You
have not seen what we have seen.
The character of David Grossman belongs to Sandra McDonald, who has been kind enough to let me borrow him. Thank you again, Sandra! I first met him in her story, The Victories We Claim, at http://www.mindspring.com/~vfoster/HL /victories.html (no, I don't have a link to it because I haven't gotten around to asking for permission. Try "copy and paste")
This is a sequel to Yom
Kippur. I think you can read this story without having read Yom
Kippur, but it would help to have read the first one first.
Methos was at home, to MacLeod's surprise. Or at least some immortal was
occupying the brownstone Methos had recently rented as a Seacouver residence.
He took the stairs three at a time, concerned that Methos would leave out
another exit once he sensed someone's approach.
"Adam! It's MacLeod!" he called out.
He reached the door and knocked. The feeling of another immortal presence
never wavered.
He
waited for what seemed an unnecessarily long time, but he was grateful
for the chance to get his thoughts together. He really hadn't expected
to meet the older immortal. He had expected the brownstone to be empty
even of Methos's belongings.
He knocked on the doorframe again, rattling the screen with the blows.
"Adam!?"
"What do you want, MacLeod?" Methos demanded from the other side of the
door. MacLeod started. What was this about? It had been three nights since
MacLeod and Joe had unwillingly watched as Methos explained to an old friend
exactly what cause Cassandra had to hate him. The immortal David Grossman
had come seeking answers from "Adam Pierson" that might help the tormented
woman who had sought the rabbi out. After horrifying his old friend with
the truth, Methos had fled from Joe's and had not returned his newer friends'
concerned calls. But, while MacLeod had been frosty to the former Horseman
of the Apocalypse since their return from Bordeaux, he couldn't think of
any real reason Methos would have to be hostile to him.
"Would you open the door?"
Methos complied, but he held it open only enough to stand in it. His expression
could not be called welcoming. "What do you want?"
"I'm checking to see if you're home. Joe is worried. You aren't answering
your phone," he paused. "Can I come in?"
"No. I'm busy."
MacLeod considered. It was always possible he had come at a "bad time",
but Methos's expression would be more, ... well... embarrassed, wouldn't
it? It was also possible that he had mistaken the oldest immortal's continued
presence in Seacouver as an interest in maintaining contact with MacLeod
when it wasn't.
He couldn't very well pretend nothing had happened between them.
"So, su casa isn't mi casa anymore?" MacLeod held his breath.
Something flickered on Methos's face.
"I
guess not," he replied after a pause, but, in a baffling contradiction
to his words, he stepped back, pulling the door fully open.
MacLeod stepped just inside the townhouse and looked around. It was furnished
much as Methos's place in Paris had been when MacLeod first met him. Eclectic
and valuable objets d'art graced nooks and niches. The other furnishings
had been selected to best display the collection of vases and sculptures.
The exception was a bookcase on one wall, assembled out of boards and bricks.
A remnant, perhaps, of Methos's graduate student persona.
MacLeod's attention was caught by the reclining terra cotta figure on the
topmost shelf. It was a chacmool, ancient and gory emblem of Mayan human
sacrifice. Between its hands, which should have held the still beating
heart of its victim, someone had stuck a cheerful spray of daffodils. Someone
with an ironic sense of humor.
Methos made no move to close the door. He held it as if waiting for his
visitor to leave. He also radiated hostility.
MacLeod took the door from him and shut it.
"MacLeod, I don't want company."
MacLeod ignored him. He moved around the sofa, which was placed in the
center of the room, studying the decor. There was no evidence of packing
boxes, but something was wrong here. What was it?
He spotted a framed picture of Methos and Alexa together on a beach.
"Santorini?" he asked.
When Methos didn't reply, MacLeod looked up to find the other immortal
had moved from his position by the door to stand closer to the couch. MacLeod
wondered for a moment where Methos kept his sword.
He moved on around the living room and Methos mirrored his movements, keeping
the couch between them.
MacLeod stopped.
Methos stopped.
MacLeod frowned. "What is the matter with you?" He hadn't meant it to sound
so angry. Much of his anger at Methos had drained out of him the other
night at Joe's.
"MacLeod, I'm in no condition to fight with you."
"Fight with me! What makes you think I want to fight you?"
