At long last, here is my first Valentine’s Day story. The idea came from a song recorded by Shenandoah called I Want To Be Loved Like That . I’ll put the lyrics at the end in case anyone wants them. This story is intended to stand alone, and doesn’t necessarily take place in any of my current universes. When canon was fuzzy on a point, I assumed that whatever was convenient for me was just fine with all of you. I apologize in advance if that offends anyone. None of the characters are mine, although they can stay at my house as long as they like. No profit will be made from this story, either. This story assumes a male/male relationship, although there is no explicit sex in it. If that bothers you, or you are underage, please delete this story now. I very nearly neglected to thank a very important person. Emma very kindly agreed to beta this instead of working on her own story tonight, and I am extremely grateful. The muses and I didn’t get any conversation hearts for Valentine’s Day, so we’d especially love some feedback. It can be directed to me at n.memmott@gte.net I think that gets all the business stuff out of the way. On to the story!

R ichie half-dozed on the couch, the flickering light of the classic movie on the television the only illumination in the room. He watched as James Dean and Natalie Wood fought for their love against overwhelming odds, skeptical of, and yet moved by, the thought that such different people could indeed develop an unshakable devotion to one another.

There was no denying that he and his ancient lover were far from an obvious pair themselves. If their friends were to find out about their relationship it would undoubtedly provoke as antagonistic a response as the movie characters faced, but there was no question of fighting the odds in their case. They weren’t soul mates, hadn’t fallen hopelessly in love. Methos inevitably found his way to Richie’s apartment, and Richie’s bed, whenever he was in town, but there wasn’t any romance between them.

And that, Richie reminded himself, was exactly the way he wanted it. If tonight wasn’t February 13th and the whole city hadn’t been infected with Valentine’s Day fever, there would be no question about that. But Methos had been out of town for quite a while this time, and Richie missed him.

With a sigh and then a reluctant smile, Richie closed his eyes and pictured his lover, imagining his response to the movie. He could hear the impatience and the sarcasm in his mind as clearly as if Methos were physically present. His moodiness dissipated, Richie clicked off the television and went to bed.

The next morning Richie rose early and hurried to pick up Maria at her parents’ house. She was off on yet another photo shoot in an exotic location — New Zealand this time.

Opening the kitchen door without knocking, as was his habit, Richie walked in and called out a greeting. “Hey, Mrs. A! Are those your famous pancakes I smell?”

“Richie!” Turning away from the stove, Rosa Alcovar clasped Richie’s hand and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “How come you only come visit us when Maria’s going on another trip?” she scolded even as she turned back to her pancakes and began piling them onto a plate.

Savoring the delicious smell emanating from the full plate Mrs. Alcovar handed him, Richie replied, “You’re right, Mrs. A. I need to come over more often.” Sitting down at the kitchen table, he took another beep breath of pancake-scented air and continued, “Especially for breakfast.”

“What, your girl doesn’t know how to make pancakes?”

“What?” Richie asked around a mouthful of food. Swallowing quickly, he protested, “There is no girl, Mrs. A!”

“No?” the older woman asked, arching a skeptical eyebrow. Looking away and walking over to the stairs she shouted, “Maria, hurry up! You’re gonna miss your plane!” She waited until a sarcastic reply drifted downstairs before pinning Richie with her gaze once more.

“There’s no one,” Richie insisted. “No one serious, anyway.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because...” Richie floundered for the right words. Finally he settled for, “They’re out of town a lot. It’s... complicated.”

Casting a long, considering glance at her former foster son, Rosa finally said, “Well, when it gets uncomplicated, you bring her over here and introduce me. I’ll teach her how to make pancakes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Richie agreed, feeling the knot of panic in his chest begin to ease, now that Mrs. Alcovar had let him off so easily

Just then a bear of a man burst through the front door brandishing an enormous bouquet of flowers. “Happy Valentine’s Day, mi corazón !”

“Pedro!” Maria’s mother gasped. “You scared me to death.” Trying to see over the flowers that had been shoved into her hands, she didn’t notice when strong arms wrapped around her until she was hoisted off her feet. She started to squeal, but the sound was cut off by a thorough kiss.

It’s the same, Richie thought as he watched them. Every morning for, well, forever, it’s been the same. Smiling to himself as Rosa fussed over the flowers and put them in water, Richie thought she’d never looked more content. With the money Maria was making, they could have bought a bigger house, two or three newer cars, and a flashier Valentine’s Day present than a bouquet of flowers, but a kiss and a flower was all Mrs. Alcovar wanted or needed.

Pedro announced, “I have a present for you, my love!”

“And what do you call this?” Rosa asked, pointing to the flowers spilling cheerfully out of an old coffee can.

‘Those are flowers. This ,” Pedro explained, reaching into his coat and producing a manilla envelope, “is your present.” As he carefully extracted the contents, Richie could read the word “Title” inscribed on the top of the sheet of paper.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Rosa,” the normally exuberant man murmured soberly as he handed his wife the newly registered deed to their home.

