Most importantly, the character of David Grossman belongs to Sandra McDonald, used here by permission (thank you, Sandra!). I met him in her story The Victories We Claim, at http://www.mindspring.com/~vfoster/HL/victories.html. (someday I'll get permission to link to it here)
Oh, and thanks to Mordechai T. Abzug on alt.tv.highlander for the phrase
"bludgeoned him with the truth"!
"You
expecting someone, MacLeod?" Methos asked, tensing. MacLeod also
felt the presence of an approaching immortal. He shook his head at the
man lounging on a barstool further down the bar. He wasn't concerned about
whom the new arrival might be. He only hoped it would force the ever-cautious
Methos to leave. MacLeod found the older immortal's presence irritating.
He had told Methos their friendship was over, even before Bordeaux, but
after the deaths of the other Horsemen Methos had refused to vanish from
MacLeod's life, and MacLeod hadn't quite found the strength to tell him
to go.
Joe, who knew how to read the signs in his friends, was watching them from
behind the bar. Methos stood, put money on the bar, and shrugged into his
raincoat. He faded through the darkened club toward the rear exit. You're
assuming they're coming through the front door, MacLeod mused.
The assumption proved to be correct. The front door admitted a rain-soaked
immortal of average height with dark hair and eyes, wearing grey woolens.
He paused just inside the door, removed his wet cap and coat, and scanned
the crowd in Joe's. The Thursday night crowd was subdued and not very thick;
it was early yet. There were some empty tables and only MacLeod at the
bar.
Joe had moved his glass-drying operation to MacLeod's end of the bar.
"Know this guy?" he inquired.
"No. You?"
"Nope. Not by sight, anyway."
The newcomer met MacLeod's gaze with a look which might have been disappointment,
replaced swiftly with a genial expression. He approached MacLeod slowly,
though with no outward suspicion or hostility. He might have been being
cautious. MacLeod turned his bar stool so he faced the man. Let the other
make the first move. He was the intruder here. The man paused a
few feet from MacLeod, holding his cap in both hands. He ducked his head
slightly.
"David Grossman," he offered.
"Duncan MacLeod," MacLeod returned, and after a moment's thought, held
out his hand. Grossman gave a relieved smile and took it. Duncan gestured
to the stool next to him, and the newcomer looked expectantly at Joe.
"What can I get you?" To MacLeod's ear, Joe sounded neutral. He wondered
if the name meant something to the Watcher.
"Anything you've got that's hot," the man replied, piling his wet outerwear
on the stool next to his own.
"That'd be coffee," Joe replied, "How do you take it?"
"Two sugars, please."
MacLeod studied the smaller man, assessing. He looked as if his first death
had occurred in his early forties, and he had a very unassuming manner
and body language, but his movements suggested fitness and conditioning.
His dark hair curled and glistened with rain, and seemed oddly shaped,
somehow. When he turned his head to survey the bar area, MacLeod saw that
he wore a yarmulke.
"What are you doing here, Mr. Grossman?" A hostile question in a non-committal
tone. How would the other immortal choose to take it?
Grossman gave a knowing smile to the mug of coffee Joe slid in front of
him.
"I'm looking for a man," he replied. No evasions. He looked directly at
MacLeod, but included Joe in his regard. "I thought you might be him, but
you're not. Maybe you can help me."
MacLeod schooled his features carefully to hide his sudden inner tension.
Joe, however, paused in his glass drying, and lifted expressive eyebrows.
Grossman turned to Joe, but still watched MacLeod.
"His name should be Adam. It might be Adam Pierson. I was told I might
sometimes find him here. Do you know him?" This last was addressed to the
mortal, the bartender, the one who might have information and less reason
to withhold it.
Joe didn't even give MacLeod a glance. MacLeod knew that keeping secrets
was so much a part of Joe that it would take more than this to catch him
off-guard.
"What do you want him for?" Joe asked, appearing to think hard. Grossman
looked down and lifted the coffee to drink. Then he smiled and addressed
his answer half to MacLeod.
