The Abbey
Rebecca's study, after Amanda was caught in Adræfan's chamber
"You were very foolish, Amanda."
Amanda sighed. At least Rebecca had led her someplace private before beginning the lecture. "I know," Amanda admitted dejectedly.
"You had absolutely no reason to be snooping about in Lord Adræfan's chamber."
"I know."
"In doing so you violated the laws of this Sanctuary, laws that you swore to uphold when it was decided that you would remain here as my student."
"I know."
Rebecca considered her student for a long, agonizing moment. "You say that every time, Amanda. I wonder if you truly do."
Amanda bit her lip and hung her head, stung. "I do, Rebecca," she protested, contrite. Then she looked up, and stopped worrying her bottom lip just long enough to add, "I do know, and I'm sorry."
Rebecca sighed tiredly and made her way to her desk. She sat down rather heavily in her chair and folded her arms in front of her. She gazed up at her student plainly, and yet even seated and looking up Amanda still felt looked down upon. Worse than getting caught, she hated how Rebecca was always able to make her feel guilty.
"I wish I could believe that, Amanda," Rebecca said at length, her voice echoing a hollow sadness. Then she sighed, and shook her head slightly as if to banish unwelcome thoughts. "But you're young yet. You will learn eventually. Though, I fear that you won't much like the lesson."
Amanda studied the dust in the cracks of the stone floor, unable and unwilling to meet her teacher's gaze.
"Your encounter with Adræfan was punishment enough, I think," Rebecca continued, catching Amanda's attention. She looked up then, daring to be hopeful. "Just tell me what on earth possessed you to poke your nose into Lord Adræfan's affairs."
Amanda swallowed, steeling her nerve. "Please, Rebecca, I was only curious. Ever since he arrived, Lord Adræfan's brought more questions than he has answers. Everyone guesses and gossips about it but no one really says anything—or knows anything, for that matter. Except your council, of course, but they never admit to anything anyway. It's been all closed-door meetings and clandestine conversation, and now you've dispatched more scouts than I thought we even had, and put all the guards on active duty—everyone's so tense around here! It's like we're all waiting for something to happen, only half of us don't know what it is, and the half that does almost seems afraid of it." Then it seemed Amanda realized how her tongue had run away from her. She halted her speech a moment, reining in both her voice and her emotions, before continuing in what she hoped was a much more rational tone.
"I just want to know what's going on, Rebecca. I want to know what's got everybody cowering, or praying, or preparing, and why you've started wearing your sword all the time even though this is holy ground—Adræfan too! I know it has all to do with him and his scrolls, and I'm not too young to understand it, Rebecca. Honest I'm not. I understand fear when I see it in the eyes of the priests and nuns, and I understand sadness in the Druids and anger in the pagans, and the deliverance I see in Adræfan's eyes and whatever memories you're guarding that flash sometimes in yours—I understand all that! But I don't know why, Rebecca. I only wanted to know why." Amanda's words suddenly ran dry and left her bereft, forcing her to stand and face her teacher without the crutch of argument.
All the while Rebecca had remained seated, regarding her student with an almost calm curiosity and, perhaps, a subtle slip of sympathy. Amanda, her frustration spent, found herself once again unable to remain brave before that stare.
After what seemed like an eternity Rebecca finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Amanda. You'll find that when you're older and with students of your own… well, you'll find that, more than anything, you wish to protect them. Not just from the realities of immortality, but from the realities—the horrors, rather—of life. When you first came to me, I'll bet you thought this abbey, this sanctuary, was a paradise. I know you did, because when I was first a student, living in a sanctuary and learning from the greatest of teachers… I thought that place was paradise, too. And Adræfan, many names ago, at the feet of that same teacher, in a sanctuary before my time, also thought the same. But his paradise fell eventually, and the Master fled and built an new one, and I called it Heaven and Adræfan… he told me once, when we were studying Canaanite Hebrew, that now he knows how Adam felt, living out his days tending to beautiful gardens that weren't Eden. I didn't know what he meant until I watched my own Eden burning down." Rebecca's eyes were pained, haunted. Yet still she continued:
"He built another, with my help, the way Adræfan helped him long before. And he taught others there, who called it Paradise, and I knew then what Adræfan felt. And so I left—a lot quicker than when Adræfan first left me. I left them to their paradise and dared to call the greatest—the wisest ever among us—well, I dared to call him a naïve fool. And he agreed with me, admitting that perhaps he was, because each sanctuary that be built pales in comparison to the one he himself was a student in, that met it's own end several incarnations before Adræfan's." Now she sighed, more resigned than pained.
