He woke, he knew not how much later, to the alarm of an immortal presence coupled with a persistent knocking on the door. He didn't even bother to claim his sword; it might be his challenger or it might not. Who cared?
It was Methos, wearing the same trenchcoat and holding two bags of groceries from the local epicerie.
The other man shouldered his way inside, with, Duncan thought, not much in the way of invitation, but he paused at the bottom of the stairs.
"It's a little dark in here, MacLeod."
The sun had set while Duncan had slept. Too numb to be !
annoyed, Duncan reached dutifully for the light switch. The overhead glowed faintly when he flipped it on.
Methos frowned up at the light, the odd angle of shadows making his face look like the face of a stranger.
"What's with the light?"
"The batteries are dying."
Methos turned and set the bags on a sideboard.
"Can you recharge them?"
"They have to be replaced."
Methos regarded him for a moment in silence. The barge rocked in the waves and the wind beat sleet against the portholes.
"Why are you here?" Duncan asked. !
"I brought the drinks. You said you didn't want to go out." Methos withdrew some bottles of beer, one of red wine, and one of brandy.
Duncan stared at the bottles dully, imagining the cold, friendless party it would be to open a good brandy in this damp, grey barge. He turned away. "I don't want them," he said.
Behind him was silence but for the sound of the brandy bottle in Methos' hand thumping onto the wood of the sideboard. Duncan closed his eyes and listened to the wind.
"I heard that Connor died," Methos said in a quiet voice. "I'm sorry, Duncan."
Dammit, couldn't he be left in peace? Searching for meaning in Connor's death over drinks was the last thing Duncan intended to do.
"I don't want to talk, Met!
hos."
"Sure, but wouldn't you like to get warm? It's freezing in here. Just a sec." With this bemusing non sequitur, Methos disappeared out the door, the wind's keening rising and falling as the door opened and closed.
Duncan blinked, but he dismissed Methos from his thoughts, glad to be alone again. Wait. What had he said? "Just a sec?"
The intruder returned, hair and clothing plastered with rain, carrying an armful of chopped firewood covered in clear plastic. "Here we go," Methos said, stripping the rain cover from the wood in his arms and opening the door to the fireplace with his foot.
Duncan frowned at the threat to fill the room with light and warmth. "Stop," he said.
Methos gave him an innocent look and smile!
d. Damn if Duncan couldn't read even the man's deceptions. He knew this immortal too well.
"I want you out. I don't want anyone."
The smile faded, and with it, pretense. Methos set the wood down in the bin, and brushed bark and splinters from his jeans. "Come with me," he said.
Duncan shook his head.
"Let's go to Joe's."
"I'm leaving, Methos. I'm leaving my old life. I've only come back to sell the barge. I know Joe will follow me, but I won't look for him. Eventually I'll have a new watcher. I'm leaving it all."
Methos' expression was hard to see in the shadows. "Do we mean so little to you, then?" he asked.
Dun!
can closed his eyes. "I don't want to debate it. Just go."
"All right." Methos' voice sounded choked, of all things, but when Duncan opened his eyes, the other man looked normal enough. His expression, he could now see, was one of the dull resolve Duncan remembered from that dark time with Kronos. Damn, but he knew this man too well.
"Then come and say good-bye," Methos said quietly.
"I can't leave."
"Why not?"
"I'm meeting someone."
"An immortal?"
"It's not your concern."
Methos gazed at Duncan, dismay showing in his face. "Do you plan to lose?" he asked.
"Don't be ridiculous. Please go. And take your things." Duncan indicated the sideboard holding the groceries and the drinks.
Methos looked around the barge, his glance lingering on the few items of furniture, the windows, the weak light. When he looked again at Duncan, Duncan thought he saw his eyes glitter. "Good-bye, Duncan," he said, his deep voice mournful. "I love you."
Methos met Duncan's gaze for a moment, as if hoping for a response, but Duncan looked back stony-faced. What an odd thing to say, he thought, but Methos was an odd man. At least he would leave now, wouldn't he?
Methos dropped his gaze, and turned to go, ignoring Duncan's request that he take with him the unwelcome items he had brought into Duncan's home. He stumbled on the step, and then he was gone.
Duncan had barely breathed his sigh of r!
elief before the immense sense of loss and anguish which the need to deal with Methos had held back, crashed over him again, even worse than before. He sat on the floor and wished he could weep.
Daylight woke him from his uneasy sleep. Numb now with chill, Duncan picked himself up from the hard floor. The wind and rocking had stilled, leaving dawn to break quiet, white, and brutally cold. He made his stiff way to the head, trying to recall his dream. He thought it had been a good one, for once, filled with living friends and no responsibility for anyone's death. Anyone. Duncan rubbed his knuckles against his eyes fiercely. What friends might that be? Future friends, perhaps, in his new life. It seemed he could count on one hand his remaining living friends.
Methos, for one. At least he'd never been responsible for Methos' death, he told himself. Memories flashed before his!
sleep-squinted eyes - refusing Methos' offer of his head, managing not to kill him on holy ground when in the thrall of the Dark Quickening, desperately calling to Cassandra to spare him. Not to mention - the muscles of his mouth twitched in a faint memory of a smile - letting him live after that stunt with Gina and then the Ming vase.
