One of a Kind Methos shuffled through the assorted papers that MacLeod had given him. They were all things that Joe had left to 'Adam Pierson' in his will, and most of them were Joe's 'other' chronicle. Methos had known Joe kept a written 'Methos' chronicle, and that Joe had not turned it in to the Watchers on his death proved Methos' trust in the bar owner had been valid. Then something caught Methos' eye as he sorted. The page was headed 'November 1st 1999'. **Not long after that mess with Cantalejo and Viendra,** Methos mused. **But this isn't about that - I spotted that report a couple of minutes ago. What's this?** Setting aside the rest of the papers, Methos settled back in his seat and started to read. November 1st, 1999 I've been doing some thinking. About something Methos said when we were looking for proof against Cantalejo. We got to talking, about Viendra, and who she was. In the process, I learned a heck of a lot about him. I just didn't realise it at the time. I think if the man he was when he met Viendra were to walk into my bar, I wouldn't recognise him. Oh, sure, he'd look the same, but... Reading between the lines of what the old guy said, Idiyan - and I've got to call him that - was an innocent. Somehow, in spite of everything he lived through as a mortal, Idiyan managed to get through a millennium of life and experiences and come out of it still looking at life with child-like innocence. He described himself as being naïve, but I don't think Idiyan was that, exactly. I think he was just more willing to trust. More open. I guess there are traces of that in the old guy now - the way he's always trying new things; experimenting with technology...the way he accepts change and finds interest in that change. Then he got forced into taking N'Kala's head, and lost *everything*. I cannot imagine what that must be like - to not know anything about yourself at all. It was no wonder he was taken by slavers. He described that version of himself as being servile and unrecognisable, and I can well imagine. The slavers must have seen him as a blank slate and must have programmed him to be the perfect slave. I guess there are only two reasons he's not like that now. One would be his first Immortal master - not that Methos has told me about Aaron, I've had to dig that up myself, from the tiny fragments we have recorded about Rebecca's teacher and from Rebecca's own chronicle. Methos was 'owned' by Aaron for probably about a hundred years, and in that time, Aaron taught him how to be more - how to life as a person rather than a slave. And then, Aaron granted him the most precious gift of all: Freedom. What happened to Methos next, I'm not sure - and I know for damn sure, I'm not going to ask, because the next time Methos' name shows up in any chronicles, it's as Death, a stone cold, calculating killer. So between leaving Aaron and that reference, he must have met someone else, and there's no prizes for guessing that 'someone' was Kronos. God alone knows what that sick, twisted bastard did to a guy who - as near as I can tell from the bits and pieces in Aaron's chronicle and Rebecca's chronicle...and from what he's said himself - was basically a peaceful, live-and-let-live kind of guy. But I guess we...Amy, Mac, Amanda, myself, Alexa...we owe Kronos some thanks for whatever it was he did do. Because that perfect slave would have never survived as long as Methos has done. There's a strange though - thanking Kronos for anything. 'Death' existed for about a thousand years or so, and then at some point...and something to do with Cassandra, I think - although that's another question I'm not going to ask - he got sick of what he was. He quit the Horsemen, vanished from our chronicles very soon after and didn't reappear actually under the name of Methos again. Oh, there are plenty of traces in the chronicles; plenty of threads that if you pull them, you get back to the Old Guy, but the actual name 'Methos' hasn't ever been used in the chronicles to *head* a chronicle, since...I guess, the birth of Rome. Of course, I've now got the job of writing a 'closing report' for 'The Methos Chronicle', thanks to what 'Adam Pierson' said to Doc Amy's tribunal. I don't know what the Old Guy was on when he span that one. I do know that he's going to find himself helping me write that damn thing, though! The thing that's really strange about Methos' life - and about the four distinct phases - is, he's the only Immortal that I've ever come across in the chronicles where there's signs of such dramatic personality shifts. Mostly, personality gets set at first death, which is why MacLeod's still a clan chieftain in outlook; Amanda still a thief...at least in attitude, if not in fact - and the only way it changes is for the worst. Just look at Ingrid Henning, Brian Cullen and Warren Cochrane. Trust Methos to be different. I can't help wondering what he'd be like, if he hadn't taken N'Kala's head and lost everything. Probably not still here. Sure, surviving a millennium is nothing to be sneezed at, even back then, but... I guess Methos is a classic case of 'that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger'. Like I already said, he needed to be 'Death', and I guess he needed to have that time between N'Kala and Kronos. His time as Death gave him the will to kill, while all the time he spent as a slave taught him how to hide and blend in, and the two things combined have led him to the brink of the year 2000, and God knows how much further. Methos set the book aside, stunned. He had always known that Joe was perceptive, but... **Joe you were one of a kind.**