The water was cold and sharp, stealing the air from his lungs before he had a chance to breathe any in. Struggling to catch his breath, he treaded water, blinking through the glare of the sunlight on the ice and snow around the lake he had returned in. Atop a hill looking down on the lake, he could see the dark silhouette of a house; but the brightness quickly covered it again.
Shivering, the engineer swam towards the pier closest to the water; rubbing his arms to restore the circulation. Staring out at the gently lapping waters, he considered throwing himself in and just dying repeatedly until summer thawed and warmed the land around him – trudging through snow barefoot did not sound worthwhile.
He stilled momentarily as a blanket was thrown over his head, hearing a pistol cocked behind him. Knowing that whether the person meant to rescue or attack him, there was little they could do regardless, he pulled the blanket down and turned slowly to look at the person, not wishing to startle them into shooting.
"I would like to know how you came to be -" The man bit off his sentence, letting the pistol fall slightly off-target.
He looked up at the man standing over him, unable to see more than dark clothes and shadowed features. "My apologies for trespassing – it wasn't my intention at all."
He tilted his head to the side, the pistol hanging loosely in his hand by his side now. Behind him, a silver hound proudly stood, its head reaching his elbow as it sniffed curiously at the wet man sitting on the end of the pier. Suddenly, the stranger's hand shot out, twisting the blanket away from the engineer's hands while raising his pistol in the same movement to shoot him between the eyes.
He broke from the water again, dragging in another breath. An ache stabbed through his head, but he couldn't tell if it was the afterimage of the shot still flashing through his skull, or if it was just the biting cold of the water and air that he was subjected to. Either way, staying in the water until the winter thawed everything was increasingly appealing.
There was a splash in the direction of the pier, and he could hear what sounded like a dog steadily swimming towards him. He made a half-hearted attempt to swim away, knowing that it answered to his killer, but the animal's teeth closed gently around his arm and it turned to pull him back to the pier. Sighing, he floated beside it; wondering what kind of hound it was.
The stranger knelt on the end of the pier, reaching to pull first him and then the silvery-grey hound from the water, wrapping the engineer tightly in the blanket before sitting back. The pistol was lying further up on the pier, and he could see know that it was an old muzzle-loading gun.
"Good to meet you too."
The stranger smiled and relaxed ever so slightly. "Peter, I assume still?"
Niggling familiarity poked on the edges of his mind, but he could not pinpoint it; settling for pulling the blanket tighter against the faint breeze. "I'm very certain that I can't know him..."
"The odds of two identically appearing Immortals is astronomically impossible – my only unanswered question is how you came to be upon Earth."
"Immortal."
"Yes – one would assume that something was abnormal when one is shot and reappears perfectly hale in the nearby body of water. And yet you do not..." He tilted his head to the side. Faint amusement and understanding standing in the back of his eyes. "There are no changelings in this situation, Peter – you are entirely safe."
The familiarity was stronger, but still elusive. "Says the one who shot me." He hadn't thought of the changelings in years, and hadn't known they had ever come to Earth – they had certainly been destroyed along with the factory... The pervading memory of the confusion and never-ending cycle of death to life to death again had finally let him be, let him sleep through the night again after death.
"It was hardly the worst done to you by me."
He had never worked in a factory again – never accepted a permanent place within one. His face looking back at him without a mirror, and Ætius dragging him once again to the resevoir to kill him again; paranoid to the point of insanity with the changelings assuming their form – always ready to kill him whenever they lost sight of one another. The familiarity finally settled down, pulling the stranger's face up from the depths of his memory – a face that matched his killer's now. "Ætius?"
He flinched slightly, but smothered it within the shallow bow. "Andrei here – nevermore am I he."
He smiled slightly, the man no longer associated with nightmares when he was solidly before him and not formed of dream-shadows. "You are terribly insecure in your safety."
He stood, pulling the engineer to his feet and scooping up the pistol while he straightened. "It is sufficient for now. But come – is it still Peter then?"
"Peter Perkins." He followed the path the other Immortal had tracked through the snow from the house. It still looked terribly uninviting. "Whyever Andrei?"
