#toldya

***

He joins the Watch sometime in summer, coppers giving him funny looks and cracking unfunny jokes about limbs falling off and parts not working properly, and the people, the differently-alive that used to be his friends whisper behind his back, words like traitor and selling out to the system, but when after his first weeks he singlehandedly – or single-armedly, seeing as how it was that limb that he threw after the miscreant and which hit him in the back of the head, knocking him out – when he catches his first criminal, Commander Vimes gives him a look, and a nod, and after that he’s Mister Vimes to Reg, and the funny looks die out a bit.

Even so, when his first twenty-fifth of May in the Watch rolls ‘round, he almost doesn’t wear the lilacs. He’s been wearing them consistently, without fail, for over twenty years, but this is the first time his fingers shake as he pins the flowers to his helmet.

People stare at him when he gets in that morning, both lilac-wearers and the younger, the more innocent coppers. Reg holds his head high – careful not to put too much stress on the stitches in his neck, just in case – and pretends not to see. In a way, he’s got more right than any of them to wear these, after all.

Vimes, too, wears the lilacs, pinned to his breastplate. Reg passes him in the hallway, not long after he comes in. Vimes, eyes downcast and face unreadable, absentmindedly glances at Reg when he passes, strolling on at his policeman’s pace. Then, he suddenly halts mid-step.

He turns back. He stares.

Reg braces himself.

“Ah,” Vimes says, eyes flicking between the lilacs on Reg’s helmet and his face. “Yes, you were there too, weren’t you? I remember now.”

Zombies have a good memory, but it’s still hard to connect the skinny pale terrified kid to the grizzled man he sees in front of him. Still…

“And I remember you, sir,” Reg says, with a small smile. “You fought bravely, that day.”

“Bravely?” Vimes huffs. “Recklessly, maybe. Stupidly. Although – well, yes, why not. Bravely.” He grins, a tiny bit too wide, too feral. “Not as bravely as you, though.”

Reg shrugs. “I was every bit as stupid, sir. Just a bit more loud about it.” He sighs, looks down. “You seem to be the only one who remembers me, though.”

“Oh, everyone remembers you, Reg,” Vimes says, with dark humour. 

Reg looks up. “Sir?”

“They might not remember the name, or the face,” Vimes says, “but everyone who survived that night remembers you.”

***

It’s hard, the first few years.

Zombies aren’t actively hunted, but they’re certainly not accepted with open arms either. The others shuffle and groan, clinging to tradition and misconceptions, and for a while Reg joins them in dull, insulting security.

But he died with revolution running through his veins and his veins may be empty now, but the fire never died, and not too long after he gives up on tradition and starts talking again, starts yelling, starts fighting back.

Not that it changes that much. He can’t do anything but small things, perhaps insignificant in the larger scope of things, small acts of defiance and protest, one tiny spark in the all-encompassing darkness.

And when the revolution comes round again, the way revolutions do… This one, he’s not allowed any part in.

***

They don’t come by in one large group to the graveyard. Instead, they trickle in one by one, each spending a few moments with the grave, before quietly leaving again. Reg, tending to his own resting place not too far away, keeps an eye on them, and only goes up when most of them have already visited and the place is empty.

He leans on his shovel and looks down at what little of the headstone he can see through the masses of flowers covering the grave. 

“How do they rise up,” he mutters, then smiles, wryly. “In my case, left hand first, straight through the final layer of dirt.”

“Or with the help of a flagpole.”

He whirls in surprise. Vimes has snuck up on him, quiet as a cat. He’s carrying his son in his arms, who makes a happy noise when he spots Reg.

Reg makes to leave, but Vimes shakes his head. He sets Young Sam down on the ground, where he promptly begins fiddling with the lilacs.

“It’s his birthday, today,” Vimes says, staring at the gravestone.

“I know, sir.”

“How the hell am I supposed to combine those two? How the hell can I wear a silly hat and eat cake and act like I’m happy when…”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” Reg says. “It’s not that sad, this day – it did go all right, in the end, didn’t?”

“Did it?” Vimes says gloomily.

“Well, I dare say we wouldn’t be here today without him. His courage and spirit. He lives on in all of us, really.” Reg side-eyes Vimes. “And maybe in some of us more than in others.”

For a while, there’s no sound but the wind rustling through the leaves and the soft humming of Young Sam as he picks apart the blossoms. 

“Zombies have good memories,” Reg says carefully.

“Is that so?” Vimes says, neutral and bland, honouring his nickname.

