A/N: In the Highlander universe, this story takes place about six weeks after "Revelation 6:8".

Legends, Love, Loss, and Surrender

Chapter One
New Year's Revelations

"You're gonna love this place," Methos said with uncharacteristic excitement as they moved with the jostling crowd toward the doors. "I've heard their house band is the phenomenal!"

"I always thought they had a pretty good band at Joe's," Duncan teased. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his friend so excited and knew he had to be coming here for more than the music.

"I never said they didn't," Methos replied softly, looking at him with hooded eyes, "but I've heard all their songs before."

Suddenly, everything slotted into place and Duncan just nodded. Joe's was a fine place for hanging out and having a few beers, but there were too many memories of Alexa and the pain of her loss was still too fresh for Methos to actually relax and enjoy himself there. His friend needed a loud, festive atmosphere without any reminders of the lover he had lost so soon after finding her, and a new bar opening the first weekend of the new year was just the place to find it. Wanting to lighten the mood, Macleod said, "As long as the drinks are on you, I'll follow you anywhere."

"Damn," Methos smirked, "and I was just about to tell you I'd forgotten my wallet."

"Cheapskate," Duncan snorted as he paid the cover charge for both of them.

Stepping into the barroom, both Immortals went on alert as the prickling sensation at the backs of their necks told them another of their kind was present. A quick glance around brought both of their gazes to focus on a nervous looking, long-limbed youth with a chubby, round, boyish face and shoulder-length curly brown hair. He acknowledged them with an ingratiating smile and a tilt of his head, and they each returned his greeting. Silently agreeing that they would not concern themselves with the youthful-looking Immortal unless he gave them a reason, they resumed their banter.

"I thought you were proud to be Scotch," Methos said mockingly.

"I am Scottish," Duncan corrected loudly as the band started their set with Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild". "There is a difference."

"Depends on who you ask," Methos told him, indicating a table near the dance floor.

"We have always been a generous people. It's just that back in the day, we were too poor to have much to offer thanks to the English taxes," Mac grumbled as he signaled the waitress for a couple of beers. "And besides, I don't remember asking you."

"No," Methos conceded, "but you did start the name calling."

Duncan glowered as he thought back over their conversation. Realizing Methos was right, he said, "I guess I did, this time. Sorry."

They broke off their conversation as the young Immortal took their beers from the waitress and delivered them to the table personally. "Michael Nichols," he introduced himself in a soft, youthful voice. "Friends call me Mike. I'm the manager." Setting a bottle in front of each of them, he said, "First drink's on the house, gentlemen, and you can call me Mike if I can have your word there will be no trouble tonight."

"I'm just here for the band, Mike," Methos said with a fake enthusiastic smile.

When the waiter looked to Duncan, the Highlander shrugged and told him, "I'm just having a few beers with my friend."

Satisfied, and looking more than a little relieved, the waiter nodded and said, "Enjoy the music, then."

They nodded and raised their bottles in appreciation, and the waiter left them.

"Apology accepted, by the way," Methos leaned across the table to shout at Duncan over the music. "One learns to expect a certain amount of immaturity when dealing with children."

"Imma . . . ?" Duncan stammered. "Children! Where do you get off . . . ?"

"Relatively speaking," Methos mockingly soothed him.

Duncan huffed. At over 5,000 years old, Methos could find patches of dirt that were childish and immature, relatively speaking. Some of the Westman Islands off the southern coast of Iceland came to mind, even before the emergence of Surtsey back in the 1960s. Irked with both himself and Methos that he could not offer a clever comeback, he scowled at his friend only to shake his head in amusement when he realized that any reply he made would be lost on the older Immortal. His eyes were closed and his head was bobbing in time to the music.

Laughing with pleasure to see the often morose Ancient Immortal truly enjoying himself, Macleod took a swig of his beer and relaxed back in his seat to watch the crowd and listen to the band. As a general rule, his tastes ran more toward classical music, opera, and, since knowing Joe Dawson, blues, but he could appreciate true genius in any genre and couldn't help but respect the hard-rock lyricist who had coined the phrase heavy metal or appreciate the driving rhythm that virtually possessed him as he caught himself nodding along with the beat just like his companion. It was no wonder a free spirit like Methos liked this type of music. When the band launched into the second chorus, Macleod looked over and was not surprised to see his friend singing along like more than half of the hundred or so other patrons in the bar.

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild!
We can climb so high
I never wanna die!

