Had We but World Enough - History Big Bang fic Part 2

[amberdreams]

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Part 2

0x0x0x0

Jensen listened to the faint crackle of the radio-silence that went on just long enough for him to wonder if the bomber pilot had fallen asleep, or had gone down so quietly he’d missed it. If Jensen had been too self-absorbed to notice, that would have been icing on the cake of his little pity party.

When Jared finally spoke, the question took Jensen by surprise.

“You said you served with the 222 Squadron, didn’t you?”

“Yes, why?”

“So you must have served with Douglas Bader.”

Jensen’s shoulders tensed. He thought he knew where Jared was going with this, and part of him didn’t want to hear it. He answered reluctantly. “He was in my squadron for a few months, yes. Before he was promoted to Squadron Leader of the 242. A bit of a show-boater, but a great pilot.”

“Which means that you know that being an amputee doesn’t stop you flying. You don’t strike me as being a coward, Ackles, yet here you sit telling a dying man that you don’t want to live. And why? Because it’s too hard? Co to kurwa miało być? What the fuck, man?”

Jensen shrouded his anger round him like a cloak to hide the fact that he had no good answer to that.

“What the hell do you know about it, Padalecki? Bader lost his legs nearly a decade before the war; he was happy using prosthetics. He even boasted it gave him an advantage over the rest of us because his blood had nowhere to go when subjected to g-forces, stopped him blacking out.”

For the first time, Jared sounded serious and downright annoyed. “What do I know? I know that my right leg has been shattered and that I would have it off like a shot if I thought I could get out of this alive tonight. Christ, I’d give both my legs to see my father, be reconciled with my big brother, to be able to hold my little sister again. But you and I both know that isn’t going to happen, is it?”

Jensen felt the heat rise in his face and was thankful that Jared couldn’t see his stupid schoolgirl blushes that he knew made his freckles stand out even more. For some reason over the course of their brief encounter, the good opinion of this Polish bomber pilot had come to matter, a lot. Jensen hastened to make amends.

“I…I’m sorry, Jared. You’re right, I’m being self centred and pathetic blathering on about my problems when you are stuck out there in the cold, carrying an injury.” Jensen ran a hand over his face, a nervous gesture that gave him a second’s breathing space. “You said it was your leg. How bad is it?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Jared sounded weary. “I’ve tied a tourniquet so it’s pretty numb. I’m losing altitude, down to just over a 1000 feet now, and we’re dropping all the time….”

His voice was lost in a burst of static and Jensen waited anxiously for the radio to come alive again. A minute passed, then another, before Jensen caved.

“Jared? Are you still there?”

There was a further anxious moment of white noise, and then Jared’s voice was back on the airwaves.

“I’m here. Sorry. So cold.”

Jensen gripped the microphone stem in frustration, feeling like smashing it into the wooden table. He hated feeling so helpless; it was like torture, but knowing that Jared was up there alone without any way out of the dreadful situation? That was worse.

“Stay with me, Squadron Leader.”

Jensen could hear the smile was back in Jared’s voice as he belted out a quick ‘yessir!’ response to the command, even though technically Jared’s Squadron Leader outranked Jensen’s Flight Lieutenant. Jensen groped around desperately for a suitably distracting topic of conversation.

“So tell me, do you have a special girl waiting for you back home?” Jensen blurted out, then could have kicked himself for both the grotesque lack of tact, as well as his lack of self-control.

He didn’t even know why it was so important for him to know. There was virtually no hope that Jared Padalecki was coming out of this alive. They were never even going to meet, let alone become friends. And anything more than friends was just the love that dare not speak its name – forbidden, illegal in civilian life, and a court martial offence in the Forces. In spite of all that, he couldn’t help the way his heart sank and his stomach knotted when Jared replied with an affirmative.

“Yes, a very special girl. My plane’s named after her in fact, - Małgorzata - though her human namesake changed hers to sound more English when she got married last year. She’s Megan Wallace now; my little Gosia, all grown up and anglicised. She’s a WAAF, and her husband is a pilot, like me. Not bombers, though. Spitfires. I think his squadron’s based up in Scotland at the moment, while she’s working somewhere in Suffolk. A wireless operator, like you. You might even know her.”

Jensen swallowed, something loosening inside him at hearing that Jared wasn’t courting anyone, even while he still grieved for something he could never have.

