Title: Yet Always Back Returning
Rating: G
Characters: Kliff, Ky (and Sol, kind of)
Notes: This is a string of deleted scenes saved from the cutting room floor that is the Off the Record 'verse. I wanted to do some more Kliff-and-Ky interaction because these two break my heart in all the right ways, but the bulk of it didn't fit into the main story, so here they are as a standalone.

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Yet Always Back Returning

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Ky sleeps like he's spent an eternity waking.

No movement, no frowns to crease his brow, no sighs or mumbles or any other indication of normal sleep. Just breathing, slow and shallow, like he has burned through everything, even the furthest of his last reserves, and now all that's left are these soft intakes of air, the quiet beating of his heart. He looks strange on the couch, the faded quilt and cushions too solid, too real compared to his still form, ready to flicker and disappear at any moment. Turn around, or blink, and he might be gone, just an afterimage of someone who was never there at all.

Kliff would have put him in a proper bed, something better suited for resting, but he isn't sure if he would have been able to drag both of them up the stairs, not with Ky like a deadweight in his arms and his own knees still weak as jelly.

Keeping busy is important, now more so than ever. Going through the routine, pots on the stove at noon, the tea pot out at five, dishes at nine. He's not entirely sure what he is doing the rest of the time, unable to keep his mind on what passes through his hands, whether it's a broom or a book or a piece of laundry, just that every odd couple of minutes, he finds his feet have pointed him back to the living area, commanded by some irrefutable urge to confirm that Ky is still there.

It gets a bit easier once the changes start showing, all the small signs that turn the ghost-image into something more alive. A dislodged pillow, a bit of snuffling, Ky moving from the slack sprawl of unconsciousness into a tight little ball, the quilt drawn so closely around him that only the tousled mop of hair is peeking out, and occasionally, when Kliff's puttering around the house is a little bit louder than it should be, a single hazy eye.

A full two days pass before Ky can stay awake long enough to get some soup in him, his grip on the bowl loose and not entirely aware, words nudging their way past his lips between the spoonfuls. Kliff doesn't really know what to say to them, mostly reduced to shaking his head and squinting away the sting behind his eyes, because the apology behind every utterance of gratitude is almost too much—

Sorry for imposing on you, sir.

Sorry for showing up unannounced, sir.

Sorry for passing out on your couch, sir.

—like he could ever be anything but welcome, like it isn't Kliff who ought to be saying thank you and sorry with every spare breath.

By the fourth day, Ky is making earnest efforts to leave his cocoon, but regularly ends up losing the struggle to the loops and twistings of the blanket. Kliff has to be very careful not to smile at the sight of him scowling ineffectually at the quilt, the destroyer of Gears defeated in a fight with the sheets. He certainly isn't about to help, as that would only mean dealing with the boy swaying around the house, disoriented and irritable at the failings of his own body.

Better to quietly count his blessings that Ky's spirits are returning, some color flooding back into his cheeks, the unnatural brightness in his eyes fading away bit by bit, changing from wraith to human. Technically, Kliff knows, he should have been trying to get him to a healer, find someone able to treat the symptoms with more than just soup and salt water. Magic drain is no laughing matter, but even if he were to find the village doctor in the throng of drunken revelers, well, then word would get out that the savior of the world is sleeping the sleep of the righteous in his living room, and that's not what Ky needs right now. What he needs is another blanket, and a warning thump upside the head for attempted insubordination, and whatever other small thing Kliff can do to try and make up for the past eight years of his life.

It doesn't take much to figure out what brought Ky here on his last reserve, even if the boy barely seems aware of his own reasons. Pretty much anything is better than staying to be crowned saint or king or whatever else the Order has lined up for him; Kliff doesn't even want to imagine. In a better time, under better circumstances, he would have stopped the whole messianic bullshit before it even got out the door, because the Lord knows he used to ream people for prefacing every sentence with "Venerable-High-Commander-of-the-Same-Holy-Order-Sir!"

Ky might have carried the burden, and carried it gladly, but now, Kliff sees no reason not to put his foot down, just to give the boy the time to learn how to do it himself.

A noise draws him out of his thoughts and back to the present, Ky shifting on the couch to push himself upright and rubbing at his eyes. He blinks, his attention sliding to the strainer dangling from Kliff's fingers, dripping tea all over the tray and the table while his mind was wandering off to worry about what-ifs and might-have-beens.

"How... how are things... outside?" he murmurs, eyes following Kliff's hand as he reaches for a dish cloth and starts wiping the table, too fascinated by the procedure to qualify as more than half awake.

Silently shaking his head at himself, Kliff begins pouring the tea, pleased to notice that Ky's hands are no longer trembling with exhaustion when he accepts the cup. "Just a tad lively."

The understatement of the century, no doubt, when the smoke from the bonfires can be smelled all the way up here, a new salvo of salutes echoing through the valley every other hour. He hasn't made the trek down the mountain yet, too concerned about Ky to even think of checking on anything else, but it doesn't take much to imagine the sorts of festivities going on in the village square, dancing and singing and roasting whatever they happen to find in their pantries. It will probably take a while for them to run out of supplies, never mind firecrackers.

