“Still Chasing Dreams” aka “Lights Out”

“Still Chasing Dreams” aka “Lights Out”

Acknowledgements

The concept of “Immortals” and “The Game” belongs to Panzer/Davis of Highlander. So it stands to reason that the character of Adam Pierson/Methos, Alexa Bond, and any other Highlander characters that are likely to pop up are the creation and property of Panzer/Davis. No copyright infringement is intended or implied. This story takes place between Highlander: The Series episodes of “Timeless” and “Deliverance”, otherwise known as early December 1995.

Thank you to Rob, who assisted with some of my German

“It’s been all these years / Can you believe I’m still chasing dreams? / But I ain’t looking over my shoulder.” —“Just Older” by Bon Jovi

The primary setting is early December 1995, Southern Illinois, USA.

“We’re lost,” Alexa yawned.

“We’re not lost,” came Adam’s reply. “This is the scenic route.”

“Yeah. Okay.” She put out her hand to turn the heat up in the minibus.

Adam’s hand quickly covered hers. “Aaah, sweetheart? It’s broken, I’m afraid.”

“No! But it’s freezing.”

“Here,” Adam said, reaching clumsily into the back of the vehicle while trying to keep his eyes on the road. “Put this on.” Alexa accepted the mass of knitted brown yarn. As she pulled it over her head, she remembered the first time she had ever seen Adam Pierson. He had been wearing this exact sweater, drinking a beer at the bar where she worked. His first pickup line had been atrocious.

“If I sat at a table, would you be my waitress?”

“Is he a good tipper?” she had inquired of her boss, Joe Dawson.

“No.”

“Too bad,” Alexa Bond had turned to the stranger. Before walking away with her tray full of drinks she’d added, “Makes up for it in cute though.”

At first she’d thought nothing of the incident. Guys hit on her every night. But Adam couldn’t let her go. He deemed it unthinkable.

Alexa curled into a ball on the passenger seat. “That settles it. No more sleeping while the MAN drives.”

“Hey, the map said to take 55 South. We’re going south on a road with signs that read 55.”

Alexa stared out the window. The sky was gray. Late afternoon. Icicles hung from the trees speeding by her view.

“This road only has two lanes,” she said.

“Maybe it’s supposed to only have two lanes.”

“When’s the last time you saw another car?”

Adam was silent, pursing his lips, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Sleet was beginning to fall. Alexa sighed and pulled a map of Illinois from the glove compartment. After a minute she looked up again.

“Those signs you mentioned? What color were they?”

“Um, I don’t want to tell you,” Adam shirked.

“Adam, did they look like that one?” Alexa pointed at a passing white rectangular road sign.

She got no answer.

“55 miles per hour!” she exclaimed and buried her head in her hands.

“Look, look. This is not a problem. Lex, we’re still driving south, right? Eventually we should pass through a city. You’ll look it up on your map, and we’ll figure out how far it is to St. Louis.”

“If you’d been able to stay on the Interstate in the first place, we’d already know how far. I bet we’d already be there. In a warm hotel room with a bathtub filled with bubbles that smell like strawberries.”

“No pouting. I’m sorry.” Adam reached over to rub the back of her neck. “We’ll stop for the night as soon as we can and I’ll make this up to you.”

“Promise?”

“As always, sweetheart.”

Alexa couldn’t help but smile at the thought. She took his hand and kissed the palm gently.

“What’s that up there?” she cried suddenly, indicating a silhouette on the left side of the highway. “‘Green Pastures’? A bed and breakfast. Pull over!”

Adam did, the minibus’ tires finding a pesky patch of ice on the road, but parking safely in the driveway of a large multi-story, white farm house with green trim. The engine promptly died, leaving the two travelers to the patter of frozen raindrops hitting the windshield. Adam stretched sideways, seizing the sides of Alexa’s face, and planted a long vindicating kiss upon her lips. He pulled away reluctantly.

“Come on, let’s get inside.”

   

“Here’s your key,” the older gentleman stressed for the fourth time. Adam clad in a long black overcoat and still nuzzling the ear of his girlfriend, glanced over at him. Alexa nudged Adam to take the key while continuing to cling to his other arm. All but her bright eyes disguised her anticipation in spending the night here.

