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“Was this here before?”
“What was?”
Alison pointed at a narrow white door right next to them. “This door. I’ve never noticed it before…”
Mike looked at it suspiciously. Clearly he had never seen the door before either, but he just shrugged and said: “I don't know, is it really that weird that you haven't seen it, this house is huge !”
Well, he has a point, Alison thought.
Alison opened the door to reveal… darkness.
“Give me your phone, I need a light.”
“Sure,” Mike said and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Alison turned the flashlight on and shone it into the room. It illuminated a huge stack of those weird boxes that people use to store documents and stuff. On most of them it was even written - 'documents'. on one box it was written - 'dokumnts'.
“Oh, I think it's just like a closet or something. There are a lot of old boxes.”
She turned to Mike, but found no one.
“O…k?” Alison was a bit confused, but quickly decided that he had probably just wandered off somewhere else again. Well, she couldn't really be bothered, because honestly the closet interested her way more than Mike's whereabouts.
She got very curious, so she took the nearest box to the library. There she sat down at the table to check it out. She carefully opened the lid and was terribly surprised to see… a lot of files with documents. So unexpected.
The file on top was dated 1943.
“They're from World War Two,” she muttered to herself.
Suddenly a voice over her shoulder exclaimed: “Did you say 'war'?!”
Alison jumped, her heart racing. She turned around fully ready to fight someone, but calmed down as her head cleared and she realised it was just the Captain. Of course, he had run into the room at the first mention of war.
“Y-yes,” she stuttered a bit, “I found this closet in the west wing and it's full of boxes. I think this one is from the time you worked here,” Alison smiled gently and looked at the Captain.
He had this peculiar look in his eyes she couldn't quite work out. He looked like the box interested him, actually he looked like it interested him very much, but at the same time it scared him a bit?
“Do you want to look at it together?” she offered.
The Captain thought for a moment, but came to a decision pretty quickly. He silently nodded and sat down next to her.
They sat there for quite a while.
One after another Alison took the files out of the box and they looked through them together. Some were just some official documents, some had pictures - of the Button house and of the soldiers that worked there.
The Captain explained what each of the documents meant, sometimes delving further into his memories and starting telling some very interesting stories from his life. He pointed out people in the pictures and told everything he knew and remembered about them. He also told which people he liked, which he didn’t like that much, he reminisced about the friends he made while in training and later in life.
After a while Alison noticed the Captain relaxing more and more, forgetting about his very military, strict personality and showing his softer, more adorable side. She had always loved when he let this side shine through.
While he talked, he sometimes did little skits, impersonating his old friends and coworkers, to better visualise the adventures they had. Once he even sang her a song that had been stuck in his head 80 years ago.
It was all quite adorable. Alison had never thought she could have this much fun alone with the Captain.
He had been enthusiastically telling her about a prank that his soldiers pulled on him, when Alison reached in the box again and pulled out a picture of a young soldier standing next to the lake and smiling softly at the photographer.
“He’s kinda cute,” she said.
The Captain who had had a lot of fun telling the story, was a bit distraught when she interrupted him. “Who is?” he asked irritatingly.
Alison showed him the picture. She had thought that the Captain would smile again, just as he had smiled seeing all the other pictures of his old friends, and then he would proceed to tell her every detail about it.
Instead the Captain’s face froze the moment he saw it. He didn’t say a word. His expression was completely unreadable.
Had she just found a picture of his archenemy or something? Or maybe… no, that’s impossible.
Alison hurried to put the picture away so that she could get the happy, soft Captain back.
“Wait!” he cried. “Leave it.”
She was a bit confused, but did what he asked. She put it right in front of him. For a moment Alison just watched the Captain while he looked at the picture.
Oh, well, I guess I broke him , she thought and returned to the contents of the box. She wasn't very worried, because, truth be told, all of her ghosts tended to act a bit… weird.
For a while, Alison continued exploring the documents and analysing pictures, while the Captain was clearly having some sort of existential crisis. But after a couple of minutes her curiosity peaked and she couldn't take it anymore.
“Er… Captain?”
“Hmm?” he muttered.
“Who… who is he?”
A moment of silence, then - -
“Lieutenant Havers.”
“Riiight, you’ve mentioned him. Your second in command, yes?”
“Mhm.”
Alison couldn’t see the Captain's face from this angle, maybe she was pushing too far, but she decided to just go for it. “You said that he left y- he left for the front.”
“Mmm,” Captain let out an affirmative noise, but didn’t say anything else.
What was I expecting, Alison thought. Clearly he is not going to tell her more. If he would’ve wanted to tell, he would’ve told her. She rolled her eyes and picked up the paper she had been reading, when suddenly - -
“I- I loved him,” the Captain said very quietly.
Alison’s thoughts were all over the place, as she tried to grasp what had just happened. Oh my god, did he just… has he finally accepted himself? Wait! Maybe not. “Did you… did you love him like I love Kitty… or like I love Mike?”
The Captain was silent for a moment. Maybe he really was thinking about the answer, maybe he was just trying to gather his courage to say something he already knew. Had known for a very long time.
He raised his head, a terrified but determined look in his eyes: “Like you love Mike. I loved Havers like you love Mike, Alison. I'm gay.”
Alison was filled with pride instantly. She didn’t know if the Captain himself actually realised how brave he had just been. He finally admitted it and he trusts me enough to tell me about it, she thought. She felt tears pricking her eyes.
“That’s beautiful, Captain. I hope you know you have nothing to be ashamed or scared of. It’s okay.”
A sad smile appeared on the Captain's face. He looked relieved, like a boulder the size of the Button house had just dropped off his shoulders.
“I know,” he said.
Alison almost put her hand on his, you know, for comfort, when she remembered that he’s a ghost. Nevertheless - -
“Cap, I'm so proud of you… I really want to give you a hug.”
The Captain chuckled: “Good Lord… Better not.”
Suddenly they both heard an excited squeal behind them. They turned their heads and saw Kitty, Pat and Robin standing in the doorway. Kitty was the one squealing, obviously. She ran to the Captain, knelt down next to his chair and gave him the biggest, warmest hug ever.
“Wha-“ the Captain exclaimed in surprise, but soon melted into the hug.
Noticing everyone’s confusion, Pat explained: “We were watching Youtube upstairs, but something happened to the Internet, and we- we came looking for you.” He wiped a tear off his cheek. “Then we overheard a bit of your conversation.”
“Finally!” Robin exclaimed and came into the library. “We think you never tell.”
“ROBIN!” Alison and Pat yelled simultaneously. “You can’t say that!”
“It’s all right,” the Captain murmured, his face buried somewhere in Kitty’s shoulder. He released himself from the embrace, stood up from the chair and straightened his uniform. “I knew you knew.”
“You just needed some time to accept that part of yourself,” Pat said.
The Captain looked Pat in the eyes and nodded ever so slightly. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Not today.
Luckily, the clock in the hallway struck six o’clock.
“Bally hell, we were supposed to muster in the living room for Fanny’s speech about the Sherlock Holmes book she's been reading!” the Captain exclaimed. He assumed his war captain posture again and pointed at the library door with his stick: “Everyone, let’s be hasty.”