Ky smiles for a moment, no doubt picturing the same things, before something else seems to occur to him. Staring at his reflection in the cup, he lowers his voice even further, as if ashamed to even have to ask. "Do you... do you think it's wrong for me to be here, sir?"

"What makes you say that?" Kliff says, nudging the jar of honey towards him in lieu of anything better to say. He should have seen it coming, really, now that the boy is done apologizing for being half-dead on his couch, that he'd take up apologizing for not being half-dead in front of a podium.

"I... I'm not sure." Ky bites his lip, something like frustration flashing in his eyes as he reaches for the spoon. "There's just... it feels like I'm shirking my duty. Not being out there and doing... something. Anything. I don't even know."

When Kliff doesn't answer immediately, he drops his gaze. "I'm being foolish, aren't I. Having second thoughts."

"No," Kliff says slowly, lowering his cup and leaning forward to look him in the eye. "No, I don't think you are."

One of the side effects of talking to Ky is that he could never come to harbor any delusions of being wise, or even all that knowledgeable. The boy has a knack for asking all the difficult questions, probing at the hows and whys of the world without even trying, and this conversation right here has just opened up another bit of self-awareness. There isn't much he can give in the way of advice. If he is perfectly honest with himself, he has to admit that he doesn't really know how to live outside the army, either — he just has the benefit of being old now, the only benefit of being old, where it doesn't really matter what he does anymore, and can spend all day feeding pigeons if he wants to without any deeper sense or reason to his life.

There was never the question of teaching any of his kids how to do anything besides fighting, when war was all there ever seemed to be in the future. Fighting, and dying, and getting up to do it all over again, right from the first day and on every day afterwards. Deep down, Kliff never even thought he'd live to see the final victory, or that he'd have the last of his children sitting there in front of him, silently asking for a purpose.

"I can't tell you what to feel, dear boy," he begins after a while, pushing the milk across the coffee table for Ky to take. "Nor should I have to. But... I'm going to tell you to take your time. Time's what you'll have in spades now. Sometimes you'll be glad for it, and sometimes you'll loathe it, but I want you to learn how to feel it. Rest. Try if you can stand being a room apart from your blade, or if you'll manage to sleep more than an hour at a time when you're not five seconds away from passing out. Listen to yourself, look at your surroundings. Pick up a book. Read it for what it has to say, not for what it can teach you. And see if you can stop thinking of my kitchen window as an escape route and the butter knives as emergency weapons."

He looks up to catch Ky's furtive glance, and they share a rueful grin.

"And when you can do that... we'll talk again."

One of the best and worst things about training children was the joy of discovery. There was nothing in the world quite like their wide-eyed curiosity when he first brought them to Headquarters and let them loose in the barracks, their heads liable to keep turning and turning just to take everything in. Over the years, Kliff developed a little prediction pattern that he liked to apply to new charges — the incredulous stare when they got to the dormitory and he told them they would have a bed all to themselves, how the first thing they'd do was to whiz over to it, throw themselves on it, and then twist around like monkeys to look first under, then above the bed to the other bunk, and, if he gave them half a chance, they would repeat the game on every bunk and wardrobe in the room to ensure they uncovered all hidden surprises.

It didn't really seem to matter whether they were six, or ten, or fifteen, and when he brought back a bunch of them at once, soldiers were sometimes treated to the sight of them trailing through the corridors like a row of ducklings, lined up from boldest to shyest, to peer behind each door. Ky was no exception, though he was certainly one of the most reserved, sandwiching every peeking expedition between a knock and a bow as if to apologize for his curiosity. He was one of the few who didn't run to claim their bunk, just walked over to smooth a hand across the covers, a gravity in his expression that should have belonged to someone much older.

It's a gift to see those memories come to life once more, watching Ky watch the world with that same intent, serious gaze — the frayed stitching of the quilt, the vegetable patch in the backyard, the worn spines of the books Kliff has inherited from the cabin's previous owner, it doesn't seem to matter. That's one benefit of gradual retirement, at least, the time to get used to the relative quiet, the stability of the walls, the guarantee of a hot meal at fixed hours. Time to rearrange his duties, to go from High Commander to ex-High-Commander-who-won't-stop-calling-bullshit in order to keep the last of his children alive for a little while longer, and in many ways, that's probably what kept him from going mental during the past year.

Ky hasn't even had the time to learn that being able to look around and hear himself breathe doesn't automatically equal a cataclysm in some part of the world.

He's trying not to push the boy, he really is, to force an interest or a desire on someone who, for so long, didn't even have the luxury to choose what to have for breakfast, but when he notices Ky's gaze straying to the cups during the by now ritual afternoon tea, he really can't help himself.

The porcelain in attendance changes every day, each of the prohibitively expensive sets getting its turn, and each more out of place in an old soldier's household than the next. Haughty little pots in silk-lined cozies, cups so delicate they need to be warmed before they can withstand a pouring, paper-thin saucers hardly able to tolerate more than a lady's gentle touch. Blue roses, brightly colored birds and miniature landscape paintings, but his favorite set is the most unassuming, a winding golden vine unfurling its leaves along a surface so translucent that it held its own pale fire.

