The cafe
Present day
"You see, you were arrogant!"
Methos shook his head. "There's a difference between trying to appear confident, and being arrogant," he pointed out.
"Please," Amanda scoffed dismissively. "Couldn't you have just been yourself?"
Methos raised an eyebrow in silent question.
"Ok, maybe not yourself. But did you have to walk in there like you owned the place?"
Methos laughed outright. "I most certainly did not act like I owned the place!" he negated, more amused than offended. "As I said, I was merely trying to appear... confident... in front of Rebecca."
"So your arrogance was just a poker face then?"
"Yes—I mean, no, I—" Methos released a heavy, exasperated sigh and brought his fingers to his temples. Amanda sat back, grinning in satisfaction at having outplayed the old man. "You shouldn't have changed," Methos said at length, still bracing his head in his hands as though he had a terrible headache.
Amanda blinked, surprised. "Changed?"
"You were more polite back then."
"Polite?" she questioned, once again surprised. "I hardly said a word." This time Methos flashed her a self-satisfied grin. "Oh, you…" Amanda scowled. Methos was content that they were now even. "Besides," Amanda began, finally exchanging the scowl for a slight smirk. "Why would I interrupt the two of you? I was too busy watching the show!"
"Well I'm glad you found us amusing," said Methos with an almost-mocking tone.
"Oh it wasn't you," Amanda corrected with an almost-condescending tone. "I'd never seen Rebecca like that before."
That got Methos's attention. "What do you mean?"
"Whenever we got… a visitor… well, she was genuinely concerned for the mortals, but she was also reserved, too. I'd never seen her be so—"
"Harsh?"
"Emotional." A pause of thick silence. Then: "And the immortals, well, the only one she knew who came through was Marcus, and he only stayed for a night. They greeted each other like old friends, stayed up all night talking, and then he left the next day."
"Are you sure they were talking?" Methos interjected, his eyes dancing.
"I—" Amanda stopped mid thought and a blush crept into her cheeks. Methos laughed.
"Anyway," Amanda began again, banishing the thoughts and images that sprung to mind at Methos's ill comment. "The only other immortal to come through before you was someone she didn't know. She was the exact same way with this guy as she was with the mortals: formal and reserved, but she did remind him of how this was holy ground…"
"Ah Rebecca, the consummate host."
"Exactly!" Amanda agreed. "He was gone in a few days and I haven't seen him since."
"Fascinating," Methos said dismissively, wondering if Amanda had a point to all of this.
"But you…" she continued; or at least, attempted to continue. "I don't know, with you she was different."
Methos shrugged, not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
"She was… contemplative, in a way, and more expressive than I'd ever seen her," Amanda finished, her expression thoughtful.
"How so?" Methos asked, effectively masking his concern with curiosity.
"Well, when I was training with her, she was, well, I won't say 'happy' per se, but there was a lightness about her. She was very reserved, of course, and formal to a fault, but that was only for the public's benefit I think. There was joy in there too."
"That sounds like Rebecca," Methos agreed, almost wistfully.
"Yeah…" Amanda nodded, also caught up in memory. "But then you came, and… I can't really describe it, but she was different."
"Different how?" he asked, his tone guarded.
Amanda took a considerable amount of time as she thought about how best to answer this. "The light was dimmed."
The Abbey
As Rebecca and Amanda are leaving the infirmary
"You may have the rest of the afternoon to yourself, Amanda," said Rebecca, unexpectedly breaking the silence. The two immortals were strolling down the corridor, towards what Amanda had just assumed to be the tower where they practice swordplay. Rebecca had been just about as forthcoming as always, but Amanda wasn't worried. The rest of her questions would be answered when the mysterious immortal awoke. For right now, she was anxious to avenge the memory of a sore bottom.
"You mean, no swords?" she asked hesitantly.
Rebecca smiled a cryptic smile. "No swords."
"But, why not? Have I done something wrong?"
Rebecca stopped and turned fully to face her student, seeing mostly confusion in her dark eyes. Rebecca gave a reassuring smile. "Of course not."
"Well what then?" Once placated, Amanda is quick to become assertive once more.
Rebecca stifled a small laugh. "I wouldn't be a good opponent for you right now," she explained, and then she began walking again.
"Why not?"
Rebecca smirked. "That is something you will understand when you are older."
"I'm past twenty nine summers!" Amanda stated indignantly.
Rebecca's smirk softened into a smile. "You're immortal now, Amanda. In time you'll stop counting time as mortals do."
Amanda frowned in thought. "Well, how will I count, then?" She had to jog slightly to catch back up to Rebecca, for in her musings she had lagged behind.