"Yet I see now that he wasn't trying to reclaim Heaven, but to merely offer a taste of it to those who must came after him. And naïve or not, he adhered to this purpose for his own secret reasons until the day he died… until he chose to martyr himself to save the last of his precious sanctuaries." Was that bitterness? Couldn't have been… "And that place still stands, though it's glory dims and its secrets fade with each passing century, a crumbling monument to the ideal he died for and yet, with his death, signaled the death of that ideal." A tired sigh. An elongated blink. Amanda stood transfixed—she had never heard such things from her teacher before.
"When I heard that he had died… heard how he died… I thought to honor him, to preserve that ideal. I came back here, to this quaint island and its rolling greens and expansive forests that I'd first visited at his side. I built this abbey, this sanctuary—and perhaps it was naïve, and foolish of me, too. But I have trained students here. Preserved a sliver of the Old Ways here. I have used my influence to turn the tides of governments, to do as my teacher had done before me to keep the sanctuary safe. And so far it has worked out quite well. Until now." Rebecca was calm again—if ever you could claim she wasn't before. Amanda, however, got chills.
"The sun is setting on this sanctuary, Amanda. And I cannot stop it. I can delay it only, and even barely that. I will soon watch, powerless, as my own sanctuary falls, as my master did countless times before me. Our fate is closely linked to that of our good King. We will not weather well the crown's changing hands, for war will follow on its heels. You have not seen war, Amanda. Not truly. And I would spare you from it, if I could. I can only hope that I am satisfied enough with your progress to turn you loose upon the world before the end marches to our doorstep." Amanda's eyes had grown wide with horror, but Rebecca didn't stop there.
"That's the secret we've been keeping, Amanda. That's why everyone is afraid, or sad, or angry. That's why you claim you see certain deliverance in Adræfan's eyes. He knows what is to come, as do I. And he and I are preparing for it, in the way that only those who've lived it before ever can. I hope you are far gone from this place when our last day fades into twilight, for the darkness will be damning, and there won't be another dawn."
Rebecca delivered this speech, this lament, this prophecy and this doom, all while sitting behind her desk, speaking plainly and without preamble. Amanda stood, enraptured, and heard her teacher speak of things she had never even hinted at before. Amanda felt traitorously young, standing there like that. She knew that, as much as she wanted to be considered an adult in the eyes of her teacher, she was still very much a child. And, as much as she knew she wanted to grow up, she knew that Rebecca desperately wanted to keep her exactly the way she was. And looking down into Rebecca's eyes right then, she knew that she couldn't begrudge her teacher that wish.
Perhaps that's why Rebecca never used any of Amanda's aliases throughout the years. From the very beginning until the day she died, her student was Amanda to her still.
"And Adræfan? He came here to warn us?"
Rebecca sighed and ran a tired hand across her eyes and through her hair. "Adræfan came here for our protection. He has information that puts his life in jeopardy—information that, if brought to light and proven, would greatly benefit the king."
"So he came here, so that we could protect him while he helps our king, and so in turn helps to protect us?"
Rebecca couldn't help the smile. "I suppose that's one way to look at it, yes."
"And, you will protect Adræfan when they come for him? You will help him reveal whatever's on those scrolls to help the king and save his life?"
The smile fell from Rebecca's face. "His information will be made known. It's in the hands of fate whether or not that helps the king."
Amanda didn't like the sound of that. "And Adræfan?"
"Adræfan knows that he will not leave this sanctuary alive."
Amanda strangled a gasp of shock and horror. "But, this is holy ground! They—"
Rebecca raised a hand for silence. "They will kill him, Amanda," she interrupted. "But only after he has spoken his peace. He will not flee with his life, as he knows he can, because he believes in the cause he is dying for. I will do all in my power to prevent them from beheading him, but that is the extent of the protection that I can offer him. He knew that when he came here, and that was all he was prepared to ask of me. If all goes well they will let him speak before they slaughter him, and maybe—just maybe—he will be heard and it won't all have been for naught.
"And when he revives long after they're gone, we secret him away to the shores of the sea, and bare him across in a boat I am having made for him even as we speak, and he'll leave this isle under cloak of darkness, never to return while those that remember his name and face still breathe, to await the coming darkness someplace else, far away from here."