A little while ago, he took a cup from that set and gifted it to Ky, as much to celebrate his promotion to High Commander as it was a reminder for Ky to come back safely, the promise of a better future where they could both afford to sit down like two civilized people and have a civilized drink with some civilized scones on the side. A useless gift for someone looking forward to six more months of slugging through mud and entrails, but it still seemed appropriate for someone like Ky, so keenly aware of the small, transient joys in life.

It's nice to know he wasn't wrong, watching Ky graze the edge of the saucer with his fingertips, tracing the lotus petal etchings with a quiet reverence.

"You know," Kliff finally says, helping himself to the last of the madeleines while the boy is distracted, "If you like it so much, it's yours."

A stunned Ky, he decides right then and there, is very much like a happy Ky, rare and infinitely precious.

After a good minute of staring at Kliff with eyes so round they make him appear at least five years younger, he slowly sets the cup down, pushing it as far away as it will go.

"Sir, that— I mean, it's— they're yours. I couldn't— that wouldn't be— I wouldn't even know what to do with them," he finishes weakly, casting his eyes about for something else to focus on.

"Oh, I don't know," Kliff says, trying and failing to keep the amusement out of his tone. He's beginning to see why Sol was so fond of making the boy blush and squawk; Ky always looks his age a lot more when he is floundering for balance. "What have you been doing?"

"Um." Ky ducks his head, his hair not quite long enough to hide his burning ears. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to imply—"

"Nonsense," Kliff cuts in, waving his hand. "You know how I got into collecting? The archbishop of Vienna was trying to get me to divert a couple of troops from a war zone for guarding his summer retreat."

The boy's lips twitch at the thought, more than familiar with the obsessions of the rich and the intricacies of noblesse oblige. "And you kept the set, sir?"

Kliff shrugs, grinning. "I figured he wouldn't miss it, if he was willing to give it away. Stupid gift for a soldier, really. You'd think he'd have tried beer first."

With a firm hand, he reaches out, pushing the cup back to Ky. "Anyway, this one's yours now, and I won't take no for an answer. It can keep the other one company."

"I, um, thank you very much," Ky breathes, fingers gently curling around its underside as if cradling a holy relic. "I'll treasure it."

"I know you will," Kliff murmurs, shoving the last bit of cake in his mouth to counteract the radiance of that smile. "I expect to see the collection one day."

"Sir?"

"Don't tell me you're going to spend the rest of your life window-shopping," Kliff says, and chooses not to mention that the shopkeepers would likely fall all over themselves to give their goods away for free if they recognized their customer.

"I..." Ky hesitates. "It just seems... kind of self-indulgent."

Taking a breath, Kliff shakes his head in equal parts fondness and exasperation, already aware that they'll be repeating this pattern a lot. "My dear boy. Unless you're planning on joining a monastery, self-indulgence is what we're here to learn."

When it came to picking his kids, it was mostly a matter of finding them before the Order did.

Orphanages were one of the biggest sources of new soldiers, and would regularly receive visits from officials who collected all but the smallest children to take them in for training. It was an unpleasant, if necessary, arrangement, the orphanages hopelessly overcrowded and the Order perpetually in need of more hands to keep the war effort going. There was always a job that needed doing, always a place that needed to be filled; those who couldn't fight or were too young were sent to to tend to the animals, to work in the kitchens or as couriers, or to apprentice in the weapon smithies and with the airship mechanics. A better fate, certainly, than to be sent on their way again as soon as the next flood of starving children arrived, and though some of the nuns and matrons would weep and clutch the children to their chest when it was time for the officials to take them away, there really was no other choice.

For Kliff, it meant being constantly on the lookout for any glimpses of exceptional talent, before the grind managed to swallow them up. There was no hope of raising them as the brightest stars in the sky when their senses had already dulled, once they had learned to mindlessly obey, and had lost the spark of brilliance to shining horseshoes all day. Over time, he had learned what to look for, had come to recognize the quality they all shared — eyes as calm as the undisturbed surface of a lake, and an intense regard for everything in their surroundings, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed. No fear. Never fear.

It was always the same when he stepped in, when he pulled them aside to put them through the most rigorous training in the world — warfare, leadership, politics, philosophy — and they would blossom under it, all sharp questions and eager faces, hungry for any lesson he might teach.

Every child he picked, he was never wrong about them, all their potential unfolding under the right care and instruction. Self-discipline, not power. The people, not the rules. The kinds of principles that the upper management didn't like to see in general, and even less so in soldiers that weren't even backed by any sort of pedigree, just peasant children without a penny to their name. Yet, it was the only way to ensure success; to raise leaders that would do what had to be done, leaders that wouldn't bend, wouldn't falter. He couldn't afford to fail, and so, they never failed him, carrying out every task he set them to, the closest to perfection there could be.