“Thanks,” Adam said sheepishly.

The proprietor of the bed and breakfast adjusted his glasses, “Honeymoon?”

“Thereabouts.”

“Well, you’re lucky. With the threat of this storm we’ve had a cancellation. Otherwise I’d have had to turn you young folk away, sad as that sounds.”

“And where is Here, exactly?” Adam inquired at the ferocious poking of his kidney by Alexa.

“Illinois Route 127,” the man proudly announced. “North of Greenville.”

No hint of recognition graced the expressions of the couple, but he did not elaborate.

“And St. Louis from here is?” Adam led.

“Oh! Just one more mile farther and you’da hit Route 140,” the B&B man said. With wide hand gestures he demonstrated, “Tomorrow you just head off in that direction, then point your van to the right. Drive for about twenty miles ’til you see Interstate 55, and get on it going south. You can’t miss it. There’s lots of signs.”

Adam jumped slightly when Alexa pinched him. “Ow. Thanks so much,” he smiled quickly. He picked up the one duffel bag he’d brought in and took a step toward the staircase.

“Dinner’s passed,” the gentleman called. “But I could bring you up something from the kitchen.”

Alexa turned and told him, “No, we’re fine.”

“Entire bag of travel snacks from the van.” Adam added.

“Good. Then breakfast is at 8 sharp. My wife cooks the best waffles. Rich homemade syrup. We can ring you down in the morning.”

“Perfect,” Adam said, mounting the stairs. “Room 4 you said?”

   

Adam rolled onto his back, out of breath. Alexa traced a finger across his forehead, smearing the beads of sweat that had accumulated there.

“Are you finally worn out?” she patronized.

“Aren’t you?” Adam gasped, turning back to her and yanking the rumpled soft green sheet back down from where she had tried to cover the top half of her body. “Hey, I was driving all day. It’s bloody boring when you’re over there snoring.”

“I don’t snore!”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” smiled Adam, failing to dodge the decorative pillow bouncing off the side of his head.

“I will then.” Alexa’s hand dropped to rest across Adam’s bare torso. “Wanna go for round three, old timer?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, I’ve just heard that when men hit thirty, it’s all downhill from there.”

“Who told you that? That’s a highly guarded secret!” he exclaimed. “After thirty, you say? Well, then I am in deep Deep trouble. But downhill? I’ll show you downhill,” he threatened, pressing her delightfully into the mattress with his hungry kisses.

   

Wrapped loosely in the bed sheet, Adam stared out the window. He sat on the cushion of the large bay window, peeking between lace curtains at the December snow falling much too heavily for his tastes.

Alexa was on the phone — oh, why hadn’t he hidden that phone? — talking to Joe Dawson. Adam recalled her promising Joe the two of them would write. This was not writing, and Alexa, as beautiful and sweet as she was, was nevertheless about to do what Adam feared most tonight.

“Oh, no, no,” she said to Joe. “It’s only 8 o’clock here yet . . .. You did? No, I’m just kidding. I have a Christmas present for you, too. We should probably mail them . . .. No, we didn’t get all the way into St. Louis today.” There it was. Adam knew she was bound to mention it. He nearly tripped on his sheet diving for the bed.

“Honey, honey, give me the phone for a minute!”

But the damage was done. He hadn’t been quick enough.

“A small Bed and Breakfast north of Greenville— Hey! Adam, what are you—?”

“No, everything is fine, Joe,” Adam spoke into the receiver. “Good night, Joe.”

“Why did you do that?” Alexa squeaked, rising to her knees on the mattress. She was wearing the large brown sweater again, and it covered her to the very tops of her knees. Her thick dark hair fell down around her frowning face, tempting him to seize and stroke very strand of it and her until she no longer remembered their friend Joe’s name.

“I’m sorry, Alexa. It’s just — I just — wanted you all to myself again. That’s all,” Adam explained innocently.

“You picked an awfully rude way to tell me that.”

“There are methods much more rude than that. But I won’t show you what they are,” he added when her eyebrows expressed a degree of alarm.

