"The Oak and the Ash" (9/9) by Parda August 2004 CHAPTER 7 - HOME ===== EDINBURGH ===== A week after Christmas, Connor was still drinking. Alex still hadn't called. It was possible she might have written, but he hadn't checked his mail, either post or computer. He hadn't opened his presents, either, and he hadn't mailed Alex hers. Maybe he should throw them out. But first, another drink. Connor reached for the bottle and found it empty. The house was empty, too. Empty of whisky, empty of Alex, empty, empty, empty ... another empty beer on the wall. Another bottle of beer. Damn. He'd better get moving before he started singing that asinine song. Connor pulled on a coat and went back for his shoes, then he let himself out the door. He was almost to the liquor store when he realized that it was early Sunday morning. And New Year's Day. Everything was closed. Damn. A walk, then. A long, brisk walk in the cold, exactly what he needed; he hadn't been out of the house in days. He wasn't sure exactly how long it had been. Connor walked up hills and down hills, out of the new town and into the old, past buildings he remembered being built, buildings he couldn't remember having seen before, and buildings he never wanted to see again. Many things had improved over the years, but commonplace architecture was not one of them. Eventually, he stopped and looked up at a building that was older than he was. Damn. His birthday. Today was his birthday, and he was 499 years old. "Happy birthday, MacLeod," he muttered to himself, but it wasn't true, anymore than "Merry Christmas" had been true when Alex had called. Connor stared up at the forbidding gray walls atop the pinnacle of ancient black rock. A week since Alex had called. An entire week, and not a word. Connor starting walking again. Silence was its own answer. The wind was bitterly cold as it streamed in the canyons created by the rows of buildings. Connor turned up his collar but kept wandering. He didn't want to go back to the house, not a home anymore, just a house, an empty echoing house. Time to move, Connor decided as he crossed North Bridge over the train station. He could go back to New York City again, to be close to Rachel. He missed her. She'd call him today, he knew; she always called him on his birthday. Connor turned at Dublin Street and started back to the house, striding purposefully now. He didn't want to miss her call. Clouds were gathering, and Connor walked more swiftly, his head down against the frigid wind, taking only quick glances at the few people out walking on New Year's Day--a young couple, hand in hand, muffled to the ears; a mother with two small children tugging on her hands in excitement and talking about a party; an older woman in a red coat and a purple scarf on the other side of the street. Two seconds later, Connor stopped walking. The scarf was new, but he knew that coat. "Hey, MacLeod," the gentle summons came, as it had come many years before. Connor turned to see Alex crossing the street, her hands in the pockets of her red coat. She stopped on the sidewalk five paces away. The wind flared her short hair into a halo of pure white, the stark color somehow deepening the color of her eyes to the crystalline blue of a winter sky--defiant eyes, wary eyes, but eyes that weren't trying to hide anymore. He took half a step forward, stopped again and cleared his throat. "I wasn't expecting you," he explained, but that wasn't all the truth. He hadn't recognized her. Alex nodded slowly, the faint ghost of a smile on her face, her eyes far-seeing and sad. She knew. "I thought it would be better to surprise you, than to disappoint you," she explained in return, then added, "Again," before Connor could say the word. "I like the new hair style," he commented, keeping things civil, friendly ... safe. "You look good." Different, but good. Older. But good. "Thanks." Her smile widened slightly, and some of the wariness disappeared. "I had it cut on Thursday," she said and tossed her head slightly, an old habit, but her hair was too short now to matter. "It's been all white for a couple of weeks. It was too much trouble to keep dyeing it at the site." "I didn't know you dyed your hair," Connor said. "I didn't want you to know." There'd been a lot of things she hadn't wanted him to know. Maybe there still were. "New scarf?" he asked, going back to safe ground. She nodded. "Rachel gave it to me as a Christmas present." He nodded back, took one breath, then plunged in. "So," Connor began, wondering how long she was going to stay this time, "just visiting?" She took a full step toward him, then a hesitant one. "We need to talk, Connor." He'd