Sean watched in silence as Methos methodically ate everything on his plate as though it were a grim chore. He had been like this for three days while they waited for the new part for the skimmer, building his strength and weight with a single-mindedness that was scary in its intensity. However, much he disagreed with Amanda's methods, something in her attacks had gotten through to Methos. He still kept to his rooms but he was likely to talk to his visitors. The words were harsh, the constant vicious undertones barely tolerable but he was...as Amanda had put it...fighting. Duncan had not returned, he inquired, almost painfully wanting news of any progress but he would not go see Methos and Methos never asked for him. There had not been this much distance between them when Methos was trapped and Duncan helpless an ocean and continent away.
But Methos' interest in regaining his health had paid off. Already he had transformed from skeletal to gaunt, his color going from gray to his more usual alabaster, but the haunted look in his eyes had not changed and that was by far the most troubling aspect of his altered appearance.
"I know English cooking isn't that great, Adam, but it might not seem so grim if you ate with the rest of the team. They're anxious to know you're okay, to talk to you."
Methos wiped his mouth with a napkin and sat back, looking at his brother with a familiar cynical smile. "Waiting to hear pearls of wisdom from the ancient one?" he asked.
"No. Waiting to hear words of reassurance from a friend," Sean replied.
Methos rose and went to the window, looking out over the carefully cultivated expanse of lawn. It was another gray, drizzly day. He shivered slightly with the pervasive chill in the old house and felt Sean slip a sweater over his shoulders. He shrugged it away in irritation, even though the gesture was both well meant and welcome.
"Don't baby me!" he hissed. "In a few weeks my weight will be back. In a month or so you can damn well bet most of my strength will be back as well. I don't need your pity or theirs."
Sean calmly picked up the sweater where Methos had allowed it to fall, draping it on the back of the chair where the oldest Immortal had been sitting. He settled into a large wingback chair in the corner of the small sitting room, watching his brother stand looking out the window, his body a written testament to tension.
"What do you need, Methos?" he asked, his voice coming out of the room's shadows, almost disembodied.
"I need to be left alone!"
"Really? After all those years of forced solitude? Why?"
Methos turned toward that voice. "You're using your analysis voice, Sean. Don't try that crap with me."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't need your psychoanalytic bullshit. Because I was studying the workings of the mind for thousands of years before you were a glint in you father's eye. Because you are too close to ever see the truth," Methos replied.
"And what is the truth that I can't see?"
"You don't want to hear my truth. Just leave it alone," Methos said softly, turning back to the window.
"What is your truth, Adam?" he persisted.
Methos turned to face him, hazel eyes hard and cold, his face distorted in such a mask of anger and hate that it was almost unrecognizable. "I know you're not stupid, Sean. I guess you're just naive and blind. You really have no idea what he is, do you? You believe all the crap about being a hero because you have to, after all he's your father."
"And what is he to you?" Sean asked gently.
"Nothing. Not anymore."
"Then why do you hate him so...if he means nothing to you?" Sean asked.
"Because I have nothing better to do with all this free time on my hands," Methos snapped back. "I suppose I could help work out the logistics of getting this many people back to the states in a ship not meant for this number...ah, but your father is already handling that. No, then perhaps I should check on the injured -- I was a doctor once. But then again, Mac managed to patch them up pretty well. I am sure they will be fine. Shall I discuss the Game with Marcus and see if we can find a way to end this madness? Damn, Mac took care of that, too, didn't he? So, as you can see, Sean. I am rather at loose ends. How about a game of chess?" he said, voice soft with the silken undertones that Sean recognized as Methos when he was most dangerous. "I don't think your father has any particular need for my..... assistance. He never has."
Sean was silent. Methos had turned away from him again, still tense but not with the rigid posture of defiance but bowed under a defeat Sean could only guess at.
"He would disagree with you," Sean said quietly. "He does need you. I do as well."
"Need? Well, yes, I suppose he does have need of me. I mean, every general needs his dog, doesn't he? Or his fool? Shall I whisper in his ear, 'you are not a god'? I can assure you, he doesn't listen. And you --- you haven't needed me in a very long time, Sean."
