Duncan MacLeod sat alone on a bench at the edge of Parc Monceau.

It was a brisk day, and in spite of his coat the metal rungs of the bench leeched warmth from his back and legs, but the calm, quiet sounds and soul-filling green of his surroundings were more important than warmth just now.

Anne's plane was probably about to land in Seacover.  It was still hard to believe it had only been two weeks since she had come and gone again from his life.  When he had brought her here, it had been to see the truth and to make a choice.  But when she left, she had taken more than herself away.

It had rained during the night, and the sky was still a dark, featureless gray.  It was a good color for mourning.  Mourning a lost chance - possibly, as he had said to her, his only chance.  He had almost been a father.  Well, no.  But he had almost been able to help raise a child.  From long experience he knew that it did no good to deny the pain, so he let out a long breath and faced it.

Immortals weren't meant to have children.  He had said it to himself a hundred times, and had believed it.  A curse attached to the gift of immortality - in order to live forever, you had to sacrifice having someone else of your blood and bones and sinews to carry your life on after you.  He wondered suddenly if it was a fair trade.  Not that it had ever been his choice to make.  But with Anne, it had felt different.

It had been such a shock when she first told him about the baby.  Afterward he chided himself for not having realized what had happened - but four hundred years of childlessness had left him singularly unprepared for such an eventuality.  It had taken some time to get used to the idea.  But when she asked, "Do you want this baby?" the answer had come from the bottom of his soul.

He looked down at his hand.  It was probably imagination, but he thought he had been able to feel the new life within her body as he instinctively pressed the back of his hand to her stomach.  Somehow he had dared to let himself want to be a part of that unborn child's future.

He could only admire Anne's strength of character in recognizing that she could not live with him if it made her hate, made her want to see people die.  He had misunderstood the look in her eyes when he stumbled back to her side, bloody and exhausted from the violence of the fight and Daimler's quickening.  He thought it had only been fear for the baby, or for him, or even shock at seeing what immortality meant.  But even when she knew that the baby was well, the look had remained.  And then she had told him.

At least the baby was all right.  He spared a moment's gratitude to luck or fate or God that at least the guilt of that near tragedy hadn't been laid on his shoulders.  He wasn't sure she could have forgiven him, or he himself, if because of Daimler she had lost the baby.

And her eyes had told him, then and later, in the awkward silence as he helped her to pack, how much she regretted hurting him.  She hadn't meant to offer him a priceless opportunity only to pull it away.  And she was new to the world of immortality.  She couldn't possibly understand how deeply he would feel the loss.  Far worse than the knife Daimler had plunged into his chest, which merely caused few minutes of sharp, impersonal agony and then was gone.

Tessa.  God, how he needed Tessa.  Only she knew how deeply his soul could ache.  Only she had come close to filling the centuries of loneliness that sometimes weighed down on him until he felt nearly hollow.  He shifted on the bench.  Maybe it would help to visit her grave.

But then he remembered all the times they had come to this park, walking and holding hands and talking.  From here he could see the place where they had run through a flock of pigeons together, and the monument containing the statue of Ambroise Thomas and his muse that she was always drawn to.  Whatever was left of her, ghosts of memories lingering like the scent of her perfume, was just as much here as at the cemetery.

He knew there had been times when it was hard for her to know she would never have children as long as she stayed with him.  Hers was a voluntary sacrifice, and looking back he saw that it had both drawn them together and pulled them apart.  But she had loved him enough to stay.  With the ache of childlessness weighing on his own soul more acutely than it had in a long time, Duncan marveled anew at how deep that love had been.

His thoughts were interrupted as a school bus arrived and an eager crowd of children spilled out.  Glad for a momentary distraction, he watched as their teachers herded them past a few of the park's more exotic features.  A mossy pyramid, a stone arcade, an Egyptian obelisk, a Chinese stone pagoda.  Some of the children had obviously seen them before; others stared in wide-eyed fascination at the decorative false ruins.  Tessa had always smiled fondly at the romantically melancholy spirit of the 18th century designers who had built them.

Soon the children were turned lose to run among the paths and over the bridge and under the arch, which they did delightedly, heedless of the cold.  What was it he had told Sara Lighfoot?  "Children give us hope.  A promise of better things to come."

