Archive of Our Own ^beta

I do believe in the light
Raise your hands into the sky
The fight is done, the war is won
Lift your hands toward the sun

The war is won.

"This is War"

Thirty Seconds to Mars

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Anne Mason was practically bouncing on her toes on the steps of the newly repaired Lincoln Memorial, excitement thrumming along her bones as she squeezed her husband’s hand a bit more tightly and grinned up at him. Isn’t this great?

The smile Tom sent her in return was more subdued than her own, but no less happy. He answered her by tugging her more closely against him and dropping a kiss onto her hair. 

She wrapped her free hand around his arm and rested her cheek against his shoulder, staring out at the black sky and biting her lip in anticipation.

Anne had loved fireworks since she was a kid. Growing up, New Year’s and Independence Day were her favorite holidays simply because of the spectacular shows their San Francisco town had hosted. Dad would drive his pickup to the top of their hill and Mom would spread the flannel-lined blanket that always smelled like camping in the bed, and they would oooh and ahhh far away from the crowds but practically right under the incredible display.

Once, three years and a war-torn lifetime ago, she and Tom had climbed on the roof of the JFK school building on a chilly fall night and watched a meteor shower on their backs, arms behind their heads. She had barely known him then, really, but she found herself telling him about the fireworks and how much she missed them. He listened quietly and the silence stretched pleasantly after she finished, until finally he said, “You’ll see them again.”

“Do you think?” she had asked, turning to read his face. She missed a meteor bright enough to throw its light across their faces, but found that the glittering reflection of it in Tom’s eyes made her breath catch more than any of the falling stars had. 

“Oh, yeah,” he answered, softly certain, staring in wonderment at the display above them. “When this is over, we’re going to celebrate like it’s 1776.” 

She had fallen back to her original position and laughed, making fun of his hope and his beloved history while inwardly wishing she could be so confident.

And now…

“Told you,” Tom murmured into her hair.

Here they were. She let her eyes fall shut, smile threatening to split her face in two, tears of gratitude burning her eyes. Thank you, God.

A faint, whistling whine filled the air. Tom jostled her. “Here we go.”

Anne sucked in a breath and held it as the first breathtaking floret blossomed and filled the sky. Blue and gold bursting into a dazzling shower of sparkles.

Half a second later, the boom hit.

The sound cracked the night with a deafening concussion, and all at once she was being forced to the ground, her husband’s shout ( get down!) muted in her stunned ears.

Adrenaline surged. She clasped a protective hand to the faint mound of her pregnant belly. Tom’s harsh breaths rasped hotly against her ear as he clutched her against himself, shielding her. Another whine, a flash of light, an explosion. Tom flinched hard, and Anne finally processed what was happening.

“Tom.” She struggled to pull away from his grasp.

“Stay down, stay down,” he shouted, his grip tightening.

“Tom, it’s okay,” she called, fighting to be heard. The blasts were picking up in speed now, the moments of silence growing scarcer and scarcer with each gunpowder-scented second. “Tom, it’s just the fireworks! We’re safe, it’s okay.” She managed to at least twist around in his arms, facing him, and caught his face in her hands. “Tom, hey. Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay. Look at me.”

Several bursts went off back-to-back and Tom jerked out of her grasp, pulling her with him as he huddled lower, hands thrown up to protect his head.

“Tom,” she grunted, struggling to break free. “Hey, hey,” she called, catching his face again. “Tom, it's me. It’s Anne. Look at me. Just hang on to me, sweetheart.” 

Mind elsewhere, he fought her, tearing his head free. With each new blast, he ducked and gasped, face frozen in a battle-grimace, making it difficult for her to maintain her hold. 

At last, there was a pause in the overwhelming onslaught of flashes and explosions, and Anne grasped Tom’s face again, lifting his chin with difficulty. “Hey, hey. Look at me, Tom. Look at me.”

He wasn’t breathing properly, his chest hitching convulsively, but he dragged his eyes open to meet hers. They were white-rimmed and wild with adrenaline and desperation. It was an expression Anne knew well, but here, where they were supposed to be safe and celebrating, it knocked the air out of her. 

She floundered. 

But Tom was clinging to her gaze like a lifeline, shaking apart in her hands. 

Swallowing, she forced a smile as tears rose in her eyes. “Hey, Tom. There you are. You’re okay. We’re safe. Do you know where you are, sweetheart?”

He stared at her, seconds ticking by. He shook his head. “Anne?”

“Yeah, Tom, it’s me. It’s okay. It’s been pretty loud, and I think it’s about to be again, but it’s only fireworks.”

Tom opened his mouth, but another volley hit and his instinctive duck landed his face against Anne’s shoulder. 

Willingly, Anne clasped her hand to the back of his neck, stroked his hair, kissed his temple. “It’s just the fireworks,” she reassured again, lips at his ear.

“I know,” he said, breathless. Relief washed through her at the return of some lucidity to his voice. “I know. But that’s—ah,” he inhaled sharply, hands tangling in the fabric of her jacket. “That’s not what I’m seeing.” He grunted as another boom sounded.

“Okay,” she said. “It’s okay. It’ll be over soon.” She hoped that was true. How long had they been going? Realistically, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes. “Here, Tom. Give me your hand.” 

It seemed to take a moment for her request to process, but after a few unresponsive beats, he loosened his grip enough for her to extract one of his hands from her jacket and raise it to her face. The moment it made contact, Tom pressed it tightly against her, fingers flexing desperately. 