It was all Sean could do not to surge out of his chair to embrace the stooped figure in a hug fierce enough to shatter the fragile bones. These injuries, these wounds and scars ran deeper than Sean had realized. It was all the more devastating because at least part of what his brother thought and felt was true. Duncan didn't need Methos to complete those tasks that he could accomplish on his own. Wanting Methos' assistance, his support was another thing entirely. Duncan had managed to function and perform his tasks and duties in the past three years with the same efficiency he always had. But they had been done as a diversion for being unable to gain what he did need.
Except that need was so ethereal Sean was not sure he could put it into words any better than Duncan could.
"And what do you need?" he asked again.
"Bad analytical form to repeat yourself, Sean," Methos murmured.
"Do you really want to be left alone? Shall we drop you off somewhere where there is no one to talk to, no one to see or touch, or give a shit?" Sean pressed, getting to his feet. Methos tensed as he felt his brother draw near, flinching back when Sean's hand would have come to his shoulder. Sean let his hand fall. "You don't want to be alone, Methos. But you want to be able to face being alone again. You hate Da, but you want not to hate him don't you? Or would it be easier if he hated you? No regrets then."
"The only thing I regret is that I didn't take his head the day you were born," Methos snarled and watched Sean recoil from the venom in his words and tone.
The words, spoken so harshly, meant to shock, to hurt, hung in the air between them. Methos felt his anger, barely constrained for days, bubble up as he looked at his brother's face with so much of Mac in it, so much of himself. Instinct and anger swirled together in a lethal mix as he realized that here before him was his nemesis' greatest weakness. If he could make Sean realize what MacLeod really was, what he had done, he would strip the Highlander of the single most precious thing in his entire life, Sean's love. It would almost be better than taking his head, Methos thought, and a small smile curled his lip.
"What's the matter, Sean?" Methos asked, "Not willing to face my truths after all? How much loyalty or love should I have for him? Shall I forgive everything, accept anything because of a pretty face, a remarkable body, and a pretty damn good act as well. The noble clan chieftain, self-sacrificing hero." His voice softened into a malevolent whisper. "But I've been around for a long, long time, my boy. I've been the manipulator and the manipulated. Frankly, I thought I was the master of that particular trait, but I realized I have met my match in Duncan MacLeod. He does it without even realizing it, which makes it all the more insufferable." Methos stood, arms crossed, tendons standing out in stark relief in his neck and jaw, "Sometimes he even believes it himself."
"And what do you think he believes?"
"Oh, no, Sean," Methos laughed bitterly. "You know it's not what he believes that matters, it's the results of his actions that are the telltale marks of the true manipulator. He's got you fooled as well. He's got everybody fooled. Everybody loves Duncan. Everybody admires Duncan." Methos leaned against the desk, watching his brother closely. "But they haven't seen the real Duncan MacLeod. You haven't seen the real Duncan MacLeod, Sean."
Sean was quiet, waiting. Methos eyes practically glowed gold in the light. Tension was pouring off of him like Quickening energy. He had never seen his brother so quietly, insanely desperate.
Methos stepped back, breathing deep, once again working to keep under control the mental turmoil that had recently shown an alarming tendency to take over his tongue and sometimes his body.
"How much love can I show the man who murdered your namesake?" Methos asked in a conversational tone. "The gentle Sean Burns, whose spirit you carry, reached out his hand in friendship, weaponless, to his trusted friend Duncan. Mac took that hand. Held it. Pulled back his precious katana and took the man's head. The murdering bastard let that Quickening roll over him like honey, enjoying every erotic, power-mongering minute of it." Methos watched Sean out of the corner of his eye for a reaction but was disappointed when the figure was silent, unmoving. "Can I admire the warrior spirit that spent the first century and a half of his life murdering hundreds of Englishmen just for the crime of not being Scottish? Compared to him, they were defenseless, and he did it over and over and over again, killing them, disemboweling them in front of their wives and children."
"Why do you think he stopped the Game?" Methos asked rhetorically, pacing back and forth. "He did it for his own reasons, because he was scared. He had killed so many that the Quickenings were getting harder to take. The Gathering madness was starting to effect everyone, even his friends, and he didn't want to face it, was afraid to face it, so he stopped it. And look what happened, Sean! Look what happened!"
