[Hope Triumphant: Duende 2/4]
~~~~~
"Quite the show last night, Cassandra," Methos greeted her just after
sunrise, as she lay lounging on a chair by the otherwise deserted swimming
pool. A few early-morning exercise enthusiasts were briskly walking the
deck overhead, and three maids in black dresses and white aprons hurried by
with towels in their arms, but other than that, Cassandra and he were alone.
Cassandra finished adjusting the knot of her belt over her robe of blue and
green batik before she looked up at him and smiled, her eyes hidden behind
sunglasses. Unlike Elena, Cassandra didn't seem to be working on an
all-body tan. Her robe was long-sleeved and reached past her knees. Only
her calves and feet were bare. Nice calves they were, too: shapely,
muscular, slightly golden from the sun ...
"Yes, Elena and I thought you performed quite well," Cassandra said, still
smiling up at him.
No doubt.
"Just taking the chance for some fun, Methos," Cassandra added, sliding her
sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and looking at him over the dark
lenses, her green eyes merry and amused. "You and I haven't had much of
that."
Fun at his expense. But Cassandra had been right; he didn't enjoy drowning,
and at least they had spared him that. Methos took her words as an
invitation and perched on a deck chair, but not the one right next to her.
"So, where is the Argentine fireball?"
Cassandra pushed her glasses back on and glanced at the sun, another
fireball just above the horizon off the port side. "Elena is not an early
riser, and she prefers her coffee in bed."
Methos knew that, but he'd been wondering exactly how much Cassandra knew of
Elena's early morning habits, and how much of last night had been an act.
"You two known each other long?"
"I met her before she became an Immortal, not quite four hundred years ago.
This cruise is our ten-year anniversary."
"Anniversary of what?" Methos asked, because he also knew Cassandra and
Elena hadn't been lovers ten years ago. Elena had been very busy escaping
from that madman Bethel and into Duncan MacLeod's loving arms, while
Cassandra--
"Freedom," she replied succinctly.
--while Cassandra had been very busy chasing after Kronos. Methos nodded,
seeing it now. Bethel and the Horsemen had all lost their heads in November
of 1996, almost exactly ten years ago.
"Freedom from them, and from our nightmares of them," Cassandra added.
"Elena and I helped each other through some of that, so we thought we'd
celebrate. And here we are."
"And here I am." Methos shrugged, half in apology, half in amusement.
"Didn't mean to crash the party."
Cassandra shrugged in return. "Somehow ... I think you belong."
And somehow, he did. Methos decided not to jump ship tomorrow in Minorca,
after all. This cruise might still turn out to be fun.
She had taken off her sunglasses and was watching him with unblinking green
eyes, but more a kitten-stare of curiosity than a cat-stare of disdain.
"You were never an early riser, either. Or has that changed, too?"
"I never went back to bed."
"Bad dreams?" she asked quietly, with the sympathy of one who knows. "The
voices?"
"Nah." Not lately, anyway. "Just thinking."
Cassandra slipped her sunglasses into the brightly embroidered canvas bag
leaning against her chair, her long auburn hair slipping down over her arms
and hands as she moved. "Penny for your thoughts?" she offered, leaning
back in her chair again and tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.
"Why is it that people think their own opinions are worth two cents, but
they're only willing to pay a penny to hear what others have to say?" Methos
asked, as he had often wondered.
"Two cents then," Cassandra agreed, and she reached for her bag again then
offered him a pair of shiny silver coins.
Methos leaned forward and held out his hand. Cassandra dropped the money
into his palm, with no chance of skin touching skin. "These are ten-cent
pieces," he announced, looking at the Maori carving of a head, souvenirs of
their recent trip down under.
She shrugged. "Inflation. New Zealand doesn't make one-cent or five-cent
pieces any more."
He closed his fingers, the coins cool and light in his fist. "What do you
want from me, Cassandra?" he asked simply.
She looked away then, off to the sea and the sky, then back again, eyes wide
and hopeful, apparently sincere. "A truce?"
"Not peace?" he countered, and this time her gaze slid down and away to the
deck. "Sara says you don't like me," Methos reported, because a few hours
before MacLeod's wedding, Connor's ferociously precocious nine-year-old
daughter had confronted Methos with those words in the library of MacLeod's
farmhouse. Connor had set down his book to listen to the exchange.
"And what did you tell Sara?" Cassandra asked.
"That you don't know me."
"Nobody knows you," Connor had put in, joining the conversation uninvited
and then beckoning to his daughter. Sara had gone to Connor immediately and
climbed onto his lap, staring solemnly at Methos from the safety of her
father's arms. Over her head, Connor's stare had mixed cold suspicion and
deadly warning in equal portions, with just a hint of disdain.
Almost eight years before, Duncan MacLeod had told Methos the same thing: "I
don't know who or what you are, Methos."
Nobody did. It was safer that way, and safety meant survival, and survival
was the most important thing of all. At least, it used to be.
Cassandra was nodding slowly. "You're right," she said, looking him in the
eye. "I don't know you. But someday, I think I'd like to."
"But not yet."
She shook her head, her lips pressed together. "Not yet," she agreed with a
rueful smile. "I think my little tantrum last week was more than enough
proof that I'm not ready."
Methos snorted in agreement, because a few hours before MacLeod's wedding,
Cassandra had seemed ready to declare war.
