aTITLE: Death in Life
AUTHOR: Jennie
Feedback at: jennieemcg@aol.com
FANDOM: Highlander
PAIRING: Methos/O & Methos/Duncan McLeod
- both implied
RATING: G
ARCHIVE: Sure. If you really want it.
SPOILERS: Only in the vaguest way - for the
episode Methos
NOTES: I watched a movie - one I shall not
name - last night. It had a sad ending. This is what happened... I have now
been banned from watching movies with sad ending, btw.
SUMMARY: Death, survival, memories, a future
BETA: Teri, Sue and Laura
Death in Life
By Jennie
The worst friend and enemy is but Death
Rupert Brooks
The Great Lover
O Death in Life, the days that are no more
Tennyson
Tears, Idle Tears
***
He's gone.
I don't know what to do. How to survive.
My dearest wish is to join him in death. Dear God, why am I still alive? One
should never have to survive such pain.
Never.
'Tis an abomination that one should feel so much grief, so much anguish, yet
still live. Surely this eve's events have been but a dream. A nightmare. But
no. No, I am, indeed, alive. And doomed to remain in this horrifying condition.
He made me promise, you see. With his dying breath, he made me promise.
To live.
I know not how I still manage to draw breath into my lungs. Why my foolish
heart continues to beat. Does it not know that everything I lived for is gone?
That everything I loved is dead?
For I have loved only once. And, I shan't love again. I could not.
"You are yet young," you say.
I say, "How dare you presume to think you could understand?"
He was my world. My sun, my moon, the stars in my sky. He was the very air I
breathed. Every beat of my heart was due to him. To his love for me and mine
for him.
I cannot imagine that any other, in all of history, might have shared such a
love such as I had with him. Logically, I know this is not true. That we were
not the first to love so deeply and completely. But, this foolish heart of mine
refuses to accept that knowledge.
Our love seemed - seems - so ideal. Could it truly be possible that others have
known such perfection? It does not seem feasible. Perhaps, in time, I will come
to accept that we were not the first to share such a love. Not yet, however.
Not yet.
My pain and loss are too fresh. I cannot see beyond them. All I can do now is
suffer. And remember. How very wonderful it was. How very much I shall miss his
presence in my life.
How do I continue to wake each morning without him? How shall I drag myself
through each day? I have no answers to these questions. Somehow, though, somehow
I will do these things. I will live.
For him.
I can do nothing else. I gave him my word. And, his relief upon hearing that
promise, makes breaking my word inconceivable. He trusted me. Trusted that I
would do as he asked. That trust shone from his eyes as he lay dying.
I could not bear to imagine the hurt I would inflict on him, were I to follow
my wishes and go with him into death. 'Twould be easy, so very easy, to simply
let death take me. To sleep and not awake.
But, I shall not do that. I can not do that. He never let me down in life and I
will not let him down in death. With death.
I will go on.
Somehow.
***
Methos closed the journal. Sadly, he stared out of the window at the gloomy
day. Seemed appropriate, somehow, that gloom. Leaving Ethan had been one of the
most difficult decisions of his life. He'd had no choice, though. They'd been
together for over fifteen years when he'd 'died'. Friends, business associates,
and even Ethan himself, had started to notice Methos' youthful appearance.
Still...
What if he'd confessed his immortality? Surely the depth of the love Ethan had
borne for him would have prevented rejection. Fear. They could have moved away
from
Because he did not doubt that Ethan's death at age forty-nine had been
premature. The man had been left with nothing to live for. He'd never loved
again. He'd never so much as looked at another. Throughout the remainder of his
short life, Ethan had remained alone, living only because Methos had forced
that promise from him.
Yet another regret to add to his very long list.
He'd avoided involvement with any other since Ethan. Just couldn't bring
himself to consider causing such pain again. It wasn't difficult. Every time
some pretty thing - or handsome thing - caught his eye, he forced himself to
remember Ethan. To reread the diary Ethan had faithfully written in every day.
Until the day he lost Methos, that was. After that, there were no more entries.
Only blank leaves of paper. Except for that last page, of course...
***
Finally! I am dying. Soon I shall be with him again. I must trust in this, for
that belief has kept me going through the years. It has been sixteen years
since I lost him. Funny, that is only one year more than we were together. It
seems so very much longer. A lifetime.
Not one single day has passed that I have not thought of him. Longed for him.
Cried for him. Grieved for him. He would laugh at me for that. Crying and
grieving over him for sixteen years. Always, he laughed at my foolish
sentiment.
I knew, though, that he only used that amusement to cover the depth of his
feelings for me. I always knew.
And now, I die. At last, I shall know peace.
I cannot wait for this wretched consumption to kill me. To free me. To let me
once again feel him close to me.
He waits for me. I am sure of this. Soon we will be together again.
Soon.
***
After staring blankly at that final entry for minutes on end, Methos shook
himself. Leafing back, he started reading the pages from before. From the time
they'd spent together. He took what comfort he could in the joy Ethan had
experienced during those years.
And, he hoped fervently that there was no afterlife. No heaven. No Ethan
searching for him. Waiting for them to share that mythic 'forever'.
Never again, he vowed to himself. Never again would he allow himself to love
another. Never again would he let anyone down so horribly. His remaining years
would be spent without a companion of the heart.
The all too familiar thrum of another immortal sang through his body and he
groaned. Whoever it was, Methos would either kill him, or send him away coldly
rejecting any overtures of friendship.
He looked up, eyes widening as he recognized the man standing before him.
Pulled the earphones off, he laid Ethan's journal aside, and smirked.
"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," he said in greeting.
***
And so it began...
***
Finis