Stateless 1: With a new verse the ancient rhyme
"Monsieur, Monsieur Pierson!"
Methos stalked past the nurse's station, oblivious to the calls. Footsteps trailed after him but his only thought was to get back to her.
"Monsieur Pierson! Adam! Arret, s'il vous plait. Stop!"
He heard nurse Cholet's voice, even recognized the name she called, but it was meaningless to him - belonging to another man. A hand on his arm and he pulled away, barely containinga growl. Alexa's door stood open. He stopped in the doorway, stopped short as if he'd hit a wall of glass. The room was empty.
"Adam!" Nurse Cholet's urgent call finally penetrated the Quickening haze and the growing panic. Adam. He was Adam. For now he was supposed to be Adam.
He turned to the nurse and something in his face sent her back a step, pale. He sucked in a long breath and forced his body to relax into Adam Pierson's gentle slouch. It wasn't easy. Blood was drying under his coat, itchy on his side and belly, a constant reminder that he wasn't Adam Pierson after all.
"Pardonnez-moi, madame," he managed, "Please, where his Mademoiselle Bond?"
Some color returned to Nurse Cholet's cheeks at the even tone of his voice.
"Docteur Girard has been looking for you everywhere. We all have."
Methos clamped down on the urge to shake the small woman before him. Fury pulsed just under his skin, swirled in his stomach, the Quickening refusing to settle. At his silence the nurse continued.
"Mme. Bond, she was taken back to intensive care. Her breathing, it grew worse. She asked for you but no one could locate you."
There was no accusation in her voice and Methos didn't offer an excuse. His stomach clenched, knowing what he'd find in the ICU before his brain could accept it.
"Fifth floor," she reminded him, "I am sorry we could not find you sooner."
Two hours. He'd left Alexa two hours ago. How could... how could this have happened so quickly?
"Merci," Methos said, and left the nurse staring after him, the confusion and compassion in her eyes too much for him to bear.
The stairwell was empty. He couldn't risk the elevator, couldn't be certain of his reaction to people in close quarters. Two flights up he had to stop. The pain in his head doubled him over, dry heaves cramping and paralyzing him. When the pain eased he was dizzy, very nearly hyperventilating with the panicked thought that whoever stalked him had planned this, that the stalker was with Alexa right now while Methos crouched against concrete steps trying not to pass out.
Nurse Cholet must have called up to the ICU. The head nurse waved him through the doors without ceremony and a young aide was waiting to lead him through the glass and steel labyrinth to a small room at the end of the hall. The most private of the necessarily public chambers.
If not for the young woman by his side Methos would have dropped to his knees at the first sight of the shrunken body lying so limp beneath the tangle of tubes and wires keeping her alive. Two hours. A white light filled his head and for a moment he could see and hear nothing. He must have made some sound, for the aide touched his arm and the contact broke him free of the blankness.
"We've made her as comfortable as we can," the young woman said in the soft tones everyone used in this ward.
He only half understood her through the keening that threatened to bubble up from his belly and chest to escape his throat. He realized his hand was over his mouth, holding in the sound. The meaning behind her words sunk in and he turned to her, at last finding his voice.
"How... how long?"
The aide shook her head. "These things are hard to say, monsieur. She has fought a long time."
"I need to..." Words failed him then, as they had so few times in his long, long life.
"Of course. You may stay with her as long as you like."
If he hadn't already known Alexa's time was short those words would have confirmed it. Visiting hours in the ICU were usually kept to a minimum for the patient's sake.
The young woman's name tag indicated she was a trainee nurse. This rotation must be hell, some detached part of his mind mused. She brought him a chair and waited until he was settled by the bed before leaving him alone with Alexa.
He had to search to see his Alexa in the stranger on the bed. He'd never had trouble before, even after the first time she'd needed the ventilator. Something indefinable had changed in the short time he'd been gone, something of Alexa slipping away as he'd fought for his life in the parking garage. Now, if he wasn't vigilant, he could see her as just another body, empty of any meaning. Meat.
He slammed his hand against the metal bedframe, the slight pain thrusting those thoughts away. This was Alexa. He owed her too much to give in to the comfortable detachment that 5,000 years could bring him.
