Disclaimer: I don't own them, etc.
Rating: PG-13 / 12A
Series: The "Rebirth" series.
Warnings: Crossover universe - The Sentinel/Highlander.
Notes: Fourth in the "Rebirth" crossover series (listing appears at the end of the fic.) This takes place approximately six months after the end of "The Choice."
End and Beginning
By NorthernStar
After ten days, his wrist still itched. Methos rubbed the black tattoo and silently cursed the unsteady hand of the elderly Watcher who had seared the brand into his skin. Ink and blood had dribbled down his fingers, mingled on the floor. The herbs he'd taken to slow Immortal healing enough to allow this to be done without suspicion had worked almost too well. The wound had bled copiously, leaving him weak and sleepy. It had finally scabbed over, if only for a day, disappearing in a blink when the effects of the herbs wore off. Its presence was a novelty; the first scab he'd had in 5000 years.
He'd picked at it.
Methos returned his hands to his pockets and kept on walking. His breath misted on the frigid air and in the distance Big Ben tolled the hour. He counted eleven and considered turning back, pausing for a moment. Just as he made the decision to go on, he felt the presence of one of his own kind behind him.
Methos turned, scanning the empty street. He drew his sword.
A figure detached itself from the shadows - narrow and lithe, infinitely familiar. He lowered his blade.
"Naomi."
It had occurred to him that she might follow them to England. Her ties to Blair ran deep, almost maternal in strength. They had both seen the fear in her eyes, that last day in the jungle, when Blair had shrugged his pack onto his back and prepared to accompany Methos to Europe. She'd refused to say goodbye, refused even to watch them leave.
She didn't speak to Blair.
The younger Immortal had grieved over her choice, but it didn't stop him.
Naomi came closer. "Don't do this."
The mark on his wrist throbbed, reminding him of the bargains he'd made…on Blair's behalf as much as his own. Sentimentality, he knew of old, was for the weak or the stupid…and yet he found himself constantly infected.
Some of that was Blair's fault; he formed bonds with just a few words.
England, 1393
The last thing Methos heard was Mary's screams. The last thing he felt before the flames took him was the press of an Immortal on the fringes of his awareness. And his last thought was that, after over 4000, this really wasn't the way to lose his head.
Sensation returned too quickly, his body still healing from the deep, searing burns. The presence of an Immortal struggled for attention on nerves overloaded with pain.
"Lie still." The unseen Immortal advised. There was a hint of Scots in the soft tones. "You'll heal soon enough."
Cool water was dribbled over his skin, bringing sweet relief. His eyelids were cracked and puffy; opening them was like slicing at his eyes with blunt knives but he did it all the same. A young man knelt over him, a boy really, physically no older than 20 summers, and probably not much more than that in Immortal terms. His short curls were singed and blackened, presumably from dragging Methos out of the flames.
"As soon as you're able to ride," the man told him, "you can take my horse."
It was a generous gift, but then the boy was young. He'd learn soon enough.
Methos struggled to sit. "Mary…?"
The Immortal glanced over his own shoulder then shifted around, barring Methos' view. "Don't look."
But he caught a glimpse all the same – a red-haired woman tending to a smoking, blackened lump, all that was left of...
Mary…
His wife had been burned as a witch by a village of men she had delivered as babies and woman who she had nursed through labour. How else could they explain her husband never growing old?
Methos closed his eyes. They should never have come back, but Mary had wanted to see her kin one last time before she died. He hadn't been able to refuse her that. He'd kept so much from her already, a home, children and grandchildren…
"Who…who are you?" His healing throat cracked, but the pain was lessening.
"Lulach Blair." The brogue thickened considerably. He held out a cup.
Methos sipped the water gratefully. "Thank you."
"What is your name?"
His mouth was suddenly enveloped by another, bruising his tender healing lips.
The person drew back, smiling at him.
"Methos." Naomi caressed his face. "His name is Methos."
***
"This is Blair's fight, Naomi."
"Then why are you fighting it for him?!"
