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They decide that they’ll wait a year. Not the anniversary date of Kentucky, or V-Day, but a year from the day Eggsy and Merlin find Harry still alive and comatose in a corner of an overcrowded American hospital. It’s an arbitrary difference of three days, but Eggsy doesn’t care. He wants to give Harry every chance he can get.
-
Eggsy spends most of the first month recovering from V-Day injuries and loitering by Harry’s bedside, often sharing inane conversations with Merlin when Merlin can afford to nip over in-between putting Kingsman and the world back together.
By the time Eggsy’s health is fully recovered and he’s ready to go out on the field, Harry still hasn’t woken up.
That’s alright. They still have a lot of time, after all.
-
The second month is when Eggsy realizes that the new house he’s gotten for his family isn’t where he spends even a third of his time. Between missions and spending all of his free time at HQ, either working out or sitting in the medical bay, he rarely goes home and when he does, it’s only to sleep.
His mum thinks he’s got a girl. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that what he’s got is a man who won’t wake up, who won’t know how badly Eggsy’s arse over tits for him until he wakes up.
On the nights Eggsy spends in his brand new bedroom, staring up at the beige ceiling, he feels unsettled and alone, unmoored in an alien land. He sleeps restlessly and slouches all the way back to HQ, until he sits by Harry’s bed and feels a little better, eyes slipping closed to the sound of Harry’s heartbeat monitor.
-
Month three, Eggsy spends in fucking Madagascar. He’s not sure if it’s the heat getting to him, but his chest feels tight sometimes, when he thinks of Harry.
He tries not to think about Harry too much.
-
The fourth month is when Harry woke up last time, after the Professor Arnold incident, so Eggsy feels his hope climb up bit by bit, day after day. He makes it a point to stop by Harry’s bed every day unless he’s abroad on a mission, and he even holds Harry’s hand now, like the poor lovesick sod he is, in hopes that the contact will do something and wake Harry up.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” Eggsy says, because he’s been talking to Harry an awful lot but he’s still been keeping the most important part for later. “But I can’t tell you until you wake up.”
Eggsy hopes and hopes and hopes, then feels the hope crash and burn inside of him when the fourth month ends.
-
Eggsy spends the next month angry. At the world. At Valentine. At Harry.
At himself.
He doesn’t visit Harry for weeks, forcing himself to work himself to the bone until Roxy sends him worried looks and Merlin tells him to take it easy, then spending as much time as he can at home, looking after Daisy and listening to his mum tell him about how her new job is going at the local bakery. She’s happier, and Daisy’s growing bigger, and Eggsy still feels empty.
He finally goes back to the medical bay and clutches Harry’s hand until his knuckles turn white, hating himself for leaving Harry alone. Hating himself for feeling more at home than with his own family.
“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” Eggsy says between hitched breaths, crying like it’s the first month all over again
-
This obsession and dependency thing with Harry isn’t healthy, Eggsy knows, so he decides to set some boundaries. He visits Harry only three times a week, no more than two hours per visit, and the rest of the time he tries to divvy up between being a fantastic agent and a good son and a functional human being.
He’s pretty great at the first, moderately okay with the second, and shitty at being the third. He only feels like he’s a proper human being when he’s sitting by Harry’s bed, watching Harry’s chest rise and fall. Which then kinda leads to the self-loathing crashing all over Eggsy again, so he goes out to a seedy club or some sort, finds a willing bloke or bird to fuck it out of him.
It’s not like Eggsy’s saving himself for Harry, because for all he knows Harry might not want him anyway, but he still hates going back to Harry with anybody else’s marks on himself.
-
Month #7 and #8 blur together because of Eggsy’s deep undercover mission in Minsk, but there’s a part deep inside of him that thinks maybe, just maybe.
-
Midway through month #9, still in fucking Minsk, Eggsy gets shot.
-
Eggsy wakes up at the end of month #10, with Merlin looking at him with a wrecked look in his eyes and saying, “I can’t have both of you doing this to me,” which is how Eggsy knows Harry didn’t wake up yet after all.
-
It’s the eleventh month and Harry still won’t wake up. It’s been eleven months since Eggsy last talked to Harry and he thinks he might forget Harry’s voice, at this rate.
“If you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to molest you, I swear,” Eggsy says.
He wonders if Harry will wake up if Eggsy kisses him. Like Sleeping Beauty. Like Snow White. If it’ll turn out to be that kind of movie, if Eggsy just tried.
“Seriously, wake the fuck up, you posh tosser.” Eggsy insists, because maybe if he insults Harry just right, he’ll wake up from the indignation alone. “Wake up and teach me some manners, you fucker.”
He doesn’t kiss Harry because it feels too much like a last resort. Like a farewell.
-
When the promised twelfth month begins, Eggsy can’t bring himself to stay away. He takes the easy, short day jobs that will let him return to HQ within twenty-four hours and he lies to his mum about a month-long business trip so he can spend all his spare time in the medical bay. As if the proximity will make Harry wake up.
