"Hope Triumphant I: Healer " Highlander Fanfiction (May 2000) by Parda
Not my universe, not my characters. Rated "Teen" for occasional profanity and reference to rape and violence.
Cassandra and the Sisterhood
Hope Triumphant
by Parda
Cassandra waited through the cold and the dark of winter, but when the thrushes began building their nest in the rowan tree outside her bedroom window, and the delicate white blossoms of the crocus pushed up from the thawing mud, she started hunting.
Methos owed her.
Hope Triumphant I - Healer
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
Thursday, 3 April 1997
Paris, France
"Adam Pierson," Methos said into the telephone, leaning back in his squeaky wooden chair and placing his feet on top of his cluttered desk.
The speaker knew better. "Methos."
"Cassandra," Methos said slowly, taking his feet down, trying to divine her mood from that one word, trying to divine his own. Relief? Dread? Both? A woman going into labor probably felt much the same; the inevitable moment was at hand, and he didn't want to go through with it. He didn't have a choice. "This is a surprise."
"Not as much as the last few times we've met, I suspect," she said, short, sharp, and to the point—rather like a Roman sword.
"No," he agreed. Each time he'd seen her in November had been a surprise: at MacLeod's dojo when she had tried to kill him, at the power plant when she had tried to kill Kronos, and in the cage in Bordeaux when Kronos had been planning to kill her. Unpleasant surprises all. Methos sighed silently as he stood to look out the grimy window at the narrow Parisian street below. Might as well get this over with. "What do you want?"
"You and I have unfinished business," Cassandra said calmly.
"Yeah," he muttered. Like her standing over him with an axe in her hand, about to take his head. Like blood debts. Like preparing to fight, possibly to die. "Look, Cassandra—"
"We need to talk," she interrupted.
"Talk?" he repeated. That was a surprise.
"Talk."
Methos nodded and sat back down as the relief outpaced the dread. Talk sounded good—but then again, Cassandra had been neither friendly nor rational the last time he'd spoken to her. Quite possibly, she was setting him up. "Holy Ground, then."
"Do we need that?" she asked, sharp and pointed again, surprising him again. "You can resist the Voice," she went on, "and we both know I can't defeat you in a sword fight, so I won't have a chance of taking your head."
She could, Methos knew, shoot him from a distance and take his head. Of course, if they were on Holy Ground, she could still shoot him from a distance, drag him off Holy Ground, and then take his head.
"Besides," Cassandra said, "I don't want your head."
Uh-huh.
"And you don't want mine," she continued serenely.
"Sure of that?" he challenged.
Her serenity became satisfaction, touched with amusement. "Kronos was."
She had him there. Methos really felt like saying, "I've changed," but he controlled himself and said only, "Fine. Where?"
"Brighton Beach, England. This weekend."
"It's only April, Cassandra." Methos propped his feet up on his desk again. "Can't you pick some place warmer, like the Riviera or a Greek island or something?"
"I don't have time to travel that far," came the brisk reply.
"You're immortal," Methos said in exasperation.
"I also have to go to work on Monday morning."
And, in fact, so did he. He had an appointment with his thesis advisor. "Adam Pierson" had spent five years transcribing and correlating different dialects of Sumerian, and Methos knew a lot of other scholars would benefit from the work. He had come back to Paris to finish it and then publish Adam Pierson's final accomplishment. Then Pierson would disappear and Methos would find a new name and a new life. But first, he needed to deal with Cassandra.
"All right," Methos told her. "Saturday morning?"
"There's a carousel near the Marine Palace," Cassandra said. "Six o'clock."
Methos groaned. "Ten."
"Seven."
"Nine," he countered.
"Seven fifteen," she suggested.
"Eight forty-five." If she kept arguing with him, he might just agree to meet with her at seven thirty, and then show up when he bloody well felt like it.
Cassandra stopped arguing. "You know where this is going, don't you?" she asked.
Of course he did—at least in the matter of time. "We seem to be oscillating toward a limit value of eight," he answered.
"Taking a math class at that college?"
"No, that was my last degree. This time I'm studying Sumerian cuneiforms. I was writing the bibliography for my thesis when you called."
"Then I shouldn't take up anymore of your valuable time, since you're dealing with such an urgent topic," she said gravely. "Eight o'clock, the carousel at Brighton Beach, agreed?"
"Agreed," Methos said.
"We need to go beyond the night, Methos," Cassandra said softly, and then she hung up.
Methos set his telephone down, then laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back in his chair as he murmured, "Beyond the night." In that cage in Bordeaux five months ago, Cassandra had named herself a Daughter of Night, a Fury, a child born from the blood of the castrated god Uranus. Then she had told him the Furies would pursue him into madness, unto death, and beyond.
Methos had passed through madness into death, and he'd been enduring Beyond ever since. He wondered what Cassandra had been enduring. Dreams? Nightmares? Voices that jabbered in her mind and drove her mad? For the last five months, or for the last three thousand years? He'd hurt and killed so many, and there was absolutely nothing he could change, nothing he could do. Except, maybe ...
Methos owed her, and she was right. They did have unfinished business.
But so did he. Methos sat up and reached for the list of sources to include in his bibliography. He'd been away from this for nearly a year, and knew he couldn't get another extension if he missed the deadline yet again. And Adam Pierson was going to publish before he perished—Methos was determined on that.
Friday Morning, 4 April 1997
Fort William, Scotland
Jennifer Corans saw her husband Tom off to work and her two teen-aged daughters off to school, and then she walked into the center of town to her office, the front room of a Victorian row-house turned into professional spaces. She waved to the lawyer who was on his way upstairs and then unlocked the door to her office. Tea, of course, first thing every morning, with the water boiled on the electric burner in the corner. She hated microwaved tea.
Jennifer settled back in her desk chair and sipped as she looked over her schedule for the day. Two clients were coming for their regular therapy sessions this afternoon, and Sandra Grant had called yesterday and asked for a special appointment this morning. Jennifer put on her new bifocals and took out the file on her latest client, then she squinted, blinked, and squinted again. She gave up and took off her glasses, holding the paper at arm's length to read the biographical information on the first page.