"Tell me what happened, Methos," Sean said. "Tell me what you think happened."
"I'm sorry, Sean, but didn't we just leave behind the ruins of a city that has existed nearly as long as I have? Did you miss the last hundred years or so trying to live up to Duncan MacLeod's expectations like the rest of us?" Methos said coolly, the hard glint of his eyes showing neither warmth or mercy. "He stopped the Game, Sean -- so he wouldn't have to play anymore. But there is a balance in all things...stop one war, a moderately private one with few casualties and your are like to trigger another."
"Methos," Sean said, finally forced to come to his father's defense. "That's not the whole story and you know it. You had a role in stopping the Game. We all have a role, even to this day. Why are you really so angry at him?"
Methos didn't answer the question, instead he moved into Sean, forcing the younger man to lean back against the casement of the window, putting his hands on either side of his brother to meet his gaze, Methos' eyes gleaming golden in the light. "No, Sean MacLeod. You don't know your father at all. You think he let you live past your prime because he wanted you to have a normal life, don't you? You think he didn't want you to take a Quickening for all those noble reasons about not killing and not becoming addicted to it, don't you? Well, think about it, Sean. What happens when the prince becomes more attractive, more powerful than the king?"
Methos pushed off, backing away. "Quite a package, our Duncan." He ticked his damnations off on his fingers. "A murderer of his own friends, a mass murderer, a coward, a traitor to his Race, a traitor to you and a traitor to me!" The last came out barely understandable.
"Why was he a traitor to you, Adam?"
"No, Sean. I'm not finished. I saved the best for last." Methos paused. So far, Sean had hardly reacted, but the boy was an extraordinarily disciplined, well-trained and gifted psychiatrist. It was difficult to tell whether any of what he had said had made an impact. But this one would hurt, he knew. Did he really want to do this? Was the prize worth it?
The words came out of his mouth before he could censor them. "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, noble hero, clan chieftain of the Immortals, raped and was responsible for the ultimate destruction of your mother, Sean. And I'm not talking about a little unwilling seduction here. I'm talking about drugging her into insensibility and taking her by force!" Methos growled.
There, that had finally gotten to him. Sean's chest rose and fell quickly as the adrenaline release sped his heart rate. Methos could see those big hands grip the chair arms till the fingers turned white. The room's silence was a living thing, finally broken by Sean's whisper.
"He told me. And the rest of it as well. But you haven't yet answered me. You have done things to people, killed, murdered, raped...betrayed others," Sean said, his voice implacably calm. "And been forgiven. What did he do that you can't forgive?"
Methos couldn't prevent the sudden intake of air into his lungs. That one question had burned in him since the first fall of light had touched his face after three years of unbearable darkness. The filtered awareness as he clung to Mac like a baby, hating the contact and needing it and knowing he would never, ever be able to forgive his one time friend for his betrayal. "He would not let me die," he said softly, flatly. "He . . . he would rather have let me . . . rot in a hole . . . for three years . . ." words wouldn't come out of his mouth. "A living . . . dying . . . hell . . . than let go of his control over me." Methos cursed himself as he felt tears wash down his face, and he turned back toward the window.
"He didn't . . . we didn't keep the link open to torment you," Sean offered, a confession of his own when Methos had not been expecting one.
We?
It was acceptable to him to twist Sean's loyalties away from MacLeod but there was no rage deep enough for Methos to include this bright eyed, bright spirited baby immortal in his hatred. Sean would be always the infant to him, in ways no other immortal or mortal child ever could be. He recognized his brother's manhood, his maturity, his right to the responsibility of his age and legacy - but he would yet be the scant handful of wriggling flesh and blood that had peed and spit on Adam's clothing for a year. The child that had laughed at the press of his brother's large nose against his throat in the sweet innocence of baby play. That Sean had been knowledgeable party to his torture for the last three years was more than he could deal with.
Methos wiped away the wetness from his face and knelt in front of his brother, reaching up to touch the hard cheek, seeing only the youngster whose small hand he had held on his way to his first day at school. "What has he done to you, Sean? This was his doing, and somehow he has made you a part of it. That's the most unforgivable act of all."