“But... but there were two more payments. How did you…?” Rosa trailed off, the tears in her eyes spilling onto the paper in her hands.

“I... bought a lottery ticket before Thanksgiving,” Pedro admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous hand. “And I won some money. Then Ted gave me a cash bonus for the extra overtime I put in before Christmas. I was going to tell you, but I decided to surprise you, instead. The house was paid off with the December payment, but I had to wait for the new deed to come in.”

“And the money you took for the January payment?” Rose asked, still trying to process this unexpected information.

“I used it for the registration fees.”

Rosa braced a free hand on the counter to steady herself. “You kept this from me.… all this time... I can’t believe it.” She looked down at the deed in her hand once more, then raised a wonder-filled gaze to her husband. “Oh, Pedro, it’s really ours now!”

The big man opened his arms just in time to receive the bundle of energy that hurtled towards him. He held Rosa close in silence for a moment, then began whispering quietly between tender kisses and gentle strokes of his hand on her face.

Richie looked away from the private scene, grinning gratefully when Maria appeared in the kitchen doorway. “There you are! Let’s get out of here.”

Maria looked curiously at her parents and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” Richie assured her. “Now let’s go.” He smirked, “I think those crazy kids over there need some privacy.”

Rolling her eyes at the embracing couple, Maria waved a casual good-bye and followed Richie out the kitchen door.

Riding home from the airport, Richie’s thoughts returned to Maria’s parents. Their love was as solid as the foundation of their house. Couples that loved each other that much, that had seen each other through so much and managed to stay together, always amazed him. They presented quite a contrast to the relationships he’d had. Hell, he’d been lucky to get out of most of his relationships with his head still attached.

And then there’s Methos , he acknowledged wryly, and whatever it is that we have, exactly. Their association had begun as an exciting blend of passion and friendship between two people that had no interest in the complex tangle of an organized, defined relationship. They acted on whichever feelings moved them at a given moment.

He had spent the last two days comparing every couple he saw to his relationship with Methos, Richie realized suddenly. What was that, if not a search for definition?

Shit, Richie swore inwardly, impatient with himself. It was just Valentine’s Day, that was all, making him think that a relationship had to be ‘going somewhere.’ If he was being realistic, Richie could admit that he wasn’t ready to start picking out china patterns and window treatments with anyone, let alone a five thousand year old, pain-in-the-ass immortal.

On impulse, Richie swerved to take the exit he’d almost passed. He needed a quiet place to get this Valentine’s Day nonsense out of his head. Not only that, but spending time around Maria’s family always brought his earliest parent to mind. After stopping at a flower shop for pink roses, Richie made his way to St. Mark’s Cemetery.

The city’s skies had been as blue earlier in the week as they were today, so Richie was able to sit facing Emily Ryan’s headstone. Laying the roses on the ground in front of him, Richie spent a few quiet moments re-memorizing the details of the headstone. Finally he said, “Hi, Mom.”

He lifted a hand, held it uncertainly in midair, then tentatively stroked it down the side of the cold stone. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” Swallowing, he went on, “ I would have brought you chocolate, but Mr. Stubbs closed his candy store, so I thought you might like flowers, instead.”

Running out of small talk, Richie fell silent once more. The peaceful silence of the day wrapped around him, and for a minute it was enough just to breathe it all in. Gradually, he became aware of shuffling sounds nearby. Turning his head to the right and seeing nothing, he looked to the left and saw and elderly man making tortuous progress to a plot farther down the row.

He looks familiar, Richie thought, trying to remember where he had seen the man before he scoured the recesses of his memory and at last came up with a picture of the man standing over the same, though at the time newly made, grave. He dug a little deeper and recalled the man’s name.

“Hey, Mr. Anderson?”

Turning slowly, the stooped figure looked confused for a moment, then his face brightened. “Well, hello there, young man. Haven’t seen you here for a while.”

Yeah, about seven years , Richie thought, but all he said was, “It has been awhile. How are you doing?”

“Well, thank you...”

“Richie,” he prompted.

“Richie, yes. I’m well. I moved in with my son and his wife last month. Broke my hip and couldn’t take care of myself anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Richie replied sympathetically.

“It’s all right. They actually live closer to this cemetery, so I can visit my Alice more often.”

“You still really miss her, don’t you?”

“As much today as I did the first minute she was gone.”

Richie shook his head. “That’s amazing.” He paused, then asked, “Doesn’t it sort of fade over time?”

“What, the pain of losing her?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Of course, Richie. Time can heal some of the deepest wounds. Grief passes. Love, though — real love, anyway — doesn’t end just because someone dies. It doesn’t fade, it doesn’t simply evaporate. It stays with us, always.”

“If that’s true,” Richie asked, thinking of Mac and Tessa, “then how can someone that’s known real love fall in love again with someone else?”

“That’s the great thing about love, Richie. There’s no limit to the love we are capable of. Our hearts just keep expanding to make room for all of the people we love.”