Client's Name: Catherine Sandra Grant
Date of Birth: 3 September 1962 (adopted)
Age: 34
Birthplace: India
Father: John William Grant—Methodist missionary (deceased)
Mother: Cecilia Louise (Ayerton) Grant—Nurse (deceased)
Education: home-schooled
All neatly typed and straightforward. All outright lies. Of course, Jennifer had typed this before she had learned the truth.
Name: Cassandra
Date of Birth: unknown, c. 1400 BCE
Age: about 34 centuries
Birthplace: somewhere in a desert (Arabia?)
Father: unknown. Adoptive father: Hijad, mystical healer
Mother: unknown
Education: High Priestess of the Temple of Artemis, Inner Circle Initiate of the sexual ecstasy cult of Aphrodite, studied with Hypatia of Alexandria and St. Brigid of Ireland.
No one would believe the truth. Jennifer certainly hadn't, not at first. During their third session, back in February, Cassandra had casually announced, "I think you should know that I'm immortal."
Jennifer had nodded slowly and leaned forward with an encouraging smile, wondering how this delusion connected to the relatively standard psychological profile of a rape victim and battered woman. Then Cassandra had cut her finger with a pocketknife, and Jennifer had watched the wound heal with little blue flickers of flame. Cassandra had explained it, calmly and rationally, and Jennifer had found herself nodding again and believing every word. Cassandra had suggested they keep the immortality a secret, and Jennifer had agreed immediately. She always kept clients' information confidential.
Jennifer turned to the second page in the report, the client history and initial diagnosis. That was still true, though she'd had to add to it considerably to make it complete. She'd even put names in it, since no one else would ever be allowed to see the report.
DESCRIPTION OF CLIENT: Caucasian female, appears to be between 30-35 years in age. She is verbal, articulate, about 175 centimeters and 60 kilos, and appropriately dressed for the interview. She lives alone and is employed as a music teacher at a girls' boarding school.
_
MEDICAL & HEALTH HISTORY
Illnesses: none
Accidents, Injuries: many and various, but none physically apparent at interview
Family Health History: unknown
Physician/Date of Last Visit: none. Unnecessary. Perfect health.
Physical cause for mental problems: none.
FAMILY, RELATIONSHIP HISTORY & SOCIAL SUPPORT
FAMILY: Adopted. Childhood had positive experiences, supportive and loving family and social group. Good male and female role models. No incest.
RELATIONSHIPS: First relationship with a man [Methos] was initially abusive, duration ~1 year. Long-term relationship with another man [Roland] was severely dysfunctional (battering, verbal and psychological abuse). These have affected all her other relationships, though client does report supportive partners (Four husbands, all deceased. Many lovers—some female.)
SOCIAL SUPPORT (availability, use): Client reports two close friends [a married couple, Alexandra (Alex) and Connor]. (Connor is also former lover, c. 400 years ago.) Client receives significant support from these friends. They encouraged her to seek counseling.
_
LIFE FACTORS
DAILY LIFE: Long history of sleep problems is reported. Nightmares and intrusive flashbacks have decreased in frequency over the last three months. Has had difficulties sleeping for more than 4 hours at a time. Previously poor appetite, no problems at this time. Daily exercise: running, yoga, fencing. Client lives alone and is able to create routines and order for herself. No pets.
MOOD/EMOTION: Anxiety and Depressed mood are reported, paranoia. Client displayed hyper-vigilance during the interview. Client reports feeling either hyper or numb when under stress. Distrust and fear of all men. Lies frequently to conceal past, doesn't like being in groups. Avoids all emotional involvement.
SEXUAL: History of both masochistic sexual impulses and of enjoying sadistic dominator role, promiscuity (due to low self-esteem and/or immediate compliance with men's demands), prostitution (enforced and voluntary). Has had satisfying sexual relationships. Currently sexually frigid (no masturbation), avoids physical contact of any kind.
ANGER, AGGRESSION & DESTRUCTIVENESS: Client is angry about past victimization. Anger is usually self-directed with self-destructive tendencies: breaking fingers and cutting. Client also reports lashing out at people without reason, or overreacting to minor irritations (outbursts range from verbal and physical attacks, to breaking things, to attempted murder [Connor, Elena]). History of Alcohol Abuse. Doesn't trust herself to take care of children properly, though has no history of abusing children.
SUICIDAL & HOMICIDAL THOUGHT & ACTIONS: Client reports having had fantasies/dreams about killing/being killed by her rapists [Roland, Methos, Kronos, Silas, Caspian, various others]. Has had suicidal thoughts and attempts (and successes!) in the past, most recent Nov 96 (drowning and freezing to death preferred methods because they "don't hurt as much.") No suicidal tendencies reported at this time.
_
TRAUMA/ABUSE HISTORY
As an adult, saw family members killed, was held captive and enslaved (developed Stockholm Syndrome for one captor [Methos]), repeated rape (both group and single), tortured, experienced war and hostage situations, battered woman in long-term abusive relationship [Roland], forced into prostitution, witnessed her children being abducted, tortured, and killed.
PRESENTING PROBLEMS
1. 296.33 Major Depression, recurrent and severe
2. 309.81 Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, past sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse
3. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
4. Suicidal and Homicidal ideation
5. Low self-esteem
6. Obsessive Rumination
TREATMENT OBJECTIVES (MEASURES)
1. Depression: Challenge negative cognitions: increase coping skills, develop internal resources. Measure by self-report and assessment of functioning with regard to basic life tasks.
2. PTSD: Process earlier trauma; develop coping skills; develop boundaries. Standard battered woman approach, with early attention to Stockholm syndrome and survivor's guilt. Measure by ability to cope with daily life tasks.
3. Obsessive rumination: decrease obsessions; increase appropriate coping skills.
Individual X Weekly. Will reduce frequency as symptoms decrease by report.
PROGNOSIS
Client is highly motivated to change, is no longer in an abusive relationship, is no longer drinking, and has close supportive friends. However, amount and duration of trauma will probably require long-term treatment and follow-up.
—
"A lot of follow-up," Jennifer murmured and put the report away.
Cassandra arrived early, as she always did, and Jennifer offered her a cup of tea. Cassandra accepted, but she left it sitting on the end-table and wandered distractedly around the room, staring out the window, looking at the pictures, reaching for books and replacing them with only a glance at the covers. She ended up in the corner near the window, picking dead leaves off the spider-plant and shredding them into thin strips with her nails.
