the narrow cot. His shirt, wrinkled, and his collar open, boots still on like he never made it past the intention of resting.
For once, he looks his age.
Younger, even.
Unarmored.
The door opens without ceremony. It isn’t loud, but it isn’t careful either.
Authority doesn’t need to be quiet.
Two men step in, two in uniform and one now, but it is the one not in uniform that carries the weight of it.
“Lieutenant Warren,” one of them says, voice flat, precise.
Joseph doesn’t stir.
For a second, it almost looks like they might leave him like that, caught in something softer than the world he’s been living in, but they don’t.
“Lieutenant.”
A hand comes down firmly on his shoulder—firm. Joseph inhales sharply, body jolting back into itself like something snapping into place. His arm drops from his eyes, blinking against the low light, disoriented for half a second before instinct takes over—posture straightening, awareness flooding in all at once.
“Yeah…” he rasps, voice rough. “Yeah, I’m up.”
His gaze flicks up and between them quickly—uniforms first and then the man in civilian clothes. The one that matters.
“What is it?” He’s already upright, fee hitting the floor, but there is no immediate answer.
That’s the first sign something is wrong.
“Lieutenant Joseph Warren III,” the civilian-clad man says at last, pulling a folder from under his arm. “You are being reassigned under authority of the Office of Strategic Services.”
Joseph frowns, the words not quite settling. “Reassigned? Now?”
“Immediately.”
There’s no room in it. Joseph stands fully now, running a hand back through his hair, trying to wake the rest of himself up enough to make sense of this. “With all due respect, I’d like to see the orders.”
The folder is already being opened—papers, stamps, signatures, and all are real. All are final.
He scans them quickly, picking up on key words: Reclassification. Restricted Asset. Transfer.
Joseph’s brow furrows.
“This doesn’t—” he looks up, panic sleeping in. “There is a mistake.”
“There is not.”
“What is this about?” He asks quieter—not afraid but trying to understand the shape of what is about to close around him.
“Security.”
It is the kind of answer that isn’t one and Joseph exhales slowly through his nose, his chest tightening, wings shifting behind him instinctively from where they’re strapped down in efforts to ensure they aren’t seen. The sound, however soft, is noticed and Joseph stills.
“This is about that.”
There’s a brief moment, flicking away, where something in him considers pushing back. He could. He knows the angles of the room, the distance to the door, the way their weight is distributed and how fast he could clear an expanse—but it dies quickly.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not without understanding.
“Fine. My commanding officer needs to be informed.”
“It’s already done.”
They don’t rush him out—they don’t need to when everything has already been decided, the barracks quiet as he is escorted out, rows of sleeping men, undisturbed and unaware, and the life he’s been a part of—structured and defined—is left behind in the span of a few minutes for the openness of cold air and, shortly thereafter, the confines of an official, unmarked vehicle.
He’s silent for a number of moments until his voice breaks through the din of silence.
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
The civilian officer across from him doesn’t answer right away.
“This order didn’t come from your commanding officer.”
“I figured.”
“It came from Washington.” A pause. “Colonel Stryker reviewed your file personally and determined your continued presence in active duty constitutes a security risk on the grounds that if you were captured, you would become the most valuable asset the Axis has ever laid hands on.” “I’m a pilot—same as any other man in that barracks.”
“no,” the office replies, calm and certain. “No, you’re not and Colonel Stryker doesn’t deal in uncontrollable variables.”
“Uncontrollable? I follow orders.”
“When they align with your judgement. He believes men like you destabilize command structures. That you invite escalation. That if the enemy becomes aware of you, they won’t stop at capturing you—they’ll try to replicate you, and it might not be your problem now, but it becomes your problem when it becomes the country’s problem.”
“…And if I can’t be controlled?”
The officer doesn’t hesitate. “Then you’ll be made manageable.”
When they reach holding, it doesn’t look like a place meant for any sort of recovery—it’s too clean, too quiet, the air sharp with antiseptic and something colder underneath. When Joseph is led inside, the door shuts behind him with a soft, final click that echoes louder than it should, furnished with white walls, steel fixtures, and a bed that feels more like a restraint than a place to rest. The space is too narrow space, and for the first time, built with his wings in mind, but not to accommodate them.
The orderly lingers just outside the door as it seals, watching Joseph through the small, reinforced window like he’s something already filed away and labeled. There’s no fear in his expression rather thin, practiced disdain.
“Get comfortable,” he says flatly, tapping once against the glass. “They say you people think you’re special,” he adds, almost conversational. “Up there above everyone else, but you won’t be flying anywhere from here, mutie.”
A pause, then something colder.
“Down here, you’re just a problem we’re fixing.”
recognition
Candy knows before she says anything.
She knows the way the front door closes—too quiet for someone who’s just coming home from a birthday celebration, no lingering and no calling out, no careless noise that might suggest it had been an evening to come home in smiles about. It is just a careful, measured click like he’s trying not to disturb a house already asleep.
She’s still awake.
Of course she is.
She’s sitting in the armchair by the window, one leg tucked beneath her, a book open in her lap she hasn’t turned a page of in the last twenty minutes, maybe more. The lamp beside her casts everything in gold—soft and forgiving, the kind of light that makes things better than they are, and Joseph doesn’t step into it right away. He lingers in the doorway like he doesn’t know what to do with himself and that gives him away, perhaps more than anything else leading up to this moment has.
“Happy birthday,” she says gently, closing the book, Joseph’s head snapping up, startled—not because she’s awake, but because she’s there, waiting.
“You didn’t have to stay up.”
She smiles a little. “I wanted to.”
A beat.
“How was it?”
There’s the question—simple and easy, and something he should be able to answer without thinking, but Joe shrugs out of his coat instead, setting it down too carefully over the back of a chair.
“It was—” and then he stops, exhaling, quiet. “He didn’t come.”
Candy’s expression doesn’t change in surprise, but in understand, like something neatly clicked into place that she had been suspect to all along. “Michael,” she says, not asking.
“Yeah…”
He doesn’t elaborate—doesn’t need to—as she rises from her chair, smoothing her skirt as she crosses the room. There’s nothing hurried in her movement, nothing sharp of reactive, but calm and quiet, certain as she stops a few feet from him.