“Jensen? Are you still with me?”

“Yes, I’m still here. Not going anywhere.”

“Good. That’s good. Could you do me a favour?”

“Of course. Anything.” Jensen said, and meant it. He didn’t understand what was happening here between them, but in this briefest of interludes that he’d known this young Polish man, he had come to the realisation that he’d pluck down a star from the heavens and present it to him if Jared asked for it.

What Jared asked for was somewhat more prosaic.

“Could you send a telegram to my sister? 122 Norwich Road, Saxmundham, Suffolk. Say…Gosia, I love you. Say I wish our Mama could have seen her today, how proud she’d have been of her. Tell her to give my love to Jarosław, that I forgive him for being such a kołtun …what is the English word…such a chauvinist.”

Jensen grabbed a notepad and wrote furiously, the pencil lead biting into the soft paper.

“Did you get all that?” Jared asked, his voice roughened with emotion.

“Yes, Mrs. Megan Wallace, Saxmundham – I’ll make sure she gets your message. But…I was thinking, Jared, listening to me droning on isn’t going to help you stay awake. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, how you came to be fighting in this war. I told you my story, it’s only fair that you reciprocate, don’t you think?”

Jared made an ambiguous noise that Jensen decided to take as an affirmative. “You mentioned someone, Jarosław? Who’s he then?”

There was a noise that sounded like a heavy sigh, and Jensen thought perhaps the Polish pilot wasn’t going to take up the invitation to share, but then Jared started talking again.

0x0x0x0

Jared’s story.

“He’s my brother. Jarosław is my kretyn of a big brother. He, my sister, and my father are the only family I have left. Tata and Jarosław were released from a Siberian gulag in ‘41. Our mother, she didn’t survive the siege of Lwów, and losing her broke our father’s spirit. Jarosław managed to persuade Tata to keep on fighting to live, in spite of the hardships of the camp, so they were ready to join the march with other released prisoners to Persia when the Bolsheviks finally set all my surviving country-men free when Stalin finally got into bed with Churchill instead of Hitler.

In Persia my brother joined the II Corps Poland under British Command. But Tata was too old to join up, so he now lives here in England with Gosia, and does some tinkering on the Americans’ planes, while Jarosław is with the Corps, fighting the Nazis. He and I…we haven’t spoken since…well for a long time. But our falling out really has no bearing on how I came to be here. So.

I always wanted to fly. As long as I can remember, my ambition was to become a pilot. I know most kids have that dream when they are young, but I kept it, I nurtured it and worked like crazy to make sure it came true.

Tata was an engineer before the Great War, and when he came through that alive, he had made friends in high places who gave him an opportunity that he might never have dreamed of before. One of his closest friends was General Ludomil Rayski. Now I don’t expect you will have heard of Rayski, but the General was one of the key figures in getting our air force so well equipped that between the Wars it was the largest in Europe, maybe even the world. At least until the start of the ‘30s, anyway. The General got our father a job working on all the newest projects, so by the time I was old enough, I would follow Tata around the airfields, getting up close to all those beautiful flying machines, falling in love with each and every one of them.

It was a short step from watching from the ground to climbing into the cockpit. I had made it my business to know all the pilots, and they’d watched me grow up from a skinny little kid with big dreams to a ridiculously tall teenager who still wanted nothing but to touch the sky. And they understood. They knew exactly how I felt because they felt it, too.”

“You must have been very young for your first time, then? Much younger than most,” Jensen said.

“I was young, yes. I was sixteen when I took my first flight. One of the experienced pilots, Zdzisław Cybulski, had taken me under his wing and promised he’d teach me to fly when I was old enough. He was tall, blond, and handsome as hell, and I couldn’t help but idolise him. Cybulski was a hero.

So when my birthday came in July of ’34, I believed I’d waited long enough to fly. Eventually Zdzisław agreed. I don’t know whether I just wore him down with my childish attempts at persuasion, or whether he really thought I was ready, but to be honest, I didn’t care. All I cared about was the exhilaration I felt when the training plane left the ground with me sitting in that cockpit with Zdzisław behind me. I can’t describe how I felt when he allowed me to take the controls for just a minute, but I can tell you that moment changed my life forever. Nothing would ever persuade me that it was not my destiny to fly, not even my brother and his endless digs about airmen being effeminate cowards, too afraid to fight the enemy face to face and unwilling to get their hands dirty.”

