Chapter Ten

... and Rebirth

Strathclyde, 864 c.e.:

After what seemed like hours, Methos felt the final change take place. Aella suddenly lurched and gasped roughly... that first rough gasp they all made when returning from wherever it was they went. The one that rent the air and pulled it desperately into lungs that had none.

Then she screamed... thrashing her arms about as if to ward off an attacker. The cloak itself fell from her as she struggled. She held her hands to either side of her head and moaned... she was feeling him... his immortality... for the first time. She looked about and screamed again when she saw him. She began to back away in absolute terror.

"Aella..." Methos gently said without moving, "it is only me... I am here. They cannot hurt you, not ever again."

Aella simply stared. In the flickering firelight she trembled in disbelief, still shaking her head and glancing fearfully about her. Finally, her voice cracking in terror and disbelief, she ventured, "Edward?"

"Edward..." Methos answered quietly. It was all she needed to know, for now.

She covered her face with her hands and continued to tremble. Methos still made no move toward her. "We are both dead, then... is this hell?" she finally asked looking around them once more, her eyes taking in the darkness, the firelight, and the nearby bodies..

"No... Not hell... and we are not dead."

"But I saw you dead!" she screamed. "They killed you. I saw you dead!" She sobbed and lifted her voice in a great keening wail.

Methos waited quietly. She would need to calm down some before he could begin to explain all that had happened.

"I know... " she continued suddenly. "You are a demon... you have been sent to taunt me. I am being punished for all my wickedness!" She clutched the cloak about her once more, trying to hide within it and began to moan.

Methos sighed. He wanted to go to her... comfort her... but if he was to see her through this... he needed to keep his distance... or she would never survive. And he wanted her to survive if at all possible! He waited for her to quiet down once more. Then looked at her evenly. "I am immortal, I cannot die... nor can you."

"Are you mad? This is not real... this is not real!" She scrambled further from him in denial.

"All too real, I fear. We are immortal... Aella, we always were." He paused, "I will try to explain. There are things you have to know... things you will have to learn... your life will be a very different one now and to survive, you must learn them."

Slowly and calmly Methos began to explain the game and the rules. He gave her only the barest outline... just enough for her to at last begin to understand. His true name, his age and long past, he did not tell her. She did not need to know that. It was more important that he impress on her what she had become and what was now required.

"Why did you not tell me!" she accused him. "Was all our life together a lie? Some great jest on your part?"

"Not a lie... I had hoped you would be spared this." Methos sadly shook his head; it was time to tell her the next part.

When he explained the ritual combat and the beheadings, she shook her head in disbelief. "I cannot do that! Are you mad!"

"You will... or you will die a death, from which you will not awaken," he answered his voice filled with the regret that he had handled everything so badly. "If you want to go on living... you will. I will teach you how to survive. I will teach you the skills you will need." He tossed the long knife toward her. With her small stature, it would be enough for her to start with.

Aella stared at it for a long time. Then she stood and looked about the outlaws' campsite. She clutched the cloak about her and wandered over to the dead men. She stood over them looking at their corpses, as if considering her own options. At one of the bodies, she reached down and removed something roughly. Then she kicked the body with a hatred he had never known her to possess. She screamed obscenities and spat at the corpse. Then, when her fury lessened, she stared at whatever it was in her fist. She looked back at Methos coldly. She seemed to consider something, then nodded to herself. She walked over to him.

"I am glad they are dead... will they come back, too?"

"No!" Methos said simply. "They were mortal and they are dead."

"Then you should have left one for me to practice on." Her voice had a hard edge to it that Methos had never heard. It was hard, flat, and dead.

He looked up at her questioningly.

"Would you not agree, Sir Edward," she said, "that the purpose of marriage is children."

Methos nodded. It had been years since she had called him Sir. "Yes," he answered quietly.

"Immortals do not have children... right?"

He sadly shook his head. "No, they do not have children."

"And would you not agree, also..." she paused briefly, then continued, "that death ends a marriage?"

Methos closed his eyes a moment and then reopened them, gazing into her sad green ones. He nodded. "Yes."

She held out her hand which still clutched within her fist something she wanted him to have. He reluctantly lifted his hand to receive it. She dropped her wedding ring into his palm.

"Then our marriage is over... now, teach me what I need to know to survive."