Eggsy spends every day at Harry’s side, terrified that it’s not a matter of when Harry will wake up, but if. Terrified that Harry never will.
Merlin doesn’t stop him from staying, and that’s the most terrifying thing of all.
-
If Eggsy’s going to lose Harry either way, he wants Harry to open his eyes, just one more time. If even for only an hour, maybe even only ten minutes. He wants to hear Harry say Eggsy’s name just one last time. Just wants to tell Harry that he’s sorry, that he loves him, that if home is where the heart is, Harry is Eggsy’s home. That Eggsy’ll never have a home again after Harry’s gone, because Harry’ll be taking Eggsy’s heart with him.
-
Eggsy watches the clock tick down, the last of the sand trickling to the bottom of the hourglass, and the rest of the world greets the anniversary of V-Day with a sombre gloom.
He can’t sleep, keeps jolting awake whenever he sees the gun aimed at Harry’s temple, hearing gunshots echoing in the darkness. The steady beep-beep of the heart monitor sickens him, out of nowhere, and he runs from the medical bay and goes to Roxy’s room, his heart beating itself against his ribcage, bruising itself into a bloody mess.
“He isn’t gonna wake up,” Eggsy gasps, half-sobbing, and crumples in Roxy’s arms. “He isn’t gonna wake up, Rox. Oh god, he’s never goin’ to wake up—”
Roxy holds him tight and doesn’t say a word.
“I love him,” Eggsy says, and it hurts to say it out loud. “I love him and we’re pullin’ the plug in three days. I can’t do this, I can’t.”
He cries himself hoarse and then stays curled up next to Roxy until the pull to Harry becomes unbearable, the distance suffocating him. He refuses Roxy’s offer to accompany him and returns to the medical bay alone. He crawls into Harry’s bed and threatens and cajoles and bargains, pulls every single last resort he has.
“Wake up,” Eggsy begs. “Wake up. Please, wake up. Wake up.”
He presses his forehead against Harry’s and cries, pleading, “Wake up, Harry. You gotta wake up.” He presses his lips to Harry’s hard, once, then twice, as if he can give life to Harry, bring him back just with that.
“I love you,” Eggsy says against Harry’s unresponsive mouth. “Please kiss me back.”
-
Harry doesn’t wake up.
-
“We’re out of time,” Merlin says.
One day more, Eggsy almost goes to his knees and begs. He knows that he can’t keep begging for another day, another week. He knows that he’ll never be able to move forward with his life with Harry to return to, that it’s the worst kind of life to be bound to a man who might never return to the land of the living.
He has to let go. Walk away. He has to say goodbye.
“One day more,” Eggsy begs anyway, because he doesn’t have his fucking pride anymore. Because he can’t let Harry go. Because if he’s going to watch his home burn down, he’ll burn with it.
Eggsy sees the exact moment Merlin wavers, torn between obligation and his bonds with Eggsy and Harry, and he very deliberately adds, “Please.”
Merlin wavers only a moment more before sighing and giving in. “Only twenty-four hours, Eggsy. No more.”
“I know,” Eggsy says, and presses dry lips to Harry’s knuckles.
-
Merlin bans him from Harry’s bedside until he’s rested and fed. Eggsy doesn’t fight him; he knows Merlin needs the privacy before he loses one of his closest friends. So he obediently crawls into his own bed in his own room for a fitful few hours of sleep.
By the time Eggsy’s back, sitting in the familiar chair next to Harry’s bed, there’s a heavy sense of dread in his stomach. The seconds keep ticking away while he sits in silence, while he talks about inane things, while he suggests to Harry to open his eyes, while he waits and waits and waits.
Eggsy eventually steels himself for their last conversation.
“I don’t know how to say goodbye to you,” he admits. He takes Harry’s hand and clasps it between his own, tries to memorize the calluses and the warmth, the length of each finger. The bump of each knuckle. “Come to think of it, I’ve never said it to you before. You always just—walked away. Or dismissed me. But we never, you know, said goodbye. Farewell. We’ve never done that.”
Harry looks like he’s fast asleep. Like he could wake at any moment. His hair is trimmed to a manageable length and he’s mostly clean-shaven, something Eggsy’s been making sure of out of sheer bloody hope, and the breathing tube and bandages were unneeded since the fifth month. It hurts to look at him, so Eggsy looks down at Harry’s hand instead.
“And the thing is, I never thought I’d have to say goodbye to you. I thought you’d come back. I thought that you were invincible or something, like nothin’ could kill you. I mean—I knew you’re human, and that whole Professor Arnold thing. I knew you could get injured. But I just, I don’t know.” He tries to swallow down the lump in his throat. “You’re my hero, Harry. You changed my life, you saved my life, and you’re the first person who ever really believed in me. First one who saw somethin’ in me.”
He tries not to choke on his words. “And fuck, Harry, I’m sorry that I made you think you ruined my life. What happened to my dad wasn’t your damn fault, and it ain’t fair that you’re gonna die thinkin’ that I think of you like some freak.”