Born to be wild!
Born to be wild!

As the song ended, Mac joined the audience in applause, beside him, Methos whistled and shouted his appreciation. To Macleod, his friend's enthusiasm seemed a bit forced, but he understood what the elder Immortal was doing. He'd seen more than once what happened when one of their kind mourned a loss too deeply or too long. If the grieving Immortal didn't resolve to go on with his life, he either descended into madness slaughtering innocents until someone better and saner took his head; or he became indifferent, lackadaisical, apathetic, and lost his head simply because he did not care enough to fight his best fight to keep it.

Methos was forcing himself to act like he was having the time of his very long life, hoping that by pretending he had found something to enjoy about living, he would eventually really find it again. If that's what it took to bring his friend back from his long months of grieving, Macleod was more than willing to support him. As the next song started with a few bars of a funky little melody, he cheered with the crowd, even though he had no idea what the song would be.

It turned out the band was playing "Who Are You?" by The Who, and Duncan had to laugh at the irony. Immortals, at least those who lived long enough to learn their way around a sword, lived so many lives, became so many people, it could be easy to lose oneself. It wasn't just clannish pride that made him introduce himself as Duncan Macleod of the Clan Macleod whenever he faced an opponent, it was a need to remind himself that, however many heads he had taken, he was no bloodthirsty, murdering lunatic but a good and proud man who only fought when he had to.

At the bridge, the band went quiet. The guitar solo started quietly, the musician seeming to exist in a bubble of music, just him and his guitar, the two of them so focused on creating their own world of sound that the audience and even the rest of the band became irrelevant. As the soloist plucked out a tune that was most certainly unique to this night, this crowd, and the guitar player's mood, Methos dropped a bombshell.

"Alexa and I were married."

Stunned, Duncan just stared at him. Before he could decide whether congratulations were appropriate considering the bride was already deceased, the guitar solo ended with great wind-milling gestures, thundering chords, and cheers and applause from the audience as the drummer banged away, and the lead singer wailed into the microphone, "Tell me who are youuuuuu?"

Then the band went into a quiet recitation of "Who are who are who are who are who are you?"

Mac hesitated, still unsure what to say, but he didn't need to say anything. Methos leaned in and told him, "First we had an ancient ceremony, one practiced by my people . . . my first people. I gave her a necklace and anointed her with frankincense and then we made love. The next night we exchanged vows on the rim of the Grand Canyon, just the two of us."

Mac waited a moment, but Methos seemed to have finished talking for the time being. "Did it make you happy?" he finally asked.

Methos nodded. "Very happy."

"Then I am happy for you."

There was another round of teeth-rattling chords, and the lead singer went back to the main chorus. Methos turned away from him them, his eyes suspiciously bright. Even in the dim light at the edge of the dance floor, Mac could see his friend's lips moving along with the lyrics.

I know there's a place you walked
Where love falls from the trees.
My heart is like a broken cup;
I only feel right on my knees.

I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss.
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?

Suddenly, Macleod found it hard to look at his friend; it made something in his chest constrict. Methos had been married before, sixty-eight times, he claimed. He had loved before, too, and would probably do so again if he kept his head long enough. But he had also told Mac that Alexa was the first woman who had actually made him feel complete. He had even used the term soul mate without irony or sarcasm. Duncan didn't know whether it was a miracle or a tragedy that Methos and Alexa had found each other when they did.

For the next several minutes, Macleod and Methos sat sharing a table and a bowl of pretzels, but each of them on their own. Methos was lost in the music most of the time, often closing his eyes and singing along or just sitting quietly, letting himself be swallowed up by the beat the bass line or a guitar solo, surfacing only to applaud or whistle his appreciation at the appropriate times. Mac was surprised to discover that he honestly enjoyed the raucous noise despite the worry that even his immortal hearing could be permanently damage by the volume. More shocking still, once he got past the ear-shattering, bone-jarring loudness of the music, he found that every single song had something in it that spoke to him personally.

"Wild Thing" brought his relationship with Amanda to mind. She was almost more trouble than she was worth, but as much as he sometimes dreaded having her darken his door, he was always happy when she showed up. "Back in Black" made him introspective, thinking of dark times in his own past like after the Battle of Culloden when rage and a thirst for vengeance drove him to do things he was ashamed of to this day. "The Boys Are Back in Town" reminded him of Fitzcairn and the trouble they would get into together. Certainly stealing the Stone of Scone with Amanda was one of their wildest adventures. It astounded Duncan that for the thirty-odd years that hard rock music had been around, he had never really taken the time to listen to any of the lyrics, and it made him feel every inch a snob.

