METHUSELAH'S GIFT
Duncan MacLeod's Apartment, Australia: November 2034
Methos celebrated the successful launch of the Mars fleet by taking a long-postponed vacation. He found Duncan in the Land Down Under, living in an apartment near the beach. "Drowning once wasn't enough for you?" Methos asked. The nearby waves lay lulled and gleaming in the sunshine, but dark in their depths. Not many cared to gamble with the weather, not these days.
Duncan just laughed and opened wide the door. "Methos." His smile was golden, his eyes darkly alive, his beauty the best of dark and bright. He bowed and swept out his hand in invitation. "Come in. Mi casa es su casa."
Methos grinned and came on in. "In that case, where's the beer?"
"You're going where?" Methos asked that night over dinner, a shrimp and pasta dish with cream sauce and dill. Methos was on his second helping; Duncan hadn't lost his touch with food.
"New Zealand. It's Krista's birthday on Saturday, and she has the lead role in a school ballet on Friday night. I bought my ticket back in May. I'd like to see my granddaughter again. And Paula and Tom."
"MacLeod—" Methos stopped in exasperation. "That is your name now, right?" It wasn't a question; it was a reminder. "Mark Johnson is dead, MacLeod. You killed him, as well you should have. Now let him rest in peace. And let his family be at peace, too."
"They won't see me," he said, stubborn as always. "I'll stay in the background."
"Spying."
"Watching," he corrected.
"The way you watched your parents, after you were banished from Glenfinnan? Longing for the life you could no longer have?"
"I know better now," Duncan retorted, his jaw tight. "I've done it often enough."
"You've walked away from lives, yes. Walked away from jobs, homes, friends, yes. But you've never walked away from your family before, not while they were still alive, not since that first time." He leaned forward to plead, as he had pleaded with this man before, "Let it go, MacLeod." Let the past go, so that other things might come to be.
Duncan stood and started gathering the dishes. "It's just this once, Methos. One last time. It'll be all right. Even if they do see me, they won't recognize me."
He went into the kitchen then, so he didn't see Methos's slow nod, and he didn't hear him say, "That makes it even worse."
After Duncan returned from New Zealand, he was mostly silent for the first two days. That evening, as they sat on the beach and watched the silver flashes of the waves, he said, "Doesn't it get tiresome? Being right?"
Methos's smile didn't hide his sigh. "Being right isn't the problem. It's being ignored."
"Yeah," Duncan agreed softly, remembering certain episodes with Richie and with Amanda and even a few with Methos himself, and with other people through the years. "To Mark Johnson," Duncan said as he lifted his whisky glass. "May he rest in peace."
"I'll drink to that," Methos said, and they did. "To Duncan MacLeod," Methos proposed next. "May he live in peace."
Duncan couldn't drink to himself, but he could easily agree with the second half of the toast. "To peace," Duncan said, and they drank again.
"So," Methos said, "what is Duncan MacLeod going to do with his new life?"
Duncan had been thinking about that. He was tired of wandering with nothing to do. He wanted to make a difference in people's lives. "Search and rescue," he announced. "In January, I start helicopter school in France."
"Very noble," Methos said, without even a hint of sarcasm. His eyes were dark in the still, moonless night.
"Another toast," Duncan proposed. "To good friends."
"To good friends." Methos drained his glass and poured them each another shot. They leaned back on their elbows, watching the stars above the sea and listening to the waves.
"Where were you?" Duncan asked, just a simple question, not an accusation or a demand. He could ask it that way now. "After—"
"—after Susan died," Methos finished for him, and there was a rustle of cloth as he settled himself. "You needed to grieve, MacLeod. You needed to rage and weep and curse the very earth and sky."
He'd done exactly that. "So you left me alone to say goodbye."
Methos smiled again, wry and wise. "I didn't want you cursing me."
"I did anyway." He'd cursed every Immortal he knew, including himself.
"Yes, but I wasn't around to hear it and curse you back." He grinned this time. "That's Connor's job. And I'm sure he did it well."
Duncan had to grin, too. "That he did."
"Where's your kinsman now?" Methos asked.
Duncan tossed back his whisky, tasting a whiff of smoke over dark honey as heat spread deep within. "Living with Rachel, until he has to say goodbye." He breathed in slowly, to better savor the warmth that lingered after the bitterness was gone.