“You ordered for two,” she says softly, not a guess, and Joe lets out a humorless breath.
“I always do, apparently,” and Candy laughs—fond, not mocking.
“Honey,” she says, stepping closer. Joe looks like he might say something else—deflect, maybe, turn it into something lighter and easier to carry, but the moment she reaches for him, it falls apart. Candy’s hand comes up to his arm first to ground him, and then she pulls him in without hesitation, wrapping him in something warm and steady without judgement, and Joe stiffens for all of a second before he folds. It isn’t dramatic—not all at once—but enough that his head dips, shoulders loosening, like he’s finally allowing the weight of it to land somewhere that isn’t just inside his own chest.
“He said he would be there,” Joe murmurs, voice quieter than she’s heard in a long time, if ever.
“I know.”
“I waited.”
“I know.”
He hands moves up, brushing through his hair lightly, smoothing it back the way she’s done a hundred times before—easy and familiar. There’s no jealousy there, no resentment. There’s only care because she’s known for a while now; known in the way Joe’s eyes follow someone without realizing it, in the way his voice changes—just slightly—when Michael’s name comes up, and in the way he keeps trying to pretend it’s nothing at all.
Candy isn’t blind and she isn’t cruel.
“You have feelings for him,” she says quietly, Joe going still again, but not shock so much as it is recognition.
“—I don’t,” he starts, automatically, and then stops, the fight leaving him just as quickly as it came. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t have to, darling,” Candy says, smiling softly against his shoulder, and he lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been caught in him for weeks.
“What if he doesn’t—”
“Then he doesn’t,” she says, “and you’ll survive it. That’s what you do—you survive.”
Joe huffs, almost a laugh.
“And if he does?”
Candy pulls back just enough to look at him, her hands still resting lightly on his arms.
“Then you stop standing in doorways and start walking toward him.”
There’s something steady in her gaze—no hesitation, no doubt, no judgement, but permission where others might have balked at the idea. Joe searches her face for a moment, like he’s trying to find the part where this does become complicated, messy, something that should hurt her more than it does, and he doesn’t find it.
“Candy—” She shakes her head, cutting him off gently.
“I love you because I care about you—not because I wanted to be the only person you ever could.”
That lands.
“He should’ve shown up,” she adds, softer now, brushing her thumb once along his sleeve. “That’s on him. Not you.”
Joe nods, small, but real, and Candy steps back, giving him space again—not distance. Never that.
“Next time,” she says lightly, reclaiming just a hint of her usual brightness, “you tell me where you’re going and I’ll come sit at the counter and glare at him until he behaves.”
It draws a laugh out of him.
“You might terrify him.”
“I should hope so,” she says, smiling, warm and easy and it doesn’t ask him to be anything other than what he is.
Joe exhales, steadier now—not fixed, but not alone.
And for tonight, that’s enough.
Candy knows before she says anything.
She knows the way the front door closes—too quiet for someone who’s just coming home from a birthday celebration, no lingering and no calling out, no careless noise that might suggest it had been an evening to come home in smiles about. It is just a careful, measured click like he’s trying not to disturb a house already asleep.
She’s still awake.
Of course she is.
She’s sitting in the armchair by the window, one leg tucked beneath her, a book open in her lap she hasn’t turned a page of in the last twenty minutes, maybe more. The lamp beside her casts everything in gold—soft and forgiving, the kind of light that makes things better than they are, and Joseph doesn’t step into it right away. He lingers in the doorway like he doesn’t know what to do with himself and that gives him away, perhaps more than anything else leading up to this moment has.
“Happy birthday,” she says gently, closing the book, Joseph’s head snapping up, startled—not because she’s awake, but because she’s there, waiting.
“You didn’t have to stay up.”
She smiles a little. “I wanted to.”
A beat.
“How was it?”
There’s the question—simple and easy, and something he should be able to answer without thinking, but Joe shrugs out of his coat instead, setting it down too carefully over the back of a chair.
“It was—” and then he stops, exhaling, quiet. “He didn’t come.”
Candy’s expression doesn’t change in surprise, but in understand, like something neatly clicked into place that she had been suspect to all along. “Michael,” she says, not asking.
“Yeah…”
He doesn’t elaborate—doesn’t need to—as she rises from her chair, smoothing her skirt as she crosses the room. There’s nothing hurried in her movement, nothing sharp of reactive, but calm and quiet, certain as she stops a few feet from him.
“You ordered for two,” she says softly, not a guess, and Joe lets out a humorless breath.
“I always do, apparently,” and Candy laughs—fond, not mocking.
“Honey,” she says, stepping closer. Joe looks like he might say something else—deflect, maybe, turn it into something lighter and easier to carry, but the moment she reaches for him, it falls apart. Candy’s hand comes up to his arm first to ground him, and then she pulls him in without hesitation, wrapping him in something warm and steady without judgement, and Joe stiffens for all of a second before he folds. It isn’t dramatic—not all at once—but enough that his head dips, shoulders loosening, like he’s finally allowing the weight of it to land somewhere that isn’t just inside his own chest.
“He said he would be there,” Joe murmurs, voice quieter than she’s heard in a long time, if ever.
“I know.”
“I waited.”
“I know.”
He hands moves up, brushing through his hair lightly, smoothing it back the way she’s done a hundred times before—easy and familiar. There’s no jealousy there, no resentment. There’s only care because she’s known for a while now; known in the way Joe’s eyes follow someone without realizing it, in the way his voice changes—just slightly—when Michael’s name comes up, and in the way he keeps trying to pretend it’s nothing at all.
Candy isn’t blind and she isn’t cruel.
“You have feelings for him,” she says quietly, Joe going still again, but not shock so much as it is recognition.
“—I don’t,” he starts, automatically, and then stops, the fight leaving him just as quickly as it came. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t have to, darling,” Candy says, smiling softly against his shoulder, and he lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been caught in him for weeks.
“What if he doesn’t—”
“Then he doesn’t,” she says, “and you’ll survive it. That’s what you do—you survive.”
Joe huffs, almost a laugh.
