Origins
by MacGeorge

Chapter Two

Joe Dawson was well into the morning clean up and set up routine to get the bar open when the door at the end of the room opened, and the gray light of another overcast day briefly exposed the interior of the dimly lit establishment.  “Well, Brian,” Joe observed as he continued to attempt to wipe away some stubborn remains of the previous evening’s sticky spills from the bar.  “You weren’t due to check in for another week or so. What’s wrong?  Got a hot date and need a substitute for Saturday night?” Joe jested.  Brian was famously inept with members of the opposite sex.

The bookish young man had been recruited into the Watchers straight out of college after graduating with honors with a degree in ancient history, an achievement which left him feeling proud and accomplished, but also broke, in debt up to his ears and with zero job prospects.  He had ended up working in a gamers’ shop, selling figurines and fantasy books while he set up elaborate store displays of ancient war battles and sending out resumes by the gross.  In other words, he was an ideal candidate to be sucked into the secret world of real, present-day warriors who had lived for centuries, and who engaged in life-and-death battles over a mythic prize.

These days when he wasn’t closeted away doing esoteric research, Brian worked part-time in a local bookstore that currently served as the front for Watcher headquarters.  He specialized in obscure topics of war histories and had jumped at the chance to take a shift keeping an eye on the legendary Duncan MacLeod. 

Brian had even achieved some small notoriety on a paper he had written that had been widely read in Watcher circles.  He had postulated that Immortals could be broken down into three general profiles.  The first were the Hunters, usually relatively young Immortals who were reckless, cocky, eager to take a lot of heads. Obsessed with gaining power quickly, they sought out and challenged every other Immortal they could find, rarely living beyond 100 years.  The second Immortal type Brian labeled the Hiders.  They had recognized the fearsome consequences of the Game, had no stomach for it, and spent their time, resources and energy making themselves as inconspicuous as possible.  The third Immortal type was the most fearsome and most difficult to categorize since their profile was so varied.  Brian called them the Hedonists, and these Immortals had generally survived well beyond 200 years, had started out as Hunters and continued to enjoy the killing, had removed themselves emotionally from the mortal world, concentrating their energies on whatever entertained or titillated their physical or intellectual senses -- land, power, art, money, thrills.  These narcissistic Immortals tended to be either unaware or uncaring of the consequences of their actions, and viewed mortals as lesser beings of no consequence.  The object of their pursuit was varied but always utterly selfish and frequently dangerous, if not fatal, to mortals and Immortals alike who crossed their path.

Brian leaned on the bar, accepting Joe’s offer of a cup of coffee with a look of gratitude, then frowned deeply into his cup, started to say something, then stopped.  Joe watched the young man closely as he placed the pot back on the warmer.  “Something you want to tell me?” Joe asked.

“I don’t even know if it really happened,” Brian said after a quick look up, then back into the depths of his coffee cup, “but I couldn’t sleep last night after my shift.  I kept seeing those eyes.  You know, I never had him look directly at me before.  Gave me a hell of a chill. But, really, I’m not sure if anything happened at all. I’m half convinced it was all my imagination anyway.  You’ll probably think I’m just stupid and too new at this to be any good at it.”  Brian finally took a gulping breath after his rambling speech, as he warmed his hands around the steaming coffee mug.

“Calm down, Brian.  Take a deep breath and tell me exactly happened.”

The youngster sighed, collected his thoughts for a moment and started again.  “MacLeod worked out for hours.  It’s gotten longer and longer recently.  Boy, is he obsessive or what?”

Joe smiled at the boy's frustration.  He had been dealing with MacLeod's obsessions and quirks for almost twenty years.  “What happened to put such a scare in you?” he prodded.

Brian hesitated.  “You’re gonna think I’m nuts or hallucinating.”

“What I’m gonna do is strangle you if you don’t just tell me,” Joe warned in exasperation.

