As Strong as Death
by MacGeorge(c) 2005

A remix of Solstice, by Killa

October, 2199
Boston, Mass.

Funerals had become a complete crock, in my most humble opinion. 

Okay, my humility may be questionable, but my opinion was not.  Today’s funerals were empty rituals that are supposedly for the benefit of the living, but modern sensibilities take all the zing out of what used to be a genuine, rip-roaring send off of the deceased to the glories of the great beyond – whatever that is.

I was musing on such deep socio-historical issues when a heavy silence caught my attention and I realized all eyes had turned towards me.  What a pain in the ass.  I was now expected to talk, to be a proper mix of sad and amusing, cynical and sentimental.  I had dressed for the occasion, eschewing my usual faded jeans and stretched-out sweater for a suit and tie, and strode up to the front of the room, imparting dignity and strength in my regal, controlled bearing, glanced up at the dark-suited gathering and for the next ten minutes I did my best to amuse, to move, to make all of them comfortable.  Wouldn’t want too many tears, after all.  That would be unseemly.

“Samuel Fullerton was my mentor, my best friend, my muse, my protector, my entertainment… my lover, for more than thirty years,” I began.  “And to the very end, he was a giant, fuckin’ pain in the ass.”

They all chuckled, knowing I’d used Sam’s favorite profanity to lighten the mood, and that I would soften my assessment with amusing anecdotes about my long-time companion’s strange taste in friends and in music; about his incredible intellect and curiosity, about his delight in telling long-winded stories that, while usually profane and quite entertaining, often had no point; about his insistence to the end of his very long life in wearing loud shirts and flip-flops, no matter the weather or formality of the occasion.

I don’t really remember what I said, then or later during the post-service reception.  Throughout the whole afternoon and into the evening people laughed and dabbed at their eyes, music was played, songs were sung, and food was eaten.  Then they all left and at last the caterers and well-intended ‘helpers’ departed, and the Boston brownstone we had shared for so long suddenly felt vastly empty except for the unprepossessing urn containing Sam’s ashes lying heavy and inert on the fireplace mantle. I stared at it for a few minutes, then shivered as gooseflesh crawled up my spine.  Without all those people crowding around, the house seemed positively frigid and I went through the motions of starting a fire.  It should have been a comforting task harking back to more primitive times, but it only involved turning on the gas to send flames curling around log-like non-burning objects.

I watched the flames for a moment, then wandered to a window, feeling restless despite a bone-deep weariness weighing me down.  I caught my own reflection in the glass and was a little surprised at it – the sharp, angular features and pale skin, and always that plank of a nose dominating it all.  You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I honestly didn’t think of myself as looking that… grim.  No wonder everyone had seemed so annoyingly solicitous.

The trees lining the street were dark and ominous-looking in the glaring street lights, their pointed limbs tenaciously clinging to a few remaining leaves, most of which were lying in disordered piles near the curb or clustered in corners near the row of stoops that measured the street, one right after the other.  The wind picked up, swirling them momentarily up into the air, only to die again, letting them settle once more in dark corners of porch stoops and under parked vehicles.

It was late evening, Sam’s favorite time of day when he’d ask me to bring him a double whiskey straight up – completely against doctor’s orders, of course, but as Sam was wont to say, “I’m gonna croak anyway, so I might as well fuckin’ enjoy it.”  In the last months, when his sight had failed, he’d sip his whiskey and I’d read to him.  It was actually some of our best time spent together.

He was almost 130 when he died.  It wasn’t as long a life as some in these oh-so-modern times, but he lived it well.  I was his ‘student’ at first, before I became his companion.  It was a very satisfying relationship for me because for the first time in my very, very long life I was able to stay with a mortal to the very end of his days without dealing with the bother of substantively changing my appearance – or worse – forced to abandon him to spend his final years alone.  These days, my lack of significant visible aging could be attributed to the same efforts that most people made to maintain their youthful appearance and vitality well into their second century – healthy diet, plastic surgery, injections, and to the fact that I was so much ‘younger’ than Sam to begin with, so just a little distinguished graying of my hair was all it took.

