Disclaimer:     Absolutely so not mine.  I wish they were, I wish I'd
                thought of it.  But I didn't.  ITV, Carpenter, yada.
Title:          Waters Part
Author:         kel
Fandom:         Catweazle
Pairing:        Catweazle/Edward 'Carrot' Bennet
Rating:         slash, UA, ficlet, FRT? see Notes
Spoilers:       The Wisdom of Solomon, The Trickery Lantern
Notes:          We can all agree that Carrot is *legally* a minor, given that the 1967
                Sexual Offences Act was still in force at the time.  *Technically*, and
                for my purposes... well, sod canonical age; I can't find one.  If it
                helps, Robin Davies turned 16 in 1970.  I tend to assume that boys
                that age know their own minds.
Written for:    slash_friday ('Ello from a newbie.)
Comments:       angst early for Christmas ;-D


===========
Waters Part
by kel
===========

Edward Bennet, forty and alone, remembers the exact moment he ceased to be a child.
Climbing happily and thoughtlessly into the loft at Hexwood Farm, preoccupied with the
idea of an enemy gone, a friend close and malleable.

Eyes shining at the thought of a lover.

For weeks, months, he'd wanted *something*, and at last, in Mrs Skinner's spiteful
tirade, he had found the words to use. To testify, to frame his own frustration at
the constraints that ruled their friendship. At his lack of courage, his boundless faith, his
desire to *know*.

He had drunk of the Wisdom of Solomon; seen true, and yearned to speak.

And Catweazle, drenched and euphoric, had danced; had babbled of a way home,
his own eyes shining with hope and a regretless desire to leave.

He hadn't listened. He never listened.

The day George Bennet turned forty-five, Catweazle disappeared. Edward, hurt and hiding,
unable to hide, watched him go. Watched the magic *work*, and the old man vanish,
slowly, into the lake. Smiling.

Perhaps because he'd taken 'Carrot' with him.

Edward is no longer sixteen, no longer slim and young and certain of the world.
He knows himself, speaks true and seldom, lives in isolation. He farms, pays debts, keeps
somewhere in the bottom of a box the Book of Rapkyn. A book he cannot read.

Tonight, as every moonlit night, he takes it out and holds it, closed, to his chest.
Looks out at the quiet forest, and whispers: Salmay. Dalmay. Adonay.

Nothing works.

=== (c) arjuna 2007 ===