“You know he sometimes meditates after his workout, but this time was completely weird.”  He paused again, gathering his thoughts, and Joe forced himself to let the young man take his own time.  “He sat there.  All still, like, for a long time, maybe twenty minutes.  I was afraid I was going to doze off when – I swear I’m not making this up  - this weird white mist gathered around him.  Then, it moved away in little threads, like, and thinned out so’s you couldn’t really see it anymore.”  Brian had blurted the story out in one breath, and now paused, gulped for air and sipped his coffee.

“Well, that’s . . . interesting,” Joe slowly drawled, using the word to gather his thoughts and find something relevant to say.  The kid may, indeed, have been hallucinating after sitting too long in the dark and letting his fertile imagination run away with him in the wee hours of the morning.

Joe reached over the bar and grasped Brian’s thin shoulder to steady him.  “Relax, son.  You know that those binoculars can screw up your perception of distance.”  Joe could well imagine that looking into those ageless, intense eyes in the wee hours of the morning would be enough to rattle the stoutest heart. “Look,” Joe stated decisively, “You were tired, maybe half asleep, then Mac looks up at the wrong time in your general direction,” Joe smiled and shrugged, attempting to insert a sense of normalcy into the moment.

Brian’s tense body language seemed to ease a little.  “You’re probably right.  It just seemed so . . . I dunno,” he shrugged.  “Well, anyway, I feel a little silly, now, getting so excited about it.  In the light of day it all sounds a little far fetched.”  Brian finished his coffee.  “I think I’ll go have a bagel before I head to work, although I won’t be worth much today.  I probably didn’t get an hour’s worth of sleep last night.”

“Take tonight off.”   Joe swung around the end of the bar, using a cane to balance his ungainly walk on artificial legs.  As he escorted his young colleague to the door, he put his arm on his shoulder. “And maybe you ought not to officially log this incident. You don’t want your first chronicles to sound too far fetched.”

“Yeah, right.  Good idea.  Thanks, Joe.  I knew you’d know what to do.”  At the door, Brian pulled his collar up against the dreary autumn chill, walking quickly towards his car.

Joe closed the door and stood silently for a moment, contemplating the strange tale.  It was not as far fetched as it sounded, actually.  Certainly Joe had seen things that would have sent any sane person screaming into the night.

Joe worked through a day filled with all the usual small problems and frustrations, but was hoping to see Mac that evening to sound him out about what Brian thought he had seen, which was probably nothing.  He'd even called him that afternoon and left a message on his answering machine, inviting him to come over to the bar, but didn't get any return call.  That probably bothered him more than it should.  He worried over that man far too much.  But since he'd taken Brian off watcher duty, there was no one keeping an eye on the man today, and . . . stop it, Joe chastised himself with a shake of his head.  MacLeod had been taking care of himself for over 400 years, for God's sake.

“You look like a guy who could use a drink,” Joe smiled sympathetically, reaching automatically for a bottle of beer. 

Methos leaned his sharp chin on his hand with a sigh.  “End of the term, and I’m still grading papers.  I don’t know why I do it, I really don’t.”

“Do what?”

“Attempt to teach the unteachable.”

Joe couldn’t help the smile that twisted his mouth as he set the beer down.  “Ah, your students.  Figured it was safer to get away from Oxford before you sent in the grades, eh?”

Methos glowered at him before taking several long gulps of his beer, then exhaled with a satisfied sigh.  “Today’s students have the attention span of a gnat on amphetamines and their language skills have degenerated into ridiculous email acronyms.  I predict that in ten years entire novels will be written using terms like IMO and BRB, and a generation after that not a soul will be able to figure out what they were trying to say.”

“Burb?” Joe inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“B R B,” Methos corrected him. “The zero generation’s way of saying, “Be right back.”“

“Doesn’t sound that different from SNAFU or GI or lots of other things that have become part of the language,” Joe observed.  “You, of all people, should know that language is dynamic, changing all the time.”

“But this isn’t even really language,” Methos complained.  “It doesn’t communicate any subtlety or nuance or color or real meaning.”