It hurt so much, that Paradise lost. Duncan's eyes stung again. He groped blindly for the toilet flush, and let his mind go blank listening to the rushing sound.
*I love you.* Methos' words of the previous night played in his head. What had he meant by that? What an odd thing to say.
Duncan was dimly aware that his thoughts had nothing of their usual sharpness and speed. It was so hard to think about things.
Water spread across his feet!
, and Duncan looked down at a growing pool of toilet water on the floor. For a moment he stared, frozen, then he stepped back, out of the wet, and found the water shutoff valve. He knew what the problem was - he hadn't properly pressure flushed the barge's sanitary system after its long disuse. He'd have to go topside and open the auxiliary valves.
His great weariness welled up then, and he considered just ignoring the water and curling back up with the Army blanket and Tessa's photo albums, but his distaste at the situation won out, and he even remembered to put on his coat before going on deck.
The cold was scarcely any worse outside the barge than it was inside, now that the wind and sleet had stopped. The metal of the primary aux valve was so cold on his hands that it burned. Duncan gripped it brutally, savoring the pain, and wrenched it open.
Nothing happened. Where there should have been a gushing of water, there was silence. Duncan's spurt of focus evaporated and he sat down heavily, staring at the treacherous machinery. Then, as he stared, unseeing, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he knew the sudden sensation of being watched. He knew from long familiarity that the surface of his large propane tank was reflective, and he automatically moved his gaze to its image of the quay, the wall behind it, and the bridge beyond. There was the figure, huddled against the cold, mostly in shadow.
Joe, he thought first, then Sarnier, and then, when the figure made a slight movement and Duncan recognized even the small nuance of body motion, he knew the man to be Methos. Duncan hung his head in his hands. Methos, again. A backed up toilet. An empty auxiliary tank. It was too much to d!
eal with. He stayed like that for long minutes, hearing the growing sound of Paris traffic as people rose and went about their lives like people always had and always would, cruel people who didn't know that his world had ended, and who acted as if nothing were wrong.
He managed to be amused by himself. He'd known enough grief to know that he always felt this way - that the rest of the world should end when his did.
Duncan found himself on his feet and then on the concrete quay. Very few steps brought him to within sensing range of the other immortal - Methos must have made delicate measurements of how close he could safely stand.
At least the awareness didn't fade; Methos wasn't fleeing him.
They met beneath the stone arch of a bridge older than Duncan - the same brid!
ge under which, in another lifetime, Methos had offered Duncan his head. Methos had traded his raincoat for a long wool London Fog trenchcoat, but he wore no hat or gloves, and Duncan was reminded of the drowned rat look he'd had that other day beneath this bridge. This time, Methos looked frozen, his skin pale but wound-red on his cheeks, ears, nose, and lips. His short spiky hair actually glistened with frost at the tips, and his eyes were sunken and bruised looking. The cold in the bridge's shadow was so intense it felt malevolent.
They regarded each other in silence, at first.
"What are you doing?" Duncan finally asked.
"I hoped to see you do your morning katas," Methos answered with no appearance of shame.
Duncan frowned. "Why?"&nbs!
p;
"If you have to face a challenge soon, you should stay in shape."
"So you're ... what? Spying? *Watching?*"
Methos shrugged.
Duncan narrowed his eyes. "Guarding?" he guessed.
The flicker of Methos' eyes answered him.
Mary and all the saints.
Duncan whirled and stormed back to the barge. Once inside, out of Methos' sight, he didn't know what to do with his anger. He kicked the wood bin, scattering the firewood.
Anger. How long had it been since he'd felt anything but grief? Trust Methos to piss him off. Duncan tapped his forehead gently against the rim of a porthole and a coughing sound escaped h!
im, which could have been a laugh or a sob.
Still riding the surge of energy born of anger, he threw open the barge door and returned to the bridge, half fearing that Methos might have left. Methos still stood there, a stone figure like the bridge itself. "I told you, I'm leaving," Duncan said, "I have to do what I have to do."
"I know," Methos said. "So do I."
Duncan didn't try to figure that statement out. He had another problem. "You also know," he said, "that I can't leave your sorry ass out here like this."
Methos' stony face, sculpted like a Greek statue, twisted into a living smile which gave Duncan an odd jolt of recognition, as if Galatea had come to life before his eyes. "Well, I was hoping," Methos said.
B!
ack in the barge, despair gripped Duncan again. He still didn't know what to do with the intruder in his world of grief, and he was in no state to be a host. Beside him, he saw Methos' gaze take in his gifts of food and wine standing rejected on the sideboard, and the firewood scattered on the floor by a cold hearth. Duncan expected Methos to make himself at home- he'd certainly done so before - but the other immortal stood withdrawn, pale and somber in his long coat. His expression was dull and bereft. Cold, probably. The man needed to warm up, but Duncan felt no strong obligation to such an unwelcome guest.
"Make a fire, if you want."
"All right," said Methos, but he didn't move.
"Whatever," Duncan said. "I'm going to sleep." He wrapped the blanket around himself, and collapsed on the bed, coat and all. His last visual!
image remained imprinted, in negative, on the inside of his eyelids; Methos' silhouette - a dark, brooding, guardian angel.