Alexa sighed and kissed him.

“No enthusiasm left for me?” he pouted. She smirked and pushed him onto his back, before reaching to switch off the bedside lamp. A few seconds later, Adam moaned, “Nevermind.”

   

FLASHBACK: AD 852, Black Forest, Kingdom of the East Franks (a section of what would become modern Germany).

“Love begins with a Smile, grows with a Kiss and ends with a Tear.” —unknown

Before Adam Pierson joined the Watchers, and before Dr. Benjamin Adams saw his first patient in New Orleans, Methos called himself Farren, a Von Hess by marriage when he took the name of his mortal wife’s ancestry in AD 842. She had no family besides her ill father and so the man was quick to bless a union, his estate dying for want of a nonexistent heir. Methos, simply loving the girl and needing a modest dowry, failed to mention to either Von Hess the implausibility of an heir begot by his Immortal self.

Now married ten years to Chantal, and lord of the large manor, Glückauf, brimming with house servants and field peasants high in the Black Forest of the Kingdom of the East Franks, Farren was summoned by an Immortal who had “inherited” the lands down the mountain from him. The season was winter, but Farren Von Hess rode off boldly to meet the challenge. Business was business, which proved scarce in this season. He had to risk the challenge in hopes of a financial arrangement.

Returning home with his head, Farren could make out no smoke from the smaller outbuildings around the manor. Only the furthest cottage down the slope from Glückauf might have been inhabited. A light snow and sleet combination continued to grow more savage and the lord urged his mount onward.

Entering through the heavy doors, he found the manor house eerily quiet. He ventured slowly upstairs to his rooms, tired and hungry, angry at the thought of no supper and more so, of no reception whatsoever. He paused in the anteroom. The spacious main rooms were practically stripped bare. No table, no desk, no mattress. Farren glimpsed his wife sitting in their windowsill; the shutters open to the blustering storm. The dying fire could not begin to chase out the winds.

Chantal saw Farren standing there and leapt up to stand in the window itself. “Shut the door! Bolt it!”

He obeyed and began walking cautiously toward her. She was the complete opposite of how she normally appeared to him. As a proper country lord’s wife, soft dark curls of hair would be piled on top of her head, with more ringlets gently framing her round, clean face. Only the hem of her skirt would hold the dust or mud without one more spot of soil on her dress. But now, her hair was filthy, uncombed, plastered flat to one side of her head. She was dressed in only her barest underclothes; her face was tear-streaked and smeared with soot. Her wide blue eyes darted from Farren around the room and back again and again.

To his immediate relief, she again sat down upon the windowsill. Farren stripped off his sword and heavy cloak. He grabbed hold of Chantal, draped the cloak about her shoulders, and managed also to close the shutter.

He implored of her, “What are you doing? You look half mad.”

Without meeting his demanding eyes, she moaned, “I’m sorry. It was a bad idea. God can never forgive me. I’m so sorry, milord.”

“What? What could you possibly have done? You are the most beautiful, amazing woman in all the Kingdom. I love you with all my heart. Chantal, darling, what is the matter?”

“I am going to have a baby.” She threw the cloak off her body and started crying again. Farren found himself faced with shock but also ecstatic happiness.

“But this is joyful news! Let us tell everyone. Let us scream our good fortune to the entire Forest. And to the world!” Chantal hushed him and covered his mouth.

“No, no, don’t you see? I can’t have this baby, milord. It was a horrible idea. An evil egg from the hatching.”

“No, not evil. Never evil, my darling. For love. For love, Chantal. You wanted a child. We! We wanted this child. Remember? You begged me. I blessed this arrangement a year ago.”

“I am going to hell. My bastard child is going to hell.”

Farren tried to calm her by holding her and drawing her nearer the fire. But it was so cold on the stone floor in the empty room. He reached for his discarded cloak and wrapped it tightly around her again.

She begged now to die. “I do not deserve you or your love.”

He kissed her forehead, “I am going out for more firewood. And some help?”

Chantal screamed and looked toward the window. “I promise you I shall jump if you take one step out of this room. I have sent everyone away. Out of this house for the night. I will fall dead below long before you could return.”