Jennifer said nothing, giving Cassandra a chance to settle down enough to tell her what was wrong. Cassandra was dressed in black and gray, as usual—black jeans, black leather boots, a loose gray sweater over a black turtleneck. Dangling silver earrings were her only jewelry; she wasn't even wearing a watch.
Cassandra set the withered leaf pieces in the dirt around the stem of the plant, then brushed off her hands and sat down in the chair across from Jennifer. "I'm going to see Methos," she announced. "Tomorrow morning."
Jennifer set down her cup of tea. "Cassandra—"
Cassandra jumped up and began walking around, her arms folded across her chest. "He's at the beginning of everything," she said, then stopped and tossed back her hair, facing Jennifer defiantly. "I need to know. Isn't that what you said? I have to remember the truth about the past before I can begin to deal with it?"
Jennifer nodded, not responding to Cassandra's anger. "It just seems ... early."
"Maybe you're right," Cassandra admitted after a moment, and she sat down again. "But I need to know, and I'm not waiting anymore. I can't remember the truth if I don't know what it is. Methos can give me the truth."
"But will he?" Jennifer asked. "You said he was a good liar."
"Oh, he is," Cassandra said, reaching for her tea then leaning back in her chair. "But so am I. And I know how to get the truth out of him, one way or another."
As always, Jennifer found Cassandra's sudden switch from needy vulnerability to ruthless competence unsettling, but she wasn't fooled by Cassandra's show of bravado. Jennifer knew how difficult it was for a victim to confront an abuser—how your stomach tightened and your legs trembled and your heart hammered against your ribs while fear lay sour and metallic on the back of your tongue, and yet you forced yourself to stand there and look the bastard in the eye and tell him what you needed to say, even if he didn't want to hear. Oh, yes, Jennifer knew. "You're afraid of him, aren't you?" she asked.
Cassandra put her tea back on the table untouched, then picked obsessively at the fabric in the arm of the chair with her nails, a scratching, clicking sound. "Yes," she finally admitted. "Or at least afraid of how he makes me feel. I don't think he'll hurt me." She folded her hands tightly in her lap, forced them to be quiet. "But I need to face him, and my fear, before I can face myself. I need to know I can do that much, and do it on my own."
Jennifer nodded, pleased that Cassandra was ready to take some control of her life. "All right," Jennifer said. "Let's talk about ways for you to handle fear, and rage." And a host of other emotions, too.
FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES
Saturday Morning, 5 April 1997
Brighton Beach, England
Methos got to the deserted pier fifteen minutes early, then stood there waiting, hunched into his coat. The carousel stood silent behind a fence, the brightly-painted horses frozen in a circle, going nowhere even when moving. A solitary walker picked his way among the water-smoothed rocks of the beach, and Methos watched a cargo boat pass slowly by.
Five minutes later, Cassandra arrived. She walked directly toward him, her gray coat swirling just above her black leather boots. She stopped three paces away. "Well, here we are," Methos said. She just looked at him, waiting. "You said you wanted to talk," he reminded her, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
"No," she contradicted. "I said we needed to talk."
Methos nodded. All right, if that's the way she wanted it: serious and to the point, just get it over with, rip the bandage off the wound. Fine by him. "You also said we needed to go beyond the night."
"Yes," she agreed and started to walk along the pier. "We do." Methos walked with her, not very close, his hands shoved into his coat pockets. He counted the benches as he went by—twenty-two. They reached the end of the pier, stood suspended between sea and sky, faded boards creaking underfoot. She stared out at the water as she spoke. "I need to know what I was to you."
Methos moistened his lips. "What do you mean?"
"What was I to you?" she asked again, facing him now. The chill breeze whipped strands of her hair across her face. She ignored them. "Just a slave, no different than the others? Useful to have around for cleaning and cooking? A convenient fuck?"
It had started that way.
"Or was I a source of amusement as well as comfort? Were you laughing at your little toy?"
"No," he said hoarsely, but he didn't think she heard him at all.
"Or perhaps I was an experiment in taming," she mused. "A test of your powers, to see just how thoroughly you could brainwash me. Was that it?"
"That was part of it," he admitted. "At first."
"When did it change? The first week? The first month?"
Methos released a slow puff of air and shook his head. "It's been three thousand years, Cassandra. I don't remember all the—"
"Do you remember this?" she interrupted. Cassandra took hold of the little finger of her left hand and wrenched it sideways, breaking it at the first joint. Methos winced at the crack of bone. "And this?" she asked and broke her ring finger in the same way. Her expression didn't change at all, not even a blink. "And this?" She moved on to the middle finger and broke it, then crooned, "And this," as she snapped the last finger with another sharp crack. "And, of course, this," she concluded serenely, bending her thumb almost to that agonizing angle that will send a person to her knees. The rest of her hand dangled grotesquely, knotted into tendrils of pain.
"Cassandra, stop," Methos said firmly, hoping his words would reach her. He knew he couldn't touch her, couldn't lay a hand on her. Ever.
"Why?" she asked, bending her thumb just a little more. Her lips thinned slightly, her only visible sign of discomfort. "You didn't."
No. He hadn't. During the weeks of her taming, he used to break her fingers one by one, first one hand and then the other. It was quick, it was easy, it didn't require any tools, and it didn't make a bloody mess. And it was very effective. Her defiance would usually disappear by the third finger, and by the sixth or seventh she would be promising to do anything, anything, if only he would stop hurting her. Sometimes he stopped, sometimes he didn't. It depended on his mood. If she had been particularly stubborn or rebellious, he would force her to her knees and order her to pleasure him. Combining pain and helplessness with humiliation was an effective technique for instilling instant obedience. Methos had learned that lesson from a master.
No more. Ever. "I've stopped now," he said.
"Oh, yes," she agreed, finally releasing her thumb. "That's right. You've changed." She examined her left hand, turning it this way and that with a detached fascination. The crooked joints looked swollen, like oak galls on tangled twigs. With the ease of long practice, Cassandra pulled on each finger in turn, setting the fingers straight before they finished healing. Methos forced himself to watch through the crack and grind of bone. Then she began stroking the back of her hand with a gentle finger, following the tendons out to the fingertips, caressing what had just been broken, an obsessive ritual of pain.
