Dream
Methos found himself standing in a garden of red roses. The sun was shining above him, and there was not a single cloud at the sky. When he heard the laughter of a woman behind him, he turned and found himself looking into Joan's beautiful blue eyes. She smiled at him with eyes full of love. "My love," he heard her voice as she came closer and began to caress his face.
The next moment, her smile suddenly vanished and turned into a very sad expression instead. "You must stop," he heard her now very concerned voice while he watched a glittering tear run down her beautiful cheek.
Very confused, Methos wanted to ask what she meant but his voice refused to obey him. He tried to touch her, but her body became transparent and vanished in front of his wide eyes.
He blinked in confusion and found himself suddenly in Darius's church, eye-to-eye with the priest. The other man's face was full of concern. "Stop this," he heard his friend say with his gentle voice. "Please, you have to stop… Don't avenge my death – I don't want you to kill for me…Live, love, be happy – do not hate."
"Listen to him," Methos heard another voice, coming from his left side. When the other stepped into the light, Methos recognized Emrys. His former teacher and friend looked at him with pleading eyes as he continued "Please, old friend, you have to turn away from hate before it's too late for you. There is not much left between you and darkness…and if you cross the thin line, there will be no way back for you…Come back into the light, rescue yourself."
Methos, totally confused by the whole situation, wanted to answer but suddenly watched Darius draw a sword and behead Emrys with one single blow - right in front of Methos's aghast eyes. While Methos stared in shock at his friend's beheaded body – not believing his sins? - five men in dark clothes appeared out of nowhere. Recognizing the faces of Landers and O'Brien between them, Methos then witnessed how the men immediately attacked the priest, overwhelmed him and held him to the floor. Then, another figure rose a sword and beheaded Darius. Blinking in shock, Methos then saw the figures vanishing right in front of his eyes as if they had never existed – leaving only the dead bodies of his friends behind.
A second later, laughter echoed inside the church and Methos noticed a man standing in the shadows. When the man stepped into the light, Methos stared at his own face – only the other's was painted blue.
"Don't listen to them," he then heard his own very cold voice and saw the other point at his dead friends. "They were fools, and now they are dead…But you are not. Love," the other then laughed mockingly. "Love is for fools…What good has love done you?…It only had brought you pain…Every single time you let yourself feel love, you've only got pain at the end….Again and again."
"No," Methos whispered in denial.
"No?" the other asked. "Then let me show you why you created me."
With that, Methos found himself standing in the desert. In front of him he noticed nine tents and some people, that were clothed in animal skins. As Methos walked closer, he recognized the people as the nomad tribe he had belonged to about 4300 ago. Watching a woman, who came out of one of the tents, he recognized her face as the one of his former wife. He remembered that he had been married to her only for about 4 years, before…
… before the tribe had been attacked by enemies and all members had been murdered. With shocked eyes, he then once again witnessed the attack. He watched his past-self fight and die, saw the murdering of his people, witnessed how the women were raped before finally being killed, and then saw how the attackers plundered their belongings. Not being able to interfere, Methos could only watch and then stare at his own dead body.
After a few minutes, he noticed his past-self come back to life. When the other registered what the enemy had done to his people, he took his wife's dead body into his arms and began to scream "No, no, no,…..NO." Again and again the same word. At the beginning quiet, full off sorrow and pain, then louder and louder and at the end full of hate. As the other finally looked up, Methos saw that the face was now painted blue and that the former kind eyes had turned ice-cold.
The other smiled at him. "Love only brought you pain. That's why you created me in the first place – because you couldn't stand the pain any longer."
Methos watched as the other got up and walked closer until they stood in front of each other.
The other smiled and offered Methos a hand. "Take my hand, together we will leave the pain behind," he whispered.
While Methos stared at his own face, the dead faces of his friends and lovers appeared before his eyes and he heard their voices whisper in his head. He identified Darius's and Emrys' voice, crying that he should not take the offered hand, that he should not surrender to darkness ;but the voices got weaker and then finally died.
"No more pain," he heard his own cold voice whisper seductively.
"Yes," Methos heard himself whisper and took the hand…and found himself standing in a dark room with a mirror. When he looked into it, he saw his own reflection staring back at him with cold eyes - his face painted in blue. Then he woke up. Death shook his head while he sat up in his bed, "what a strange dream," he thought before he laid back to sleep again.