Farren agreed, slowly realizing the severity of the situation. He instead broke up the only chair to burn it. He gathered his wife to him and rocked her slowly. After a few minutes of silence he tried again to speak rationally with her. “He is my child when I raise him.”

“Milord, we have tried for ten years and have had no child,” Chantal wept. “I lie with your footman, Julian once, when in a weak desperate moment, you begged me to try, for my sanity and our marriage. You told me God understands and forgives.”

“God does forgive, he wishes for me to be a father and for you to be a mother. He wishes for an heir to the land.” Farren coaxed.

Chantal’s voice drifted on; “It seems as if a dream enshrouded in mist. And now I’ve awoken. Searing rays of the Lord’s sunshine burn my eyes. This is wrong, milord. I can not give birth to this baby. I will not!” She struggled weakly against the strong arms encasing her and smiled. “I have been waiting all evening for you to return home to me. I wanted to be sure, milord, you knew why your wife has died.”

“No, you’re not going to die, Chantal. We’re going to get through this night. The gentle sun shall rise tomorrow and the baby shall be happy news, as it has been to me since you first told me. I love this baby already. And I have not stopped loving you, Chantal. You will see. Just sleep. When you wake the world will look full of hope. We shall call the household back home. We shall enjoy this miracle as long as we live. And love him or her always.” Farren stroked her cheek and kept talking. “No one has to know if you don’t wish them to that I did not father this child. If you must, confess to Father Jacob. Do his penance, but live with me. You are my wife. You are my body, my soul and my life. My only air is from your breath.”

It seemed ages passed. The floor remained so cold with no fire ablaze in the hearth. Farren thought once that Chantal had finally fallen asleep, and he attempted to free himself. But she was not truly asleep and cried out in hysterics, “Devil child! I’ll leap to our merciful deserved deaths if you move, Farren! Please leave me. Fetch the firewood! Fetch the blankets!”

Farren would not. He wrapped her even tighter until he could hardly hold his eyes open. Must not sleep, he thought. Must last until sunlight. Someone will come. Someone must come. He loved Chantal so very much. He so very much wanted the child growing inside her body.

Completely dark, the only candle had long ago blown out in the draft. It was so cold. He could not feel his limbs. His eyes closed. Curled in the fireplace ashes, Farren Von Hess slept and dreamt of snow.

   

December 1995, Southern Illinois, USA.

The roar sounded nothing like a huge silver maple tree crashing down on the roof of a three-story renovated country farm house. The loud clap of thunder and the subsequent resonance about his head harkened Adam more to a wall of snow turning in on itself halfway down a mountainside. Heavy, wet, crashing snow. An unstoppable roar. Definitely not stoppable by a humble lord’s manor house or the scattering of out buildings lodging servants and peasants alike. A burying snow. Destroying all it envelops. Or smothering the underthings to frigid sleep to wait for spring and thaw.

Held safely in his arms, Alexa awoke and shrieked. She clung to him, close to hyperventilating.

“It’s the storm. It’s alright,” Adam comforted.

“With thunder in winter?” A softer boom rumbled through the night.

“Sure, why not? I mean, this is the Midwest. The Midwest doesn’t care about the rules of weather. It does what it likes, whenever it likes. I read that in the newspaper this morning at Burger King.”

“Well, I’m still scared. Turn on the light.”

Adam twisted the switch on the lamp. Nothing. “Maybe the bulb burnt out,” he suggested.

“Or maybe whatever that noise was took down the power lines.”

Adam shook his head not that Alexa could see him. “No, we must have electricity. Here. I’ll go try the wall switch.” On his short walk over, he tried to think why he cared so much whether or not they had electricity. He had lived nearly 50 centuries without the convenience. Damn his petty addictions to modern innovations like refrigerated bottles of beer, his laptop computer, and reruns of the X-Files.

But flicking the wall switch accomplished as much as the lamp switch had.

“Looks like you could be right.” After fumbling to find and light the matches and candle he had glimpsed in the drawer earlier, he snatched down his boxer shorts from the hanging plant where they had landed earlier and picked a sweatshirt from the duffel bag. “I’ll go see what I can find out.”