He had been around enough children to know they weren't angels.  For all their innocence, they were selfish and sometimes even cruel.  But they were also capable of acts of courage and forgiveness that sometimes took his breath away.

Two girls dashed in front of him, laughing, one chasing the other in some kind of game.  Both had stringy brown hair and worn coats, and one of them needed a handkerchief.  But on an impulse he tipped his head and tried to see them through their fathers' eyes.

He found himself imagining what they had looked like when they were born, heads misshapen and covered with goo.  And learning to walk, and talk, and spell, and add, and play, and all the other things that children learned.  He imagined a father's bewildered pride at the women they would grow into, anguish at the mistakes they would make, and longing to help as they tried to wrestle meaning out of life.  They probably wouldn't be beautiful, but each would have unique gifts to contribute to the world.  He hoped their fathers knew what a privilege it was to raise such daughters.

They were running back toward him when the second girl tripped and fell headlong in the grass not ten feet from him.  He hesitated only a second, then hurried to help her pick herself up.

"Ça va, petite?" he asked, hoping she was not hurt.  She had a narrow face, and her cheeks were red from running in the cold.  She looked up at him a little startled, and he lowered himself onto his heels to make his formidable bulk less intimidating.  He saw that the knees of her pants were grass stained, but the skin beneath was probably unbroken.

"What's your name?" he tried again.

"Sylvie, monsieur," she said shyly.

The other girl, discovering that she was no longer being followed, ran back to join the party, wiping her nose on her coat  sleeve.  "I'm called Pauline, and I'm nine and she's eight," she volunteered, stealing his next question.

Four hundred years of experience and he couldn't think of anything else to say to two small girls.  Pauline saved him the trouble by plucking two dandelions which were growing nearby and holding them out to him.

"For me?  Well, I thank you very much," he said, taking the proffered gift.  "Do you like flowers?"

"Oui, monsieur.  But I like dandelions best because you can rub then on your chin and make it turn yellow."  On closer inspection he could see that she was living proof of this statement.

Then a whistle blew in the chilly air, and both girls scrambled to their feet and hurried off toward the bus.  Sylvie turned back and waved.  "Allez, salut!" Not to be outdone, Pauline waved too. "Salut, monsieur."

"Salut, les filles," he called after them.

Duncan straightened slowly and returned to his bench.  Pauline and Sylvie disappeared into the bus.  He looked down at the dandelions.  He was briefly tempted to rub them on his chin, but then realized that he wouldn't be able to see the results while everyone else would.  He rubbed them on the back on his hand instead.  They did indeed turn his skin yellow, just as they had in the hills of Scotland when he was a boy.  He laid the now bruised flowers on the bench beside him.

The bus engine roared as it pulled away from the curb.  And suddenly his eye caught the name printed on the side of it.  Orphelinat Sainte-Foy.

It was one of the names he had written at the top of a cheque more than once.  It was on Rue des Moines, just a few blocks from the park.  And he realized with a jolt that it meant that Pauline and Sylvie didn't have fathers to love them for their homely beauty, to see the hidden promise behind rosy snot-nosed faces.

He wished suddenly that they could be his - two little girls to love and nourish and teach and pull out his hair over.  But it was only a momentary fantasy.  He could never adopt children for the same reasons he had always said that immortals should never have them.  How could he protect them from the game, and how would he forgive himself if one of them were hurt or killed by a Kalas or a Xavier St. Cloud?  And what if someone were to take his head, and leave them alone again?

The quiet of the park seemed empty now.  He looked at his watch.  No doubt Anne's plane had landed, and she was at this moment riding home in a taxi to her small, clean apartment.  Facing a future of raising her child alone.

His heart ached, wanting to help her and little unborn baby girl, but he didn't know how, not without burdening them with what he was.  He wished he could help Pauline and Sylvie, but he couldn't do that either.

Or could he?

Suddenly taken with an idea, he strode briskly to his car and drove the few blocks to the Sainte-Foy orphanage.  The bus was there at the side, now empty.

He parked beside it and went to the front desk.  An elderly nun turned from the stack of papers she was sorting.  "Bonjour, monsieur.  May I help you?"

"My name is Duncan MacLeod.  Do you have a volunteer program?"

The woman smiled.