been telling her that for months, and she'd had her chance before she'd run away. He shrugged and stood there, waiting. Alex said nothing, and they stared at each other in silence on the quiet empty street. "You want to talk?" Connor prompted finally. "Talk." "I'm cold, Connor," she told him instead, this woman who had never before complained of the cold. "Can we go home?" "Do we have a home?" he asked, because he needed to know before he ever opened that door. "I want us to," Alex answered, clear and certain, the way she used to be. Her eyebrows lifted, but more in a hopeful question than a challenge. "Do you?" An entire world can change with a heartbeat. Connor nodded, swallowing hard, and Alex reached out to him, her eyes suddenly bright with unshed tears. "Then let's go home," she said softly, and after a moment Connor took her hand. ~~~~~ They ended up talking in the kitchen, even though Connor had suggested they go to the dining room, the one place downstairs that he hadn't camped out in. "I haven't been in the mood for cleaning lately," he explained in some embarrassment as Alex walked into the parlour. She nodded and said nothing as she picked her way around the rumpled heap of blankets on the floor in front of the fireplace. She glanced once at the empty whisky bottles placed neatly (and alphabetically) in a row underneath the grand piano in the library, then paused in the kitchen doorway for a quick survey of the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink and the collection of half-empty cartons of take-out food on the kitchen counter. "Tea?" she suggested brightly, and Connor took the pizza box off the stove while Alex set about making a pot of tea. "I wouldn't use that milk," he warned, and Alex calmly shut the refrigerator door and got the honey out instead. She pushed the newspapers off to one side and sat down at the table, then wrapped her long fingers tightly around the steaming mug. Connor could see the tremors in her hands from the rhythmic ripples in the liquid. "I'll turn up the heat," he offered, and Alex nodded through her shivers. "I'd like a blanket," she called after him, and after he adjusted the thermostat, Connor scooped the red one up from the floor. He came back to the kitchen and laid the thick, woven cloth about her shoulders, not touching her, letting Alex pull the blanket closer and tuck it in. He sat down across from her, as they had sat so many times before, and he couldn't think of a single word to say. Connor stirred his tea, watching the swirls and eddies, but when he lifted his mug to drink, he couldn't hide from her anymore. She was watching, and waiting, and staring right at him. "I'm sorry, Connor," she started, and it was a damn good place for her to start. "I should never have left you alone like that over Christmas." Connor nodded, accepting her apology, but he didn't say, "Don't worry about it," and he didn't say, "It's all right," because it hadn't been, and he wasn't sure it was going to be. But he should still say something in return. "It's nothing new," he told her with a shrug. "It was new for us," she corrected, and that was certainly true. "I was selfish," she went on, and that was true as well. "Even if I couldn't--" She sighed and continued with a rush, "I should at least have called Sara or Colin and told them to come home, so you--" "I'm glad you didn't," Connor interrupted bluntly. He didn't want his children to see him that way. "I wasn't ... good company." Alex half-smiled in bitter understanding. "Neither was I. My mom told me that. So did Rachel." "You went to Rachel?" he said in surprise. "Didn't you get my emails?" Alex asked, seeming surprised, too. "I've been writing to you every day since Christmas. Just short notes at first, but then longer ones. I was trying to explain..." She stopped there, her eyes wary again. Connor swore silently as he rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. Looked like he should have checked his mail. "I was waiting for a phone call," he explained. "I never turned on the computer. Or looked at the mail." "Oh." Her faint smile was rueful, and it quickly disappeared into a sigh. "I didn't think I should call," she explained. "Since our last phone call didn't end well, I thought emails would be ... easier." Connor nodded slowly. They might have been, if he'd been in the mood to read. "Want to explain now?" he asked. "Or should I go read my mail?" "I came home to explain," she said steadily. "I owe you that." Connor checked his impulse to agree with her, and instead remained silent, waiting. She almost smiled before she started talking; she knew what he'd wanted to say. "After I left my mom's house," Alex began, "I went to New York to see Rachel. I needed some advice--about growing old. About dying." He bit back an irritated oath, clamping his teeth shut to hold back the words: You're only 54 years old and you're in good health and you look great, and anyway I don't give a damn what you look like because I love you and I will always love you. And you should damn well know that I love you because I've been telling you that over and over again, but you just don't *listen.