Rebecca seemed to give the matter serious thought. "If you stay in Wessex, perhaps you'll be content to count by kings. If you move to Europe, mayhap by popes then."
Once again Amanda paused, thoughtful. "Why would I want to leave Wessex?" she asked, truly not understanding.
Rebecca smiled again, a gentle, knowing smile. "Why indeed."
Amanda was still confused. "Wait," she called out, once again finding herself tailing behind. "Are you saying that I should leave?"
Rebecca couldn't help but laugh. It was a lighthearted laugh though, the sound of tinkling bells. She stopped once more and turned to Amanda, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Rebecca was taller, and she looked down into the questioning eyes of her student.
"When you are ready, you may go wherever you wish," she said, and Amanda was certain the statement was meant to be taken at face value.
"What if I don't wish to go?" Amanda asked, her voice soft and full of insecurity.
Rebecca's heart went out to the girl. "Amanda," she said, in the tone she saved for 'teacher moments,' full of quiet authority.
Amanda dutifully looked up.
"This will always be your home, should you wish it to be," Rebecca stated, softly yet firmly. "But there will come a time when you'll want to leave these walls, to journey beyond these borders. Indeed, in the end it should be so. Immortals cannot stay in one place forever."
Amanda was reassured by this, as she was always reassured by Rebecca's words. It seemed to her though, that Rebecca was saddened for some reason, after having said this.
"Does the thought make you sad?" she asked candidly, wanting to know what ill mood had suddenly besieged her teacher.
Rebecca seemed taken aback, as though it surprised her that Amanda had read her emotions so easily. "Yes," she admitted, and Amanda was surprised at the admission as well. Before she could ask, Rebecca clarified. "Sometimes I wish that everything could stay the same. It's difficult sometimes when things change, and when people go their separate ways. You'll understand all of this when you're older, Amanda. And that, really, is what saddens me the most." With that, Rebecca turned and resumed walking again.
Yet again, Amanda jogged to catch up. "It makes you sad that I'll learn things?" she asked, slightly disbelieving.
If Rebecca was exasperated by all these questions she never let on. "You need to learn these things, Amanda. That's part of the reason immortals need teachers. Anyone can teach you to wield a blade, but that is just mere survival. You must be taught to live, Amanda."
"Is that why you have me learning about book and things?"
"Partially," Rebecca answered cryptically. When she spoke no more, Amanda got the impression that the matter was meant to drop. However, Amanda wasn't one to give up so easily.
"You still haven't told me why all this makes you sad."
Rebecca stopped again, and turned to face her student. Amanda expected a rebuke, or another cryptic evasion meant to change the subject. Instead she reached out, lovingly and yet tentatively, and ran gentle fingers through Amanda's long mahogany tresses—just enough to brush the strands back out of her student's questioning face. This was one of Rebecca's softer, maternal moments, as Amanda would come to realize later.
"I am sad for the world we live in, Amanda; for the world that I must one day send you out to meet head on."
Amanda took a clandestine glance to be sure that they were alone in the hallway. "You mean, the world of dueling and beheading and living forever?" she asked, her voice a rough whisper.
Rebecca laughed slightly, and bells tinkled once more. "Those things are your life now," she said sagely. "But to answer your question, I am sad that the world beyond our doors does not stand still."
"But, why should that make you sad?" Amanda asked, more from disbelief than confusion now.
"Because one day, it will make you sad too," Rebecca replied. Then she turned and started walking again.
"And all this is something I'll understand when I'm older?" Amanda asked, still trying to comprehend. At least this time she wasn't left behind in her musings.
"Unfortunately," was Rebecca's lament. Then the hallway came to an end, and with a small smile for her student, the teacher turned right, headed most likely for the library.
Amanda didn't feel like being around books right now. It was still bright out; she wanted to be outside! Amanda turned left, headed for the door to the gardens.
The cafe
Present day
Amanda finished her tale to a very introspective-looking Methos. That was alright, because she didn't really feel like talking about the feelings associated with her memories right now. A thick yet oddly comfortable silence hung in the air.
"Did you come to understand?" Methos asked, the sudden sound of his voice startling Amanda.
"Hum?"
"Did you ever come to understand what made Rebecca sad that day?" he asked, and as she studied him Amanda thought he looked oddly hopeful.
"Well, if you mean did I come to find out that as the world marches merrily along, changing things I thought were immutable and making everyone and everything I love grow old and die, then yeah I think I figured that part out." Amanda's bitter tone surprised her, as did the realization that she didn't much care in that moment.
Her words seemed to roll off Methos's back like so much water; if it affected him, he did not let on. Finally he nodded and sighed, and it seemed to him there was relief in it.