Jensen was nodding. Army men never understood the fliers, or the risks they took. Soldiers on the ground thought it was braver to kill a chap if you could see his eyes; as if it was somehow purer that way. As far as Jensen was concerned, death was death, however you faced it or dealt it out.

“Zdzisław wasn’t around for long, he was sent to the eastern borders just a few months after my first flight, to deal with incursions by the Bolsheviks. But over that long hot summer, but he took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew. I understood that having his full attention like this couldn’t last, so I threw myself into everything with unbridled passion, determined to show him that I was worthy. I wanted to make Zdzisław proud, even more than I wanted to show my father what I could do, or prove to Jarosław that I was as good as he was.

And I was good. All the pilots laughed at my enthusiasm at first but always with affection. Later, amusement became respect. Zdzisław called me their mascot, said I was their good luck charm, and when he left that winter for his posting on our eastern borders, everyone just assumed that I would stay on and train for real, so I did. I won my wings the following year, and as I filled out and grew taller, my commander decided I was better suited to fly bombers than fighters. So in ’37 I was assigned as a test pilot for my father’s latest project, the prototype for the PZL P.37 Los all metal bombers. The following year the P.37s went into production, and I got my first stripes.

I wish I’d been more aware of the world around me, but I was too wrapped up in the flying, with all that self-centred concentration that teenagers put into everything they do. I had so many opportunities to learn from the best of sources, because General Rayski would visit us as often as he could, claiming our Mama’s Pierogi dumplings were the best in Poland. But when Tata sat up late with the General and Jarosław, sharing a bottle of śliwowica and a cigar, arguing about politics, I just let it all wash over my head. Instead, I would sit there, dreaming about the way the sun caught the edge of the clouds just so when you are at 20 thousand feet, or practising an outside loop manoeuvre inside my head, because practice made perfect, you know.

So when war finally came in ‘39, I was largely taken by surprise, even though my command was not. My ignorance and naiveté wouldn’t have mattered, as a junior officer like me only needed to know enough to follow orders - except it meant that I never got a chance to say goodbye to my family before my squadron was on the move.

We were assigned to an army unit fighting on the western front as the Germans advanced. I shouldn’t say this, but what the hell. Most of our commanders are probably dead by now, and to be honest, they deserve to be. It was insane, those first few weeks of September. Crazy on the ground and crazy in the air.

Nothing had prepared us for the sheer might of the Nazi forces and so many of my countrymen were dying...I can’t tell you how it felt. I don’t have the words. Every day I saw my squadron get smaller and smaller as we were ordered into one suicide mission after another, in defence of ground troops who were being slaughtered in their hundreds by the superior tanks and weapons of the Germans. The army commanders would order us to fly too low, and all too often it was our own troops that were the ones firing on us. While in the air, the Luftwaffe outnumbered us more than two to one. I don’t know how many men we lost in just a few days, but as you English put it, we were sitting ducks.”

“That must have been hard,” Jensen said.

“It was frustrating and heartbreaking. We were all so tired. I was flying light bombers in a reconnaissance squadron at first, but as we kept losing craft, eventually I ended up flying fighters, even though I barely fit into the cockpit.

Everyone kept asking, where are the French? Where is the promised support from the British? We were a young, small country, and so alone.

Then we heard that the Russians had invaded from the East. With the Germans pushing towards Warsaw, and the Russians at our backs, it felt as if the breath was being squeezed from my own body while my country was feeling those pincers closing. All I wanted to do was to find my family and make sure that they were all right. An old school friend, Bronisław Langner, was serving with Jarosław in the 10th Motorised Brigade and he was my only means of staying in touch, as Jarek was refusing to have anything to do with me. Through Bronek I heard that Tata had sent Mama and Małgorzata back to our family home in Lwów, thinking that they would be safer there, away from Warsaw and the airfields where he’d worked.

It was Bronek who also told me that Tata had gone home with Jarek’s unit when it was despatched to reinforce the defence of the city, because the Germans now surrounded Lwów. Nowhere was safe any more.

Then any thought I’d had about going to Lwów was scuppered. I was ordered south to Rumania. We were told that finally the British were sending help. Several Hurricanes and Fairey Battles were being sent by ship, and we had to collect them from the Black Sea port of Galti. My heart lifted a little at that hopeful information, but I was torn, because I wanted so badly to be with my family, it was hurting my heart worse than my leg is hurting me right now.