“There we go, that’s it.” Carefully, she tugged at his thumb until it rested over her temporal pulsepoint. It throbbed beneath the pressure. “Tom, hey, can you feel that? That’s my heartbeat. Just listen to my heart, baby.”  

He shook, breaths spasming unevenly against her where his chest touched her arm. She shifted to press her hand to it, moving her thumb back and forth, back and forth across his clavicle in time with her own breaths. 

“Breathe for me, Tom. Just breathe. You’re okay.”

Tom shuddered. “Fireworks?”

“I promise,” she murmured, kissing the skin behind his ear. 

“Tom?”

Anne looked up at the half-shout. Dan Weaver was hurrying toward them, coming up behind Tom, and Anne didn’t miss the way he, too, flinched faintly with each new rocket. “Tom,” he called again, settling on the steps behind the younger man. He looked expectantly at Anne.

“I think it’s a flashback,” she offered as soon as there was a short break in the explosions.

He nodded and turned his attention to his friend. “Hey, Tom. It’s Dan. You’re gonna feel my hand, here.”

Despite the warning, Tom startled when Weaver’s hands settled on his shoulders, but he lifted his head, searching. “Captain Weaver?”

Dan met Anne’s eyes over Tom’s head. He hadn’t been Captain Weaver in a long time.

“I’m right here, Tom. You’re okay. We’re all okay. We won, remember? Just take it easy.” He settled in closer behind Tom, his chest pressed against Tom’s back, and wrapped his arms around him, hands splayed against his jerking chest. “You gotta breathe, here, bud, or you’re gonna pass out on us. Easy. Easy, just breathe with me. You feel that?”

Anne watched Dan’s face as the gruff, yet somehow soothing words fell from his lips. She took a deep breath of her own. The tension seemed to loosen and fall away from Dan’s own tightly-wound frame as he spoke and breathed and held Tom for dear life. As if his grip on Tom was holding him together, too. 

Tom’s shaking eased as they held him between them, Weaver’s breaths at his back and Anne’s heartbeat still whispering away beneath his thumb. He flinched with each new boom, but his breathing was slowly settling into something more akin to a steady panting than the violent seizing of before. With his free hand, he clutched at Dan’s wrists where they crossed over his chest.

“I’m okay,” he squeezed out on a halfway normal breath. “I’m here. I’m okay.” There was a remembered war being waged in his mind, and as it began to fade, his first thought was to reassure them.

“There he is,” Anne smiled and pressed her cheek into his hair. “And yes, you are.”

“Dad?” 

Even in the lull between rockets, the call was barely audible amidst the cheering. Still, that one word, spoken in the distressed way it was, would be enough to wake Tom Mason from the dead. His head shot up from Anne’s shoulder, his own shoulders hunched by his ears as if his head might be blown off at any moment.

“Matt?” He shouted hoarsely, head whipping to and fro. Alarm flared fresh in his eyes and Anne was about to intervene when he caught sight of his boy as he made his way over to them on the steps. “Matt? Son, are you safe?” He reached out to him and Matt took his hand, sitting on the step below his father.

He appeared nearly as shellshocked as Tom was, flinching with each blast, posture hunched and defensive. But he met Anne’s eyes over Tom’s head and visibly, deliberately relaxed. “Yeah, Dad,” he smiled. “I’m safe. We’re all safe. We’re celebrating, remember?”

Tom inhaled sharply and released the air slowly, shakily, eyes falling shut as he nodded tightly. “Yeah. Yep. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Matt looked at Anne once more before turning away from them and scooting backward until he was sitting between Tom’s knees. Anne and Dan adjusted their hold on Tom just enough to accommodate the new position as Tom’s arms wrapped reflexively around his son’s shoulders and he buried his face in the boy’s hair, the way Anne had seen him do when Matt was a baby-faced child. The fact that Matt allowed the display of affection that most thirteen-year-olds would find infantilizing spoke either to his understanding of his father’s need in the moment, or his own needs. Anne, who could feel the tremors of all three of her boys now, reverberating against each other, suspected it was both.

She rocked Tom softly, bringing Matt—and Dan—along with the gentle motion. “We’re okay. We’re okay.”

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she looked up to find Hal and Ben standing behind her, sheepishness and concern at odds on their faces. Another blast and they were both joining the tangle of limbs. Anne sighed and freed an arm to put around Hal’s shoulders, watching as Dan did the same for Ben. 

Like the Von Trapp children in a thunderstorm, they had instinctively drawn close in their fear, disguising their own anxieties as concern for each other.

Hal reached past her to drop a hand on his dad’s head, rubbing his thumb back and forth over his hair. “We’re all here, Dad,” he said, shuddering as a new firework blew. 

“We’re safe,” Ben added, squeezing the juncture of Tom’s neck and shoulder. “We’re all safe.”

She felt the sigh Tom heaved, the jerking nod as he finally managed to open his eyes. His fingers clutched at Ben’s on his shoulder and, as if it bore the weight of every single loss, he dragged his head up to watch the fireworks. Jaw clenched, still shaking, but eyes wide open.

Matt tipped his head up to look at Tom. “Are you okay, Dad?”

Tom took a breath. Swallowed. His eyes flashed. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. We earned this. I’m not gonna let them take this from me.”

Anne pressed her face to his cheek. Weaver was a steady presence at his back. The boys pressed close. 

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Tom Mason’s family gathered around him and each other, grounding each other in the present moment and staving off the demons. 

It was a long way from the celebration they had earned, but in the brilliant lights of the fireworks, the haphazard family chose to look up and hope.