A Quiet Night (1/2)

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A Quiet Night - Part 1

Disclaimers in part 0

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A Quiet Night - Amy

I look across at him as he writes. Part of me wonders what he's writing;
another part of me wonders what language the writing is in. With him, it
could so easily be anything from Modern English, to hieroglyphs that
Tutenkamun would struggle to understand, to Teutonic runes, or...

"French," he mutters, knowing my line of thought.

He doesn't read minds, I remind myself, he's just lived long enough to know
when some things are inevitable. Like my curiosity about his writing - it's
become a standard joke between us. After a dinner that's either take out
(bought on my way home) or something home cooked (when he's been home all
day), he sits down to write and I sit down to... well, nominally, do my own
work - but I don't think I've done much of that in recent weeks. I'm far too
fascinated by this man.

Trying to pin him down and say who or what he is can be like trying to nail
jelly to a wall, as a colleague of mine would put it. One moment he's a
scholar, the next, a warrior, the next just an insecure young boy trapped in
a man's body. When I see that side of him, it makes me want to rail against
the fates that have been so cruel to this amazing individual. Yet, those
same fates have brought him to me and to 'us' - but for them, I wouldn't
know this amazing man who I call my friend. Who I call my lover.

He is six thousand years old. It is a terrifying, breath taking thought. I
am a mere babe in comparison. Even if I make it to be a hundred, I will
still have only lived a fraction of his lifetime. And yet, for all that, and
in spite of knowing the pain that will follow when I die, he loves me. He
can still find it within himself to care.

When I was a young Watcher, just starting out as a field agent, I had a lot
of pre-conceived notions about what Immortals were like. I believed that the
older they got, the more remote from real life and real feelings they
became - not through malice or evil, just simply through self-preservation.
My reasoning was simple: What kind of idiot risks their heart or their soul
for a mortal who will, by definition, not live long in comparison? And all
around me were examples of my theory - Immortals old and jaded by life;
remote of life. Like Kalas or Xavier St Cloud, with no regard for mortals.
Like Kristin Gilles or Morgan Walker, with no regard for using people as and
when they wished for whatever they wished. Marcus Constantine - my first,
and last, living assignment - with whom I worked for nine years. He was
always kind, considerate; charming to a fault, but there was always a
distance - a gulf. And it had nothing to do with my being a Watcher. He held
me away, not wanting to get too attached, just in case... Well, just in
case. His wife, Angela, mentioned to me once that with Marcus it was always
'Thus far and no further' - and he loved her! I assumed that Methos - the
greatest survivor of them all - would be the coldest. The most remote. Even
when I first began to be suspicious that 'Adam Pierson' might be
considerably more than the nearly-thirty grad-student he claimed to be, I
assumed that behind the projection there was a reserve that was untouchable.
Unknowable.

I never dreamed that Methos would set my theory on its ear and show me just
how he has survived so long. Show me that the only way to survive so long is
to *live*. Not just as an approximation of what life is like, but to feel it
through every fibre. To experience every sensation and every emotion as if
it could be your last. For when your lust for life and for the living of
life is that strong, how can you ever possibly lose?

Of course, the disadvantage of that approach is the almost soul destroying
losses. It's hard to lose a lover; how hard is it to lose every lover and
know you will lose them from the moment you meet? He says that mortals are
courageous for the way we live our lives and for the way we face things that
he could never face; but to me, he is the courageous one. It would be so
easy for him to not care; for the jaded air of cynicism he wears some of the
time to become him. Joe's told me what MacLeod once told him about Methos in
the aftermath of Alexa's death. That for a while, Methos was almost actively
looking for a way out of the pain and feelings of loss; but then, when he
was offered a way, he declined it saying: Who would remember Alexa then?

For a brief moment, I look to the future - not the near future, but fifty
years from now. He has pledged his life to me and I believe him. It's not in
any legal way, not yet at least, but I know he might very well ask that
question in the not too distant future. And surprisingly, the idea of
marrying him - of becoming wife number 70 - doesn't scare the hell out of me
as the concept of marriage to any one else would do. But even if he doesn't
do that, I know that he will be there for me from now until I draw my last
breath. I know that he will watch me grow older. Watch, as I become weak and
whither away to dust. And I want to spare him that pain. More than anything
in the world, I want to spare him the pain of losing me. But there is no way
to do that now - I don't think there has been a way for me to do that from
the moment we met.

So once more I rail at the fates - this time for making me the cause of his
pain, even though that pain is still far in the future.

I am pulled from my musings by an amused snort. He's looked up from his
work - grading university papers, if the writing is in French - and has his
ageless eyes trained on me.

"You're thinking again," he comments.

"I do that a lot," I reply. "I find it helps me to do those little day to
day tasks."

His smirk turns to a grin. "And you can't work and think at the same time?"
he suggests, indicating the unopened reference book lying in my lap. I
concede the point - I know when the master has me beaten.

He returns to his grading, and I finally turn to my research. But he is not
out of my thoughts, even as I start to read about Paris during the Nazi
occupation. I wonder how many times he has seen this continent we call
Europe erupt into war and violence. How many times he has seen the
conquering armies flood across the land - the Nazis, the Keiser's forces,
Napoleon...the list is endless going back just over the well known and
recorded history. What more is there that we don't know about?

I also wonder what sides he has taken when he has been forced to fight. I
have little doubt that he has tried at all costs to avoid becoming involved
with armies and battles - not through cowardice, but through practicality:
Dying in battle is one thing. Reviving for all to see is another - but there
must be times when he has had no other option but to pick a side. With his
own race - his own people - so lost to the mists of time, which causes has
he chosen? And how many times has that left him on the losing side to face
whatever penalties there might be involved with that? In recent years that
might not have been much - but in times past, the fallen army might be taken
as slaves by the victors. Or worse.

There is so much I would like to ask him.

I keep telling myself, one day I will.

One day.

"Methos..."

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