Immortal History Lessons 22

Immortal History Lessons 22

Errors in Judgment

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The tourists had left for the day, leaving Ile de la Cite to ponder its past in dreaming quiet, even if it was in the center of modern Paris. Higgins stood leaning against a door on the north transcept portal watching Adam Pierson cross the flagstones toward him. His sword was hidden, as there were worshippers inside and the lovely notes of the organ filled the air with beauty.

"You better make it snappy, I'm not in the mood for long drawn out monologues about your long suffering life." Methos said by way of greeting in a clipped voice.

"You're the one who wanted this meeting," Higgins replied, just as curtly. "Both of us want the same thing now. The question is, can we trust one another enough to walk away."

"That depends entirely on what we both want." Methos pandered back.

Higgins frowned. "All I want at this point is for you get get out of my life. I gather the Methos sighting claims are as fictional as your name."

"And what's to say I'm not after Methos' head, just like you?" He asked. "Then I really can't walk away."

"Then I suppose, we fight."

"How old are you, Higgins?" Methos asked curiously, in no rush to go anywhere.

"Getting personal, aren't you?"

"You want to kill me, and asking your age is personal?" Methos asked.

Higgins sighed. "I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have no choice."

Methos laughed, sounding harsh. "We all have choices." But the voice in his head repeating those words wasn't his own. "Our mistake is when we make the wrong ones."

"And you're going to advise me on the right one?" Higgins sounded bitter and angry. "Yes, that's how it began. My choices were all wrong. Choosing to worship the wrong God, being born of the wrong race. Yes we do make the wrong choices, don't we."

Methos listened and heard. "What's your real name, Higgins?"

"Does it matter?" Higgins said with a sigh.

"It does to a dead man."

"I am Efrem ben Nahman." Higgins gave him an ironic bow. "Notre Dame. Good choice."

Methos looked at the man before him somberly. "I'm sorry."

"Yes well, this gets us no further. Where shall we meet?"

Methos swallowed. "By the Seine." He said before standing to leave. "It's a shame Efrem ben Nahman, I was starting to like you."

"You haven't told me your name," Efrem responded.

Methos turned and returned Efrem's earlier bow, his voice low. "Methos."

Then the ancient was walking away, his dark coat blending with the old walls of Notre Dame.

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Fog rose off the Seine blown by a chilly wind into swirls and eddies. One moment the quai was empty, the next two men with swords stood there regarding one another.

"Are you ready, Efrem ben Nahman?" Methos asked.

"I should first like to tell you, Methos, I was never after your head. I realize it hardly matters now, but I prefer truth to lies where possible."

Methos looked amused. "Gives a whole new meaning to protecting me from myself." He joked.

"Death sits so lightly with you that you make jokes about it?"

"Death has been with me for a long time, my friend. But you still have a choice, Efrem."

"How so?"

"You can walk away. If you weren't after my head, why were you looking for me?" Methos asked, eyes keen but not moving.

Efrem's smile was rueful. "Survival tips."

Methos didn't smile. "Two free ones on me then." Sheathing his sword. "Don't fight any battles you can walk away from, and don't fall in love. Here endeth the lesson." He said.

"You'd let me walk away knowing who you are?"

Methos shrugged. "You were willing to kill a complete stranger to keep me alive, telling someone would defeat the purpose."

"True. Go with God, Adam Pierson."

"Continue to survive, Clark Higgins." Methos said, his brow furrowing. "And get a demotion for gods sake."

"I'll do my best," he said, not being clear on whether he meant both or either. Then he was gone.

Methos let out a breath he hadn't know he'd been holding. Waiting until the Buzz had faded away completely before he sat by the waters and closed his eyes.

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Sydney, hot, frustrated and exhausted, stepped out of a taxi by the barge. She'd argued for hours at the airport but had gotten nowhere as far as getting a seat back to New York was concerned. She'd phoned Yvonne, but she was still on vacation in the south of France. She'd tried four hotels only to learn everything was booked.

Defeated, she'd called a cab and headed back to the barge feeling certain Methos was long gone. She refused to think he might have lost his head. No, she was not going there. She'd already cried most of the way back.

She lugged her luggage up to the barge and found the key were MacLeod always kept it hidden and where Methos had shown her. She opened the door and listened. Then she called out, "Methos?" After more than a minute when there was no response, she entered. drug the suitcase into the bedroom, fell on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

It was three hours later that Methos stumbled into the barge, part exhaustion, part drunken stupor. He'd gone to Le Blues Bar, only remembering afterwards that Joe wasn't there to drown his sorrows in, so he just drank. And it had taken almost an hour to reach this state, especially with his normal level of consumption.

He made for the bed and stopped, his feet taking a few seconds to listen to his brain's command, his eyes took much longer to focus in the dark.