“And if he does?”
Candy pulls back just enough to look at him, her hands still resting lightly on his arms.
“Then you stop standing in doorways and start walking toward him.”
There’s something steady in her gaze—no hesitation, no doubt, no judgement, but permission where others might have balked at the idea. Joe searches her face for a moment, like he’s trying to find the part where this does become complicated, messy, something that should hurt her more than it does, and he doesn’t find it.
“Candy—” She shakes her head, cutting him off gently.
“I love you because I care about you—not because I wanted to be the only person you ever could.”
That lands.
“He should’ve shown up,” she adds, softer now, brushing her thumb once along his sleeve. “That’s on him. Not you.”
Joe nods, small, but real, and Candy steps back, giving him space again—not distance. Never that.
“Next time,” she says lightly, reclaiming just a hint of her usual brightness, “you tell me where you’re going and I’ll come sit at the counter and glare at him until he behaves.”
It draws a laugh out of him.
“You might terrify him.”
“I should hope so,” she says, smiling, warm and easy and it doesn’t ask him to be anything other than what he is.
Joe exhales, steadier now—not fixed, but not alone.
And for tonight, that’s enough.
freedom
The engine hums steady beneath him, a constant vibration through the frame of the aircraft, through his hands on the controls, through his bones, and Joseph keeps his eyes forward—horizon, altitude, instruments, repeat. Routine keeps things simple, predictable, and most importantly, safe.
The sky stretches endless ahead—cold blue cut with long bands of cloud, sunlight breaking across them in sharp, blinding steaks that should feel like freedom.
It almost does, but there is a weight behind him.
Even now, strapped tight into the narrow seat, harness pulled firm across his chest, there’s a constant awareness of where his wings are folded, compressed, hidden beneath reinforced fabric and careful design. Every shift of the plane reminds him of it—the space he doesn’t have and the movement he’s denying.
They can’t see them.
After everything, they can’t know.
“You good, Warren?”
“Right where I’m supposed to be,” he responds to the voice cracking through the radio.
Below him, the European countryside stretches in fractured patches—field, roads, the faint suggestion of towns that look almost peaceful from this height. War feels distant from up here where it is contained, manageable—and it is a lie, but it is a useful one.
The plane dips slightly as turbulence catches it, a sudden drop that makes the frame shudder and instinct flare. Joseph’s back tenses, muscles tightening like they want to move, to correct, to catch air that isn’t there. He forces it down, forces himself still, hands tightening on the controls instead.
When another pilot crosses his path, close enough that Joseph can see the shape of him in the cockpit—just another man in another machine, bound by the same rules of metal and fuel and gravity—Joseph matches pace, keeps formation, keeps the illusion intact.
Up here, he could be anything—faster, freer, untouchable, but instead, he flies like the rest of them, boxed in, measured and human because that’s what keeps him here, what keeps them from looking too closely when he is already a strike down and a second chance given.
“Stay tight,” the radio barks.
“I got it.”
And he does, even if every instinct in him is screaming that he doesn’t need the plane at all.
The engine hums steady beneath him, a constant vibration through the frame of the aircraft, through his hands on the controls, through his bones, and Joseph keeps his eyes forward—horizon, altitude, instruments, repeat. Routine keeps things simple, predictable, and most importantly, safe.
The sky stretches endless ahead—cold blue cut with long bands of cloud, sunlight breaking across them in sharp, blinding steaks that should feel like freedom.
It almost does, but there is a weight behind him.
Even now, strapped tight into the narrow seat, harness pulled firm across his chest, there’s a constant awareness of where his wings are folded, compressed, hidden beneath reinforced fabric and careful design. Every shift of the plane reminds him of it—the space he doesn’t have and the movement he’s denying.
They can’t see them.
After everything, they can’t know.
“You good, Warren?”
“Right where I’m supposed to be,” he responds to the voice cracking through the radio.
Below him, the European countryside stretches in fractured patches—field, roads, the faint suggestion of towns that look almost peaceful from this height. War feels distant from up here where it is contained, manageable—and it is a lie, but it is a useful one.
The plane dips slightly as turbulence catches it, a sudden drop that makes the frame shudder and instinct flare. Joseph’s back tenses, muscles tightening like they want to move, to correct, to catch air that isn’t there. He forces it down, forces himself still, hands tightening on the controls instead.
When another pilot crosses his path, close enough that Joseph can see the shape of him in the cockpit—just another man in another machine, bound by the same rules of metal and fuel and gravity—Joseph matches pace, keeps formation, keeps the illusion intact.
Up here, he could be anything—faster, freer, untouchable, but instead, he flies like the rest of them, boxed in, measured and human because that’s what keeps him here, what keeps them from looking too closely when he is already a strike down and a second chance given.
“Stay tight,” the radio barks.
“I got it.”
And he does, even if every instinct in him is screaming that he doesn’t need the plane at all.
crash and capture
The sky turns wrong before he can name why, subtle at first—just a shift in the rhythm of the engine, a stutter where there shouldn’t be one. Joseph’s hands tighten on the controls, eye flicking down to the gauges, then back up again.
“Warren, you’re drifting—”
The radio cuts out in a bust of static.
Then—
The hit.
It slams into the wind with a deafening crack, the entire aircraft jolting violently to one side, metal screaming into his ears. The controls jerk in his hands, the nose dipping as the engine coughs, sputters, and dies.
Joseph swears under his breath, fighting the stick, trying to level it out, but the plane is already going, spinning and dropping, unrecoverable no matter how much he tries to maneuver it into a safer landing—a survivable one.
“Mayday, mayday--!” He tries, but the radio is dead, nothing but broken static answering him as the ground surges up to meet him in fields and fractured roads, too fast and too close, forcing his instinct to surge.
Fly.
For a split second, everything in him moves toward it—toward tearing free, toward wing snapping open and catching the air before impact, but he hesitates just long enough.
If anyone sees—
If anyone reports—
If—
The plane lurches again, harder this time, fire licking up along the damaged win causing heat to floor the cockpit, and the decision is readily made for him.