But orders were orders, so I travelled south with my fellow pilots, heading for the border.

It was several days before I heard any more news from home, and it was nothing good. Although our forces had initially managed to retake Lwów, the Germans had been reinforced by Russian forces, and the city had been compelled to surrender to the Red Army. It was only later that I learned that the terms of the surrender were broken the very next day, and that my father and brother had both been arrested. Those lying Bolshevik bastards deported my Tata and Jarek along with hundreds of Polish officers to labour camps in Siberia and I had two excruciating years believing they were dead, while hoping against hope that they had survived. So many were murdered in those camps, I still can’t believe Tata and Jarosław lived through it all.

Mama wasn’t so lucky. She died in Lwów several days before the surrender, when the Germans shelled the hospital where she had been helping out.”

Jensen knew words were inadequate but they were all he had to offer. “I’m so sorry, Jared. This war…”

“I know. None of us have got here without loss, eh? But Małgorzata got out. That was the only good piece of news that I had. My little Gosia had been sent with the first wave of technicians and pilots to Galti, and she was still there when I arrived. So we were reunited in Rumania, just in time to learn that the promised help from our Allies was not coming, that the ship with those planes had turned back to Gibraltar. The Rumanians caved under pressure from the Germans and promised to intern all the Poles in their own makeshift detention camps.

At first I despaired, but the Rumanians were not Reds, or Nazis, and they weren’t interested in becoming prison guards just to please Hitler. The camps security was laughable and it was easy in the end to walk out of there, to collect my sister and stow us both away on a cargo ship to Marseilles. From there we travelled by train and boat, and made it to England just in time for the Battle of Britain. The minute the Brits heard I was an experienced pilot, I was drafted into the RAF along with so many other Poles, and so here I am, still flying. Just.”

0x0x0x0

Jared swallowed, his mouth dry from so much talking. He wished he hadn’t emptied the good whiskey in the hip flask Małgorzata had given him over his wounded leg. Given that he was almost certainly going to die, it would have been a better use of the 12-year-old Glenlivet to have drunk it.

“What happened? Between you and Jarosław?” Jensen asked, and then almost instantly recanted. “I’m sorry, that was personal, and none of my business. You don’t have to answer.”

While Jared had been talking, part of him had been thinking about the story Jensen had told him. One throw away remark Jensen had made had stuck in Jared’s mind and had been niggling away at him, even while he’d been thrown back into reliving the emotional roller coaster of the last few years. Strangely, Jensen’s question now opened the door for him to ask one of his own.

“No, it’s fine, I don’t mind. But before I answer, perhaps I could ask you something personal too.” Jared didn’t wait for Jensen to respond. If the other man said anything at all, he might lose the courage to ask what he really wanted to know. “You mentioned your family, that you don’t talk to them. Why is that?”

He waited anxiously, unsure why this small thing mattered so much when he had so little time left.

“My family.” Jensen sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t talk to them, rather that they don’t want anything to do with me. As you may not, if I tell you the cause of their…disapproval. It is not something I want shouted about.”

In spite of the all pervading chill that seemed to have settled into his bones, and the dull ache that his wounded leg had become, the irony struck him as funny. Jared couldn’t help it. He laughed, threw his hands out in an expansive gesture that Jensen couldn’t see.

“Who am I going to tell? If you ever wanted to confide in anybody, I’m the best person for the job, am I not?”

The silence that followed was filled with the knowledge of death, and Jared started to wish he’d kept his big mouth shut as he stared blindly through the cockpit glass at the slowly lightening sky. His Mama had always told him he should think before he spoke, but he’d grown up reckless all the same. Then he realised Jensen was answering, though his voice was pitched so low at first Jared had almost missed it.

“When I was eighteen, my father walked in on me kissing a friend from Air Cadets. A boy. My father…I thought he might have dismissed it, ignored it just like he’d ignored me most of my life, but he didn’t. It seems that I found the one thing in life that would gain his full attention, and it cost me my family. Father threw me out and cut me off. He forbade my mother to have any contact with me, and she obeyed him. I haven’t heard anything from her, or my brother and sister since that day. I didn’t know what to do; I had nowhere to go. Father stopped paying my school fees so I couldn’t finish there or go onto University as I’d always planned to do. So I ran. I emptied my meagre allowance account before Father could freeze it and made my way to Paris. The Legion became my family.”