"My business with him is personal. We are old friends." He looked expectantly
from one man to the other.
MacLeod stayed silent.
I want him to live, he had shouted to Cassandra.
Then he hadn't seen her again, and Methos he couldn't seem to shake.
"Sorry, I'm afraid I can't help you," Joe gave him. The man studied both
their faces for a moment, then nodded. He reached into his pocket and produced
a business card.
"I'm only in town for one night. Perhaps if you should meet him you could
give him this for me." Still smiling, he pressed the card toward Joe. Joe
hesitated, then took the card. "Thank you," Grossman said.
Joe
turned away and busied himself at the other end of the bar, where two new
customers had seated themselves. The place was slowly filling.
"Where are you from?" MacLeod inquired, neutral.
"Queens," the other replied. "New York," he added.
"And why are you looking for Adam Pierson?" Perhaps he would be less reluctant
to admit his business now that they were talking immortal to immortal.
"Like I said, we're old friends. I knew him in New York after the War."
"Which one?"
"World War II," Grossman grinned. He seemed about to say something else,
then changed his mind.
MacLeod considered. The man didn't have any of the antagonistic mannerisms
he associated with head-hunting immortals. Still, he wasn't sure he had
the right to arrange any meeting between two immortals when he wasn't certain
of their intentions. And which of them was he protecting? Methos, he reminded
himself, was not the mild-mannered researcher he had presented himself
as. The fury MacLeod felt at the man he had thought of as a friend had
long since settled into his stomach like a cold rock. The rock was there
now.
"He might not be using Adam Pierson, now, but I hope he still uses Adam.
I gave him the name."
"Why?"
"I had to call him something. He wouldn't give me any name."
"He still uses Adam Pierson," Joe reported, unexpectedly back with them,
"He's on his way."
"You called him!" Grossman exclaimed.
"Yeah. He made me describe you, but he agreed that you're a friend. He
should be here any minute." Joe must have the number of Methos's cellular,
MacLeod reflected. The older immortal hadn't been gone long enough to be
at home.
"Wonderful!" Grossman cried, "Thank you, my friend. I think I will move
to a table before they are all taken." He gathered his things and coffee,
nodded to MacLeod, and settled in at a table.
"What did he say?" MacLeod asked Joe.
Joe shrugged. "He's a friend and he's on his way."
"Not like him to be so trusting."
MacLeod missed Joe's amused agreement as his senses were abruptly flooded
by the awareness of an approaching immortal. Grossman looked expectantly
at the front door, but MacLeod turned toward the rear, resting one elbow
on the bar.
Methos appeared from the rear door, paused, scanned, and spotted Grossman.
His eyes widened and a delighted grin spread across his face. David,
he mouthed, and moved swiftly toward the man's table. Grossman stood to
meet him, and the two embraced like friends who hadn't seen each other
in half a century.
MacLeod returned to his drink, reasonably satisfied that the evening would
see no mayhem. Joe returned to his other customers.
But before too long, to MacLeod's annoyance, Methos was back at the bar,
seating his friend next to MacLeod, and taking the stool on the far side
of Grossman. He introduced Grossman warmly to MacLeod and then to Joe.
MacLeod found he couldn't snub Methos in front of the outsider. When the
handshakes were finished, Grossman commented, "Your friends are very protective
of you, Adam."
"Yeah, well, that's what they're paid for," Methos joked. "Draft beer please,
Joe. And ..." he looked at Grossman.
"The
same."
MacLeod
watched the two men with curiosity. He had not seen Methos this open and
friendly since the demise of the Horsemen. Actually, he hadn't seen Methos
this friendly, ever. What would Grossman think, he wondered darkly, if
he knew the truth about his friend?
Grossman had produced a fat wallet full of pictures, and seemed to be giving
"Adam" a family history lesson. He enumerated each person's name, the circumstances
under which they were born, whom they had married, and what career they
had pursued. This seemed to go on for a number of generations. Methos paid
careful attention, which MacLeod was convinced was artificial. Every now
and then he would glance up from the pictures at MacLeod, his hazel eyes
laughing. Then he would return to the lesson and respectfully inquire "Now
did you say she was one of Eva's girls?" or "Why didn't they have any children?"
