Disclaimer: I don't own them, etc.
Rating: PG-13 / 12A
Series: The "Ellison Chronicles" series, sequel to the "Rebirth" series.
Warnings: Crossover universe - The Sentinel/Highlander.
Summary: Blair told Jim it was about friendship. And it is…
Notes: Sorry this was a long time coming. I hope you find it worth the wait at least.
Kaddish
By NorthernStar
Jim could hear Blair's heartbeat from the other side of the room. It was tripping along a little faster than the young man's activity should make it. Blair was wound up; maybe he was even feeling guilty. There was some satisfaction in that.
Jim watched his friend, keeping his eyes on Blair all the while he packed his battered old backpack, cramming things in without bothering to fold and arrange them. He was travelling light, just enough clothes to make do with, no books save his journals and notebooks.
That was a good sign, wasn't it? Blair wouldn't abandon the rest. He'd have to come back.
Jim's mouth set into a line.
No. He wouldn't need much on an expedition, would he?
---
Blair was annoyed at the attitude. He knew Jim was angry with him. The sentinel had been typically tight lipped, but Blair knew he was quiet fuming. A few days before Blair had turned down Professor Stoddard's offer of a place on a project in Borneo. He had considered the offer - a year was a blink of an eye to an Immortal – but even though times had changed and being a Guide wasn't like it had been all those centuries ago, he had never been truly serious about leaving.
Only now he was leaving. And he couldn't tell Jim where he was going. Certainly couldn't tell him why.
Jim never said a word; it was all silence and frowns. He had nailed Blair with those eyes of his, laying on the kind of guilt trip only the very young can achieve. You got to leave that behind round about your second century.
Blair carefully shifted his sword in its hiding place. Its weight was a steady comfort in his hands. Then he pushed the last of his clothes into the bag and closed it up before shrugging it onto his shoulder.
Jim's eyes never shifted from him.
At the door, Jim finally spoke. "Thought you said this was about friendship, Chief?" His words carried only the faintest note of anger and sadness.
Blair paused. "It is." He told him.
"You're running out on me, Sandburg."
Blair took hold of the door handle and opened it. "I have other friends, Jim." He offered him a half-smile. "I'll be back"
---
Paris
It was bitingly cold despite the brilliant sunshine. Blair looked up at the chapel he had not seen in over a hundred years. He should have returned sooner, after Methos had taken him from Tibet and given him back his life. There were so many things he had wanted to say to Darius. But time had passed, the way it always does, and now it was too late.
Methos had told him of the ancient Immortal's death. He had been murdered at the hands of bitter mortals, jealous and afraid of Immortal kind. His loss would be felt for centuries.
Blair made no move towards to door. It felt somehow wrong to enter now that the life had been taken from the chapel. They might have re-consecrated the ground following the killing, but there were some stains that simply could not be removed.
Blair felt the press of an Immortal on his senses, intruding on the stillness of this place. He turned and scanned the streets.
Nothing.
Perhaps the Immortal had turned a corner, backing away, unwilling to risk trouble. He had chosen that path himself many times before.
Satisfied that he was alone, Blair looked back at the chapel, but his inner peace was gone.
---
A tallow candle in flickered in the window. Blair could see the tiny light jump and bounce on its wick as he approached the door. He hadn't bothered knocking. Immortals had their own doorbell systems and it wasn't like he was unexpected.
The door opened as he walked up to it. Methos looked tired and dishevelled.
This mortal must have been special.
Methos didn't waste time on greetings. "Did you bring it?"
Blair opened his bag and dug to the bottom. He took out a small vial.
---
Scotland, 1350
He was cold and wet and his limbs ached from the walking. The rain pelted from the sky, making the ground under foot slick with mud, but still the woman urged him on. Her long red hair was stuck to her face in dirty snarls and a few strands hung limply down like a curtain protecting the bundle of rags snuggled in her arms.
Lulach's baby brother. The infant was barely two weeks old and now it was dying, if it wasn't dead already. He hadn't heard the baby cry since they left his home.
Lulach stumbled, felling into the mud. He lay there, feeling wretched. He couldn't get up.
The woman tugged at his rags, forcing him to his feet.
"Please, Lulach," she pleaded, "get up, fly!"
His feet slipped, but he caught his balance and then the woman was pulling him forward again, setting an even tougher pace.
He realised then that he could smell burning – a thick cloying smoke scent, catching in his throat. He looked back the way they come and saw an orange glow in the distance.
"They're burning the village." The woman whispered. "That won't stop the plague."
And then she urged him on harder, bony hand tight around his wrist, pulling him along.
The rain stopped after a time and the sky darkened, but still they walked. Lulach had ceased complaining, falling into a kind of sleepy trudging where he wasn't really awake, wasn't really dozing.
The stars were out before they finally stopped. Lulach fell asleep almost before his body hit the ground.
Morning came all too soon and he awoke to the smell of cooking meat. The woman had built a small fire, and was roasting a wild fowl over it.
