How Lonely The Earth

Summary: Will is missing, and Alice is dying. Her wish is to see her sons together before she dies. Paul, Simon and Barney check out their last possible clue… a W. Stanton in Trewissick, Cornwall.

Disclaimer: The Dark is Rising sequence does not belong to me at all. Sob.

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There's a certain stubbornness that the dying possess, when they know their life has a definite end and that end is coming upon them sooner than they would hope.

Alice Stanton possessed that hardheaded stubbornness; persistently driving after her one dream to see all her children reunited before she died. She knew when her life would come upon its end, and it was now only how the dance played out rather than how the dance would end.

It was a dream that wouldn't have been hard to bring into being forty years ago, when all of the children (apart from Tom, she reminded herself at sharp dizzying intervals) were living more or less at home. The one obstacle would have been Stephen, who spent most of his time in foreign climates of Royal Navy ships, and even that obstacle was not a relatively large one.

The obstacle currently destroying her dream was the one obstacle none of them had imagined could even be a problem forty years ago. Even thirty-five years ago, if someone had come up with the ludicrous idea that the current situation would be as it was, they would have been laughed at and declared an idiot.

Paul shifted, irritated, and rubbed the back of his neck lethargically. He'd tried reasoning with his mother as she lay there, looking finally so frail and weakened in her hospital bed, trying to make her understand that maybe Will was never coming back; but she'd displayed that brash streak of stubbornness that Paul was beginning to resent.

Will is coming back, Paul.

He could hear her soft voice, resonant and believing, even now, a mournful echo in his mind. He wished he could believe her.

Eventually he rose to his feet, wearier than he used to think was possible, and padded out of the room; assured that the soft and shallow rhythm of her breathing meant she was asleep at last. Her sleep was so restless at the moment, punctuated by breathy mentions of Will, her lost son, and it broke Paul's heart.

They took it in turns to rest by her bedside. The large Chiltern hospital provided well for the terminal cases, and the doctors relented and let the Stantons keep up their constant watch over their dearest, oldest member. Roger took most of the watches, grasping his wife's frail hand and struggling so hard to keep from crying. The children - the term children laughable, as they were now grandparents themselves in a few cases - made him rest every once in a while, and took up the watch, while the others resumed the search for Will.

Paul emerged into the dingy hospital corridor, the walls a smudged white that somehow seemed as dull as any shade of grey, and just as dismal. His fatigued gaze met with his father's, and Roger Stanton, a grey skeleton weighed down by an impossible grief, almost a wraith himself with his eighty-two years. Paul managed a weak smile, and patted his father's shoulder tentatively as the other shuffled past him into the room. He crossed to where Mary, his youngest sister, sat curled up on the bland plastic chairs arranged against the wall, and sat down next to her. His youngest sister, no longer young at fifty-two, hadn't left the hospital since their mother was admitted. Mary's husband, a teacher by trade and an artist at heart, had rallied around to keep the house running and the search for Will continuing.

"As soon as she's gone, he's gone too," Mary breathed, her voice almost lost in the fierce silence.

Paul nodded, mutely, knowing that fact, seeing it ingrained into his father's face so deeply that it was an unambiguous event.

"D'you --" Mary's face was hidden in shadow as she tried to pull into herself even more. "D'you think we'll ever find Will? Or even find out why he -- why he --"

The words were left unspoken, but the truth hung adamantly in the unspoken words, of finding Will's rooms empty, of finding nothing - no note, no trace - apart from two words scribbled in a blur on a scrap of paper and left on the table.

Paul had been the one to find it as he'd stumbled downstairs on his twentieth birthday to find Will gone and the two words in biro the only thing left to show Will had even been there.

I'm sorry.

"D'you --" Mary stuttered again, her eyes shrunken into her face, dark and confused and scared.

"Yes."

Paul imagined that the same jolted look of surprise that was on his sister's face was mirrored on his own. He closed his eyes, then opened them to fix vaguely on a spluttering light on the ceiling. He hurried to elaborate on his point. "I… Will's different to us. He… he'll know… he'll feel this… He won't stay away…"

"He's stayed away for this long…"

True. Paul looked away, clenching his fists helplessly. "I --" He reached out, impulsively, bones aching from a life full of hard labour and intermixed with moments of rapture, of music that soared to the heavens and back again, to grab hold of her hands. Mary looked at him, dark eyes widened with shock and she seemed so fragile to Paul in that moment. He swallowed, gripping her hands tightly, trying to forget that her hands were wrinkled with her age, that her hair wasn't shimmering with the same silvery colour as all of the Stantons now. That Will's hair would display too. Will with his boyish round face, with the chin that jutted out determinedly, with the blue-grey coloured eyes that reflected the sky, now with the faded silver of advancing old age... Will's innocence, blighted by the mould of age… Paul could hardly bring himself to believe it. He didn't want to believe it. "I don't think he wanted to."