Cornwall, England: 1 Jan 2037
"Happy birthday, Connor," Rachel said, and he smiled and thanked her, and they ate lemon cake together in the dining room of her new house. A centuries-old house really, one of the countryside cottages England was famous for, not far from where she'd gone to boarding school as a girl, but a new house for her.
"I want to go back to Cornwall," she'd said, when the autumn weather began again in New York City. Rachel and Connor had had a lovely spring, just the two of them, and that summer John and his family had come for a visit, so that the house had been full of noise and laughter, but it went silent once again, save for the hiss of cold rain against dirty window panes, and the echo of empty rooms.
"I want to see the flowers in bloom again, and the green on the hills," Rachel had said, and they'd moved in right before Christmas. In the cold months of winter, they turned the cottage into their home, hanging up pictures and rearranging furniture (several times). In the evenings, they read books to each other in front of the fire. Rachel bought Connor a piano, and he played for her nearly every day.
In the spring, they worked in the gardens every day. Or rather, Connor worked and Rachel directed, sitting in her chair in the sunshine and wrapped in a shawl against the chill. The flowers bloomed magnificently.
Sara and Colin visited in the summers, and their children played and squabbled together just as Sara and Colin used to do. They all went riding in the hills and along the beach, and Connor taught the young ones how to follow a rabbit in the grass. "Grandpa," Rachel called Connor fondly, but only when the children were out of the room, for they knew him as Cousin Mike, and Sara and Colin were both careful never to call him Dad. Whenever Daniel or Oona showed up, Connor left town.
Duncan came during the winter holidays, staying for his birthday and Christmas. He baked a cake for Connor's birthday on New Year's Day, then left soon after to go back to his job as a helicopter pilot for search-and-rescue in the North Sea. "He always has liked to help people," Rachel observed.
Four years after moving in, Connor rearranged the furniture in the guest bedroom to make room for Elsa, a nurse who specialized in end-of-life care. Another refugee from the Netherlands, she had graying hair, a fondness for music by Sting, and a passion for detective stories. She read a chapter from the current mystery to Rachel every day, and they discussed the various clues about "who dunnit" for hours.
"Who's Connor?" Elsa asked him one rainy spring afternoon as she set the kettle on for tea.
Connor fell back on stalling tactic Number One. "What?" he asked, as if he hadn't heard, looking up from the kitchen counter.
"Connor," Elsa repeated. "Rachel's mentioned him several times."
He cut another slice of bread for sandwiches while he calculated the generations. "My great-grandfather. He found her during the war, then adopted her and took her to the States."
"She's starting to wander a bit then," Elsa commented. "She speaks of him as if he were still alive."
Connor nodded as he cut another piece of bread.
"Do you look like him?" Elsa asked next.
"A bit," he admitted. "So I've been told."
"Well, don't be surprised if she calls you Connor now and again," she said, setting the tea cups on the tray. "Just respond normally and don't try to correct her."
Connor had long ago given up trying to "correct" Rachel. He wasn't about to start now.
And there was no need to; her mind remained clear. She was the first to solve the mysteries, seeing clues that Elsa missed, and she did a crossword puzzle every day. "It's good to see," Elsa said to him while they washed the supper dishes.
"Rachel's always been active," Connor said.
"Many are. But in the care centers…" She shook her head. "So many are so alone. It's not good. They don't do well. And we never have enough staff to give true care. It's worse every year. I heard of a fever that swept through and killed hundreds in just one week. The beds were full again soon." She handed him a dish to dry and reached for a pot that needed scrubbing. "Rachel's lucky to have you."
"I was lucky to have her."
"Oh, did she raise you?"
"Yes," Connor said after a moment, and it was true, in a way.
"It's wonderful to see such devotion." Elsa gave him a smile of warm approval. "Wonderful and rare."
"Rachel's a wonderful woman," Connor said. He'd been very lucky indeed, to have known her all these years.
The visits from family were quieter that summer, spaced out so that Rachel wouldn't get too tired. The end came on a glorious late summer afternoon. The windows were open, and he and Elsa had brought in bouquets of peonies and hydrangeas and roses into Rachel's room.
"I'm glad I'm going now," Rachel said. Her thin hand was cold within his own as they lay side by side on the bed. "It's too dreary to die in the autumn or the winter. So depressing for everyone at the funeral to have to step through dead leaves or snow."
