DARKEST HOUR

Standard disclaimers apply.  None of the characters in this 
story are mine; I'm just taking them for a quick spin.  
Permission to archive at the fkfanfic.com and the ftp site.
For those who are interested, my other stories are all 
available at 
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/diharris/Homepage.htm

This is my attempt to reconcile with Last Knight.  It's not 
very happy, and it's probably the only time you'll ever see 
me acknowledge the existence of that last episode (or at 
least... the last five minutes).  

I'd like to extend thanks to my beta-readers: Carrie, Barb, 
Nancy, and Heather-Anne!  You helped me out a great deal!

Comments, questions, feedback, and all that good stuff may
be sent to Diane Harris at aria5@vt.edu.

DARKEST HOUR

She sighed softly as she entered her former home, her eyes 
sweeping across the scene before her with a tinge of regret.  
The memories had almost threatened to drown her when she'd 
placed her hand on the doorknob, but now, as she stood at 
the top of the steps, her mind was blank.  In what once had 
been her sanctuary, there was no familiarity.

He'd changed it...

It was cold and it was dark.  The usual glare of cool neon 
lights was absent, and Miklos was no longer there to welcome 
her with his enigmatic smile.  But what most affected her 
was that it was empty.  Empty and barren, except for where 
her former master sat silently at the bar, pondering the 
untouched wine goblet that sat in front of him as if it were 
the only object in existence.  

She walked regally towards him with head held high, not 
letting her memories get the best of her, and sat beside him 
quietly, but he gave no indication that he was aware of her 
presence.  "I felt something," she whispered softly, 
growing worried when he failed to move or acknowledge that 
she was there.  

He just sat there, cold and still, like a statue.  It was 
unnerving to see him like that, sitting there, staring that 
way.  

"Is he..."  She couldn't bring herself to finish.  She did 
not want to confirm what she already knew, what she had 
already felt as sharply as a stab of sunlight through her 
chest...

Silence followed, so long and full that she doubted he had 
even heard her, so wrapped up was he in his brooding.  But 
then, to her relief, he blinked and cleared his throat as if 
there were something caught in it.  

"Yes," he replied with finality, his voice devoid of feeling 
as he continued to stare unblinking at the glass in front of 
him.

She swallowed thickly.  It was as she had suspected, as she 
had feared.  While she had wanted to deny it, to pass it off 
as her own overactive imagination, like a vicious slap in 
the face, she knew now that it had been foolish of her to 
think such thoughts.  

Her crusader, her beautiful knight and former lover... was 
dead.  

She waited for the pain to strike her, but it never came.  
Somehow, she could not bring herself to feel grief of any 
kind, only the beginnings of relief.  It was over.  All 
those years of pain and guilt, and it was finally over.  For 
him, for her, for all those involved.

Her eternal companion was finally where he wanted to be, and 
she felt that she could be happy for that.

She placed a hand softly on his shoulder.  "It is better 
this way," she said, trying to reassure him, but the tense 
muscles that were coiled tightly under his skin only 
stiffened more in response.  As if her fingers had been met 
with an electric shock, she withdrew her hand quickly.  He 
was unreadable and cold, the sardonic arrogance that she so 
often found reflected in his eyes absent, replaced by 
something darker.  Anger?  Pain?  So well hidden, it was 
impossible for her to identify.

"That stubborn woman...  She drove him down with her own 
foolish desires," he whispered bitterly, his eyes still 
staring expressionlessly ahead at some fascinating point in 
space that she would never be able to see.  "I would kill 
her for it if she weren't already dead..." he added with a 
cynical laugh, but it sounded hollow, even to her, and his 
words were clipped, forced.

"This has been coming for a while.  We have both known..." 
She tried to reassure him, tried to tell him that it was all 
right, but as before, he was unwilling or unable to accept 
her aid.

"I killed him..." he responded darkly, his tone low, barely 
loud enough for her to hear.  And yet, they were not words 
of sadness, or grief, or anything in particular.  Just a 
statement.  He could just have easily been telling her that 
the sky was black.

She gasped in response, feeling like she had been knocked 
back a foot as shock riddled through her.  He had done it?  
Of all the deaths she knew were on his shoulders, she would 
never have expected this one to be among them, and yet, it 
seemed almost right, that he had put an end to the torment 
he had started.  

"He asked me to, and I killed him.  Ironically, death is 
probably the only thing I have ever given him without much 
resistance," he told her, sounding ridiculously analytical 
about the whole situation.  

His odd tone chilled her.  "Surely you tried to stop him..." 
she protested, taken aback by his bluntness, but he shook 
his head.

"A two-minute speech.  That was all..." he replied, his face 
an adamantine mask of stone.  

She could almost feel a flicker of something, a thing of 
immense proportions churning ominously underneath that 
unreadable stare, but was unable to make any sense of it 
before the walls slammed down viciously and all feeling was 
gone.  She would have thought him to be in pain, perhaps 
even angry, but she had never before seen him so utterly 
detached.  No matter what she had tried, the proverbial door 
was shut in her face.  He was talking at her, not with her, 
and she was beginning to get the feeling that while it 
certainly seemed that way on the surface, this was not a 
conversation at all...

