From: Sss44@aol.com
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 12:58 AM
To: akblake@lock-net.com
Subject: Waiting

This one never made it to www.fkfanfic.com, so here 'tis.

Summary: Nick's dying, and Nat is waiting for the end.



Waiting
   by Sharon S. Scott

Why couldn't the dying have quiet in which to complete their journeys? Why 
did they have to be surrounded by machines which clicked, and buzzed, and 
beeped, and whirred, flashing meaningless numbers and symbols, spouting 
tapes from their insides?

Why did the dying have to be poked and prodded and lifted and turned? Why 
did they have to have tubes snaking in and out of their noses and arms and 
stomachs and bladders?

Why couldn't the dying have the ones who loved them at their bedsides, for 
however long it took? To hold their hands, to touch their faces, to tell 
them of their days? Just to be there?

Why was he dying so soon? So very soon. Fifty wasn't old these days. Unless 
you added the other eight hundred he'd lived before he became human again.

She didn't.

She was responsible for his cure. A new life as a mortal. Thus she was 
responsible for his ending--a process guaranteed to dehumanize a man who 
had enjoyed his humanity more than anyone she'd ever known. Perhaps because 
he'd hoped for it so long.

Now he was dying. Death was the drawback she'd tried to explain to him 
before she brought him back across. He hadn't listened. Or if he had, he 
hadn't fully understood, just as he hadn't fully understood what that other 
decision, made centuries ago, would mean. She'd warned him again and again 
that life is fatal.

He hadn't cared. He had wanted to become human. And she had helped him to 
become what he had desired.

This was the result. A man dying in a room full of machines.

She wanted to re-examine him. Study his face, his hair, his hands, the 
shape of his body beneath the sheet. Memorize him. Because when this 
process came to its conclusion, that's all she would have of him.

She didn't want to waste any of the time remaining to him. Caregivers 
would arrive, to stab and measure and empty and fill him again. She 
wouldn't be allowed to be with him. She would be told to leave him. To take 
a break, dear, get something to eat, take a walk, get some sleep. You can 
see him again at the next visiting hour. It would be hours before she could 
see him again. Wasted hours. 

All she wanted to do was to be with him. As long as possible. Until he was 
no more. Until he was a memory. Of talk, of shared secrets in the night, of 
disappointment, of love, of pain, of exultation. Beautiful things.

Then she could leave. Not until then.

She knew that other humans went through the same thing and came out the 
other side intact. Other humans gave birth, watched the ones they loved 
die, bit down in pain, breathed deeply when the pain was gone, awaited the 
decisions of tests, learned to accept their results.

As she was going to have to do. Accept.

Accept that he'd no longer be there with his laughter and his shining eyes. 
No longer there with his depressions, black as nights without moon and 
stars, when he stared into a place where she couldn't follow.

His time in the sun hadn't been long enough to do all the things he had 
wanted to do. To taste the things denied him for so long. He hadn't had 
time to savor life; he'd rushed through it as if he knew it would end too 
soon.

Her time with him hadn't been long enough to show him all the things she 
wanted him to know. Love without barbs, without possession, without 
betrayal. Without conditions.

And now it was ending. Would he know that she touched him, that she had to 
feel him? The soft pale skin, the slowly pulsing spot beneath his hear, the 
hair like curled cornsilk at the back of his neck. Would he know that she 
held his hand and spoke softly to him of their time together?

She hoped he would.

Because she wanted him to know he was loved, and wanted, and needed.

And that she would remember. 

Scottie
sss44@aol.com