Connor had to smile. Rachel always thought first of other people's needs.
"I want my ashes to go to your farm at the Highlands," she said next. "Near Alex."
"Not next to Mitzi in New York?" he asked in surprise.
"The MacLeods are my family, Connor, starting with you. I'd like to be near Alex, and then Colin and Sara when their time comes. And maybe their children someday. A family plot. " She sounded very satisfied. "And it'll give you fewer graves for you to visit."
Connor cleared his throat. "Trying to make life easy for me?"
"Always. So," she said brightly, "do I get a candle on my birthday?"
"Of course," he told her, trying to sound bright for her. Her one-hundred-and-first birthday was less than a month away.
"Oh, Connor," she said, reaching out to touch his cheek. "Don't be sad, sweetheart. I've had a lovely life, thanks to you."
"And you've brought love into mine," he told her. "In so many ways."
"Don't forget how," she ordered, and her grip tightened on his hand. "You mustn't forget how to love. Promise me, Connor."
He had to swallow hard before the words would come. "I promise."
"Just remember," Rachel said with the sweet impish grin that hadn't changed in all her hundred years, "it's a kind of a magic."
She could always make him smile. "I love you, Rachel," he told her. "Always."
"Always," she agreed. Then she laid her head on his shoulder, like she used to do when she was little, and they fell asleep, side by side in a room filled with flowers and the hum of bees outside.
Connor woke alone.
Duncan arrived the next day. They held the memorial service in the garden, on a day of brilliant sunshine, with flowers all abloom. Duncan placed a pink and white peony next to the dusky rose Connor had placed next to the urn with Rachel's ashes. Elsa read a poem and left a daisy, then packed her bags and said farewell.
"What now?" Duncan asked in concern the next morning, but he wasn't too worried, for Connor seemed to be handling this death well, or at least better than he had with Alex or Brenda. The ending of a long life well-lived was easier to accept than one cut short by illness or a sudden crash.
Connor stretched and looked about, from the open sky over the ocean to the south to the dark line of trees in the north. "A walk."
"Right." Duncan was almost afraid to ask, but when the silence lingered, he was forced to. "Where to?"
"The Highlands."
"Ah." He should have known. From one coast of Britain to the other. The long way.
"I thought I'd follow the Roman roads," Connor said. "See how many I can find."
"Good idea," Duncan said. When he'd heard of Rachel's death, Duncan had taken an indefinite leave of absence to be available to Connor, and so he immediately offered, "Want company?" That got a shrug and a nod, which, Duncan had learned long ago meant, "If you want to I won't say no, but I won't say yes, either." Which meant Connor wanted some time alone. Time to walk, time to grieve, time to heal, time for the last, lingering farewell. He would carry Rachel's ashes with him and arrive in the Highlands by autumn, where mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen…
Duncan had no doubt that Connor would finish this pilgrimage by lighting a candle at Heather's grave in Glencoe and another in Glenaladale, where Alex had been laid to rest ten years before and where Rachel's ashes would go. Brenda, Connor's second wife, was also buried in the Highlands, and so were Connor's parents.
As were Duncan's. He hadn't visited their grave in years. It was time. "See you in Glenfinnan at the Solstice Stones in December?" Duncan suggested.
"That would be good," Connor said with an approving nod. Duncan stayed for another week to help Connor empty the house, and they parted then, with no need to say goodbye.
Duncan didn't feel like going back to work just yet, so he called his supervisor and quit his job. From Cornwall, Duncan wandered a bit and eventually found himself in Liverpool. He took the ferry to Ireland, landing in Dublin, a city with too many people and the look of better days. He headed west, stopping for the night at the village of Slane. "Come for the concert at the castle tomorrow?" asked the lady at the pub, and it was a good enough reason to stay. The music fans started arriving the next morning, a cheerful crowd of all ages, and as evening fell they gathered in the shadows of tall, grey walls of stone.
An Immortal was nearby.
Duncan scanned the crowd, trying to appear as if he were simply looking for someone he knew, instead of looking for someone who knew how to kill him.
Quite a few women and several men looked him over and smiled, but only one looked him over and stared back unblinking. Her outfit—sleek black boots and a snug black tunic of finely-knit jersey revealing an impressive length of leg and covering an impressive amount of bosom—made it obvious she wasn't carrying a sword, but her deliberate stare made it obvious she was the immortal.
