Chapter Text
You could have said that the Captain was in a bit of a tizzy. Of course, if you did actually say that, you would have been wrong. The Captain, you see, wasn’t the type to get upset over trifles, quite the opposite, and he most certainly did not get into tizzies! Needless to say, this was a matter of the gravest significance, with ramifications that would spread far indeed.
“What on earth do you mean, they’ve taken it off the air?!”
“Well, it’s a figure of speech actually!” Interjected Pat cheerfully. “It means they aren’t broadcasting it at the moment.”
“I know what it means!” The Captain snapped, a little harshly upon reflection but these were desperate times. “How can they just replace it like that? This is vital material! Educational! Informative! It’s core to their programming- one of the best, if not the best series the History Channel has to offer! To do away with it like that is criminal!”
Allison shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t so… popular. Not a lot of interest in tank battles these days after all.”
“Damn popularity, it’s a matter of principle! I will not stand for this, I will not! You must write to the channel at once! I insist upon it!”
“Not sure they’ll pay much attention- just one viewer isn’t going to make the difference.”
“Allison,” He beseeched her. “Principle. We cannot let ourselves be overwhelmed by our foes so easily!”
“Fine.” She relented. “I’ll write in when I have the time. But the programme they replaced it with can’t be so bad, can it? It’s still about the war- should be right up your street?”
The Captain reeled. “In The Aftermath: Our Lives After The War has none of the integrity of its predecessor! Why on earth would I want to hear about what people did after the War? It isn’t pertinent, in fact, it’s impertinent! The two cannot be compared!”
He nodded to himself, quite carried away in his own anger. Why, after all, would he want to watch a program about people who survived the war? It was like it had been conjured expressly to irritate ghosts. He couldn’t hate those who appeared on it, he would not begrudge them their lives. But that certainly didn’t mean he had to watch it, to suffer the ignominy. To have missed the chance to lay down his life for his country, as well as the life that there was to be lived when it was all over; that was hard to bear sometimes. He was not going to let some silly little producer’s mistake drain the pain out of him like a dropped stitch in a scarf. To let them unravel him would be folly indeed.
Allison was making an odd face, as if unsatisfied with his answer. “You never know until you’ve given it a try. You might enjoy it more than you think.”
The Captain huffed. “Unlikely.”
He did not watch the television that day, he would not be worn down so easily. He did spend a while listening to the wireless with Julian, but it couldn’t have been anything notable because none of it stuck- he could not recount a word of it to anyone who might ask (not that they did).
It seemed he had been driven to distraction, he couldn’t help but think as he lay in his bed that night. And it wasn’t just because the History channel had made the worst decision in their own history, damn them. He couldn’t help but wonder what sort of life he would have led after it was all over. Would he have stayed in the army? He’d been sure of that sort of thing once. That was a long time ago, though, and it was easy to think about that sort of thing when it was a far off prospect. Of course it still was technically, but it was a missed one. He had decided that he simply wouldn’t think about it, and he hadn’t for so very long. He was caught with it now though. Would he have settled down? Resigned himself to shuffle papers in some dusty corner of a government building? There might have been a family, and a wife. Could there have been a woman? Some kind of exception to a very sordid rule? Deep down he doubted it but he could not deny that it might have happened. Maybe it wouldn't have been so very dreadful as he had always thought. And that was just one possibility.
Maybe he would have done... something else.
There were other options that could have happened, choices he might have had to make, in a dream within a dream. Things that called out to him more, even if they were on a path that was for the brave and the foolhardy only, and he had wondered for a long time about his ability to be brave.
It wasn't about his ability to be brave per se. In the heat of battle things were different, a split seconds decision was what separated glory and cowardice, that first thought that sprung up in your mind and you followed it audaciously, with no time to think otherwise. Sometimes he wondered if it wasn’t harder to be brave in the cold, sober light of day, with a thousand anxieties bearing down upon you, every impulse jarring against each other. Every second, and hour, and day to reconsider. To him at least, that sort of bravery had always come the hardest to him.
As the moon cast a patina of light through the curtains and across his room, he wondered if it would seem awfully hypocritical to watch that programme after all. Then again, was it not in many ways a sign of humility to cast an open mind on such things?
Hang appearances, he decided on reflection. It wasn’t like it mattered after all- he would simply watch ‘In The Aftermath’ and judge accordingly. He nodded to himself. His plan of action was decided. For now he would rest.