Wonderful Journey. PG

[Catmoon]

Title: Wonderful Journey
Author: Cat Moon
Genre/pairing: mickbeth
Rating: PG (just because)
Warning/spoiler: takes place in the future, after “Mortal Cure” (story written prior to the final 4 eps)
Disclaimer: not mine, never will be, in fact I’m poor and own nothing. No profit
Summary: What might the 2nd season finale of Moonlight look like?
Notes: Inspired by the amazing vid: “Seasons of Love” by AdamMethos. Got me to wondering where Mick and Beth might be a year from now, on the series. Despite that, the song lyrics I used are entirely different. They just struck me as perfect for the story.



Wonderful Journey
By Cat Moon


We were strangers starting out on a journey, never dreamed what we’d have to go through.
Now here we are, I’m suddenly standing at the beginning with you…
Life is a road and I wanna keep going
Love is a river I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road, now and forever wonderful journey
I’ll be there when the world stops turning
I’ll be there when the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing at the beginning with you
--“At the Beginning,.” Anastasia Soundtrack


It was hard for Beth to believe a year had gone by. One year of amazing thrill rides and unbearable tragedies. Of laughter and tears, smiles and fears. Her life had changed – she had changed more in a year than in the previous ten before it.

Nine months since Josh’s death. It had also been a death knell of sorts for the three months of insanity that had preceded it, and things quieted down somewhat after that. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed, but supposed that level of craziness would be hard to sustain.

She’d tried dating a few times, mostly spurred on by well meaning friends. But when you’ve had two incredible, heroic men in your life, the nice, mundane ones didn’t stand a chance of measuring up. So she’d taken to an odd, monk-like existence not unlike the one Mick had lived for some twenty three years now. Her friends felt sorry for her, but she could only try to make them understand that being alone was okay; a woman needed to be happy with her own company, or she wasn’t going to be happy in the company of a man either. Their sympathy wasn’t necessary. She’d had the rare gift of having two wonderful men who loved her more than life (yes, Mick was in love with her; she’d finally bought a clue and stopped acting like a dumb blond, but they’d never directly talked about it).

Besides, they didn’t know she had Mick. The one, solid, unchanging presence in her life. The two of them had developed the habit of having long talks, on his couch or hers, late into the night. Her confidante. His.

Mick’s temporary cure had long worn off. He still hadn’t given up on the hope of someday finding a permanent one. It was what he existed for now, like he’d once existed for her, giving it that same quiet patience. There had been a few leads, one or two tantalizing carrots dangled before him, but it still remained as elusive and mysterious as Coraline.

If Beth felt wise beyond her years after just the past twelve months, how did it feel to live for hundreds of years? Funny how, in the privacy of her own mind, she always came back to that. And no, she hadn’t tried the B.C. again either but it was still there, just in case she ever needed it. Just like Mick.

It’s not like she spent a lot of time brooding over stuff, she was no Mick St. John, and her work kept her busy as always. Just that special days deserved special recognition. She didn’t even really have many regrets when all was said and done. Sometimes… alone at night, she’d feel regret that she hadn’t had the chance to know Mick as a lover while he’d been temporarily human, but it hadn’t been appropriate. Josh was still fresh in the ground; it would have been disrespectful and wrong. She’d done the right thing. They both had.

XXX

Almost before she’d finished knocking on the door, Mick opened it. He was unsurprised to see her.

“Hey,” he said, motioning her inside.

“Hey,” she returned, handing him his present. A bottle of single malt. “You remember what today is?”

Mick graced her with a slight smile. “The day I’ll never forget if I live to be four hundred,” he admitted.

Beth still hated those kinds of thoughts. If. Mick was eighty five, had lived a full long life by human standards, there was no special right to expect more. It should have been enough, but even if he did live to be four hundred she suspected the mere thought of something happening to him would still clench her gut. If she wasn’t already dust to the earth herself, like Josh.