Duncan maneuvered his way through the crowd, while she stood her ground and waited for him to come to her. Her raven hair hung to her shoulders, reminding him of Amanda's hairstyle in Paris nearly half a century before, but this woman's hair curled softly and her eyes were green, not brown. "I'm not here to fight," Duncan said quietly.
"Nor I," she said, waving a graceful hand at the stage. "So we can both enjoy the music."
He nodded, relieved, and decided he might as well say hello. "I'm Duncan MacLeod," he said with a smile, offering his hand.
She glanced at it and then at him, smiling in the way of a beautiful woman who is used to such overtures, smiling with knowledge and mystery and power. Just like Amanda. "Kate Cavanaugh," she answered, with a brief handshake then turned back to the musicians.
"Irish, are you?" he said, to keep the conversation going.
That got him a sidelong glance and another hint of a smile. "For now. Scottish, are you?"
"Yes." For always.
"Hmmm." That was all she said, but later in the evening, she accepted his offer of dancing and later still, as the music faded and the stars gleamed, she made an offer of her own. "Would you like to weave a kilt for yourself, Duncan MacLeod?"
"Weave a kilt," he repeated, a bit taken aback. No one had ever asked him that before.
"Every Scotsman needs a kilt, doesn't he?"
"Yes," he agreed, rising to the challenge of her teasing words. "He does."
"Though I suppose you won't need help wrapping your own plaid." Now she sounded regretful.
"It's been a while," he admitted. "I may need a hand."
Even in the dimness, he could see the flash of her smile. "Then I'll see you on Monday at the weaving center," she said, handing him a card and then wrapping her tongue and her lips around his name: "Duncan MacLeod."
It sounded like fun. And it was always good to learn something new.
Two weeks later, when Duncan and the other students were almost finished with their practice projects, Kate asked if he would like to accompany her on a walk along the river. "There's an old monastery to the south. The ruins of one, anyway."
"Yes, sounds great," Duncan agreed. After sitting in front of a loom all morning, he was ready to stretch his legs… and spend more time with Kate. She'd been all business so far.
As they walked, she told him old stories of the land, but folk tales, not history. He shared a few he'd heard as a lad, and they spoke of of bogarts, of the Sidhe, and of the poukah of the dark mane and darker heart.
The day was bright with welcome sunshine, but darkness still haunted the land. "That's a quickening," Kate said grimly as the crackle of lightning flared off to their right. They glanced at each other then both went off the path, pine needles soft underfoot. Under the cover of the trees, Duncan and Kate each drew a sword.
Deeper in the woods, a familiar scene greeted them: a lone figure kneeling exhausted with a sword in her hands, and a body sprawled near her in a dark red pool. A severed head lay some distance away.
The head lay near their path, and as they walked by, Kate slowed. Duncan stopped. The man's mouth was open, showing slightly crooked teeth and a red tongue, his bulbous nose was smeared with dirt, and his short brown hair was sprinkled with gray and spattered with blood. He looked surprised, which wasn't uncommon.
However, most heads of dead Immortals didn't have a bullet hole in the middle of the forehead.
Duncan tightened his grip on his sword. He and Kate looked carefully at the slender young-looking woman who was painfully hauling herself to her feet. The gun was on the ground, too far for her to reach, probably where she'd dropped it to pick up the sword, but she could have had another gun on her.
"You hunt in pairs?" she demanded as she stood, the English words touched with a Turkish accent. She shoved a strand of black hair back from her dark eyes, leaving a smear of blood on her cheek, bright red against light brown.
"You hunt with a gun?" Duncan demanded in return, wondering if he'd found the "shoot first-behead later" Immortal. There'd been that one in Fiji, twelve years ago, and the two Cassandra had sent word of. Maybe this was serial killing number four.
"No!" the woman snapped back. "He hunted me." She looked at the body at her feet then stepped back from the spreading pool of blood, which was just about to reach the shiny brown smears of vomit on the leaves. She met Duncan's gaze defiantly, lifting the tip of her sword.
"We're not hunting," Kate said calmly then added with a smile, "My name is Kate."
After a moment, the other woman answered, "Sofie." She swallowed hard as her fingers loosened slightly on the handle of her sword.
