Author: Kamil
Title: A Time to Mourn
Feedback address: kamilaa@gmail.com
Rating: G
Keywords/Comments: A 68 year old Tessa remembers her life with Duncan.
Character listing: Tessa/Duncan
Short teaser/summary: written for a long-ago Highlander Fifteen Minute
Challenge
I thought I'd lost all copies of this story. I found one just last
week so now I'm
archiving it in a couple of places. Speaking of, if you'd like to
archive it, feel free.
The challenge was to write a story where a 68 year old Tessa was still
alive. This is mine.
------------------------------------
He still looked exactly the same.
No surprise there, Duncan hadn't aged a day in well over four hundred
years. She'd known for almost the last forty that he would still be
young and splendid and gorgeous long after she became old and grey
and wrinkled and she hadn't cared. Then. She still didn't care about
that; let people think what they would.
Except. She wished she had cared about that, back then, been more
vain and worried for her beauty and less in love with Duncan, but she
hadn't been and Duncan had stayed with her. Just as he'd promised he would.
She'd loved him with all of her heart and never thought to regret their lives
together. Until the day came when she realized that her life was far
into its downhill turn, that there were many fewer days ahead than
behind, that despite the art she was leaving behind she wasn't leaving
the one real legacy of mankind. Someone who would have a chance to
affect the world once she'd left it.
A child. An heir of the body. Someone with her blood, living on,
making the world better for their presence.
She cared now, too much. But it was far, far too late to do anything to
change the path her life had taken. She didn't remember when she'd
first realized that she cared, that it bothered her that Duncan would go
on long after she'd fallen to dust and ruin, while nothing of her
remained at all. It didn't really matter when it had happened, because
now that time was here and there was nothing at all that she could do
to stop it. At times like tonight, when Duncan was in another city on
business, it was a raw ache across her nerves.
She'd never learned how to stop worrying about the Game and if Duncan
was killed in a far-off challenge she'd have nothing left at all and
far too many years to endure her pain before she was granted any kind of
peace.
Not that she'd stopped loving him, she hadn't. She still adored Duncan,
she always would. Most of the time she could close her mind to the
reality of her life, put it in the back of her mind and leave it there.
On those days, just the gift of his presence was enough.
But today wasn't one of those days. She'd been out shopping to distract
herself from her worry for him and had seen the grandchildren of a
long-time friend out shopping for Christmas presents with their mother
and grandmother. Couldn't think of anything else while she stood and
talked to them. Alone. Forced to remember that she was the last.
The longing was always infinitely worse during holiday season, with all
of its focus bent on generations of happy families. Duncan knew it and
tried so hard for her, sometimes spending a king's ransom on her gifts
and sometimes spending almost nothing at all, but invariably his gifts
thrilled and delighted her. She hated the dark, bitter part of herself that
insisted that it wasn't quite enough, could never be enough. But she
couldn't banish it either.
She poured more cognac and settled back into the cushions of her
chaise lounge, drawing the soft cashmere of her sweater tighter around
her shoulders. She was cold, inside and out, and there was nothing in
the world that could warm away this particular chill. So she lingered
over her drink, artificial heat pooling in her belly, knowing that
Duncan would be calling to check on her soon and she'd need to be happy
for him then. She hadn't wanted him to know how much she regretted her
life but she knew that he did. He'd never said anything but she could
see the soft pain in his eyes whenever she had a bad day. And for all
of her regrets she couldn't hate him, couldn't even stop loving him.
So she drank and she waited, knowing that as long as Duncan lived he
would remember her.
It would have to be enough.
fin
--
Kamil
"I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still
means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion--against a
stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against
people whose minds are closed to others' ideas."
Johnny Cash
