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Colin has tried to make sense of it many, many times since it happened. In that time he’s got very good at lying, or obfuscating, to be accurate. If he’s learned anything from historical studies it’s the importance of the words one chooses. The rest of it he worked out too late to be of use when he needed it most. This fact must be true of more things than he realizes at present, as the rate at which he is joining up remembered dots indicates. Implies. Is possibly indicative of. Colin shakes his head and doesn’t shudder.
All the time spent sedentary and hunched over will not be improved by uncontrolled shifting. He has learned quite a bit about unnecessary movement and its suppression. He can admit that most of this has nothing to do with his height nor with the breadth of his shoulders. Colin sighs, slow and measured to his heartbeat, and stretches up to step inside. By now he doesn’t need to pay attention to keep from knocking anything against the threshold.
Inside his notes are where he left them, undisturbed by gusts. A quirk of his mouth comes unbidden. It is now an old gesture noting a familiar contrast. Colin moves aside the dish of gobstoppers.
Yes, he’s already taken the one out for today. Can’t remember where he left it, but no matter. Gobstoppers belong to both times. The taste of lint belongs to Before. The rush of saliva around the cavity surrounding each ball belongs to After. And to now, on those occasions when he can convince the memories to stave off the nausea. He hasn’t found a way to keep his guts happy about it in ten years.
Colin brushes a feather off the seat and leans against the corner of the desk. He presses his hand down firm and slow to battle away the shimmer of shorter youth trying to coax him into perching and falling. He doesn’t notice that he’s thumbed the paper out of the way of sweat stains until he’s frowning down at the skew at the bottom of the nearest pile. He shoves away and crosses to the board. The flipside already has the note added. throw the papers everywhere Clear and clean at the bottom of the list for the New After. Colin gives up and flops down. Not tonight.
He bends above the waist and extends below and then he’s on his side looking at nothing.
Colin knows nearly everything there is to know about the time when the Black Death came to Ashencoate. There is so much fascination about the worst parts of the past. The more to appreciate the glories of the present the sayings insist. It took him a while to settle on what he said and what he evaded and what was obfuscation and which were inventions. His memories were no help. He was told that the drugs did that by design. They once mentioned a way to reverse some of it. He walked out. The noise of it is what he has inferred kept it from being brought up again.
“Blood!” Never looked up the 14th century words to go with that.
“Blood!” The rustle goes with it.
He drops his arm away and feels the rug scud across his wrist. “You don’t need those papers for this, Templer. Bloody, apocalyptic idiot.”
Surgery report for James T. Dunworthy. Attached as supplement to his application to read History at Christ Church, University of Oxford. Excision of hybrid avian appendage by bone amputation, surgical restructuring of muscle, and skin grafting. Approved by parents based on the recommendation of consulting specialist.
The pain was never familiar. Had he even known? There had been the soon well-known “Hmmm” when Colin had mentioned the constant ache in his bones. The first time, maybe as many as the first ten times?
Dunworthy had handed him another biscuit, or cake, or tea at least once. The tea was likely a confusion of one memory with another. No comment on poor diet. Colin remembers a few of those comments. His startlement in those moments had flicked the switch to light up the past instances from hindsight. His confusion when the Don had not continued with a reason had turned the light searing and etched the memories deep. The memory of the pain was more worn than anything else.
Colin rustles with intent this time as he switches sides on the floor. Other sharp memories were random things that must have been important to his child self. He thinks of them as the things he hung onto so that he could turn them over and over in the place of a gobstopper during the first year as the hormones surged and he made himself accustom to the ache.
“Colin!”
Colin comes upright.
“Badri says they’ve got a fix.”
He doesn’t react to the blink of surprise. Her eyes widen as he feels the control he worked so hard for bunch through his muscles and bring them to resting position. Colin catches the few strays as they waft down like golden ash. He tucks them into his pocket and meets her eyes. “Sorry. I haven’t had much chance to groom them properly lately.”