Sean took those long, thin fingers in his own, leaning forward until their faces were inches apart. "I think the person you can't find it in your heart to forgive is yourself, brother. After five millennia of guilt and regret, the man you desperately wanted, needed to accept you with all your faults and failures turns out to have faults and failures of his own. Blind spots and prejudices. It's not me you think bought into the myth of Duncan MacLeod, Adam. It's you. And now, because he's not perfect, because he didn't realize that it was his connection to you that was keeping you so near consciousness, you interpret that as betrayal, that he didn't love you. Or at least didn't love you enough."
Methos pulled his hand away, stood and backed up until he ran into an obstacle that stopped him. Then the hard mask that Methos frequently wore slipped easily into place.
"Well, aren't you the clever boy? Think you and Freud and Jung have this all figured out, do you? Well, I've known your Da for almost two hundred years. I'm intimately acquainted with his numerous character flaws. For a long time, I put up with them for your sake, and in the vague hope that, given enough time, even someone as stubborn, selfish and pigheaded as Mac MacLeod would change. But he's not worth the effort anymore. And it goes beyond that, Sean. He's not worth your effort, either. He carries too much power. He's lost sight of the fact that he was supposed to just be a conduit for the Community, not its Messiah."
Sean's skin washed with a cold chill at the implied threat in his brother's words.
"He truly didn't know, Adam," Sean repeated. "He was desperate to find you. We were all desperate to find you and the link seemed our only hope."
"Bullshit!" Methos finally hissed. "You haven't heard anything I've said. He just couldn't stand the idea of giving up control. Control over me! Well, he will never have control over me again, Sean. I'll do whatever it takes to see to that, including taking his fucking head!" Methos swirled and slammed out of the room.
Sean stared after him, barely registering the fact that Methos had left the room...left it for the first time since their arrival except to bathe. His brain twisted around what Methos had said, but more importantly why...why now, why try to turn Sean against his father, turn everyone against Duncan because that was what Methos had been trying to do.
Validate his hatred. Find a reason for it, support for it. But there was none and Sean was fairly certain Methos would not find any -- not even from Marcus for all that the general had offered to let him stay. That decision was still pending.
What if Methos could find no support? He could rail at Duncan all he wanted and Sean's father would take it...preferring Methos' hatred to his loss, but that kind of hatred could not be supported forever. Sean closed his eyes. He could not predict the future, but he could see the road signs. Right now Methos was dangerous because he was mentally unstable and unpredictable. It might be best if he did challenge Duncan, vent his anger physically except Sean was not sure how much of a defense his father would put up. Methos would find no support on his present course and Duncan was shunning all and any offers of support even from Sean.
And the one person either of them could turn to over the centuries, the person who had always stood at the other's back to watch and protect, that person was no longer available. It had never struck Sean so forcibly before how dependent his father and brother were on one another...the one certain thing in either of their lives had always been the other one. Those bonds of friendship and love twisted so tightly they could never be untangled. But they could be severed and were on the verge of being so if it had not already occurred.
There was nothing Sean could do. He didn't know how to reach Methos...to ease his brother's pain or his father's. He could not fix with this with the training he had spent years gaining. He was too close to this one. Every wound revealed left him bleeding as well.
He turned blindly toward the window, not bothering to check the tears on his own face and unable to halt or even slow the storm of emotion that took him as he realized he could very well come to share the one commonality all Immortals but he faced. Sean had never been an orphan, not a foundling...he had never stood alone in he face of his own Immortality as his father had or his brother.
Until now.
Methos was halfway down the hall before he realized he had no idea where he was going. He stopped, staring at the unfamiliar walls, the closed doors, the darkened hallway. His mind shut down in a wash of fear and anger so strong he could make no sound against it. For long agonizing moments he was back in his hole, barely aware, hearing voices, sounds, feeling things and he had no control over any of it. His mouth opened to scream and nothing emerged.
Vertigo washed over him and he reached out to touch the wall, to steady himself. Trying to recall what he was doing here, where he was, aware he had been lost and terrified it would come again. What had he been doing? Running away...running from Sean.
Sean. What had he said? His words came back at him...biting, spiteful words that he had used to batter his brother, to make him feel...to hate...
