Cassandra watched Methos disappear through the door and up the stairs, and then, realized that there was no better time than then to make her exit. The tension between Nick and Amanda was something she didn't not even need to look into their faces to sense...it was papable...another being in the room. She stood.
"We never did...Genevieve and I...decide where we were going to stay. I think she half-supposed..." She trailed off, almost as if implying that it was the younger woman who had made the decisions. "Of course, I know her place is probably under surveillance."
Of course..." Amanda said, "the both of you are welcome to stay..." and then she darted a look at Nick. He didn't catch the look; he seemed to be deep in thought...or possibly, simply deeply in need of sleep. She wondered where he had--where he had been, where he would go. Not that she had wondered before about him a thousand times before...or wondered every day since the last time she had seen him. "You might as well get your bags...I'll help..."
"No," Cassandra answered, quickly. "We packed in a hurry, and there isn't much. I'll take care of them." She then looked at Nick, turning her head jst enough that Amanda would catch the implication. Making no further gesture, she left them alone. Nick acknowledged her leaving with a nod of his head, and felt almost pleased to note the he barely knew what to say in her presence--she wondered if--due to his acquaintance with her through the Gauntlet, he was simply too awed to speak.
Off and on, over the years, when she paused to count those years, she had also been awed. She thought...yes. She did understand, she did know, exactly what he and Genevieve had been saying. I t was different being young...not knowing what the years would feel like, or what they would bring. She remembered, briefly, how it was for herself.
NOt that either of them could ever have understood that. Things had been different before.
THe cool morning air refreshed her...it was easier to be alone for a moment, to gather her thoughts. She glanced down the street, the opposite of the direction she and Genevieve had walked. Perhaps she would not go to the car at all. She highly doubted she'd be greeted on the way to get some breakfast...she felt the slightest need for food, and the deepest desire for a good cup of tea.
and so she passed the car...and went.
"We need to talk," Nick found himself saying, just as Amanda was saying the same.
He paused. He had barely listened then, except in horror at what she had done. At what had happened, and what he was. He realized not long after how abrupt it had been, cursed himself for not having stayed, wondered if it couldn't still be made right. Wondered, largely, because he found himself alone. She had introduced him to the rules of her world--but he had barely thought that he, himself, would ever be living by them.
Amanda also paused, wondering if she shouldn't have paused before...and yet here he was. Alive. The very thought that he could have beengone from her...permanantly, had been something she never wanted to know. She looked at him almost in wonder--strange, that the very same thing should have brought them together again --her friends. Immortality...immortal business. The thing he was exposed to too soon--the thing he'd have to deal with.
"Amanda...I missed you," he said, then, simply.
She worked her lips, hoping that the words tosay would manifest themselves by that simple act--but they didn't. Instead, she went to him...and embraced him.
"I'm sorry," she breathed, into his shoulder.
"Don't," he answered. And nothing more needed to be said then, as they held one another, only happy to be there. Both alive. There, to tell the tale. Together, friends if nothing else.
Posted on Oct 18, 2000, 12:42 PM from IP address 24.4.252.12