One of the nurses had been kind enough to bring his duffle and Alexa's overnight bag up to the new room. Methos grabbed his bag and found a bathroom down the hall. He avoided the mirror as he changed out of his torn and bloody shirt, not ready to see the knowledge of Alexa's deterioration in his own eyes. Washed away every trace of teh fight, stuck his head under the faucet and let the shock of the cold water break him free of the lingering anger. He couldn't afford it right now.
Calm settled into him when he returned to sit by her side again. He could touch her now. Her small hand in his was soft and boneless, and the rational part of him knew she was already mostly gone. The rest of him clung to belief. The belief that she'd awaken enough for him to see her eyes one last time, to speak to her and know she heard him, even if the plastic tube in her throat prevented her from answering. To feel her squeeze his hand, even if in pain, as she had so many nights in the past few weeks. His mind, unable to reconcile what he knew with what he hoped, shut into a calm blankness. A waiting.
"'Teach us to care and not to care,'" he said, the words falling into his head from nowhere, "'Teach us to sit still.'"
He found himself in another chair, in the doctor's office down the short hall from Alexa's room. The young nurse-to-be pressed something hot into his hands. He looked down. A paper cup of coffee. He didn't remember leaving Alexa's side, but here he was. The doctor was waiting for his attention to return, used to dealing with the fragmentation that shock and grief could bring. Methos wasn't used to it. Not at all. He felt as if he'd been shot in the head, his thoughts unable to coalesce into anything worth uttering aloud.
"Monsieur Pierson," the doctor said once he'd focused on her, "Mme. Bond is unable to breathe well enough on her own. Her brain functions are minimal. There are... decisions that will need to be made."
The harsh words were cushioned by the compassion in the doctor's eyes. She'd done this many times and yet it still seemed to pain her. Methos appreciated this, somewhere distant in his mind.
"Yes." He swallowed and sipped the hot coffee, his eyes falling closed briefly. "There is no... chance..."
The answer was in Dr. Girard's expression. Compassionate, but already detaching herself. He understood. He'd been a doctor. He'd been in her place many hundreds of times.
"I'm sorry. She did not want morphine before. Now, she cannot communicate her wishes to us. We can make her more comfortable."
He should know what to do. He, who had been... he should... he should know what to say. He didn't know anything.
"You don't need to make these decisions right now, Adam. Sit with her awhile. Michelle can bring you something to eat, and if you'd like I will have Father Martin come speak to you."
Of all things, he didn't want to see a priest. "No, thank you. She... didn't want morphine. I have to respect her choice."
Dr. Girard nodded, though he could tell by the set of her chin she did not agree with him. She sighed softly.
"Adam, with life support she may live for a few days, perhaps a week."
Methos gathered his pain and held it throttled in one fist. "And if the machines are removed?"
She shook her head. "Not long. Hours maybe."
He nodded. He knew what Alexa wanted. She'd spoken of it, late the night he returned without the Methusalah Stone. She'd spoken and he'd listened, still too numb from his failure to avoid the conversation. He hadn't wanted to hear, knew it was weak but hadn't cared. But in the end he'd agreed.
"Turn them off."
Alexa looked better after they'd carted all the equipment away, leaving only the heart monitor with its constant electronic reminder, ticking down the minutes of her life with every soft beep. She looked more like herself.
Methos took his place by the bed and rested his forehead on the mattress. Her breaths were shallow and uneven. Pain sat in the pit of his stomach, heavy and prickly. His head still felt like someone had reached in a nd scraped out his brains. He only knew he was alive because Alexa still breathed.
Nurses came and went but they left him alone.
She made it to dawn and a scream built up somewhere inside him. Steel bands squeezed his chest. He'd shortened his breaths to match hers. Even now she kept fighting, her body clinging to life with a dumb tenacity that frightened him a little.
He didn't want her to die.
He didn't know how much longer he could take it if she didn't.
The doctor came in sometime after the morning shift took over. The woman's hands were gentle on Alexa's wasted body, checking vitals, shifting her limbs. He stood up to get out of the way.
Someone was kneeling next to his head. Hands on his neck. He panicked, tried to sit up, and the hands pressed him back. The face was familiar, an older woman, eyes tired and lined with concern. She spoke to him but for a long moment he didn't recognize her tongue. Then one word clicked and the rest followed. Adam. He was Adam. She spoke French. He swallowed, the sensation of cold tile registering under his back. Dr. Girard rattled off an order to someone else and he heard the tick-tock of heels retreating.