Or perhaps it was the dead Immortal's sword. It looked too big for her. Duncan lowered his blade, and Sofie put hers back down, too. Perhaps she was a new Immortal. Perhaps she hadn't even had a teacher yet. It was good to go slowly. "There are rules," Duncan began. "In the Game—"
"Game?" she broke in. "It's not a game. It's a fucking nightmare." She spat at the body on the ground. "That imbecile has been following me for three years. Every time I moved, he followed me. I lost my job. I lost my boyfriend. I haven't spoken to my mother in a year and a half. He kept saying he wanted to fight me. With swords."
Duncan nodded. "That's how it's done."
"'Done,'" she repeated bitterly. "You mean, that's 'how the game is played.' I told him I don't fight. I told him I didn't have a sword. I kept telling him, and he wouldn't leave me alone. He kept following me. And then…" She bit her lip, blinking back furious tears. "He killed my cat! He skinned it alive."
Duncan shook his head in disgust. Kate's mouth twisted in distaste.
"He sent me the video," Sofie continued, "so I could see. And hear. Then he said if I didn't meet him, he'd find my mother and do the same to her. So I met him." She looked over at the head then threw the sword to one side in revulsion. She looked up to glare at Duncan and Kate. "You can keep your fucking Game," Sofie said. "And you can keep your fucking swords. I'm not playing."
"Sofie," Duncan said, gently now, "I know being an Immortal is hard, and I know you were defending yourself today, but I'm warning you: Don't make it a habit to hunt with guns."
"So are you the sheriff?" she asked sarcastically then challenged: "Are you going to stop me?"
Duncan just looked at her.
Sofie glanced back and forth between him and Kate, then laughed, painfully, and blinked back more tears before asking, "Why didn't you stop him?"
That night, Duncan dreamed of Richie. He woke in darkness and in tears. "Why, Mac?" Richie had asked him once. "Just tell me why." Duncan didn't have an answer. Not now, not fifty years ago when Richie had first come into his life. Not when Richie had died at his hand.
The Game was the Game.
The next day, Kate told the weaving class that a different teacher would take over tomorrow. A family crisis was calling her away. After class was over and the other students had filed out of the weaving room, Duncan asked, "Found a new student?"
Kate nodded. "Sofie needs someone."
All Immortals did. Most weren't this lucky. Or, perhaps, not this devious. "You should know," he said, "there've been three other shootings in the last dozen years. Sofie may not be—"
"—as new as she seems?" Kate finished wryly. "I've seen that trick before. I'll be careful."
He asked curiously, "Does it bother you? That she shot him and then took his head?"
"If her story is true, no. If you're new and you don't have the faintest idea how to use a sword and you're being hunted, a gun is self-defense, even if the killing is pre-meditated. And we can hardly lay blame: we Immortals often kill each other for no real reason at all."
"That's the Game," Duncan said.
She nodded thoughtfully. "I've no problem with Immortals dueling if they both want to, and I won't seek revenge for that, but to hunt down young ones, especially that way…" She shook her head. "I'd have taken his head, if I'd known."
"So would I," Duncan replied. But he didn't know everything, and he couldn't be everywhere. He was also tired to the bone of being both policeman and judge. Of being the champion.
The executioner.
"You and I have a chance to win," Kate was saying, her smile thin. "Sofie doesn't—not yet. I can't blame her for what she did."
"It's not honorable," Duncan said. "On either side."
"I agree. But then, honor isn't one of the rules of the Game."
It was for him. It had to be.
"Besides," Kate pointed out, "if some of us never fight, none of us can ever win." Then she added, "Winner take all," a brittle layer of cheerfulness over the ugly reality of death.
For a person of honor must win the prize, so those with honor killed those without, while those without killed anyone at all. And so the Game went on. And that gun-toting serial killer was still out there.
"What other acts do you think deserve death?" Duncan asked. "Besides hunting the weak."
"Betrayal," Kate answered immediately. "The deliberate breaking of trust." She picked up her bag of wool and slung it over her shoulder. "Take care, Duncan MacLeod."
"I wish you and Sofie well," he said sincerely.
"Thank you. I hope to see you again someday." She was nearly at the door when she turned and said with a smile, "You can show me your kilt."
Duncan laughed and went back to choosing the colors for his plaid.
Continued in "Bless the Child", where Sara MacLeod confronts her father on the dojo floor