Amanda was still young then. She couldn't help it as the tears formed. "And he would do this? He would die for us?"
Rebecca nodded gravely. "He fights to stave off the inevitable end. He knows as well as I that when these walls crumble there will be no other sanctuaries. He would die to preserve what little we have left."
"What do you mean, no others?" Amanda couldn't grasp the concept. "When this place is razed, you can go and build another, like your teacher did."
Rebecca sadly, slowly shook her head. "You are so young, Amanda. Though I think what I regret even more than that, is how you chanced to become immortal as the light on this era fades. The world has changed too much for us to survive any longer. It will no longer support the ideals of our sanctuaries. The Christian faith that is slowly but surely conquering the world will not abide us to survive amongst them."
"That's not true! We can be Christians, too!"
"Ah, but you see, we cannot also be immortals."
Amanda opened her mouth to respond to that, but the words ran dry and she faltered. Finally she closed her mouth and returned her gaze to the floor.
"It is too dangerous for us now, to be so publicly immortal. We cannot cower before these Christians on holy ground, for we will only serve to trap ourselves by our own code, and they will slaughter us defenseless in their march across existence to eradicate all those who do not see as they do. There cannot be sanctuaries while there exists Christianity, and alas you'll find that their religion will far outlast our own."
"And the king… keeps the Christians at bay." Amanda concluded, as if in a daze.
Rebecca nodded. "He alone stems their tide and keeps a balance in our kingdom—the last free kingdom in Britannia to eventually fall to these conquerors. When his reign ends… our end will be swift."
"You speak as though you have no hope."
Rebecca smiled then, a sad yet genuine smile. She stood from her desk then and came around to stand before her student. "But I do have hope, Amanda." Then gently, maternally, she brushed a few stray wisps of hair out of Amanda's face, smoothing them back into place with a warm and tender hand. "I have you."
Somewhere in Paris
Methos and Amanda were walking as the sky continued to brighten after the rainstorm. The gray haze and Paris fog shone around them like a false dawn. In another hour or so the sun would set, and it would get colder.
They had been enjoying a relatively comfortable and contemplative silence after Amanda finished her narration. She seemed lost in afterthoughts, looking back on that time with a different perspective. She was a millennium older, after all. Methos, for his part, seemed to be dwelling somewhere as well. Whether or not he was reliving that time, or perhaps times far older, Amanda could not tell. He had so many memories to choose from…
Wherever his thoughts had wandered, it didn't affect his feet any. He led them on a meandering path through the streets of Paris as she spoke, but here in the silence she discerned that they were gradually winding their way back to his apartment. He knew these alleyways and back streets by heart, it seemed. Amanda smirked to herself. Typical Methos.
"I never knew just how much Rebecca told you."
She was startled out of her musings by Methos's sudden voice. She half shrugged in response, hugging herself. "That was the most she ever spoke about… things."
"I'm surprised she said even that much."
Amanda was silent a moment, thoughtful. "Well quite frankly, I don't even know why she did."
"What do you mean?"
"Why she told me—why she believed… She said I was her hope."
"And you were," Methos affirmed without hesitation.
Amanda snorted a bitter laugh. "Don't patronize me."
"I'm not," Methos defended. "You were the last of Rebecca's official students. Sure there were others she taught to fight, or taught to heal, or maybe a language here or there. But you were the last one to know what 'sanctuary' means. You were her hope for the future, Amanda. You always were."
Amanda was silent a moment, digesting that. "Well, some hope I turned out to be," she mused at last, both petulant and scathing. "What have I done in a thousand years?" She kicked fiercely at a pebble in the street. "What makes me worthy of her? Of hearing all that?"
Methos smiled, and it was a genuine smile. "You survived."
Amanda was silent for a long while after that.
"I think, looking back, she was afraid for me."
Methos gave her a sidelong glance.
"I mean then, in that moment. We were all awaiting the arrival of the King's men, and none of us knew what would happen when they got there. And Rebecca's ideal… well, there was a lot of room for error. I think she was afraid for me; that something might happen. That she couldn't protect me because of the holy ground."
Methos seemed to take his time formulating a response to that. "Perhaps," he conceded eventually. "But you said yourself, how you noticed that Rebecca and I wore our swords, even on holy ground. Do you really think she would have let anything happen to you, holy ground or no?"