Before he could open the door, there was a cautious knock.

A woman with graying blonde hair stood in the hallway. A few people in bathrobes and a few more in normal clothes wandered behind her.

Before Adam could say anything the woman introduced herself. “I’m Mrs. Rose. My husband checked you in this afternoon. We’re just going around tonight to see if everyone is all right. With the electricity out and all.”

“Yeah, we heard a big crash. Was that—?”

“Oh, dear, yes. The ancient maple finally came down. The weight of the snow and maybe even a lightning strike. We’ll know more when the sun comes up. Till then the power lines are down. And the heat is out too, the furnace being electric.” The woman looked even more distressed suddenly, wringing her hands. “There’s a fireplace downstairs. We’ve invited everyone to the living room if they get too cold. We’ll work out refunds in the morning.”

“Oh, no. No refunds for us. This is the reason people come to a Bed and Breakfast, isn’t it? For the quiet and romance. What says romance more than candlelight and a King-sized mattress?” Adam assured her.

The woman smiled. “You are right about that, Mr. Pierson. Oh, which reminds me.” She bent to pick up a canvas bag from beside her feet. “A flashlight and some candles. You have a terrific night Mr. Pierson, Miss Bond,” she said, spying carefully around the doorframe toward Alexa. “And please don’t hesitate to join us downstairs by the fire either.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rose. We may do that. No guarantees though.” Clumsily, Adam took the items she offered, dropping one white pillar candle to the floor.

   

At the center of a thousand points of light. Or so much it seemed that Alexa bent to huff out half the candles surrounding their room at Green Pastures. Before she had, both Adam’s and her faces held not one shadow between them. But now, the romantic flickering ambiance bordered on sickening. She endured it willingly.

Adam sat behind her and she leaned back against him between his legs. His lips found her bare shoulder, kissing their way silkily up her neck to her earlobe. His right hand took a place now on her shoulder. She struggled to keep a firm hold on her wine poured into a glass tumbler from the washroom. Alexa was still surprised it had taken Adam this long to break out the bottle. Red wine. The year had practically worn off the label.

“Is this a good year?” she asked him.

“I have no idea. I just collect them and then I drink them.”

“Do you think that maybe when this wine was bottled, people had no electricity? This would be normal for them, the no lights or radio, I mean. With less distractions. More time for what is real. For paying attention and listening to each other.”

Adam seemed content to listen for the moment.

Alexa continued, her face turned up to him now. “Like I can see your new goatee. Still barely visible but the candlelight catches the hairs just a certain way and it’s obvious. I can’t be sure I would have noticed it otherwise.”

“I’ll shave it off.”

“No, please don’t. I’m actually interested to learn how it will fill out. Have you ever grown one before? Of course, you have, what was I thinking? You’ve had thirty years to live before you ever met me. You must have done a ton of things already.”

Adam sniffed his drink and then took a minute drink.

“No one has to know if you don’t wish them to that I did not father this child. If you must, confess to Father Jacob. Do his penance, but live with me. You are my wife. You are my body, my soul and my life. My only air is from your breath.”

Adam took her empty glass, set it on the end table behind her, and whispered, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies: and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.’” He moved in for a kiss.

Immediately the shrill ring of the phone curtailed any further embraces. Adam answered while Alexa moved to put on jeans and the brown sweater to his many protesting gestures.

Cursing Joe Dawson’s loose lips under his breath, Adam spoke to Western European Watcher Headquarters. “I’m on personal leave. Send someone else.” His first vacation in eleven years to be precise. And the moment he fails to reach an estimated destination, in this case St. Louis, the Organization hunts him down through his supposed “friends”.

“How important can it be if it isn’t already taken care of? I’m sorry. I wasn’t questioning you. I just—.” Just want to hang up on you and unplug this phone before Alexa wants to know who you are and I have to tell her AGAIN that it’s “just work” or “just school” and leave it at that. While all we are trying to do is simply concentrate on each other and our “tour of the New World”. “Yeah? Well I thought I was supposed to stay out of the field anyway. I’m a lowly researcher. On personal leave, may I remind you again? Good luck though.”