Joseph releases the harness and the moment it loosens, the shift is immediate—his back straining, wings forcing against the confines of fabric and frame, feathers pressing hard against metal that was never meant to hold them in a cockpit too small, too tight, but he can’t—
The ground is right there.
It isn’t a clean crash when the plane makes impact—it’s violence.
The plane tears into the earth in a burst of dirty and flame, metal crumpling around him as the world snaps sideways, then upside down, then nothing makes sense at all. The force slams him forward, breath ripping out of his lungs, and something sharp cracks against his shoulder—
Then stillness, broken only by fire.
He drags in a breath that feels like glass, smoke filling the cockpit, thick and choking, flames licking closer, heat pressing in from every side. He tries to move—something resists, twisted metal pinning him in place.
His wings—
They’re caught, trapped beneath the wreckage, half-unfurled, but crushed, pain flaring white-hot down his spine when he tries to pull them free. He grits his teeth, forcing himself to focus, to push past it, to move before anyone sees him—
A shout cuts through the ringing in his ears.
Not English.
Close.
Too close.
The boots that hit the ground outside carry voices that are sharp, urgent, and unmistakably the enemy. Joseph stills his breath instantly as reality slams into place.
If they see—
If they understand—
Cold air rushes in when the cockpit is wrenched open, hangs grabbing roughly at him, insistent, dragging him free before the fire can finish the job. Joseph doesn’t fight—not yet, not like this—body too battered, wings too tangled, strength not where it needs to be despite the physiological systems working within to fix what had been injured, what had been broken. He hits the ground hard, vision swimming as he looks at figures looming above him, uniforms wrong and language sharper than anything he wants to hear.
One of them grabs his arm, hauling him up while another one stares—
Down to where his wings, half-burnt and half-crushed, drag against the dirt behind him, exposed and unmistakable, shifting the soldier’s expression into confusion and then something else.
Soon, in an exchange of a few sharp words, he’s not just a downed pilot.
He’s something else, and though Joseph looks up to the side, considering the possibility of breaking free, his wings don’t move and there are far too many of them to outrace on a hope and a prayer they do, so when they shove him forward, rifle pressed firm against his back, Joseph doesn’t resist.
Because now—
Now he knows exactly what he’s become.
The sky turns wrong before he can name why, subtle at first—just a shift in the rhythm of the engine, a stutter where there shouldn’t be one. Joseph’s hands tighten on the controls, eye flicking down to the gauges, then back up again.
“Warren, you’re drifting—”
The radio cuts out in a bust of static.
Then—
The hit.
It slams into the wind with a deafening crack, the entire aircraft jolting violently to one side, metal screaming into his ears. The controls jerk in his hands, the nose dipping as the engine coughs, sputters, and dies.
Joseph swears under his breath, fighting the stick, trying to level it out, but the plane is already going, spinning and dropping, unrecoverable no matter how much he tries to maneuver it into a safer landing—a survivable one.
“Mayday, mayday--!” He tries, but the radio is dead, nothing but broken static answering him as the ground surges up to meet him in fields and fractured roads, too fast and too close, forcing his instinct to surge.
Fly.
For a split second, everything in him moves toward it—toward tearing free, toward wing snapping open and catching the air before impact, but he hesitates just long enough.
If anyone sees—
If anyone reports—
If—
The plane lurches again, harder this time, fire licking up along the damaged win causing heat to floor the cockpit, and the decision is readily made for him.
Joseph releases the harness and the moment it loosens, the shift is immediate—his back straining, wings forcing against the confines of fabric and frame, feathers pressing hard against metal that was never meant to hold them in a cockpit too small, too tight, but he can’t—
The ground is right there.
It isn’t a clean crash when the plane makes impact—it’s violence.
The plane tears into the earth in a burst of dirty and flame, metal crumpling around him as the world snaps sideways, then upside down, then nothing makes sense at all. The force slams him forward, breath ripping out of his lungs, and something sharp cracks against his shoulder—
Then stillness, broken only by fire.
He drags in a breath that feels like glass, smoke filling the cockpit, thick and choking, flames licking closer, heat pressing in from every side. He tries to move—something resists, twisted metal pinning him in place.
His wings—
They’re caught, trapped beneath the wreckage, half-unfurled, but crushed, pain flaring white-hot down his spine when he tries to pull them free. He grits his teeth, forcing himself to focus, to push past it, to move before anyone sees him—
A shout cuts through the ringing in his ears.
Not English.
Close.
Too close.
The boots that hit the ground outside carry voices that are sharp, urgent, and unmistakably the enemy. Joseph stills his breath instantly as reality slams into place.
If they see—
If they understand—
Cold air rushes in when the cockpit is wrenched open, hangs grabbing roughly at him, insistent, dragging him free before the fire can finish the job. Joseph doesn’t fight—not yet, not like this—body too battered, wings too tangled, strength not where it needs to be despite the physiological systems working within to fix what had been injured, what had been broken. He hits the ground hard, vision swimming as he looks at figures looming above him, uniforms wrong and language sharper than anything he wants to hear.
One of them grabs his arm, hauling him up while another one stares—
Down to where his wings, half-burnt and half-crushed, drag against the dirt behind him, exposed and unmistakable, shifting the soldier’s expression into confusion and then something else.
Soon, in an exchange of a few sharp words, he’s not just a downed pilot.
He’s something else, and though Joseph looks up to the side, considering the possibility of breaking free, his wings don’t move and there are far too many of them to outrace on a hope and a prayer they do, so when they shove him forward, rifle pressed firm against his back, Joseph doesn’t resist.
Because now—
Now he knows exactly what he’s become.
step, breath, step
The march doesn’t feel like movement anymore as much as it does endurance—step, breath, step, breath.
Snow grinds under worn boots, wind cutting through layers that stopped mattering days ago. The column stretches endlessly ahead and behind—men reduced to shapes, to shadows that keep walking because stopping isn’t an option anyone is allowed to take.
Joseph, for his part, doesn’t look up much anymore when there’s nothing to see but white and gray and the backs of men just as tired as he is, but without the internal function—the mutation—to keep going.