Methos grimaced in distaste. Did she do that every day, every morning when she woke up, like brushing her hair? "Cassandra, stop," he said again, and she looked up in confused surprise, as if she had forgotten he was there, or as if she didn't even know who he was. And that was somehow even more disturbing.
She folded her arms across her chest and tucked her hands away under her arms, holding them, hiding them. "Do you remember that?" she asked, focused on him again.
"I remember," Methos said softly, but he knew he had to prove it to her. He held up his left hand and broke his own fingers, one by one. He tried to keep his face as expressionless as she had, but he couldn't stop his lips from tightening with each snap. Not a blood oath between brothers this time, no knife across the palm, but then he and Cassandra were already bound together by pain. This just made it official.
She watched his fingers heal, then kept staring at his hands, hands that had tortured her and caressed her, hands that had killed her and made love to her. "I hate you," she said, with no emotion at all behind the words.
Methos nodded as he hid his own hands, jamming them deep within the pockets of his coat. "You have reason to." There had been times he'd hated himself. He'd gotten over the self-hatred, but she obviously hadn't. He'd failed to bring Kronos out of the darkness; Methos didn't want to fail with her, too. "Cassandra, if we're going to go beyond the night, we have to put this behind us and move on. We can't change what happened."
"Change what happened," she repeated with slow and elaborate sarcasm. "You should be a politician, Methos; you're so good with words. It didn't just 'happen.' You made it happen."
All right, if an admission of his guilt would make her feel better, he could do that. Telling the truth wasn't that hard.
Was it? One way to find out. "I can't change what I did to you," Methos said.
"Do you want to?"
"Do I want to?" he asked incredulously. "What do you think?"
"I don't know," she said simply. "I don't know you at all. That's why we're here. I need to know, and I need to know the truth. What was there between us?"
Methos stared off into the murky water, forcing himself to remember one of those thousand things he'd tried so hard to forget.
The Horsemen's Camp
The Bronze Age
The raid had been a good one—plenty of booty, plenty of blood—but it had been a long ride in the hot sun. Methos was looking forward to the comforts of his tent. All of them.
She was waiting for him, of course, standing just inside the tent flap. She knew what was expected of her now. She picked up his cloak when he dropped it on the floor, then brought him water to drink. Methos lounged back on the pillows, and she knelt at his feet, her head down, waiting. It was a relaxing change from her first days with him, when he'd had to keep her tied day and night, when she'd fought him at every turn.
It hadn't taken long to tame her, not even a full a moon-cycle, a little less than usual. He hadn't had to be as careful with her as with the others. This slave couldn't be ruined beyond repair. No matter what he did to her, what level of training he used, she was still in his tent, her skin smooth and unmarred, her beauty undiminished, waiting for him, day after day. Night after night. He'd gotten a little carried away at times, caught up in the power of control, but that was over now. She hadn't needed any reminders for days.
Methos reached out to her, ran his fingers through the soft curls of her hair. She didn't move until he tugged at them, and then she came to him and lay down by his side. She knew what was expected of her now.
Afterward, Methos kept her in his bed, still toying with her hair. Linik's hair had been this color, he remembered, but longer, down to her hips. They had been married nearly twenty years, lived together by the shore of the great inland sea. She had been a diver, plunging deep to bring back the tiny shells that yielded the precious purple dye, while Methos fished for their food. In the evenings, he would comb her hair for her, and then they would make love in the moonlight, her happy laughter rising to the stars.
How long ago had that been? Methos couldn't remember; the years just slipped by, sliding into each other in a long unbroken chain. Long before he'd met Kronos, anyway, and before Methos had gone back to Babylon when Hammurabi had been king.
No matter. Methos had a different woman in his bed now. He took her gently by the chin, turning her face so he could kiss her. She flinched at his touch then lay passively, waiting for whatever he decided to do. Her eyes were empty—hopeless and dead. Methos suddenly realized he had never heard her laughter, never seen her smile.
He wanted to. It would be good to come back to a woman who was pleased to see him instead of one who trembled with fear. A man needed some rest and relaxation, after all, and he was tired of doing all the work in bed. Oh, she did what he told her to, of course, but without much enthusiasm. He hadn't had a woman make love to him in a very long time. Methos missed that. And if he wanted something rougher, he could always get another slave. This one was Immortal, and she could be his for a very long time.
He considered her carefully, making his plans, enjoying the thrill of a new challenge. He'd broken her already, now to gentle her. It shouldn't take too long.
Brighton Beach
"I wanted there to be something more between us," Methos told her. "I was lonely."
Cassandra shook her head. That was part of the truth, of course, but not all of it, and certainly not the most important part. She wasn't going to let him get away with more of his pathetic excuses and elaborate justifications. "You were selfish. You wanted a willing slave instead of a terrified one, so you deliberately set out to seduce me."
Methos sighed in exasperation. "All right, yes. At first. But I tried to make your life in the camp better. I tried—"
"You didn't try hard enough," she broke in. His exasperation was shifting to irritation, and Cassandra knew he was almost ready. Just a few more pushes. "Kronos took me from you, and you did nothing to stop him," she said, reminding him of his impotence.
"He was my brother. We shared everything."
"Really?" she asked, drawling the word out to an insulting denial. "He had you tamed, just as you had tamed me." Time for an attack on his courage. "You were too afraid to challenge him."
"You have no idea what was between us."
"No?" she replied, mocking him with all the power of the Voice. "You were afraid to challenge Kronos in Bordeaux. You suckered MacLeod into doing it for you." She'd done the same thing when she'd gotten Duncan to take Roland's head, of course, but Methos didn't know that, and she wasn't about to tell him. Cassandra kept pushing. "MacLeod thought you were his friend, and you set him up. Oh, he survived, no thanks to you, but you were perfectly willing to sacrifice him for your own survival." She advanced on him, letting her own anger come forth now, giving her the strength and the courage she needed to confront this man. "How many others have you sacrificed, Methos? Have many times have you just stood by and watched?"
"I fought Silas in Bordeaux," he reminded her, tight-lipped with anger. "I killed my brother to save your life."
Cassandra knew that wasn't the whole truth, either. "Who were you saving from the Horsemen, Methos? Me, or yourself?"
