Mercy

She threw herself into his arms, her weight sagging against him. He put his arms around her, half holding her up.

"Oh Amon." She said, her voice breaking, "It's terrible, I can't take it. No one at work understands."

"What is it?" he said. As she recovered her balance, he moved his hand to her hair. It was pulled back in a loose French braid.

"Grandma Robin is dying." As she spoke, her knees buckled again. This time he sat down with her. She took a long time to compose herself, one slender hand pressed over her mouth. "This isn't our bench." She said.

"We have the whole park to ourselves." He said. It was a mid-fall day, and heavy clouds threatened rain. They were the only people in the park.

In spite of that, she seemed suddenly embarrassed. "It must seem silly." She said, "I knew it was coming, she's such an old woman, and her health's been failing for so long, but Amon, hearing the doctor say it, and since father died—"

He grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her close. He rested his chin on her head, "It's not silly Maria." He said, "You love her very much." In their few weeks in the park, he had never been this close to her.

Maria pulled back reluctantly. She gripped the side of the bench and flexed her feet. It was a nearly unconscious habit she had. She told him that it also kept her legs warm during her breaks. "I'm sorry," she said, "I should never have come running up like that. You must have thought something terrible had happened."

"It's alright."

"It will be." She wiped her face with her hands and looked up at him for the first time. She wore no makeup, though she didn't need any. Her slender face, high cheekbones and vivid green eyes make her the picture of classic beauty. "I don't know what I'd do without you." She sat back, tilted her head up to the sky, and closed her eyes. "It's just, at times like this that I feel so alone." "I try so hard to fit in, but no matter what, no matter how much or how little I share with someone, it doesn't work. My family is all I have."

He wanted to tell her that he understood, but did he?

"I just want to belong, Amon." She whispered, almost as if to herself. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to take her in his arms, to kiss her, but he held back. She shuddered and pulled herself close to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Just forget I said anything." She said softly, her voice suddenly too casual. "If you don't mind, I'd just like to sit her for awhile."

"Just do this for me." He said, laying his fingers against her cheek. She looked up at him, her face slightly flushed from the cold. "Don't grieve for her until she is gone."

Maria fell asleep at his side. In a half hour he woke her, gently shaking her shoulders. She stretched gracefully and stood, "Thank you." Her smile was almost truly happy. As she turned to run back towards the theater, she caught a glimpse of her slender dancers legs beneath her long trench coat.

---

A blue-eyed boy answered the door. He opened it only a crack and looked at Amon critically. "Maria, there's someone here." The boy said. Amon recognized the accent as Italian.

Suddenly Maria was standing behind the boy. "Giovanni," she said, touching him on the shoulder. "Please go upstairs." He stepped out of sight.

Maria closed the door quickly, and he heard the slide of a chain lock before she opened it again. She stood with her hand on the door, dressed in a black practice leotard. "Amon." She said, "I wasn't expecting you. How did you—?"

"You were in the book." He said. He hesitated, and decided to tell the truth. "I wanted to see your grandmother."

"My grandmother, why?"

"Who's the boy?" he said.

"Giovanni." She said, "grandmother adopted him on her last trip to Italy. We couldn't talk to her out of it, even if we wanted to. She told us he reminded her of someone."

A slightly older woman moved into the hall beyond the door. "Aren't you going to invite him in Maria? It's freezing out there."

"Yes." She said, "Of course, Amon, come in." He stepped into the entryway. "I'll take your coat." She helped him slide the long black coat off his shoulders, and quickly hung it on a hook behind them. "Amon," she said, "This is my mother, Eve. Mom, this is Amon. We met in the park." She added hastily.

Eve took the hand he offered her and gave him a quick, appraising look. Maria disappeared for an instant and returned, pulling a black silk robe around herself. "My mother wants to see you." Eve said. "If you like, I'll make some tea."

He bowed very slightly, and walked down the hall and turned a corner.

Maria seemed distressed for a second, and he saw her struggle for a moment to suppress it. "This way." She said.

She led him into an adjacent room. It was surprisingly large for the small townhouse. It had new hardwood floors; the long wall was mirrored and fitted with an exercise bar. The only furniture was a piano and an old record player on a stand. He stopped Maria at an old door in the opposite corner, his hand on her thin wrist. "How long does she have?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "Not long."

The door opened with a slight creak. The room was dark. "Grandmother?" She said.

"Amon." Came a soft but steady voice. "Come in."

