Chapter Text
Contrary to the popular belief, William Miller doesn’t count everything in his life.
He counts the important things. Things he can keep track of, where the individual instances are easy to tell apart. He also counts the important things in the lives of people he cares about, which usually means Benny, and to a lesser extent, Pope and Catfish too. And Redfly (shot five times, killed on sixth, he remembers vividly), though not anymore, along with some other people from his past.
The tricky thing is, most of the events people experience in life are not easily definable. Especially the the important ones. The nuances and context make it hard to classify them as either that or something else, and sometimes Will has to ask himself, does it count? He doesn’t always get himself an answer.
Sometimes it’s about counting. About repeating, experiencing once and again, and again, and again. About learning, steady and gradual, as the numbers go high.
Sometimes it’s about the moment he stops counting.
(Shot five times, and then once more.)
(The second, and the last, engagement anniversary.)
Sometimes it’s about counting to one. There are things that have importance not because they keep happening, but because they happened for the first time once, changed something with it. That first time is sometimes the only one worth remembering, the only one Will truly counts as it marks the transition between before and after.
Paying attention to quantity lets him watch the quality, observe the progress – or regress, depending on what’s being counted. The awareness makes him feel grateful when certain numbers don’t go up, makes him more careful when they do. It’s useful and practical, and Ironhead has learned a long time ago that he doesn’t need to explain himself or his habits to anyone.
In some cases – though that happens particularly rarely, and that’s why Ironhead forgets it ever does – the second time is more important than the first.
“Did you get the text?”
Will looks up from the bottle of beer he’s just opened and over his shoulder. They’re in Catfish’s kitchen, and even here, in his own home and his own space, Frankie seems tense, on edge. He always looks like that recently.
“You’ve texted?” Will furrows his brows, reaching into his back pocket for his cell phone. He must’ve missed something. “Sorry, I didn’t…”
“Not from me, Ironhead.”
Will freezes mid-movement. Frankie eyes are hard, face carefully expressionless as Ironhead stares at him searchingly for a long second before the understanding finally hits him.
“Pope.”
Fish’s silence is answer enough.
Will lets his hand drop to his side, then takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, making sure his tone is neutral when he opens his mouth again. “No, I didn’t get anything.”
The obvious implication hangs in the air around them, settling equally heavy and uncomfortable inside Will’s chest in a way he doesn’t want to examine too closely.
Catfish just nods. “Ben?”
Will turns around to face Fish fully, leans back against the counter. His eyes wander to the open doorway and the room beyond it, where the sounds of lively conversation are coming from. Two women’s voices, two loud, excited ones of Frankie’s kids, Benny’s deep rumble clear underneath them all.
“I don’t think so,” Ironhead replies, hating that he can’t do it with usual certainty.
He’d like to believe his brother would’ve told him if he got a text from Pope, but right now he can’t be sure. The last time any of them has mentioned Santiago, Benny’s ended up spending the night at his girlfriend’s place. He moved out a month later.
Pulling himself out of his own thoughts, Ironhead looks back at Catfish. “So, he’s okay?”
“Far from it. I mean, yeah,” Fish adds quickly when Will straightens instinctively, “he’s all right, but can you believe it? That dickhead never left South America.”
Frankie’s angry, Ironhead realizes, watching the set of Catfish’s jaw and how his arms are crossed tightly over his chest. And then he feels his own fingers, stiff where they’re wrapped around the bottle a bit too hard, and realizes he’s angry too.
“Fuck me,” he mutters.
“Exactly. He’s got a death wish and he’s one lucky fucker to be alive, but I guess he’s fine.”
That leaves one other question.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Not really.” Catfish jerks his shoulder in a shrug, looking away. “Asked how things are going here and that’s all, more or less.”
Ironhead hums in response. He’s never told Catfish or Benny about the coordinates, about the possibility of coming back for the money they’ve left in the mountains. Feels weird to keep it for himself now, but at the same time, Will has a strange feeling Fish isn’t entirely honest with him either.
“You think he wants to come back to the States?”
“I don’t know what to think, man,” Catfish admits, and he sounds resigned. “But it looks like he’s just checking in. Don’t worry about it, I just thought I’d ask.”
Will nods, turning back to the counter. “Yeah, sure.” He grabs the bottles from the counter, and with a beer in each hand he tilts his head towards Frankie’s living room questioningly.
Catfish stares at him for a moment longer, expression unreadable, but when it’s obvious Will has nothing else to say to him, he moves to take the remaining two bottles and leads the way out of the kitchen.
They don’t speak about Pope again.
A week passes uneventfully, and half of the next one too.
Then Will leaves for the tour as planned, spends four days on road giving one speech after another until they blend in together and Will can tell them apart only because of the number he associates with each of them. When he comes home on the fifth day, he’s got one more local speech scheduled.
Catfish has thrown him out of balance that day two weeks ago, Will has to admit, but he’s somehow managed not to think about Pope much. Most importantly, he managed not to expect anything. So when he walks into the room and stands in front of those young soldiers, fresh out of training, brave and ambitious and unaware of what’s waiting for them, he keeps his eyes firmly on the front rows.
He goes through the words he knows so well, ones he still means despite his desecrated vows. He speaks of violence past, recent and present. Speaks of pride, of service to the country that doesn’t care about him or people like him much, and certainly won’t care about the next bunch of scarred, traumatized men and women who have trouble sleeping at night.
The applause at the end dies down. One hundred thirty-one speeches, forty-six if he counts the updated version. Will smiles at the few wide-eyed soldiers that linger at their desks and wishes them good luck, squeezing past them to the back of the room. He doesn’t dare to hope, to even entertain the thought of seeing Pope again.
And yet, Will looks up and Pope is there. Just like last time.
He moves before he can think, acting on easy joy and habits of old friendship. The papers he holds get dropped on the nearest surface, and Ironhead hears himself laugh as he closes the distance that separates him from Pope. They meet in the middle.
There’s more gray in Pope’s dark curls. He’s a bit thinner than Will remembers, but still solid in his arms, all compact muscles and functional strength. He smells of wood and spice and himself.
“Good to see you,” Will tells him, and only then he can take a step back. “How you’ve been?”
Pope looks tired even if when he smiles, but his eyes are sharp as always, the same warm hue of brown. He asks about the speeches, a really good parallel to the time he showed up over a year ago, and Ironhead can hear the unspoken in his tone clearly. Whatever Pope’s plans are, he’s here, and that’s what matters. They’ll have the time to talk.
Ironhead takes the opportunity to half-heartedly tease Pope about his hair, long enough to curl behind his ears and fall over his forehead. He looks different, but just as good, and it’s a simple fact, so Will tells him that, too. When Pope chuckles, it sounds genuine and alarmingly tentative at the same time, a weird combination that makes Will suspect Santiago hasn’t had many reasons to laugh lately. Not that he expected otherwise.
But Pope is home again, in the USA and within his arm’s reach, and Ironhead thinks, two.