Methos opened his mouth, then shut it. "Both," he admitted. "I wanted us both to survive. I wanted us all to survive: my brothers, MacLeod, you, me. But I had to make a choice, and I chose to sacrifice my brothers."
"And you expect me to be impressed by this show of altruism?"
That did it. "What the hell do you want from me, Cassandra?" Methos snarled at her in frustration. "I have nothing left to give!"
Cassandra stood her ground. "What was I to you?" she asked again, as she had asked earlier. "Your slave? Your toy? Your little experiment gone too far?"
"You were my woman," Methos snapped at her, "and I didn't want you to die. Kronos would have taken your head if I had protested, so I had to let you go."
And that was what she had wanted to know. She walked away from Methos, to the very edge of the pier, stood so that her toes were over the water, stood waiting, suspended between sea and sky, with nothing fixed, nothing solid, nothing to trust. She had lived that way most of her life.
But those words of his she could trust; those had been Truth. She had heard it in his voice. She had been his woman, not just his slave. He had cared, at least a little. It hadn't all been a lie. She'd been wondering about that recently. For millennia she'd been convinced he hadn't cared at all, that he and his brothers had been laughing at her for being stupid enough to pant after Methos like a well-trained bitch. It was a dull relief to know she hadn't been completely gullible and blind. But blind enough. Well-trained enough.
And enough of a bitch to want to kill him right now, to rip his throat open with her bare hands and watch his blood drip into the water, drop by drop. That selfish, conceited, arrogant, murdering butcher!
Cassandra took a deep breath and let it out slowly, let the anger go, too, as Jennifer and she had practiced. Methos wasn't worth it. He just wasn't worth that much of her time, and a lot of her rage was anger with herself. Jennifer had described the Stockholm Syndrome to her, given her books to read. Cassandra understood what had happened now. It wasn't her fault; she hadn't been stupid. Anyone could be brainwashed; anyone could be convinced they loved their captors. Anyone, male or female, young or old. It happened all the time. She was not to blame.
Methos joined her in looking out to the horizon, to where gray sea met gray sky, and seagulls hung tethered on the wind. "Why did you want me to get angry?"
She wasn't surprised he'd seen through that little manipulation. She had no doubt he did it, too. "In anger, truth."
He scuffed at a crack in the wood of the pier with his toe, prying up a splinter. "You could have asked."
"I did. First you said you didn't know what I meant, and then you said you were lonely."
He almost laughed at that, then sobered. "I did care for you, Cassandra. You reminded me of a life I'd left behind. I wanted ... I tried ..." The splinter broke loose, and he kicked it into the sea. "It wasn't all bad between us."
He was right. It hadn't been "all bad." Cassandra remembered.
The Horsemen's Camp
She did not move as her master lay down beside her. She was trembling, and she knew it wasn't just from the cold. She could feel the warmth of his body all along her back. She didn't want to feel it. She didn't want to feel anything.
But she could. She could smell the scents of him, horses and dust and oil, and she could hear his breathing. That was his hand pulling a blanket over her; that was his arm brushing against her own, the smooth touch of skin against skin. That was his voice, very soft and close to her ear. "Relax. I won't hurt you."
This time. Maybe. He hadn't hit her for days; she had been careful not to give him any reason to. He hadn't touched her for days, either. She had slept alone or with the other slaves. She liked it that way. But tonight he had told her to stay in his tent, and she knew she must obey. She kept her eyes closed and did not answer. She was still trembling, but he didn't tell her to do anything. He just lay close to her, his arm around her, keeping her warm. And she did relax, eventually, even fell asleep, nestled close against him.
When she woke, it was still dark, and her master was still there, still holding her. But he wasn't asleep either; his fingers were moving very gently, very delicately, along the curve of her cheek, tracing the bone there, learning the shape of her, as if he had never touched her before.
And he hadn't, not this way. She was glad she couldn't see him. She knew she had to submit to him, and since he was behind her, she could pretend it was someone else. And it seemed to be someone else. He wasn't hitting her, wasn't ordering her to spread her legs or bend over or kneel. He was just ... holding her and touching her, slowly and carefully. He whispered as he kissed his way along the sensitive spot behind her ear, "This doesn't have to hurt."
She wanted it to hurt. She wanted it to be brutal and quick and painful, so she could simply hide from it all and pretend to feel nothing. He was making her body feel things it hadn't felt before. It felt good, and she wanted more.
She didn't want to want more. She didn't want to want him at all, and she did, with all the blind nuzzling need of a newborn. She was so tired, and so cold, and she hurt so much. She didn't want to think or remember anymore. She wanted to go home.
His arms were strong around her, and his hands were gentle. He was murmuring words in a language she couldn't even name, yet the words seemed to mean something before they slipped away. They reminded her of another time and another place, when she had been little and safe and loved, another life. It seemed so long ago.
Her eyes were still closed, and she was crying, tears of exhaustion and fear and sorrow. He gently brushed away her tears, then he bent his head to hers and kissed the tears away one by one as they came. His kisses moved lower, down to her throat, to the hollow in the center where his thumbs had so often crushed the life out of her. But he wasn't hurting her now. Maybe if she just lay still he wouldn't hurt her. She couldn't bear any more pain.
And there was no pain—just slow uncoiling tendrils of warmth and pleasure. His hands and his mouth touched her, caressed her, summoning shivers of need and aches of desire. She had never felt this way before, and she couldn't lie still anymore.
When he kissed her again, she could feel the smile on his lips, and he lifted his head and laughed softly, but it didn't sound like him. He sounded pleased, even happy, instead of cruel or taunting. "You taste of sunshine," he whispered, then kissed—and tasted—the side of her neck. Then he moved lower, to her breasts. "And here you taste of pomegranates." He moved lower still. "And here ..."
He kept talking to her, sweet soothing words, gentle arousing touches, soft laughter and kisses and smiles. And it felt good. It felt wonderful. He didn't have to tell her to spread her legs for him this time.
"Be at ease," he whispered, and then he started to move. He was gentle and slow at first, a simple soothing rocking motion that her body somehow knew and responded to, and his murmured words went on. His fingers brushed the tendrils of hair back from her face, and traced the curve of her cheek. His rhythm increased and now she moved with him, wrapping her legs around him, responding to the desperate need within herself not to be alone anymore.