He grabbed for the hatred, dragging it back to him, his shield and armor, his weapon, his salvation. Pulled it in and fed it with every minor transgression he could summon, pulling Duncan's face up in his mind to give himself a target, an object, an excuse.
His world stabilized, became sharper, solid again with that dark emotion to sustain him. He needed nothing but it...it could feed him as nothing else could...a familiar friend over the millennia when all else had been lost to him. So he had survived in the years after Marcus had freed him from Abbas' machinations. So he had been when he first met Kronos - so wrapped up in this impenetrable hatred that he felt nothing and cared for less.
It served him well. Strong enough to overcome any false ties of kinship or friendship. No conscience or guilt attended him under its warm cloak. But it was a beast with an appetite, it had to be fed and there was Duncan - the perfect feast. There is no hate so deep as was once love, he knew that. He could add Amanda to the mix, or Kir...any of them.. all of them...Connor...Sean...
The beast choked on the last and on the heels of that on the first...there was no separating the two. No longer...not anymore...
We didn't keep the link open to torment you...
Sean had known...had felt, as had Duncan. To a lesser degree, his brother had been aware...Mac and Sean's senses not so acute as his own had been...his heightened by the lack of any other sensory input. That will, the strength that he had willingly surrendered to Mac so many years before honed from millennia of use...millennia that no matter how Methos tried to twist his once-friend's character, Mac did not have. He had the power...he had the strength but not the practice, not the experience. Too clearly Methos remembered when they had first opened this damnable link...when Mac had all but disappeared beneath the torrent of personalities, of the others in the community.
Until Methos had at last owned up to his own responsibility in what had become a travesty of Darius' plan. He had given...given... Mac the strength...offered his own experience to help temper the onslaught...opened himself completely to his friend, fearful of his rejection, certain of his repugnance of what he had been and instead been found...worthy.
The hatred slipped away so quickly he fell under its loss, that strength what had been sustaining him, and with it went his armor...once more the walls seemed too close, the space too dark. He knew there was air around him but it was stale and hurt to breathe. There was carpet below his knees but all he could feel was rough, damp ancient stone. There was not enough light or too much and he felt blinded.
Something touched him and he wanted to scream again or wrench away, the feel of vermin and he too weak to brush them away as tiny teeth bit through flesh, gnawing at his fingers until the bones were exposed...only to have it heal so they could come again.
And suddenly it was no longer closed or dark but bright and wide open, the sun above him and the open air...the expanse of sky and the spread of green before him.
"Take a deep breath, Methos," Connor's voice, recognized, familiar, commanded calmly in his ear. "You're out...you are not trapped."
Methos dragged air into his lungs, clutching at the Scot who had carried him from the darkness of the hallway outside...recognizing, as Methos had not, the panic attack that had so thoroughly robbed him of his senses. Connor who, Methos recalled, had the same pervading claustrophobia that had suddenly decided to claim Methos as a likely victim.
"What happened?" The voice was soft, tight with stress, and Methos looked up into Duncan's dark eyes and saw the concern, the worry in the tight face and the wariness. The fear. Oh gods, did I put that there? He had seen the same thing in Sean's face. His own fear was so close to the surface it was easy to recognize it in others.
"Just a bit of a panic attack," Connor said and got to his feet, leaving Methos sitting on the ground and Mac crouched beside him.
"Are you okay?" Mac asked, his voice hesitant and his body tense as if ready to spring away.
Methos closed his eyes remembering his accusations of a few nights ago, his words...his...cruelty. "No," he whispered and dropped his head against his knees, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the threatening tears of anguish. He was struck by a second wash of grief and despair when Mac did not reach out to touch him as he might have once done. Any hope of reconciliation would have to come from him but he no longer felt as if it were his right to ask anything of Mac, not his friendship, not even the most basic expression of human compassion. He may well have destroyed it with his hatred and anger.
That grief overwhelmed the rest, and the tears came, Methos helpless to stop them. He was so lost to them he almost didn't notice when the strong arms did reach out, one dark skinned hand laying tentatively on his forearm, ready to be snatched back again.