His hand stays curled in his coat pocket where it has been for hours—maybe days, time not holding any shape in the open—with his fingers close around something small, worn smooth by repetition—metal warmed only by the heat he can still manage to give it, chain catching slightly as he shifts his grip.
A rosary.
The beads press into his palm, familiar in a way nothing else is anymore, and at the center, the small medallion rests against his skin—Saint Michael, worn at the edges, the details softened from touch more than time. Joseph doesn’t have to look at it. He knows it by feeling now.
You’re going to need something that isn’t just you up there.
Joseph found it almost funny, half a joke and half not, standing close to Michael in a way he always did when he wasn’t thinking about it or anything they were supposed to be discussing in the prison gymnasium. Joe had turned it over in his hands then, brow furrowing faintly. He didn’t take it so much as Michael suggesting he couldn’t handle himself, but a reminder of what was back home—who—and a little extra protection from someone who had believed in its meaning, in its power, far more than Joseph could say he ever had.
Just… keep it on you, alright?
Joseph hadn’t argued, slipping it into his pocket where it would now become the only thing he hadn’t lost.
The wind howls harder, driving snow against his face, biting through what little warmth remains. The man beside him stumbles—caught, dragged back into line before he can fall too far behind. Joseph keeps walking—step, breath, step—and his grip tightens not in prayer, but simply holding.
Saint Michael.
Protector.
Warrior.
Something like that.
Joseph lets out a slow breath, eyes half-lidded against the cold. If there’s any irony in it—if there’s anything cruel about the fact he carries a saint’s name in his hand while being marched like this—he doesn’t dwell on it. He doesn’t have the energy to.
You always got this look like you’re gonna outfly everything that comes at you.
The column keeps moving—it always does—but his hand doesn’t leave his pocket, doesn’t let go of the chain or the beads, doesn’t let go of the small piece of something that still ties him to a version of himself that existed before all this—before the crash, before the march, before he became something the enemy looked at twice and ensured that, no matter what, he was to remained clipped.
What happens when you can’t?
Step, breath, step.
He presses his thumb once more against the worn shape of Saint Michael—not asking, not begging, but remembering.
And he keeps walking.
The march doesn’t feel like movement anymore as much as it does endurance—step, breath, step, breath.
Snow grinds under worn boots, wind cutting through layers that stopped mattering days ago. The column stretches endlessly ahead and behind—men reduced to shapes, to shadows that keep walking because stopping isn’t an option anyone is allowed to take.
Joseph, for his part, doesn’t look up much anymore when there’s nothing to see but white and gray and the backs of men just as tired as he is, but without the internal function—the mutation—to keep going.
His hand stays curled in his coat pocket where it has been for hours—maybe days, time not holding any shape in the open—with his fingers close around something small, worn smooth by repetition—metal warmed only by the heat he can still manage to give it, chain catching slightly as he shifts his grip.
A rosary.
The beads press into his palm, familiar in a way nothing else is anymore, and at the center, the small medallion rests against his skin—Saint Michael, worn at the edges, the details softened from touch more than time. Joseph doesn’t have to look at it. He knows it by feeling now.
You’re going to need something that isn’t just you up there.
Joseph found it almost funny, half a joke and half not, standing close to Michael in a way he always did when he wasn’t thinking about it or anything they were supposed to be discussing in the prison gymnasium. Joe had turned it over in his hands then, brow furrowing faintly. He didn’t take it so much as Michael suggesting he couldn’t handle himself, but a reminder of what was back home—who—and a little extra protection from someone who had believed in its meaning, in its power, far more than Joseph could say he ever had.
Just… keep it on you, alright?
Joseph hadn’t argued, slipping it into his pocket where it would now become the only thing he hadn’t lost.
The wind howls harder, driving snow against his face, biting through what little warmth remains. The man beside him stumbles—caught, dragged back into line before he can fall too far behind. Joseph keeps walking—step, breath, step—and his grip tightens not in prayer, but simply holding.
Saint Michael.
Protector.
Warrior.
Something like that.
Joseph lets out a slow breath, eyes half-lidded against the cold. If there’s any irony in it—if there’s anything cruel about the fact he carries a saint’s name in his hand while being marched like this—he doesn’t dwell on it. He doesn’t have the energy to.
You always got this look like you’re gonna outfly everything that comes at you.
The column keeps moving—it always does—but his hand doesn’t leave his pocket, doesn’t let go of the chain or the beads, doesn’t let go of the small piece of something that still ties him to a version of himself that existed before all this—before the crash, before the march, before he became something the enemy looked at twice and ensured that, no matter what, he was to remained clipped.
What happens when you can’t?
Step, breath, step.
He presses his thumb once more against the worn shape of Saint Michael—not asking, not begging, but remembering.
And he keeps walking.
from across the pond
Candy knows something is wrong the moment she sees Cameron walking toward her door. He doesn’t belong at this house—not at this hour, not standing so still like he’s waiting for permission to be there, the afternoon light catching on him wrong, too sharp and too deliberate, like he’s already arranged himself into something presentable.
“Cameron?” She asks, opening the door slowly to allow him in, his cap in his hands, fingers fidgeting nervously. “What is it?”
The door closes behind him with quiet precision.
That’s when she knows.
“There’s been a report from Europe.”
A pause.
“Joseph’s aircraft went down during operation.”
The world tilts—not visibly, not enough for anyone else to notice, but she feels it even as she stares at Cameron, perfectly calm and composed, as if unmoved by the departure of a long-time friend. She isn’t sure if it is an act, Cameron trying to save face in front of her, or something much colder than that.
“And?”
“They’re listing him as missing,” he explains, holding her gaze. “Presumed killed in action.”
The words are clean and clinical—
Final.
When she visits Michael, the visitation room feels colder than the rest of the prison—not in temperature, but in the atmosphere of stone walls, iron framing, the thick pane of glass between them like something permanent meant to remind them both of which side they stand. The light overhead hums faintly, casting everything in a washed and unforgiving gray.
Candy sits first, gloves still on, hat untouched, composed in the way she’s been taught to be even in a place like this and across from her, Michael is brought in by a guard, released only once he is seating though it seems lackluster in force.
It’s for appearance’s sake.
“What happened?”
Candy doesn’t circle it.
