Everlasting
He stared out at the night. It was orange hued and hazy, the Parisian lights dimming the stars, rippling with the Seine. Tears trickled slowly down his face.
Close enough, Methos, close enough, he told himself.
Her hair had been bright and fluffy, soft under his fingers, crackling with the cold of winter, limned with gold in the sun. And her eyes, clear and honest, seeing more than he ever wanted her to, without ever losing his secret to her. For her, all men were immortal, for they would see sunrises she would not. The number of days that they would own were irrelevant, they spanned more than she, and so they were immortal.
"My Alexa," he breathed softly. His face tight with the serenity that only extreme control brings, tears rolling noiselessly down his cheeks.
It was the most he could do.
For Alexa. For the night and the passing of joy.
"I'm dying..." He had almost wanted to laugh.
Of course she was. They all were. Relentlessly in a flood of passion and life and loss falling towards the darkness that he only ever brushed.
Beer in the glass, bitter and frothy. He picked up the bottle and drank, savouring the taste, for they who were too cold to savour it themselves. Each of them precious in their own way. He smiled down into the glass. No one else ever understood. Live forever, for the moment, everlasting, ever searching...
What could you do for five thousand years but endure? It all passed. Another sip of the softly sweet alcohol. The bottle almost gone now, along with the meal he had long since finished. What else was there to do? He didn't see the city, he saw people, one by one, in all their varied paths and dances. what was left but love, in the end. Where else was the good of it if the moment was not seized, the love not lived, the life not relished, long or short, good or bad. It was too precious to let slip. He smiled at the past. dear Alexa, convinced that her revelation would drive him away... Nothing could have kept him closer. There were no second chances with this one.
He tried, oh he had tried so hard, and he laughed at himself as the burn of grief welled again. Driven himself to the almost edge, the line he had sworn he would not cross again, to let her live for a little longer, a little forever. She... he wanted to say she would not have thanked him for the stone, but how could he know? She was gone, and all the thousands of questions that he had remained unspoken, while she, lost into the night, had the answers.
Pages last updated 18/09/2004.