Gods, she looked like an angel. His memories and imagination were cruel things sometimes to envision something so real. Even the moonlight played off her blond hair like it did in his memories. Methos wanted to reach out and touch her, to touch her soft skin. But he didn't want to feel the cold linens and prove to himself that she was nothing more then a figment of his overactive imagination. So he trudged to the couch, tossing his coat on the floor and stretched out on the familiar leather. Resting his head on the arm rest so he could still see her.

She moaned a little and curled up tighter on the bed but didn't awaken.

Methos sighed.

"I wonder where you are right now." Methos mused softly to the air, to the dream wisp on the bed. God forbid if he admitted he was talking to himself. "Where ever it is, it's safe. Safe from me, safe from Higgins," His brow furrowed. "Who actually turned out being a man named Efrem and not a threat at all. But it's not like that matters now."

Methos looked at the ceiling. "You're just safe, and surprisingly, I'm not relieved at all."

The dream wisp's eyes popped open. "It's times like these when I wish I drank more," she moaned to herself. "Pathetic, Sydney, really, dreaming about him."

Methos, his head against the couch, didn't hear a word from the very real woman laying not far from him. Too lost in his own thoughts and the sudden need to say them aloud to someone, even an imagined wisp.

"Do you know why I didn't say goodbye?" He asked, a mirthless laugh escaping his lips. "Because I thought you might not go, that you'd force me to see why you didn't need to leave like you always do...but you didn't. I'm starting to hate when you listen to me. Maybe if I'd said I loved you, maybe..." His voice trailed off, sleep starting to weigh him down.

Her eyes opened again. She swore she'd heard his voice. Oh, God, no. He couldn't be here, could he? She turned to look at the other side of the bed. Safely empty. She'd left, walked out, please God he'd never know she'd had to come back.

Methos felt cold on the couch, he'd forgotten to turn on the heater or build a fire and now he was just too tired to do it. He looked up at the bed, inviting more for Sydney's fictional presence then the warm blankets. And going to her now...it was just bad for his mental state. But he had little of that left, so he stood, as well as he could and walked up the little raise to the bed.

He knew that if he gave in and fell onto the bed beside her, she'd be gone the moment his arms went around her. But it'd be worth it just to hold her for that fraction of a second and deal with the consequences in the morning.

She'd fallen back to sleep so when suddenly the warmth of a familiar body and an even more welcome arm fell across her she nearly yelped aloud. She refused to open her eyes. If she didn't move or look, she wouldn't wake up from this dream and she really didn't want to.

Methos sighed, his imagination was working in overdrive. Pulling her warm body close, he buried his face in her hair. "Miss you already." He whispered, sleep finally taking him into pleasant dreams that night instead of nightmares.

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She awoke nestled comfortably against the warm angles of her lover's body. His breathing warmed her ear and stirred the fine hair along her neck. She didn't want to get up. She was too content, too comfortable to want to move.

She listened to his even breathing. He was still deeply asleep. She began to drift back off into sleep again, when suddenly her eyes snapped open and she remembered.

She lay there in shock. She's left him yesterday, he doing not a thing to stop her. She'd sworn to herself she'd never see him again, never again be the cause of danger to him. It was the only thing she could do for him, after all. She couldn't swing a sword and apparently she was an idiot. So how...

She remembered the airport. Sobbing at the check-in hadn't even gotten her a seat on a plane to New York. Tourists. God she hated tourists! And the hotels were all booked. She'd come back here to the barge safe in the surety that he'd have left. That's what he'd always told her. He left, got out of dodge, whenever he could. Surely he'd be gone. And she'd go to the airport again today, him none the wiser that she'd been here. So how...

Oh God... He must think her twice a fool, to have come back. To have... Maybe she could slip away now? She looked down at herself. She had never taken her clothes off. From the look of his arm that lay partway over her, neither had he.

She blinked back tears and considered her plight. She moved a millimeter testing the depth of his sleep. His breathing hadn't changed. Maybe she could slip out of here with at least one shred of dignity intact.

She inched off the bed, found her shoes and slipped them on. She picked up her suitcase and tiptoed toward the door.

Methos stirred on the bed, letting out a content groan as his hand reached out for a warm body that was no longer there. His eyes opened in tired slits and he reached for her pillow instead, it still held her scent and Methos breathed it in greedily.

A part of his mind clicked on and said that shouldn't be, he'd changed all the bed linens yesterday. He blinked. Then how could...

"Sydney?"

The door snicked shut behind her, and she leaned against it, fighting back tears. She wanted to turn around and go back in but .. but if he'd have wanted her why didn't he tell her last night?

She drug her suitcase to the street and flagged down a taxi for the airport.

The hope slowly faded from Methos' features, leaving a blank expression in it's place. She'd made her choice then. The first time she'd gone he'd dared to hope for an awkward but welcome return to New York. This time she'd said goodbye in a way he knew all to well, the last embrace to get you through the years apart. Sydney wasn't coming back.

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