* And for this, you dump me two days before Christmas and rip out my heart? And you don't even bother to call? Connor didn't say any of that. Blasting her with all the pent-up rage, frustration, and worry of the last week--the last three months--wouldn't help. She needed him to be calm, supportive, and patient, and he would do that for her. She'd done it before for him. "Alex," he began carefully, "you're not old, and you're not dy--" "Don't, Connor," she broke in. "Don't hide from this, and don't make me hide from you. I am growing older," she insisted. "I will die. We both know that." Oh, he knew. God help him, he knew. But he didn't want to think about it, and so he didn't. But Alex had obviously been thinking about it--a lot. "I can't lie about this anymore, Connor," she went on. "It's destroying me, to try to stay young for you." "I never asked that of you," Connor protested in horror. "No," Alex whispered, a half-smile breaking through her unshed tears. "But I wanted to give it to you, just the same." Right before she had died, Heather had told him, "I want to stay with you, forever." But she hadn't been able to, and Alex wouldn't, either. They died. They all died. "Alex ...," Connor began, but there was nothing he could say to make it better, nothing either of them could do to make it go away. He reached across the table, and she clung to his hand tightly, her fingers cold against his own. "I can't stop aging," Alex continued, gently, inexorably. "No matter how hard I try." Connor forced himself to feel the prominent veins and the swollen joints in her hands, to look at her face and see the lines that would be wrinkles, to note the drooping flesh around eyes and mouth, to admit to the inexorable changes brought by each new day. "It doesn't matter," he told her, and it didn't, not at all. Alex shook her head. "It mattered to me. A lot. You know I hate to fail," she said with a small, self-conscious laugh, and Connor had to smile in return. "I hated myself for trying to look young and failing, and for being so obsessed with my looks," Alex went on, blinking through her tears. "I was angry with Sara for being young and beautiful, and I despised myself for feeling that way about my own daughter, but still ... I hated Sara, I hated her friends, I hated Susan, I hated every young woman I saw, for reminding me of what I could never be again." And she probably hated Cassandra the most, Connor thought ruefully. After Jennifer had asked him what else Alex might be running from, Connor had soon realized why Cassandra had been persona non grata around their house these last few years. But if Alex wasn't going to mention her, Connor wasn't about to either. "I hated the old women, too," Alex was saying, "for showing me what I was going to be. And ..." The tears were coming freely now, as she admitted, "I hated you most of all." Shit. He'd beaten out Cassandra for the "most-hated person" award? Connor took one deep breath before he demanded: "Why?" What had he ever done? What the hell for? After all he'd done to try to help-- "Because you're an Immortal," Alex said simply. "You'll never grow old. I know you can't help that, and I know you don't want that, but still .I hated you mostly because I was blaming you for making me feel that way. If it weren't for you, I was thinking, I wouldn't have to try to stay young." "Oh, Christ," Connor muttered, and he went around the table, never letting go of her hand, and he pulled her off the chair and into his arms as they sank together to the floor. He'd seen this jealousy and rage over immortality in mortals before, and he should have recognized it for what it was in her. But Heather had never hated him, and he'd somehow never once thought Alex, of all people, wouldn't understand. Connor closed his eyes in dismay. Oh, God. "I love you, Alex, and I will always love you, whatever you look like, however you are," he told her, trying to fix this the only way he knew how. His voice was quiet against the softness of her hair, and his hand was gentle on the curve of her spine, where the bones were more prominent than they used to be. "I know," she said, hiding