Suddenly, the void of Sam’s absence was too heavy, our history too full and too present, my own unending life a heavy, heavy burden.  My chest was tight with grief, my eyes hot with unshed tears.  It was time, I decided, pressing my lips together.  The ‘memorial service’ had been a modern, sterile ritual that expressed little of my great love for that wonderful man and how much I would miss him.  The burden of that loss had to be dealt with and released so I could move on.  It had always been so.  I remember when Alexa died, wheezing out her life connected to machines in a cold, sterile hospital room in Paris.  At the end I removed the IV’s, gently pulled the tubing out of her throat and gathered her into my arms, rocking her and keening in a language long dead until the nurses threatened to have me forcibly removed and sedated.

They didn’t understand that it was what I needed to do, what we all need to do in the face of unbearable loss – to sing the song of their life and our grief, to let our minds and hearts and bodies feel the loss down to our very soul and to give it full voice.

I pulled off my coat and shirt and took the urn filled with Sam’s ashes out to the back patio, kneeling on the flagstones surrounded by the pots that in the Spring and Summer bloomed riotously with his much-beloved geraniums – a flower I had always despised.  I shivered in the chill, damp air, knelt, opened the urn and stared inside. 

Ashes to ashes.  No one knew that better than I.  This was not Sam.  Whatever remained of Sam was inside me, a particularly precious part of the store of memories built up and horded over the millennia.  I poured the ashes into my hand, letting them spill over, scattering the mess on cold flagstones.  The wind picked up and the tiny gray flecks flew up into the air like fairy dust.  I poured the ashes over my head, then smeared them on my face and chest as the keening began and I rocked, letting the pain fill me and overflow at last.  The tears spilled over and my wailing swelled, echoing off the high fence and hard brick walls.  Eventually the urn was empty and I stood, turning in a circle and slamming my fists into my chest while tears dripped down my face and my song turned into an ancient chant of love, of anger, of sorrow, of loss, in a language no longer spoken by anyone but me.  As the night grew darker and colder, soft pellets of rain spattered down, turning the ash-strewn patio into a morass of black and gray mud, and still I chanted, ingraining Sam’s story, his life – our life – into my very flesh.

It grew colder still, and the rain turned to sleet.  The ashes washed away into the cracks and seams of the patio rocks, seeping into the soil, maybe to fertilize some more geraniums next spring.  By then I was on my knees, shivering uncontrollably, my voice nothing but a hoarse croak, but at last my tears were spent and the great weight of grief had lifted.

