Author's note: I started this two months ago hoping I could post it in time for New Year's Eve, but I wasn't happy with this snapshot, and left it for a while to step back a little. It's barely 991 words long, but I hope I did justice to both Sergeants Schultz and García. Read it as a tribute to John Banner and Henry Calvin, for playing two of the most loveable supposedly-antagonists in American television :o)

Disclaimer: Sergeants Schultz and García respectively belong to CBS (and Bing Crosby) and Disney (Johnston McCulley didn't create him). Where and how they have their conversation is a different story.

For Auld Lang Syne

"You know, sometimes I still think I could have caught him."

"Ah, but did you want to catch him?"

"Well, sometimes yes … and sometimes no." This was said with a large smile and what might have been a wink.

The tavern was small, cosy in its own way, and bright beams of warm sunlight poured through the windows onto the wooden tables and chairs. Even the smell was warm (not the stuffy kind of smell normally associated with the seediest types of establishments), a mixture of wine, beer, lilacs in bloom and hot sunlight on dusty wood.

The sun was one of the things Schultz preferred about this place. You never had to choose between inside or outside, spring or summer, beer or wine …

And then there were the birds. For some reason Schultz could always hear the faint sound of birds chirping, and he liked that very much.

He'd always liked birds while he was alive.

His companion stared into the distance with a big smile under that funny long moustache of his, and leaned back against the table, crossing his fingers against his vast stomach. The wood creaked ever so slightly. He ignored it, as always.

Former Sergeant Demetrio López García was not unlike Schultz in terms of girth and height, and there was a very similar sense of childlike glee in his face when he smiled; but the physical resemblance stopped there.

Still, from the first moment he'd discovered this tavern and sat at a table with the man, Schultz had a feeling he had found a kindred spirit (the pun had made him chuckle).

Funny how life – or afterlife, as it happened – worked. These two men, neither of whom spoke the other's language, who had lived a century and two continents apart, had become friends, after a fashion. Time didn't exactly pass like it did before – or, actually did pass, really – but they had spent what should have been many hours drinking, talking and laughing, as well as commiserating with each other's past plights … which usually involved officers.

"I wanted the money, of course," García continued, eyeing his glass of wine with a somewhat sheepish expression. "Everybody did. But if there had been a way of not catching Zorro and getting the reward all the same … No, I did not really want to catch him. Comandante Monastario – now he wouldn't have cared for the reward money. Just catching Zorro and –" he gulped "– killing him would have been enough."

"But he never did – not even once?" asked Schultz. He already knew the answer, but García had looked uncharacteristically sombre for a second, and he knew the reply would cheer him up.

He was right, of course. The huge smile almost reduced the brown eyes to slits. "No, gracias a Dios, he didn't." García sobered up, and his eyes reappeared. "Some of the orders he gave us, though … Made me regret I ever joined the army sometimes." He glanced at Schultz. "You knew what your prisoners were doing behind your Comandante's back – did they get you into trouble?"

"All the time," Schultz answered with an air of finality. Then he winked. "But it was not too bad, as troubles go. They were good boys. They even got me out of trouble a few times."

The only thing he had not quite forgiven Hogan and his boys for was having to parachute out of a plane. At his age, too. The terror he'd felt falling from the pitch-black sky beat some of the worst moments in the trenches of what they now called World War One.

"Besides, in the end, Kommandant Klink even went to Colonel Hogan when he was in trouble. Which was a lot."

"Did he know?"

"How should I know? He won't tell me, after all this time. I think he's still sulking."

García chuckled. "I didn't think it was even possible here."

"You don't know Kommandant Klink." Schultz drank a little of his schnapps and smacked his lips. "Ah, well, he's not so bad – at least, the part of him that is here isn't. But," he added with a grin, "sometimes I wonder how he will take it when Colonel Hogan gets here. And Newkirk, and Carter, and Kinchloe, and the little cockroach … Oh, this is a nice place, of course, but when those boys get here … I hope they don't, not for a long time." He shook his head, still smiling. "But when they do … I think things will be … fun."

García put his chin in his hand.

"You miss them, eh?"

"Maybe. A little." He paused. "Very much. It's crazy, really. I think they were my friends, but I don't know if I was their friend. Sometimes they said things …"

"Made fun of the big fat stupid sergeant …"

"And did things …"

"You know I had to darn all those "Z"s on my trousers by myself?"

García obviously was lost in his own memories, half-frowning and half-smiling, but Schultz continued on his track.

"They were the enemy, but … I liked them."

"Still … He saved my life, once or twice. He didn't have to, but he did."

"And they kept me from being sent to the Russian front sometimes."

"He never hurt any of my lancers when we tried to catch him – not badly. I thought that was very nice of him."

"So in the end …"

"So perhaps …"

"I think we were good friends."

They both said the same thing at the same time, paused, and smiled. One pair of eyes was pale blue, and the other dark brown, but they crinkled and twinkled in a very similar way.

Schultz lifted his glass first.

"To friends."

García followed suit. "To friends." And winked. "Even when they're enemies."

"Especially when they're enemies."

They both drank to the toast and resumed their conversation, enjoying the birds' singing, the smell of lilac and the warmth of the sun.

For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;
And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still.

Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Book V.

THE END

I like to think that at least a part of Klink went to Heaven – or something – when the character died. Maybe it was the part that plays the violin (though hopefully he'd play as he hears it in his head :D).

I don't believe in God, and I'm not really religious so much as spiritual, I suppose, but there's just something appealing about the idea of going to some kind of happy place when we die – and the same goes for fictional characters. For some reason (no doubt shaped by what I've read/watched/lived so far), "Heaven" being a pub, a diner, a tavern, an inn, or any similar establishment still sticks with me so much I can't shake it.