“Cameron came to the house this morning,” she starts, meeting his eyes through the glass. “Joseph’s plane went down.”
Silence.
It isn’t empty—it is tight and pressurized, growing.
“And?”
“They’ve listed him as missing,” she says, voice steady, but thinning, stretched across something sharp, “and presumed killed in action. I thought you should know.”
It is some time before she leaves again, thinking on limited time not wasted as she walks out. She mulls over the words between them, the conversation as a whole, chewing on something that seems so very wrong, especially when there is a lacking of proof.
And you believe him?
Michael’s eyes hardened as he looked at her, as he had leaned forward toward the glass, intently listening.
“I believe that’s what he wants me to believe.”
Joe isn’t gone—she knows this even as she gets back in the car, prepares to drive back home where she’ll sit and wait for any word from across the pond.
Joe isn’t gone—
He’s just somewhere worse.
Candy knows something is wrong the moment she sees Cameron walking toward her door. He doesn’t belong at this house—not at this hour, not standing so still like he’s waiting for permission to be there, the afternoon light catching on him wrong, too sharp and too deliberate, like he’s already arranged himself into something presentable.
“Cameron?” She asks, opening the door slowly to allow him in, his cap in his hands, fingers fidgeting nervously. “What is it?”
The door closes behind him with quiet precision.
That’s when she knows.
“There’s been a report from Europe.”
A pause.
“Joseph’s aircraft went down during operation.”
The world tilts—not visibly, not enough for anyone else to notice, but she feels it even as she stares at Cameron, perfectly calm and composed, as if unmoved by the departure of a long-time friend. She isn’t sure if it is an act, Cameron trying to save face in front of her, or something much colder than that.
“And?”
“They’re listing him as missing,” he explains, holding her gaze. “Presumed killed in action.”
The words are clean and clinical—
Final.
When she visits Michael, the visitation room feels colder than the rest of the prison—not in temperature, but in the atmosphere of stone walls, iron framing, the thick pane of glass between them like something permanent meant to remind them both of which side they stand. The light overhead hums faintly, casting everything in a washed and unforgiving gray.
Candy sits first, gloves still on, hat untouched, composed in the way she’s been taught to be even in a place like this and across from her, Michael is brought in by a guard, released only once he is seating though it seems lackluster in force.
It’s for appearance’s sake.
“What happened?”
Candy doesn’t circle it.
“Cameron came to the house this morning,” she starts, meeting his eyes through the glass. “Joseph’s plane went down.”
Silence.
It isn’t empty—it is tight and pressurized, growing.
“And?”
“They’ve listed him as missing,” she says, voice steady, but thinning, stretched across something sharp, “and presumed killed in action. I thought you should know.”
It is some time before she leaves again, thinking on limited time not wasted as she walks out. She mulls over the words between them, the conversation as a whole, chewing on something that seems so very wrong, especially when there is a lacking of proof.
And you believe him?
Michael’s eyes hardened as he looked at her, as he had leaned forward toward the glass, intently listening.
“I believe that’s what he wants me to believe.”
Joe isn’t gone—she knows this even as she gets back in the car, prepares to drive back home where she’ll sit and wait for any word from across the pond.
Joe isn’t gone—
He’s just somewhere worse.
little talks
The first thing Joseph notices is how warm the room is—warmer than it should be. It isn’t comfortable—never that—but warm in a way that feels intentional, controlled; the kind of warmth that keeps a man awake, keeps him aware of every ache instead of letting him slip into numbness.
A single lamp hangs low over the table, light cutting sharp across his face, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
He’s not restrained, but he doesn’t need to be.
They made sure of that.
The man across from him is composed—too composed—wearing an immaculate uniform, posture easy, like this is a conversation and not what Joseph knows it truly is. He studies Joseph for a long time before speaking, taking in the gauntness in his face, the lines of weariness under his eyes, the way his shoulders shift though there is nothing there to move anymore, and even the brittleness of his fingernails.
“Incredible,” he says, almost softly. “Even now.
Joseph doesn’t respond.
The man’s gaze flicks to where his wings had been, once bound tight, removed, and only bandages remaining beneath torn fabric.
“Most men break, but you,” he continues. “You…” A faint, almost impressed smile crosses his face.
“You endure.”
“Get on with it.”
The man hums lightly, amused.
“Yes. Direct. Efficient. Very American.”
He leans forward slightly, folding his hands on the table.
“Tell me, Lieutenant Warren,” he says, voice smooth, conversational. “When did they inform you?”
“Inform me of what?”
“That you were no longer a soldier.”
Joseph doesn’t move, just sitting in the silence.
“I was shot down…” he says flatly. “That is what happened.”
The interrogator tilts his head as if questioning what has so long been fact.
“Is it?”
A pause, then almost gently: “Your aircraft was alone longer than it should have been.”
Joseph’s expression doesn’t change, but something sharp flickers behind his eyes.
“That happens in combat.”
“Yes,” the man agrees as he leans back, studying him. “It does and yet… no escort correction and no recovery attempt. No immediate response to your distress.”
He grins as Joseph’s fingers curl against the table.
“You were a valuable man, Lieutenant,” he continues. “Or rather… you were.”
“Say what you’re going to say.”
The man obliges with a wave of his hand, flippant.
“You were reassigned and removed from standard command structure,” he says. “The men in your government had already decided what you were long before we were involved.”
Joseph exhales slowly, only once.
“You’re fishing,” he says. “Throwing things out to see what sticks.”
“Am I?” The man says, grin growing into something wider, reaching into the folder at his side, pulling out a single paper—not offering it, but letting Joseph see the edge of it with official markings and familiar shapes: American. “You’re not here by accident, Lieutenant. Do you know how rare that is? To have a man fall exactly where he can be recovered?”
Joseph’s voice is tight.
“You’re saying it was arranged?”
“I think,” he says, “that your disappearance was… How do I say this? Anticipated.”
Joseph’s mind turns fast, sharp and unwilling to believe it.
“No…”
“No.”
The second time lands firmer.
“If they wanted me gone, they wouldn’t have sent me into the field at all.”