“Sure it does, to the initiated,” Joe countered, then leaned on the bar, studying the oldest man in the world.  “You just need to become one of the initiated, Professor Pierson.”

Methos frowned up at him, but then a corner of his mouth quirked up.  “I do sound like an old fuddy-duddy, don’t I?”

“A little,” Joe agreed, and pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “It must be really tough to constantly replace yesterday’s language and culture and values with whatever is happening now.  Hell, I can’t keep up with it, and I’m, what, one hundredth your age?”

“Michael Benjamin?” Joe inquired curiously.  “Never heard of him.”

Methos just looked up and smiled, and Joe just shook his head.  “And I suppose you taught the entire beat generation all about being cool, as well?” he asked with a drawl.

“Let’s just say I was positively frosty,” Methos answered with a sly smile.  “Gotta keep up with the latest trends.”

“Riiiight. But if you start rapping and hip-hopping on me, buddy, you’ll have to find another bar to hang out in,” Joe announced with a smirk, then threw a bar towel at him when the 5,000 year old man started bouncing on his barstool, making strange vocal percussion noises and flashing faux gang hand signs.

Methos threw his head back and laughed as he caught the towel mid-air, his dour mood gone.  Joe shook his head with a chuckle.  Sometimes, his life was beyond amazing.  To share such a moment with someone who walked the earth when the Pharaohs ruled as gods was a treasure beyond price and beyond description.

Methos’ mobile face changed expression again as his eyebrows went up.

“What?” Joe demanded.

“You’ve got that, “Oh, my god, it’s Methos” look again.”

Joe shrugged a little sheepishly.  “So sue me.  I get my thrills where I can.”

Methos rolled his eyes.  “You need to get a life, Dawson.  Find some nice lady to schtupp.”

Joe leaned over the bar, speaking softly.  “Come on, talk to me! The nature of language and how it changes must be one of the most fascinating things you’ve experienced, the differences, the similarities, how emotional concepts are expressed, how different cultures choose to describe themselves and their environment.  I’ve heard that the Eskimos have all kinds of words for “snow” because it’s such an integral part of their lives, but how do you express that in a way that means something to someone who has never even seen snow?”

Methos held up his hands defensively.  “Joe, Joe, gimme a break.  I’m just a guy, not a socio-linguistic-anthropologist.”

“Yeah, right,” Methos leaned back, frowning, but with an amused expression lighting his eyes.  “I suppose knowing how to say “There Can Be Only One” in an infinite variety of languages is handy.”

“You know what I mean,” Joe insisted, frowning.  “It’s not even necessarily verbal.  You know, like that look on your face you guys get when you know another one of you is around.  Or the way Mac’s fingers twitch when he feels there’s a threat, like he’d be happier with a sword in his hand.  And the way Mac and Amanda sometimes talk without really – I dunno – it just seems like they manage to say a lot of things without really saying them.”

Methos’ face shifted across several different expressions, finally settling on pensive.  “Several hundred years of exposure to each other, I guess.  I don’t know, Joe. I prefer a little mystery, a little unpredictability to my life.  That’s one reason I’ve never married an Immortal.  You know someone long enough, live with them century after century and you memorize every turn of phrase, every joke they ever told, every habit, every look.  Nobody should know anybody that well.”

Never one to pass up an opportunity to get a peek into that dusty, cavernous warehouse of the oldest Immortal’s past, Joe leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “So, I bet you and Kronos and Caspian and Silas could practically finish each other’s sentences, like old married people?”

Methos raised his eyes, caught Joe’s curious stare, and his mouth curled up in a small smile.  “Old married people?” He shuddered.  “Perish the thought.  But yes, in a way we got to know each other all too well.  I left for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that I was bored with it all.  Imagine living with the same people for centuries.  After a while, you know everyone so well, there’s hardly any need to talk anymore, for God’s sake!  How boring would that be?”  Methos finished off his beer with a few long gulps and then examined the label like it held the secret of the ages.  “Maybe the whole concept of the Game was invented by Immortals so disgusted with their own existence, they decided to end it in some kind of perverse form of entertainment.  I prefer the company of mortals, myself.  Hanging out with youngsters like you helps keep me lively,” he added with a look and a sly grin.

