Work Text:
Methos wakes, heart pounding in his chest and in his ears.
He has his hand on his stomach and for a second he isn't sure where he is. What bed this is or when it is.
Then his eyes adjust and he sees familiar shapes and walls.
It's his bed but it's empty and when his hand slides to where for but for a brief time Alexa had lain it closes on air.
Everyone dies and at times he's been numb to it, at times he's been used to it. Those times are not good ones. They're lies and he swallows in the dark, looking at the electric clock on the table beside the bed.
3:00 A.M.
She's only been gone a few months and he barely knew her for more than that and yet just the same he feels as if he'd spent an eternity with her.
"Alexa." He whispers to no one and no one whispers back.
Grief takes time and he's had more of that than anyone else but knowing and feeling aren't the same thing. The pain in his chest doesn't care what his mind knows. The pain in his chest only cares about the empty space beside him and the missing smile from his life.
He exhales and for a second can smell antiseptic that isn't there either. He can hear the sounds of the hospital she died in and the ache in his chest grows painful and angry. It claws at him. It gnashes it's teeth and makes his ears hurt.
The bed is cool and empty and really, they travelled so much in the time she had. . . he doubted she even spent a week's worth of nights in this bed.
Still, his hand opens and closes on nothing and he tries to make himself calm and detached but when he can't he instead rises and walks to the windows.
He's lived long enough to know that grief will never truly become easy. . . to know that if it does then something all the more is wrong.
He stares out at the street below, remembering beaches and blue water in Greece and the look on her face when the plane had touched down. She hadn't it seemed really believed they were going until they'd gotten there.
He wishes it were not night and the sun were up instead and he had places to go, bars and shops and parks. . . places with noise and people and moving life but it is night and the sun won't be up for just a little while longer.
He's had so many dawns that came too soon, so many he'd tried to stave off. Now is one he wishes would speed itself. Now is one he waits for because the night is very lonely and he has no one beside him but her ghost. A lingering memory and a feeling in his chest.
Accepting sleep gone he turns from the window and runs a hand through his hair. It's suddenly cold and he reaches for a sweater, catching a glint of moon on the hilt of his sword and shakes his head.
There's nothing for it so he turns the light on and doesn't try to sleep again. He makes something hot to drink and reads a book, practicing being Adam Pearson and a million other men.
The sun will rise and the day will start and life will go on.
All of it without Alexa and eventually when all others have passed away he alone will remember her face and name, the look in her eyes when she smiled. . . he plans to never forget any part of her. Not so long as he still lives.
He waits for the sun to come and the day to start and thinks of seeing Joe and maybe Mac if he has the time. . . he's let himself get oddly comfortable with these people, allowed a kind of comradery he hasn't known for a very long time. It's curious and perhaps not the wisest but on this night he's glad he can count friends so close.
When the sun rises he keeps Alexa in his chest and puts his book aside.
There are things to do after all and places to go and the streets are coming to life with cars and people and noise.
The sounds of civilization and her forward march.
If only for a brief moment he had gotten to share that chaos with someone special and even if she isn't there any more he feels in some small way close to her again.