A tilt of the interrogator’s head, eyes flicking to where Joseph’s wings had been, where pain still radiated through his shoulders—both because of the sutures and because of the marches endured.
“Wouldn’t they? Perhaps they needed you to be lost somewhere they could not be blamed for.”
It lands harder than anything else, but Joseph leans forward despite himself. “You’re lying.”
“Of course,” he says easily. “It is my job…”
He waits a beat.
“But not about everything. Your Colonel—the one who signed your reclassification,” he continues, waving the paper around in his hand. “He believes men like you are not meant to exist freely, interests lying in control and containment, and the other one—the one who filed the report, the very report that made you valuable to us, believes much the same.”
Joseph leans back, practically swimming through the heavy silence.
“You expect me to believe my own people handed me to you.
“I expect nothing,” he replies. “I am just an observer and I observe that you were isolated, reclassified, and removed from protection just before you became available.”
Joseph’s jaw tightens and when his voice comes, it becomes quieter.
“Names.”
“Ah,” he says softly, standing, gathering the folder and all its contents with him. “Now you ask the right questions. Perhaps you will remember them on your own.”
When he reaches the door, he pauses, not yet reaching for the handle.
“One of them already knows what you are,” he says, “and the other decided what should be done about it. And lieutenant? A consideration, if I may.”
“Yes?”
“They did not expect you to survive long enough to ask why.”
The first thing Joseph notices is how warm the room is—warmer than it should be. It isn’t comfortable—never that—but warm in a way that feels intentional, controlled; the kind of warmth that keeps a man awake, keeps him aware of every ache instead of letting him slip into numbness.
A single lamp hangs low over the table, light cutting sharp across his face, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.
He’s not restrained, but he doesn’t need to be.
They made sure of that.
The man across from him is composed—too composed—wearing an immaculate uniform, posture easy, like this is a conversation and not what Joseph knows it truly is. He studies Joseph for a long time before speaking, taking in the gauntness in his face, the lines of weariness under his eyes, the way his shoulders shift though there is nothing there to move anymore, and even the brittleness of his fingernails.
“Incredible,” he says, almost softly. “Even now.
Joseph doesn’t respond.
The man’s gaze flicks to where his wings had been, once bound tight, removed, and only bandages remaining beneath torn fabric.
“Most men break, but you,” he continues. “You…” A faint, almost impressed smile crosses his face.
“You endure.”
“Get on with it.”
The man hums lightly, amused.
“Yes. Direct. Efficient. Very American.”
He leans forward slightly, folding his hands on the table.
“Tell me, Lieutenant Warren,” he says, voice smooth, conversational. “When did they inform you?”
“Inform me of what?”
“That you were no longer a soldier.”
Joseph doesn’t move, just sitting in the silence.
“I was shot down…” he says flatly. “That is what happened.”
The interrogator tilts his head as if questioning what has so long been fact.
“Is it?”
A pause, then almost gently: “Your aircraft was alone longer than it should have been.”
Joseph’s expression doesn’t change, but something sharp flickers behind his eyes.
“That happens in combat.”
“Yes,” the man agrees as he leans back, studying him. “It does and yet… no escort correction and no recovery attempt. No immediate response to your distress.”
He grins as Joseph’s fingers curl against the table.
“You were a valuable man, Lieutenant,” he continues. “Or rather… you were.”
“Say what you’re going to say.”
The man obliges with a wave of his hand, flippant.
“You were reassigned and removed from standard command structure,” he says. “The men in your government had already decided what you were long before we were involved.”
Joseph exhales slowly, only once.
“You’re fishing,” he says. “Throwing things out to see what sticks.”
“Am I?” The man says, grin growing into something wider, reaching into the folder at his side, pulling out a single paper—not offering it, but letting Joseph see the edge of it with official markings and familiar shapes: American. “You’re not here by accident, Lieutenant. Do you know how rare that is? To have a man fall exactly where he can be recovered?”
Joseph’s voice is tight.
“You’re saying it was arranged?”
“I think,” he says, “that your disappearance was… How do I say this? Anticipated.”
Joseph’s mind turns fast, sharp and unwilling to believe it.
“No…”
“No.”
The second time lands firmer.
“If they wanted me gone, they wouldn’t have sent me into the field at all.”
A tilt of the interrogator’s head, eyes flicking to where Joseph’s wings had been, where pain still radiated through his shoulders—both because of the sutures and because of the marches endured.
“Wouldn’t they? Perhaps they needed you to be lost somewhere they could not be blamed for.”
It lands harder than anything else, but Joseph leans forward despite himself. “You’re lying.”
“Of course,” he says easily. “It is my job…”
He waits a beat.
“But not about everything. Your Colonel—the one who signed your reclassification,” he continues, waving the paper around in his hand. “He believes men like you are not meant to exist freely, interests lying in control and containment, and the other one—the one who filed the report, the very report that made you valuable to us, believes much the same.”
Joseph leans back, practically swimming through the heavy silence.
“You expect me to believe my own people handed me to you.
“I expect nothing,” he replies. “I am just an observer and I observe that you were isolated, reclassified, and removed from protection just before you became available.”
Joseph’s jaw tightens and when his voice comes, it becomes quieter.
“Names.”
“Ah,” he says softly, standing, gathering the folder and all its contents with him. “Now you ask the right questions. Perhaps you will remember them on your own.”
When he reaches the door, he pauses, not yet reaching for the handle.
“One of them already knows what you are,” he says, “and the other decided what should be done about it. And lieutenant? A consideration, if I may.”
“Yes?”
“They did not expect you to survive long enough to ask why.”
flightless
They don’t take him to the barracks which is the first sign that something is wrong .He isn’t taken with the others, not into the cold, crowded rows of men reduced to numbers and routine, but instead walk him past it—past the wire and watchtowers—into a building that smells wrong before they even cross the threshold.
It’s clean.
Too clean, like it was meant to erase what happens inside and when the door shuts behind him, it isn’t with a sound that echoes.
It absorbs.
Joseph’s eyes adjust slowly to the light—too bright overhead, flattening everything into sharp lines and hard edges, landing on a table in the center, instruments laid out with deliberate precision nearby, and men who don’t look at him like a soldier rather a question they need to find an answer to.
