New Story: Another Time:  The Ivy Leaf

The second in my Reincarnation Series of AU stories and vignettes, in 
which our favourite pair has been placed in another time frame.

1.  Another Time: The Roman Centurion
2.  Another Time: The Ivy Leaf


Veronica Jane Williams
xkhoi@iafrica.com


DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns Voyager, Tom and B'Elanna, not the story
though, although full credit will be given in the acknowledgement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:  The Ivy Leaf is based on a short story by American
author O. Henry, called The last leaf. I graciously acknowledge the 
author in the writing of this  AU (or incarnation) story.


ANOTHER TIME: THE IVY LEAF

The year was 1910. In a building in Greenwhich Village Thomas Parenzi
lived on the top floor apartment, making his living by painting
still lifes, and using models to express his emotions in his art.

It was a wide studio allowing enough light where he placed his easel,
next to a table which housed his painting paraphernalia. He was tall,
by any standards a very attractive man. With amazing blue eyes, his
hair blonde. And always, the suggestion of a smile playing on his
lips. He was right at that moment busy at his easel, working on a 
still life when Berdine entered.

"Hey, you're back early," he said she walked up to him, took the
brush from his hand and kissed him.

"I could stop painting completely if you keep that up, my love.
Completely." 

"Now, Tom, I wouldn't want you to do that. I'll just withold
my favours..."

He grabbed her waist, hauled her onto his lap and said:

"Don't you dare. I love you."

"Yeah, me too."

"So tell me, how did your visit home go?"

Berdine was so busy untying his shirt buttons to heed his question,
but mumbled something about parents not very happy that she's living
with a fellow artist.

"And in that godforsaken place."

"Berdine...?"

"Yes..."

"Marry me? Please?"

*************************

It was a simple ceremony, attended by a few friends they made in
the village. Berdine walked in on the arm of Charles, a middle aged
artist living in the same building. Tom looked at her, her beauty
knocking his breath away everytime he just looked at her.

She had little white flowers in her dark brown hair, the fire
and passion lurking in those beautiful brown eyes. In a long,
flowing white dress, Tom thought it was an angel who walked up
the isle towards him.

Berdine's heart was in her eyes as she looked at Thomas. Who looked
at her with his incredible blue eyes, a smile that melted her
time after time after time. His blonded hair combed back, and
looking sleek. Tall and handsome, she thought. My prince who
rescued me from a life of drudgery.

My princess, he thought. I shall love her forever, as she walked
to him, and he took her hand in his. He prayed fervently to God
as they stood and pledged their love and commitment, for His
blessing on their union. For he knew that he could no longer
live without his Berdine, as he could live without breathing.

Berdine looked at her new husband and thought her heart would
burst. It did not matter to her that they would struggle, as long
as they had each other. She had escaped  a life with family,
a life of unpleasantries and oppression, to make a new one, one 
rich and fulfilling.

Yes, they were happy. Gloriously happy. They painted, made love,
visited other artist friends in their painting community.

********************

"I could make love to you forever, darling," Tom said as they
were lying in bed, relaxing in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

Their legs were entwined, the sheets mussed around them. Tom
gloried once again how passionate and voracious his Berdine could
be at times. Like just now.

"You're mine," she purred as her mouth found his swollen sex and
captured him, sinking deep into him, trapping him to the bed.
He was helplessly overcome with desire as she continued moving
in him until he screamed to be released.

Which she did, slowly, then rose above him to straddle him and
continue her sweet torture of him.

"I love you, Tom," she whispered afterwards in his neck.

************************

Winter came early that year to Greenwhich Village. And with it,
the colds, influenza, pneumonia. Berdine was one of the first to
succumb to the flu. It was a period of grave concern for Tom, for
not only was his wife seriously ill, she appeared to have lost
the will to fight.

"Tom," she said weakly to him one day, "could you push our bed closer
to the window? So I could look at the ivy tree."

"Anything, my love," he whispered, his eyes dark with anguish as
he saw his wife slipping gradually away from him.

So Berdine watched her tree every day, her back to her husband where
he was working at his easel, trying to concentrate and finding it
too difficult. He sighed, got up and joined her on the bed.

"I'm dying, Tom..."

"No..." came his pained words, as he pressed his hand against her
warm face. She was looking at the ivy leaves on the tree outside,
against the wall of the next building.

"I love you, Bernie, don't leave me, please..."

Then Tom would sit at his easel again and paint furiously, pouring
his heart out on the canvass, each stroke of the brush an agonising
lash against fate, against God. His heart cried wordlessly as he
listened to her racking coughs. She is my life breath, he told
his canvass as his pain took on form on the cloth before him.