A few inches, or a whole lifetime, Methos thought seeing those fingers against his own pale skin. It took every inch of control he had to advance his own finger the short distance, just barely enough to touch Mac's hand. "I'm sorry," he whispered not sure Mac heard him and not able to summon the strength to repeat the words. They were so pitifully inadequate for what he had done. What he had said and worse, what he had felt.
"You've had a rough time," Mac said close to his ear. "It's cold out here. Will you...let me help you inside?"
So tentative and hesitant, the tones were even, betraying no emotion whatsoever, Mac maintaining the distance Methos had created. He could only nod and felt Connor take his other arm. They got him to his feet and led him inside docile as a child.
The interior of the house closed around him like a tomb and he felt the panic rise. Mac was talking to him but he could not concentrate on the words just on the voice, the sense of presence. That much he could cling to with no fear that Mac would notice, any more than he had been capable of noticing for the past three years. That lifeline was still there, far below Mac's conscious acknowledgment and Methos walked through the darkness of his own soul clinging to that line, knowing he had no right to it. He clung to it tenaciously anyway, his fear rising up to tell him that it was all he had left...having done such a marvelously complete job of forever destroying whatever love Duncan MacLeod might once have felt for him.
Mac saddled Caesar before dawn, as he had every day since their arrival. The great beast had so instinctively, immediately accepted his presence, welcomed his touch, responded to his needs, that it slightly numbed an ache that sat deep in his soul. He mounted and rode out, welcoming the feel of strong muscle underneath his thighs, the warmth of the touch of life and sheer strength. He had kept to Constantine's grounds so far, as admonished by Kir and everyone else, but this morning he had to go further, to move, to get away. As far away as he could from those whose very presence seemed to generate conflict and pain.
Methos had said, "I'm sorry." Those words had been, perhaps, more painful than any that had preceded. Those sad two words had demonstrated, more than all the anger, all the accusations, the depth of Methos' pain. The gasping, white faced panic he had witnessed was close to insanity, and the choked apology was heartbreaking. I have, in ignorance and blind ego, destroyed him, Mac kept thinking over and over. Five thousand years he has endured, and this . . . agony has at last broken his spirit.
He rode, pressing the stallion into a gallop until they were both gasping and sweaty, moving across the English countryside he had traversed a thousand times. It had changed slightly each time of course. Changed, but still essentially the same. Methos had changed, but some part of his soul had remained intact. Until now, his thoughts kept repeating with the pounding of the stallion's hooves. Until now.
They took a low stone wall, hitting hard on the other side and he felt Caesar almost stumble and fall beneath him and realized he had pressed too hard. The horse's instinctive trust in his rider had almost outstripped the animal's strength and endurance, and Mac pulled him up to a halt while they both gasped in exertion. Mac's breaths finally
evolved into quiet sobs and he slipped off Caesar's back and walked alongside, letting the animal cool down. Letting his own heart and mind calm.
If Methos could forgive him, then it would serve no purpose not to forgive himself, he decided at last. Instead of spending all his energies berating himself for failure he should be finding a way to give Methos back some of his identity, his dignity, his sense of self. If that meant separation, letting Methos have control over his life again by relinquishing the bonds that bound them together then it was a price that could be paid, perhaps needed to be paid for everyone's sake. The Oldest Immortal had come to Mac's rescue when the burden of carrying the Community alone had become too great. Mac could do no less for him.
Having a sense of purpose again, a plan that would be better for everyone, eased the open wound in his heart and he remounted at last, turning Caesar back towards home.
Dusk was falling when he dismounted and led Caesar into the barn. He took off the saddle and began wiping him down when he felt Constantine approach.
"I should be jealous," the cultivated voice said behind him. "He never responded to me so well, even after years of riding."
"He's a fine animal, Marcus," Mac replied, moving a soft rag over the damp withers. "Perhaps it's my more humble beginnings that put him at ease."
"Perhaps," Constantine replied. Somehow the man always managed to sound simultaneously smug and sincere.
"You didn't come all the way out here to talk about horses, Marcus," Duncan finally said.
"No," he sighed. "I came to talk about you and Methos. And about the Community."
"And?"
