Native Soil
Fandom: CSI/Highlander(ish)
Pairing: Sara/OMC
Word Count: 485
Notes: For Medie’s first line challenge.
Standing there with grey sky above him and grey slab before him, he couldn’t help but feel old… weary. Small wonder, since the grey slab before him was over seven hundred years old, his family crypt, the names of his ancestors and descendants carved into its walls. His name was missing though, for obvious reasons, and he knew how that must have broken his parents’ hearts, remembered how he hid in the nearby forests – all housing estates now – watching his parents, his wife, his young son, walk by on the way into town, saw grief etched plainly in their faces. He knew he couldn’t contact them though, knew that, as far as they knew, he was dead, his body stolen, so instead he ran, to London among other places, never staying anywhere for long, until, after two hundred years, he boarded a ship and set sail for America.
He’d been there ever since, and this was the first time in three hundred odd years that he’d set foot on his native soil, but that wasn’t what made him feel old.
What made him feel old was the young woman at his side, her hand warm in his. Sara was twenty-five years old, stunningly beautiful and completely unaware of it, and for the last ten years, she’d been aware of his secret, the only person that he could really talk to, about anything. She listened to him, and she didn’t judge him, did her best to understand, even if he’d experienced things, seen things, that she could never even dream of.
In five hundred years, he’d never felt about a woman the way he felt about her, and he knew that if he lived for a thousand, he never would again. Her youth, her infectious enthusiasm for knowledge, her indomitable spirit, these were all the things he loved about her, the same things that reminded him of the differences between them, the differences that he knew would one day drive them apart.
He would lose her one day, he knew, probably one day soon, and it bothered him that he’d lived for five hundred years, remembered a lot of things, but he couldn’t remember how to live without her.
Then her grip tightened on his, and she pressed her body closer against his, snuggling in against the chill of the autumn wind. “Are you ok?” she asked, and when he looked down at her, he saw her face filled with concern, concern for him.
He smiled, because tomorrow is not today, and she made this trip with him, and that counted for a lot. More than that, they were here, together, and if it was just for now, it was still enough. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he wrapped his arms around her, closed his eyes and held her tightly. “Now I am,” he said, and he knew that it was true.