Somehow, impossibly, Ky managed to outshine them all. And yet, as brilliant a student as the boy is, as exceptional a commander, trying to teach him how to think of himself is like pulling teeth.

Whatever the general notion of productivity, Ky is used to taking it at least three steps further than is strictly necessary or even healthy, and while that might have won them the war, now it's well on its way to becoming a serious problem.

Shell-shock might have kept him busy for a while, too overwhelmed by the sheer normalcy of his new existence to do anything else, but now that he's starting to get used to a life of order and regular sleeping hours and real, honest-to-God table wear, he keeps trying to find ways to make himself useful. Not just that, he's finding ways to be sneaky about it, too, knowing Kliff disapproves of the idea of him having to earn his keep, but unable to let go of the urge. More than once, Kliff has come down to find Ky meditatively cleaning vegetables for dinner, or folding up the laundry "because it was there." The rotted steps on the back porch mysteriously replace themselves, as does the top-floor window that never quite wanted to close, and when he wakes up one morning to catch the boy clambering around on the roof and patching up the leaky spots, Kliff deeply regrets the aching knees that keep him from getting up there and dragging Ky down by his ear.

He supposes he ought to count it as progress that the boy is at least getting into the habit of actually sitting down for a meal, an almost foreign concept for someone who grew up in an army where all that mattered was getting the food in your stomach before something invariably put murder on the menu. It's probably a good thing he's made a point of eating together, Ky too bound by politeness to even consider giving into his field instincts and go wandering around with a fork in a casserole, magnetically pulling in things to do.

Leaving Ky unsupervised for a supply trip into town is practically begging to find a completely new house upon his return.

Kliff is expecting it, really. Even if he managed to hide all the tools and items that could potentially be used for something productive, tossed them into a hole and put a giant rock on it, Ky would either find a way to move the rock, or improvise new tools. Living what he's been taught, always living what he's been taught. Forever fixing things before they even need fixing, so there won't be any trouble further down the line. The only way to keep Ky from entering a state of compulsive utility would be to conk him unconscious for a couple of hours per day.

So Kliff is on the lookout, trying to calculate the time he's been gone and what new ludicrously efficient task Ky could have found in the meantime. There should be a limit to the things that can be accomplished on top of a mountain in the middle of the Ardennes, but he was the one who taught the boy to think of limits as mere suggestions.

When he catches sight of his house with the paint still peeling from the shutters, though, the fence around his yard still dismantled by a couple of enterprising deer, and the pile of firewood still exactly as tall as it was this morning, he has to fight the urge to blink and rub his eyes.

It's rather unsettling in its own way, so much so that his first impulse upon catching the pungent smell of burnt things is something close to relief.

It's something of an achievement, really, that his mind isn't immediately latching onto the far too vivid and entirely absurd notions involving Ky's lifeless body, but starts going through the logical options first. The normal options. Like how it's probably an old bird's nest stuck in the chimney, or how he's maybe been a little negligent in cleaning the oven vent. Of course, it's impossible that Ky's gotten careless with cooking. Tell him to do something as banal as watching a pot, then by the heavens, he will watch that pot like it is his only god-given duty to guard the sloppy attempt at vegetable stew. He'll just have to clear out the ash again, if Ky hasn't already beaten him to it, which is more than a slight possibility.

Shuffling up the steps, Kliff is fully prepared to spend the next fifteen minutes talking the boy down from a manic cleaning spree.

The lecture is already sitting on the tip of his tongue, all the things he's been going over every other day, whenever he's caught Ky alphabetizing his books, or patrolling the mountain, or any of the hundred other things the boy has taken up to fill the void left by the absence of paperwork and constant danger. Things like how it's alright now, how idleness no longer means the death of another ten thousand souls, how he better not be thinking of shoving Kliff into the mental compartment for "things to take care of" just because he's been complaining about his back at breakfast again—

And then he stops, because he's reached the entrance to the kitchen, which has become the site of an impromptu reenactment of the Battle of Rome.

Squinting, Kliff takes in the food spillage, the bits of eggshells on the floor, the splatters of drying batter on the counter, the bag of flour that has exploded over the kitchen table. The parade of dirty appliances that has given up on fighting the good fight, the lingering smell of soot, and three trays of what looks like it should have been brioche, ranging from mildly singed to solid lumps of coal. And Ky, who is helping himself to the spoils, licking the contents of a generous bowl of sugar icing from an equally generous spoon.

"...Busy day?" Kliff finally asks, the entire scene so outlandish that he can't decide whether to stare or laugh.

"Oh. Um." Ky jerks, cheeks reddening as he shakes off the sugar-induced bliss and makes a grab for a kitchen towel to clean his hands. "Welcome back, sir. I. Um. Thought I'd do something with the eggs and things, before they spoiled."

"I can see that," Kliff says, not quite able to keep his lips from twitching.

"Try being the operative word," Ky adds, and then, with a sudden brightness, "I failed at making bread."

With a thoughtful hum, Kliff leans towards the second tray, which is housing four reasonably brioche-colored rolls. They even have the slight glaze associated with yolk coating. "These look pretty successful to me."