"What happened to him . . . there are things it brought back, old memories, old hurts . . . I know what he has accused you of, Duncan. But it was done out of fear and pain. It is important, very important, that you not let it affect the Community. You and Methos are what bind us together. Don't let his madness tear us apart." For a change his voice was pleading, almost desperate.
Mac finished wiping down Caesar and fed him a few sugar cubes from his hand while he sought a reply. "I have many obligations, Marcus. The Community is first among them, but it is not the only one. Adelle believes that as long as there is a single connection, the Community will survive. I think she's probably right. He's the oldest among us, Marcus. I owe him more than I can say, and I won't cause him any more pain." He turned to face the old general.
"You see, I've touched the weight of those 5,000 years. I know the immensity of that burden. And while I didn't manage to save him from the horror those three years caused him, I sure as hell won't be responsible for bringing him any more pain. It's time for me to pass the connection on to someone else, Marcus. Someone who is better able to carry the responsibility without hurting others, without hurting him."
"Duncan, I know it's been a terrible burden, but there's no one who has the talent, the power, no one the Community would trust . . ."
"They don't have a choice!" Mac snapped. "I am NOT their mindless drone anymore, Constantine. There's no magic that I do that others can't. No miracle. You think I like feeling irreplaceable? YOU live with this terrible fear that someday you make the wrong choice, and that choice will result in the annihilation of your entire race!"
"Duncan, please! If you are no longer the primary link, the Eastern Dawn will think we've weakened and will come after us with everything they've got! You and Methos are the most powerful among us. You've GOT to find a way to make peace with each other, to live with this."
"Don't tell me what I've got to do, Marcus Constantine." MacLeod advanced on the man who had commanded the armies of Rome. "And you haven't earned the right to remind me of my responsibilities," Mac whispered. "Until you are willing to take some of them on." MacLeod turned and left the old general, who carefully wiped away the sweat that had suddenly formed on his upper lip.
"You push too hard, mon cher." Marcus turned to find Amanda slipping around the edge of the open door. "And one of these days you and your precious community are going to push hard enough and he will draw his sword and take your head -- just to make a point. If I don't do it first," she added with a sweet smile.
"You disagree then?" he said. "Have you not felt more secure knowing that there are fewer Immortals ready to take your lovely head?"
"It's nice to know the potential good guys from the bad guys, yes. But I also know that expecting one of us to fight for all of us is a bit unfair."
"How very odd coming from you, Amanda," Constantine said and began walking past her. "As I recall MacLeod often fought your battles for you even before the community was formed."
"It was his choice then, and I wasn't likely to demure," she said, dark eyes glittering. "But he can't fight all the time for all of us...or hadn't you noticed that there are thing a little closer to his heart than the community?"
"I've noticed," Marcus said evenly. "I am not immune to the needs of the individual. But I do believe that the current Eastern Dawn dictate includes taking as many Immortals as they can, any way they can. If the link falters, how will anyone know? Because of the Community, because of that knowledge there have been less that thirty successful challenges in the last 200 years. That is quite a drop in the attrition rate, wouldn't you say?"
"But it's the link, Marcus! Not Duncan. Yes, he knows...feels it, knows when one of his is lost, just as we know another member of the community when we meet one, whether we have met before or not. But trying to force Mac into taking on more than he already has won't work. I am not sure he can take on anymore...not without Methos' support and I am not talking about patching their relationship. This isn't as easy as an apology, 'let's make up, everyone is happy now.' And you know Duncan better than to think he will drop his responsibilities...to the community or to Methos. Unless you are suggesting Methos pick it up for him?" The last was said with a disparaging sneer.
Marcus glared at her and she met him stare for stare. "What would you suggest, then, Amanda? Care to step into the breach?" he challenged her and then went still as he saw the answer in her eyes. "You cannot be serious! What are you thinking...it's Duncan that people trust."
"True enough...but perhaps he needs to trust us a bit," she said thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is time for this community to live up to its name. Time to give back a little?"
"Become moderators of the links between us?" Marcus started and frowned. "But there needs to be a central..."
"There is no reason Mac cannot continue to monitor the links but I think it time he not be their only monitor. Think about it, Marcus. Did you or did you not feel Sean MacLeod take a head?"