In this, the old ways really are the best.

~~~~~~~~

Two months later

I had declined a half-dozen invitations to Thanksgiving dinners.  They were really Sam’s friends more than mine, and while they meant well, they would be annoyingly sensitive to my recent bereavement.  The temptation to shock them by openly seducing some houseguest would undoubtedly be too strong.  Sam was gone and clinging to the past is a lousy survival technique.

So, I spent the time packing.  When you think about it, if I strung together all the time I’ve spent packing and moving, it would amount to a serious number of lifetimes.  Pretty grim thought, actually, so I try not to dwell on such things.   Besides, it was something I did by rote now.  I didn’t have much to pack, anyway.  Most of the stuff would be sold or given away.  The only really important “things” in my life, the ones I really would not leave behind, were my journals.  I can replace everything else, but not my history.

My first journals were on rolls of animal skin using whatever dyes were available, most frequently my own blood since it was so handy and never ran out.  The glyphs were a crude combination of pictographs and sound-symbols learned from the only survivor of one more of a thousand raids. I had found him hiding in a remarkable room whose walls were filled with drawings that seemed to move as I watched and demanded to know what they were.  The cowering, whimpering priest sputtered out that the drawings told a story that anyone who knew the symbols’ meaning could understand, and that his sole purpose in life was to preserve for all time the history and great deeds of some god-king he worshiped.

Kronos had been furious when I refused to let him kill the scrawny old man, but I had learned to pick my battles carefully and Kronos ultimately allowed me to take him as a slave.  From him I learned the concept of writing, at least until Caspian strangled him to death in a fit of rage over some trivial lapse of servitude. 

I was irritated, but I had long ago learned that it was pointless to get angry at Caspian for being exactly who Kronos wanted him to be.  Besides, by that time I had begun to understand the concept of symbols standing for things, or even for words or sounds that could be combined to make words. I didn’t really need the old priest anymore.  I used his methods for a few decades, but after a while I made up my own symbols, refining and adding to my private alphabet.  Then, as the centuries passed and writing became more common, I searched for other, better methods, adopting them as my own.  It pleased me to think that if someone ever took my head, more than my Quickening would survive.  Someone, somewhere would be able to decipher my writings and my story would survive even my final death.  Of course my oldest journals had probably gone to dust several millennia ago or were hidden away in some cave to be found some day and pronounced great ancient artifacts.

That thought made me chuckle.  In retrospect, those early efforts were mundane, cryptic, downright boring.  At the time I was more concerned with the process than the product and recorded such titillating information as where we had traveled, how many slaves we had taken, what booty we had stolen, how many we had killed.  It was a long time before I had both the ability and inclination to express deeper thoughts, to find hidden meanings and motivations, to speculate about how people and time and events fit together, to ponder what it all meant, if anything.  Writing it all down began, for the first time, to give my life meaning and shape and purpose and what had been merely a life that wouldn’t end became… Immortality.  It was a concept that Kronos never understood, and it was that, more than anything else, that ultimately led to our parting. 

It occurred to me that Duncan would probably be appalled to learn that my initiation into a higher level of thinking was not accompanied by any emotional epiphany, but at the time I didn’t give a damn about the priest beyond what he could teach me.  His life had no meaning other than his utility to me, and his death was of no consequence.  After all, they all die anyway.  Unfortunately, I had to learn to value my own life before I truly learned to value the lives of others, regardless of how many years that life lasted.

My journals were lined up neatly in chronological order in my private office, stored in a deep shelf behind more mundane volumes so they were out of sight, but easily accessed.  I carefully loaded them in a box, one by one, each triggering a wispy brush of recollection.  While I normally kept only a few journals at hand, I realized I had gotten complacent in the last few decades as I packed almost twenty volumes of various ages.  I decided for the future I would limit myself to keeping only five volumes at most, and send the rest to storage in order to avoid uncomfortable and unanswerable questions should my collection be discovered. 

I looked down at my history so carefully packed away, trying to chose the journals most important to me, and pulled out the one with the spine carefully labeled with the year it was written: “MMMMDCCCXLVII”.  An involuntary shudder washed over my skin and I took a long, deep breath before I opened the volume to a page visited so often the book fell open there without effort.

The sad thing is, I knew it would be like this. I knew, and still I sat there like an idiot and just waited for him to walk into my life, as if knowing what would happen would make it all right, as if I could keep everything under control. Well, newsflash, old boy. You are in big trouble. Not the short-term kind, either. I hope you've got good insurance.

I never thought of myself as prescient although there were certainly those of us who had that gift.  Had MacLeod known something that day?  Felt it?  Within one breath of our eyes meeting he called me by name, and not just any name.  Ancient mystics would have said that from that moment on our lives were inevitably intertwined by his intuitive leap of recognition. 

Need – deep, aching need and want ambushed me and I reflexively gripped the book, closing it on the entry that marked the day when what had been a safe, sane Immortal existence suddenly became an insane, disturbing, chaotic life – a life rich in feeling, in ideas and challenges and sensations, and most of all rich in companionship – the kind of companionship that happens only when you’ve found someone who shares the silences and knows what they mean, and in the case of Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod – a safe, sweet harbor in world that would never understand what we were and how we lived.

But we were very, very different, MacLeod and I.  Too different to sustain a long-term relationship, no matter how much both of us wanted it.  It hadn’t been for lack of trying, however.  The last time had been over thirty years ago.

~~~~~~~

August, 2167
Paris, France

“You always find a way not to care!” Duncan growled into the glass of scotch he had almost finished.  The acid tone was deliberate and baiting.  He was a fighter, by training, by inclination and by natural talent.  He wanted to fight, wanted to strike out at someone and I was the nearest target, as usual.

“True enough,” I responded evenly, although I knew my cavalier tone would only incense him even more.  “And you always find a way to care more than you should.”

“The wise old man speaks!” Duncan slammed the drink down.  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, once again but Sibongile and Malcomb are friends of ours and we promised to go to their gallery opening.”

