Disclaimer: I make no claims on anything. Borrowed, Borrowed, Borrowed, but lovingly borrowed and with no intent to gain anything.

Spoilers:There may be a few in the course of the story.

A/N: I know I'm supposed to be posting on Nine Lives, but this came out. It's a short WIP that I hope you enjoy.

Man Descending

I

Any sentiments expressing aging as a beautiful process were, he decided, expressed only by fools. There was no romance in aging. It was a disease, and not a pretty one. Growing old wasn't attractive, nor was it noble. It was hideous and humiliating, and most of all, it was lonely. People he met viewed him differently than they would have before. He was no longer the odd but brilliant scientist, but an old man, a petulant, sarcastic old man. The bitter regrets that followed him around were his best company, better than memories. Memories, beautiful, wonderful, blissful, happy memories were only painful reminders of all that he'd lost.

Getting old had changed him. Previously, he'd wondered if a man could really change, and now he knew. He had. Looking in the mirror, he could only see shades of the man he once was, the man excited about science and possibility, the man who sought and found beauty in the smallest of organisms, a man in constant pursuit of truth and in something bigger and nobler. The reflection held little of that. The man who stared back at him was old and wrinkled. There was no excitement in his eyes, only sorrow and despair, pain, bitterness, anger and the ghosts of all his memories. They were haunted, his eyes. Grumpy more often than not, he spent his days not in search of the truth, but cursing it and the cold hard reality of it.

If the outside world did not see any outward sign of these changes, and some didn't (he often still received requests for consultations or speaking engagements), they could not be unmindful of the physical ones. He was old. He was stiff and he was slow. His skin saw the beginnings of ugly lentigines, liver spots, small and scarce, but slowly appearing never-the-less. The tracks of blue veins along his skin were more visible than a year before, five years before, ten… The skin below his eyes drooped. He had thinned out and not in any way that could be described as attractive, and his hands shook, subtly most often, but more visibly when he got upset. He got upset a lot more often these days.

His prostate wasn't what it used to be. Enlarged now, the frequency with which he had to urinate was astounding, truly, though thankfully, it did not extend to incontinence, not yet. Further, he suffered from nocturia and had to rise at least three times each night to empty his bladder. Where was the poetry in that? Had any of the great and esteemed admirers of aging expressed such a natural and no doubt beautiful process of repeated trips to the lavatory with any admiration in any of their works? Hard to speak of urine or urinary problems in any romantic terms. Perhaps he should pen his own words, a ballad for the aging prostate, an homage to the overactive bladder, or, a tribute to the porcelain bowl he relieved himself in. Toilet, oh toilet, you take that which I purge. Perhaps it was too bad he didn't suffer from the leaky bladder; an ode to incontinence would have been his favorite. If he could only get the distressing and heartrending concerto already circling his thoughts out of his head.

Returning to bed after the fourth trip to his friend John that night, he tossed and turned, trying to return to sleep. His mind went through the crossword from the day before. Fourteen across, Chapter of Quran: Surah, Eleven down, Dust Bowl Troubadour: Guthrie, forty-seven across, Ishmael's vessel: Pequod, sixty-eight down, Lincoln's Secretary of War ___ Stanton: Edwin, seventy-one across, Genus of insects including the Cochineal: Coccus, seventy-three across, Allahabad's river: Ganges, eighty-three down, Author __ Richler: Mordecai, eighty-nine across, Contrary to the general rule: abnormal, ninety across, American Naval Commodore in the Philippines: Dewey, ninety-two down, Abraham in Amadeus: Salieri. Christ.

He rolled around again, trying to return to sleep, hating that rolling to the right did not cause him to roll into a warm body. The right side was empty, save for his own body occasionally wandering over. Maybe he should go to the bathroom again. He didn't. In an hour, perhaps he may need to go again, but now, now he just needed sleep and a warm body to sleep beside. It was cold in bed. It was lonely. He pulled the blankets around him and let his thoughts wander to memories of her, her laugh, her eyes, her smile, her hands brushing over his skin in comfort or drifting over his skin in exploration, her body moving along with his in passion, her…her…

Somewhere inside of him, he knew that she would understand. She would get this emptiness. He thought about phoning her, just to hear her soft laugh, to hear her words of comfort. Even though she'd left him, she'd still be there for him. He could imagine her weeping for what they'd lost. He remembered how he'd wept himself, cursing his stupidity. Sara, I need you. Sara, I love you. Sara… His hand moved to the phone and he dialed, letting it ring once before hanging up and slamming his closed phone back to the bedside table. He slumped back in his bed, but when the phone rang, he dove for it. "Sara? Hi."

It was silent for a moment before Sara's voice came across softly. "Gil, are you alright?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You called and then hung up. Are you sure you're okay?"

No. "I'm okay."

"Do you want me to come over?"

Yes. "You left me." The response came out abrupt and he winced.

It was silent. He could hear Sara's soft breaths. She sighed. "I didn't leave you. You pushed me away. I thought this is what you wanted."

No. No, I'm stupid. Come over. He shook his head, gripping the phone. "No, Sara, this isn't what I wanted." He stopped. What he wanted…

"I'll be right over."

He waited, waited to hear her car pull up, waited to hear her open the front door, waited to hear her footsteps in the hall, waited for her to wrap her arms around him. When she arrived, he wasn't sure how to sleep. He wanted to spoon her, to hold her tight and not let go. He wanted her to spoon him, to feel her arms around him, gripping him just as hard. Facing her in the bed, he pulled her into his arms, letting her legs wind around his and reveled in the fall of her head to the crook of his neck and shoulder. His hands wandered up and down over her form and then he squeezed tighter.

He woke with his arms around a pillow, squeezing it to his chest. His cheek rubbed against the damp cotton of the pillow case where his tears had fallen. He blinked and stared at the pillow. Damn it, he'd fallen asleep. He tossed the pillow aside and cursed the dream that let him believe that Sara was in his arms again, that same dream his mind conjured night after night, replaying an event from years before, before marriage, before moving in together, before he'd gotten so damn old, before he realized just how much he needed her, a dream from a moment early on in their romantic relationship, the first time she'd come back. She'd come over then, but she wouldn't come back anymore. He was condemned to sleeping in the cold, empty bed alone.

And it was cold. When they were together, he was always the one giving off heat, warming her. Sara had the coldest extremities of anyone he'd ever met. Her hands were always frozen, as were her feet, even in the unbearable heat of a Las Vegas summer. It had been he who warmed her, letting her place those cold hands and feet on his hot skin until they were frozen no longer, but blending with his in shared body heat. In all that time, he'd never realized how she'd warmed him as well. Sighing, he flopped onto his back. As he stared up at the ceiling, he realized he had to go to the bathroom.

tbc…