"Please," she said, but she didn't know what she was asking for, and he did not answer. He held her tight against him as he shuddered and plunged deep, then finally lay still. He kissed her again, and murmured more words, then he held her all night, as they slept together in the dark of the tent.
Brighton Beach
Methos had never hurt her again. He had not needed to. She was tamed. One drop of kindness in an ocean of pain, and she had lapped it up desperately and begged for more. Methos had obliged, and her memories of the weeks of terror and pain had receded, too terrible to be borne. Within days, she had lived for only one thing: keeping Methos happy, so the pain would never come again. And it had worked, for a while.
Cassandra turned from the sea. Methos had moved to sit on a nearby bench, leaning forward slightly, his hands clasped together above his knees, a schoolboy pose, looking oh-so-earnest and appealing. She recognized acting when she saw it. She knew how to do it, too.
"You're right," she admitted. "It wasn't 'all bad.' But it wasn't good. Not for you, not for me. It wasn't real. You destroyed the person I was, and I was just a slave, a thing, your little robot, programmed to be quiet and obedient and loving." Programmed to worship him, to see him as her savior, her protector, her god. Brainwashed into doing whatever he wanted, no matter what he wanted. That wasn't unusual, either, she knew. She'd read about cults and conditioning. People would kill at a word from their leader, kill an enemy, kill their children, or even kill themselves. Except they weren't real people anymore; they were slaves, just like she had been. Cassandra shook her head, remembering those days. "I didn't even have a name."
Methos rubbed his hands over his face, then pressed them together, looking now like a schoolboy at prayer. He stood and faced her, his hands at his sides instead of in his pockets. "I had a name for you, toward the end. Right before you left, I saw you in the rain, dancing."
Her tribe had always danced when it rained, to offer their thanks to the goddess of the waters in song and prayer. Cassandra hadn't danced for centuries, and she didn't remember that dance anymore.
Methos came closer to her, almost close enough to reach out and touch. His eyes were ever-changing gray and green flecked with gold, like sunlight dancing on long ocean swells. "I thought of you as Ki-e-nida," Methos said softly, "a place of dancing, and I went to be with you, in the rain."
He had called her that, when they had made love in that rare desert rain, while the water from the heavens poured over their bodies and washed away all the dust in the air. But he had often spoken in languages she didn't know, and she hadn't asked him what it meant. That evening in his tent, Methos had made love to her again, and then she had made love to him, happy to please him, wanting to give him everything she was.
Two days later, Kronos had come and demanded his turn with the "spoils of war," and Methos had given her away.
"You were my woman," Methos reminded her now, "and I didn't want to let you go. But I did want you to live."
Cassandra took a turn at the loose wood of the board, grinding it down with her heel, trying to get it to lie flat. "Well, I survived."
"I didn't think it would be that bad for you, but once it started, I couldn't interfere."
She gaped at him in shock. Not that bad? Not that bad? What had he thought Kronos would do? Tell her to cook him dinner? Ask for a back rub? All day long she had resisted, all day long she had called for her master, begged him to stop the beatings and the rapes and the pain, and all day long he had stayed in his tent, listening to her screams, because he hadn't wanted to interfere.
Methos asked in bewilderment, "Why did you keep fighting him all that time? If you'd given in, he wouldn't have hurt you. If you'd just let him..." He shook his head, seeming almost annoyed with her. "You knew you were a slave, Cassandra. You should have known better than to resist by then."
"You stupid, stupid man," she told him, fighting to speak through the rage and to hold back the tears. "I wasn't resisting to protect myself. I knew you didn't want him to have me, not really, so I was protecting your property."
Methos's mouth hung open, and then he closed his eyes as if he were in pain. "My God, Cassandra," Methos whispered, looking sickened. "I would never have asked you to do that."
"You didn't have to ask me, Methos. I would have done anything for you." She kept her head high as she let the tears fall, both because she couldn't stop them anymore and because she knew that right now, crying in front of Methos was about the best weapon she had. "Anything," she repeated, and she meant it. He had been her god, and she would have killed for him, or died for him. She would have whored for him, too; she had no doubt of that at all. "I would have gone with Kronos willingly, or Silas or even Caspian, if you had told me to."
Methos was shaking his head. "You don't—"
"Just one word from you," she broke in, fracturing his words, "one look to tell me 'yes.' But you wouldn't give me even that."
His face had gone white. "Cassandra—"
"They were your brothers," Cassandra interrupted again, an ice-cold rage flooding through her, freezing that fountain of tears. "You shared everything. You must have known they would come for me eventually."
Methos opened his mouth, shut it, looked away, then looked at her again. "Yes."
"And yet, you wanted me think that I was yours, and that I lived to serve only you."
Methos started to speak, then gave her a curt nod.
"Selfish to the core," she murmured, staring into those golden-tinted eyes, seeing nothing she had not seen in him before. He hadn't changed that much. "Well, congratulations, Methos. Your plan worked. I was yours—body, mind, and soul." She paused long enough for that to sink in, then added, softly, slowly, wanting him to know exactly what he had done, and exactly what he had lost, "And then you gave me away."
Cassandra didn't wait for his answer, but turned and left him standing there. A seagull circled and came to settle on the waves, a gray-hooded bird of white going nowhere, riding mindlessly up and down. Methos stood at the end of the pier, looking at the sea and listening to the gulls' lonesome cries echoing over the receding clicks of Cassandra's boot heels on the wooden planks. One of a thousand regrets, indeed. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
One word, one look, and he could have saved her a nightmare of pain. Oh, not so much all the physical pain, because Caspian would probably have beaten her whether she was willing or not, but if Methos had told her that he did care and that he wanted her back, then she might not have hated and despised herself through the years. Or, at least, not so much. And when she had been with the Horsemen, Methos could have warned her, prepared her somehow. He'd known that, just as he'd known that he could avoid a confrontation with Kronos by offering to swap women for the night, or by inviting one of his brothers over for a threesome, as they'd done many times before.
But Methos hadn't wanted to share. She had been his woman, his alone, reminding him of other days and other lives. He had deliberately told her nothing and kept her for himself. "Selfish to the core," he repeated, and it had been true; he hadn't considered her feelings at all. By trying to keep her for himself, he'd lost her completely—then and now. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Methos knew she'd never forgive him. He'd murdered her family, raped her, beaten her, enslaved her... If she ever acknowledged that he'd changed, then she might, eventually, be able to put that behind her, but forgive him for not valuing her love? Forgive him for not valuing her? Not a chance.
