Disclaimer:

Author's Notes:

Story Notes:

Watcher in the Night
by Dilanne Tomas

Rating: G
Disclaimer: Alliance owns them. If anyone is to get paid for their use it is them, not me. This is a work of fan fiction, not intended for profit and not meant to infringe on any prior copyrights. Category: Drama, PWP
Pairings: None
Spoilers: (a little bit of) North
Thanks: To Marilea for the beta read and the right word. Thanks to the wonderful fic writers and fun-loving supportive Duesers at RedSuitsYou (and the DS Fiction List). And special thanks to Kim Parker for offering to get me archived to the DS Archive at Hexwood. Wow, after all this time. TYK, Kim.

Teaser: Since it's a such a PWP, I'd have to go with the title.

He waited in the shadows and watched.

The darkness seemed even deeper now; the cold more piercing. He knew it was only illusion. Subjective experience. The weather hadn't truly shifted yet. Not that the temperature wouldn't drop before morning.

Long seconds turned to even longer minutes. Subjective experience again.

He waited for something to happen. But no change in the night was forthcoming.

He kept still as he extended his listening outward. He could hear the faint clicking sounds; at least he fancied he could. His hearing had always been acute. Growing up with so much silence did that to a man, to a boy.

The wind swirled around him. Icy fingers reached through his clothing to shiver him. He placed one gloved hand against a rough-barked tree. Once again he doubted his course of action.

Was it reason enough that this was how it had always been done? Was it justification that it was what he had been taught, how he had been taught, so many years ago?

His stubborn assurance that this was the only way to learn the self sufficiency necessary to survive in this unrelenting land warred with his instinct to protect that which he loved. The only being left that could stir so much in him.

What would she have said, had she been alive to offer her opinion? She would let him know when something was too harsh, or too soon asked. She had been by no means soft, but she had a softness in her, a tender touch for both her husband and her son.

She knew how much to demand of the growing child and how much to yield to the tough-minded father. He, by contrast, had no gauge in dealing with the boy. His own mother had been raised in a sea of boys, more like one of her own brothers than her mother. She had never believed in coddling. His father had been hard raising him, demanding, sure in all matters, brooking no dispute. Fair-minded, but not always fair. Possessing humor, but spare in dispensing it.

He had always accepted their ways. Everything they taught him had made sense at the time.

But watching his young wife with their newborn son had altered his perspective. Everything she did seemed natural, effortless, right. The babe thrived and when he was with them, the joy in their family was palpable. He came to believe, through her, that there was a place for tenderness, that, after all, babies were meant for coddling.

He learned to trust her instinct in that, as he trusted his own instincts in the wild.

In so many things he had come to rely on his wife. With her gentle strength, she had kept them in balance. She had proven time and again that courage and resolve could coexist with nurturing and warmth. If you made the mistake of thinking of her as weak because she chose to be mild, your muddled thinking would be quickly clarified for you.

It was her hand that kept them on an even keel. Without her this family listed dangerously.

Caroline. His mind let out her name in a sigh.

There. He distinctly made out tiny scritches from the clearing. This time he was certain they were real. His stomach tightened at the staccato scrapings. They seemed to be abrading something inside him. They scratched against the fabric of his soul.

He'd been shot more than once, nearly frozen to death half a dozen times, been knifed, thrown from a horse, beaten, left for dead -- yet turning his back on the boy tonight and walking away had been one of the most painful things he'd ever done.

Had his father felt this way? He'd seemed so certain, so purposeful. Never leaving room to doubt him. But had he doubted?

Had he stood sentinel in the night so long ago? He'd never said. And Robert had never thought to ask.

Now the present father wondered: did it make him weaker or stronger that he couldn't leave the boy on his own? Could a father really leave a son to the wilds at so young an age? He knew he couldn't have forced his legs to move a step further from Benton than this point right here. So here he stood.

He imagined his own father watching from the darkness, keeping vigil through the long cold night. He could picture it, but he didn't know if it had been so.

Had generations of fathers protected, unseen and without prompting from their forebears? Or, did all fathers (but his) tell their sons, "by the way, stand by -- stand near -- in case the boy gets into trouble?" Perhaps some fathers intended to pass down that one detail when their sons were older and then forgot -- or never got the chance? Or perhaps they held their silence in embarrassment. Would he be ashamed to admit he could not leave the boy?

Click, click, click. The sounds were louder now, more rapid. Could he detect panic in the sound of flint striking granite? Was that how his own strikings sounded all those many years ago when he struck stone to stone again and again in absolute blind terror?

Once again the winds reminded him that the night was dipping toward its chill depths. How long should he give the child? How long before he rescued him from the darkness? And if he did, would it be only to see his son's fear replaced by the bitterness of failure and then a new fear: that he could not survive on his own?

He'd seen that fear grow up in boys, in men, outstripping their growth in stature, in years, in maturity, till it loomed larger than their very lives. Till it robbed them of their self respect.

He'd seen it -- and he didn't want that for Ben. He wanted his son to be able to endure. And God, how he knew that enduring, enduring alone, could take all the reserves a man's soul could provide.

Still, the frantic scratchings tore at him. That's my son. My son. All that's left of Caroline and me. How can I leave him out there alone in the dark, in the cold, in his terror? It's what was done to me. But it was wrong. Wasn't it Caroline? It was wrong.

He sucked in a shuddering breath, took one step out toward the clearing, but was stopped by a flick of light.

A spark.

A moment, suspended in chill black air...

Then another spark.

He waited. Not moving, not breathing. And there, in the pit of darkness, a single flame showed itself, and grew and multiplied.

And in the pale orange glow he saw the face of his son. And in the face of his son he saw the face of his dead wife.

His heart quickened. He stood frozen. Transfixed by the open young face of the only child he would ever have, illuminated by the flames of his small triumph. But triumph wasn't what the father saw there. He saw the terrible vulnerability. He saw loneliness. He saw fear. He saw the things the boy had never let him see before.

Robert's heart was pulled toward him. His feelings surged. Pride mixed with guilt and worry. His own ache blended with empathy for the boy's pain. But it was all more than he could bear to feel at once; more than he could acknowledge.

He wanted to close the distance to his son. 'Congratulations, Ben. You did it. Now let's go home.' But he couldn't make the move. He couldn't open his heart to that much feeling without losing control.

He stepped back into the shadows. Yanked back his turbulent emotions, tamping down their stirrings. Caroline. Caroline. If I go to him I'll lose myself. I can see you there in his face, in his eyes. Forgive me, Caroline. Forgive me, Ben. This is the only way I know. How else can I keep my sanity? My strength? My control?

He leaned against the rough-barked tree and let it's coarseness press against his face. He would spend the night in the shadows, keeping vigil over the son whose pain he could not ease.

I can't come close, but I'm not far, Ben, not so very far.

The End

End Watcher In the Night by Dilanne Tomas: Dilanne@aol.com

Author and story notes above.