He walked into the room, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. He could make out a small form on the bed. "Maria," she said, "Please light the candles."

"Mother," she said, "Your eyes."

"Please, Maria."

Behind him, Maria took a step into the room. "No." Robin said, and edge to her voice. Then, much softer. "It's alright."

In an instant, six candles flared to life, casting a deep gold light around the room. "Thank you dear." She closed the door with the same creak.

Amon took in the room slowly. It was filled with fine wooden furniture from all around the world. There was an intricate oriental rug covering the dark wood of the floor. The bed was a sturdy four-poster, draped with a fine, gauzy white fabric. The linens were antique yellow, made of fine silk. There was a mountain of pillows at the head of the huge bed, against which Robin sat.

It was a surreal sight; Robin looked much the same as she had when she was a girl, but at the same time, completely different. She had the same general slenderness, thin wrists and face, much like her granddaughter. She had let her hair grow. It fell down her side and came to rest beside one, long fingered hand. With the help of the pillows, she held her back straight, her long neck tall, her face turned towards him, a kind of serenity on her face. He was more than a bit disturbed by her eyes. She was blind, but she looked at him as if seeing more than mere eyes could. She blinked slowly.

"Still fond of black I see." She said, as if reading his mind. It struck him that she could be reading his mind, he had no idea how far her powers had developed. "Please sit." With the tiniest motion of her hand, she motioned to a plain chair at her side. He sat slowly. Her white eyes never wavered.

"You're granddaughter is a witch." He said it without accusation.

"Yes." She said, amusement in her voice. "My daughter too. Did you expect anything less?"

"And the boy?"

"Giovanni." She said, "I found him in an orphanage run by my old church, of all the places. And perhaps it is foolish, but I feel like my grandfather sent him to me." There was a long silence between them, and Amon simply listened to her breathing. It was only the slightest bit labored.

"Robin, I—"

"Don't interrupt." She said softly, "I have much to say to you, and my time is short." She fixed his gaze with her haunting eyes. "First," she said, "how did I know?"

He did not reply, knowing she didn't really want him too.

"If you think about it, you'll find you already know. As a witch, I can sense the craft in others. It was why I was so highly prized as a hunter, and perhaps in the end, played a part in why Solomon came to fear me so. So your answer, of course, is that I knew you were a witch from the moment I laid eyes on you."

Amon was stunned. He had underestimated her all this time.

"I came to understand your craft as a kind of smell, like fresh cinnamon. In those first few weeks, I was confused, but for obvious reasons, I said nothing to anyone. You must have known though, you've always known." She hesitated, and he nodded, dropping his gaze, as if ashamed.

"The exact nature of your power escaped me for a long time. There were always clues though. When you hunted, you were always fearless, it was beyond bravery, as if you knew nothing could hurt you. Then there was the way you kept everyone away." She held up one finger, "That is your only fear, isn't it, getting to close." She let her hand drop to her side.

"My last clue was that year we spent together." She smiled, and he thought he saw a hint of a blush in her gaunt cheeks. "I am embarrassed to admit that I spent much of that year studying you. By the end, I knew every line of your face, every inch of your skin." She moved to touch him, but it was as if something stopped her. She held her hand out, suspended for a long moment, before dropping it again. "And nothing changed in your face, not a thing, even though you certainly watched me change before your eyes." She was quiet for a long time. "And even now, your face is the same. It came to me many years after we parted, as I sat in church. It was whispered to me, as if from God himself," She lifted her head and closed her eyes. "This man will never grow old."

In the silence that followed, music floated through the room. He closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them to find her looking at him. She was still studying him, just as she had when she was young.

"Your next question; did I love you?" She continued without waiting for him to respond. "Yes, I did. I still do." She closed her eyes again, smiling. "I feel it even now, that strange excitement you call up in me, a kind of tingling in my fingertips. All my life, I've felt that only for you." She sighed. "But it's not as if I spent all of my life pining for you."

She picked up a picture from the other side of the bed and handed it to him. It was a picture of her with a plain looking man. He had his arms around her, half his face lost in her hair. Robin wore a smile that he had never seen before. He felt suddenly sick, though he wasn't sure why. She stared down at the picture.

"I met my husband the first time I snuck off to Italy. Don't look at me that way." She said, "It was terribly exiting, carrying on like that right under Solomon's nose. I knew I loved Anthony in a day, as much as I ever loved you, and he loved me. In time I told him everything, and he accepted it, all of it."

