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.

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 every time 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. 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...

Veronica Jane Williams

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