Now Adam did hang up the receiver, quite violently, before dashing behind the end table to disconnect the phone cord from the wall. Alexa followed his peculiar actions with her eyes but raised no questions. Adam answered anyway. “Just a colleague from the University of Paris. He wanted something from St. Louis, and he was... mildly disappointed I hadn’t made it into the city yet,” he grumbled. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to.”

“Maybe you should. If he is your friend?” Alexa told him.

“Colleague, fellow student,” he corrected her. “Not my friend. Not this particular individual.”

Alexa returned to her place on the bed beside him. “Then perhaps next time he’ll learn and have one of your friends call you for him.”

“Perhaps.” Adam did not appear very hopeful.

“Well,” Alexa began. “Not to take away anything from this evening, but I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get into St. Louis yet. I really wanted to stay at the Adam’s Mark hotel on the Riverfront. Get it? Adam’s mark?” Alexa traced the strange blue tattoo on the inside of Adam’s wrist with her fingertip, tickling him till he finally had to pull the cuff of his sweatshirt over his whole hand to stop her.

Adam smiled, “Yeah, I get it. This time and the last time you said that.” He shrugged. “When I was twelve, I ran away from home and joined a cult in Scotland. This was their symbol. A circle with thirteen ticks around it, all surrounding these rams’ horns. Something to do with the local livestock and my next birthday.” Alexa stifled a laugh. “Don’t kid, I had to get this tattoo or I would have been immediately shipped back to Wales. Eventually they shipped me home anyway. They found me too cynical and a real live threat to their sheep.” Now they both laughed out loud.

“You’re outrageous,” she said. “But I choose to believe your last story over this one. Concerning your alien abduction last March?” After a few more seconds Alexa’s smile faded. Adam gazed at her while she guiltily fought suspicions of his keeping even more secrets from her than just a meaningless tattoo. Like the phone call. Tips of his iceberg. “Are you really supposed to be away from the University like this?” she fished.

“Oh sure,” he answered easily enough. “All the time. Research abroad. The joys of being a Ph.D. candidate searching for his perfect dissertation.”

“Doctor Pierson. That’s a scary thought.” Alexa frowned as Adam tumbled gracefully off the bed. He yanked off her left sock and laid down on the carpet at the foot of the bed out her sight. Her confusion was short lived when she felt him gently massaging her foot. She sighed and lay back on the bed. “Did you know that some people are born to be professional students? They don’t want and could never appreciate a real job or career, but do spectacular work in university classes for years upon years.”

“Hmmm. Really.” Adam said, as though he already knew where this line was headed.

“Do you think it’s possible that’s what you are? A professional student. I mean, you study nothing, essentially. ‘Classical Studies’. What is that?”

“It’s the History and Civilizations of Antiquity. But yeah, I see what you mean, Lex. But don’t you think my background gives me a greater insight to study people in the present?”

“I suppose. It’s ironic also that I’m the one of us three credits away from being a certified teacher before I dropped out because of—” Alexa choked on the next words, while Adam stopped the foot massage to embrace her whole calf in moral support, “My diagnosis and treatments,” she finished quieter. “And now you, the student, are teaching me the basics: how to live, that NOW is what is important. Even when your study is, quote, Classical.”

“But that is what the classical thinkers believed, sweetheart. Live today, don’t wait, carpe diem.”

For love, Chantal. You wanted a child. We! We wanted this child. Remember? You begged me. I blessed this arrangement.

“I do have a lot to seize before I get too sick, don’t I? I want to wander the Louvre, eat genuine Creole cuisine. I want to sail among the Greek islands and the Acropolis. I want to go bungee jumping, meet the Pope!”

“The Pope? You’re not Catholic. And bungee jumping? Really?”

“Yeah, ‘when in Rome’. And, why not? I thought everyone had bungee jumping on their life’s ‘to do’ list.”

Alexa waited for the next inevitable punch line. What she heard was completely out of the blue.

“Marry me.”

“Adam, oh my God,” she managed to reply, clearly shocked. Then, “I’ve known you all of a month! And what can I offer you as a wife? Not a— nothing that—,” she stuttered. “Just, no. Absolutely not. Love me now, as we are: together. It might be easier for you to someday forget me.”

