FIC: "Twilight and Mist" (1/1)
AUTHOR: Mistress Marilyn camelotslash-2 at qwest.net
DATE: Started in 1994 / Finished December 30, 2004
FANDOM: 'Legends of the Fall'
PAIRING: Alfred Ludlow / Tristan Ludlow (Aidan Quinn and Brad Pitt)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em. They belong to Jim Harrison, Columbia/TriStar Pictures, to the respective actors of the movie, and to the ages. This is a work of a fan, done for no remuneration save the satisfaction of the work.
WARNINGS: Angst.
SUMMARY: Alfred comforts his brother Tristan at the graveside of their brother, Samuel.
DEDICATION: To Charlie, who always loved this ficlet and wanted to see it at our website.
AUTHOR NOTES: This story was started more than ten years ago, and I finally decided it was time to finish it. This is alternate reality -- what would have happened in this soap opera if Alfred had gone to Tristan that day instead of Susannah? "Twilight and Mist" is the song Samuel sings before the brothers leave for the war.

"As evening fell a maiden stood
At the edge of a wood;
In her hands lay the reigns of a stallion.

And ne'er I'd seen a girl as fair.
Heard a gentler voice anywhere.

Whispered, 'Alas!'
She belonged,
Belonged to another, another, forever.
Yes she belonged to the twilight and mist."

Alfred stood by the porch rail, gazing out at the fine afternoon. Susannah was nowhere to be found; he had looked around the house for her, but his search went unrewarded. The fact that both Tristan and Susannah were out somewhere was significant; it wasn't difficult to put two and two together. In fact, Alfred was more than adequate at arithmetic. His large blue eyes went hard and gray at the thought of it. Back home less than 24 hours, Tristan was already off with Susannah.

Three Ludlow brothers had left their family home in Montana together to take up arms in Europe. As America was not part of the conflict, they had journeyed to Canada and ended up serving with the British. Samuel, the youngest, had been killed in the war, and after witnessing Samuel's death, madness had overtaken Tristan, his avowed protector. The last time Alfred had seen his brother before his return to the Ludlow ranch was when he had been taken off in a straight jacket to an asylum.

Alfred stuffed his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks and walked off the porch. Without thinking, he headed toward the hill where Samuel was buried. Actually, Samuel's heart was buried on that hill, the heart Tristan had cut from Samuel's still warm body after the Germans had shot him to pieces. It had taken a lot of will power to get that heart away from Tristan, to convince him to entrust this part of their brother to him. But Tristan had been in no shape to protect what was left of Samuel or bring him home. And five months after Samuel's heart was buried on the crest above the river, Tristan had finally returned. This Tristan was quiet, subdued, hardly the wild animal Alfred had tried to reason with back in France. In fact, this Tristan seemed more like a boy than a beast.

But not to Susannah. Alfred had seen the look in her hazel eyes when she saw Tristan ride up. She wanted him. She wanted Tristan. Not Alfred, although he had already spoken of his feelings to her and asked her if she might ever love him. Susannah had been Samuel's bride-to-be, but from her arrival in Montana, it was clear she was attracted to Tristan. As clear as it had been when Tristan suddenly rode up the day before and Susannah stood at the screen door watching. Tristan would see that look, too -- had seen it. And now he was probably acting on it. Young, beautiful and now broken, Tristan would be irresistible to Susannah.

Alfred's breath came fast as he walked up the hill, favoring the leg wounded in the war and wishing he had his cane. He could see someone huddled near Samuel's grave, and for a moment he caught his breath. They couldn't . . . they wouldn't! This would be a sacrilege even Tristan wouldn't dare commit. Alfred hurried his steps. Outrage burned in him and showed in his face.

When his brother turned to look up at him, he must have recognized Alfred's anger. The accusal in Alfred's eyes seemed to bend Tristan even further toward the grave. Alfred saw his brother was alone, and weeping. Tristan rubbed one hand over his face and gestured toward Alfred with the other, as if to warn him back. Alfred paused and dropped to his knees, watching silently. Tristan was sobbing.