Amanda was aghast. "You think she would have fought? In the abbey?"
"What do you think?"
"I think she wore the sword for effect. People always think twice when someone is armed."
"This is true…"
"Oh no, Methos. You don't get off that easily. Tell me, would she have fought those guards if it came to it? Even on holy ground?"
Methos was silent again, taking his time. "Let me ask you a question. You fought Luthor on the ruins of that abbey. MacLeod killed him there. Did the ground lose its consecration when the buildings crumbled?"
Amanda had no answer to that. After a pause she closed her jaw and jogged to catch up to the eldest immortal. "Methos!"
"Yes, Amanda sweet?"
"Do you have any idea how what you just said sounded to me?"
"Why no, Amanda. I'm not you. How you interpret things is not within the bounds of my humble speculation."
Amanda shoved herself in front of him, stopping his forward momentum with an outstretched hand. "Cut the shit, Methos. I'm serious. You make it sound like it's no big deal for immortals to kill on holy ground. Talk to me!"
Methos laughed outright. Not necessarily cruel, but far from polite either. "You were there that day. You saw what happened. You tell me."
The Abbey
A few days later
"You're leaving your right side wide open!" Rebecca admonished.
"I'm covering my lower left," Amanda protested as she tried to adjust her stance.
Rebecca smirked, snaked a hand through Amanda's defenses, thrust out a foot, and in two seconds Amanda was sprawled on her back, her right leg bent awkwardly beneath her and her own right arm being used to pin her down. Rebecca twisted that arm just slightly and Amanda cried out.
"Yes, you're lower left was covered just fine."
One more twist and an outcry from the helpless student and Rebecca released her hold. Amanda curled into the fetal position until her strained muscles healed themselves. Then she sat up, and Rebecca squatted down to face her.
"You should have let me use my sword," Amanda pouted. "I'm much better when I have my sword."
"Yes, but in the course of combat your opponent may strip you of your sword. What will you do then, hmm? Talk him into leaving your head attached?"
Amanda groaned and rolled her eyes. "Well if I get good enough with my sword then my opponent won't be able to take it from me, eh?"
Rebecca nodded in seeming accord. "And if you break the blade?"
Amanda couldn't answer that. Rebecca nodded again, standing up.
"For every excuse you give me, Amanda, I can give you a reason better. You must learn these skills if you want—"
"A shot at the prize?"
But then their banter was interrupted by the sudden, intruding sensation of an approaching immortal, and Amanda stood as well.
"To keep your head," Methos corrected, approaching the sparring pair. Rebecca nodded to him. Amanda wouldn't meet his gaze.
"He's right, Amanda," Rebecca insisted, using an elegant finger to tip Amanda's chin up and so forced her student meet her eyes.
Amanda merely nodded.
Their moment was interrupted by the sound of Methos unsheathing his sword. Amanda looked to him, wide-eyed. He nodded to Rebecca. She nodded back, and together the two moved a few paces away.
"Rebecca!"
"Watch and learn, kid," Methos called out. He stood in a fighting stance, blade held at the ready. Rebecca raised her arms, taking a defensive stance in the unarmed combat form she was trying to teach Amanda.
Suddenly Methos lunged for Rebecca, his sword making a clean swipe for her neck. Rebecca easily dodged, deflecting the flat part of his blade off of her forearms. She then backed out of his range.
Methos tried again, this time with an offside shot. Rebecca ducked down and to the opposite side, watching the blade sail over her head. His sword arm was outstretched as he was fully committed to the shot. Rebecca reached up and grabbed that arm as it was retreating above her head. She pulled him off balance, using him as the fulcrum from which she hoisted herself into a standing position. Rebecca then let go of his arm and found herself standing behind him.
Before Methos could recover his balance, Rebecca kicked him hard in the rear, sending him sprawling forward. He recovered by tucking into a forward roll.
Rebecca had anticipated that, however. Immediately after kicking him, she launched herself forward as well. She executed a low handspring along side him, and since she was moving faster, she managed to get ahead of him.
Methos recovered from the roll in a crouch position, still holding his sword. Rebecca was ready. She too was crouched from the end of the handspring. She braced herself on her arms and kicked Methos squarely in the jaw. The force of the impact sent him tumbling backwards again.