"I told you I don't want company, and you're still here. Is this 'There
Can Be Only One' time?"
"What!?" Shock and fury rocked MacLeod. "Why would I want your head, now?
What's the matter with you?!"
"You've killed better friends than me for much less than what I've done,
Highlander."
Sully. Cullen. Ingrid. How dare he?!
MacLeod's anger burned white hot. He advanced on the slighter man, who
retreated around the couch. MacLeod almost leaped over it. He didn't want
Methos's head, he wanted the satisfaction of feeling his fist smash into
Methos's face. The vision tantalized, but MacLeod recognized this level
of fury as dangerously hard to control, and instead, whirled around and
threw open the door.
Behind him, Methos spoke as mildly as if the Highlander had just returned
a borrowed book.
"Thanks
for coming by, MacLeod," he commented. For the briefest moment, Methos
looked smug.
MacLeod froze. His anger froze with him. Puzzle pieces snapped into place.
Three nights ago he had watched as Methos deliberately destroyed David
Grossman's image of him, wielding harsh truths, and refusing to allow the
mild mannered rabbi to believe the best of his friend. Refusing it so that
Grossman would not doubt Cassandra's story, and so might be better able
to give her whatever solace she sought. Then the master of manipulation
had driven Grossman away with a callous joke about Hitler and body counts.
MacLeod now perceived a pattern. He closed the door and turned back to
Methos.
Methos's eyes narrowed. "I thought you were leaving," he accused.
"I bet you did."
Methos stepped back, looking annoyed and slightly alarmed. MacLeod did
not advance. Instead, he turned all his meditation-honed powers of concentration
to studying the oldest living immortal. He saw the man now with a focus
he usually only achieved during the duress of mortal combat. He knew Methos
had paid a high emotional price for the other evening's sacrifice. Methos
usually vanished when things became unpleasant. He should have fled more
than Joe's bar the other night. Something was holding him here. In this
townhouse.
Whatever it was, the strain on the other man was obvious to MacLeod's strangely
enhanced vision. Immortals might not succumb to sickness, but they could
succumb to neglect and stress. Even Grossman had observed that Methos didn't
look well, and Methos had said he was in no condition ... Now MacLeod could
see the stress. Stress had hurled Brian Cullen into despair and addiction.
Methos's drug of choice was considerably more mild, and, ... was nowhere
to be seen. Not even any empty bottles. That's what had seemed wrong. What
are you doing here, Methos?
"Uh, it's my house?"
It took MacLeod a moment to realize that he must have spoken aloud. Or
else Methos had become a mind reader. No matter, he still held the older
immortal with his focused intensity.
He took a step forward.
Methos took a step, not back, but to the side. His gaze flickered, once,
to the left. In combat it might betray a concern, or telegraph an intent.
Here, it was a clue.
What was to Methos's left? The wall. On it, a stereo and CD collection.
Beside it, a small table with, ... the phone. Testing, MacLeod moved toward
the phone.
Sure enough, so did Methos.
The red LED on the answering machine announced thirteen unplayed messages.
Unplayed because Methos had heard each one as it came in.
"Why aren't you answering your phone, Methos?" MacLeod knew he said this
aloud, for he was startled by the menace in his own voice.
Apparently, so was Methos. His eyes grew over-large in his pale face. He
practically quivered. MacLeod was reminded, more than anything else, of
an injured animal which wouldn't come out of hiding because it didn't know
it was being offered aid.
His vision grew more eerie. It morphed from that of focus and concentration
to a level of clarity which was almost mystical. The light in the room
seemed to dim and grow around its main occupant. MacLeod could almost see
a glowing, symbolic chain linking Methos to the phone. And the chain had
a name on it.
"Grossman!" he exclaimed. Methos jumped. The vision vanished. What was
that, anyway? "You're waiting for Grossman to call!"
If Methos was surprised that MacLeod had become a mind reader, he didn't
show it, other than by a startled blink.
"It's my phone. I'll do what I like with it."
"But he might not call for days, or weeks! He might never call."
Methos flinched as if he'd been hit. "He said he would."
Well, there was that. MacLeod regarded his friend and noticed again the
ache in his chest somewhere in the vicinity of the seat of compassion.
