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introspective

Section 12 (Bridge) Instalment 1
Word count: 2 047

ooc: Since I've promised not to let myself edit, especially edit anything DOWN, at this stage, this is posted as is, and that is very raw. And very, very rambly. This is also the only section that will be first person too. So... bear with me?


I chose to live my life as I do.

Every little thing I do, every little way it's different from the next man's, I chose it. The lack of formal education, the lack of family background, working through things that I may have taken for granted otherwise - I chose that. The risk, the danger - I chose them. The love, the sensual pleasure - I chose them too. Working what I do, doing it as well as I do, with the people I do? I chose that too.

And whenever it comes time to close the curtain, I'll do my best to choose that too.

For one thing, with all the danger? I choose to make sure that final call isn't anytime too soon. There are risks, true, there always are. There are risks in however one lives one's life, really; perhaps I am just a little more aware of them than most people are. Which is part of how I do make sure I don't come to an untimely end soon. Realistic estimation of situations. Knowing that everything carries its danger with it. Not underestimating anything or anybody if I can help it, and also sometimes trying to make people underestimate me, if possible, so that when they prepare for what they think my best is, I can do better.

Always trying to do better. Better than the next guy, better than the enemies. Better than I have before. Never static, never satisfied with something being 'good enough'. In life, nothing is 'good enough'. Not in my life, at least. There is always a better way, may be a harder one, more difficult, but there's a better way. Which I look for. Always. Always up for finding the full potential, the most of a situation, the furthest reach, the longest draught, the brightest person to work with, the most efficient way to get out of a situation - not just for me, but with respect to other lives and, if possible, transported items if that's the case, as well. Always.

Because that's the point. I can choose, but the only sense I can make of that ability to choose is to drink up what all my choices bring about. To the dregs. Sometimes those can turn out to be good too, by the way; it's only that people think of dregs when they get to the bitter part that they don't realize they chose in the first place.

I try not to do that. Choose with my eyes wide open. That way, I know there's bitterness coming. Nothing is free, nothing is sweet only. I cherish the bitter along with the sweet. That's how I chose to be.

I'd choose to live forever, if I could. There's so much that is great about being alive the way I am - sensuously, openly. It'd be worth going at it forever. I know, I know. Age will change things. I'll probably grow tired, though I doubt ever too tired to be able to appreciate all. My powers will grow, my senses will weaken, that's how it usually goes with us wizards. And I'll embrace that too. Weigh in my place, as it were. (And thanks to Stephen, and to Claudia, for letting me find a real place, rather than drifting with the current until I lost sight of why it mattered to choose and drowned. My loves. And then the children...)

Of course, I do know that living forever it's not really a choice I'm likely to get. For that matter, with the job I do have, chances that I'll really truly live to get old are very slim. If I get to be able to, it'd be my choice, always. Never to leave those who have my loyalty to try and fill my absence up somehow. I've ran before, true. But not unless my loyalty has been betrayed first. And the life I have now? It's proven to me over and over again that I've made the right choices. That the people whom I've given my faith to are well worth that faith.

So I drink that all fully. However much I have to live, I take each moment and make it good. When I work, I go at it thoroughly. No holding back, no slacking, no regrets or looking back on previous mistakes when it can be distracting. Focus on what is, and what we aim for it to be, Stephen and I - because it is his work, and I do my share to make sure his objectives are met. When time for preparation is out and time for action is at hand, do that, and well. Better than those we're fighting against expect. Watch each other's backs. Get out alive; if possible, get the goods out. Life is more important than items usually though. And we are not fighting for a cause, not for territory. Not attacking (well, not unless one of ours has been taken, and those are really rare exceptions, dammit, Stephen!). So running, or rather retreating with minimizing damage? Totally permissible. Actually, commendable.

Drink in the adrenaline rush. Drink in the lives of the, well, comrades. Drink in the partnership we have, the rapport if need be. If any fall... drink in the memories of them. Even their loss. That's among the bitter parts, you know, even if we've only worked together on one job. The cost to getting the work done.