Finally, Grossman grew suspicious and closed the wallet.
"Have you so little interest in your family?" he remonstrated.
"Oh, David, they're not my family." Methos leaned back, grinning. "MacLeod,
did I tell you David was my rabbi?"
"And here I didn't even know you were Jewish," MacLeod replied. He remembered
something Methos had said once. He had joked about being older than God.
"I'll never make a good Jew out of you if you don't pay more attention
to family," Grossman sighed. Methos patted the wallet.
"They matter to you, I know, David," he said kindly, "but Zofia's kids
were grown and gone when I married her. They despised me. They thought
I married her for her money. So I just can't care that much about her great-grandchildren."
Methos was grinning, but David looked uneasily at Joe, who had rejoined
them. Mike, one of his bartenders, had arrived, and was dealing with most
of the growing clientele in the bar. Methos caught the look.
"Joe's in on us," he explained. Grossman looked surprised, but not concerned.
"Oh, I see," he said to Joe, who grinned crookedly. Then, to Methos, "You
made Mrs. Rosenfeld very happy." His tone invited a serious discussion,
but Methos ducked it.
"But not her kids." He laughed and changed the subject. "Where are
you staying, David?"
"Hotel," the other immortal replied, crinkling his eyes at his friend.
"No, no," Methos decided, "Come and stay at my place. I'll take you to
your plane in the morning."
"Maybe
I should. You don't look entirely well, Adam. How are you?"
"I'm fine!" Methos exclaimed. "David pulled me out of a depression once,"
he explained to the others. "Made me an honorary Jew in the process." This
was far too forthcoming of him, MacLeod reflected. What was he feinting
away from?
"God made you a Jew, Adam," David corrected, with quiet earnestness "by
virtue of shared suffering." His words hung in the air, waiting for Methos
to say something.
"One little tattoo," Methos finally said, negligently. Then he excused
himself and melted into the crowd, in the general direction of the bathrooms.
David Grossman seemed unconcerned that he had given the conversation so
serious a turn. MacLeod began to suspect him of being more at home with
personal conversation than with friendly chatter.
"I never saw a man who needed to talk as badly as he did," Grossman volunteered,
"but it was days before he would even tell me to get lost." He looked cheerfully
at Joe over his mug. "That was a start."
MacLeod was torn between the knowledge that anything Grossman was likely
to tell them was definitely not something Methos would want them to know,
and a sudden urgent curiosity. Reminding himself that he owed Methos no
special consideration, he allowed the curiosity to win.
"A death camp tattoo?" he asked. Grossman nodded.
"Bergen-Belsen."
MacLeod and Joe exchanged wide-eyed glances, but neither pursued the questioning.
Grossman added nothing. MacLeod found he could not stop his imagination
from revolving around what Nazi doctors might do to someone who could return
from the dead.
Methos returned, ending the conversation which wasn't actually happening.
Grossman took his turn, leaving Methos alone to his friends' scrutiny.
While MacLeod struggled to decide how and if to inquire, Joe showed fewer
reservations.
"You were in a death camp during the war?" he asked, not bothering to keep
the awe out of his voice, as MacLeod would have done. Methos assented with
a nod which also served to finish off his beer. Joe refilled it.
"Then I was in New York, which is where David made a project of me. I was
a little out of it. Zofia Rosenfeld was a widow in his congregation. I
wonder how he keeps serving the same community? He can't be his own grandson,
when everyone knows he has no kids."
MacLeod watched as Joe played along, the two of them speculating how Grossman
might do it, comparing notes on how other immortals had gotten away with
similar identity sleights-of-hand. Interesting how we are now
not talking about Bergen-Belsen, he mused.
In fact, we're now not
talking about Methos. They dropped the subject when Grossman returned.
"So, David," Methos asked, "how did you know where to find me? I've only
just gotten a place here; I'm usually in Paris."