“You sound bitter,” Jared observed, keeping his tone neutral.

“Do I? Maybe I have reason. My brother was my best friend when we were growing up. He was old enough to defy our father, but I never heard anything from him. Not a word. I wrote several times but he never wrote back. After a while I gave up, stopped sending letters. It was better to have clean break.”

Jared had always been told he was one of those sickeningly optimistic people, so he persisted.

“Maybe he never saw your letters. Maybe your parents intercepted them before he saw them?”

“That’s ridiculous, I….” Jensen stopped and Jared waited as the idea sunk in.

“You are thinking I might be right, aren’t you? I can hear the wheels turning from here,” Jared’s smile was in his voice, and Jensen sighed again.

“That could be true. Our mother would lay all the letters on a silver platter in the breakfast room for father to sort through. It was a pathetic attempt to make it seem that the Ackles household had more money and class than was actually the case. I suppose it would have been easy for father to have recognised his eldest son’s writing and to have destroyed those letters before either Mackenzie or Josh saw them.... I can’t believe I never thought of this before. Father told me the whole family was disgusted with me, never wanted to see me again. What I was, what I am – it’s an offense in the eyes of God and I was damned. I suppose a part of me believed him and thought that Josh and Mac would think the same. I never even gave them a chance to prove me wrong.”

“Hvor har jeg været en idiot,” Jensen muttered in Danish. He tended to lapse into his mother’s tongue when he was angry or upset. Right now he was both. “I need to find Josh, talk to him.”

“Yes, I think you do.”

“You seem very blasé about this whole topic, Squadron Leader. Especially since homosexual practices are a court martial offence.”

Jared smiled ruefully. Time to come clean, he thought. “Remember I told you about Zdzisław Cybulski?”

“Yes…No. Wait, you and Zdzisław…?”

“Yeah,” Jared hoped Jensen couldn’t hear the blush in his voice. “I…um…told you he taught me everything, didn’t I?”

Jensen’s laugh was rich, and Jared’s reaction to the sound surprised him. In spite of everything, hearing it spread warmth through his abused body and gave him the strength to finish this part of his story.

“So finding out about me and Zdzisław Cybulski was the reason Jarek stopped talking to me. One blessing, he never told my parents, because this is one sin I think they would have found it hard to forgive.”

Jared could no longer feel his foot below the injury, though the pulse in his knee had begun to throb painfully. He bit his lip and awkwardly loosened the tourniquet with frozen fingers. He allowed the blood to flow into the damaged limb and braced for the pain to hit; which it did in seconds, like a freight train had just ran over his leg. Panting through the agony, he fumbled to tie the rags tight again, part of him wondering why he was bothering. His altitude gauge showed he was barely clearing the wave tops at 200 feet, though he no longer needed his instruments to tell him his position, as the sun was rising to illuminate the scene. The early morning light was gilding the bleak North Sea, turning it into a path of burnished gold for his wounded bird Małgorzata to skim over.

The part of Jared that was stubbornly clinging to life knew why he wanted that burst of agony to wake him up. That part wanted to hold onto the connection he’d made with this stranger who was never going to be more than a voice to him, because something deep inside was crying out that this man could be the one. And in spite of everything, Jared was still naive enough to believe in happy endings.

“The sun’s coming up,” Jared said, even though he knew Jensen from his vantage point in his inland control tower would be as aware of that fact as Jared was, looking out over the rough metallic surface of the North Sea spread out below him.

He was low enough now to make out individual waves, ruffled by wind and tide. In the greying pre-dawn light he could distinguish the coastline of England to his port side, a sprawl of houses along a promenade that would have been a pleasant place to stroll in the summers before the War, before the beach was marred by the large concrete blocks of tank traps, barbed wire and mines. It was probably Felixstowe, Jared thought.

He saw an ARP warden waving from the shore but he was too tired to wave back. The man would have a show to watch very soon, when Jared finally put the Lancaster down.

A tale to tell his children.

0x0x0x0

Jensen shifted in his uncomfortable seat. Sitting still for so long made his stumps ache. He tapped his fingers nervously on the table as he watched the skyline to the east above the treeline, as though if he stared hard enough, he would be able to spy, across the miles of farmland and shingle beaches, Jared’s broken plane above the waves.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up, you know?” Jared’s voice stirred him out of his reverie.