She stopped, and then continued, her voice quivering. "We had a blissfully uneventful life, by which I mean, Solomon and the STN never bothered us. We raised our only child, my special Eve, to love and appreciate what she was. And when Anthony died, she sustained me, she saved me, though I suppose she'd tell you that we saved each other." She moved the picture, as if she could not bear to look at it.

Robin looked away from him, eyes focused on the wall. When she spoke again, she was calm, even happy. "But I found true joy again when my granddaughter was born. She was lucky to have her father, another man who accepted her, her gifts, without question, taught her to be special while still so…normal. He was the one who encouraged her to dance, but then he died just after she got the job with the ballet."

She clenched her fists briefly. "I feared for her Amon. We saw it so many times before, a traumatic event pushing a witch over the edge, and with such a strong power as Maria's—" her vision slid over to him, and a slight smile spread across her face. "But as my fear reached its peak, she came home, truly happy for the first time since her father died, and smelling of fresh cinnamon." She sounded only mildly surprised. "I should have known though, because somehow I always knew that you would find your way back to me, in one way or another."

He laughed slightly, and it caught in his throat as a sob. He was looking at his feet when he felt her warm hands on either side of his face. Robin pulled his gaze up to meet hers. He leaned into her touch, resting his lips on her palm. "You despair because you will never die." He said, "but immortality is what we mere mortals strive for."

"I don't understand." He whispered, the weakness in his voice surprising him.

"There are many ways to live forever." She whispered. "It was something my parents understood very well, as I do, though it took me my whole life to realize it. We all find our own path to it, yours is just different than most."

He grabbed one of her hands lightly as a tear spilled onto his cheek. "And this is what all of this has been coming to. Amon, when it comes to the ones we love, there is not enough time in the world. This is true whether you're mortal or not, but without it, life is empty. I don't know how long you've wandered this world, I don't need to know. My only fear now is that you will live your life in this eternal emptiness. Yes, those you love will grow old, they will die, but there will always be more joy to be found, and with it, I hope, a profound peace."

She gasped suddenly, and her hand fluttered in his. All at once he became aware of how hard it must be for her to sit, to be lucid, and to pour her heart out to him. She was doing this all for him. "I beg you to give into it Amon, my love, because surrender doesn't always imply defeat. Promise me Amon, that you'll embrace your life, in all its fearsome beauty, however long it may be." She settled her head back on the pillow, tears in her eyes.

He held her hand, tightly now, holding it against his cheek. "I promise Robin," he said, "I swear it."

She smiled, the same smile he saw in the picture. "I can rest then."

"I'll get them—" he said, half standing.

Her hand closed around his, strong and sure. "No." she said, "I've said my goodbye's to them. Just—" her eyes were closing, "Sit with me awhile."

He sat slowly, setting her hand on the bed. He rested his head against it, feeling tears threaten him again. "Goodbye Amon." She whispered, "But somehow I know I'll see you again." And a moment later she was gone.

He cried then, silently, his check touching the warmth of her hand. If he wanted, he could have spent forever mourning for her, but if he did nothing else with the endless years of his life, he would honor her wish.

He stood and carefully wiped the tears from his cheeks. He leaned in and kissed Robin on the forehead before leaving the room.

He stood in the open doorway. Giovanni was sitting on the piano bench, looking at him. Maria was there, still dressed in the black leotard and black robe, poised on her toes at the bar. Grief and confusion was plain on her face, but she said nothing. He took one towards her, and she dropped to her feet and ran to him. He wrapped his arms around her and she laid her head against his chest. "I'm so glad I met you." She whispered. "If nothing else, I'm glad for that."

Over the years, the idea of hope had nearly been lost to him, but now, for what seemed like the first time, he hoped that this girl in his arms would bring him peace.

End

Author's notes: This fic came from a random collision of events in my life, not the least of which is that I just finished watching the series the day before (Thank You Netflix!). I also have to send a big thank you to Takuma Takewa, who you might not know, does the voice of Amon in the original Japanese, whose interview on the last disk was a kind of jumping off point for this fic. I can't quote what he said about Amon, so I'll paraphrase. 'he hides his emotions from others, but in his heart there is a deep affection'. It was an awesome interview.

And as always, my fics are always influenced by music, I owe a debt of gratitude for the songs "Broken Wings" (the ending theme for Trinity Blood) and "The Lady of Shalott" by the amazing Loreena McKennitt.

Please please please review, good or bad, I'd love to hear it.

And of course, Insert standard disclaimer here.

Eveie