"I could ask the same of you." He met her eyes. "Mehler-"
But the press of an Immortal on their senses stopped them. They turned, reaching for their swords. Another Immortal walked towards them, light from the lamps casting everything dark/bright with fluorescence.
Methos drew his broadsword.
Mehler's lip curled in disgust. He was a wide man, twice the width of Methos, with heavy jowls peppered with stubble.
"I have no fight with you." He told him and his eyes narrowed, issuing the threat. "Yet."
"Oh…" Methos held up his blade and began walking towards Mehler. "…we don't always need a reason to fight."
Mehler drew his own sword, the curved blade of the talwar glistened in the light. "Back down now."
Methos stopped, leaving a gap of several yards between them. "We have a mutual friend," he told him as if they were having a normal conversation. "Blair Sandburg."
"Blair…" He chuckled. "Blair…a filthy little Jew. He humiliated himself before me every day, on his knees at my feet, pissing with fear like the pig he was. He begged me to take his miserable head."
There was a sound of metal grating against metal, a sword being unsheathed and Naomi lunged with a roar. Methos cursed as Mehler began laying into her. But the challenge had been made. He couldn't interfere.
The fight raged, metal spat fire and sparks against metal and underneath it all, the sound of Naomi crying. But she didn't shrink from the violence. Her grief at her actions, at the anger and hate inside her didn't stop or distract her. For an Immortal who shunned aggression and killing, Naomi was damned good at it.
There was a crack, the sound of metal sliced by metal and half of Naomi's Wen Jian clattered to the ground. She blocked Mehler's next blow with what was left, the force of it sending her reeling.
Methos watched as Mehler stalked closer to her. Naomi got to her feet but with a simple unchallenged slice of his blade, he cut across her belly, opening the flesh and she fell again.
Methos' hand tightened on his sword. This was where anger got you, where revenge led, what happened to those who placed loyalty and friendship over there own survival.
This was what you got for not caring for your blade.
Mehler stood over her. There was no fear in her eyes.
"Blair…did nothing…to you…"
"He lived." He chided gently. "He was Jewish and he lived."
Methos held up his sword. "The moment you take her head," he told him, admiring his own blade, "I take yours."
Mehler chuckled. "So much for rules."
"Oh I've always thought rules were open to interpretation, much like anything else."
Mehler laughed and stepped away from Naomi, centring his attention on Methos. "I never took you for a head-hunter…Goldstein."
Methos didn't react to the recognition, but it surprised him. He'd lain so low these last few centuries, living quietly away from the Game, just surviving, that not many of Immortals younger than 1000 knew him in any persona.
On the ground, Naomi's eyes flickered to Methos. Her breath came in gasps now and the floor was a river of red, the stench of her blood and spilled guts filling the air around them.
"Peter Goldstein…" Mehler smiled at Jewish name, letting the hatred drip from the word in a way he'd had to suppress since the war ended. "…yes I know who you are. However did you escape my death camps, Jew? I would have liked another subject to study. You could have been my control group." And he laughed. "Forget friendship, forget loyalty, doctor, Blair isn't worth it. You should concentrate on staying alive."
Staying alive… Good advice. There was irony in there.
A few steps away, Naomi gasped her last breath, blood gurgling thickly in her throat – a dead testament to the futility of revenge.
Now there's a bitter thought.
Mehler drew a breath. "He never appreciated the value of our work. I understand so much about Immortals now, the answers." He smiled. "What is the Quickening, doctor? Do you know?"
Coldness slipped along his bones. It took a moment to remember what the sensation was – fear, deep pitiless real fear.
"You did it all for the Prize."
"I did for the science, doctor. The Prize is just unexpected bonus."
Methos' fingers tightened on his blade and he raised his sword. A flash of black on his wrist caught his eye as his hand moved up – the tattoo, the bargains he'd made.
This wasn't his fight.
Yet.
"He begged me every day to take his head." Mehler murmured. "Wept it to me. Sobbed it to me. But I was waiting. Waiting for the right moment to take his Quickening."