Methos looked back at him, five feet away and completely unreachable.
"MacLeod, would you go if I just asked you to?" Methos implored.
Whether by accident or by plan, Methos had won now. MacLeod really was
too well-mannered to stay where he wasn't wanted. Unlike Methos. Now he
had to go.
"You know, you could call him."
"I could if he had a listed number."
You
didn't get his number!
MacLeod left with a plan. Grossman had given a business card to Joe.
"MacLeod, I told you, I don't want company."
"Yeah, well, I'm coming in anyway."
Methos gave ground before the larger man, but took up a defensive position
protecting the dining nook. And the phone. Funny how MacLeod now interpreted
the man's moves in tactical terms.
Well, he had the killing blow, he hoped.
He reached into his grocery bag and removed the topmost six-pack. He placed
it on the sofa table, and looked at Methos.
Pure gratitude shimmered on the man's face and form.
Touche.
"Okay, you can stay," Methos melted.
Triumphant, MacLeod followed him to the kitchen, where he passed the bottles
to Methos, who relayed them into the empty refrigerator. A familiar act.
MacLeod studied the older man, groping for the mysterious clarity of vision
which he had had before. Methos looked thinner, he noticed. Was he not
eating?
Did they starve you in the death camp, Death? Stupid question.
Of course they did.
MacLeod riffled through his own memories of the war. He had never seen
a death camp, not even after the war, but he had felt their effects. Shock
and fury reverberated through the Allied forces as camp after camp was
liberated, and ordinary soldiers saw what they had not prevented. MacLeod
had seen the backlash when he visited a hastily erected American POW pen
for holding the surrendering German soldiers. "How little can we feed them
and still be within the Geneva convention?" the commander had asked.
He was not a cruel man. He and his men were in the war as a glorious rescue,
not for any personal grudge. But they had seen a horror which made them
hate.
When MacLeod protested the treatment of the prisoners, he met an immense
stony wall of disinterest. A wall built neither of policy nor of sadism,
but of pure sickened reaction. He had heard the stories, of course, but
it was the eyes of those soldiers which haunted his dreams. You have
not seen what we have seen.
MacLeod had never met a war he liked - not even in his youth, if he was
honest with himself - but suddenly he realized that somewhere, not so far
away, this war had a monstrous heart of evil, a core of true darkness unlike
anything he had encountered before. He had not seen it, but it made him
shiver.
Methos had lived in it. Survived, as immortals always did, amidst the deaths
of generations.
A clock struck the half-hour, banishing MacLeod's memories, but not quite
returning him to himself. He looked at his fellow immortal, hoping for
something to reassure him that they were both here, in the present. A mocking
look, a cynical joke, would be welcome.
No such luck.
Methos sat across the table from him, regarding his beer. And, as if he
were a reflection of MacLeod's thoughts, he was shivering.
MacLeod had to move. He stood and strode past Methos to the screened back
door. Seacouver's eternal rain had started again, and a damp breeze blew
through the screen. MacLeod closed the door. Maybe Methos was just cold.
Methos
looked up at the action. MacLeod met his green-gold gaze, still trying
to really see the man. He resisted an impulse to touch him, reminded again
of the wounded animal coaxed out of hiding. If you got that far, you still
didn't touch. The animal would lash out. What did you do? You... offered
food and backed away.
"I'm calling for a pizza."
"Not on my phone!" Methos lashed out.
MacLeod drew his cellular phone slowly out of an inner jacket pocket, as
if he were disarming himself at the point of a gun. "No, on mine."
Methos slumped.
MacLeod placed the call.
"You're paying for it," Methos warned.
"Why? I bought the beer."
"I'm out of cash. Banks don't deliver."
MacLeod nodded, replacing his phone. A thought occurred to him. "Is
your home phone the only number he has?"
Methos nodded.
Oh. But, still . . . "You know, you could use your cellular to return calls
to your friends," he admonished.
Burns. Burns would have tried to help Methos with talking. MacLeod could
try. It would mean not avoiding the subject any longer. Would Methos allow
it?
He sat opposite the man who had been Death on a horse, and tried to comfort
him with words.