===== 30 September 2006, New Zealand =====
Methos was enjoying a recuperative nap in the comfortable hammock on the
front porch of the old farmhouse (Connor threw a mean bachelor party), when
the approach of an Immortal went humming down his spine and jerked him
awake: Cassandra and Alex were returning from the hairdressers. Methos
evaluated the results as he stretched his arms over his head. "I like your
hair that way," he called to the women when they came up the stairs, a
sincere compliment for them both, and an attempt at reconciliation for
Cassandra.
Alex smiled and waved, but Cassandra stopped walking and examined him as if
he were a specimen of ruffled tree fungus, then slowly and deliberately
removed every single hairpin and dropped them on the steps. She tossed her
head once and ran her fingers through her hair, leaving the long curls loose
around her shoulders and down her back, completely destroying what must have
been an hour's worth of work and a sizeable amount of money at the beauty
salon.
Methos only said approvingly, "It looks good that way, too." And so it did,
and so did she, staring at him with her long hair wild and untamed, a
ferocious lioness with a glorious mane.
With absolutely no expression on her face, Cassandra reached back and
started plaiting her hair into a tight braid. Alex made an odd muffled
sound, either amusement or shock or distress, but Methos was getting tired
of this little game. "I suppose if I tell you I like your hair long, you'd
get a pair of scissors," he said. "And if I tell you I like your hair
short, you'd shave your head."
Cassandra's fingers moved rapidly, finishing the end of her braid, then she
flipped it over her shoulder so that it hung down her back. "I don't live
my life to make you happy, Methos," she informed him icily. "Not anymore."
Methos swung himself out of the hammock. "Fine," he replied, just as
coldly. "I don't want you to. Not any more, and not ever again." He
walked over to her, too close for comfort, but she stood her ground
impassively while he looked her over, and she met his gaze straight on when
he finally looked into her eyes. Eyes of a cold unblinking green, cat's
eyes, mocking, disdainful--hungry.
And alone. Methos said quietly, "I just think it's a damn shame that you
live your life making yourself miserable."
She blinked once, flinching from the truth; then she spun on her heel and
walked away. But she was polite to him an hour later, sat nearby at the
wedding, talked to him at the reception, even smiled at him a few times.
The next day after lunch, near the garden behind the farmhouse, he asked her
why.
This time, she wouldn't meet his eyes. "When you would go riding with your
brothers, I would wait in your tent for your return," she said, staring at
the distant snow-topped hills. "I would spend hours on my hair, combing and
braiding it different ways, hoping that when you came back to me, you would
say, 'I like your hair.'"
Methos stared at those same far-off hills. "I didn't know." Not yesterday,
not three thousand years ago.
"I know," she said, but there was no anger in her now. "But I didn't mind,
because sometimes you did notice, and you would smile at me. That was all I
needed to make me happy." She left him then, and Methos didn't watch her
go.
===== 8 October 2006, The Mediterranean Sea =====
"I am trying, Methos," she told him by the poolside, tossing her head a
little to move her hair from her eyes, that long, glorious hair so soft to
the touch, so silken on the skin, the strands whispering caresses over his
chest, shoulders, belly, thighs, while her voice whispered other caresses,
and her hands and lips and tongue touched him in other ways. Methos
remembered.
"But when I look at you," Cassandra went on, obviously remembering other,
less pleasant things, "I see ghosts, even now. I need more time to put
those ghosts behind me, so I can see you as you really are."
Methos nodded as he leaned back on the deck chair. Time, at least, was
something Immortals had plenty of. Too much sometimes, Methos thought,
watching a pink and orange cloud as it touched the edge of the sun. Too
damn much.
"I would like peace between us," Cassandra said, hopeful again. "And I'm
ready for that now."
"Peace then," Methos agreed, smiling at her with complete and utter charm
until she smiled back, a brilliant blaze of happiness, a smile he hadn't
seen from her in over three thousand years.
A smile he didn't trust at all, probably no more than she trusted his. He
couldn't make her happy that easily anymore. It was an armed and wary peace
between them, with always the chance for war. A truce, just as Cassandra
had said. Besides, he still owed her for that little joke of hers last
night. She wasn't getting off that easy. Neither was Elena.
"Time for a swim," Cassandra announced, and Methos watched as she stood and
tossed her robe aside. She was wearing even less than Elena had the day
before, the bottom half only of a bikini, dark green to match her eyes,
though Methos doubted many men managed to make that connection. There were
too many distractions along the way. He'd been wrong about her all-body
tan; every single inch of her was golden from the sun. She was leaner than
Elena, long-limbed and slender, the muscles flowing with a dancer's grace
instead of rippling with solid strength. And where Elena was always
seductive, no matter what she was or wasn't wearing, Cassandra somehow gave
the impression of being remote and untouchable, even as she stood there
almost completely unclothed. It wasn't just because of him, either. She'd
been that way at the wedding reception when she'd been dancing with MacLeod.
Cassandra walked sedately toward the pool, no sauntering, no prowling, no
self-consciousness or posturing in her stride. She might have been
completely alone. But she stopped and looked at him before she dove into
the water, and she smiled once again. The entire walk had been a deliberate
flaunting of both her body and her new-found confidence, staged and
performed just for him. Methos watched her swim for a few strokes, her hair
afloat around her, a bewitching siren who knew his true name, who knew him
better than he wanted to admit. Some of those ghosts she saw were real.
Methos checked his watch. They'd be serving breakfast soon, but he still
had time to take a shower and shave. He strolled off whistling before
Cassandra reached the other side of the pool.
~~~~~