her face against his shoulder. "And I knew it then. It only made it worse, because I hated you, more and more every day." OK, he could understand that. He didn't like it, but he could understand. Even so... "Is that why you left me?" he asked, more harshly than he'd intended, so he tried again, "I mean--" "I know what you mean," she broke in, pulling back to look at him, with that sad and knowing look in her eyes once again. "'Why did I run out on you right before Christmas? Why didn't I even give you a chance before I left for Spain?" At Connor's nod, Alex shook her head, her eyes closed, and then told him, "I didn't do that deliberately to hurt you, Connor. I never wanted to hurt you. I just needed time alone, and then..." She sighed and laid her head against his arm, a comforting and comfortable weight. "While I was at the dig, I did a lot of soul-searching, and I felt better, and I thought I was ready to see you. So I said I'd come home. But when I got here, I found out that I wasn't ready for you to see me." Her toes started wiggling, a sure sign of embarrassment. "It had rained, and my hair was a mess, and I was exhausted and I looked awful, and I couldn't bear for you to see me that way, only there was nowhere to hide." She looked up at him again, her face tear-streaked yet unflinching. "I didn't just leave, Connor. I panicked. And then I ran." "I didn't know I was that scary," he said, trying to lighten the tone. It worked. She actually smiled. "You know perfectly well you can be that scary," she told him. "And sometimes you want to be." "But not with you." "No," she agreed softly. "Never with me. But you see, it wasn't just you I was afraid of. It was me. I could hurt you ... so much more than I already have, Connor," Alex confided, but it wasn't exactly a secret between them, and he knew how to hurt her, too. "I could become a vicious, spiteful, hateful--and hate-filled--old woman. I was already starting to, and it was getting worse. I've come to see now that it wasn't really you I was hating; it was me. But it was easier to blame you." "Yeah," Connor said shortly. He knew that destructive little game. "But no matter how awful I got," she went on, "I know you'd stay with me, because you made a vow years ago. But over time, you would come to hate me, and when I finally died, you would be relieved and glad that you were free." Connor shook his head, but she stopped him with a gentle hand to the cheek. "Yes, you would, Connor. Anyone would. I don't want that for us. I don't want to ruin all the memories of the love we used to share." "Used to?" he questioned softly, and in that heartbeat his world changed again. She still hadn't said she loved him, not once today. "I meant--" She took a deep breath and kept going, "I meant after I'm dead. I meant your memories of our love. I want you to have good memories, all the way to the end." "Me, too," Connor managed to say. "So," she began, "love is supposed to mean sharing. We haven't been sharing this, and I need us to. Please don't stop me when I mention dying. Don't tell me I don't look a day older. Don't pretend. Don't hide. Because when you hide from me, I feel like I have to hide from you. And I can't keep hiding and lying, because it's destroying me, and then I start to blame you. I'd rather leave you than live like that, because I love you too much to hate you that way." And there it was, that declaration of love he had been waiting for, but not exactly tied up with a pretty pink bow. "So, either we face my death together," Alex finished, "or I face it alone." "Don't see me, Connor," Heather had asked of him, as she lay dying. "Let me die in peace." Connor had looked off and away, the burden of her frail body terrifyingly light in his arms. He had stayed with Heather until the very end, but she had died--as all must die--alone. "I can't go with you, Alex," he said, his voice hoarse from the tightness in his throat. "Not at the very last, no," she agreed. "But you could walk with me on the way there. If you want to." "I do," he told her immediately, another solemn vow between them. Alex closed her eyes and sagged against him in sudden relief, and he held her close, never wanting to let her go. She looked up him from the circle of his arms. "I love you, Connor MacLeod." "I love you, too," he answered, and he meant it, though it wasn't a simple thing between them, not anymore. But it was enough. It was more than enough. Alex pulled him closer and kissed him, with all the sweet promise of springtime, and all the smoky passion of fall. "Welcome home," Connor said with a shaky laugh when she finally let him go, and he tried to catch