Unfixable

Epilogue - Meuse

"Cap!" Allen looked over his shoulder from his place in front of the long row of graves. He smiled warmly as Gavin and Nines approached. It had been a while since they'd last seen each other. They both looked happy and healthy. It seemed time was doing a good job of healing old wounds. Looking further back, he could see Hank making his way over, too. The past two years had been a little harder on him, it seemed. He was now using an old cane to walk. "I see you found your way." It wasn't his first time. He'd actually returned to France earlier that year to join the search. Digging up old remains wasn't for everyone, especially when trying to figure out which parts belonged to which body. Despite the grim nature of his chosen path, he didn't regret it. The looks on the faces of grateful relatives was enough. The relief of being able to close that chapter and move on, something he and the Andersons were still denied.

He'd returned to the trenches. To the place he'd been injured. The place he'd lost Sixty. He didn't need to worry about Connor. His body was resting peacefully in the ground beneath his feet, but he hadn't found Sixty. He'd searched. Countless hours had been spent in the barren landscape of what had once been no man's land. He'd found countless abandoned bodies and even dug out more, but Sixty hadn't been among them. Perhaps he'd been missed somehow, or a stray shell had obliterated his body completely. The more time that passed, the more he doubted he'd ever find out.

"And you." It was their first time coming back, not that he could blame them. Plans were being made to ship some bodies back home, but the cost was high. Many relatives were content to leave the remains resting in France where they fell. So long as they were respectfully buried in a grave, it didn't truly matter where they lay. Nines and Gavin finally reached his side and looked down at the neat white stone. Nines' silvery eyes dimmed slightly as he looked down to find his brothers' names engraved on the cross. Although he hadn't found him yet, Allen was determined that he would, and when he did, he'd bury him here. It's what he would have wanted.

"Yeah, it's a nice little town. The locals were really helpful. Once we told them what we were looking for, they knew it straight away." Allen nodded his agreement. Meuse was really more of a village than a town, but it was a nice place. There weren't many American grave sites, so it made sense they'd point them here. The land had barely healed from the fighting that took place upon it. Grass had barely started to grow, and most headstones were still temporary wooden constructs, hurriedly placed in the aftermath. Since so many had fallen here already, it was rapidly becoming the designated American gravesite, and bodies were being brought from other places to rest here, like Connor.

"They've certainly been busy since we left." The battlegrounds had been dug up and re-laid, though trenches remained in many places. Bodies had been recovered and laid to rest or readied for transport back to their homes. Hank had received a letter asking for instructions for Connor's remains. He'd almost balked at the idea of having him dug up at all. It seemed cruel to disturb his rest and have him packed up like a piece of luggage just to be hauled across the ocean and placed somewhere else. He was far from home, but he liked to think he was at peace.

"We have. There are volunteers from just about every nation joining the effort...Hopeful relatives, mostly." It made sense. Everyone wanted answers. He knew Allen and Nines felt similarly about Sixty. Nines didn't have the heart or energy to do what Allen was doing, not to mention his responsibility with the surgery. "The locals as well, of course. Clean-up like this is a big part of the restoration effort. The bodies need to be safely laid to rest, and the land needs to heal." That wasn't even considering all the undetonated landmines and other bombs that could go off with the smallest touch. That was part of what made Allen so valuable in the restoration effort. He knew the best and safest ways to search for these things, and how to disable them once they were found. Most of them. A few of the designs were a little beyond him, but that's where the other men came in handy. They had veterans from many places on both sides joining the effort. If he didn't know, someone else often did. They could also sometimes warn each other about the location of known minefields and cordon them off.