She lowers her hand back to her waist. “I thought you’d want to come.”
“Let me go over the supplies and I’ll meet you at wardrobe.”
He can feel his face echo her manic grin. This it it. Colin loosens and rushes after her. He’ll be the Colin Dunworthy will remember on the race to get there.
I’ll make him show me the scars.
No. No. Colin gets to be Ashencoate Colin for this. Colin of the pandemic and Aunt Mary’s funeral and rushing to Balliol instead of staying and studying at Eton. He’ll be the Colin who determined ten years ago that he’d be Polly’s man always. He can be both the older version and Dunworthy’s Colin. He doesn’t have to think about the past or the future until it’s done.
The wind rushes and whips up bits of paper around her and Colin laughs at her scared and exhilarated face. He flexes and splays his feathers and takes himself faster and higher with his 14th century wings. He makes no sound when his feet touch the roof and his giggles make up for the thud everyone expects. Colin Templer sounds like the boy he was in the body of the man he’s become. His wings are stretched as far as they will open in the air above the dreaming spires.
Colin waits. He ought to be free here before he goes down. He’s waited fifteen years to fulfill the promise of a fever dream. The door slams below. Colin folds his wings and lets the memory slide away. Disappointment has no place until he knows that they’ve succeeded. There is nothing else. Not now.
The shimmer of the net fades. Colin stumbles and catches himself against stone. He shakes. It’s all here juddering through him and he should have known that the feel of the net would be what brought it back. The part of him that’s grown connects the pieces and sees the image of the puzzle come clear. All those uneventful trips to the past over all their many years of research had convinced him that the net was not a trigger. The boy in him - the boys, the Ashencoate and the Eton, the one who rescued Kivrin and the one who was left behind holding a torch - that boy Colin has always known that Dunworthy is the trigger.
Colin stands. His hands are steady. His feet are sure on the uneven stone. His wings are securely trapped under his coat. He can feel every millimeter of his skin.
He doesn’t know how to be Dunworthy’s Colin and the Oxford Don’s rescuer. His steps clop on the stairs. He knew he liked Polly, wanted her back. He yearned for Dunworthy for so much longer. He soaked up every moment with him. Near him.
Colin takes the final step down and switches on his torch.
“Hello?”
Dunworthy is here.
“Colin?”
Colin cannot look the same. The net cannot turn back the biological clock.
“Colin!”
“Mr. Dunworthy.” He swallows. The hand is on Colin’s arm and it looks the same as his memories. Nothing else has.
“Oh, Colin. It had to be, didn’t it?”
He jerks away. “I wasn’t going to leave you!” Here. I wasn’t going to leave you here.
“That is not what I meant.”
Colin shifts. The familiar face comes nearer.
“Listen to me!”
Colin thinks he's jerking away and instead he's being pulled down to sit.
"I'm sorry, Colin. I should have, I should have done more."
He should have been more.
"I should have been more."
Colin meets the remembered gaze. “Why, then?”
The beloved eyes are keen and knowing. There are tears gathering at the corners. “You’ve seen my medical report.” He sits next to Colin. “I was, am, weak. Weaker than you it seems.” Dunworthy places his hand on Colin’s cheek.
“I didn’t, never, wanted.” Colin wills himself to lean back. “I wasn’t going to presume.”
“I am the one who should have presumed.”
“But you didn’t and I needed, I,” the air tastes of smoke as he gasps it in.
“Call me James, or whatever you want.”
Colin’s wings rip through his coat. He huddles down. His eyes are shut.
Strong hands pull him into solid arms. He hears the torch ring against the flagstones. “I am so very glad you’re here, Colin, my boy. And my boy, I am so very, very sorry.”
Feathers fall and Colin shakes and he can feel it. “Dad.”
Professor James Dunworthy pulls Colin closer still and presses his lips to his temple. “Always, Colin, then and now.”
Colin sobs.
“I’ve got you, son. We have all the time in the world.”