"Twelve..."

"Eleven..."

He looked up from his work as he listened to her. Her back was to
him and she was facing her tree again. She was counting...

"Sweetheart, why are you counting backwards?" he asked hoarsely.

Her voice, when she answered, was very weak, and she said softly:

"The ivy leaves are falling off one by one, Tom. Look, there
are now only ten left."

He looked at the remaining leaves on the twining branch and believed
her. Then she said:

"Tom..."

"Yes, my love...?"

"When there is only one leaf left, then it will be the end. I know
it. I will die then, my love..."

Tom gathered her sick body in his arms and sobbed.

"Please, my love. Don't speak of death. I cannot bear to be alone."

"Nine..."

"No..." he whimpered, and held her desperately to him, his blue
eyes filling with tears.

So the days passed until Berdine said to him.

"Look, Tom, there's only one ivy leaf. Be happy for me..."

"How can I be, my love, when I cannot live without you?"

With his heart heavy, Tom continued with desperation his next 
painting. Charles was to be the model this time, sitting on an old 
tin, in a kind of slouch, to give the impression of a tired miner.

"I promised you I sit for you, Tom. I'm here now. Then I'll start on 
my masterpiece."

Tom, in his state of serious unhappiness, smiled a little grimly. 
Even Berdine turned away from her tree and looked at Charles. His jet 
black hair was very short, like a brush itself,

"You've been painting your masterpiece since forever, Charles.
Yet, you never get down to it."

"I will, as soon I I've finished sitting for you."

"Sure," Tom said, as he started. He worked quickly, his heart racing 
as he thought about the last ivy leaf.

"She's very ill, Tom."

"Yes... She been counting the leaves on the tree outside our window,
until there's now only the one left. It's how she has measured her last - 
her last days... She'slost the will to live, Charles...Not even I..."  
Tom sighed. "She won't fight it, Charles, and I know she can. When 
the last leaf - " 

"When the last leaf falls, she believes that she'll die..."

"Yes..."

************************

It was a quivering Thomas Parenzi who held his wife in his arms
the whole night through, and waited in agony till the morning.

When morning came, the leaf was still there, clinging tenaciously
to the bough.

"Look, sweetheart, it's still there," Tom said. He looked at the
leaf, brown at it's edges, but at its little stem, the green still
showing.

"Tom..."

"Fight it, my love, like your last leaf. Look, she's still there.
You have hope. Fight, my love..."

"I love you, Tom...don't leave me..."

"Never, my sweet angel. Never," he promised her. Then he would 
embrace her, hold her face in his neck, and cry against her hair.

Over the next few days the leaf clung to the branch. Tom's heart
would thud loudly as he turned up the blind over window, then 
rejoice when he saw the little leaf still trembling on the branch
Everyday Berdine seemed to regain her strength. As if the last ivy 
leaf instilled in her too, the will to fight to stay alive. And Tom's
heart rejoiced as he saw his Bernie fight back, and claw her way to 
health again.

One morning he walked into the room and saw Berdine sitting up
in bed. He joined her, scooped her into his arms, holding her
warm body close to him, crying because she had recovered. His
hand stroked her beautiful brown hair, now shiny again, as the
fever had also left her eyes. He looked at her, and knew he
had his Berdine back. His love. His life.

"Forgive me, my love, that I felt like wanting to die, when you were 
always here to help me, when our little ivy leaf taught me how to 
fight," she said as she looked at him, then at the tree outside, 
with its one remaining tenacious leaf. Her eyes were thoughtful as
she looked. 

"Sweetheart, there something I must tell you..."

She looked at him, a question in her eyes.

"It's Charles. He died this morning early, at the hospital. He
had pneumonia, only two days."

Berdine hurled herself in his arms and cried for their old friend
who came to sit for Tom. Who gave her away at the church. Who always 
promised himself that he'd complete his own masterpiece one day.
Who came in day after day to enquire after her.

********************

Tom entered the studio of Charles, on the ground floor of the
building, to collect his paintings to send to his family. Tie
up his affairs. The caretaker met him there, and took him round
the back, in the narrow alley, where the ivy tree grew against
the adjacent building.

At the bottom, against the wall, rested a long ladder, there
was next to it a tin of green paint, and some tins with brown
and light brown.

"The old man spent an entire night in the cold painting the leaf
on that tree so that it looked very, very real," the caretaker
said.

Tom's heart burned for a few minutes when he realised that Charles,
dear Charles, did paint his masterpiece after all...


THE END


Any comments would be welcomed by tis writer!

Veronica Jane Williams
xkhoi@iafrica.com