"Lucky for me you were in town, then. I met a woman who told me Adam Pierson
might be found here occasionally. This woman, she hates you very much,
Adam." If Grossman had worn glasses, his look would have scolded his friend
over their rims.
He may have been a little taken aback by the response he got. All color
faded from Methos's face, Joe set a glass down on the bar, too loudly,
and even MacLeod tensed as if the threat were to himself.
"Cassandra?" Methos breathed. Grossman glanced swiftly at the other two
men before returning his avuncular regard to Methos.
"I'm glad we're talking about the same woman. I wouldn't like to think
there were two women who hated you that much. Adam, why does she
hate you like that?"
Neither Joe nor MacLeod breathed, and Methos merely regarded the other
man with a stunned look. The silence stretched. Clearly Grossman had a
high tolerance for uncomfortable silences. Methos looked like he wished
he were on another planet.
Don't
leave, Methos, MacLeod urged silently. Don't do that to him.
Finally, Methos responded. His tone was light, but MacLeod could hear the
careful control.
"Well, she has good reasons, David, but I'd really rather not tell you
about it, okay?"
Fair enough. MacLeod looked at Grossman.
No deal.
"Why are you afraid to tell me?"
"Because I can't bear to see you hate me too," Methos gasped out.
"How could I hate you, Adam? You are a good man. I know it. It can't have
been anything so bad." Grossman was genial, and patted Methos's arm reassuringly.
But Methos had all his defenses up.
"Oh no you don't," he declared. "I know this one. 'You're a good man, it
can't have been so bad.' You say that so I'll blurt it out just to prove
you wrong. Don't play those games with me David, I know them all."
Grossman blinked, but neither defended himself nor relented.
"Adam, I won't hate you. But I have to know what you did to Cassandra."
"Why?" it was almost a cry.
Don't
push him, David, was now MacLeod's silent appeal. Don't do
that to him. The rock in his stomach had changed from fury to fear.
"So I can help her."
"Help her!" Methos sounded incredulous. "You want to help Cassandra!"
"Of course. God has sent her to me, like He sent you to me. She has been
devoured by hate for a very long time. It's a terrible thing. And such
a beautiful woman."
"You ... want to help Cassandra." This time it was a statement, an
idea. Methos's hazel eyes went inky black as he looked at his friend like
he wanted to see his soul. Then he looked away, at Joe. Through Joe.
Once again, Joe proved more courageous than MacLeod. He tried to intervene,
to head off the coming catastrophe.
"David, maybe it would be better if ..."
But, MacLeod realized, there is no interference allowed once challenge
has been made and met. Methos cut him off.
"You want to help Cassandra, like you did me."
"It's my job. I have to, if I can."
"Maybe you can, maybe you can." Methos sounded distracted. "Did you ever
meet Darius?"
"I never had the pleasure."
"No, no, well ..." he took a breath. His face, which had flushed, paled
again. He clutched his empty beer mug with both hands, darted an agonized
look at Grossman, and began.
"Well, for starters, I kept her captive, as my sex slave, for 70 years."
"You did." Grossman sounded doubtful.
"Yes." Methos studied his mug and pressed on. "I ... raped her, every
night, or, well, once a day or so, I guess, for all that time."
Methos glanced again at the other man, and continued, now looking at something
over Joe's shoulder.
"And that's just the beginning. If you want to help her, you'll need to
know the real harm I did to her. I made it so she couldn't love."
"I made her love me, and then I laughed at her. Then I manipulated her
into loving me again, and I betrayed her. I did it three times just to
show her how helpless she was. I had all the time in the world, you see."
"Adam, no."
"Oh yes." Methos looked straight at his friend now, but his eyes were seeing
another age. "But it took more than that. I let her love other people.
Friends, children. Then I ..." he focused abruptly on Grossman as he paused,
"killed them in front of her."
As Grossman tried to protest, Methos rushed on. "It worked really well.
I conditioned her to fear love. I wouldn't be surprised if she still can't
love anyone."