"Well that's quite a coincidence." Methos said, reaching into his coat. "Blair was waiting too, he just didn't know it." He drew his hand back out. "And you know, his moment is now."
And Methos held out a gun and shot him.
***
The apartment block was cold and rat-infested, but it was all Blair could afford. The money he had before the war had been stolen by the Nazis, yet another thing they'd taken from him. But comfort was something he'd learned to live without; he had lived in far worse places and survived. This was luxury in comparison.
Blair paused in his typing and thought of Naomi. She was dominating his thoughts more than he cared to admit. He had missed her during the years he'd spent in Tibet and their brief reunion had healed him in a way that no amount of Buddhist peace or teachings could ever bring him.
Her refusal to say goodbye had cut deeper than any psychical wound. He knew she was afraid for him, worried what Methos might teach him. No more killing…She'd pleaded long ago, Blair…please…
But there was violence in his soul now and it didn't come from the ancient Immortal.
Like all things of importance in life, it was hard won. Mehler had taught him more about cruelty and violence than he would ever need to know.
And as for Methos' teachings, there was little time for that. The oldest Immortal came and went from the city, drifting off into the gaudy confusing world outside the tiny apartment, sometimes for weeks on end. But he always returned. The last time, he bore a tattoo on his wrist but refused to answer any questions about it.
Blair returned to his typing, the quiet tap-tap-tap of the keys the only sound in the cold room. Methos had given him the machine and showed him how it worked, how to use all ten fingers to pour out the words in his head. It gave him something to do, night after night, while Methos went wherever he went, tapping out his memories on to paper.
Maybe he'd be free of them that way.
Then he felt it and his head snapped up. He reached for his sword, propped up against the desk. But the door unlocked and Methos stalked in, eyes grim as he dumped down a roll of carpet on the bare floor.
"I've found him." He said and kicked the carpet.
Blair went white as the pale, limp and very dead body of Herr Mehler rolled out.
***
The cold he felt in his bones didn't come from the bitter morning air seeping through the many cracks around the windows. It was inside, somewhere deeper, somewhere where light and warmth hadn't reached in so long.
Blair watched the man who had tortured him slowly regain consciousness, seeing the extra fat in his face, the shorter hair. He'd moved on. And yet…
Blair had not.
Outside in the street, the clamour of children making their way to school broke the stillness, filtering in through the open window and echoing in his head. Blair listened to them, laughing and happy but all he really heard was the remembered screams of the twins as Mengele and Mehler dreamed up yet another grotesque "experiment."
Methos had retreated to the window, his back to them, drinking warm beer from a brown bottle. His part was done, but he wasn't leaving.
Mehler struggled to his feet. His lip curled when he saw Blair. "You." He spat. He looked at Methos. "Coward!" He looked at Blair. "Cowards! You betray our Rules!"
Blair glanced at Methos, unsure. But the oldest continued to stare out the window, sprawled on the chair as if he hadn't heard a word.
Blair swallowed. This wasn't how he saw it happening. This didn't feel right.
"Do you remember me?" He asked Mehler. The words felt heavy and thick on his tongue.
Mehler stared at him with undisguised hatred. "Murder isn't something you had a stomach for as I recall."
"And it was nothing to you."
Mehler shook his head. "You were nothing to me. To kill nothing is nothing." He sounded like he was explaining a simplicity to a very dense child. "Jews are nothing more than vermin." A smile lit across his face. "And Immortal Jews…a rare speciality…of vermin."
Footsteps interrupted them and Methos came to stand in front of Mehler.
Blair stood up. "You can't interfere."
Methos retreated to the chair, putting his feet up on the window sill and swallowing down more beer.
Mehler watched him and then his eyes flickered back to Blair. "I'm unarmed."
"So was I."
"I never took your head."
Blair backed over to the roll of carpet Methos had used to carry Mehler's body, never taking his eyes off the Immortal. He reached into the folds and drew out Mehler's talwar. There was dried blood staining the blade. He glanced at Methos, wondering what injury he'd taken to do this.
He threw it at Mehler, who grasped it quickly.