“No, Mac, you promised.  Not me.  Standing around making small talk with the retro-Bauhaus art crowd sounds like a little slice of misery to me, so thanks, but no thanks.”  I made a desultory attempt to return to reading the current issue of 21^st Century History Quarterly.”

“They’re your friends, too,” Mac said in almost – but not quite – a petulant whine.  “You even introduced me to Malcomb.  It would be an act of respect and friendship, and if you don’t go, they’ll think they offended you somehow.”

“Right.  Malcomb will pout mightily for all of thirty seconds before he forgets completely about it, and Sibongile will later ask me to lunch to find out what the problem was.”  I shrugged.  “I get a free lunch and no harm is done.  Go, if you want to Mac, but it’s just not how I wanted to spend my afternoon.”

~~~~~

I knew I had been less than kind, but I had also known the argument wasn’t really about whether or not I attended a social event.  It had been one more in a long series of small, painful tussles after Robert and Gina deValicourt had lost their heads to a trio of young Immortals hunting in a pack.  Mac had tracked them and took them down, one by one, then made sure all of his Immortal acquaintances heard of it and spread the word that the rule was still “No interference,” and “One on one.”

That was as much as he ever did or said about the death of his two dear, dear friends.  When I attempted to console him, he simply squared his jaw and declared that “everyone dies, even Immortals.”

As the bitterness and distance between us grew, I realized I had to leave – this time for good or we would end up hating each other and I loved him too much to risk that.  Mac knew it, too, in his heart, because despite the clenched jaw and pain-filled eyes, he was oh-so-civilized about it.  Irritating sod.  One of his great weaknesses is that he has an instinct to mate for life.  Ridiculous for an Immortal, of course.  So for him our separation was a very personal failure which he, no doubt, blamed on himself, no matter my insistence to the contrary.

For me?  Nothing is permanent.  Everything ends, except my life, so severing relationships was a well-practiced art, just like packing.  The real pain wasn’t the initial departure, which was a little like ripping away a bandage – agonizing, but best when quickly put behind you.  The true agony came later with the remarkable realization that I was addicted to his powerful presence like it was some kind of narcotic without which my whole existence seemed… diminished. 

With a shake of my head, I closed the book and firmly put thoughts of Duncan MacLeod out of my mind.  We had proven we could not sustain a long-term relationship, although our last effort had actually lasted a couple of decades – tumultuous, wonderful decades – for me, at least.  But it seemed no matter what I did, I only added to that crushing burden of loss MacLeod carried around with him like a millstone.  A mate was supposed to make his partner’s life’s burdens easier to bear, but I seemed to fail miserably at that. 

Ergo, Duncan was better off without me.  It was a mantra I had told myself many, many times and it continued in my head as I closed the box of journals, taped it and reached to fill a new one, closing my hand around Sam’s bible to wrap it carefully in brown paper.  This box would go into my warehouse, to be stored alongside the other mementos of very special people in my life.  Oh, I never actually took them out and looked at them, but just knowing they were there was somehow a comfort.

It was an old, old habit of mine.  Once I lost someone I stored their memory away, just like Alexa’s little touristy chachkas she gathered on our trek to foreign lands, or like Sam’s bible.  He had been a religious scholar, but not really a religious man.  He was erudite and articulate, and could argue passionately for virtually any of the world’s many religious beliefs, but his fundamental allegiance was to love, to art, to the power of ideas and the never-ceasing struggle for the human spirit to find something larger than itself to believe in.

His favorite passages from the many sources he had studied over the decades were from the Songs of Solomon.  During his last days I even kept a copy of his most treasured verse at his bedside, sometimes gently whispering it to him as he drifted into sleep. 

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm: for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot wash it away.

That well-used scrap of paper was currently tucked inside a copy of Sartre’s “On Being and Nothingness” which I had frequently used to keep Sam entertained with ontological arguments.  It was an edition MacLeod had given to me long ago as a remembrance of our first meeting.

“To M,” the book’s inscription said in Duncan’s bold, distinctive hand taught to him by monks centuries ago.  “You fill my whole being, and without you, “nothingness” takes on new meaning.  Love, D.”  In truth, MacLeod had never been far from my heart or my thoughts – something that Sam seemed to always know and understand, believing the inscription was from a former lover killed in a hiking accident.

“He must have loved you very much,” Sam had said when he read the inscription the first time, looking at me with those discerning blue eyes.