Rebecca didn't wait. She lunged for him, cartwheeling. Her hands landed one on his wrist and the other on his sword. Before Methos had the chance to regain his bearings, Rebecca had wrenched the sword from his grasp. She came out of her cartwheel triumphantly holding the blade. Methos had barely pushed himself into a sitting position before he found himself staring down the length of his own steel.
"You see," Rebecca call out to her student. "A sword does not make you invincible. Adræfan had a sword, and I took it from him. From this position, I could deliver a killing blow if I desired." Her pointed gaze lingered on her speechless student a moment longer. Then she backed off and stood up, lowering the sword. She offered Methos a hand up, which he readily accepted. "Thank you for your assistance."
"No problem, any time," he groaned, massaging his jaw as the bones continued to mend. "Did you have to kick me so hard?"
Rebecca laughed. "Do you have any idea how long I've waited to be invited to kick your jaw in?"
Methos knew she was only half kidding. "My sword?"
Rebecca nodded once, deeply, in acknowledgement. She spun the sword around in her hand and presented it to Methos hilt first, the blade coming to balance on the crook of her arm. Methos took it from her with a grunt of thanks and sheathed it home.
"That was remarkable!" Amanda cheered, finally finding her voice again.
"No, that was necessary," Rebecca corrected. "You must learn how to do that yourself if you hope to survive beyond these walls."
"Listen to her, kid," Methos added. "Your life depends on it."
Amanda shook her head breathlessly. "I don't think I'll ever be able to do that."
Methos snorted. "With an attitude like that, you never will."
"Milady!"
Their moment was interrupted by a shout from on high. Rebecca spun around to face the northern wall. One of the lookouts on the parapet was waving his arms.
"One of our scouts is returning!"
"Open the gates!" Rebecca ordered. A heavy clanking and then a groaning sound and she knew her orders were being obeyed. She grabbed her sword from where she had discarded it earlier for her session with Amanda. She reattached the sheathed weapon to the frog at her belt and secured it while striding purposely over to the gate. She stood tall, watching as the scout appeared on the horizon. When he was close enough for her to identify him—and see that he was uninjured—she stepped back. The scout entered the abbey in a flurry of hooves.
"M-M-Milady!" the scout panted as he dismounted.
"Calm yourself, Samuel. Catch your breath." Stable hands came forth to tend the animal. It was led away.
"Milady, the kings men—" the scout panted some more.
"What about them?" Rebecca demanded as Methos and Amanda drew near, watching intently.
"A party of them—" pant, pant, "half a dozen—" pant, pant, "riding steadily—" pant, "less then a league behind me."
Rebecca's eyes flashed. She turned from the exhausted scout. "Alert our riders!" she called out to the guards on the wall. "Use the falcons! I want to know if that party is truly alone!" There was a flurry of activity along the wall.
The scout finally stood up straighter, his breathing at last under control. "Milady?"
Rebecca turned sharply to face him.
"The party, they're riding under the banner of Æthelbert."
Rebecca left the scout and walked to Methos, who was already moving towards her.
"He'll be in the company of Æthelbald's men, someone Æthelbald trusts to verify my death. There'll probably be another, an attendant to such a man, probably a Christian and of the cloth. The other three will be with Æthelbert. He'll have chosen from his ranks only those he trusts and so offset the presence of his brother's men. Bodyguards perhaps, but more likely soldiers he has served with."
Rebecca nodded. "Will they be alone?"
"Probably. They desire my death most of all. The demolition of this sanctuary is still a prize unlooked for. If they do not kill me here, or I do not go with them willingly, then they will stand guard to ensure that I do not escape, and one of them will return to Æthelbald. Only then will an army be sent, and it would be done without the consent of the king. That means it would be small, consisting only of those loyal to Æthelbald. They would then wait out of arrow's reach and lay a siege. Of course, they don't know the formidable strength of your standing army."
Rebecca ignored his smirk as he said that last bit. "We are entirely self-sufficient here. A siege would not threaten us."
"No, but it would violate the laws of sanctuary."
"They would abandon the siege when they noticed that it was having no effect. Æthelbald's men maybe loyal, but a lengthy stay away from designed duty would attract too much attention, and they don't love him enough for that." Methos nodded.
"And if Æthelbald's solution to that problem is to order an attack?"
"We would survive an attack of an army of equal or smaller size, provided our fortifications are not breached."
Methos snorted. "I cannot attest to whether or not Æthelbald is on the good side of the siege engineers."