“Lively, eh?” Joe grinned back.  “Is that a new synonym for ‘ornery old coot’?”

“Hey, Joe,” he smiled.  “How’s it goin’?”

“Fine as frog’s hair, Mac.  I was hopin’ you’d come by tonight,” Joe answered, reaching for a bottle of single malt scotch.  “And you look like you could use a drink.”

But Mac waved the liquor away.  “Just soda water with a little lime, thanks.”

Joe paused.  “You need to stay alert for something in particular, or should I say “someone” in particular?”

“No, no,” Mac shook his head dismissively.  “Nothing like that.  I just wanted to keep my head clear.”  Methos continued to study his fellow Immortal, and Mac finally turned and faced him, one eyebrow rising provocatively.  “What?”

“Someone in town we haven’t heard about?” Methos asked as Joe reached for a glass and prepared to squirt some carbonated water over ice.

“You know, guys, you don’t have to always assume there’s someone out for my head,” Mac frowned.  “I’ve sometimes gone for decades without a single fight.”

“Recently, you’ve hardly gone a month without creating – what do the local weathermen call it?” Methos looked at Joe with a smirk.  “’An unusual localized weather phenomenon’?  So pardon us for assuming the obvious.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mac replied shortly, his mouth tight.  “I come in here for a little distraction, a little light conversation, and all you guys talk about is the one topic I would like to avoid.”

“Hey, Mac, lighten up,” Joe inserted, dropping a lime into the glass and sliding it in front of his friend.  “It’s just a little unusual for you not to have a drink of some kind this late in the evening.  You can’t spend all your time in exercise or meditation.” Mac’s dark eyes raised up to meet his, one eyebrow cocked.  Oops.

“I thought you didn’t have a permanent watcher on me anymore, that you trusted me to tell you when anything significant was going on.  Evidently I was mistaken,” Mac said softly.

“Uh, no, Mac, that’s not what it was,” Joe quickly asserted, his eyes sliding to Methos, hoping for rescue, but Methos had a ‘you’re on your own’ set to his mouth, and was busy studying the label on his beer bottle again.  “I just had a new guy I needed to train, and you’re pretty easy to watch, so I thought . . .”

“Yeah, easy to watch,” Mac snapped.  “Because you guys have a little hideout in the warehouse up the block, right? How long has that been there?”

“You’re my watcher, Joe.  I trust you, no one else.  I don’t like the notion of some pissant academic voyeur watching me in the wee hours of the morning,” Mac grumbled.  But he sounded weary and almost petulant.  Maybe he wasn’t so much angry as tired and grumpy and Joe was just a convenient target.  Sometimes it was easy to forget that Immortals were also human.

Joe leaned on the bar, meeting his friend’s troubled gaze with a small smile.  “Jeezus, Mac, I thought he must’ve dozed off and been having a dream when he said he was sure you had spotted him.  You scared the shit out of him, you know,” he added softly, then chuckled.  “You really did sense him there from a quarter mile away?”

“What’re you two talking about?” Methos asked, suddenly curious and leaning in to hear their conversation.

“Nothing,” Mac grumped, sipping at his seltzer water.

Joe studied MacLeod for a minute and decided that, as much as he would love to have Methos’ insights about what young Brian had seen, this might be one time he should keep his damned mouth shut.

After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Methos’ lips quirked up in a tight smile.  “So,” he intoned. “How about them Yankees?”

There were a few moments of stilted conversation as the three men struggled to get past Mac’s distracted irritation, Methos’ obvious curiosity and Joe’s studied nonchalance, but eventually Methos managed to diffuse the tension with a colorful tale about being a pitching coach for the 1918 Boston Red Sox when they won the World Series against the Chicago Cubs.  Neither Mac nor Joe believed a word of his story, but they were both entertained when Methos took personal credit for the fact that the Cubs didn’t get a single home run off of Boston’s pitchers.