She knew it was his damned Roman stoicism, knew he would not 
permit himself to express himself, and still, it pained her 
that he was refusing her.  He seemed... almost too cold.  
Was he allowing himself to grieve somewhere in that shell, 
or was he shut down completely, incapable of anything other 
than this terrible detachment?  It disturbed her that she 
could not decide upon a definite answer.

"Then it was meant to be.  You finally gave him what he 
wanted, to be free of you and me, and his immortal bonds.  
Has that not always been the struggle between the two of 
you?" she asked, trying to break through, just once trying 
to get him to extend a hand across that rift that was 
spreading wide between them like a canyon and touch her own 
straining fingertips.  Just a touch, a brush of skin to 
skin, however fleeting.  

But no hand was offered.

"Before, I always won," he said emotionlessly.  

"He was never happy before," she responded, trying to get 
him to see what she did: that her crusader had finally been 
set free.

That this was for the best...

He looked at her briefly, catching her eyes for the first 
time that evening, and she found the effect of staring into 
those deep, pools of icy blue staggering, almost 
suffocating.  "I know," he stated, even-toned, before 
looking back down at his glass.  His index finger ran 
absently around the rim of the goblet, tracing an infinite, 
circular path.

She took a deep breath.  "You thought you would be able to 
stop it," she replied with a nod, trying to evoke some 
discernable reaction.  _Any_ reaction.  

And to her surprise, she received one.

"He said I was his closest friend..." he whispered.

She gasped at the revelation, but quickly recomposed 
herself.  "Then you should keep that memory with you and 
hold it close.  You have always wanted it," she responded 
quietly, touched that her crusader had finally admitted, 
finally recognized the bond between master and child, 
although it saddened her that he had waited so long to 
mention it.  

Her companion shook his head minutely.  "But now it is too 
late."

She thought of _him_ then as she sat back, and her memories 
shifted to his golden locks, his angelic face, his 
infrequent, but entrancing, smile.  A smile that had always 
contained an element of sadness in it, a hint of unrest.  
He had never been very happy.  

Now, he was gone and... she would never see his smile again, 
except in her mind's eye where she knew it would reside for 
eternity.  But this was how he had wanted it, she was sure, 
sure that he had been destined to be the first of their trio 
to let go of the earthly bonds that kept him firmly planted 
in his misery.  He was not meant for eternity, and he never 
had been, but she had always refused to admit it until now.      

"No.  No, I do not think it is," she replied finally.

He looked up at her and for a brief moment, his eyes finally 
revealed the pain that he had been so valiantly hiding with 
his stony gaze.  His lower lip twitched lightly as if a 
small bee had stung it before he threw his gaze back towards 
his goblet, back into an expressionless stare.  It was the 
first time in the conversation that she'd seen him show even 
a flicker of emotion, some small indication that this whole 
ordeal had affected him in some way.

"He is happier now.  I know it," she stated firmly, refusing 
to even contemplate the possibility that it was not true, 
that everything _he_ had believed when he was alive was a 
farce.  Because he had believed it, and because he had 
fought so hard to retain that belief, she would believe it 
too.

His eyes widened, and he turned to look at her, the third 
time now that he had graced her with his gaze, though this 
time he was visibly affected by her words.  "How can you 
say..." 

"I know it," she interrupted, not allowing him to finish as 
she felt a spark of hope ignite in her chest at his 
astonishment.  

"What kind of God would make him go through that to find 
happiness?  How can you..." he spat, suddenly and visibly 
disgusted, but she placed an index finger on his lips to 
silence him, hoping against hope that he would believe her, 
and that he would accept what had happened as she did.

"Because he believed in it," she said truthfully.

His eyes glimmered a moment as he processed her words, and 
then went dark and cold--a truly ugly transformation.  He 
said nothing in response.  

The doors had slammed shut again.

"I _know_ it," she repeated, but even as she said it, she 
could feel the bridge that she'd been slowly building to his 
side of the rift, brick by brick, begin to crumble into 
dust.  Her chance was gone, and his expressionless, 
impenetrable mask was back.  Was his faith truly that far 
gone, so far that he couldn't even believe for the sake of 
someone he cared for?

The silence was her answer.  

She sighed lightly.  The sun was rising; it was time to go.  
Time to face what life would be like without _him_ in it.  
She brought herself down off the barstool and left without a 
word, leaving him to sit quietly by himself, as she was sure 
he would remain for quite some time.  

No good-byes.  There were never good-byes...

Briefly, she looked back at him sitting there silently, 
expressionlessly grieving.  He would deal with it, 
eventually--he always did.  But it would take him longer 
than he had ever managed before.  And perhaps someday, when 
her crusader was just a memory, a faint glimmer in the back 
of his mind, they would cross paths again.  But for now, it 
was obvious to her.  

She had lost them both.

Taking one last glance at what used to be her home, she 
stepped out onto the pavement.  The street was strangely 
silent and empty, as if someone were giving her the last few 
moments she would ever spend there alone to reminisce.

Glancing upwards, she noticed how clear the sky was, despite 
the fact that it was getting lighter.  Every star was a 
spear of light, defying the glow of the vast city that 
surrounded her.  She sighed, tilting her head back as a cold 
gust of wind blew through the quiet street, ruffling her 
brunette curls like a lover's touch.

"Farewell, my golden crusader.  I hope you found what you 
were looking for," she whispered, and took off into the 
waning night.

THE END

Diane Harris (aria5@vt.edu)