“With his whole soul. It’s what he did,” I had replied softly.  “In that he was much like you.”

In his waning days Sam, dirty old dog that he was, loved to listen to me talk about Duncan – the sexy stuff, at least.  He was bedridden his last couple of years and sexual pleasure was mostly an act of frustration as his body refused to cooperate with his desires.  Then one night after another failed attempt at orgasm, we were lying in bed, each of us panting a little in tired frustration, and Sam looked over at me with a wan smile.

“Not like fuckin’ with your Duncan, eh?” he asked.  I would have expected his tone to be wistful, but it wasn’t at all.  Instead it sounded… curious.

“Sex with Duncan?” I responded softly.  It wasn’t the first time he had brought Duncan’s name into our lovemaking, especially in the last year or so.  I had thought the comments were born from embarrassment or frustration, but perhaps it was something else.  “Would you like to hear about it?”

A couple of pink spots appeared on his pale cheeks, and he looked away.

I chuckled, deliberately using that sexy tone he liked, and reached over to trail my hands over his chest, gently brushing his nipples.  He shifted slightly, moving into my hand with a small intake of breath.

“Duncan liked to undress me,” I whispered, moving close to his ear.  “He’d start with my shoes and then peel off my socks one at a time.  Oh, he was so very gentle, massaging my feet and kissing each toe, then drawing it into his mouth and sucking.  God, it was a simple thing, but it made me so hard I’d have to beg him to stop.  He’d laugh – a low, dark sound that kind of rumbled out of his chest.  Did I tell you he was beautiful?  An incredible, muscular body and dark, lascivious eyes and a lush, ripe mouth.  Once he undid my fly with his teeth.  Not a zipper, mind you.  These were hard metal buttons.  I could feel his tongue working each one, could feel the moisture of his spit dampen my shorts.”

Sam had his eyes closed, but he was smiling, then licked his lips and I knew I was on the right track, that this was what he wanted to hear.

“Then he’d pull my shirt over my head, sometimes wrapping it around my wrists above my head to keep me still because he loved to be in control, to watch my every reaction, to touch me everywhere and drive me crazy.  He’d nibble my ears, lick my face like a cat, finally settling on my mouth where he would kiss.  All hot and wet and possessive, always pulling back just when I wanted more.

“Then he’d sit on my waist, just looking at me, his fingers trailing down my neck and over my shoulders, tickling my armpits just a little, then playing with my nipples until I would start to bring my arms down because I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“’No!’ he’d order, and this from a man of intense charisma and power who knew how to use it.  It was always a kick to hear him use that tone, but I’d obey because it pleased him, and the deliberate torment was its own pleasure.

“He’d slowly move down my body, finally pulling my boxers off, then just stare at my dick as it bounced around, an evil gleam in his eye.  Then he’d just… breathe on me, never quite touching my cock, just warming it with his moist breath until suddenly he’d capture it and suck.  Straight down his throat until you’d think he’d choke on it.  And then he’d do this thing with the back of his throat, almost like a second tongue at my slit as he sucked in a rhythm that in seconds had me so close I’d be arching right up off the bed and whimpering like a dog.

“Then he’d stop.”

“No!” Sam whispered with a small gasp, his hands clutching the covers tightly, his eyes closed.

“Oh, yes,” I continued.  “The bastard was an incredible tease.  But then, of course, he’d slither down my body some more and use that mouth of his in… other places.”  I paused to build the tension a little more, being a bit of a tease myself.

“And?!” Sam finally demanded, his ice-blue eyes opening, and glaring at me in irritation.

“And then,” I continued, sliding my hand underneath the covers to comb gently through the curls at Sam’s stirring groin, “he’d crawl down between my legs, never breaking eye contact, separating my legs and lifting my balls.  Then he’d tease me even more with his tongue, sliding in and out, just a little at a time until I thought I’d scream in frustration.  But he always knew exactly when I was about to break, and he’d reach in with those hard, blunt fingers of his and touch me, stroking me inside exactly on the sweet spot.” 

Sam shuddered hard and I realized I was excited and sweaty, myself, just from conjuring the memory.  I had to swallow and wet my lips to keep going.

“Of course my cock was about to explode by then, so now he was ready to take what he wanted.  He’d rise up, lifting me by the thighs, his biceps pumped with excitement, his chest all sweaty, his cock like a steel rod out in front of him, and all I could do was lie there as he paused, looking at me like I was the favorite meal of a starving man, then he’d push slowly inside.  That kind of control was maddening when all I wanted was to have him pound me into oblivion.”

Sam’s breath was coming in small gasps, his cock twitched under my hand and I stroked it gently.