"Are you hungry?" She asked him and cut a wing off with her knife, wrapped it in a rag and held it out. She had also collected a bowl of fresh rainwater and offered him that too.
Lulach took it eagerly, devouring the meat and drinking deeply. He was so hungry he would have eaten the bones too, if she hadn't handed him more with a chuckle.
She watched him closely and it was only when he'd finished that she said softly. "My name is Naomi."
And something about that made him remember his brother. Fear shot through him and he went to the roll of rags lying on the other side of the fire.
"Lulach!"
He opened the swaddling, growing more and more frantic as searched the rags and found only more tattered cloth inside.
There was no baby.
---
Paris
Her name was Alexa. Blair looked at the image of the pale woman that Methos had given him. She looked young but so very mortal. She would be forever young now, safe in Methos' memory.
Methos took the photo back and returned it to its place in the pages of his journal. He looked up, and instantly shook off the moment, as if it had never happened.
"Beer first, I think."
---
They went to a bar where Methos was warmly greeted by the barman, whose eyes flickered to Blair with interest. Methos led the way to the back where they sat in relative privacy. They talked into the night, about Alexa and Naomi, and even about Maya and finally Darius. Blair didn't know why the subject of sentinels never came up, but they didn't and he didn't seek out an opening.
Finally, when the bar was all but empty, and the table between them was littered with empty beer bottles, Blair got up.
Methos followed him.
The drive out of Paris was silent. Blair knew the way, at least on horseback, and he navigated the roads slowly but accurately. At last they drew up near the lake, and began the hike down to the sheltered hollow of rocks where the hidden pool of water lay. The trees were thicker and taller than they'd been the last time Blair had been here, but it was familiar all the same.
It was like coming home.
At the edge of the small lake, Blair unpacked his bag and began placing candles around. Methos followed him with a lighter and soon the little enclave was awash with a soft gold glow.
Methos undressed and slipped into the chill water. He gasped.
Blair slipped in behind him. "Be glad it's not a loch."
---
Scotland, 1350
Lulach shivered in the bitterly cold dark water of the loch and began to cry. The woman was humming. Naomi didn't seem to notice the cold.
"Hush," she murmured. "Let your tears be for your family, not for the cold."
The boy's lip trembled. "Where is he?"
She began to bathe his body with a sodden rag, washing away the dirt and grime, cleaning his hair.
"At the village."
"I want to go back for him."
"He's dead, Lulach."
And then the tears were for his brother and not the cold. His small body shook with the force of his sobs.
"Why did you leave him?" He wept.
"I had to leave him. You wouldn't have gone without him." She cupped his cheek. "And they would have burned you too. You can't die, little Blair. Not yet."
He sobbed as she cleaned him, pouring the water over him to pour down his face, washing away the tears.
"That's your grief, Lulach." She told him, "it's washing away to join the stillness of the water."
And then when his tears were spent, she took him back to the bank and while his skin still wet, she opened a tiny blue vial and poured a little of its contents on her palm. It smelled bitter and sweet at the same time.
Then, gently, she smoothed the oil over him. It warmed his skin like sunlight.
"See, little Blair?" She pointed to his oil slicked arm. "The oil protects you from the water. The grief inside it can't get back into you."
---
Paris
In the flickering light of candles, Blair gently smoothed the oils over Methos' skin. His teacher hadn't spoke and Blair didn't want to intrude on the grief he'd witnessed washing out of his old teacher.
When they were done, Blair built a fire and they both huddled around it to drive out the chill inside them. They sat in silence for a long time until the quiet pressed too heavily on Blair and he was forced to speak.
"You could have asked Naomi." He said.
"I could." Methos agreed and fell silent again.
More time passed and then Methos got up and began putting on his clothes.
Blair, who had already dressed, stamped out the fire and started packing away the candles.
When he was dressed, Methos stretched out the kinks in his body. "Where shall we have breakfast?"
Blair put away the last of the candle and then reverently put the 1000 year old vial back into the safety of his bag.
"On the Seine, I think." Methos was saying. "I know this great little bistro-"
Blair stood up. "I have to go back."
Methos turned.
"I have to get back… to Jim."
"Jim?" Methos frowned and then a flicker behind his eyes as he remembered. "The boy?"
"He's not a boy now."
"He's a Sentinel?"
Blair nodded.
Methos thought this over a moment. Then when Blair saw acceptance on his old teacher's face, he got up and began walking.
---
Edward Devante watched the tiny figures part ways.
Wrong Immortal. This time.
But the boy would lead him to the one he wanted in the end.
Fin
Canon Notes: In HL, Methos lost Alexa sometime between 'Methuselah's Gift' and 'Through a Glass, Darkly' which, based on transmission dates, puts her death around early May 1996. This would be shortly after 'Love and Guns' in the TS universe, but before 'Attraction.' This is set a few weeks after her death, just after "Flight."
Other Notes: The Kaddish is a Jewish prayer said daily by a mourner with a quorum of ten or more men (over the age of 13) for eleven months after burial and also on the anniversary (the Yahrtzeit) of death.