“It was a shortened season because of the war,” Mac groused.  “Even if you were there – which I seriously doubt – it was still just a matter of luck.”

“Luck?  It was superior coaching skill.  Some people actually listen to their betters, you know,” he announced, arching an eyebrow at MacLeod as Joe belatedly remembered a conversation where he had patiently explained the rules of baseball to a supposedly disbelieving and dubious Methos, who had either been lying then, or was lying now.  No telling which.

~~~

The kata movements seemed to be going in slow motion, like he was moving through water – warm, gently moving liquid that caressed his skin.  It was puzzling, but not unpleasant, except that when he tried to move at a more normal speed there was resistance, and soon he was working hard, gasping for air as his limbs got heavier and heavier.

“Relax, Duncan,” a familiar voice urged, and he slowed automatically, turning towards the dojo doors.

Mary MacLeod’s careworn face was as familiar as his own palm, but utterly unexpected.

“Mother?” he gasped, moving towards her, but the room was suddenly so large that he seemed to make no progress.

She smiled that patient, tolerant smile he remembered so well.  “Ah, lad, you always did try so hard to please me and your da.”

“What are you doing here?” he stuttered, giving up on getting any closer and stumbling to a halt.

“And where else would I be?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.  “You think I haven’t been watching you all these years.  I’m so proud of you, son.  You’ve always tried to help others, to be a good and honorable man.”

“But . . .” for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that she had been dead for over 350 years, and that he hadn’t always been good or honorable.  Far from it.  He hadn’t even been there for her last days.  He had abandoned her, a widow with no son to support her in her old age, in a village full of people who believed her son a demon.  “I’m so sorry, Mother,” he whispered so softly he was sure she couldn’t possibly hear him.

She drifted closer and Duncan’s throat closed as he saw all the gray in her thick, unruly auburn hair.  It had always eluded her control, ever escaping the scarves and clasps intended to bring order to those determinedly wild waves.  “You don’ t need to be sorry, my son,” she said softly, moving effortlessly as though her feet did not touch the ground at all.  “I’ve been close to you all this time, and I could be closer still.”  She stopped just out of arm’s reach and Duncan wanted to touch her, but his whole body felt frozen in place.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Wait!” he called, desperate to know more, to understand her words, to explain all the failures that had haunted him for so long, to know whether she forgave him.  There was so much he wanted to hear, wanted to say.

“Wait!”  The word echoed in the darkness and Mac twisted in the covers, reaching out into empty air.  He was panting, his heart stuttering in his chest, and he let his arm fall back into the bed as an unexpected wave of bone-deep exhaustion washed over him.  He lay still for a moment, letting his heart slow, hoping to sleep, but his mind was spinning and his emotions were all a jumble, so he dragged the covers off and sat at the side of the bed, deliberately letting the chilly air raise gooseflesh on his skin.  Christ, what was wrong with him, he wondered.  First this unexpected expansion of his senses when he was meditating and now a dream that – that what?  It had felt so real, so immediate, and he hadn’t dreamt of Mary MacLeod in decades, at least.  She may not have been his biological mother, but she was certainly the one who had instilled his sense of empathy, of satisfaction in caring for others.  His father – the man he had grown up believing was his father – had been all about honor and pride and duty and responsibility, but Mary MacLeod had taught him that honor wasn’t just about duty, it was about people, about using the authority he had been invested with by virtue of his birth, plus whatever natural gifts he had been given, to make a difference in the quality of their lives.  He had followed his father’s rules and concepts because they were tradition and because they worked, most of the time.  He followed his mother’s advice because it spoke to his heart.

But the MacLeod’s were not his biological parents, and his own desperate cry to Ian MacLeod of “Where do I come from?” still haunted him and would to the end of his days. All you need to do is look within, she had said.  What the hell did that mean, or was it just the workings of his own over-active imagination?  He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.  The dream had felt like more than a dream, and over the centuries he had learned to not totally discount those fey ‘sendings’.  It may, indeed, be his own feverish mind at work, but even if it was, what was his subconscious trying to tell him?

He hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone about what had been happening in his meditations, but perhaps it was time.