"I wouldn't try those, sir. They stopped being bread and turned into artillery shells somewhere along the line. I probably left them in too long," Ky says, beaming. "I kept getting it wrong, so... eventually I just gave up."

"You sound happy," Kliff observes, mouth quirking into a grin when Ky reaches for the bowl again, for once neglecting to look guilty about sneaking sweets.

"It has been an utterly unproductive morning," Ky confirms, a touch of marvel coloring his tone, his gaze both here and not here as he briefly rifles through his memory, no doubt searching for a time when he had been allowed the luxury of failure, and coming up empty. He shakes his head, at once happy and slightly bemused that there could be a life where choices are as banal and undramatic as having dinner at six or at seven, and failure means nothing more than a pile of burnt loaves of bread and a bowl of leftover icing. "I didn't think that was possible. It's almost a little scary… it's so new."

His grin softening into a smile, Kliff sits down in the other chair. His hands are itching to do something to honor the occasion, like ruffling the hell out of the Ky's flour-streaked hair, but this mood is too important to break it by embarrassing the boy. "Not a bad new, though, is it?"

"No," Ky agrees, reaching for a second spoon and offering it to him. "No, not a bad new at all."

Progress of this kind, it turns out, requires baby steps.

Kliff can see now that he was expecting too much at once, tempted into seeing it as a smaller issue than it really is by Ky's ability of rolling with the punches, and his own gradual acceptance of this new life. He's had time, after all, time to slowly cut back on the things he used to do, even if he took the retirement notice as more of a challenge than a reward. Mostly for Ky's sake, who would have had to face both the monsters at the front and the snakes back home, entangling themselves ever deeper in side projects and petty infighting. Hardly surprising that the chaos would shift inward once he managed to stabilize the army, to bring order and strategy to what was, until his own rise to High Commander, something closer to heavily armed panic than a coordinated war effort, and he couldn't well abandon his last remaining child to fight a war on two fronts just because a slip of paper told him to.

Still, the change has given him time, too; time to get used to handling a pen instead of a sword, to move from shouting orders across a Gear-infested swamp to arguing small-minded bureaucrats into submission across heavy oaken desks. To get used to a life that still had, amazingly enough, room for office hours and lunch breaks and significantly fewer close-proximity explosions. Ky hasn't had nearly the same luxury, going from giving five hundred percent at everything to nothing at all in the blink of an eye.

The baking incident was the icebreaker, the initiation ritual into a world that, if Kliff is entirely truthful, he still can't quite believe himself. Maybe, his rush to push Ky down this new path was for his own sake, too, because now that even the arguing and the strongly worded letters have been phased out of his life, Kliff is left with no choice but to face retirement head-on.

Retirement. God help him, but he hates the idea of having survived long enough to become useless.

Maybe that's why he's been so determinedly hovering over someone who has always needed very little help, beyond the initial nudge, to start working with what he's got.

The proof is currently curled up in the armchair, toes absently plucking at a threadbare patch of backrest, completely engrossed in a book. Not just looking at it in numb fascination, or smoothing over its spine on the shelf like a royal treasure, but taking it out and thumbing through it — fingers between the pages, quilt draped across his shoulders, letting his feet get warmed by the sun. For a moment, just a moment, the aura of peace makes him seem almost unreal, a fragment of some other place and time etched in sharp relief against everything Kliff knows, and if he were to step forward, everything would disappear.

Then, Ky moves, unfurling just slightly to tilt his head back and look at him over the armrest, all drooping hair and cat-like squinting as the light hits his eyes. The gesture is both him and not him, partly the boy Kliff knows who would try to seek out the sunny spots after magic training and soak there as long as he could, and partly someone new, who is slowly stopping being so rigidly conscious of himself all the time.

"I got to page forty-five," Ky says in answer to the unspoken question, amusement and wonder coloring his tone, "Before I remembered to check for explosions."

And he smiles.

The backyard water pump is so decrepit that just looking at it brings on a sympathy ache in his own bones.

In his more philosophical moments, Kliff will sometimes stare at it and wonder how many owners it served before him, discounting the thirty or so years the cabin stood empty before he acquired it. He was kidding when he told Ky that it's as old as the Crusades, but from the looks of it, the pump seems to agree, as it chooses this exact moment to give a final creak of protest and spray a flood of dirty water right in Ky's face.

On the porch, Kliff glances up from a bucket of potatoes to watch him sputtering and shaking himself off like a drenched kitten, and grins.

"Told you to leave it be. I'll have to get a replacement."

A replacement means a trip into the next bigger city, which is why he was putting off the trip for as long as he did, and now, well... now he'll probably have to pay a bribe bigger than the Order's reward if he wants the blacksmith's apprentices to keep mum about his guest. Or just make them say hi to Ky, and hope for starstruck worship to take its course.

It's one of those small things he has chosen not to mention to Ky just yet, and the other reason he was trying to put off replacing the pump — the small matter of finding the announcement on the town blackboard during market day last week, a recruitment flyer hastily rewritten to become a warrant with the sum of a hundred silver saints for any information on the whereabouts of the world's savior. He's still not sure whether to be offended or amused on Ky's behalf once he's done marveling at the desperation of it all.