Ironic. Here she was a mortal obsessed with immortality and he a vampire who longed to be mortal. As if dying was some wonderful gift he’d missed out on.

Speaking of gifts, he was opening his, sliding the bottle out of the paper wrap. “Will you join me this time?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

For her anniversary with Josh, he’d cooked a chicken for her, for a dinner party she’d run out on to spend time in the morgue. They’re be no dinner for this anniversary, just her and Mick and a bottle of single malt.

She made herself at home on the couch while Mick fetched glasses and opened the bottle. Would he sit in the chair tonight or join her on the couch? That seemed to be one of the major questions of her life, lately. He sat beside her on the couch, his choice more often than not these days.

Funny how you measure progress when time is eternity.

“Have you heard anything from Coraline lately?” she asked. Their own special version of pleasantries: how’s it going? Read any good books lately?

“Not since Vienna,” he answered, pouring the liquor into the glasses, handing one to her.

Tramp gets around, was what she thought. What she said was, “I keep telling you, the way to find her is to start being happy. She’ll come out of the woodwork so fast it’ll give you whiplash.”

“Thought about it,” he quipped, gazing casually into the amber liquid in his glass. “Decided I couldn’t give all this wonderful misery up.”

He’d been one of the well-meaning friends to try and fix her up. Stunned to the point of speechlessness and rage, she hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks.

He’d never tried that again.

What were they to each other? Beth didn’t think a category existed that fit them. Where would they be in another year? Ten? Twenty? Still in this holding pattern, on his couch?

Their connection was stronger than ever now, nothing seemed able to stop that, not even tragedy. She wasn’t even surprised when he seemed to read her mind these days. He started speaking again, words that might have seemed totally unrelated to the conversation to an outsiders ears. They always had talked without words, communicated in a nonverbal language – but still, somehow, fell prey to miscommunication.

“I heard about this vampire once, who was in love with a human woman. For years he loved her from afar, never daring to cross the line because he was a monster. One night, don’t know why that night out of all the ones before, he decided to take the risk.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“He lost control and drained her. Killed her.”

“So he didn’t turn her. He let her die,” she commented. Her response was unemotional. Old news.

“I should have been dead on my wedding night,” Mick said by way of answer.

“I’m just as glad you’re not,” she replied. “Isn’t that enough?”

She’d once, foolishly, childishly believed he’d do anything for her, that he could deny her nothing she asked. Then Coraline came back from the dead. Josh died and didn't. She grew up. But somehow, somewhere deep down, she still wanted the same things.

She’d been enough for Josh. He was willing to give up his beliefs, justice, his professional ethics for her. And she hadn’t even wanted it. Maybe this was her punishment then. Mick couldn’t even give up his misery for her.

“I believe we forgot our toast,” he said, holding up his glass toward her.

“Can’t have that,” she answered, placing hers next to it. There was a lot she could have said, so many unspoken but important things left abandoned. “To… to good friends,” was all she said.

“To friendship,” Mick echoed, touching her glass with hers. Lightly, barely touching, yet a matched set.

Like them.


XXX

EPILOGUE:

NOTE: Okay, that’s how the second season of the show might end. The following is how I’d end it…


The silence lengthened after the lame attempt at a toast. Mick stared into his glass and Beth stared at Mick. How could you know someone so well, yet at the same time feel like you didn’t know them at all?

“Do you have any regrets?” he asked her finally. Sometimes, they did talk about some of the important things.

“Sure, everybody does, don’t they?” she evaded, thinking of that period of time when he’d been human and she’d been stupid.

“Sometimes they aren’t what you expect them to be,” he mused almost as if to himself. “And you wonder if you’d still have regrets even if you had done things differently.”

“I guess you can’t go back and re-do them,” she murmured quietly, daringly.

For a long time silence reigned. Then Mick picked up his head and looked at her. “Why not?” He had a smile on his face, and she couldn’t help wonder if he’d gone mad.

“You have a time machine around here you never told me about?”

He shook his head, and stood, holding out his hand for her. “Better. Come with me.”