"What?" she asked impatiently.
Methos smiled an odd smile. "That is the way of the world, Amanda. We all learn that if we live long enough. What I meant was, did you learn why Rebecca thought of it that day, and why that made her sad, but apparently you did not."
Amanda's foul mood was chased away by a rush of curiosity. "What do you mean? The day had something to do with it?"
"If it is a lesson she did not teach, then I won't be the one to share it," Methos said with finality. He tensed, as though making ready to stand.
"Well could you give me a hint?" Amanda asked, pleading slightly in an exasperated way. She expected a smirk and a deflective comment from the old man, and so the haunted look that flashed through his eyes surprised her. "Methos, what did the day have to do with anything?"
Finally Methos acquiesced. He relaxed a bit, and offered that smirk. "Was the Battle of Hastings fought on a Tuesday?"
Amanda blinked. "What?"
Methos's smirk broadened into an irritating grin. "You heard me. Was the Battle of Hastings fought on a Tuesday?"
Amanda stared blankly for a few minutes, processing what seemed to be complete and utter randomness in the midst of (what she thought was) their rather serious discussion.
"You don't remember, do you," Methos followed up as soon as Amanda seemed to regain control of her facial expressions.
"Who knows," she said dismissively, wanting to know the point. "It was a long time ago."
Methos's grin remained fixed in place. "And you forgot the trivial details of it," he said smugly, "in favor of remembering the more important events of the day."
Amanda glared at him for several seconds before the right tumblers clicked and his analogy made sense. "It wasn't the day," she said in realization, consciously avoiding looking at Methos's face.
"It was the fact that I arrived," Methos concluded, his dejected tone causing Amanda's head to snap in his direction. "It could have been that day or a hundred years from it. It didn't matter."
Amanda's impatience and aggravation faded as she regarded Methos in that moment. "I saw two, and I saw two, and there was a four there but I never put in the addition signs…" she said, mostly to herself. "I knew that she was acting differently because of you… of what you represented, or reminded her of, or something like that. It never occurred to me that those were sad things."
"Oh, the innocence of youth," Methos said fondly. It seemed as though he was content to let the matter drop, but Amanda wasn't about to let him. Not after getting her all interested in the story behind his words and analogies.
"So what was so depressing about your arrival?" she pressed, sounding every bit the innocent he had just accused her of once being.
Methos blinked slowly, as though weighing whether or not to answer her, or how. "We go back a long way…" he offered cryptically. Then, almost a whisper: "Went."
Amanda nodded. "Yeah, and Duncan and I go back a long way, but that's only three hundred and fifty years."
Methos chuckled. "It was a bit longer than that."
"How much longer?"
Methos paused to do the math. "Nearly thirteen times that," he said, first sounding unsure, but then nodding.
Amanda's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Thirteen times!"
Methos half shrugged. "Give or take."
"Then that would make Rebecca—"
"Forty-four hundred… and twelve."
Amanda sat stunned for a few minutes. Methos seemed to either not care, or not notice. Probably the latter, as he appeared lost in his own thoughts at the moment.
"I never knew…"
Methos smiled, but this time it was tinged with sadness. "Not many did," he said heavily, and Amanda got the point. "Not even the watchers." Oh yeah. She got it crystal-clear and nodded gravely.
"I know you two had the same teacher," Amanda said suddenly. Methos turned to her in surprise. "I guess it makes sense that you would have known her for most of her life."
Memory and emotion flooded Methos's senses and he bit back a gasp. Finally he nodded. "She was still a student when I first knew her," he said at last, finally regaining control of his own mind.
Amanda paused to note the symmetry as she contemplated the implications of this. "Thirty-two hundred years," she said at last, almost to herself. "Rebecca was thirty-two hundred when I met her."
Methos nodded, smiling slightly. "Something like that," he said dismissively.
Amanda then turned to him, sharply, grasping at a sudden thought. "And in all that time, nothing happened to make her memories of you happy?" she asked, almost incredulously. "Thirty-two hundred years and she remembers you sadly?"
Though he didn't recoil, Methos looked verily like he had just been slapped. Amanda thought of apologizing for her statement, but she needed to know the answer. Why had lain between her teacher and the world's oldest immortal?
"There were happy memories too," Methos conceded at last.
"But not enough?"
Methos laughed bitterly. "Oh no, there were plenty of happy memories."
"Then why the sadness?" Amanda pressed, mostly confused.
"Why was Rebecca sad?" Methos countered, evading her question.
Amanda released an exasperated sigh as she answered. "Because of what you reminded her of. I want to know what that was."
