Archive of Our Own

Alex can’t actually believe he’s made it through secondary school at all, the majority of his grades 4s or 5s. His last day of school, surprisingly uneventful – the signing of shirts, the speeches and the flashes of a camera marking a milestone he thought he’d never reach. Y11 came swarming out of the building in droves: torrents of colour, streaming chatter and laughter in anticipation of a three-month summer.

Except for him. He doubted that his summer holidays would be much of a holiday. Now, without school to tie him down anymore, there was nothing to stop MI6 from doing as they pleased with him if they so chose. Even his classmates, who couldn’t help stick their noses into his business, had eventually moved on. By the last half of the summer term, there wasn’t even so much as a whisper about him – too busy with their own futures; if he just disappeared, nobody would think to look for him. Even Tom, who had always made time for Alex, was swamped with transition work for A-Levels and declined their weekly hangout.

The weather’s been pleasantly warm this week, as summer neared the start of a close. Jack’s kicked him out of the house, something about him not getting enough sun. So now he’s strolling down the streets of London, a gentle breeze pausing to ruffle his hair as he wandered through the city mindlessly. He didn’t have any idea where his feet were taking him until he drifted into focus, stopping at the entrance of Brompton Cemetery.

Oh. Alex realised he’d never actually visited his uncle at all since his funeral, since MI6 had seen fit to drag him into their messes.

In he went, between two mausoleums, past Henry Pettitt’s monument; stone crucifixes scattered the ground either side of him. Trees of different shapes and sizes, leaves various shades of green, towering above. Occasionally, he’d see a sculpted angel. He saw the Family Vault of Herbert Fitch, and even caught a glimpse of the Tomb of Frederick Richards Leyland. A chest made of Portland stone sat on short Romanesque piers with cushion capitals, with a copper roof worked to suggest fish scales. Low-relief floral scrolls climbed up the sides: copper ivy leaves sprouting from whimsical whorls on the taller sides, vaguely bell-shaped flowers bloomed from detailed curves on the wider sides. It was probably the most extravagant grave Alex had ever seen.

Foxgloves and broad-leaved everlasting peas were in season – pinks, whites and the slender summer branches of the common horsetail peppered green grass; butterflies fluttered freely while grey squirrels darted up trees and out of sight. Funny how a place made to house the dead had become teeming with life, a graveyard remade into a garden.

Soon enough, he reached Ian’s grave. Alex sat down, deciding it was best to be closer for this.

"Hello, Ian."

Leaning back, he could almost imagine it was his uncle’s back – flesh under fabric for stone, slumped against each other as they sat on top of Stob Dearg, the highest peak of the Buachaille Etive Mòr.

"I’ve finished secondary school. Um, I got my GCSE results last week. Got 9s for all my modern foreign languages so I guess all your language lessons paid off, huh? Not sure what I’ll do now."

Alex can’t remember conversation between them ever being this stilted. As a young child, he had always felt a general easiness with Ian. With one interlocutor who couldn’t find his words and the other dead, the unsteadily one-sided conversation quickly dwindled into nothing. When the hell had that ever happened? It’s like they had never known each other. And he supposed, that with all the family secrets between them, they probably never did. Even the dead, who can’t do anything, no longer seemed to be the same.

Or maybe, this morning you didn’t even recognise yourself in the mirror, that was just him.