The Road Through, by tarsh (Highlander)

This is for Cassidy. It's all her fault anyway. She sends me a story to beta, The Cycles of Eternity, and before I know it there's a duncanmuse banging the door down. Now I may have to keep him. So, thanks to Cassidy for the inspiration and for the beta.

Read her story first; it's where this one came from, and it's well worth the read. A truly wonderful story. You can find it here. For more of Cassidy's work, go to her homepage at http://jean.fanspace.com/Cassidy.htm.

"I don't know who and what you are, Methos. And I know you don't want to hear this, but you did teach me something." I risk a glance, flick a look over at him. But it's a waste of effort; he's fully masked, leaning back against the bench with a look of faint interest on his face. As though we were discussing the weather, or the last book I read. As though I wasn't tacitly acknowledging his role in my life for the past five years.

I pour him some wine, pleased to note that my hands and voice both are steady. "Taught me that life is about change. About learning to accept what you are. Good or bad. And I thank you for that," I say to him, handing him the wine. His face is relaxed, open, and ruthlessly blocking any hint of his true thoughts or feelings. There are times he's far too good at hiding who he is behind who he thinks I want to see. Something's going on with him; he's working his way to some action, some decision. To something I'm sure I am really not going to like. He's only ever this wary when he thinks he has to hide from me.

"Here's to the good times," he says, and his voice calls up memories. Nights at Joe's, with music and beer and conversation flowing freely. Philosophy and literature, history and science. Him in my kitchen in Seacouver, perched on the counter and agonising over asking Alexa out. Redecorating Anne's house, paint glistening along that beak he uses for a nose, after he'd failed miserably at convincing me he was only out for number one. That farce we put on to save Robert and Gina's marriage--well, except for his and Gina's "let's make a fool of MacLeod" game at the end. Yes, we've had some good times. His hard and cynical shell is mostly just that; a shell. Lord forbid we ever openly acknowledge it for the act it is, however.

It wasn't always an act, though. A brief cloud coats my memories as I remember what else he's been. But I never knew that man; I never saw more than a vague glimpse of him, when Kronos turned the world upside down. And while I'll never view Methos with quite the same innocence again, I don't hold it against him. Not anymore. Unlike him, I've learnt to separate the past from the present. I've learnt the arrogance of assuming I could know and understand five millennia of life in a mere couple of years. As always since I came to terms with this aspect of his past, his fortitude amazes me. How he survived what he did, grew beyond who he was, to become who he is--it's a feat worthy of the gods. Worthy of recognition.

And unlike him, I can hate who he was then, and still see and love who he is now.

He's gone wandering, too, and from the look in his eyes his meanderings haven't been near as pleasant as mine. "Methos?" I ask gently, to break him out of it. I hear my worry winding through the word, and wonder if he'll pick up on it. He probably will; I've always been an open book to him. He's the unreadable one.

He smiles at me, but it's forced and brittle. My heart skips a beat as he starts to speak.

My glance at my watch is involuntary; and his laugh tells me almost immediately how foolish it must seem. Oh, Methos. It doesn't have to be like this.... I know what he's going to say before he speaks; the content if not the words, at least. Still the word, when he speaks it, seems to drive deep into my soul. Leaves a bleeding wound where I would have sworn my heart was a minute ago.

I'm frozen, waiting. Why does he do this? He'll come back, he always comes back. So why does he force us through this charade first? What does he want from me? What am I supposed to give him, offer him? Damn it, Methos, I'm working blind; give me a clue here. Why do you have to be so bloody flighty?

My voice is surprisingly calm, given the frustration that's boiling inside me. But then, sometimes I can actually hide what I'm feeling. You taught me that, too, Methos. And while you were so busy teaching me about acceptance and change and moving on, did you learn nothing in return about the value staying put can sometimes bring? Everything doesn't have to go in cycles, there is always a choice. Always a way out. You just have to want to find it.

"You'll come back," I tell him, letting the confidence I feel shine through. He will come back, he just feels like he has to put us both through this hell first. For God's sake, Methos, give me a hint here. Let me inside that tangle you call a mind just this once, can't you? "You always come back, even when you say you won't."

There's a flash of--something--deep in his eyes. Love and despair and desperation. How many times has he said goodbye, in all his five thousand years? Is that why he's so convinced he must do so now?

