Being wounded after the war, having seen the horrors of the front line, then seeing Cap again realising that he isn't supposed to be there and that he smuggled himself in, Havers probably panicking because they are surrounded and every sign of affection is a high risk. And then someone confronts the man who is clearly trying to get to him and Cap collapses and basically tries to confess his love and Havers has to keep him from putting them both in danger but wants him to know that He reciprocates so he says he knows and stops him from touching his face but guides him to grab the swaggerstick so he can grab his hands. which is such a smart idea because of course a dying and scared man grabs at something and of course one has to provide comfort to loosen the grip. And then they say each others first named and the second Cap is dead he has to release his hand or else it would be suspicious. And he has to do this with a straight face.
I wonder when he finally was allowed to shed a tear, to mourn, to fall apart
I'm by now completely convinced that he went to the front to protect them both because Cap really wasn't that subtle
And Havers looked out for both of them even in Cap's final moments
It's just so tragic. Cap lost his life but Havers lost so so much as well
I really, really want to know what happened to him afterwards.
I have a theory/explanation as to why captain appears in a broken mirror in the intro.
This post contains spoilers for S5 e5!!!!!
A mirror is typically used to show identity, a cracked mirror would mean a loss of identity. Cap had to fake fighting on the front line and take someone else's badges (hide his real identity) in order to see havers one last time. He died while pretending to be someone he wasn't and feeling like a fraud. This meant would have struggled hugely with his identity after his death (and likely before, being a closeted gay man in 1940's!!). This struggle with and loss of identity was potentially shown by the metaphor of broken mirror
Thinking about how even after he could see that the Captain had died, Havers let his hand brush over The Captain's. That was just for him. Havers just wanted to keep that touch going for as long as he could.
Just realised that Havers touches Cap's hand and keeps it down a bit to stop Cap from touching his face because of where they were and whom they were surrounded by
Fuck, that must have been so terrible for both of them.
Maybe that's why Havers was guiding Cap to grab the stick.
At least him grabbing the swaggerstick gave Havers the official excuse to touch his hands without adding too much suspicion.
Me and Kav, literally had headcanons that The Captain was absolutely SHIT at Cricket, but still adored it, and that Havers was an absolute fucking GOD at cricket. We also headcanoned that The Captain would smoke...
Then boom..... I wake up on the morning on Thursday the 26th of October 2023 and buy the audiobook.. I get to the cricket report and.. OUR HEAD CANONS WERE PROVEN!!! The Captain just freaking admiring the way that Havers plays (big bad on the smoking tho cap, cmon). We were screaming in our dms on discord, LITERALLY. AND THE CAPTAIN'S FAVOURITE SPORT BEING CRICKET?? OH MY DAAAAAAYYYSSS.
(here's our prophecies, call us Agnes nutter)
(And here are our reactions)
DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FUCKING DIARY ENTRY WHEN HAVERS LEFT. IM GOING TO RIP MY HAIR OUT LIKE THE CAPTAIN RIPPED OUT THE DIARY ENTRY. I actually still can't get over the fact that we have The Captain being a super massive Cricket fan, but not really playing and then Havers being an absolute GOD with 88 and 4s and 6s like omg he is a GOD.
why can i imagine fanny calling cap "james" so so so clearly? i feel like she'd be the only of the ghosts to call him by his name, while they're gossiping about the other ghosts or mike and alison or something