Jensen nodded before he remembered Jared couldn’t see him. But the Polish pilot was carrying on regardless, following his train of thought, trusting that Jensen was listening.

“I never thought about dying, even when I was losing friends and comrades on nearly every mission. But if I had, I would never have imagined it would be like this. Here at the dawn of a new day, in the company of a new friend; how do the Yanks say it? Shooting the breeze. I always liked the sound of that.

I’ve been lucky, I know. I suppose it was only a matter of time until my luck ran out. At least I had the good fortune to spend my last hours in good company.”

Jensen didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent.

“Can I tell you a secret, Flight Lieutenant Jensen Ackles?” Jared paused. “You sound like exactly the kind of man I would have been proud to shout about loving.”

Jensen had difficulty swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat. Before emotion could unman him further, he was interrupted by a shout from Jared.

“O kurwa!”

Jensen knew enough Polish swearwords from sharing a mess with the Polish Squadrons to recognise the exclamation meant nothing good.

“What is it? Jared?”

When Jared spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically calm and emotionless.

“Jensen. I am going to put Małgorzata down now. We’re on fire.” Jared laughed, but the sound was bitter. “Better drown than burn, you know?”

And Jensen did know. It was every airman’s nightmare, to perish in flames. He’d been very lucky when that kid had brought them down that his plane hadn’t caught fire. It was the one thing he had been eternally grateful for.

“Jared.” He said, unable to think of any protest that wouldn’t sound meaningless.

“It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Jensen Ackles. I wish…”

“Ja. Me too.”

“Thank you for staying with me.”

Jensen could hear the Lancaster’s engines changing tone, the note rising from a pained rumble to a high-pitched scream, and he knew what it meant. She was diving, and there was nothing he could do.

“Jared. Jeg ville ønske jeg kunne have kendt dig bedre … Jared?”

The radio gave out a last burst of white noise and fell silent. Jensen stared blindly out into the rising sun.

“For helvede.” He said quietly. “God damn it to Hell.”

0x0x0x0

New Year’s Eve 2004

Elise had tears in her eyes when Jensen finished his story. She realised that at some time during the telling, she had taken hold of her great uncle’s hand, and that she was now gripping it tightly. Slightly embarrassed, she loosened her grip only for Jensen to fold her hand between both palms. His skin was warm and dry, and his fingers still felt strong, even though they were wizened with age and brown-speckled with liver spots. She looked up and found Jensen was smiling, his green eyes undimmed.

“Jared saved me,” he said.

She must have looked puzzled, because he explained. “That conversation we had; all the confidences that we shared over those few short hours, it saved my life. I was this close to giving up.” Jensen lifted one hand to pinch a centimetre of air between thumb and forefinger to demonstrate. “I had been trying for months to come to terms with losing my legs, and worse still, losing my wings. All the work I had been putting in to learn to walk using my prosthetics, and all I had to show for it was pain and frustration. That night, before Jared came onto the radio, I had been cleaning my service revolver and wondering why I hadn’t already put a bullet through my skull.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “It would have been taking the coward’s way out, I know; but at the time, I thought my life was over, that nothing would ever be right again. All I wanted was for the pain to end, and if it took a bullet to end it, then so be it.”

Elise shook her head. “Nobody would ever call you a coward, Uncle Jen.”

“I would.”

Jensen let go of her hand and stared into the distance. “I went to see her, you know. Małgorzata. Megan, his little Gosia. Afterwards. He’d given me her address, and Saxmundham wasn’t very far from Parham, where I was based. I didn’t want to give her the news of her brother’s death in a telegram, and I thought she might like to hear about Jared’s final conversation. That his last thoughts had been full of love for her and for his family.”

“That’s where you got that photograph? I’d wondered about that.”

“Yes. We talked for hours that day – Megan, his father, Jerard Padalecki and I. They wanted to know every last word Jared had spoken, and I ... it was the least I could do. The only parts I withheld were the revelations about his -- and my – sexuality. But Megan, she knew. I don’t know how, but she could tell that I had feelings for her brother, and she pulled me aside before I left. She gave me this photograph, taken when he was only twenty, before the war came to tear everything apart, and she told me about Jarosław.