This time when he tried to rise she let him, but only to sit up, his back against a metal cabinet. A nurse handed the doctor a bottle, which she pressed into his hands. Orange juice.
"Drink," she ordered. She had switched to English as if aware he hadn't understood her before. "You'll fell better."
He obeyed. What had happened? He didn't feel like he'd died. And if he had, surely there would have been more of a fuss?
"When did you last sleep, Adam? Or have anything to eat?"
He shook his head. Took another gulp of juice, suddenly thirsty. Dr. Girard clucked her tongue but seemed unsurprised.
"Your body has given you a warning. I know it does not seem important right now, but you must take care of it."
A small laugh of disbelief escaped him. It sounded desperate even to his own ears.
"I fainted," he said, and laughed again.
"I ordered you breakfast. You will eat it or I will bar you from this room until you do."
He stared at her. For the first time since his fight with Amanda in the trainyard tears threatened.
"It's been a long time since I had a mother." It came out more harsh than he'd intended, a little of the truth leaking into his voice.
Dr. Girard just gave him a sad smile. "Perhaps. This is not the order of a mother, but a doctor. If you wish to be fully present for Alexa you will do as I recommend."
He nodded, suddenly exhausted, and she let him stand. His body would take whatever he demanded of it. He'd gone much longer than this without food and sleep, but this woman didn't know that. She saw only Adam Pierson, who had never lost sleep over more than a term paper in his short life.
The smell of the food when it arrived made his stomach turn over lazily. He ate anyway. Another skill learned in 5,000 years of scarcity. And he did feel better afterwards. More focused. He could breath at least.
Alexa was oblivious.
After awhile he read to her from whatever books he'd stashed in his bag. Bits of poetry fell out of his memory and he gave her those too. Epic stories, learned over countless campfires. The oral histories of peoples gone and forgotten by the world. He barely noticed when the languages changed. Didn't care if anyone overheard. Let them wonder.
By dusk his voice had grown hoarse. A nurse offered to bring him a drink. She returned with a bottle of water, a thermos of coffee and a sandwich. He didn't have the words to thank her. She didn't wait for any, just smiled and left him alone with Alexa again.
He sat in silence. Listening to her breathe. Memorizing her face, aging it in his mind until she was older than Joe, a grandmother. A long, happy life behind her. Hair fine and shining white, skin soft and deeply wrinkled. Her hands spotted and gnarled. He blinked and she snapped back to decimated youth. Achingingly young, her face slack and unguarded, sunken and battered from her struggle.
More than anything he wanted to hear her voice again. To hear her laugh at him in that lightly mocking way. A sort of panic filled him at the thought that she was the last one who knew him. That when she died he'd cease to exist. It was ridiculous but he found himself pulling out his phone and dialing Joe's number. He nearly wept at the sound of Joe's gruff voice. The slight edge of annoyance against the raucous sound of the bar in the background was a much-needed slap of cold water on his face. Life trundled on reassuringly without him, without Alexa. Like it always did. And he knew that if he talked to Joe now he wouldn't be able to make it through this. So he gave some excuse and disconnected, calm again.
Her breathing had slowed and weakened, the beats of her heart coming far apart.
Methos stripped off his sweater and shoes and gently moved her over in the bed. There was plenty of room. She was so small. No one came to stop him. He didn't know what he'd have done if they had. He slipped into the bed next to Alexa and pulled her limp body into his arms, careful of the monitor wires.
She was a light weight against his chest. Her heart beat against his, faint and fading. Her hair was soft under his chin. She made small, meaningless movements. He started another story, the story of their life together. He'd always been a good storyteller. He'd been a bard in Wales once, long ago. But this story wasn't for ritual, or money, or to entertain a crowd. It was for her, for both of them. She moved again and he looked down to find her eyes open and focused on him. His voice broke and he kissed her forehead. Her eyes closed and he continued the story, describing their last nights together before she'd gone into hospital. Simple, mundane memories. Dinner on a flower filled terrace. Another bed, in another small room, lying together just like this. Her breaths were feather light against the side of his throat. He stroked her hair, the words pouring out of him even after her body stilled and he could no longer feel her life against his.
The whine of the machine meant nothing to him. A nurse shut the thing off. They left him alone until Alexa was no longer warm in his arms. When they finally came he let them take her.
quote from T.S. Eliot