Blair readied his own sword, the beautiful ornate shamshir as ready for this as he was.
And in that peace, Blair found now the words he'd kept to himself for so long.
"I wasn't Jewish." The words came so easily he didn't know why he'd never said them before. "My teacher was. She gave me my name, my religion, this sword…" His eyes flickered to the blade. "You took them all, but only because I let you. It ends now."
Enlightenment dawned on Mehler's face, as if he'd just figured something out. He touched his blade. "I took more than you know, Jew. This is her blood!"
With a scream, Blair lunged and the clash of steel echoed around them.
***
Methos watched the fight. Blair was strong, stronger than he'd ever been, but Mehler had many more Quickenings on him. His chronicle had been full of victories over opponents older and stronger than Blair.
Time blurred into the clash of metal, blood flowed, staining the floor. Then the crash sensation of an approaching Immortal distracted Mehler for just a fraction of a second. It was all Blair needed to slice through the backs on Mehlers thighs and send him to his knees before his victor.
Blair stared down at him, face completely calm. He raised his sword.
"No!"
***
Blair flinched at the sound, a voice he'd know for centuries. He looked up, just for a second. Naomi stopped in the doorway. She was coated in blood but alive. And maybe that should have stopped him, but it didn't.
Mehler gazed up at him and Blair saw the calmness inside himself reflected on his face.
"Blair…" Naomi pleaded, "…this isn't you."
He didn't dare take his eyes from Mehler, but he could feel Naomi watching him like a brand against his skin. He remembered her tears when he said he was after revenge.
"I'm sorry." He said, and he knew that wasn't just for Naomi, but for himself too, and Methos…
…and even Mehler, because his teacher was right. This wasn't him. But sometimes, evil had to be met with evil.
His sword came down, severing his nightmares.
Mehler's broken body slumped forward and Blair fell beside it.
He could hear crying but felt no wetness on his own cheeks. He looked up. Naomi too had crumpled to her knees, her lovely face streaked with tears. It was the last thing he saw before the Quickening took him.
Writhing in its grip, riding, screaming, twisting…the electricity ripped him apart and reassembled him. The tongues lashed over every inch of his skin, in exquisite pleasure/pain, invading every orifice, spiking into his eyes, cracking inside his ears, crawling down his throat…
And then it was over.
Blair collapsed, gasping for breath.
The bare boards were hard beneath him but he couldn't rise, couldn't make a move to stop what was happening. Naomi wiped tears from her face and stumbled to her feet.
Blair watched helpless as she walked out of the apartment.
She didn't look back.
Heightened, vulnerable from the quickening, he couldn't stop the outpour of emotion as sobs wracked his chest. He didn't know who he was crying for, himself, Naomi…Mehler…
Or Mehler's victims, silenced now inside Blair, finally avenged.
Someone touched his shoulder and he looked up into Methos' eyes.
"Now it's over." Methos told him.
***
Blair paused in his packing, looking at the sheets of paper piled by his bed, all the ugliness he's written. Memories he couldn't share with anyone but his own mind.
Methos went to pick them up.
"Leave them." He said. "I don't need them anymore."
Methos cradled the writings. "I'll keep them for you." He offered and scratched the tattoo on his wrist again, frowning at the mark; one day Blair would have to ask him what it was.
Blair's eyes flickered to the papers held against Methos' chest then away, back to his face. It was always hard giving up a piece of yourself, but Immortals got quite good at it, given enough time. He lifted his pack and headed for the door. "Then they're yours."
"What are you going to do?"
Blair paused in the doorway. "Find the boy."
Then he turned and walked away.
~~~Fin~~~
Author's Notes: A reference to Methos witnessing midwifes being burned as witches was made in "Not to be." Anyone interested in Methos' life as "Peter Goldstein" should check out my HL fic "The Letter" housed at fanfiction.net. Blair is indeed a Scottish Clan name and has its own tartan. The Wen Jian or "scholar's sword" is used primarily for self-defence. It's just the sort of thing an Immortal Naomi would use.