"It is the land I abide in now – the language." He bent to pull the plastic covers off his shoes, giving them to the engineer. "It is easier to disappear and to stay when one's name is changeable and native to the land where one stays. I apologise for the improvisation – I did not expect to entertain an Immortal today."
Perkins slipped his feet into the shoe covers, shrugging. "It's better than bare feet, certainly." He followed the man as he trudged back up the hill through the snow. The hound raced away towards the house, gone from sight quickly. He sighed. "I have killed myself, been killed by angels, been killed by an old friend, and am now trapped in the past – a perfect day."
He could sense Ætius' – Andrei's – amusement, and glared at his back. "Two hours – that is how much has passed for me."
"Quite busy – prithee, how did you arrive on Earth?"
"The closest body of water from space was apparently your lake." He shivered. "I fell from the sky – has the Titanic crashed yet, by any chance?"
He paused for a moment before continuing through the snow. "Nyet -" He corrected himself, "No, but I would not know until I fetched the paper." He reached the door, pulling a key out of his coat pocket and bending to unlock the door of the house. "I am sorry that you are trapped here – Earth is...different from the life possible out there. I will not apologise, but I would not wish it upon others."
The engineer looked up at the stone walls of the house, almost able to feel the heat leaking through the stones as the smoke from the chimneys implied. "Your friend the Doctor was there – he meant to bring me somewhere safe, but his destination left much to be desired."
The Immortal smiled wryly as he twisted the key in the door. "He refused to fly that ship correctly – I am ever concerned that one day she will kill him for his misuse of her." The key finally clicked and he pushed the door open, straightening and ushering Perkins in before him. The hound slipped in the house past the engineer, vanishing into the corridor. "I assume he lives only because she is as daft as he."
"He was nothing like you described – he was old."
He stepped into the house, shutting the door and fiddling with the lock until it twisted shut again. "Old? He was always old."
"But he was a child when he came for you."
He paused for a moment, turning the keys over in his hands before hanging the ring on the nail behind the door. "He older than I knew him then, for he knows precious few immortals as it is now; and none were in the stars then." Stepping past Perkins, he greeted the returning dog with a hand upon its head while taking the plastic-wrapped bundle from its jaws. "There is a washroom merely five feet hence. Please avail yourself of it."
He took the clothes, watching Æt-Andrei turn and leave him in the hallway, gesturing towards a door when he passed it. The hound pressed close to the man's side, and he could see his fingers running through its fur.
He had changed much since they had met – since they last time they had each seen the other before the Doctor had found Ætius and returned him to Earth. Then, he had been nervous – terrified, and untrusting. He was young, only just understanding the weight of his immortality; and he was lost in a world he did not understand with creatures he had no reference for. It was a small wonder his instinct had been quickly taught to kill first and ally later. Much later.
Now, he was settled. It seemed that time had done little to rid him of his deadly reactions – but he no longer bent so far beneath fear. Age and experience had confronted him with his fears and had at least taught him to endure them if not abolish them.
He sighed, his hands fiddling with the bundle subconsciously as he thought. Immortality, old age – it seemed more trouble than it was worth for some. It was all too easy to lie down and surrender when surrounded by all that could never be fixed or cured.
The Immortal ran his hands over the Borzoi's fur, smiling when the hound pressed closer to his leg. She was supposed to be independent – aloof. But then, cats were supposed to be the same, and Phillip had been unhealthily dependent upon him... He pressed his fingers down on her back, and if Vanya could have purred, she would have.
He had almost forgotten Perkins. For him, that time had been so very long ago; almost a dream in its story. Certainly, it was plausible, as the Doctor had shown him equal and greater things in probability – but the Immortal he had met... There had been no other indications until Abigail that like him existed; that others were forced to suffer through countless ends and yet walk away unscathed. He had been taken away from the fires of Rome to the fires of a futuristic factory, lost in space and in a world he had to quickly adapt to in order to survive – half-convinced he had fallen into Pluto's realm or the like and having already learnt the price of his gift.