He had. It had been a brief flash of insight, minimal...barely acknowledged as had the other...heads...taken or lost over the last two centuries. And acknowledgment of a passing. He had not know who, only that the event had occurred...MacLeod had honed his senses to be able to identify the Community members, to be able to pinpoint their general location through the backlash of the Quickenings he took. "Then if Duncan can identify the who and the where.." he started again.
"It cannot be that far a step for any of us to be able to get that information," Amanda said softly. "Let us pick up this burden for awhile..."
"To get the others to agree," Marcus said and Amanda stepped in close to lay her hands on his chest.
"I'll help...it's time...in the same way Methos and the Watchers once called us in to join this community...to end the killing, we can send out the same summons to give Duncan time to...to begin healing...to let Methos heal," she said.
"You're not going with them?" Marcus asked and covered her hands with his own.
"I thought to...I wanted to help..." she drew a deep breath and Marcus suddenly got a rare glimpse of the complex woman beneath the charming and opportunistic thief it had been his delight to know over the years. "Confession time..." she said with a tight smile. "I owe them...Duncan and Methos. Not the way the community does -- this is personal. Two hundred years ago Duncan made a decision. It was a very small one. It didn't make much of an impact on him and he didn't even think about it. He told me that Methos, the oldest living Immortal was alive. And then he introduced me to him. Methos, I think was a little caught off guard but he...he trusted Mac's judgment...that I wouldn't betray his secret. No one since Rebecca had every trusted me like that. They didn't even have to think about it...it just...was," she said softly.
Marcus patted her hand and nodded. "I think I understand...perhaps more than you realize."
"Good," She said and her smile was back. "I don't have their connection and I don't have...Kirin's gift," she admitted with a wry and sour smile, " for healing. Methos needs Mac and Mac needs...Kirin. He needs people around him that can offer him the kind of support I can't offer. But I can help you with this -- if you can put me up for a bit?" she added with a sly grin. "I might even like being Lady of the Manor for a bit."
Marcus chuckled. "And a fine one you would have made, my dear. So, do we tell MacLeod or..?"
"Or," she said definitively. "We tell Kirin. Or you do. My generosity can only be stretched so far."
Marcus nodded and kissed her fingers very much understanding more than she was saying. "So it shall be, my lady."
Amanda smiled and kissed his cheek then slipped her hand through his arm as they walked back to the house.
The shuttle part arrived the morning of the fourth day, and once again it was an exercise in patience as Claire and Duncan worked to remove the jury-rigged part and put in the new one. It took the better part of the day, during which Kir and Revas worked through the fuel and weight capacity problems that were caused by the greater-than-maximum passenger capacity. Finally it was decided to leave some of their weaponry behind, hoping to replace it when Constantine delivered the load from Paris. Even then, they had to remove some seats, leaving three of the team sitting precariously on the floor. It was going to be a long, bumpy flight back.
The change in Methos was profound and nearly as disturbing as the other. The vitriol was gone, the sharp comments lost with the anger. He demurred nothing and Sean found himself in constant attendance on his brother, wondering when the eye of this storm would pass. For that was what Methos' current passivity reminded him of more than anything. He ate and would answer questions but the rest of the time he remained silent -- not stubbornly, but as if his will, that fierce and sometimes bitter strength had been surrendered at last. The panic attack had not surprised Sean in the least and he found himself watching his brother even more closely. His father could now approach the elder Immortal without fear of being attacked either verbally or physically but Sean watched his brother's expression change, the anger that had shone in his eyes for the last week giving way to something less spectacular but even more frightening as Methos seemed to close in on himself. His father still moved and spoke cautiously around his friend -- it was as if both of them had found some invisible insulation to wrap themselves in that allowed them to be physically close and have no fear of the emotional overflow.
They had the Trans loaded. Mac and Sean and Connor opting for the floor rather than let the mortals be battered on the ride, surrendering their allotment of seats to Kir and Methos. Even so it was a rough ride, worse as they hit the updrafts over the Appalachians as they approached Atlanta. Nevertheless hearts and minds grew lighter the closer they got and the silence that had been so pressing on departure shattered under a few whispers and then giggles and then out right relief with all its attendant nonsense and giddiness as they approached home.