"Tristan," Alfred began, feeling inadequate. His outrage had melted, leaving a hollow filled with guilt and loss. One brother was dead, the other perhaps beyond repair. And what of him, what of Alfred? What wounds would he carry with him forever, more significant than the injury to his leg? Would his spirit forever limp along?

He moved toward Tristan and reached out to him. Tristan looked up; his blue eyes squinted with pain, his brown hand clutching his taut mouth. "I couldn't save him," he said between his fingers. "I couldn't save him."

Alfred reached out and twisted his right hand in Tristan's long, golden hair. With his left hand he reached around the broad shoulder, pulling Tristan awkwardly toward him. It felt unnatural somehow; Alfred was like his mother, less physical than the other brothers and his father, the Colonel. But Tristan was his blood, even as strange and alien as he sometimes seemed. Tristan was his brother. The only brother he had left.

"It's all right, Tristan. You did the best you could," he murmured against the top of Tristan's head. How many times over the last six months had he blamed Tristan himself, cursed him for not staying with Samuel, for letting the younger brother go off by himself? Samuel had been foolish -- young and foolish. The elder brothers had been there to protect him. Tristan, especially, had gone to France for only one reason -- to take care of Samuel. And Tristan had rarely failed at anything. This ultimate failure seemed unforgivable to Alfred. And yet, if he couldn't forgive Tristan, how could Tristan ever forgive himself?

Suddenly Tristan's arms went around him. He was pulled off balance and his bad leg was pushed against the ground. He groaned with pain, but his arms clutched at Tristan firmly. For a moment he feared one of Tristan's fits of violence, but he resisted any urge to pull away. He had charged against an entrenched enemy on a battlefield on the other side of the world; he wouldn't flinch at the violent emotions of his younger brother. He had faced Tristan at the worst point of his madness; he could face him now.

"I should have died before I left Samuel there," Tristan choked out. "I promised Father."

"You did everything you could, Tristan. You couldn't stop it. It was meant to happen for some reason. I don't understand it -- you don't understand it. But you're not God. You can't know why it happened."

Alfred talked on and on, holding his brother as he did so, however stiffly. Why had they followed Samuel to Canada and then to Europe? Why hadn't they listened to their father and stayed home? Only a year earlier they had made their plans, and Alfred had shared Samuel's excitement to join the battle, to serve an important cause. The prospect had been heady, even intoxicating. Alfred had been anxious to go. Tristan, of the three, had gone out of a different sense of duty, one to his family. He hadn't cared about the cause. His only cause was protecting Samuel.

Now, holding the brother so wounded in spirit at the grave that held the heart of the one who had died, Alfred was oblivious to the throbbing of his own injury. The only pain that needed tending was that of loss, and he and Tristan shared it. If there were responsibility to be borne, they would bear it together. And if there could be healing, he might be the one to bring it about.

When he looked up and saw Susannah approaching, a wave of anger swept over Alfred. She had fired Samuel up with her righteous talk of war and the rights of man; now she waited for Tristan to come for her and take her. She had wanted Tristan from the beginning; Alfred had seen it, although he had tried not to. If Samuel had lived, what kind of wife would he have found waiting after the war? And what if she turned that look on Alfred? He would have given anything just a short time ago for Susannah to agree to marry him. Now she looked like a stranger to him, a stranger come to destroy the Ludlow family. Could he stop the destruction?

He shook his head at her, his eyes flashing. Tristan had been calm and quiet for some time, listening to Alfred talk. He didn't seem to sense Susannah's approach. "Go away," Alfred mouthed, undaunted by the look of shock on Susannah's features. "Go home."

She looked uncertain for a moment, then backed away, nearly stumbling. Alfred hoped she understood his words; he hadn't meant she should return to the Ludlow house. He wanted her to go back to Boston. He never wanted to see her lovely face again.

"We're going to live through this, Tristan. For Samuel."

Tristan made a small noise, his face now buried in Alfred's lap.

"But we have to let her go, Tristan. Both of us. She belongs to another. And he's not here anymore." Alfred, forcing himself to let go of his natural reserve, stroked his brother's long, unkempt hair.

"We have each other," Alfred said. "And that's enough."

The End