~~~~~

But this one was so young and so naive, so desperate to please, so anxious to know that which had been deliberately hidden for so long.  It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to urge him to do the necessary task since he already had the appropriate tendencies instilled at the moment of his conception.

The only real unknown was whether or not anyone would interfere.

~~~

Methos tensed, the sense of an approaching Immortal washing over him like an unexpected douse of ice water down his neck.  He concentrated, ignoring the papers that had spilled from his lap to the floor, analyzing the vibration that shivered over his shoulders and down his spine.  Then he marginally relaxed.  This one, he recognized.  He couldn’t do that with most Quickenings, but he and MacLeod had managed to simultaneously take the heads of Silas and Kronos, and in the chaos of the massive release of energy, their own Immortal essences had mingled.  The result was that Mac’s Quickening was significantly less abrasive than most, more like a grand chord of music than the usual gong of discordant mental static.

By the time Methos had his apartment door open and two beers at the ready, Mac was climbing the last few steps, stopping at the top of the stairs, hands in his pockets.  “This is a change,” he observed with a smile.  I hope you don’t greet all visiting Immortals with a smile and a beer?”

“Only you, MacLeod,” Methos replied, stepping aside so Mac could enter.  “Besides, any distraction from these truly awful term papers is welcome, even if I have to behead someone in the process.”

Mac raised an eyebrow and accepted the beer, slipping off his coat and laying it over the back of the couch.  He viewed the carefully typed papers scattered on the floor.  “You know, there was one professor in the Art Department where I taught who the students swore used the gravity method of grading.  Is that what you’re doing?”

“Ah,” Methos nodded, settling into the big leather chair across from the couch.  “Tossing the papers down the steps and grading according to where the papers land?  It’s an urban myth.  If you toss papers down steps, the probability that they will all come lose and the pages will get mixed up is far too great.”

“And you know this because?” MacLeod asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Methos just smiled his most enigmatic smile, and was gratified when Mac’s lips just twitched in amusement, rather than turned down in disapproval.

Mac stared at his beer for a moment, and sighed.

“I wouldn’t suppose it is just for the thrill of my company?” Methos offered.

“In a manner of speaking,” Mac replied.

“Hmm,” Methos responded.  “That sounds a lot like a ‘No’, to me.”

Mac pursed his lips, leaning forward, his forearms braced on his knees.  “I need…” he sighed and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“What do you need, Mac?” Methos finally asked.

“I need some advice.”

Methos sat back, studying MacLeod with a frown. “This isn’t another one of those ‘help me save my friends from their own folly’ adventures is it?  Because if it is, you’re on your own this time.”

Mac sighed and sat back, looking a trifle more relaxed, and shook his head with a chuckle.  “No, Methos.  I’ve learned my lesson.  The next time Robert and Gina have a marital spat, I’m leaving town for a decade or two.”

“Good.  It seems you are trainable, after all,” Methos grinned at him.

Mac’s smile tightened a little before he took another swallow of his beer.  Methos just waited until his friend put whatever was troubling him into words, but after about a minute of complete silence while Mac contemplated the label on his beer, he cleared his throat, making Mac look up.  Methos cocked an eyebrow at him.  “Just say it, MacLeod.”

“I had a dream last night,” Mac announced quietly, then stopped.

“Don’t tell me,” Methos couldn’t help his smirk.  “You dreamed that all Immortals walked together hand in hand, in peace and freedom.” 

Mac just frowned at him.  “Not funny.  No, I dreamed of my mother, and I hadn’t dreamed of her in decades, at least, and it was incredibly vivid, more like a sending than a dream.  But it turned out not to be Mary MacLeod, not really.  At the end, she changed into this… this ‘being’, all pale and lean, very androgynous looking, with long dark hair.  It vaguely reminded me of those elf creatures in the Lord of the Rings movies, with those sharp, narrow faces. She talked about finding out where I come from,” Mac looked up and met his eyes.  “Where we come from, and said all I had to do was look within.”