I wish Jared had known this, but his big brother had been angry about Jared and Zdzisław Cybulski, not because Jared was having intimate relations with a man, but because Cybulski was thirty years old, and Jared was just sixteen. Oh, I’m sure there was some homophobia mixed in with those feelings, but Jarosław still loved his little brother. It makes me very sad knowing Jared died without ever realising that.

Especially when he gave me back my brother, and my family. I followed his advice and I managed to track down Josh, your granddad. I don’t think our mother ever really understood, and your grandmother always hated me as an abomination, but Josh said he didn’t care. I’m sure it was easier to accept, as I never had any relationships with any other men. Nobody ever measured up to my Jared.”

Jensen’s eyes shut and he leaned his head back to rest against the big armchair. Elise was shocked at how weary and worn he looked without the spark that had animated in his features while he had been telling his story. She patted his hand awkwardly.

Jensen opened one eye and cocked an eyebrow, giving her a wry smile.

“Would you look at the time, eh? Nearly eight o’clock on New Year’s Eve and you are still here holding an old man’s hand instead of your lover’s. There’s still plenty of time for you to drive home safely if you leave now.”

“But….”

“But me no buts, young lady. Go and tell your boy that you love him. Have I taught you nothing?”

“Seize the day and drive safe,” Ellie said with a chuckle.

Jensen grinned back at her, the twinkle he reserved just for her back in his eye. “Exactly. The only risks worth taking are in here,” he said, and he took her hand and placed it firmly over his heart.

When the call came from Imogen the following morning with the news that Flight Lieutenant Jensen Ackles had passed away peacefully in the night, it was Harry who held Elise while she cried. But even through her tears, Ellie couldn’t help thinking that Jensen had managed one final achievement that she would willingly award him a medal for, if she could.

He had taught her how to fly.

0x0x0x0

Epilogue – No time and any time.

For those who always want a happy ending.

Jensen had expected fireworks to bring in the New Year, so was puzzled by the hush that surrounded him instead as he woke. He opened his eyes and gazed around with curiosity. He was standing in a wide-open space, all shining steel and clinically clean whites, and a dream for any modernist architect. The air smelt cold and fresh, with a slight tang of ozone, as if the sea was nearby. He looked down at himself and found to his surprise that he was clad in his RAF dress uniform, crisp creases down the dull blue serge of the trousers, buttons and medals gleaming on his chest. His shoes were polished to a high sheen, which wasn’t remarkable, but the fact that he could feel his toes wiggling inside those shoes, now that was astonishing. He raised a hand to tentatively touch his DFC medal, and he marvelled as he noticed how smooth his fingers appeared. How young.

But all of those sensations paled into insignificance at the sound of his name being spoken.

“Jensen!”

His heart leapt. That voice felt like home. He knew it in his very soul, because he had been waiting to hear it again these past sixty years. He spun round; one name leaping onto his lips, closely followed by the biggest smile ever known.

“Jared.”

“You took your own sweet time, Flight Lieutenant Ackles,” Jared said, sweeping Jensen into a crushing embrace. So intimate. So right. He didn’t want it to ever end, and now, perhaps it wouldn’t. He stepped back, holding Jared at arm’s length so he could see in full colour the face he’d known only through a sepia toned photograph.

Changeable hazel eyes sparkled down at him from under unruly strands of chestnut hair, a dimpled grin a mile wide reflected his own. A face at once familiar and totally unknown. Jensen couldn’t help himself; he ran his fingers through Jared’s shaggy locks and tugged.

“That’s not a regulation hair cut, airman,” he admonished, and then looked around, suddenly worried someone might have seen the moment of intimacy. Jared just kept grinning and pulled him back close.

“There’s no need to hide anymore. There’s no cottaging here, no pretending, no censure, no hate. Only one rule matters now, Jen,” Jared’s breath was warm against Jensen’s neck, the low sensual tone setting a fire in his belly. “And that is – love with all your heart.”

Then Jared’s lips found his, they were kissing and it was everything Jensen had ever dreamed it would be. When they finally broke apart, Jensen was flushed and breathless.

“I can’t believe you waited for me,” Jensen said, in wonder. Jared replied by taking Jensen’s hand and placing it over his heart.

“Always.” He said.