Anywhere, she thought, but merely let him pull her up without comment.

XXX

At some point she figured out where they were headed, but the terror of hope kept her lips glued shut. To talk might break the spell. She had no idea what Mick planned; it could be some stupid little inadequate gesture… or it could be something she dared not even think about.

The fountain looked the same as it had a year ago this night, the night she had finally been face to face with her guardian angel again. They got out of his car, it was parked in exactly the same spot as on that night. He took her hand and led her away from the Mercedes, looking around as if figuring out the spot they’d been standing in. Everything had to be the same. Would it also be different?

When they were finally standing where Mick wanted them he broke the silence. “Ask me if you know me.”

She still remembered vividly. Trying to keep her heart from pounding and her breath steady, she spoke those fateful words. “You look so familiar – do I know you?”

You tell me.

“Yes,” Mick responded. “As a matter of fact, you do. I’m the man who saved you when you were four. See, I’m a vampire, it was my wife and sire who kidnapped you. I’m so sorry about that, for what you had to go through. But I’ve been watching over you these past twenty two years, just to be sure you were safe.”

In the pause that followed, she dared to improvise. “You never showed yourself before. Why now?”

Mick smiled almost shyly, glancing down at the ground before back to her. “A bunch of reasons. I saw your report on Buzzwire. You’re a damn good reporter. And you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. I felt…compelled to talk to you. To be near you, to have you see me… I know it’s probably a dangerous idea, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“My journalism teacher used to tell me to always follow my first instincts. These things usually have a reason.”

“I don’t know if I could do that, follow. I’ve spent decades fighting my instincts.”

“Why don’t you give it a try, just once?” she suggested. Casually. As if her future didn’t depend on the outcome. “For the girl you stayed in L.A. twenty two years for.”

He stepped closer, almost touching. “I’d do anything for her,” he whispered. A vow, a promise.

“Prove it,” she whispered, daring to ask.

She held her breath, watching as his hand rose as if in slow motion. It came to rest on her cheek. Gently, it drew her in closer. Until finally, Mick’s lips covered hers and she could finally breathe.


Now here we stand unafraid of the future…
In the end I want to be standing at the beginning
With you.


The end
1/29/08

[tucutecats]

Wow! wonderful story,The way is should have been. I was holding my breath at the end. .

[wollstonecraft61]

Oh, Cat, how wonderful! But, alas, I'm a peeping Tom, so I want to see more!!!!!

[Catmoon]

Tucutecats: Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed.

Wollstonecraft61: Sorry, we'll have to leave the rest to your imagination. This is the G, PG section, after all. . Thanks for commenting, glad you liked.

[redwinter101]

This, I have read before, but it's so lovely to come back for a re-read. This would have been such a marvellous way to end season 1 (the second version, that is).

That's one of my regrets.

Red

[francis]

Thank you, red, for bumping this. I reread it again.
You know, this story reminds me of one of my favorite poems by T.S. Eliot:

T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding V

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

That's what this ending reminds me of.

[Catmoon]

Red: It's the greatest compliment when readers like your stories enough to re-read. Thanks!

Francis: Thanks for sharing the poem. Very appropriate.

[starbucksjunkie]

This one, too, cat. I still love it.

[jen]

Very nice.

I wish we could have seen this on film.

[Catmoon]

Very nice.

I wish we could have seen this on film.

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for commenting.

[jen]

Just came by for a reread. Absolutely lovely. I do so agree about the ending. I like your second idea best!!! I think most of us do.

Thank you!

[Albra]

Wonderful story ...

Thank you

[kareng]

What a great story. This is also my second read of your story. Loved it both times. As a matter of fact, I love all your stories.
Thanks,
Karen

[Catmoon]

Jen & Kareng: Thanks for the re-reads, and for leaving a comment to let me know! I really appreciate it.

Albra: Glad you liked! Pun intended, I assume?

[jen]

Cat

Marvelous. Just marvelous

Thank you!

Jenna