his breath. "I'd like to welcome you home," Alex suggested with a slow and teasing grin. "Only ..." She looked around the tiled floor of kitchen, which hadn't been swept for days. Her nose wrinkled delicately. "Do you have some place better to offer?" Connor smiled as he stood, lifting her in his arms, and he carried her up the stairs and straight to their bed. ===== Rachel didn't want to interrupt Alex and Connor too soon, so she waited until it was late afternoon in Scotland before she called. The phone was picked up on the third ring. "Rachel!" Connor sounded happy, even exuberant. "Happy New Year!" So Alex really had gone home, as she'd said she would, and all was going well. Rachel closed her eyes in relief and thanksgiving as she sat down on the edge of her bed. "Happy New Year, Connor," she replied. "And happy birthday!" "Thanks. It is." "Have you opened your presents yet?" "One of them." He was grinning; she could tell. Rachel didn't need to ask why. During the shopping spree, Alex had bought a "special little something" that involved a lot of ribbons, lace, and fringe at a lingerie store. Good for her! And obviously good for Connor, too. "You and Mitzi paint the town red last night?" Connor asked. "Oh, yes!" Now it was Rachel's turn to grin. "We were out dancing until the cows came home." "Cows usually come home at sunset," he pointed out. "Exactly. We're old ladies; we like to get an early start on things." And speaking of "old" ladies: "How's Alex?" Rachel asked. "Good. She's good." He sounded satisfied and content. "She's getting dressed right now; we're going out to dinner." "I'm glad it's working out, Connor." "Me, too. Except..." "What?" she asked instantly. "Alex wants me to go with her and talk to her therapist." "Good heavens," Rachel said, relaxing again, and trying to sound scandalized instead of amused. "She wants you to talk?" "Yeah." "To a therapist?" "Mm-hmm." "Oh, my." Rachel tsked in sympathy. "All that sharing of emotions, opening up, talking about how you feel ..." "That's the idea." Connor sounded disgusted. "You're going, of course." The silence lasted two heartbeats before he said, "Of course. And thanks, Rachel. For everything." "Always." "I love you, Rachel," he said, serious now, and urgent with it, and as always, the words brought tears to her eyes. "You're my girl." "I love you, too, Connor." Always. "You're my guy." "I want to see you," he said, all of a sudden, but she wasn't really surprised. "You busy this week? I'll fly over." "Thursday?" she suggested. "I'll be there," he promised, and then they chatted casually of other things before they said "I love you" once more and turned off their phones. Rachel stood and stretched, feeling old bones creak and groan. She set the phone on the nightstand then sat down again, finding a place among the many photo albums that nearly covered her bed. Many pictures, many years. The early ones showed Connor as her father; the later ones showed Connor as her friend. She picked up an album from the middle years and paused at a photo of Connor and herself at Mitzi's second wedding, 1972. He was wearing a beige suit with a wide, multi-colored tie; she had long hair and a pink and blue mini-skirt on. Connor's head was bent towards hers as she looked up at him, and they were both laughing as they sipped champagne. Her thumb traced the outline of his cheek in the picture, then traced the outline of hers. They looked so happy in that picture. So young. "Lunch is ready!" Mitzi called from downstairs, and Rachel closed the album and put them all away. She had made her choice, years ago, and she knew it had been the right choice for her, and the right choice for Connor, too. Alex was making a different choice, and Rachel prayed it would be the right one for them. But either way, Rachel and Alex would both love Connor until they died, and Connor would love both of them. Rachel knew that, too. She took the elevator downstairs and joined Mitzi in the dining room, but before she sat down, she impulsively kissed Mitzi and gave her a hug, saying, "You're beautiful," because she was, even more beautiful at 76 than she'd been fifty years before. "Why, thank you, dahling!" Mitzi said with a theatrical toss of her hand, then kissed her in return. "So are you, Rachel dear," she said, serious now. "Always." She turned to the table, beautifully set with linen and china and candles, a festive brunch to celebrate the new year. "Champagne?" "Of course!" Rachel poured for them both, and they lifted their glasses in a toast. "L'Chaim!" To life! ====== END For more stories by the author, go to her website at http://users.erols.com/darkpanther/