His smile was bitter and wry, and Vanya rested her head on his knee. He had killed the engineer countless times, unable to tell changeling from original without that infallible test. He was never certain how many innocents he had killed there, only that many wearing the engineer's face never rose again. While he had died often enough at the other's hands as well, it was not nearly enough to be counted even.
Her ears lifted, and she turned towards Perkins as he entered the drawing room.
He straightened, his smile relaxing. "I believe there are some wires within that desk." He gestured towards the writing desk with its many drawers and pigeon holes.
Perkins nodded, stepping over and beginning to pull open several drawers as he went through them. After opening the third drawer, he turned back to Andrei, holding a silver letter-opener. His fingers ran over the engravings on the handle, and he turned it over repeatedly in his hands as he took the seat closer to the fire beside the other Immortal.
"What of those objects hold such fascination for you? They are nearly as important as your bits of wires..." His eyes followed the letter-opener for a moment before lifting to meet Perkins' gaze."
The engineer fiddled with it, changing his grip continuously. He shrugged. " They are brilliantly adaptable."
Andrei watched the blade again, noticing that the grips changed between ones used for tools and ones used for weapons. Vanya lifted her head when he stopped stroking her to lean back in his seat, and he dropped her head to rest by his feet when he made no move to continue petting her. He closed his eyes as he rested his head against the back of the seat, steepling his hands before him. A smile flitted across his face as he felt Perkins studying him, but he made no move to react to him. He was content to remain here in the man's company, to leave the past alone and simple be still in the presence of one that knew him better than others. There was a safety in this room, in this company, that he found no where else.
The minutes passed silently, filled with the gentle breathing and the crackling of the fire on the hearth. For a little while, all stopped and nothing mattered.
Perkins eventually broke the silence with a quiet question: "Why not Ætius?"
The other Immortal stilled, and Vanya lifted her head again at the change of tension in the room. He carefully settled his hands in his lap, opening his eyes. "Ætius was a scholar. He had a wife and children awaiting him. He saved the lives of others – did not slaughter to save his own self." His gaze wandered into the flames. "Ætius had the good fortune to die. I will not raise him from his rest."
"Why not?"
There was no answer. The silence stretched on long enough that Perkins nearly asked again, or changed the subject.
"I could not even if I would. The man I was then is ever gone – murdered by my hand or others. I could not tell." Vanya whined, lifting herself up again to rest her head on Andrei's knees. "perhaps a descendant of his will arise; perhaps his spirit will be reborn." His gaze returned to Perkins. "Ætius died with the last remnants of his family – remembrance is the least I can do."
Perkins watched the Immortal, so much older now. Although he could not recognise the situation from experience, several times he had stayed on a world where the languages and cultures changed rapidly. It was a small matter when as an alien he oculd merely claim a different planet or people; but when confined to one world that had no outlet to space? Names must be changed and forgotten out of necessity.
"Is there none?"
"None to know my name or none to know me? Here, there are none." He reached forward to stroke the hound again. "Dumb animals are unbreakably loyal."
Perkins sighed, leaning back and sliding the letter-opener into his pocket. Certainly, he was alone – but he had the advantage of being able to stay longer, to claim non-human genes or advanced technology for his state: it wasn't unheard of.
The silence fell again, but neither moved. Each saw different things, knew the other had changed much since their last meeting. And yet, they were familiar with each other – so changed, and yet so alike. As the two Immortals drifted off, Vanya settled back down to the floor; at ease with the rest in the room.
AN: Merely a continuation of Perkins' reveal and the beginning to jump off should I continue crossing Forever and Perkins over. As well as apparently an opportunity to create more backstory for Adam... sighs Beside the point, of course. Very sorry about the ending – this was a oneshot sort of. This is set approximately in 2008 – I don't know when exactly the Titanic Christmas Special was set right now, so that is tentative. As it is, this is obviously before Adam finds Henry but after he stays with Abigail. 'Dumb' is not speaking of the animal's intelligence – indeed, Adam prefers the smarter creatures – but of their inability to speak and betray his secrets. 11-11-2015