Damn.
Methos caught up to her about halfway back to shore. She had wiped away all marks of her tears. "I guess 'sorry' doesn't quite cut it, does it?" he said.
"Why don't you try and find out?"
He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Cassandra," he said, and he was—sorry for so many things over the years. She gave him a quick nod and blinked back more tears, and Methos said, "I didn't know. I didn't realize ..."
She shrugged and walked faster. "It's over, Methos. I don't think either of us ever wants to talk about it again."
He certainly didn't. It was sickening enough to remember.
"But there is one more thing," she said, then let out a shuddering sigh before she said calmly, "Did you come after my tribe because of me?"
He didn't want to talk about this, either, and he sure as hell didn't want to remember. But she had asked, and he owed her the truth. "Yes," he admitted, and she stopped walking to hide her face from him, to look out to the water again. He kept talking, though her back was rigid and her fingers were gripping white-knuckled on the rail. "I'd seen you out gathering plants a few days before, and I knew you would be an Immortal, so I planned the raid. That's why you ended up in my tent, even though Kronos killed you. I saw you first."
"You couldn't have taken me then, that day?" she asked, the words brittle. "Like Hades dragging Persephone to Hell, yet leaving her friends behind?" She was crying again, more silent tears; he could hear it in her voice. "You had to kill everyone I loved?"
"Had to?" Methos said, moving to stand beside her, four feet away, not looking at her at all. "No. But it was good tactics. With your tribe gone, you had nowhere to go." Methos swallowed, trying to get the bitter taste from his mouth. Had he really been that cold-blooded?
Yes. Oh, thrice-damned bloody yes, he had. "We would have come anyway, Cassandra," he told her, trying to explain it away, to make it easier for her to bear. "It just ... happened sooner, that's all."
"That's all," she repeated dully, then shook her head and walked on.
Methos gave her some more time alone before he followed. He had a few questions of his own to ask, because he didn't really know her at all. "So, um, what happened to you, after you left?"
"You mean after I killed Kronos while he was raping me and then escaped?" she said sharply, reminding him of just how she had left. Methos acknowledged that with a sigh and a nod, and she continued, "I wandered for some years then went to the Isle of Lesbos. The Lady of the Temple of Artemis was an Immortal, and she explained to me what I was. I spent a century there and became a priestess, learned the Voice, studied astronomy, music, healing ... many things. I married, raised three children."
"So, you did have a life," he said in relief.
"Of course, I had a life," she said impatiently. "Many lives. What did you think?"
"You did say that not only your body died in Kronos's tent."
Cassandra stopped walking again, but she faced him this time. "I meant the woman who had been stupid enough to be your slave died that night. You thought a year with you was enough to destroy me forever?"
Well, good God, she'd certainly acted like a maniac when he'd seen her last year. What was he supposed to think?
"Talk about conceit," she said in disgust. "There were entire centuries where I never thought about you at all."
"Then why are you still breaking your fingers?" he challenged. "Over and over again?"
Cassandra tossed her hair back dismissively. "As I told you in Bordeaux, Methos, you were merely the first man to enslave me. You certainly weren't the last. Other people know that technique. I've used it myself, on occasion." Methos blinked in surprise at that little tidbit of information, and she said malevolently, "I've had many lives."
"So have I," he shot back. They stared at each other, then they both shrugged at the same time and began walking. "Yet never to have lived is best, ancient writers say," Methos quoted.
"And what ancient writer ever said that?"
"William Butler Yeats. He's not ancient, though, died in 1939." Cassandra was staring at him, clueless, and Methos said in surprise, "You don't read poetry?"
"Not lately."
Methos quoted the next line for her. "Never to have drawn the breath of life; never to have looked into the eye of day."
Cassandra came up with her own version. "Never to have seen the face of Death, and then seen it peeled away."
"You wanted me to stay Death?" Methos asked, trying to make sense of that.
"When I was with you? Yes. Then I wouldn't have been stupid enough to trust you. You took off one mask, but there was another underneath."
And another under that. "How many masks do you wear, Cassandra?" Methos challenged, then asked her the same question MacLeod had asked him, "Who are you really?"
"I don't know," she admitted, suddenly sounding almost fragile. "Not anymore. That's why I'm here."
And that was why he was here as well. He owed her this much, at least, to try to help her heal. Methos reached into his coat and pulled out a business card. "Here's my e-mail address. You can write, if you need ... if you have any more questions."
Cassandra took it, carefully avoiding his fingers. "You're certainly being cooperative."
"I didn't help you then," he said. "I'd like to help you now."
"Is this to stop me from plotting revenge?"
Methos glanced at her sidelong. "The thought had crossed my mind."
Cassandra smiled to herself. "Mine, too."
He had no doubt of that. "You had your chance."
"And so did you," she retorted. "Yet we're both still alive."
Methos wasn't sure it was the best time to bring this up, but he needed to know, and they were almost back to shore. "So, why didn't you kill me in Bordeaux?"
Cassandra sighed and sat on the nearest bench. Methos leaned on the railing nearby. "MacLeod made me stop and think," she admitted. "I hadn't done much thinking those last few days—those last few months. I realized I didn't want to be a murderer, like Kronos."
"Or like me."
"Like you used to be," she amended.
Methos paused, taken aback by her easy acceptance. "Sure of that?"
"MacLeod is. And since I don't know you, I'm trusting his judgement in this." Her eyes narrowed in warning. "For now."
Ah, there were the claws he'd been expecting to see. Methos felt obscurely reassured by the threat.
"You live because I wish it, Methos," she said, throwing his own words back in his face. A faint smile crossed her face. "Never forget that."
He wasn't likely to. He'd had a few nightmares about Cassandra standing over him with an axe in her hands.
"And I want you to live," Cassandra continued serenely, "because after I let go of the axe, I finally saw you, saw you on your knees, crying for your brothers. I knew then that the Furies would take you into madness, unto Death, and beyond. So I left you to face them alone."
And there was the viciousness behind the claws. Cassandra hadn't changed all that much from Bordeaux. "Gee, thanks," Methos murmured.