“Yeah,” Mac sighed behind him.  “I was afraid of that, but it felt so damned real, and I can’t recall ever having seen anyone who looked like that woman before, so I thought maybe she was symbolic of something, you know?  Some fear or idea, some embodiment of a subconscious desire, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything, and I thought the walking repository of all things historical and mythical might have a clue.”

Methos returned to the living room bearing a fresh beer, a box of crackers, and a small plate with a block of hard cheddar and a knife on it.  He dumped them unceremoniously on the coffee table and sat, studying MacLeod for a minute.  The man’s dark eyebrows were furrowed together and a frown creased his mouth.  “Something else is bothering you,” he observed quietly.  “This isn’t just about a dream.”

Mac sighed and leaned back, finally meeting his eyes.  “No.”  There was a long pause before he spoke again.  “I’ve been doing a lot of meditation lately, and…”

“And?” Methos finally prompted after another long pause, reaching casually for a cracker and some cheese.

“It’s gone further than I ever expected.  It almost, well, more than almost, feels like an out-of-body experience.  It’s gotten very weird, but,” Mac leaned forward again, his eyes losing focus as he tried to describe his feelings.  “It is so freeing,” he sighed.  “It’s like there is no past, no future, no Game, no grief, just a pleasant drifting, outside of time and space.  My senses seem to expand beyond their normal limits and it’s almost like flying.”

“Sounds positively transcendental,” Methos replied wryly as he chewed, then took a swallow of his beer.  “However I get the impression there’s a “but” in there somewhere.”

Mac sighed and nodded.  “Yeah.  Afterwards, instead of being rested, I’m exhausted, but when I try to sleep, I get these strange dreams, with last night’s being the most vivid.  Then, when I’m awake, all I really want to do is try the meditation again.”

“Well, I have no great words of wisdom for you, MacLeod,” Methos said, reaching for more cheese.  “But if this meditation makes you feel bad afterward, then I wouldn’t do it. It’s my second most important rule next to survival – avoid unpleasantness.”

“But God, it feels so wonderful when I’m doing it,” Mac insisted.  “Like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders.  I haven’t felt that carefree in… in a very long time.”

“You sound like you’re channeling Nancy Reagan,” Mac snorted.  He took a moment to take and eat a piece of cheese, chewing thoughtfully.  “Have you ever gone so deep into meditation you felt like you were leaving your body?” he asked, at last, watching Methos curiously.

“Haven’t you heard?  I’ve been everywhere, done everything.  I was the original guru on the mountaintop.  And as such, I’m telling you to forget this whole thing.  Anything taken to extremes, including meditation, can be bad, and trust me, this could be very bad,” Methos announced firmly.  He rose, moving towards the door.  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve dispensed my quota of wisdom for the day, and I still have to kill off a few more brain cells by reading these god-awful term reports,” he said, nodding to the untidy pile of papers on the floor.  “Fortunately, I’m Immortal so they grow back,” he added with a smile to soften his abrupt invitation for MacLeod to leave.

For a moment, Mac just looked up at him with a slightly puzzled expression, then he rose and put on his coat.  He stopped at the door and turned.  “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if there is something about this I need to know?” he asked, looking at Methos sideways.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Methos asked with a smile, but that only prompted a raised eyebrow.

“See you around,” Methos called to MacLeod’s retreating back, and got an over-the-shoulder wave in return.  He closed the door, then leaned up against it for a second before turning around and casting his eyes to the ceiling.  “Leave him alone you sadistic bastards!” he whispered harshly.

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