The End

Author’s Note

This story is very loosely based on the 1948 film A Matter of Life and Death, starring David Niven. The part of the film that I could remember was about the pilot left alone with his dying plane, who accidentally reaches a WAAF radio operator. The two people have a brief conversation, during which time they make a connection with each other. I hadn’t realised until I dug the film out and watched it again that this part of the film was literally 8 minutes of the story! However, the whole idea of two people effectively falling on love without ever actually meeting resonated with me, and hence this idea was born.

While researching facts about the RAF, pilot training, Lancaster bombers and spitfires, I came across a BBC news article about the death of a Danish pilot, Jens Ipsen, in June 2012. Part of Jensen’s story is therefore based on the real life adventures of Jens, who sounded like a remarkable character. Jens really was in the French Foreign Legion in Syria, and he did walk all the way to Palestine to join up with the British war effort in April 1940. Truth is stranger than fiction, and I’d love to find out more about what brought such a man to join the Legion, and to end up as an RAF pilot. But failing that, I made up Jensen’s reasons to suit my story.

I based Jared’s background on several different stories I read about the Polish contribution to the War, a fascinating topic. General Ludomil Rayski was a real person, and the events I mention around the taking of Lwów and the deportation of Polish officers to the gulags is all factual. I based the character of Zdzisław Cybulski on the real life pilot Zdzisław Krasnodębski, but changed his surname as I am sure any living relatives wouldn’t appreciate the implication that he was either gay, or into young boys.

The backstory about Jared getting to England via Rumania is also based on historical events, but not any individual story. It is worth noting that the influx of Poles probably saved England from being invaded in 1939-1940, as their expertise as pilots was a huge boost to the British RAF. Their contribution, along with a number of other nationalities (including the Danes, which I confess was a surprise to me) is often overlooked.

Apparently Rumania only changed the spelling of its name to Romania in the 1950s, so I stuck with that.

The song Jared sings to take his mind off things is a classic, popular through the 1930s and ‘40s – Painting the Clouds with Sunshine. You can listen here if you are interested! The line about being gay was the old sense of the word, nothing to do with homosexuality.

Glossary including translations

DFC – Distinguished Flying Cross. A military decoration awarded for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active operations against the enemy".

EFTS - Elementary Flying Training School, based at RAF Cranwell

WAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

ARP Warden - Air Raid Precautions Warden. Civilians who were tasked with patrolling the streets during blackout, to ensure that no light was visible.

Beau Geste - is a 1924 adventure novel about the French Foreign Legion by P. C. Wren.

Gerry – British slang for the Germans

Cottaging – when homosexuality was illegal, cottaging was a term used for looking for sex in public toilets

Polish - thanks to Judyta Greding

Zonstanę z tobą – I’ll stay with you

Pieprzyć to – fuck it

Co to kurwa miało być? What the fuck was that supposed to be?

kołtun - a narrow-minded person who's perspective is limited, especially in cultural and customary sense, a bigot/chauvinist

śliwowica – known generically as slivovitz, it’s a plum brandy very popular in Eastern Europe (and with an ex manager of mine from a few years ago, as I had to bring him some back from Budapest!). A bottle once featured on Supernatural…

O kurwa – Oh fuck (though kurwa actually means whore, if used like this the sense is equivalent to oh fuck)

Tata – father, Dad

Danish - thanks to Elisa Andersen

Hvor har jeg været en idiot – I’ve been an idiot

Jeg ville ønske jeg kunne have kendt dig bedre – I wish that I’d known you better

For helvede – damn it to hell

Comments

[mella68.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this wonderfull read. You revised my opinion about SPN RPF stories. I'm glad I could make some fanart for your story you liked.

[amber1960.livejournal.com]

Ha ha well there are a LOT of much better SPN RPF stories out there than this one! Thanks so much!

[n4t4ss4.livejournal.com]

lovely story (especially the end)and amazing artwork , thanks ladies (stabiru from fb )

[amber1960.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked the story, and the art was perfect for it, wasn't it? Cheers!

And I had no idea you were on FB too - I'm always posting your art on SSA (as natira!)

[dreamweaver37.livejournal.com]

WAAAAH! You made me cry. Loved it.

[amber1960.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome reaction - thanks so much! *offers tissues*

[swalmsley.livejournal.com]

Aw, hell. You're going to make me cry....oh, now you've done it...

[amber1960.livejournal.com]

*offers tissues* and thank you for reading and commenting!