"I get that feeling too…" Mary moved her other hand to clasp her brother's hand. "Something happened to him… A while ago… Something he couldn't tell us… It… It's the only reason that, that --"

She didn't have to say anything. Both knew the ending to those words. Neither could believe that Will would voluntarily distance himself from them forever. It was just too painful to believe.

"I -- I'm going to go see if Barney's back from work yet…" Paul staggered to his feet, his body feeling weary and heavy, and he flashed a weak smile at her. "Keep your head up, young person."

Mary couldn't respond, her eyelids dropped in sleep, and Paul spent an anxious moment staring at his weary sister before turning on his heel and padding down the muffled corridor.

Barney was there when he exited the hospital and felt the rush of cool air on his face. Paul walked slowly over to where Barney was leaning casually against the wall, and looked at him slowly. The blond, light hair streaked with white that made it almost look as if it had been deliberately dyed, reached out and grasped his lover's shoulder firmly with one hand and just smiled.

Paul looked up sleepily, recognising the impish expression on Barney's face and he found himself desperately try not to believe it that Barney may have a lead as to where Will was. Too many times he'd let himself be incensed by false hopes, and he didn't know if his heart could stand another let down.

Barney was speaking now, quietly, and Paul gamely tried to listen above the sound of his own heart, thudding painfully in his ears like a ragged syncopated drum beat.

"…I had a call from Mrs. Penhallow this afternoon, in the middle of my gallery opening… The old Grey House down in Trewissick, it was a place I went to summer once, anyway… It was bought years ago by a W. Stanton…"

"W? You don't know if it's Will?"

"Well, that's the thing, you see, I don't know if it can be. He fits the description of Will, apparently, all apart from one thing…"

"Which is?"

"His age." Barney sounded apologetic, and Paul almost felt the urge to yell at him, that he had no need to be sorry. Will had a need to be sorry, but not Barney. Barney wasn't the one that abandoned his whole family for a lifetime.

"Huh?"

"Mrs. Penhallow said he looked like he was in his early twenties," Barney clarified. "I wouldn't normally have really paid much attention after that, but -- Well, that might be the right age for, you know, if Will ever --"

"If Will ever had a kid, you mean?" The words sounded strange in Paul's throat, and despite the fact that several of his siblings had quite large families of their own, it was a weird and bitter picture in his mind that Will might have actually got on with his life after deserting them all.

Barney nodded mutely, knowing how much the idea of it was paining Paul. "Simon offered to drive us down. Shouldn't take more than an hour and a half's drive, and Mrs. P offered to put us up for the night if we needed it. I know it's a bit of a long shot…"

"But it's possibly one of the last shots we have," Paul finished, the words sounding hollow to his ears as if it was someone else speaking and not him.

Barney swallowed hard, and stepped forwards, slipping a reassuring hand around Paul's waist and leading his lover to the car park.

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"We're almost there."

That's the problem of being surrounded by mourning people, no-one ever knows how to react around you… Paul jerked his head up from where it had rested on the window, the motion of the car jerking his head as they rattled on down the motorway and roads and multiple country lanes to get to Trewissick.

"Great," Barney said, after a muted flickering look at Paul. "Thanks Si."

"No problem," Simon said, his eyes fixed on the twisting curves of the road ahead of them. Paul caught a flicker of tension in Simon's voice, and a sharp memory jolted his consciousness. Hadn't Barney mentioned that Simon had a conference this weekend?

Raising his gaze wearily upwards, he caught a echo of a glance in the car mirror, Simon and Barney in the front seats, and smiled softly. Barney, his Barney… He lingered over the words. He'd met Barney in a Performing Arts conference in Surrey, he'd been teaching music for eight years by that time, and he'd bumped into Barney who'd been lecturing at the college Max had used to go to. One thing had led to another, and Barney moved to Buckinghamshire, not having left since. The artist and the musician…

Stifling the snort that threatened to come with that thought every time, Paul kept his gaze fixed on the blur of scenery that flashed past.

He remembered the last time he'd seen Will. The present Will had given him, a beautiful horn, aged, something which struck something deep within Paul as should have been meaningful, but it was just beyond his memory's grasp. Will had said that the present was special, it couldn't be given with all the others the next day, because it would be lost. A present like that should shine.

Will had smiled at him, and, oh, Paul should have picked up something then. The smile was one of discordant sadness, of longing, of regret. Of goodbye. "See you tomorrow," Paul had said, grinning. "Old you'll be, tomorrow," Will had replied.

It had taken him a long time to realise that Will had not really replied to him. At first he'd been angry, possibly angrier than all the rest, thinking Will had been promising that he would see Paul today, but when he thought back carefully, Will hadn't said anything of the sort.

It had been premeditated.