"Adam, Adam!" Grossman cried, "To cut someone off from loving other people
is to cut them off from God!"
"Don't forget, killing people does that too," Methos's voice was bitter.
"Or, no, I forget, that sends them to God, doesn't it. Never could
keep that straight."
"Why, Adam, why?!" Grossman sounded very distressed.
Methos abruptly shrank into himself.
"To keep her to myself, of course. So I could own her completely, dominate
her, break her ..."
"When was this?"
"A long time ago. She'll tell you. She never broke though. She was magnificent."
"You loved her!" Grossman sounded horrified. Methos laughed a bitter laugh.
"I wouldn't tell her that, if I were you."
"Adam, I cannot believe this," Grossman's tone was resolute.
Methos regarded him with a detached, calculating look. He leaned forward,
and spoke fiercely.
The answer is yes. Oh, yes. The pain behind Methos's words set every
nerve MacLeod had to aching. Could David hear that pain? Of course not.
He wasn't meant to. Had it been there when Methos had bludgeoned MacLeod
with the truth? With almost the same words? He hadn't heard
it then.
Bewildered, Grossman appealed to MacLeod and Joe.
"You don't believe this of him, do you?"
Joe looked down, but MacLeod felt that something more definite was called
for. He actually looked at Methos, but the world's oldest immortal wore
his most inscrutable look. Would telling the man the truth hurt Methos
or help him? Did MacLeod want to hurt Methos or help him? He tried
to picture Methos with the Horsemen, and torturing Cassandra, but, unbidden,
the images of Methos with Alexa, and grieving at her grave, intruded.
He met Grossman's agonized gaze, and nodded.
"But Adam, Adam ..." Grossman turned back to the other man. "You make yourself
sound like ... a Hitler!"
Oh no.
Methos had chosen his path, and he didn't shrink from it.
"David, Hitler felt he had a moral reason for what he did. I never bothered
with that. Hitler did have a higher body count, though."
At that almost-joke, Grossman began to tremble. He stood and began to fish
in his coat pocket.
"Adam, I cannot stay at your place tonight," he declared with vicious calm.
Methos nodded. "Hotel then," he said.
Grossman extracted his wallet. "And I think I have to go there now."
He took out some money for Joe, but Methos waved it away.
"I've got it," he pleaded.
Grossman froze, locking gazes with Methos. "I will let you buy my
drink," he said deliberately, "for the sake of the man I thought you were."
"Thank you," Methos responded.
"I will have to know more details from you, eventually."
"Call me," Methos replied. " I'll tell you anything you think you need
to know."
Grossman nodded slowly, collected his coat and hat, nodded to Joe and MacLeod,
and walked out of the bar.
Joe slid an icy bottle of beer into Methos's hands. It was faster than
filling his mug, MacLeod guessed. Methos gripped the bottle and started
to raise it to drink, but collapsed forward onto the bar before he got
any further.
MacLeod breathed. He wondered how long it had been since he had breathed
normally. He looked at Joe. Joe shook his head. They both regarded the
vulnerable-looking neck and upper back of the only surviving Horseman of
the Apocalypse. MacLeod hoped he wasn't crying. It made him uncomfortable
that the man was willing to weep. He had told MacLeod once that he was
born before men were forbidden to cry, and had never really seen any shame
in it.
Well, tears or no, MacLeod wasn't going to fail to speak, this time.
"Adam." He caught himself almost using the older name.
"What?" The other man's voice was muffled and terse.
"That was a damn fine thing you just did."
Methos sat up, dragging his palms across his face. He gave MacLeod a grateful
look, but didn't risk saying anything. He fished out a twenty, put it on
the bar, met Joe's moist eyes for a brief second, took the bottle of beer
and his coat, and fled out the rear door, like all his demons were chasing
him. The rock in MacLeod's stomach was gone, replaced with an aching in
his chest. He wished fervently that he could behead those demons for his
friend. And then he reflected with some satisfaction that he already had.
Return to Teresa C's Highlander Fanfiction page
read
the sequel, "Communion"