During the quiet beginning of "Stairway to Heaven," Methos started to talk again.

"You should have seen Alexa in Venice!" he laughed. "We were going for a gondola ride – everywhere we went, we did the touristy things, riding camels out to the pyramids, visiting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, whatever she wanted. Anyway, the gondolier was this big, monstrous . . . gorilla of a man, and he wanted a small fortune to take us out on the canal. I told Alexa it didn't matter, that I could pay whatever he was asking, but she wouldn't hear of it. 'No,' she said, 'I don't care how rich you are, you didn't get that way by overpaying, and every time you do, you make it that much harder for the next person to get a fair price!'

"Well, that was me told. So I just watched her have at this poor bastard in the boat." Methos shook his head and laughed again. "By the time she was done, I think he would have paid us to go out on the canal."

Duncan laughed with him. "I think that's one of the things Dawson really liked about her, you know?"

Methos frowned, not sure what he meant.

"She was . . . plucky. She could handle people and take care of herself," Mac explained. "If someone at the bar got fresh or rowdy, she could put them in their place. He didn't have to come to her rescue."

Methos sighed and smiled and picked at the label on his beer bottle. "No, she certainly didn't need rescuing," he agreed. Then his expression became bitter. "Just saving."

"You were there and you loved her," Mac said. "That was the best thing anyone could ever have done for her."

Methos swallowed heavily and nodded. "I know," he said as the electric instruments came in on Ooooh, it makes me wonder. "I just wish we'd had more time, you know?"

"I know," Mac agreed, "but being who and what you are, that would likely have been the case no matter how long you had together. Don't lose the joy of the good memories you created together in mourning all of the things you didn't get to do."

Methos laughed and sniffled slightly. "You know, she found out about me, about what I am," he said.

Duncan cocked an eyebrow, surprised by the revelation, and Methos nodded. "There was a statue of me at Olympia," he explained. "She took a photo of it, and when I met up with her in Athens after taking you to that healing spring, she saw me holding the picture, and realized that it wasn't some ancient ancestor."

Methos shook his head and wrapped both hands around his beer as if trying to steady himself. "I was terrified that she would hate me if she knew," he said. "Or that she would be hurt, thinking I had just picked her up as some diversion knowing she wouldn't require any real commitment. When I saw that she had figured it out, the tears started to fall, like I was some . . . stupid child, caught in the act of doing something he knew was bad, and I was afraid of the consequences. I started babbling at her, trying to explain, and do you know what she did?"

"Hmm?"

"She forgave me." Methos smiled and rubbed his hands over his face.

"For not telling her," Macleod assumed.

Methos shook his head. "No. Not just for that. For everything," he gasped, scrubbing away the tears again. "For being what I am. She understood right away that it wasn't my fault, it wasn't my choice any more than the cancer had been hers."

He laughed softly, fondly. "She was dying, right in front of me, every day, and she was pleased to know that I might live forever just so I could remember her. She was bloody amazing. Then she made me promise not to mourn her longer than I knew her."

Under the table, Mac counted off the months on his fingers. They'd left for their trip in November and Alexa had died in March. Then there had been that narrowly averted war between Immortals and the Watchers followed by the return of the Four Horsemen, and Macleod was only now realizing that Methos had been without her for nine months. He had already broken his promise.

"It took me 5000 years to find her, Macleod," Methos choked out. "And I only got five months with her. How is that fair?"

"It's not fair for you," Macleod said sympathetically, "but it was for her. Those last five months of her life, you made her happy, you showed her the world, you loved her like crazy, and you gave her everything she ever wanted, didn't you?"

Methos nodded and smiled. Alexa had told him as much more than once.

"You know, you can remember her without mourning her, and you can go on without forgetting her," Mac told him. "You just have to do it in your own time."

Methos looked up and gave him an unconvincing but determined smile. He took a deep breath and said, "That's why I'm here tonight. It's not exactly a New Year's Resolution, but tonight seemed as good a time as any to do something besides sit around brooding." He finished his beer in one long pull and signaled for two more, one for himself and one for Mac. "Uh, you can cover this, right?" He shouted as the guitarist wound up a loud, wailing solo. "I really did forget my wallet."

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls,
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.

And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last,
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she's buying the stairway to heaven.

TBC