"Methos, what is it you're afraid of?" When Methos didn't reply, MacLeod
went on. It wasn't hard to guess. "You're afraid of what she's telling
him. You're thinking of all the things she could be saying. You're ...
remembering things you did."
Methos
didn't look up, but he began to peel the label off of his beer bottle.
MacLeod was certain he was on target.
"Does
it matter so much to you? What he thinks?"
MacLeod tried to imagine what Grossman meant to Methos. He knew Grossman
had befriended "Adam" after the war. After Bergen-Belsen. "I never saw
a man who needed to talk as badly as he did," Grossman had said. What had
it been like?
You
have not seen what we have seen.
To MacLeod's surprise, Methos answered. "I just don't want to lose all
my friends over this," he said, very quietly.
The
"over this" rekindled MacLeod's old anger. As if murder and rape were trifles
which his friends ought to overlook! For a moment MacLeod's resolution
slipped. Then he took a firm hold of it. He was a guest here. Methos didn't
have to let him in.
"You never lost Joe, Methos." Surely the man had mortal friends who knew
nothing about any of it. Maybe that's not what he meant. MacLeod reminded
himself that Methos had killed probably his oldest immortal friend
"over this". He thought again of Brian Cullen.
Go
ahead, say it.
"And you haven't lost me, either. And Grossman ... is probably a better
man than I am."
Mercifully, Methos let these declarations pass. MacLeod hoped he had heard
them. Or maybe he hoped he hadn't.
"He's never going to call," Methos mourned.
If he didn't, MacLeod reflected, the tightly strung man before him might
snap. "Yes, he is."
And
soon, now.
MacLeod
realized with a glance at the antique Seth Thomas clock, that he wouldn't
have time to wait for the pizza. He took out the cash for it and set it
on the table. He regarded the unhappy man huddled there. Beer, pizza, a
phone call ... it was all MacLeod could do for him now. It was time for
him to go.
"I'm coming back later. Don't go anywhere."
Methos was still at home, to MacLeod's relief. He announced himself again.
"Come in, MacLeod," he heard clearly through the screen door. Despite the
rain, Methos had his front door open.
He found Methos sprawled on his couch, a six pack on the floor. The pizza
was there, too, untouched. But the place no longer felt like a prison.
Methos reached down and tossed MacLeod a beer. MacLeod caught it and grinned.
Methos almost smiled back. His expression was odd, though. Distant.
MacLeod sat carefully in a chair which looked more impressionistic than
functional. Dali never made chairs, did he? He reached for the pizza box
and helped himself.
They drank their beers. MacLeod thought he had seldom savored a companionable
silence so much. He waited for Methos to stop staring at the ceiling and
break it.
"I forgot I would have to explain about being Methos."
Oh. Oh! Well, this was safer ground.
"How did that go?"
"I don't know. He didn't believe it."
"He told you he didn't believe you?"
"No. But I could tell. But that must mean he doubts Cassandra. Now I don't
know what's going on."
MacLeod considered this. "How could you tell he didn't believe you?"
Methos sighed and sat up. "He didn't ask any of the usual questions."
"What do you mean?"
Methos slid to his feet and wandered around the room. "You know, did I
build Stonehenge, was I Alexander's tactical advisor, did I design the
pyramids. Those questions." His wandering brought him back to the pizza
box. He extracted a piece of pizza and bit into it, his expression still
distant. A 5000 year old man eating pizza.
MacLeod gave himself a mental shake. "I never asked you those questions."
Methos looked at MacLeod as he worked on his pizza slice. "I know. Why
didn't you?"
Why? Several flippant answers occurred to MacLeod, but he rejected them.
He sorted through his feelings for the truth. "At first there wasn't time.
Later, well, ..." did he dare risk what would sound like a criticism? How
fragile was the other man? "... you're not always very approachable."
Methos's expression didn't change. "I have no idea what you are talking
about."
MacLeod let it drop. He took another piece of pizza, hoping it would encourage
Methos to do the same. The other immortal really did look thinner. Peaked,
his mother would have said. "Can I ask them now?"
Methos gave him a surprised look, then he looked down. Embarrassed, MacLeod
decided. "Okay."
"Did you build Stonehenge?"
"No. I was nowhere near the place."
"Who did then?"
