Kite

 

The sand was warm on the beach where Duncan sat, the sky above him flawless and clear. It might well have been stormy, gray and cold for all the effect it had on his spirits. Nothing touched him anymore -- not the brilliance of the shimmering sea, or the peals of delighted laughter from the small boy and his grandfather flying a kite down by the water's edge. He sat apart from it all. Alone, concentrating on the task at hand. He squinted through the glare on the paper, holding the edges down against the tugging breeze that tried to lift them while he wrote.

"The sky is blue here, Methos, so blue it hurts my eyes to look at it. Same sky we looked up at, but maybe that's the only thing that's the same. Did we look up at the sky in those few brief days that fate allowed us? Or were we always so focused on one another that nothing else mattered? I watch the sky alone now, the scudding clouds in the daytime and the far-off stars at night. I sit here on the beach (I can tell you that, after all, the world is full of beaches) and I watch the flow of life around me.

There's a little boy here now, I've been watching him fly his kite all morning, only now the wind's picked up and the kite's blown away. He's crying like his heart is broken, but the kite's still gone -- gone to wherever the wind will take it. He's crying even now.

And I can't help thinking that's a metaphor for you and me, Methos. I've let you go and you're gone now, far beyond my reach. I'd like to cry like he does, I'd like to scream and wail at the unfairness of this life, but what good would it do? What's done is done. And while I ache to think I hurt you, nothing will convince me I was wrong to do it.

You live. I know this, though you'll never know how. And that is what makes this nightmare livable. You live. It's enough. I'm a lot of things but I'm not selfish enough stay with you and be the cause of your death. I know you don't believe that, but it's true -- Joe only proved it. He died because of me, we both know it, and I will not see you do the same. I can survive anything but that. Even this.

God, it was so hard to walk away that morning. You were so beautiful lying there in our bed, all I wanted to do was get back in there with you and never let you go. It ripped me in two. I've had sword wounds that didn't hurt as much. But I had to do it, and if it was the coward's way to do it while you slept, then a coward I am. I could not have looked into your eyes and said goodbye, that was beyond me. Your eyes have always been my undoing. So I slunk away in the dark, hoping one day you would understand.

Even if you never understand, it's all right. You live and that's enough.

I never expected to love you like this, it hit me like a bolt from the blue and changed everything. I do love you, Methos, never doubt that. And for a little while I managed to deny the curse of my life and make-believe that we could have a future. It was a sweet self-delusion, but like all dreams it couldn't last -- doomed, like us, to end. But this is a dream I will never forget.

I remember everything, Methos. I live on it. From that first incredible kiss to every word and touch and every time we made love, I remember it all. I have it all locked up in my memory and nothing can take it away. Do you remember the Luxembourg Gardens, Methos? No, not that foolish argument about Stephen Keane, nor even the stupid fight we had about hunting The Two, but after that. One moment we were at each other's throats and the next I had my back pressed up against a tree and you were kissing me until I was drowning in it. I can't even remember that moment without wanting you. It hurts, but the pain is bittersweet and I would not be without it. After all, it's what I have left of you.

You live in two places now. There is the Methos who lives in my heart, my memories and in the sensations that lurk under my skin, and then there's the Methos who lives in the world. I can face any amount of pain and loneliness so long as they're both there. But Christ it hurts.

Are you hurting too? Or have you managed to smooth over the rough spots with the ease of long experience? I would not wish this pain for you, not for anything. I know that time will heal us, I know that this agony will fade. In time. And if you hurt, even if you cry and rail against me, cursing my name, I cannot bring myself to regret what I have done. After all, you live.

You almost didn't. It was so close. Do you wake as I do, with nightmares screaming in your head of those two demented bastards with their blades at your throat and their hands on your heart? I came so near to losing you, it makes my blood run cold to think how near it was. They came for me and it was you that almost died. Did they know, do you think, that they had found the one thing I could not bear? I think perhaps they did.

I think perhaps that no one could see me look at you and not know the way I feel about you. Even now I think that I must have changed somehow. I look in the mirror and I'm almost surprised to still see the same face I have always known. Strange to look the same when I feel so changed. I am not the same Duncan MacLeod that lived all those years without loving Methos. He is gone and the Duncan MacLeod that loves Methos is a very different man.

I know now that anything is possible and everything can change. Even me. I can almost see the cynicism of your smile at the thought of that, Methos. The thought that the immutable Scot could change would make your lip curl. But you managed it. I am so altered that some days I barely recognize myself.

You would know me. I believe that in a thousand years if the gods are kind you will know me still. No matter what changes in me the parts that love you will never alter. They are hidden away, protected and tended in the tender places. Love endures..."

Duncan stopped writing and looked up at the sky once more. The boy's kite was a tiny bloodstone speck in the azure sky. Almost gone. The little boy had turned away now, the old man with him had given him a ball to play with, small and rainbow-colored, and the child seemed to have forgotten all about the kite. Duncan managed a version of a smile. It was the way of things.

So perhaps it hadn't been so a good metaphor for them after all. There would be no replacement for him -- no one else for him, not like Methos -- ever. He would never forget.

Duncan stood and wandered down to the waterline, shivering a little against the chill wind blowing in off the bay. He stopped when he felt the wavelets lapping around his bare ankles. Almost unconsciously his fingers began to tear the letter into tiny pieces, letting them fly off onto the wind. They fell into the sea, catching in the swirls and eddies until they were gradually sucked out into the surf.

Another day, another year, another letter to Methos. Maybe next year he would send it.

Maybe not.

*The End*

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