"It doesn't matter," Rebecca negated. "I will fight only as a last resort, and then only to protect the civilians. This place is still a sanctuary. I do not want a blood bath on our hands."
Methos's demeanor hardened in an instant. "Agreed."
"Our best chance lies in treating with them."
Methos nodded gravely and finished her unspoken thought. "And giving them what they want."
"But, that's you!"
Both turned to see Amanda, standing not far off and obviously within earshot. She had gone pale, and had a horrified look on her face. "In order to save this sanctuary, they'll demand your head!"
"Get inside, Amanda!" Rebecca ordered crossly, ignoring what her student had said—and indeed the emotional state she was in. "Round up all the civilians. Tell them to gather in the great hall!"
Amanda stood frozen.
"GO!"
Finally, seemingly with great effort, Amanda nodded, almost absentmindedly as she backpedaled. Finally she turned on her heels and fled. Rebecca's peripheral vision saw dozens of birds flying from the parapets.
"Rebecca—"
"I suggest you get your affairs in order, Lord Adræfan." Rebecca unsheathed her sword and held it up, inspecting the length of the blade with a critical eye. Methos caught his own reflection in the steel right before it caught the sunlight and flashed brilliantly in his eyes. He blinked, clearing his vision, while Rebecca announced: "Your time has just run out."
The Streets of Paris
"I remember overhearing the two of you discuss your options," Amanda said at length. "And how you discussed the possibility of fighting."
"We were sitting on a powder keg," Methos reminded her. "It could have gone a hundred different ways, most of them unpleasant."
"What were the pleasant ways?"
"Well, they could have decided it wasn't worth their effort and turned around and left, but that wasn't very likely."
Amanda laughed. "Rebecca would have fought them though, if she had to."
Methos sobered. "I know."
"But would she have? I mean—Methos, she had an army with her. She would have ordered them to fight, yes. But would she have fought herself, on holy ground, if push came to shove?"
Methos seemed to weigh his response carefully. "You should know Rebecca well enough to answer that yourself."
Amanda surprised herself by coming to the conclusion in no time. She groaned, dismayed by her own shortsightedness. "Of course she would have fought them! But she wouldn't have met them on holy ground. No, the abbey was sanctuary and holy ground or not she wouldn't have wanted fighting there!"
Methos smirked to himself, as though he were privy to some private joke.
Amanda grew more serious. "Rebecca would have done her fighting outside the gates. She would have met them head on."
"Now was that so hard?"
"Well, only because you deliberately misled me!"
"I did not!" Methos protested. "All I did was try to reassure you that Rebecca wasn't going to sit idly by while her sanctuary crumbled down around her ears." Then quietly: "she didn't before."
Amanda was affected by his seeming change in mood, his admission from a past he didn't want to speak about. She didn't speak, and Methos recovered quickly.
"You're the one who assumed she would fight on holy ground."
"And you didn't correct me!"
"Only because it's more fun to watch you come to your own conclusions."
Amanda scowled. "You always did like having fun at my expense."
Methos sighed, exasperated. "What do you want me to say, Amanda? Do you want me to tell you that in all honesty I don't have a damned clue what Rebecca would have done? Do you want me to tell you that if Æthelbert had come with an army and the abbey defenses fell and the massacre moved onto abbey grounds that Rebecca would or would not have taken her sword and defended her people, the rules be damned? I hope not, because the answer is I haven't the foggiest."
Silence was welcome after Methos's outburst. Unfortunately Amanda needed more.
"You really think she would have killed mortals on holy ground to protect her sanctuary?"
Methos was silent for a moment, then: "In Babylon, Rebecca led the refugees out of the Sanctuary… led the people out of the city as it burned. She fought like a hellion then, to protect the women and children who followed her while the men fought against the invading Hittite army. But by then she wasn't on holy ground. Then in Wessex, at St. Anne's… We'd already lost our teacher, you understand. The sanctuary in Paris was tainted by that, and dwindled—despite Darius's best efforts. That abbey was the last true sanctuary left, and she knew that when it fell, there would be no others. I honestly didn't know what she would do when confronted with the end. I'm not even sure she did, until it finally came to it."
Amanda was silent for a while, contemplating what Methos had said… thinking on Rebecca and what happened that day… and what could have happened.
It didn't occur to her to ask Methos how he knew so much of one of the many falls of Babylon.