She met his sarcasm with a withering blast of her own. "My pleasure."
His pain. He had taught her that, too, taking pleasure in another's pain. Enough. Time to move on. "Want to get something to eat?" he suggested, hoping to end this discussion on a more pleasant note. "Some coffee?"
"I'm not that hungry," she said, standing. "Let's do something fun."
"Fun?" he asked, wondering if he had heard her correctly.
"We never had much of a chance to laugh," she reminded him. "Let's take that chance now."
Methos looked around at the Marine Palace, just starting to come to life with tourists and children and noise. "All right," he agreed, wondering just what she was up to. He would never in a million years trust this woman—she had too many reasons to hate him—but if being agreeable made her less angry with him, he could do that. For now. "Let's."
Around noon, they went to a pub for lunch. Cassandra ordered half a pint. "You like beer?" Methos asked.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I often worked in the breweries at the nunneries I lived in, all through the Middle Ages. Do you like beer?"
"Uh, yeah. Sometimes," he admitted. "They have good beer here in Brighton." They chatted about different brewing techniques until the food arrived, then he asked her about her hobbies.
"Sewing, cooking, gardening," she said. "Music, of course. I used to make pottery, and I've started drawing again."
"Quite the domestic goddess, aren't you?" Methos observed, but it came out rather more sharply than he had intended, and he groaned inwardly, too tired to deal with any more of her rage.
Cassandra only looked at him. Then she set down her knife, laying it precisely on the edge of her plate, and answered evenly, "I'm a maker, a shaper, and a dreamer of dreams." Her tone sharpened into a challenge. "What are you, Methos?"
She'd known him as a taker, a destroyer, and a nightmare that kept people awake at night. But before that, he had been many things: statesman and farmer, architect and blacksmith, slave and priest and king. And after, he'd swung from luxuriating in sybaritic Epicureanism to barely existing as an ascetic hermit in a rocky desert, doing decades of penance for his misdeeds. He'd gone from anarchist to pacifist to passivist. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. What was he now? MacLeod had asked him that question in the church in Bordeaux, and Methos hadn't answered. He hadn't wanted to. In the midst of the Horsemen, he hadn't been any too sure. Now ...
Methos summoned all his charm. "I'm a scholar, a healer, and a connoisseur of good beer." Wonder of wonders, he'd actually gotten her to smile.
"Perhaps we do have something in common," she admitted.
Methos lifted his glass to her and, after a moment, she lifted hers in return. They finished their meal with light chatter of the best types of cheese. "So," he said, after she had pushed her plate aside and paid for her food, "have we gone beyond the night?"
"I think I can see the red cracks of a dawn. And you?"
"Me?" Methos asked, with a show of complete innocence. "I'm fine."
"MacLeod said you'd gone to Holy Ground."
Sometimes MacLeod talked too much. "Just needed a little peace and quiet."
"Did you find it?"
"Plenty of quiet. A little peace."
"Is it really quiet for you, Methos? Or do you still hear the voices in your mind?" At his jerk of surprise, she smiled faintly. "I dreamt of you, standing crucified in blood. And I heard the voices calling your name."
Methos looked down at his plate then admitted, "They're still there." Nightmares that kept him awake at night, the continuing torture of Beyond.
"Good." Cassandra folded her napkin neatly and placed it on the table. "Have you seen him yet?"
"Who, MacLeod?" Methos asked, though he knew perfectly well who she meant. "No." Methos had only gotten back to Paris a week or so ago, and he'd been busy since then. "When did you see him?"
"In December," she answered but gave no more details. "He's a good friend. To me, and to you."
"Yeah." Methos swallowed painfully. "He is." And they hadn't exactly made it easy for him. Methos folded his own napkin, took a sip of beer. "How did you two meet?"
"Oh, it was a magical evening," Cassandra said, smiling again, a smile of secrets and power. "He was very young."
Methos ran over MacLeod's chronicles in his mind, trying to remember the early years. Oh, of course! Cassandra had been the Witch of Donan Woods. There hadn't been much on the Witch, no name and only three chronicles spanning a century or so. Methos had considered Rebecca for the role, or maybe Ceirdwyn. But he'd believed Cassandra long dead, beheaded at the fall of Troy by Roland, so he'd never even thought of her at all. Coincidence that she had been in the Highlands during the same time as both Connor and Duncan MacLeod? Methos was willing to bet on something more.
"And how did you and MacLeod meet?" she inquired.
"About two years ago, he was looking for a legend, and he found me." Cassandra lifted an ironic eyebrow at that, and Methos shrugged apologetically and reached for his beer.
Cassandra watched him drink, then abruptly pushed back her chair. "I have to go."
"Back to your job?" Methos asked, wondering where Cassandra was working and what she was doing. He'd left the Watchers last summer, and he missed the easy access to basic information. He could find her now, though. He'd seen the name Catherine S. Grant on her credit card when she had paid for her lunch, and he knew she probably lived somewhere in the British Isles, or maybe France or Denmark, but not too far away.
"No," Cassandra replied as she picked up her purse and her coat. "I have a date tonight."
"Going to ride the carousel again? Or play miniature golf this time?"
"Dinner and dancing. And after that..." She smiled to herself, but when she met his eyes, there was no amusement there. "Methos," she said with a nod, and then she stood to leave.
Methos stood, too, old habits of courtesy coming back to him now, and they nodded to each other once more before she quickly turned away. He watched her walk through the crowded pub, her back straight, her head high, her long hair swaying with the gentle swing of her backside in snug, black jeans. He wasn't the only one looking. A man jumped up to open the door for her, and Cassandra gave him a brilliant smile with her murmured thanks. Both Methos and the man watched though the window until Cassandra disappeared from sight.
Methos went back to his beer, wondering who Cassandra would be dining and dancing with tonight. He shrugged. The meeting had gone better than he had expected; at least she hadn't tried to kill him. And she seemed sincere in trying to move on. For now. He'd keep an eye on her, just in case.
He finished his drink then started walking to the train station, eager to start on the journey back to Paris. Maybe tomorrow he would call, let MacLeod know that he was back in town, suggest they have dinner together. But first, he'd better buy some beer. Methos had promised he'd bring his own.
continued in "Prophecy"