It's been close to three months, he supposes.

At the very least, putting Ky's name on what resembles nothing so much as a wanted poster means that they're having trouble keeping the place running. If the Order is willing to offer more money for a simple tip-off than most ordinary folks will earn in a year, it means they want the boy back to stop a collapse. It's not surprising, really, considering most soldiers were farmers to begin with, with families waiting for them at home and little desire to be part of an army that was mostly held together by fear and doctrine, and lots of double-sided duct tape. Now that the world is starting to wake up from its collective hangover to realize their most important person has been missing the whole time, there's even less reason to stick around.

Part of Kliff thinks Ky might be developing an inkling as to what is going on, simply because he knows what kind of shape the Order was in during those final months, alliances fraying, structures groaning with the weight of politics and inefficiency. It probably wouldn't even surprise him to hear they want him back to stave off the inevitable – for all his humility, Ky knows full well what the role of savior entails, and what others are willing to do to keep the myth going.

At the end of the day, however, the weather is too nice, and lunchtime too close, and Kliff has the excuse of being old and selfish, so the fate of the world can damn well wait.

By the broken water pump, Ky has managed to unscrew the top completely and is trying to get at its insides with a poker, pulling out weeds and muddy gunk. Next come the pump shaft and the crank, both encrusted with algae, and he spends the next couple of minutes methodically cleaning off layers of greenish-brown slime, hands moving with a near-surgical precision that leaks into everything he does, even if the object in question is as good as junk.

It's another one of the minor revelations that have been happening a lot lately, that Ky seems to have developed a knack for machinery somewhere along the line. Of course, Kliff taught him all he had to know — how to work around the absurd fragility of the cannons, how to stitch together broken radios with a bit of steel wool and a prayer, how to steer an airship whose bridge has been torn in half, all the pilots dead or dying in their seats. This goes a little beyond survival, though, the boy delighting in taking things apart to see how they work, trying to get at their secrets.

Yesterday, it was the cuckoo clock that wouldn't stop being fifteen minutes late, and the day before that, it was the magic-powered lamp that had taken to flickering whenever anyone came within five feet of it, the one Kliff ended up borrowing permanently from the Order storage since he didn't like the idea of an oil lamp by his bedside, just in case he woke up flailing, thinking it was the inferno of Sicily again.

He never thought it to be something Ky might like doing, mucking around with the cogs and the wires, but then again, what does he know? There never was an opportunity to simply get to know him, to hand him a book or a toy and let him do whatever he would. Most of the people he's known in his life got judged on what they could do in a fight, how long they'd hold out and whether he could trust them to get a job done. Most of his fondest memories of Ky, of Tetsu, of all the kids he's ever trained, are of the gleam in their eyes when they lifted a real blade for the first time, of the spark of pride whenever they managed to exceed his expectations.

Who knows what Ky might have found his calling in, if he hadn't come along.

"Ow."

A sudden sting in his hand draws him back to the present, looking down to find that the knife has missed the potato by a good half inch.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

"Just fine," Kliff mutters, mouth pressed against his palm and more than a little annoyed with himself. He's been spacing out a lot lately, lost in the fragments of the past, picking through his memories for reasons and explanations for the tides that took him where he is now. The thought of becoming a sentimental old codger is less than appealing, but the idea of trying to find excuses that way is even less so. For the better or worse, his decisions have always been his own.

Ky is still peering at him, mildly damp and mildly concerned. "I can get a—"

"Bandage? You should hear yourself, my boy. They couldn't get me into the infirmary with three broken ribs; I think I'll survive a cooking accident."

"…if you say so, sir."

"Questioning my authority already?"

"Um," Ky says, ducking his head to hide his flushing cheeks.

"I'd say that's some fine progress right there," Kliff nods, fishing for a handkerchief in his breast pocket to tie around his hand. "Now if you can stop feeling bad about it, we've almost won."

"I'll do my best." The grin is like a flash, there and gone in just a second, but with a brightness that lingers in Ky's eyes long after it has passed.

The first few times, it hurt to see it, an expression so like Tetsu's that it felt like someone had reached back in time and pulled out the one thing against which he couldn't possibly defend himself, only to plant it square in the middle of his life again. It used to make him wonder, sometimes, catching glimpses of a dead boy in another's mannerisms, whether there wasn't someone out there having a good laugh at his expense. He's not sure when the feeling changed, whether it was him or the circumstances or just being made to meet that quiet, serious gaze day after day, and feel like there was something in it that understood.

It's nice, in a way, to get a chance to be the one who understands, this time.

Ky has returned to his self-appointed task, examining the brittle surface of the shaft and shaking his head. "Rusted through."

"Thought so," Kliff says, picking up the potato again.

"But if we just replace this, it should be able to keep going for a while yet."

"You're welcome to poke around the shed if you like, but you won't find any spares. That thing's older than I am; I doubt anyone even still knows how to make these kinds of parts."

