Title: "Broken Glass"
Author: Rebecca Bradstreet
Rated: PG
Archive: Sure
Summary: Methos helps TJ pick up the pieces.
Warning: Some grumbling.
Disclaimer/Notes: I don't own Methos, Grayson, or any other Highlander characters. They belong to Panzer/Davis. I do own Theresa Joy "TJ" Grey. This story is set in the series normal timeline between "Through a Glass Darkly" and "Judgment Day." In my normal timeline fanfic it comes between "Can't Sleep Anymore" and the HL:TS/Cadfael crossover "Starting Over." Some of the knowledge of Grayson expressed here in is from the Highlander novel Shadow of Obsession. I don't own "Take a Giant Step" it was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. I'm using // as thoughts, and ** as emphasis. Being a Lyric Wheel story this is unbeta'd all mistakes are my own. Tansy gave me the lyrics to "Take a Giant Step." ;)
"Broken Glass"
by Rebecca Bradstreet © 2002Nowhere 1996
Methos came in from the kitchen carrying two mugs of black coffee. He looked at TJ on the couch. She still showed signs of too little food or sleep, but she was improving. Methos could see there was more weight on her frame, and the circles under her grey eyes weren't so deep. The coffee was warm. Thin as TJ still was, it would warm her through in no time. He handed her a mug, and sat in a chair by the couch.
"Nothing weak about this coffee," TJ blinked at Methos as she took a sip from the hot mug he'd brought her.
"I figured out where you've been hiding your coffee maker," he smiled at her over his cup.
"Not hiding, just neglecting," she corrected him with a faint grin.
"That's nice to see," Methos nodded at her grin.
"It's rusty, been neglected like the coffee maker," TJ told him.
"It just needs some use, like the coffee maker," he assured her.
"Methos... what did you do with my picture of Grayson?" She asked him cautiously.
"Do?" He repeated.
"You cleaned up the living room... everything I broke in here. The picture was in here," TJ explained to him.
"I thought you told me, 'There's just no percentage in remembering the past,'" Methos checked.
"I did. *You* reminded me our past is a part of our present, Adam Pierson," she smiled at him.
"I'd had enough of you just staring back in silent gloom," he admitted.
"The picture?" TJ asked him again.
Methos got out of the chair he'd sat in, and walked to the desk she had tucked in a corner of the room. It had pictures on it -- ones of Constantine, Darius, and Grayson. Some of them had TJ in them, some didn't. The picture she was asking after wasn't amongst them. He'd put it in one of the desk's draws when he'd finished cleaning up the living room. Methos took the picture out of the draw he'd put it in, and looked at it. It was *the* very last picture TJ had of Grayson, and it was a good picture of him. Apparently meeting Duncan MacLeod had changed something in Grayson. It hadn't changed him enough to back down from his challenge, but it was there in the picture and in TJ's memory.
"This picture?" He held it up for her.
"That one," she agreed. TJ couldn't see the picture clearly from the couch, but she knew the frame.
Methos brought it to her, "It's a good picture of him."
"I broke the glass in it," she said sadly.
"Broken glass can be replaced," he promised her.
"I know who's son he insisted on being to the end. He was the gray wolf's son -- Darius' son. There a 'farther' Piers in your past Methos?" TJ asked.
"A monk who was my Watcher for a while. He wasn't exactly Darius, but...," he shrugged.
"But he wouldn't be appalled to hear of an 'Adam Pierson,'" she guessed.
"Yes, he wouldn't be appalled," Methos answered.
"I...," TJ started, stopped, and took a deep breath, "Constantine, and Darius, they weren't appalled by 'TJ Grey."
"They got that you loved him," he told her.
"I know. I wish... I wish I was sure *he* got it," she lay the picture in her lap, and looked at Methos with uncertainty.
"You think he'd have told you he loved you if he had any doubts about your feelings?" He asked her skeptically.
"When you put it like that," TJ gave him a rueful grin.
"He loved you. They all loved you. I might even be fond of you," Methos smiled at her slyly.
"God, I hope you haven't been doing all the cooking, cleaning, and talking around here just for Joe Dawson and Duncan MacLeod," she laughed.
Her laugh was rusty like her grin, but it sounded good. TJ was getting better physically, mentally, and emotionally. Methos set his coffee mug on the table he'd brought down from one of her guest rooms. It covered as much of the rug as the old coffee table had. Then he stood up, took her coffee mug from her, and set it on the table next to his, "Our past is a part of our present, but we can't live in the past."
Methos took the picture out of her lap, and stood it on the coffee table next to their mugs, "I want you to do something with me, just for a little while. Come with me, leave yesterday behind."
"Come with you... where?" TJ asked him, curious.
"Where the taste of life is green," he answered enigmatically.
"Take a Giant Step"
by Gerry Goffin and Carole King
The lyrics I've used in the story are noted with *.Though you've played at love and lost,
And sorrow's turned your heart to frost,
I will melt your heart again.
Remember the feeling as a child
When you woke up and morning smiled?
It's time you felt like you did then.
*There's just no percentage in remembering the past,*
It's time you learned to live again at last.*Come with me, leave yesterday behind,*
And take a giant step outside your mind.You stare at me in disbelief,
You say for you there's no relief,
But, I swear I'll prove you wrong.
Don't stay in your lonely room,
*Just staring back in silent gloom,*
That's not where you belong.
Come with me, I'll take you *where the taste of life is green,*
And everyday holds wonders to be seen.Come with me, leave yesterday behind,
And take a giant step outside your mind.