And there you are thinking of it as murder, Paul chided himself. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you really-

"We're nearly there." Barney's voice was soft with excitement. Straightening, Paul glanced up, seeing the narrower roadways, the more exotic trees lining some of the streets, a hazy glimpse of sunshine and the sea.

"I- Did I fall asleep?" Paul didn't think he had, but he could have sworn they'd just started out…

"You looked a little daydreamy," Barney replied. Paul twisted his head to the left and looked at his lover's reflection in the left-hand mirror. Barney looked a little sleepy, too. He hedged a look at Simon, who looked alert but blank.

"Guess I was reminiscing a little," Paul said. "Just remembering the last time I saw Will."

"Oh?"

"Day before my birthday," Paul said to Simon's polite enquiry, trying not to sound too depressed.

"Last time I saw him was on a hill," Simon said, keeping his eyes on the road as it started to twist and turn. Paul looked up in surprise. "On a hill in Wales, and we were saying goodbye to him and that albino chap."

"Bran," Barney hissed, chiding Simon's prejudiced tone. "Bran Davies. Why, yes, I'd almost forgotten about that day." Paul leant to one side, looking at Barney's expression through shuttered eyes. Barney's face was unusually animated. For Barney, that was saying something. His eyes shone brightly despite his his pale, wizened cheeks. "We'd had a super holiday in Wales, Gumerry told dad about this great hotel, and we spent a couple of days trekking in the mountains with Bran and Will."

Paul struggled to listen to something inside of him that was tingling, almost like he was close to solving a puzzle but not quite there yet. "Will and this-Bran… They were close?"

"I'd say so," Simon said. "Your Will was often laconic with us, but he seemed to relax more with Bran."

"He became more like that, towards-" Paul fought for the right word, couldn't find it, and fell silent instead. "Said less and less. Thought more and more."

"Well, it would be worrying if he thought less and said less," Barney said, sounding quite chipper. He'd wound the window on his side down a bit, and the wind was whipping through his white-golden hair. It was like the whole atmosphere was waking him up.

"It sounds more like that would explain things," Simon said, "if you thought less, then you'd have less to say and then would say less, wouldn't you?"

And the debate was off, the two siblings arguing cheerfully, and Paul collapsed inwards with his thoughts again, and must have remained lodged there, for the next thing he remembered was a jolt, and then Barney chirping that they were there.

"Did you fall asleep?" Barney asked, and reached out a hand to ruffle Paul's hair. Paul ducked away, clutching at the address in his hand, looking out at the house near the end of the cliff. It was built out from an old lighthouse, which still spiralled up at the top, and there was a light on in one of the lower rooms, a figure moving around.

"Will," Paul said, even though he didn't know if the figure was or not. He had resolved not to get his hopes up, but these were his last hopes. If this wasn't Will…

"Go," Barney urged, hanging back with Simon, and Paul threw one desperate look at the brothers, before steeling his face. He had to do this. There was no other option. It was what his mother wanted, her final, dying- oh god, dying – wish, and he would complete it, come hell or high water.

With bravado on his face that he did not feel, Paul walked over the front door and gave it two brisk raps. He warned himself it would not be Will, it would not be Will, and had so thoroughly convinced himself of that, when the door opened and Will blinked out at him.

At least, that's what Paul thought. The round face, the green and blue eyes, the curtain of brown hair slanting over his forehead… It was Will. But Mrs. Penhallow was right – it was a Will that had not aged a second. For a long moment, Paul entertained the crazy notion that this was Will, somehow caught in time, unable to age, an eternal Peter Pan… but the notion was too crazy, and this boy who was not Will was staring at him, with a strange compassion on his face.

"Can I help?" the boy asked. Paul stared for a second longer, finding it hard not to think of the boy as his brother. He shook his head briefly to clear it.

"Sorry about that," Paul said, as warmly as he could manage. "My name's Paul Stanton. I-" He looked briefly back over his shoulder, and almost fell back in surprise when he realised how close Barney had crept to stand beside him. Barney flittered a smile at him, and Paul turned back to the boy who looked so much like his younger brother. "I think I knew your father."

The boy tilted his head. "Paul Stanton," the boy said, as if rolling the name around his mouth. "The musician?" Paul blinked, startled. "My father spoke much of you," the boy said, stepping back a little.

"So you are Will Stanton's son?" Barney asked, his hand warm, flush against Paul's hip.

"Uh, yes, yes," the boy said, holding out his hand. Barney reached past Paul and shook it firmly, his hand grasping hold of cloth. The boy's sleeves were long and fell over most of the boy's hand. "I'm Joe Stanton. Will Stanton was my father."

"Was?" Paul blurted out the question, shaking, hating the way the boy – Joe – said it, a rush of dread washing over him, like warm water. He wasn't aware he'd lost the strength to stand up until he felt Barney's arms around him.

"Yes, was," Joe said, shifting uncomfortably. "I- I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but…" Joe paused, heavily. "Will's dead."

To be continued.