I chose this work... when I was almost impossibly young. Not yet eighteen, as a matter of fact. I'd made my run out of two homes; and I'd lost the other one to machinations that a kid that age shouldn't have to be made to see, I suppose. It seemed an awesome choice. It turned out that it was, and I wouldn't change it for the world, but it's not an easy one either. Not in the eyes of the man I work for; nor in my wife's eyes, nor in my children's. When nothing else is there, I go and risk my life. Sure, I try to stay on top of things, and make the odds always skewed up in my favor, but it's a risk. More of a risk than they want, possibly than they deserve for me to take.

But it's the cost for my having the life that I do. It's now a part of who I am, and I couldn't be all that I am without it any longer. Oh I can possibly choose to quit my work. Yeah, I won't, because Stephen knows what I am and how I work and relies on me, and I, for all the running away I've done, do not want to betray anybody's trust. Especially not that kind of trust he has in me. But I could quit. He'd still be all the rest that he is in my life, I have no doubts about it. By now, between what I have and what Dia has, our children would be provided for, I believe.

But I am who I've chosen to become, and that's the man who chose to risk his life to make sure others' lives are safe. Or even others' property. And that's the choice that brought all that's good in my life.

Namely, Stephen de la Marck and Claudia Parker. Born Gates-Jones, technically Pietrovitch. And our children. The reasons I do know what I did was right. The part of any cup I choose to drink that make it more worth than just the taste.

The people whose presence alone I can get drunk on, rich and fulfilling and heady and absolute. The first two, the people whose touch and smell and taste and sound and sight and feel I know better than my own, and would not have it otherwise. Who own my heart, my soul, my loyalty. The toil of my hands - or, more usually, mind and magical talent. The sweat of my brow, as it were. They get all of that. And they return it to me a thousandfold. I, who had nothing but my own wits, have the love of two people, amazing, great people as those two. I, who had nothing but my undereducated self to go by, have a place in the world that many would envy, and with good reason.

Each day, I choose to be what they grew to know. And each day, I choose to be the best of what they grew to know.

Yes, there is a price. I know it. They know it. The price? Makes them both sadder. But they both know me enough, thankfully, to know better than ask me to undo my choice. Because the life I have? The energy I exude? It comes in partly out of why I need to be always on the outlook. The appreciation I have for every little thing in life? Comes with the constant brushing up against death too, with my eyes open and my chin up.

It's all connected. I couldn't be as alive, as aware of all, couldn't be as good as they deserve me to be - if I didn't have myself to place between that danger and whoever that danger was aimed at. I make myself into what I am by my choices, and denying my choices always makes me less than I am.

I'm not sure just when each of them realized it. Stephen and Claudia, I mean. Dia and Stephen. The two people who know I started out like a child looking at candy through a store-window and never daring to ask for it, not even to go in to ask for it. And offered, generously and completely, without waiting for me to have to ask. And offered, and offered again, until they'd brought the point through - that I was welcome to go in and ask for what they have to offer. It took a while, for somebody who learns as quick as I do.

Because I've always known I'm good, I'm among the best at what I do... but it didn't seem enough to give the homeless a home. To undo the wrong I'd done by betarying already. It didn't seem enough to be trusted more than I trusted myself, and that was on specific things alone.

And then there was Stephen. Who let me have a shot at my own spot in the world, my very own. And later, also through him, there was Dia. Who let me have a shot at family.

They let me fill the slate I'd forced clean, with something that was worth being put down.

And all of that, because of how I chose. Because I chose to let them. To help them.

My choices... they matter. Being always aware of them matters. And I've been blessed by people who see that, in my life.

And it also matters so much when I am not made to choose. I live and I love, and I take it all fully - and both Dia and Stephen know I could choose between them, if I was forced to. But it would make me less than I am too. Less than what they know and love. And it is a sign of their love that I do not have to choose. Their choices, each separate. They could break me if they decided to, each of them. But being... belonging to both. It's better than anything else I could imagine. Or wish to. And it's taking each moment as is, tasting it to the fullest. And that's what I do. And that's what they grew to know... and my choice to stand by each of them's side is why they want me there too.

Alive. It's a greater miracle than most people realize. And it's a better choice too. A choice that allows all other choices, in fact. And whoever tells you that you have no choice? Would as easily see you dead. Do not trust those. Choose to choose. Choose to live, each moment for itself and with a full heart, open mind, alert awareness, senses out and taking the world in.

I did. I have. I do.

However long I have of it? I'm not wasting a single moment.

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