"That must have been one of the longest waits of your life," she mused at last. They were approaching Methos's apartment now. "Waiting for the Æthelbald 's men, I mean. And his army if he had one."
"Sometimes," he answered as he fished his keys out of his pocket.
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes it was one of the shortest."
Methos unlocked the front door and led the way back up to his apartment. He keyed them through that door too, and Amanda found herself standing in Methos's kitchen/dining room for the second time that day.
"Were you ever worried that they would actually behead you?" she asked. The room seemed very large all of a sudden, and feeling isolated she hugged herself.
"That would have been a sight, wouldn't it," Methos droned as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. He bit the cap off with his teeth and offered the bottle to Amanda, who demurred. "Imagine the religious uproar: the witch of the abbey survives vicious lightning strikes just as the traitor-heretic is beheaded."
"I'll bet your quickening would have ripped the stones from their foundation."
"You know, just because I'm old it doesn't mean that I'm powerful."
"Like hell."
"Only one way to find out."
"You've got a sick sense of humor, you know that?"
"So I've been told."
Amanda had never really maintained eye contact with him throughout their banter. Now she didn't look up from the floor, but continued to hug herself protectively. The acerbic humor left Methos's demeanor.
"Amanda?"
"You really shouldn't joke like that," she admonished him. She rocked back and forth a bit on her heels. "You've always flouted your will to live so don't go joking like that."
Methos put his beer down on the counter and went over to where she stood. "Hey now," he entreated, voice striking in its gentle tones as he came and stood before her, grabbing her shoulders with his hands and forcing her to face him.
Even so, Amanda still stood staring at the floor.
"What's all this, then?"
"Promise me." The words sounded jagged, like they had been torn from her unwillingly and had broken along the way. Methos knew he had to tread very carefully here.
"Promise you what?"
Amanda finally tilted her head up, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Promise me you'll stay alive."
Methos blinked, stunned.
"You disappeared so suddenly right after Christmas, and I know things haven't been right with you and MacLeod. I know—and I know how much it's tearing you apart. I saw it then, back at Joe's that horrible night. And again today, at Alexa's grave—"
Methos's breath hitched, the sudden mention of Alexa slipped so casually into Amanda's explanation, a knife between the ribs.
Amanda hardly noted it. Instead she grew bolder, her eyes taking on a familiar determined glint that had been sorely lacking this last little while. "Alexa died, and then you lost your immortal brothers, and your student… And MacLeod… What are you holding onto, Methos? Are you staying alive now only so that there's someone who'll plant fresh flowers at her grave?"
Methos bit down and stifled a curse as he looked away. He would have pushed off from her—his hands had still be resting on her shoulders, but the movement was jerky, uncoordinated. It accomplished little more than to allow his arms to fall gracelessly to his side. It was as though Amanda's words had uncorked something that had been coiled painfully tight inside him, and he was powerless to stem the surging tide of that sudden release. Methos might have actually started crying then—
—If he didn't suddenly find his arms full of Amanda. She threw herself into his embrace and wrapped her arms fiercely about his neck, nearly choking him.
"Promise me you'll stay alive," she begged into his collarbone. "If you're running out of reasons to live then I'll give you one. Promise me."
"Why?" Methos finally asked, his voice husky, choked on the tears he hadn't shed. He felt Amanda tense in his embrace and knew that she understood his question.
"Because I know you'll keep your word," she answered, proving him right. "You'd keep a promise you made to Rebecca's last surviving student."
"Why bind me to this?" His voice was barely a whisper, each sound etched in anguish.
In contrast, Amanda's voice was sure and strong, pure in her convictions. "Because you're all I have left." Then she pushed herself away and looked Methos in the eye. Her eyes had dried some, and it was the glint of steel that shimmered in them now instead of tears. "You're all I have left of her, now. Sure her quickening lives on in Duncan's head, and yes there are those like Grace Chandal and Marcus Constantine who were close to her. But you were her brother, Methos. Or so she said. You're the last of her that I have left and I'll be damned if I let you go without a fight." She pulled him close again, burying her face in the space between his shoulder and his ear. He felt her breath fall warm on his neck as she spoke. "Promise me, Methos. Don't leave me here alone."
"If you knew the things Rebecca knew—the things MacLeod knows… You would not ask me this."
"You are all I have left of Rebecca—of what I had that was good and happy in this world… of paradise… I don't need to know anything else. I don't care. So promise me, Methos. Please."
