The Heart of Light, part 2
Part II
Amanda's chin shot up and her hand slipped under her coat. Methos went statue still, his eyes locked on the sleek windowless cab of the black sedan. The priest was oblivious. He met the suitably solemn funeral home attendants at the hearse and shook their hands.
"Where?" Joe hissed to Amanda, "How close?"
Amanda shook her head and turned in a slow circle. Methos' rigid posture melted into a round-shouldered slump. He drifted toward the hearse, hands still in his pockets.
"Adam!" Joe protested.
"Let him go," Amanda appeared at Joe's elbow. Then tension ran out of her with a sigh though a wary watchfulness lingered in her face.
"The Immortal's gone?" he guessed.
Amanda shrugged. "Or moved out of range."
"You think it's the guy following Methos?"
"Could be a coincidence. Someone here visiting a grave," she said. She didn't look convinced.
The men from Lacroix Brothers carried the small casket towards them and lowered it to a frame that straddled the hole in the ground. Methos trailed behind them. Eyes straight ahead but not focused on anything. Father Picard spoke soft words to him. Patted his arm. He must have realized his valiant effort to reach the silent young man were doomed. Picard let out a heavy sigh and took his place at the head of the casket. The attendants backed away to a respectful distance and bowed their heads. Amanda slipped her arm though Joe's and clasped his hand. Fingers soft and warm between his own. Methos meandered around the casket as if uncertain where to stand.
"Monsieur Pierson?" The priest looked to Methos for permission to begin.
The Immortal was oblivious. Head down, he tramped back to the side of the coffin opposite Joe and Amanda and hovered there.
"Adam," Joe called. Jesus. If Methos didn't join their time-space continuum sometime soon the priest was going to up and leave.
Methos started. His head snapped up and he blinked like Joe's voice had dragged him to the surface of a deep pool. Comeon, buddy. Joe waited for some sign that Alexa's Adam was with them. No such luck. Methos' attention flickered between the casket and the robed man at its head. Mouth twisted, almost angry. Like he was about to call the whole thing off. Shit.
"Go ahead, Father," Joe intervened before Methos could fuck up the ceremony.
The priest nodded his gratitude and kept a wary eye on Methos as he began the service. Joe missed the quiet formality of the full funeral mass. Orphaned, the Rite of Committal felt lonely. Alexa deserved better than the three of them, huddled around a closed wooden box with the wind gnawing at their ears. Methos rocked to the balls of his feet and back in a restless pattern that distracted Joe from the priest's even recitation. Why couldn't he just stand still? As Father Picard invited them to pray Methos wandered to the foot of the casket. The priest's calm recital stuttered. He must be new to the order, not used to mourners who deviated from the usual sedate weeping.
"Adam," Amanda said, sotto voce, "Come here."
It wasn't a request. Wonder of wonders, Methos obeyed. He drifted to Amanda's side and she smiled at him. Joe's held breath ran out of him in a soft huff. The priest cleared his throat and stuck his nose into his missal. A by the book kinda guy. Har-Dee Har Har. Joe felt sorry for him. Guy was waaay out of his league.
Amanda slid her free arm around Methos' waist. When Methos let her draw him closer Joe barely hid his gape of surprise. Methos actually…listened to her. What did Amanda have that he didn't? Amanda's round hip nudged his and he rolled his eyes. Oh, yeah. That.
They stood intertwined while the priest moved on.
"A reading from the book of Wisdom."
Joe bowed his head, a response too ingrained to resist.
"The just man, though he die early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable comes not with the passing of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years…"
Joe couldn't swallow. A flame ignited behind his eyes. So young. She'd been so young. Same age as his niece, as the girl he couldn't let himself think of as daughter. And he'd been closer to her than either of his blood relations. The waitressing gig had started off as a way to pay for nursing school. Until she missed too many classes and had to pull out. Then had come the medical bills. A trickle at first, building to a flood of paper so deep she knew she'd never see the end. All this confided between beer runs, around the press of blissfully ignorant drinkers. Toward the end her soft laugh gained a fatalistic edge. Imagine, she told him one night before Adam noticed her, being your own first and only patient.
"Snatched away lest wickedness pervert his mind or deceit beguile his soul, for the witchery of paltry things obscures what is right and the whirl of desire transforms the innocent mind…"
What a crock. He'd always hated this verse. Justifying the loss of a young person by claiming that they were saved from sin. Alexa coulda used a little more sin in her life. He hoped Adam had shown her the 'whirl of desire' before she died. He looked past Amanda to the old Immortal. Methos' eyes were closed.
"Yes, the just man dead condemns the sinful who live."
Methos opened his eyes.
"And youth swiftly completed condemns the many years of the wicked man grown old."
Who picked this goddamn verse? Amanda rosebud lips thinned and Methos' mouth twisted into a carrion-bird grin. Disgust flared in Joe's chest. Sure the selection was ironic - but it sure as hell wasn't funny. The sick smile lingered on the face of the 'wicked man grown old' as the priest closed the reading.