Richie smiled wistfully. “I hope I find that kind of love someday.”

“You already have, Richie, or you wouldn’t be here,” the old man pointed out, gesturing with his cane towards the headstone in front of Richie.

Even as Richie opened his mouth to explain that Emily Ryan was his mother, and not even his birth mother at that, the realization hit him that Mr. Anderson was right. He had loved Emily Ryan the way only a child can, and he loved her still.

“Are you ready to go, Dad?” an unfamiliar voice called, distracting Richie from his introspection.

“Yes, Gabriel, I’m ready,” Mr. Anderson replied, addressing the man coming up behind them. Tipping his hat to Richie, the aged gentleman said, “Don’t worry about love, Richie. It will find you. And when it does, you’ll have more than you’ve ever imagined.”

“Thanks,” Richie smiled. “It was good to see you again, Mr. Anderson.”

Love, love, love, love, love, Richie groaned to himself when he was alone once more. Why does everything have to be about love? He swore when an image of Methos came instantly to mind. Great, here I go again, doing my damnedest to complicate everything, as usual. He leaned back onto the winter-toughened grass and scrubbed his hands over his face as if the action would remove the picture of Methos from his mind’s eye. Richie heaved a great sigh of resignation when the vision remained.

Where are you, Methos? Paris? Rome? Some mountaintop in Tibet? Richie’s lips curved as his mental picture of Methos shifted to show his lover scribbling in a notebook by the light of a candle in a hut somewhere in what he imagined Tibet would be like. Then the scene altered again to show Methos in the traditional meditation position as rain dripped onto his head from a hole in the hut’s ceiling.

I can’t imagine how the old guy sits there for hours on end like that. It just doesn’t seem like him. Richie sighed. I guess I don’t know him that well.

Oh, but he wanted to, Richie realized. He desperately wanted to understand what drove Methos to that mountaintop and what brought him back down again. He wanted to know why Methos still kept a handwritten journal when he was almost expert with computers. Richie wanted to know what it was that had Methos wide awake at 4 am no matter where they were or how late they’d been up, why Methos insisted on shaving every morning, and why Methos never kissed him good bye.

Oh, God.

This is bad.

How the hell did this happen?f Richie wondered. When did I start to care this much?

His mind stuttered, then asked one final question.

When did I start wanting Methos to love me?

It hadn’t been the first kiss, Richie thought, or the second. It hadn’t been the initial mind-shattering orgasm in the hallway, or the one in the shower, or even the one once they actually made it to bed. If he was being honest, though, it hadn’t taken much more than that. The feel of Methos’ arms wrapped around him all through that first night probably had something to do with it. That, and the way they had shared breakfast the next morning as comfortably as they had shared passion during the night.

It seemed to Richie that every moment he spent with Methos, he just wanted more. More afternoons in the park, more lazy mornings waking up in Methos’ arms, more talks over a beer a Joe’s, more heated arguments that they made up in bed — just more, of everything.

Why am I so surprised about this? Richie asked himself. It is so like me to fall for someone impossible. Why not go completely over for someone that’s been more places than I’ll ever see and done more than I can even imagine doing? It’s perfect.

Even as he chided himself for yet another love that was almost certainly going to be a disaster, Richie knew it was far too late to go back. It didn’t matter how unlikely it was that Methos returned his deepened feelings, it didn’t matter that Methos seemed to have the itchiest feet on the planet and rarely stayed in one place very long, and it didn’t matter that he himself hadn’t been looking for — wasn’t even ready for — a serious commitment right now.

In spite of the obstacles piling up rapidly, Richie knew he and Methos couldn’t keep having a ‘sort of’ relationship. Now that he had acknowledged his own feelings, Richie found that he wanted the kinds of love he had been seeing over the last two days. He wanted a love that would overcome the odds. He hungered for the kind of love that stayed strong, that surprised and delighted, that could still move someone after years of work and children and bills. And most of all he wanted a love that would live on years after one of them was gone. ‘Sort of’ was not nearly enough anymore.

Richie wanted it all. And, when Methos came back, he was going to get it.

Natalie Wood gave her heart to James Dean
A high school rebel and a teenage queen
Standing together in an angry world,
One boy fighting for one girl.

I want to be loved like that,
I want to be loved like that
A promise you can’t take back.
If you’re gonna love me,
I want to be loved like that.

Daddy never gave Mama a diamond ring,
but Mama never wanted for anything
‘Cause what he gave her, it came from the heart
In a bond that was never torn apart

I want to be loved like that
I want to be loved like that
A promise you can’t take back
If you’re gonna love me,
I want to be loved like that.

An old man kneeling all alone
Plants his flowers in a garden of stone.
Seven years now she’s been gone,
but his devotion is still going strong

I want to be loved like that
I want to be loved like that
A promise you can’t take back
If you’re gonna love me,
I want to be loved like that.

© 2001 Nikki Memmott