Lovely Hues | Fillie AU

Chapter Seven

". . .He still thinks of you as a good friend. . .love, Nick." Finn stared at the paper in silence. He licked his lips then read the whole letter again and when he was through, he still didn't quite know what to think. His mind kept hopping endlessly between the three major themes his brother was trying to get across to him and it made him feel a disjointed swirl of emotions ranging from elation to disgust.

His ex-best friend wanted to divorce his ex-wife.

That same ex-best friend still considers him a friend. . .a good friend. . .how rich.

But those two matters weren't what Finn was focusing on because something more compelling was burning his brain.

Niles—the most loyal and caring friend he's ever had—was home. His body was home.

Annie, Niles's wife, could finally bury him and he could finally rest in peace. It was good news, but somehow it only made Finn more angry. Angry at how Niles came home in a box. Angry at how he wasn't there when he arrived back in Canada. Angry at why he had to go on this trip. Angry that he'd been stuck for weeks now in a place that wasn't getting him anywhere. Angry at the society that sent him to war all those years ago and the society that allowed his best friend to be killed.

Angry that the only true friend he'd ever had was dead and no one back home seemed to care—except his family. And Niles's family of course.

But there was so much information on such a small piece of parchment, and after his unexpectedly emotionally draining day with meeting Millie on the street and her husband at the farm, he didn't want to try to process anything more than he already had.

That could wait for tomorrow.

For now, his bed was beckoning him so strongly that he didn't even take off his shoes before enveloping himself in the thick blanket, collapsing gracelessly onto the soft mattress.

But if it was a peaceful sleep Finn was looking for, he wouldn't find it tonight, because instead of the black void of white noise he had expected behind his eyes, he saw Niles.

Niles, and Malcolm, and Olivia, and Annie, and all of the other people that grew up on their street. Except they were still growing up. They were all still on that street. They must have been barely twelve.

"Finn!" a tiny Niles called to him, his voice cracking due to his apparent puberty, "Finn, if we go around those shrubs, they won't be to see us and we can sneak up on—"

"That will never work." Finn heard himself saying, suddenly immersed in this childhood memory, "We've done that the past three times. We need a new plan of attack or we'll lose. . .again."

He looked around his neighborhood, squinting from the bright sun, and saw their friends congregating by the front of his house, under the bay window where they looked to be coming up with their own plan to defend their territory. It was their go-to game of 'battlefield' where they pretended they were all medal-clad war heroes trying to rid the world of an enemy.

Somehow Finn and Niles always ended up playing the enemy, which meant their job was supposed to be a bit easier. All they had to do was catch their opponents off guard and capture what they called the 'war-key' —a large skeleton key they found at the bottom of a pond when they were all ten.

The problem was that two best friends couldn't find a way to sneak up on the others without being caught. All the 'good guys' had to do to win was tag an enemy on their back and they'd win. Which as Finn had just told Niles, had already come to pass three times that day.

"Okay General Finn," Niles snided, "What do you suggest then if my plan is so lame?"

Finn lowered himself and spoke in hushed tones, "It seems obvious that the side of the house is the clearest shot we've got. I mean, they'd see us coming from any other direction. You can look through the fence to make sure they don't have a lookout then we'll ambush them from behind."