“I still had my arms all tangled in my shirt over my head, but by this time I was too impatient to put up with that anymore, so I threw it off and grabbed his forearms, trying to pull him inside with my legs, but he was like steel, utterly immovable except at his own pace.  And he loved that I wanted him so desperately.  I wanted to punch that triumphant expression right off his face except that there were other things I wanted more, so I’d start cursing at him, which made him laugh.  It was an evil laugh, you know.  The kind that gives you goose bumps.”

Sam sighed, making a small, needy sound and I felt his cock fill, just a little.  It was a small triumph, but it meant a lot to both of us, I think.

“Finally, he’d be seated deep inside me and God, it felt good.  Warm and full and fine, and then he’s move, just a little, making me gasp.  Then he’d do it again and again until the whole universe narrowed down to his cock in my ass and that electric sensation that was almost too much, but not really quite enough, all at the same time.  At some point, I guess even he couldn’t stand it anymore, because I was too far gone by then to make any sense of anything, he’d speed up and start really moving.  I could feel the sweat on his arms and I opened my eyes, looking up at him, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration, his mouth open, the veins in his neck throbbing.

“He was panting hard, by now, and making these noises, like small cries of need as he pumped in and in again.  I reached for my own cock, and started pumping in time to his and in a few seconds I came – hard and long and it felt so damned good, like I’d gone straight to heaven!”

My hand tightened around Sam’s cock as it twitched hard and Sam gasped, his head back, his body arching a little off the bed.  His face was pale, except for the bright pink splash on his hard cheekbones and in a sudden rush of fear, I wondered if the excitement had been too much for his failing body, even if it had generated a small, dry orgasm.  After a moment of him holding his breath, I had to ask.

“You okay?” I reached to feel his pulse, which was thudding at an alarming, uneven rhythm.

But Sam chuckled breathlessly before he opened his eyes, regarding me with an amused glare under his bushy gray eyebrows so that I could have sworn he could see as well as anyone.  “Afraid I’d gone straight to heaven?” he asked, then his expression softened into a tired smile.  “Not fuckin’ likely, but also not a bad way to go, when you think about it,” he added softly, closing his eyes again as the small bit of color that had flushed his face faded quickly, leaving him pale and a little sweaty.  His breathing and pulse evened out, though, although his pulse remained a little thready.  After a moment of quiet, when it seemed like he was slipping into sleep, I carefully extracted myself from the covers.

“Matt,” he called, and I felt a touch on my arm.  I sat gently back down, not wanting to disturb his hard-won euphoria.  “I love you, you know that.” 

I nodded, my throat tight, but then answered, “Yes, Sam,” because he might not have seen the movement. Sam had a wonderful ability to give himself completely to whatever he wanted, including me. 

“When I’m gone…,” he paused, as though waiting for me to say something, then chuckled.  “You know you always amaze me that you never flinch or try to avoid that topic.  Everyone else acts like if you just don’t talk about it, somehow it won’t happen.” 

He was right.  Most people avoid, deny, obfuscate or change the subject of death is raised.  “Anyway, when I’m gone, I want you to look him up,” Sam stated firmly.

“Who?”

“Your Duncan,” he answered, meeting my gaze defiantly.

As far as Sam knew, Duncan was long dead.  “But Sam,” I began gently.

“Don’t fuckin’ bullshit me, Matthew,” Sam chided with a wave of his hand.  “I’m no fool.  I looked up your Duncan MacLeod years ago and have kept track of him, and if your description is anything to go by he’s alive and well and just moved to San Francisco.  The address is in the top drawer of my desk.  I know you wanted me to believe he was dead.  Afraid I’d be jealous, I guess, but,” his hand clamped around my wrist with surprising strength.  “I figured if you stuck by me all this time, you must have at least felt something for me.”

“Of course I…”

“Oh, fuck that shit,” Sam waved my vehement protests away with typical, brutal honesty.  “I’m a selfish old fart and as long as you are willing to stick around, I’ll hold on until you pry my cold dead fingers from your cock.  But you’ve told me how much he loves you, so whatever pulled you two apart, you probably did something stupid and need to figure out how to put it back together again.”  He stroked my arm softly, and added.  “I just want you to be happy, Matthew.”

“It’s not that simple, Sam.”

“Crap.  You’re a smart guy, and take it from an old fool who knows what he’s talking about, you’re an idiot to have let something that special get away.  Here,” he groped around on the bedside table until his hand encountered the Sartre, then unerringly pulled out the well-used paper that served as a bookmark.  “I figure this was in there for a reason, and not just to read to me.”

I took the paper, suddenly at a loss for words.