"That's all right. I'm pretty sure I can macgyver something to keep it going for a while longer."

Kliff raises an eyebrow. "You'll have to enlighten me on that, my boy."

"I…" Ky trails off, lowering his head. "You know… it's funny. I don't think I ever asked him what it meant."

There's no question as to who he is talking about.

With the wet bangs in his face, it's impossible to get a good look at his eyes. There's a strange little twist to his mouth, though, one that Kliff has never seen before, as if he's unable to decide whether the memory is a good or a bad one, and his voice drops until it's almost too low to hear. "I wonder when… when did it become normal for me to just repeat… when did I stop asking questions…"

Almost three months, and that's the first time Sol has come up in conversation. Ky never offered to share what went down during those final weeks, and Kliff chose not to pry, had heard enough whispers about sealings and magic swords and stolen holy relics to piece together some kind of picture, even if it did nothing to explain the hows and whys.

It seemed like such a good thing at the time for the boy to have someone to be fond of, even if it was a fondness more easily expressed through varying degrees of electrocution than words. Kliff used to worry for him more than the usual fare, all too aware of what the war would do to such a pure soul, someone who had to stand taller than any human being should have to, and, in the midst of the fray, had no one to turn to for counsel or company. A relief, then, to see at least one of his gambles playing out alright, to notice the shadow that was never all that far from him, trying to make himself invisible against a tree or a brick wall, chain-smoking and eternally disgruntled.

Now he's not so sure anymore.

Sol must have had his reasons for abandoning the fight mere weeks before the final push, of that Kliff has no doubt. It's not like the man ever made any promises, to him or to Ky, except that he would leave whenever it suited him. Even so, it's hard to believe he ended up doing exactly what he did, disappearing without the slightest heads-up, the tiniest reassurance that would spare Ky the crushing doubt, the uncertainty of not knowing whether whatever miracle had kept Sol on their side had finally evaporated, and whether he'd have to plan in the deaths of another hundred thousand men for the attempt of taking Sol down.

There was nothing he could have said to make it any better, no comforting advice to ease the loss, no answers as to why the sole constant in Ky's life decided to take off without a word.

There still isn't, and so it's easier to reach over and pat the space on the other side of the bucket, so Ky won't start thinking that he owes an explanation.

"Hm. What do you say we leave the heretic thoughts aside for the time being. These potatoes won't peel themselves, you know."

For a moment, Ky just stares at him, before his lips quirk into a slow, hesitant smile. "Of course, sir."

It takes a while for the static tension in the air to dissipate, and even longer for the scrape of his knife to lose its focused edge, falling into a slower, more comfortable rhythm. The topic doesn't come up again, not on this day or on any day afterwards, but Kliff has lived entirely too long not to know that the world always shifts on its axis in silence.

Comfort has a way of sneaking up on him. By the time Kliff realizes it is there, it has already made itself at home, and invited a string of pleasant little rituals to do the same. It is only when these little rituals start unraveling at the seams that he realizes how used to it he has become.

One of these rituals is the elaborate breakfast.

On his own, Kliff never bothered with much, hardly thought it worth the effort after spending some seventy-five years eating between doorways. Half the reason for changing his mind is that the urge to grab Ky and push a few steady meals on him never really went away, right from the moment he picked up the skinny little wisp of dandelion at the orphanage. The other half, the selfish half, is because there's a guilty joy in observing Ky act some approximation of sixteen, devouring one syrup-soaked, mildly burnt pancake after the other and smiling like the sun whenever a new one materialized on his plate unbidden. It doesn't even begin to make up for all the things he's done, all the young lives that were crushed under that impossible burden, but it still feels good to think that he can finally give something back, to look at Ky and find the confirmation in the light of those eyes — that for all the kids he's failed, somehow, against all the odds, he's managed not to fail this one.

The ritual was easy enough to start, especially since Ky's body seemed determined to catch up on all the sleep he had to sacrifice over the year, and Kliff could usually tell how often he woke up during the night by how long it took to rouse him with the clatter of kitchen appliances. In the rare event Ky woke up early, he'd set the water to boil, and obediently wait for him to get started on the crêpes, though Kliff is pretty sure that was purely for his own benefit.

Recently, though, Kliff has started coming down to a cool, half-empty teapot, which means that Ky either stayed up or didn't sleep in the first place, and has instead gone wandering among the trees. At least, that's what it would look like to a casual observer, but Kliff can see the measured lightness in his step and the frown hovering just out of reach, and knows that it's Ky's version of pacing. And even though he'll come back in, sit down for pancakes and tea and small talk, and later settle down in the armchair with a book or a knick-knack, it's clear that his mind is not on the task.

Looking inward. Looking back.

Kliff knows what's coming. There's something hanging in the air, waiting to be voiced, and it's ridiculous how much he doesn't want to be the one to do it, how, in his heart of hearts, he is wishing things could be different. Still wishing things could be different.