Adam sat up, “But I will NEVER forget you. Even if I live... 5000 years... I will never forget a single moment I’ve spent with you. The— the first time I saw you across the darkened pub. Or— or how I tried desperately to ask you out the next day. I was so nervous. I— I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t even hear half of the words leaving my lips. And that first night together when you’d agreed to travel the world with me. I memorized every inch of your body that night. It is imprinted onto my brain so deeply it could never be overwritten now. I never will want it to be.” He took Alexa’s hands in his. “If you think that marrying me is a set up for disaster, the damage is already done.”

Alexa slid down the foot of the bed to him. “Why—? How—? Ugh, Can I ask you? What has your past love life been like? You are so good at that speech I almost feel like you’ve given it before. How many other dying women have you seduced? Or are you just the Angel of Death himself?”

“You killed Charlotte!”
I slept with her. You killed her!”

“You died once today. Did you enjoy that? Well, learn this lesson well: I will kill you as many times as it takes to tame you.”

Adam let out the small breath he had been holding. “I’ll plead the fifth on that one? Um, by the way, Lex? Are these my jeans you have on? They seem a bit long in the inseam to be yours. I noticed earlier, your foot barely falls out the end there.” He touched the sole of her foot playfully, and she flinched.

“In all my years, I’ll never understand the fascination women have in wearing my clothing. Look, you’ve got on my sweater again as well as my Levis. Why is that... exactly?” Alexa didn’t answer. Adam stood up and held his arms out to her. “Would you like that strawberry bubble bath drawn now? I’d have a... slight chance of getting my clothes from you, wouldn’t I? Love?”

Alexa didn’t budge.

   

Alexa and Adam sat facing each other on the carpeted floor. In the dark, twin candles illuminating their faces, their legs wrapped around each other, the room had grown noticeably colder with no electricity to run the heat. Alexa felt herself slipping into thoughts she had until now controlled for these few weeks.

“I wonder if this is how it’s going to be. Dark. Getting colder. The sounds around me muffled like falling snow. Waiting. Just waiting. Holding my breath for something to happen. Something to change,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “Something besides this uncertainty. To know it’s finally just... over. And now you’re alone.”

Adam put his hands on her shoulders. “But you aren’t waiting, Alexa. You’re not waiting for things to happen or for them to change. You’re taking control. You’ve come along with me on the trip of... anyone’s lifetime, not just yours. You’re spending your life living, and loving, and you will never, ever be alone. I’ll never leave you. And you will ALWAYS be with me.”

“Adam—”

“You will always be with me,” he repeated into her ear. Alexa nodded and cried. Adam hugged her tighter, his eyes tearing but letting no wetness fall.

   

FLASHBACK: AD 852, Black Forest.

The blizzard raged for many days upon the Black Forest. The weight of the snow and ice caved in the roof of Glückauf. An avalanche killed the people who worked in the house and on the land. Winter did finally turn to spring.

Farren Von Hess awoke, bewildered and shivering miserably. The body of his wife lay frozen in his arms. Farren howled one long note before allowing himself to weep hysterically still clutching her.

From the still melting snow, he dug out timbers from the collapsed roof to build a tremendous fire. He meditated quietly for Chantal and the baby as he hovered near the warmth before placing the rigid mortal body into the flames. Leaving them to their god, he began walking west down the mountain.

Three months later he sent a note ahead of him to the Abbey of St. Anne: “Rebecca, I will be there in two days.” He signed it “M.”

   

December 1995, Southern Illinois, USA.

Ten minutes later Alexa had yet to lift her head from his chest. “Lex? Listen for a minute.” She did not respond and he tried again. “Listen to me? Calm down. Where are you right now, sweetheart? Right now?”

“On a floor, freezing. And I’m a mess.”

“No, no you’re not. Try again.” Adam pulled the comforter off the bed and draped it around her. “Where are you?”

Alexa thought, staring into Adam’s hazel eyes. She sniffled. “I’m. I’m in Illinois. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Illinois. And,” she couldn’t hide the slight smile, “I’m on my way to New Orleans, another place I’ve never been before.”