~~~~~~

I guess I’m not really so inscrutable after all, I decided as I taped up another box, this one marked “Sam”.  That thought made me smile.  Duncan had said as much, more than once. 

Damn!  Sam had said to figure out how we could put our relationship back together again, but it seemed so pointless.  Oh, it might be fine for a while – more than fine.  Spectacular, probably.  But then, inevitably, Duncan would lose someone he loved and all the grief he had endured would rise up once again, and he would close himself off.  Then, of course, he would take all that unexpressed grief out on me because from his point of view, I was the embodiment of a world that continued on in its plodding, oblivious course when his heart wanted everything to stop so he could scream to the heavens about the injustice of it all. 

Of course, he wouldn’t do that even if the world did stop turning because it was counter to his self-image and his determination to “be strong.”  What a complete crock.  What it really came down to was that Duncan was constitutionally incapable of letting go of his pain, of lancing the wound and letting it heal.

And so it went, time and again.

My thoughts circled around themselves for a moment, and my hands paused in their nearly automatic movements.

Fuck.

Sometimes I can be incredibly stupid. 

Oh, that wasn’t the revelation.  I’d known that, well… always.  But experience had shown that I could be especially stupid when it came to Duncan MacLeod.  I had always been so willing to share my version of wisdom and experience with Duncan in the form of homilies and quips, sarcasm, cynicism and apocryphal tales, but I had never shared my very private – and some would say bizarre – ways of dealing with the crushing loss that is part and parcel of who and what we are. 

“That’s what it keeps coming back to, isn’t it, you stubborn bastard?” I whispered aloud.  “You hold onto your pain as though it, rather than the memories, were the key to holding onto the people you’ve loved.” 

Hmm.  It was an interesting revelation, but I didn’t know what the hell I could do about it.  I had walked out on the man decades ago, and now what was I supposed to do, just waltz back in and announce that if only he followed my expert advice the next time someone he loved died, all would be well?

Riiight.

What right did I have to assume that he was even interested in reviving a relationship that had been officially declared over and done with decades ago?  I shoved the box away and grabbed my coat, feeling the sudden need to move, to get some air, to do… something.

The sharp December wind instantly cut through my several layers of clothes, which included a double-lined winter coat that hid my usual protective arsenal against the possibility of unwelcome encounters.  Thin sunlight reflected off the gray sidewalks and ochre brick buildings housing Boston’s upper class urban population as I lengthened my stride, heading for the center of town.  The colors all seemed muted, either washed away by the pale winter sun or hidden under crusts of dirty snow as though everything was in some kind of half-life limbo, to rest until spring brought out all the flower boxes planted with crocus and daffodils.  Boston had been good to me.  I had taught, written, lived and loved here for a couple of decades and been relatively happy, but without Sam it seemed too stolid, too set in its ways.  Too cold.  It was time to move on.

San Francisco.  Now there was a great city.  No matter the time of year it seemed full of energy and life and the weather, while frequently chilly, rarely got truly terrible.  The ocean was bluer there, as I recalled, although that could just be wishful thinking, I supposed.  My body warmed with the movement, and I found myself passing well-muffled, industrious-looking segwayers who looked askance at someone who actually traveled on their own two feet.  Nobody actually walked anywhere anymore and what had once been a careful demarcation between street and sidewalk was no more as vehicles got ever smaller, more personal and more energy efficient.  If you needed to haul things these days it was more sensible to hire it done, or if you were among the well-to-do, to have it energy-transported.