Methos laughed, this time not as bitter. "No, that's what made her sad, not why she was sad."
Amanda blinked. "But that's the same thing."
"And that is why you do not have your answer."
Amanda sat fuming, mentally counting to ten, in French. "Then why don't you explain to me the difference?" she demanded, enunciating every word.
Methos was unfazed, and simply laughed. "You've already answered it," he pointed out, his amusement only furthering Amanda's anger. "When you asked Rebecca what made her sad."
Amanda was reminded of the conversation with her teacher, and she twitched slightly, memory cutting a vicious swath through the tension of her anger. "The past," she said tiredly.
"And how nothing is immutable, and things die… people."
Amanda took a few moments to actually think about all the things they had said. If the answer was right there in front of her, then damn it why couldn't she see it! "Rebecca was sad because you remind her of everything that was, and how things have changed, and people are dead and nothing is the same. It's not you specifically. You're just the anachronism that served that purpose."
Methos sighed heavily, his only indication that she had guessed correctly. Her anger seemed to leave her then, and Amanda was left with, well not realization per se, but with an increased understanding of her first time meeting Methos. Glancing in his direction, he seemed on the precipice of memory once again. Amanda did not want its tendrils to up and claim him.
"I don't see why you couldn't have just said so in the first place," she said, distracting him from wherever he was.
Methos blinked in surprise, the spell seemingly having passed. "I thought I did," he said with Adam Pierson's innocent charm.
Amanda smirked. "Sure you did," she agreed sarcastically.
Methos half shrugged, not bothering with a verbal reply. Not wanting silence to descend, Amanda strove to keep the conversation alive. She asked the first question that came to mind.
"Did she seem sad to you?"
Methos sat back in his chair, trying to decide how best to answer this. "Nostalgic perhaps," he said, the shrug affected in his voice. "But no more or less sad than other times." He didn't bother to add that it was because she kept her softer emotions skillfully hidden from him so he had to real way to judge.
The Abbey
Many hours after dinner
Rebecca stood on the top of the bell tower, the highest part of her abbey. Her gaze was fixed westward across the fields and distant forests, turned to silvery greens and browns in the brilliant starlight of the new moon.
"I thought I would find you here."
Rebecca had heard him coming and so didn't start at the sound of his voice. He had made no move to sneak up on her anyway. Methos came up from the trapdoor that led to the topmost roof of the bell tower and left the trap opened before coming to stand off to her left a few paces, and a pace behind. Rebecca gave no answer, but he could tell by her body language that she was well aware of his presence. Whether or not he was accepted was another question, but at least he hadn't yet been rejected.
"The stars are warm tonight," he said conversationally. Rebecca nodded almost imperceptibly before glancing heavenward. "They had been so cold of late," he added, his voice taking on a more distant quality.
"Cold stars provide little comfort," said Rebecca, switching into Latin.
Methos smirked. "Like winter stars, but not so far away," he added, also switching tongues.
"They haven't shown this brightly in quite a while."
Then Rebecca sighed and turned to face him then. Methos found that he could not quite meet her gaze.
"Do you think it means anything?" he asked, mentally picking out the constellations to keep himself from glancing at Rebecca.
"Perhaps the Star-Kindler is happy," Rebecca mused.
Methos turned, and saw a wan smile grace her timeless face, yet it did not reach her eyes.
"Then somewhere in the world, this was a good day," he said, for lack of anything better.
"Somewhere," she echoed before turning from him and gliding over to the edge of the tower. A small wall, barely knee-high, was all that would prevent someone from plummeting to their death.
"That's not very safe," Methos pointed out, referring to the wall. He sensed rather than saw Rebecca's smile gently in amusement.
"The Church decrees it so," she informed him. "A fortified tower is unbecoming for a place of refuge and worship."
"And a high wall could cover archers," Methos concluded naturally. Then, after a brief pause: "Yet they don't object to the outer wall or the guards you have stationed there. A lookout posted atop the tower would make little difference."
"Still the strategist, Methos?" Rebecca asked, her tone somewhere between deathly cold and warmly sarcastic as she switched back into Anglo-Saxon.
Methos chose not to answer that, clinging instead to stubborn silence.
Rebecca sighed. "It makes the clergy happy, keeping us less imposing as a fortress. They say that the Lord has no use for swords and arrows."
Methos snorted. "Since when has God protected anyone?" he asked with soft incredulousness. "It's not faith that will defend this Sanctuary when evil comes, but men. With swords and arrows."
Rebecca turned sharply then, facing him once more. Methos instinctively reached out, fearing that in her haste Rebecca would lose her balance and tumble over the wall. She did not however, and Methos was stuck, mouth agape and hand outstretched when Rebecca's fierce and penetrating gaze fell on him.