Adam smiled broadly. “Yes, and after that, you are flying to Europe. To London, and Paris, and Venice?”

“And I don’t care what Venice smells like.”

“That’s right, we’re going anyway. Together. You and me. And tonight you are with me. Very VERY close to me earlier,” he teased.

Alexa didn’t feel like blushing, but she definitely felt much more comfortable and collected. Adam kissed her cheek, and then she did blush. “I am alive right here. Right now. With the man I love. And that is all that matters.”

“You are still so right about that. And I love you right here. Right now,” Adam confessed, without a hint of manipulative seduction in his voice.

“This is wrong, milord. I can not give birth to this baby. I will not.”
“I have been waiting all evening for you to return home to me. I wanted to be sure, milord, you knew why your wife has died.”

Must not sleep. Must last until sunlight. Someone will come. Someone must come. He loved Chantal so very much.

“I kill you in my sleep,” Adam mumbled.

“What?” Alexa asked. They were back on the bed. The bottle of wine was empty.

“Oh. Nothing. I’m sorry.”

Alexa squeezed his hand. “It’s never nothing. What is it?”

He sighed, obviously troubled. “I had a dream earlier this evening. I can’t seem to shake it. It was so vivid, like I was back there living it all over again,” Adam began.

“What do you mean? What happened in the dream? Tell me. I could use something else to think about right now,” Alexa offered.

“I don’t know what to tell you really. It’s more like... flashes, bits and pieces,” he lied, trying not to force himself to reveal any past lifetime. “Nothing specific.”

“Some would say a dream is an answer to a question your brain hasn’t yet figured out how to ask.”

Adam held tight to her enlightened, though borrowed, words, and decided he could confess the overall feelings of despair and helplessness which had overwhelmed him in the “dream”. Alexa broke her gaze upon his eyes, “Those feelings aren’t from your dream,” she told him bluntly. “They’re from spending time with me. It’s harder than you thought, isn’t it? You can admit it. It won’t hurt my feelings. Much. I’m used to it by now.

“The initial spark of our whole relationship is faltering right? And now the truth of everything is settling in. The alternative is becoming thinkable after all.” She held two fingers to his parting lips. “I am going to die, Adam. It’s not a secret. It hasn’t changed. Not because I agreed to come on this trip with you. Not because I love you. It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind. I’ll just need to know.

“Give me my plane ticket and you can go on ahead back to Europe on your own. You have a life that was going along just fine before you met me. I’m sure you want to get back to it. And lose this distraction of a terminal girlfriend.” Alexa shook her head and a short horrible laugh emanated from her throat. “God, I can’t even imagine how you must feel. That someday you’re gonna wake up one morning and I’m just not going to be there anymore. Not ever again. And you won’t be old. You’ll still be young and healthy with most of your life still in front of you. But I don’t have to worry about that. I’ll just stop being there. I won’t even realize...”

“Look, NOW who’s the cynical one of us,” Adam said, taking her head in his hands and leading it to his shoulder again. “I think... that our only problem is... that I have gone and spoiled you downright rotten, Alexa. This relationship — this roller coaster ride we’re on? We’ve reached a crest on the tracks and there must now be that sudden stomach-rushing-into-your-throat drop. And I’d also have to guess that you’ve become a tad drunk on the wine.” She nodded on his shoulder. He smiled. “It’s absolutely freezing up here. And I really don’t feel like sleeping yet. Would you want to come down to the nice fireplace with me?”

“Yes.”

first penned August/September 2000
revised through November 14, 2000

Notes:

• Glückauf, as I’ve named the Von Hess manor house, is an actual German way to say hi and good luck in one! Some luck, huh?
• “She walks in beauty...” is from a famous poem by Lord Byron. BYRON. Did ya catch that?
• Green Pastures was a very real Bed & Breakfast. But its depiction and operators are not consistent with reality.
• I finally ended the story abrubtly cuz I was sick of trying to work in my remaining scenes/conversations. I apologize if anything seems “unfinished”. I’ll work in my other scenes if betas keep telling me the same kinds of things over and over.

Copyright 2000 Rainofhearts

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