He's staring at my hands; white-knuckled against the wine bottle. It doesn't mean anything, Methos. Just a sign of the frustration that's been gnawing at me ever since he started this latest round. We're caught in a circle, he and I; one he can't see his way out of, and I can't break alone. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it really was better when he simply disappeared. I don't think I can take too many of his farewells.

Certainly I'm not gripping the bottle so hard because I'm afraid I know why this time he stopped to say goodbye. That it's because this time he's not going to come back.

Even when I'm not so sure I want him to. After the mess with Kronos, for instance. He still thinks I hold that against him; every time he looks at me it's in his eyes. He won't believe I've accepted it, because he can't. Ironic, isn't it? That the thing he taught me so clearly, the one act he has down so perfectly when it pertains to anybody else, is the one thing he can't do for himself.

Damn it, Methos, get over it! Accept yourself, if you can't forgive yourself. You're not as dark and dangerous as you like to think, you know. I won't hate you; I never will. Not again.

"Where are you going?" I ask him, when my thoughts and his fill the silence too clearly. He makes a ghastly attempt at a smile. I've seldom seen him look worse, not even after he killed Silas. Not when I told him we were through, and broke both our hearts.

He didn't leave then, so why now? Why is he so convinced that we must end this way?

In other words, he's not going to tell me. He looks so sad, so lost and young and lonely. How can he be so vulnerable, after five thousand years? After all he's seen, all he's done, how is it he can look so innocent? All the knowledge, all the love and manipulation and survival--how is it he can still look like a scared and abandoned five year old?

"Eventually we might even see each other in a better world," he tells me, and try as I might I can't find any of his usual sarcasm in the words. He's completely serious, in fact. Have you lost your mind, Methos? Is that what this is all about? You've lost your marbles, and now you have to run away to find them?

"It'll be a great world," he goes on, still in that scarily sober tone. Now, finally, he cracks a grin, but it's a shadow of his usual smirk. The joke he makes is only a feeble remnant of his usual dry humour, too. "They don't have beer, though."

I'm staring at him, I can feel it but I can't seem to stop myself. Any minute now somebody's going to throw a switch and my Methos will be back, sidling out the door with a smile and a cutting farewell. He'll turn up on my doorstep again in a month or a year or a century, and this overly serious simulacrum that looks so miserable here with me today will be nothing more than a bad dream. A wisp of smoke, a ghost. Normality will return.

His soft laugh tears through me with all the strength of a hurricane. He turns and walks toward the door, and fear grabs hold of my throat. I'm strangling, I can't breathe, I can't think, I can't move. I can't let him go; what if he's telling the truth this time? What if, for once in his miserable life he's telling nothing but the absolute, unvarnished truth? What on earth will I do if I never see him again? Methos, stay!

And how I wish I could say that to him. I wish, so much, that he could see it. But I can't beg him to stay, however much I don't want him to go. I can't do that. I want to, but the words won't come. Instead, I'll just stand here and stare a hole in his back, and maybe, just maybe, the bloody bastard will understand, for once, that this time it doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't.

My breath catches when he turns, and for one breathless moment I dare to hope that he'll stay. But then I see the tears clinging to his absurdly long lashes. I don't understand him one bit. If I thought it would do any good at all, I'd go down on my knees and plead with him not to go. If I truly thought it would make any dent in whatever he uses for logic in that spaghetti tangle of a brain, I'd throw pride to the dogs and beg. Offer him anything, anywhere, anytime. But he doesn't want anything I know how to give, and I can't seem to figure out what will break through that wall he's built so high about his heart.

Manic cheerfulness slides over his face, the mask slipping into place so very easily. He's been hiding for five thousand years; what's five minutes more? He stands there, looking at me, and I wonder if he knows how clearly the cracks are showing, tonight. If he knows how much of the sorrow hidden beneath his mask shines through, just now.

"I know you don't want to hear this," he starts, and I wince to hear my own words coming back at me. "But you did teach me something. Taught me that life's about love. About learning to accept intimacy. Reliability and alliance. I thank you for that."

The urge to throw something, break and smash and obliterate, washes through me. I want to shout, to throw a tantrum, yell out to the world how badly he's just hurt me. If you understood one thing about the love I tried to show you, Methos, you'd stay. It doesn't matter that you always come back. If I truly taught you about love, and intimacy, and reliability, why are you walking out that door?