"I don't know, MacLeod. The people who lived there at the time, I imagine,"
Methos's voice had a familiar, irritated tone. MacLeod was glad to hear
it. "What am I, an encyclopedia?"
MacLeod affected a sigh. "Like I said, you're not very approachable."
"Point. Okay. Point taken," Methos allowed. He sank onto the couch and
took a piece of pizza. "Care to try again?"
"Were you Alexander's tactical advisor?"
"No. I was a foot soldier in his army, though." And ...? MacLeod was sure
he could
see Methos struggle to volunteer information without being
sarcastic. "I never made it to the Hyphasis. He wanted to establish a colony
on the Jaxartes, and I was volunteered. Not that I minded. I've always
preferred settling down to warfare." He glanced up at MacLeod, almost fearfully.
"Most of the time, anyway."
MacLeod refrained from comment. He did wonder for a moment what Hyphasis
and Jaxartes were. What was the question about the pyramids? Well, it didn't
matter, he found he had a question of his own for the oldest of his kind.
He had his own untended wounds. How could you do it? How could you enjoy
it? "Did you ride with Kronos as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"
Methos reacted to his feet and retreated to the bookcase. "That's not part
of the legend."
"Maybe it should be. Answer the question." Please.
Methos was still. MacLeod waited. He had learned this waiting trick from
Grossman. The chacmool kept its uncaring gaze fixed over Methos's head.
The daffodils were starting to droop.
"Yes."
"Did you kill thousands of people?"
Methos looked out the window into the rain-slicked street. "Yes," he replied.
"Did you like it?" MacLeod held his own gaze steady, but gentled his tone.
He'd had enough of judging, for now. He just wanted to finish this, to
offer his friendship again, despite Methos's past. He was prepared for
the answer, this time.
Methos shivered again, once, still looking into the distance. "Yes. I think."
What? He wasn't prepared for this answer! MacLeod traded one type of intensity
for another. "You think?!" he almost yelled.
Released, Methos turned away, to face the bookshelf. He wiped a hand across
his face. "I don't really remember what I felt. It's more like a movie
I saw that had me in it."
MacLeod's world reeled. How many times had he replayed their scene by Methos's
car? Where Methos giggled as he boasted about how he had enjoyed killing
people? Where MacLeod had nearly wept as he declared their friendship over?
Methos had said he liked it. Had done little to keep the Highlander from
believing he was eager to return to his old life. Had manipulated him again.
"You
told me ..." he couldn't finish. He almost couldn't breathe. The
hazel eyes watched him, unaccountably tender.
"Sorry," Methos said gently, and with utter sincerity, "It wasn't what
you think. I just lost it."
Strangely, it helped. MacLeod took two deep, centering breaths. The rain,
which had been falling quietly, began to drum the window glass. "You didn't,
... you didn't do that deliberately? To drive me away?"
"No. I would have much rather had your help."
"You had it anyway."
"I know. Thanks." They both listened to the rain. MacLeod felt better than
he had in months.
"You could try that, you know," he offered.
"What?"
"Apologizing."
"Apologize to whom? The shades of the dead?"
"No. To Cassandra."
Methos paled. "I think not."
"Why not?"
"Do you really think there's an apology big enough? You have no idea."
"I think I do. She spent a week telling me about it in Bordeaux. Telling
me what she's telling David now."
Methos winced.
"Worse, probably - she wanted me to kill you."
Methos positively flinched.
"You should apologize," MacLeod was unrelenting.
"It's laughable."
"So, you get laughed at. It's still the right thing to do."
"And you are the expert on the right thing to do," Methos hardly bothered
to put sarcasm in his words. It was almost a statement of fact.
MacLeod didn't answer. He didn't have to.
The phone rang. Methos walked to it and waited. Answer the phone, Methos.
Come back to your friends. Methos picked up before the machine did.
MacLeod smiled.
"Oh, David!" Methos turned a desperate expression on the Highlander. David!
MacLeod scrambled to his feet and gathered his coat. He needed no preternatural
vision to read Methos's plea.
As he pulled the door shut behind him, rain pelting his exposed neck, he
heard Methos speak.
"No," he said, in a bemused tone, "I was nowhere near the place."
Return to Teresa C's Highlander Fanfiction page
read
the sequel, "Kaddish"