Work Text:
Lessons
By Lyn
Rain cascaded down the window like teardrops. Lightning flashed across the sky, highlighting the stark pallor of his face for a moment before darkness fell once more, leaving the landscape outside as bleak as his soul.
Youthful naïveté had clashed with keen intelligence and an overpowering yearning to learn. He'd learned... learned the hard way.
His compassion had been sacrificed to Alex's greed, his loyalty to his own selfish pride.
He'd died and been brought back to life, only to fail again, and he wondered sometimes how many lifetimes it took before you truly learned.
But he knew the right path now, knew the way was true, knew he was making this sacrifice for all the right reasons, and somewhere deep down, beneath the sorrow and defeat, the what-ifs and what nows, he felt the weight lift from his soul, setting him free, allowing him to move on.
He had no idea where he went from here, but he felt curiously unconcerned in the here and now of what he was about to do. That the world - his world, and Jim's - would right itself once more was his only concern.
'It's about friendship', he'd told Jim not long after their journey as Sentinel and Guide had begun, and not for the first time, he realized the import of those words.
Lowering his head, squinting in the gathering darkness, he wrote a final line and closed his journal. Setting it atop the tome he'd showed Jim so reverently that first day, he laid his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes, his conscience clear, his mind at peace.
Tomorrow, he would face the press, make his confession and go on with his life, and give Jim back his.
end