I don't say any of it. I know precisely how much use it would be; absolutely none. There are times Methos is so sure of what must be, that it's near impossible to tell him any different, and the set of his eyes tells me louder than a shout that this is one. I'm sure my smile as I walk towards him is terribly sad. Maybe if he thinks it would hurt me too much for him to leave, he'll stay?

I'm picking up his habit of manipulating people. I never would have consciously considered that four years ago. "I know you're coming back," I tell him. Leaving him the option. Letting him know that he's not going to fool me, not this time. "You always come back. Even you can't destroy the bonds of friendship." I pull him into my arms, hug him roughly. He doesn't resist, and I hold him for that one precious moment, inhale his scent and his presence. And if I don't let him go now, I never will. I step back, and it's so clear on his face, how much he's regretting staying to say goodbye. Yeah, Methos. You should have just left. This way is tearing me apart as well.

"Say hi to Joe for me," he says, and runs for the door. He looks like he'll break at another word; like he's lost something unbearably precious. Like I've torn something from him that he's needed for all five thousand years. But how could I have? He's always left before I could touch him. He never lets me near enough to reach his soul. Whatever it is, Methos, you've done it to yourself. But maybe, if you let me, I can help. Why can't he see that? Why can't I tell him?

Almost literally, he's running; he never moves this fast unless he can't stand to be where he is any more. Unless he's running from another immortal, or from me. In the past I've given him far too much cause to run from me. But I don't understand why he feels he has to flee now. What he thinks he's fleeing from.

He pushes through the door, barely slowing to open it first. And then he's caught; standing between two worlds. He can't seem to close the door completely; through the crack he's left open I can see him. Standing, head bowed and body tense, shoulders all stiff resistance. I hold my breath, not wanting to tip the balance he's fighting for. Not knowing which way I'd tip it.

We stand that way, a frozen tableau. He's not moving, and I'm afraid to. Which way is he going to leap? In, or out? Hope washes through me, and terror. God, Methos, why are you doing this to me? To yourself? To either of us, to both of us? Can't you at least tell me why?

He lets out a breath, and I see a shudder shake his whole frame. He's reached a plateau, then. But which way is he going to go?

He reaches back, not looking. Very tentatively, as though he thinks the door might bite, he pushes it open. Looks at me shyly, a fast glance that's down on his shoes before I have a chance to hold eye contact. I take a breath, the first in several minutes, sighing as oxygen rushes into starved lungs. I can't afford to relax yet; if the battle were over he'd be sprawled on my couch with a beer, not staring at his shoes like a kid caught in the cookie-jar.

"If you were caught in a circle, what would you do?" His voice is soft, questioning, just a step away from resigned. It echoes with the hope he won't let himself feel.

"I'd step out of it," I hear myself say, almost before I get the sense of his question. Circles, Methos? Is that what this is about? Everything in a cycle, and no way out? Is that why you think you have to leave? Because you've always had to before?

He spears me with a look, challenge shining hot in his eyes. "How?" He's waiting for something, for me to do something, say something. Help him, or hurt him. The only problem is, what will he take as which?

Slowly, so very carefully, I extend my hand. Watching his face, his eyes, his mouth. Hoping like hell I'm not about to send him slamming through the door at his back. "I'd find someone to pull me."

He stares at my hand, and I wonder, not for the first time, what he sees. I'm holding my breath again. I seem to be doing a lot of that tonight. Which way will he fall? Have I just spooked him? Or opened the way across the threshold he's hovering on?

He moves and I tense, hoping against hope. My eyes tear up, and for a second I can't see what he's doing, which way he's moving at his snail's speed. Then his hand comes into focus, reaching for mine. The second before he clasps it, my breathing resumes with an explosive rush. Relief leaves my knees weak as I pull him back into the apartment, and I can't stop the foolish grin that slips past my guard and settles into place on my lips.

He's looking at our hands, still joined. I'm not going to let you go, Methos. Whatever circle this is you think you're caught in, we'll break it. We will. Together.

Trust me. Trust in my love. Your love. God, I'm as dizzy as a teenager faced with the object of his first wet dream.

Tell me what you think at tarshaan@moonlit-eyrie.com!
Now read Cassidy's The Cycles of Eternity, for Methos' side of the same story.
For more of Cassidy's work, go to http://jean.fanspace.com/Cassidy.htm.
And then there were three! Inspired by both "The Cycles of Eternity" and "The Road Through," Omega wrote a poem, Destiny.