1980
Methos entered the living room and saw his wife seated on the couch engrossed in whatever papers she was reading. From where he stood he couldn't see what they were, but he was just going to go out on a limb and presume they weren't divorce papers.
"Hey," he said to get her attention.
The blonde woman looked up from the papers in her hand and replied, "Hey," unenthusiastically.
"What've you got?" he asked as he moved to sit down beside her.
Billie absentmindedly held the papers against her to block his view of them, but after initial hesitation she held them out for him to read. He didn't say what he was thinking but internally he was rolling his eyes.
"Not another college application form," he said.
Billie just shrugged in response.
"Billie, we go through this every year, every year you pick up a new form and you either don't fill it out, or you do but you never send it in."
"I'm nervous, alright?" she replied.
"What's to be nervous about?" Methos wanted to know, "They'll either take you or they won't, and you have something in your favor that you already went, and should still be able to transfer your credits from the last college."
Billie ran her fingers through her hair like she was going to start ripping whole handfuls out and she asked her husband, "What possesses a 5,000 year old man to enroll in college?"
"Coeds," Methos answered with a smirk.
She sneered at him and replied, "There can't possibly be anything you haven't learned by now, is there?"
"In my time I've learned everything there is in this world to know…except mime," Methos told her.
"So why do you waste your time with it?" she asked.
"Because when I start over in a new persona it helps if people around me see me coming up in the world first as a mild mannered student, and then gradually breaking out as a…"
"Mild mannered barfly who gets his butt kicked on a regular basis in bar fights?" Billie suggested with a sarcastic smirk on her face.
"Very funny," he replied.
After a brief pause between them, Billie explained to him, "When I found out I was Immortal, I thought it would be the greatest thing in the world, and that I'd feel young forever because I'd be young forever, but lately I just feel so old."
Methos guffawed and remarked, "Who're you telling?"
"You've had 5,000 years to get used to being 30 forever, I haven't," she said, "I still think in terms of if I was still mortal, I would now be at a point that my life is one third of the way over…but even now there's no guarantee I could live to be 100, let alone over, is there?"
Methos shook his head, "No you're right, even as Immortals no life is guaranteed."
"And I just feel like my life is wasting away and I'm not doing anything with it," Billie said, "And you know I've always regretted never finishing college."
"I know, because we do this little dance every single year," Methos replied. He sat up straight on the couch and said to his wife, "Look, I've been in universities more times than I care to remember, you want to know anything about the whole ball of wax, you ask me."
Billie thought about it for a minute and asked him, "Do you think I'm wasting my time on this? In the grand scheme of things is it going to make any difference?"
Methos considered the question before answering, "It's just like anything else in life, there are right reasons to do it, and there are wrong reasons to do it. Every year thousands of people go to the most expensive universities for a four year free ride because somebody else is footing the bill, either their parents or a trust fund or a scholarship from the school. They get out and they don't do anything with the degree they didn't earn, or they don't do anything with their life whatsoever. First they waste their youthful years leading up to college, they waste the four years they spend in college and then they waste the rest of their lives because they are under no obligation financial or otherwise to do anything with themselves. Then there are people who kill themselves working full time and being a full time student, a lot of times they don't even finish, but they don't see it as a lost cause."
"I know all that already, Methos," Billie told him.
"Alright, now you, if you think you should do this because you want to get your degree, that that's the only reason for it, that you think it's going to add something to your life, I can tell you right now not to waste your time. If you think you should do this because you think the actual experience is going to somehow enhance your life, that you're actually going to get something out of it, all that crap about 'finding yourself', then go ahead and do it, but just decide already. You've been pussyfooting on it for five years, pick already."
Billie nodded as she thought about it for a minute, and finally decided, "I'm going to do it."
"Fine," Methos replied, "Let's break out the wine," and with that he stood up from the couch and headed into the kitchen.
Billie promptly followed behind him and said, "If I take one class each semester...that would be two classes a year, most classes are what, 3 credits? It takes 120 credits just to get the Bachelor's degree…I hope they'll let the ones I already have transfer over." Then another thought occurred to her, she went over to her husband who was cracking open a bottle of elderberry wine and asked him, "What if nobody wants me? What if I can't get accepted anywhere?"
"You got accepted once, it'll happen again," Methos told her as he popped the cork, "And if you don't, then it wasn't meant to be. That's a lesson all mortals and Immortals alike need to learn; if you've exhausted all your resources and something still doesn't work, it wasn't in the cards."
She eyed her husband questioningly and asked, "Does that get easier to learn being Immortal?"
"Hell no," Methos answered, "You waste even more time exhausting even more resources because they're suddenly available but equally as futile. It's a rough game, Billie, if you're going to survive it you're going to have to learn a lot and learn it fast, even though hundreds of Immortals die every single year there are still thousands of them out there looking for any opponent they can find. They'll take any Quickening they can get, whether the other person wants to fight or not."
"How does that work?" Billie asked as she picked up a set of wine glasses.
"Huh?" Methos asked her.
"How is it with so many Immortals dying every single year, there are still thousands of them out there? Didn't you say that Immortals can't have kids?"
"That's right, I'm 5,000 years old and I've never seen an Immortal get pregnant or get somebody else pregnant."
"So where do Immortals come from then?" Billie asked.
