From sclark@best.com Mon Mar 16 08:55:44 1998 Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 15:17:53 -0700 From: clark To: fkfanfic@merlin.darkmage.net Subject: Lambert's Lament Permission given to archive at fkfanfic website as well as FTP site. No other permission is granted to repost/reprint/reuse. If you're interested, drop me a line. Love it/hate it/whatever, feedback is always welcomed. This story is based on characters and situations that aren't mine. Thanks to TPTB for their use. Lambert's Lament (01/01) by S. Clark Somehow, Natalie Lambert knew he was gone. She considered at first that maybe he was just hiding. Possibly as a game. Probably skulking, though. She searched for him, mostly in the dark places, hoping she'd find him. But, as expected, he wasn't to be found. It was just her now. Alone. Maybe she should have expected it would happen. Anticipated it. After all, it had always been a possibility even if it was one she wasn't keen on considering. For years she'd been there for him just as he had for her. She'd given of herself perhaps not as much as she could have. Stayed with him when he needed it. Cared for him as was required. She tried to think if it was something she had done. Some way she could have prevented it. But she realized that second guessing herself wouldn't make a difference. Wouldn't bring him back. No, now there were just memories. The times they'd spent together. How she'd confided in him. Told him her secrets. Shared thoughts she never could have voiced to anyone else. The inner voices whispering of self-doubt nagged at her. She couldn't help but wonder if maybe he'd found her lacking. She'd seen to his emotional needs. His physical needs. His nutritional needs, even. No, she refused to believe that it was solely through her doing that he decided it was time to depart. There remained the possibility that he'd return. She realized it was a remote one. If what she'd done so far wasn't enough to keep him, for him to want to stay with her, it was unlikely that things would change. Still, she had put up flyers all around the neighborhood. Every telephone pole was adorned with his picture and her phone number, just in case. She knew she had to do something so she didn't feel she had just abandoned him. She just hoped that wherever he was, whomever he was with, he was healthy and happy. Above all else he deserved that. Chasing mice. Or maybe splayed out in a ray of sunshine. But, as she curled up with a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, she knew after two weeks with no word it was unlikely she'd hear anything. It was time to face the reality that Sydney Lambert was gone.