Hot tears streak their way down his cheeks, drip from his chin to the back of Harry’s hand. It feels like Eggsy’s entire body is fracturing, crumbling apart.
“It ain’t fair that we didn’t say goodbye,” Eggsy says, his voice breaking.
He lowers his head, presses his forehead to the back of Harry’s hand, and squeezes his eyes shut, tries to weather the pain and anger and misery that floods through him. Waits until he’s drained.
When his breathing is finally somewhat back to normal, Eggsy clears his throat. “So I’m gonna do it properly.”
He raises his head, makes himself look at Harry’s face. Takes a deep breath.
“Harry Hart, you walked into my life and changed everything, and it hurts like hell to have you walk out of it when I haven’t even been able to thank you for it all. I’m going to miss you. I spent my entire life waiting for you, even if I didn’t know it, but that was what I was doing. Waiting until I could fall in love with you. And now I’m going to love you til my dying day, and don’t you fuckin’ think that I’ll ever stop. I might stop hurting over you, might even find someone else some day, but I’ll never stop missing you.”
He raises Harry’s hand, turns it to press a soft kiss to the palm. “I’m going to love you for every single day of my life.”
A sharp pulse of hurt lances through him, the thought that this might be the very last time he might be able to touch Harry, and he feels like a child again. Helpless, watching his mum cry on the sofa, his dad never to come home. Like he’s very small in a very big world, watching the love of his life getting shot in the head, an ocean away.
Feeling six years old again, Eggsy impulsively undoes the chain around his neck and presses the medal he’s carried for eighteen years into Harry’s hands, closes his fingers around it, and presses his mouth to Harry’s fist. Whispers a prayer.
“Oxfords, not Brogues.”
I need you.
No miracle happens. It was a one-time favor, after all.
“Take care of this.” Eggsy places Harry’s hand, still clasping the medal, back to Harry’s side. He wants Harry to keep it. “I’m gonna ask you to give it back to me, some day.”
He stands up, leans over the bed to press a lingering kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth.
“Goodbye, Harry.”
Eggsy straightens up, rubs his face with two tired hands, and takes a long moment to look at Harry one more time. One last time.
Finally, he walks around the bed and makes himself head to the infirmary door, where he knows Merlin will be waiting. He has to let Merlin in, has to watch Harry takes his last breath, has to—
Behind him, he hears the dull sound of something clattering to the floor.
Eggsy freezes.
Maybe—what if—
Slowly, Eggsy turns around, his heart in his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears, his blood running hot with the delirious possibility of seeing Harry’s eyes open, the moment Eggsy’s been waiting for all this time. He turns.
Harry—
—hasn’t woken up. His eyes are still closed.
All the energy that was building up in Eggsy collapses and fizzles out, the disappointment flooding through him first, then the exasperation. What was he expecting anyway? Stupid. He’s an idiot. After all this time, he still can’t give up.
Eggsy walks over to Harry, looking for any indication of where the sound came from. He reaches Harry’s bedside, and for a moment he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Then, he notices Harry’s hand, open and hanging just over the edge of the bed. When Eggsy leans over Harry, he can see that the medal is on the floor. That must have been what caused the sound.
Which meant that Harry had moved.
“Merlin,” Eggsy says, head spinning. Louder, “Merlin, get in here—”
He leans back, ready to shout at the medical bay door when he catches sight of the corner of Harry’s mouth twitching, and he forgets to speak. Just stares, as another muscle in Harry’s jaw twitches, then watched Harry’s brow furrow. Hears a louder, noisier hitch as Harry draws in a sharp inhale.
And then, Harry blinks his eyes open, slowly, miraculously. Like an answer to a prayer.
After a long moment, Harry rasps, voice barely managing more than a whisper, “Hello, Eggsy.”
All the breath rushes out of Eggsy’s lungs. The world halts to a standstill, and he remembers, with startling clarity, the first time Harry ever said those words, when Eggsy was young and helpless and watched Harry walk away without so much as a goodbye. Ever since then, Harry’s never said hello. Just always walked into Eggsy’s life then walked out, like every meeting was just an extension of the previous one.
And now. Now it’s almost like the beginning, all over again. Like starting over.
A second chance.
Eggsy breathes in again, breathes out. Inhales. Lets a smile spread, precarious and wobbly, lets it anchor itself into a more solid, joyous thing. Says, “Hello, Harry.”
The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches upward, in a rough semblance of a smile, and the world restarts around them. Eggsy hears the beeping of the heart monitor, feels his fingertips tingle, watches the warmth in Harry’s eyes, and his heart thuds against his chest, like it knows it’s back home.
Eggsy laughs, without regret or sorrow or the weight of time cracking him open, for the first time in a year, and he takes a step closer, doesn’t bother calling in Merlin yet. Merlin can wait, for just one more minute.
“I have something to tell you,” Eggsy says, sitting down on the bedside, taking Harry’s hand and squeezing it.
Eggsy’s done with waiting.