In one way or another things inevitably cycled around and around, old trends becoming new again and vice versa.  Once we all just walked wherever we went, then we rode, then we invented ever larger and ever-faster conveyances until it seemed each individual’s means of transportation was equivalent to what had once been an entire family’s caravan.  Now, if I wanted, I could have myself and all my belongings across the country, precisely where I wanted them, in a matter of seconds. 

My random thoughts suddenly coalesced into a conclusion and I paused, causing someone behind me to swerve her vehicle, almost creating a chain reaction accident.  She shouted a few curses at me, but quickly zipped out of hearing range as I stepped to one side, out of harm’s way.

I wanted to move to San Francisco.

No, that wasn’t really it.

I wanted to see Duncan. Now.  I wanted to have that strong, warm body against mine, to bask in his bright spirit and to sharpen my wit against that quick mind of his.  I wanted the companionship of another Immortal, and I wanted to be with someone I didn’t have to censor myself around, someone I could trust with my life and my heart.  God, I wanted him so much I ached.

I had to laugh aloud at my own folly, causing more than a few wary glances in my direction.  I had no right to expect anything from him, but I did have something new to offer, even if he didn’t know it yet.  This time, when it came, we’d face loss together even if I had to personally carve his grief into his very flesh until his own blood washed his tears away.   It’s what I should have done long, long ago.  If “love was as strong as death,” then I had both on my side. 

I turned and headed back towards the townhouse at a distance-eating stride.  Even so, it seemed to take forever to dodge in and out of the midday traffic, and I took the stairs up the stoop three at a time, bursting into the house and throwing off my coat, thinking furiously.  What would spark Duncan’s interest?  What would give him a reason to think about all the things we meant to each other?  Or, now that I thought about it, I wondered if I had ever truly told him what he meant to me, what a difference he had made in my life.  I headed upstairs and moved the boxes around until I found the right one, ripping it open. 

I put in a page marker, wrapped my choice and took it to the transport box, inputting the address Sam had stored away, and only just before I pushed the “send” button did I recognize the significance of the date, and almost laughed out loud.  Duncan’s birthday.  From here until the summer solstice, every day would bring more light.  My subconscious mind must have known.  Either that or Fate really did write large on our lives.  I wasn’t sure which alternative was more disturbing, and hesitated slightly before I finally pushed the “send” button and heard the small hum of energy as the package was sent on its instant journey across the country.

Once it was done, I felt suddenly nervous and uncertain.  Giving someone else one of my journals was unprecedented, something I had never even seriously considered doing before.  Had I done the right thing?  Was the message too intense, too personal, too ambiguous?  Maybe Mac would just set the package aside and not even open it.  I wouldn’t blame him for not being eager to hear from me after all this time.   

I went to Sam’s office and sat for a while, trying not to brood, then remembered that Sam always kept a bottle of good whiskey in his bottom drawer, so I found a glass and poured myself some.  The silence in the old house seemed intense and oppressive.  I took another large swallow of whiskey to calm my nerves, telling myself firmly that MacLeod was a bright boy, and if I was lucky he would know, would understand, and would surely …

The desk’s com light blinked and the device chimed musically, signaling an incoming call.

I opened the line, my heart lurching when I saw that familiar, well-loved face.  Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound horribly trite.  How had I not managed to plan this out a little better?

“You seem to be missing something,” Duncan said preemptively, a warm twinkle in his eyes.

My throat locked up tight.  He knew.  He understood exactly what it meant for me to part with that precious book, and had, in his own very special way, intuited the only reason I would do it.  That was my bright, bright boy, and my lips stretched into a grin that I couldn’t have stopped even if I had wanted to.  “Happy Birthday,” I finally managed to say, then blurted out, “How’s San Francisco this time of year?”

Sometimes subtlety isn’t my strong suit.  My skin went cold at the brief pause that followed, and I watched Duncan look down for a second and swallow hard.

“Depends,” he answered, his voice rough with emotion, and his big, dark eyes raised, locking with mine across the continent that lay between us.  “How soon can you be here?”

My answer came without thought or hesitation.  “Not soon enough.”

~~

“About fuckin’ time,” Sam would have said.  He would have been right.