He'd like to be able to say that it's for Ky's sake. That Ky has been enough and done enough, that it's unbelievable just how enough he's been. That it's now on someone else — preferably the entire rest of the world — to ask the uncomfortable questions and pick up all the pieces, to find out who it was that gave the order to seal Justice, to keep secret the sword known as the Fire Seal, who it was that sentenced Tetsu to a fate so much worse than death. What, or who, drove Sol to disappear, to abandon them, and him, and Ky, in the middle of humanity's last ditch effort at survival.

He'd like to be able to, but the truth is, even though he's taken enough concussive damage to be perfectly senile by now, it's not enough to stop him from entertaining the most foolishly selfish of ideas, like how it would be nice to maybe sort of try this family thing again.

The worst thing is that all he'd have to do is ask. One word from him, and Ky would give it all up, would forfeit his right to grasp this new life with both hands. Would abandon his pursuit for answers and bury his doubts to grant the wish of an old man to whom he'll never be just Ky, but always and forever his last surviving child, and his only chance at redemption.

The only thing he can do, the least he can do, is to wait and let the world complete its shift in silence, until Ky feels sure of himself. He's spent enough time meddling in the fates of his children.

The moment arrives much slower than he would have thought, and much sooner than he would have liked.

If anything, it's the certainty that surprises him, how he can be piling breakfast essentials onto the far too narrow table, and suddenly realize that it's time.

There's no grand revelation, no lengthy preamble, just Ky padding into the kitchen, still in the worn-out pants and shirt he uses for sleeping, hair mussed, toes bare, and sitting down. He pours the tea and murmurs his "good morning," sipping his way towards wakefulness without hurry, just like he used to do in those first few weeks. It's not quite the same, though, because there is an extra edge of care to it, the boy conscientiously waiting until Kliff is sitting down and is preoccupied with stirring his own cup.

"...If you'd had the chance to do something else, sir, what would it have been?"

Ah. Well, that's certainly the most roundabout way of asking for his blessing that Kliff has ever heard. Ky has never been one to mince words, but he's doing so now, drawing swirls in the spread of blackcurrant jam atop his pancakes in a way that would have seemed anxious on any other person.

"Hm, who knows," Kliff says, and then, because he's never seen a good reason to pretend to be anything other than a farmer's son, "Probably kept herding goats."

Before Ky can scrunch up his face with the effort of imagining him as anything other than the ex-High-Commander-of-the-Same-Holy-Order-Sir, he adds, "And before you ask, yes, that is different from trying to push an agenda at a brass meeting. For one, goats are reasonable creatures."

The teacup is a little too narrow to hide the boy's knowing smirk.

Kliff briefly debates telling him that the Fates would have needed to start conspiring pretty early on to keep him in that line of work, skinny and illiterate and ignorant of the world, but ultimately decides against it. There's no reason to mention the man who upended his life by cutting his six-year-old self out of a monster's gullet, or how that man shares more than a few traits with the one who ended up upending Ky's. The boy will figure it out in time.

A gulp of tea to wash down that little mystery, along with all the other things unsaid. "So you've decided?"

The lack of a guilty flinch is heartening. "Yes."

With this much conviction to back a single word, Kliff can no longer find a reason to stall. "Let's hear it, then."

"Well…" Ky pauses, a little huff of laughter pushing out with his next words. "I still feel like I'm just winging this. But… there's so much I don't know. So many things that don't add up, and… I want to understand. I keep thinking about why he left, and I want to understand that, too. There's something going on, and I know the idiot's stuck hip-deep in it, and whatever it is, a lot of people are going to get hurt."

"And it's your duty to keep that from happening?"

"No. I want to. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, yet… but I want to."

There's no denying the weight of the silence that descends, or the weight behind Ky's gaze, searching for his blessing. Waiting for Kliff to hand down the verdict that will determine his last child's future. There are so many things he could say, so many ways he could try and shirk the responsibility of making that call, but most of them would be selfish, and nearly all of them would make this harder than it has to be.

Kliff might wish to keep him safe from harm, but it's not what Ky wants. For better or worse, it never was.

The smile comes surprisingly easy. "If you're going after that guy, you might want to start investing in a good set of bear traps."

Ky's answering grin is warm and real, grateful for the vote of confidence in the face of this brave new world.

They both know that after he's done devouring the last stack of pancakes, Ky will return to the living room and fish out the worn travel bag from underneath the couch, containing the entirety of his possessions. He'll straighten out the pillows, and fold up the quilt, and quietly call out his goodbye, and Kliff will keep himself from crushing him in a hug, somehow.

Perhaps there should be more to it, some grander gesture for this send-off, but all the years in the world wouldn't help to make him any better at goodbyes.

Looking into those earnest blue eyes, though, Kliff finds there's no need to be.

Anything he might want to tell him, Ky already knows.

.

.

-Fin-

A/N: Headcanon!Ky has a massive, not-so-secret sweet tooth, mostly because I imagine he very rarely got to enjoy those kinds of things growing up.

Also, I will never get over how Kliff likes teasets, Ky collects teacups, and nobody thought that connection alone warranted a line in that silly official relationship chart. What.