No one rushes.
No one shouts.
That makes it worse.
“Extraordinary,” one of them says, circling slightly, not touching—not yet. “To see it firsthand.”
Joseph doesn’t answer, his wings shifting as much as they can behind him, feathers rustling which feels too loud in a room like this. He isn’t asked to move when he is placed on the table so much as he is placed there by firm, practiced hands that aren’t cruel, but they aren’t careful either. He resists on instinct, shoulders tensing and muscles pulling—
Too many of them.
Too little space.
And he’s still not whole from the crash.
“Hold him.”
The words are finality, however simple, and Joseph’s breath sharpens as they press him down, the edge of the table cold against his chest, wings forced out and spread in ways that aren’t natural, pulling at joints and sinew with a strain that makes his vision flicker at the edges.
“No,” he snaps, voice rough, the first real break in his own control. “You don’t—”
No one answers as straps of leather are tightened around his wrists, his chest and his shoulders, every movement accounted for before he can make it. Joseph’s head turns sharply toward the sound of voices, breath coming faster now—not panic, not yet, but edging dangerously close.
“This isn’t yours,” he says, low. “You don’t get to—”
A hand presses harder still.
“Be still.”
For one moment—just one—he tries to move underneath the light burning above him, everyone around him becoming shapes moving at the edges, like the suggestion of motion holding him exposed, examining him like some animal. Every muscle in his back tightens, tenses, instinct screaming to get up and take to the skies where they can’t reach him, but the restraints—they hold, and hands hold and the room holds.
And then—
The first pull.
Not sharp and not sudden, but worse in how deliberate and measured it is, like something being separated, and Joseph’s breath breaks, a sound tearing out of him—half gasp, half something else—as his body reacts before his mind can catch up, back arching, wings straining against what is being done.
“No—!” The cry is raw, uncontrolled, but they don’t stop, and the room narrows, sound distorting in voices fading in and out, replaced by the rush of blood in his ears and the violent, overwhelming awareness of something being taken that was never meant to be removed—not like this and not by them. His vision blues, light fracturing, and his hands strain uselessly against the restraints, fingers curling and reaching for something that isn’t there anymore—or won’t be.
The words he hears next are clinical, satisfied, Joseph’s breath stuttering, shaking before it catches—not because of the pain, but the absence, sudden and wrong, and when darkness follows the unceremonious clang of bloodied tools into dirty trays, it is not gentle, and it is not kind.
It is just final… for now.
Joseph wakes to cold wood and thinner air, breath catching on something that isn’t there anymore—no weight, no pull, no quiet shift when he tries to move, and for a second, his body still expects it, muscles tightening for balance that never comes, and the absence hits harder than any pain could, hollow and immediate.
He doesn’t reach back.
He already knows.
They don’t take him to the barracks which is the first sign that something is wrong .He isn’t taken with the others, not into the cold, crowded rows of men reduced to numbers and routine, but instead walk him past it—past the wire and watchtowers—into a building that smells wrong before they even cross the threshold.
It’s clean.
Too clean, like it was meant to erase what happens inside and when the door shuts behind him, it isn’t with a sound that echoes.
It absorbs.
Joseph’s eyes adjust slowly to the light—too bright overhead, flattening everything into sharp lines and hard edges, landing on a table in the center, instruments laid out with deliberate precision nearby, and men who don’t look at him like a soldier rather a question they need to find an answer to.
No one rushes.
No one shouts.
That makes it worse.
“Extraordinary,” one of them says, circling slightly, not touching—not yet. “To see it firsthand.”
Joseph doesn’t answer, his wings shifting as much as they can behind him, feathers rustling which feels too loud in a room like this. He isn’t asked to move when he is placed on the table so much as he is placed there by firm, practiced hands that aren’t cruel, but they aren’t careful either. He resists on instinct, shoulders tensing and muscles pulling—
Too many of them.
Too little space.
And he’s still not whole from the crash.
“Hold him.”
The words are finality, however simple, and Joseph’s breath sharpens as they press him down, the edge of the table cold against his chest, wings forced out and spread in ways that aren’t natural, pulling at joints and sinew with a strain that makes his vision flicker at the edges.
“No,” he snaps, voice rough, the first real break in his own control. “You don’t—”
No one answers as straps of leather are tightened around his wrists, his chest and his shoulders, every movement accounted for before he can make it. Joseph’s head turns sharply toward the sound of voices, breath coming faster now—not panic, not yet, but edging dangerously close.
“This isn’t yours,” he says, low. “You don’t get to—”
A hand presses harder still.
“Be still.”
For one moment—just one—he tries to move underneath the light burning above him, everyone around him becoming shapes moving at the edges, like the suggestion of motion holding him exposed, examining him like some animal. Every muscle in his back tightens, tenses, instinct screaming to get up and take to the skies where they can’t reach him, but the restraints—they hold, and hands hold and the room holds.
And then—
The first pull.
Not sharp and not sudden, but worse in how deliberate and measured it is, like something being separated, and Joseph’s breath breaks, a sound tearing out of him—half gasp, half something else—as his body reacts before his mind can catch up, back arching, wings straining against what is being done.
“No—!” The cry is raw, uncontrolled, but they don’t stop, and the room narrows, sound distorting in voices fading in and out, replaced by the rush of blood in his ears and the violent, overwhelming awareness of something being taken that was never meant to be removed—not like this and not by them. His vision blues, light fracturing, and his hands strain uselessly against the restraints, fingers curling and reaching for something that isn’t there anymore—or won’t be.
The words he hears next are clinical, satisfied, Joseph’s breath stuttering, shaking before it catches—not because of the pain, but the absence, sudden and wrong, and when darkness follows the unceremonious clang of bloodied tools into dirty trays, it is not gentle, and it is not kind.
It is just final… for now.
Joseph wakes to cold wood and thinner air, breath catching on something that isn’t there anymore—no weight, no pull, no quiet shift when he tries to move, and for a second, his body still expects it, muscles tightening for balance that never comes, and the absence hits harder than any pain could, hollow and immediate.
He doesn’t reach back.
He already knows.