"The Word of the Lord."
"Thanks be to God," Joe and Amanda intoned automatically, echoed by the two attendants behind them. Methos' smile tightened into a brittle grimace.
"Have some respect," Amanda hissed.
"I'm trying." Voice thin, garroted by razor wire. Was he choking back laughter or sobs? Joe couldn't tell and that pissed him off.
"Try harder," Amanda shot back.
"I can't-" Methos pulled away from Amanda's grip. "I can't do this. I thought I could but I can't."
The priest waded through the second reading over their low, staccato argument. When no one joined him in the recital of the Lord's Prayer his voice faded. He frowned his disapproval at Methos and Amanda. Amanda dropped Joe's hand and grabbed Methos' chin. Jesus, but this funeral was a mess. Joe figured she'd slap him. Instead she forced him to look her in the eye.
"You can," she said with an utter calm that betrayed her true age. "You have before. You will again. You don't have a choice. None of us do."
She let his chin go and waited. Methos blinked at her. Hands curled into cramped balls. Chin lifted, the marks from her fingers livid brands. He was going to walk away. Leave them behind to lay Alexa to rest. Her boss and a stranger the last witnesses to her life. Methos blinked again. Something in his eyes must have shifted. Amanda reclaimed Joe's hand with a quick squeeze. The priest cleared his throat and restarted the Lord's Prayer. Methos kept apart from Joe and Amanda but he did mutter the words with them.
"In nomine Patri, et Filius, et Spiritu Sanctu," Methos murmured at the close of the prayer.
"Amen."
Father Picard noticed the Latin and gave Methos a hesitant smile. Methos nodded and met the man's eyes for the first time. Things wrapped up quickly after that, like the priest was unwilling to bet the calm would hold. He asked if anyone would like to say some words.
A long moment of silence. The wind whipped their coats against their legs. When the voice began, the unexpected the cadence of poetry, it felt for a second like the words fell from the sky like snow.
"'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
-Yet when we came back, late, from the
Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."
Methos fell quiet and the words settled around them, calming the wind. Joe swallowed, his vision wavering.
"Ah hell," he sniffed, swiping at his eyes, "She didn't deserve this. She shoulda had more time. Time to grow old."
"Old and wicked," Methos said. The black smile was long gone. His tall frame had slipped into a gentle slouch. Something of Adam finally there.
"Amen," Amanda added.
The snow held off until the casket was lowered down to nestle in the ground. Joe followed Amanda to the edge of the hole and tossed a handful of cold dirt onto the casket. It wasn't much - hardly enough to mar the shiny surface of the lid.
This wasn't…it wasn't real. In a moment Methos would crack an arrogant grin and let him in on the prank. They'd go down to the bar and Alexa would join them for a drink, wearing the merry smile he remembered from before she got sick. They'd-
"Joe."
A hand on his shoulder. Too heavy to be Alexa's. Joe blinked and the face before him went fuzzy around the edges. What was wrong with his damn eyes? Another hand held a paper tissue out before him. Joe snatched it and scrubbed at his eyes, his nose. When Methos offered him another tissue Joe shook his head. What the hell was an Immortal doing with Kleenex anyway? Not like Methos ever got a runny nose.
Methos' hand wavered. The white tissue fluttered between them, a flag of surrender. Methos' fingernails were caked with black soil, like he'd scratched out the grave himself. Joe must have stared too long. Methos shoved the Kleenex into his coat pocket with a grimace.
"Forgot to clean 'em out," he said, "Guess now I can throw them away."
Methos lifted his head to search the darkening sky. What did he see? Not much past noon and already half way to night. Joe was tired of winter. Would the days ever get longer? Methos shifted and Joe let his internal grumblings sink to where his feet should be. A lump of dirt was cupped, forgotten, in Methos' free hand.
Amanda twined her arm through Joe's and leaned her head against his shoulder. Both of them content to wait for Methos, for whatever he needed to do to let Alexa go. The dirt trickled from Methos' fingers, fine as sand in an hourglass.
Father Picard said his goodbyes to Amanda and Joe. He skirted around Methos like a mutt wary of a sudden kick. Joe didn't blame him. He watched the priest hurry away, glad to be rid of such unruly mourners. Once robes disappeared in the labyrinth of tombs Joe turned back to Methos. Now he was cold, ready to leave. Not that he'd ever mention it aloud.
Even as the trickle of snow steadied and thickened a band of sunlight broke through the low grey clouds and threw the cemetery into a momentary high-contrast. Methos' face sparkled in the sudden illumination. Only flakes of snow, melted on the warmth of his skin.
Once again I've stolen my title from T.S. Eliot, this time from The Waste Land. Blame my first fandom, X-Files, and the influence of Oklahoma.