Which is an answer all of its own, of course.

***

He only goes to the graveyard when it’s far after midnight. They don’t like him near the grave, don’t like seeing him around on that day, don’t like what he represents, but that’s all right.

Well, no, it’s not all right, but there’s nothing he can do about it. John Keel’s grave is not the place for petty fights.

So he waits until it’s well into the night, when it’s already technically the twenty-sixth, and only then does he go to the grave, where he can sit and think in peace, for awhile.

But this time, there’s still someone there. Reg almost doesn’t see him, at first. He’s sitting against another grave, back leaning against the stone, bottle in his hand but eyes steady on Keel’s grave. Reg hesitates, then makes to leave.

“Nah, stay,” the man says, waving his bottle.

So he approaches. There’s a lantern next to the grave and the unsteady light illuminates the man’s face. Vimes, Keel’s protégé, the skinny kid that followed Keel on his heels – except he doesn’t look like a kid anymore.

“’m holding a vigil,” Vimes says. “Wouldn’t want old Keel to get lonely, would we? And it’s not like anyone else comes to visit, now.” He looks up at Reg. “Cept you.”

“You don’t mind me being here?” Reg asks, curious.

“Why would I? You died for it. With him.” He takes a deep drink from his bottle. “Reckon you’ve got more right than anyone to be here tonight.”

“The others don’t share your opinion,” Reg says.

“The others can go to hell,” Vimes says, and he looks up at Reg, the wavering Nightwatchmen’s lantern’s light dancing across his face, and his eyes are dark and serious and angry, and not even all the booze and the misery are enough to drown out the furious still-burning fire underlying it all and –

And Reg thinks, oh.

Zombies have good memories.

***

“You never talk about it,” Vimes says.

“Neither do you, sir,” Reg says pointedly.

Vimes gives him a joyless smile, then reaches behind his breastplate for a cigar. He lights it absentmindedly, eyes going between his son and the letters on the stone.

“It was still all for nothing, Reg,” Vimes says, after he’s taken his first puff. “We failed, didn’t we? And for years and years it was even worse than before. It’s Vetinari who made things right again, not Keel.”

“He may not have succeeded then, sir, but he showed us something. Inspired us.”

Vimes huffs.

“No, it’s true,” Reg protests “He gave me courage, you know. When things got… difficult, and it felt like it would be so much easier to just let go and give in than try to fight against something that seemed like it would never change – that’s when I remembered him. I remember him standing on the barricades, organising us. I remember the way the officers and the politicians were afraid of him. And I remember that even though it didn’t work in the end, we came damn close.”

“Hah. Did we?”

“I wouldn’t be here without him, sir,” Reg says. Then adds, quietly, “Without you.”

Another silence falls. They both look down at the grave, smothered with flowers and honour. Reg still vividly remembers the way it had looked only about five or ten years ago, when eventually it had just been him and Vimes, and Rosie and Nobby and Colon. The measly bouquet, the egg. Almost forgotten.

How do they rise up, indeed.

“You’re a good copper, Reg,” Vimes says. “An awful revolutionary, but a good copper. Tenacious as hell, and some damn good observational skills.”

“Thank you, sir,” Reg says modestly.

For a while, they just stand there together, shoulder by shoulder, the sun setting and the shadows behind the stones lengthening.

Then Young Sam starts to fuss. Vimes sighs and picks him up. The child turns in his father’s arms and looks down at the gravestone, pointing at it. “Da’!”

“That’s right, that’s your dad,” Reg says cheerfully.

Vimes gives him a dark look. “If you ever…”

“I wouldn’t, sir,” Reg says, calmly. “I’ve kept this secret this long, I’m not about to change that now.”

Vimes stares at him, dark eyes boring into Reg’s face. “How long – ” Then he shakes his head. “Nevermind. I don’t need to know.”

“Course, sir.”

Vimes sighs, deeply. “Night, Reg. See you tomorrow.”

“Night, Mister Vimes. Say hello to Lady Sybil from me.”

Vimes gives a lazy wave and heads out of the graveyard, the light glinting off his helmet.

Reg looks at Vimes, leaving the graveyard with his typical copper’s gait.

And he remembers. Remembers Young Sam, as he was, scared and a bit stupid but his anger already growing, the indignant fury at things not being right. And he remembers the other Sam Vimes, the one with the eye patch and the scar and the lined face, the one who came from somewhere else, somewhere not too far away, somewhere where you could fight against the evil bastards in power and win.

Zombies have good memories. And Reg had always been good at recognising faces.