But Methos couldn't—or wouldn't, perhaps. "You never seemed to care so much before." A tossed-off comment. It was meant to hurt her, meant to make her stop demanding something he couldn't give.
Amanda pulled away, not fooled an inch. "Why is it so hard?" She demanded. "Why do you try and hurt me? To keep from having to lie to me?"
Methos recoiled. Every instinct was screaming at him—fight or flight, and Amanda's insistence had left him with little option. "Listen, kid, I seem to recall a time not long ago when you were all set to take my head. Now you're making out like my survival is essential. Well I'm sorry, but my life and death are my own business and none of yours."
Amanda winced, stung. Methos gestured half-heartedly and turned away in disgust. He paced towards the window and saw Amanda's reflection in the glass, regarding him intently.
"You and I were never close," she said at last. "We weren't even really friends. You were just my teacher's brother, someone I ran into a few times through the years, good for a few drinks and a laugh but not much else." She moved a few steps closer. "Then Kalas happened, and we started seeing more of each other. And yeah, there was a point where I thought you would take my head to save the woman you loved." Her voice fell sarcastic at the end, almost patronizing. Could you blame me? hung unsaid between them.
Methos tensed and his breath caught. He braced himself against the windowpane, felt the cool of the glass seep into his fingers even as tendrils of fog swelled out across the pane from underneath his palm.
Amanda paced a step closer. "But I was wrong, and I admitted that."
When Methos didn't respond she began walking, coming closer to him as she spoke. "I'd like to think that we got closer after that. Especially when we had to save Duncan from himself last year."
Methos shook his head, tensing at the memory. Keane. His relationship with MacLeod, while never exactly solid, has always been clear; convoluted, but clear—if that made any sense at all. Now all was cast in shadow, and neither of them knew how to shine a candle into it, or where they could even begin. Methos was still surprised by how much the stagnation pained him.
"Why do you think I came to you, Methos? I could have called Richie, or Connor, or any other of Duncan's friends."
"Because I was in Paris?" His tone was sarcastic.
Amanda ignored it. "I didn't know that when I decided to look for you," she informed him. "I came to you because I knew you'd help me… that you'd help me, to help MacLeod."
"And you don't think Connor would have helped?" he asked venomously as he spun around. However, he had stopped tracking her movements in the glass, and nearly jumped in surprise when he found himself face to face with her. He turned halfway away and leaned into the windowpane.
"Connor is Duncan's family," she said, not quite dismissively. "And whether you like it or not, you're mine. You're all I have. That's why I went to you instead of Connor, in case..." her voice trailed off, mired in what-ifs.
"In case Keane won?" Methos's eyes were closed, and exhaustion laced his voice.
Amanda didn't bother to answer him. Instead she wrapped her arms around him again, though this time she wasn't clinging to him for her own support. No, this time she enveloped him in what had to have been one of the tenderest embraces he'd ever known.
He stiffened against it.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" she asked, not moving. Her chin was resting on his shoulder, but his face was turned away from hers. He was watching the sun sink lower on the horizon. Amanda's face was caught there, in the fading light.
"Why do you pull away from us?" she continued. "Why are you so determined to be alone?"
"I'm too schizophrenic to ever be truly alone," he answered, an ill-timed attempt at humor. Another way of pushing Amanda away, if insults didn't do the trick.
"What are you afraid of?" Amanda obviously ignored it.
Methos took a deep, shuddering breath. Amanda hadn't moved.
"Do you want to know the truth?" he asked finally. He felt her nod against him. "Back in the abbey, when they demanded Rebecca release me to their custody for my execution, I've never been more frightened than in those moments before Rebecca spoke."
Amanda seemed to take her time considering this. Then suddenly it seemed as though she reached some type of resolution, because she pulled away from him, and she was smiling.
"Come on," she directed, pulling at his hands and trying to drag him away from the window.
"Where are we going?" Methos was too shocked to convey much else.
"You'll see."
"Amanda…"
But she only smiled brighter, and added a mysterious gleam to her eyes. "Come with me," she encouraged, leading him towards the door.
"Where?"
"Trust me."
Methos, too full of too many conflicting emotions to offer much in the way of resistance or protest, simply allowed himself to be led. Amanda shoved a coat into his arms and made sure she had her car keys before dragging him half-willingly through his apartment door.