Methos stopped, and thought about the question for a minute before responding, "I really have no idea."
"5,000 years and nobody's ever figured it out?" Billie asked curiously.
"Nope," Methos answered, "Which should say it's not meant to be known, otherwise somebody would've solved it before now."
Billie put the glasses down for Methos to fill, and she said to him, "Methos, there's something else I wonder about, something that makes me worried about going back to college."
"What's that?" he asked as he poured their glasses full.
"What if I can't do it?" she asked, he looked at her and she elaborated, "What if I flunk? What if I'm too stupid to finish school?"
"A lot of people never finish, doesn't mean anything," he answered.
"Yes it does," Billie told him, "I'm married to probably the smartest man in the world, you're old enough you probably know everything, you could match wits with anybody, what the hell is that going to say if you married a woman who's too stupid to even complete 4 years of college?"
Methos corked the bottle up again and said to her, "That's another thing that doesn't go away with Immortality, inferiority complexes."
"I'm serious," Billie said.
"I know," Methos responded, "It won't make one bit of difference to me. You know I've been married 68 times prior to this."
"Yeah so?"
"Over half of them never even learned to read or write, didn't change anything."
"It wasn't necessary back then," Billie said.
"No, but it didn't hurt either," Methos told her, "That was…"
She picked up on what he hadn't said and she asked him, "That was what?"
Methos knew there wasn't any sidestepping the issue so he confessed, "That was one of the breaking points when I fell out with my brother. Of course like real brothers we fought over everything, often to the death, but it always passed, the only thing he couldn't accept was when I announced I was leaving him, because I wanted to study and learn."
"And he couldn't have that?" Billie inquired.
"Oh he was plenty smart himself," Methos assured her, "But he had issues, any outside forces were a threat, my leaving him, that was the biggest threat, the ultimate betrayal. And that is something that has stood the test of time."
"What do you mean?" she wanted to know.
"It's like these days, all the time on TV you hear about people going back to school to finish the educations they left 10, 20, 30 years ago. More specifically you hear about women going back to school to improve themselves, and for some reason this is perceived as a huge threat by their husbands. Why is it a threat? Somewhere along the way we've shifted things, it used to be men were all the scholars, professors, scientists, teachers, etc., now we recognize that women are often better scholars than men are, they learn better, and they carry what they learn over better into their post graduate lives. Why?"
"Beats me," Billie shrugged, "What's changed to make that happen?"
"That's a good question, unfortunately it's one I can't answer, but in this oh so liberated age, we see quite a few men who are threatened by their wives finishing school to make something of themselves, so a lot of them find themselves making a choice, their husband, or their own life. The latter often wins, but not nearly as much as it should, some of them for being so smart, are still dumb enough to latch themselves to somebody who doesn't want to see them succeed. In reality it's only a few with brains enough to walk out on their husbands to proceed with their schooling."
Even for being a product of the times, Billie didn't get it and she asked him as they took their wine back into the living room and seated themselves on the couch, "Why is it one or the other? These days everybody makes it out to be you can't be married and go to college at the same time or you can't be married and have your own career, it's still one or the other. I thought that attitude was supposed to die out in the 60s."
"Mankind never makes as much progress as it likes to think it does," Methos told her, "They think they're so original now with liberation, women's lib, women's rights, the Indians had that 1500 years ago, they're still not as caught up now as they were 400 years ago."
"I guess you'd be an expert on that," Billie said.
"Well I was around to see it for myself," he remarked, "But other than that, I've just been a casual observer in most of the world's history."
"Somehow I find that hard to believe," she said, "So you and your brother stopped speaking to each other because you wanted to learn?"
"Something like that," Methos explained, "He never did take rejection well. But in time he finally came around, unfortunately we have all the time we need and he takes advantage of that by dragging it on for a few extra centuries than necessary."
Billie leaned back against the couch and laughed. "I'd still like to meet your brother."
"Oh I doubt that," Methos told her, "You only say that because you don't know him, once you do you'll be sorry you ever did."
"Yeah well that's my choice, isn't it?" she asked, "That's up for me to decide. Come on, Methos, when am I going to get to meet your brothers?"
Methos drained his wine glass before commenting, "I suppose it'd be too much to ask waiting until I'm dead, wouldn't it?"
Billie picked up one of the throw pillows and beat him over the head with it.
"That's what I thought," he added with a small knowing smirk.
Billie set her wine glass on the table and asked him, "So…you're okay with this, right? You're okay with me going back to school?"
"Billie," he explained, "In this life the only priority that comes after staying alive is doing what fulfills you since time is of the essence and we have that luxury. If this is what you want to do, then you should, and if not, that's fine too, it's whatever you decide, and I'll support you either way."
"And if I don't make it and I flunk out, that'll be okay with you too?" she asked skeptically.
"Sure," Methos answered, "It isn't going to impact things between us any."
She slowly nodded before settling back against the cushions and resting her head against his shoulder, "Good. I'd hate to think we got this far into our marriage before I have to pick a side too."
"No, I think I can guarantee that's one way in which I do not take after my brother," he told her.
"What's another way you don't take after him?" Billie looked up to him as she asked.
Hardly missing a beat, Methos answered, "I'm better looking."
Billie snorted and playfully punched her husband in his ribs.