"And you have brought evil to my doorstep again, brother," Rebecca spat, suddenly switching to the ancient tongue. "Once more, you come before an army."
"You speak the literal truth, sister," Methos answered slowly, following her into the ancient tongue. It sounded natural spilling from his lips, despite the fact that he hadn't spoken it in centuries. "And I think you do so only to harm me."
Rebecca laughed a cruel, merciless laugh. "I intended only to point out symmetry, dear brother," she said in a light and mocking way. "If my words caused harm then it is only truth that pains you."
Methos sighed and hung his head briefly. "Perhaps truth," he conceded. "More likely memory."
Rebecca's tensed noticeably despite her long robes. She clenched both fists and then whirled around again, turning her back to him and returned her gaze across the horizon.
Methos decided to take a chance. "Which would you prefer?"
A long, slow sigh, most likely deliberate, and the tension eased from Rebecca's form. She simply stood now, and Methos knew that she would not be able to answer his question.
"I would prefer to not be haunted by the past," she confessed, her voice heavy with sadness and regret.
Methos took a few paces towards her. "You must know that I want the same thing."
Another sigh and Rebecca eased herself down so that she was sitting on the wall. She swung her feet around so that they were dangling off the edge. Her hands were braced beside her, but should Methos have decided to shove, she would have been thrown from the wall to plummet towards mortal death. Despite it all, she still trusted him with her life.
"How many more centuries… millennia… before we can forget?" she asked, and it seemed to him in that moment she was older even than he was.
"I wish I knew," he said on the tails of a sigh. In the pause that followed he dared to walk a few paces closer. He now stood within arms reach of where she sat. If Rebecca sensed his movements she didn't let on. "But speaking plainly, I do not wish to forget."
Rebecca turned her head, catching him just barely in her backwards glance. Methos moved to sit beside her, still half an arm apart. Rebecca took advantage of the pause.
"So you still carry the guilt," she stated, her voice unreadable.
Methos churned a few responses around in his mind. "Always, little sister. Always."
She seemed to accept this, barely nodding. Her gaze had long since returned to the horizon, and Methos joined her in this. "And to forget what I was would change who I am."
Rebecca smirked slightly. "You like who you are?"
"I have the benefit of many mistakes to learn from."
Rebecca seemed to neither agree nor disagree. She remained staring off into the distance, her thoughts far away. "I have missed you," she confessed. It was a neutral statement, not emphasized nor thrown away. Almost as though she were speaking to herself.
Almost.
Then a pause.
"But have you forgiven me?"
Silence.
After a time, Methos sighed dejectedly. After all, what did he expect? "This really is a beautiful country," he offered at length, willing to say anything to end the damning silence they were in.
Rebecca merely nodded. "Aye," she agreed. "That it is."
"You will keep it safe." Quiet assurance in his voice.
Once more Rebecca nodded. "As safe as I can, for as long as I can."
They lapsed into silence once again, this time though it was infinitely more comfortable. The two of them stayed there on the wall the rest of the night, close enough to reach out and touch the other, yet hands remaining still, and never once breaking the silence. They were both content upon the brink, neither opposing nor opposed, to watch the stars light up the fields and forests below, until the Morning Star rose in the western sky, and false dawn threatened to chase the stars from view.
The Cafe
Present day
"Nostalgic is a good way to put it," Amanda observed after a time. Methos sighed heavily, ripping himself from the memories that were threatening to engulf him once more. "And you just sat there until morning?"
"I left when the Morning Star arose," Methos said dully. "I don't know how long Rebecca stayed."
Amanda's glance shifted as she tried to recollect. Finally she shook her head. "I didn't see her until the following afternoon," she said. "Sword practice."
Methos laughed out loud. "Ah yes," he said in fond memory, a genuine smile lighting his features.
Amanda blushed. "I had only been training a little over a year," she insisted in her defense. "And living on holy ground, there was no rush."
"It's ok," Methos reassured, though his voice betrayed him. "A lot of us are slow learners at first."
Amanda shot him a death glare. "Well it didn't help that Rebecca used moves on me that I'd never seen," she pouted. "I didn't even know human beings could do that!"
Methos only laughed harder. "Nostalgia," he concluded with a faint shake of the head.
Amanda glared again, but then her expression softened into one of contemplation. "It was after that disastrous match that I insisted she teach me gymnastics, too."
Methos grinned. "And the rest, as they say, is history."
AN- Unless otherwise stated, the language of the flashback time is Anglo-Saxon, pre-Norman influence.
