Characters belong to Rysher Davis Panzer; lyrics are from "Last Call," by Dave Van Ronk. No permission granted, no pardon asked, no profit made, no infringement intended.

This is for Mark, the guy who taught me about good intentions, in memory of many nights in the sacred ginmill.

The Parting Glass

Kat Allison

And so we've had another night
of poetry and poses,
and each man knows he'll be alone
when the sacred ginmill closes.

"—better, in any event, than the retirement plan of the Russian mafia. Bullet behind the ear, once you're no longer useful. Here you go, Joe." Methos poured a generous inch of Maker's Mark into the heavy tumbler. "Or the Inuit, for that matter. No one's dumped you on an ice floe and left you to freeze. Look on the bright side."

"Who the hell are you, Norman Vincent Peale?" There was no conviction in the grumble Joe tried to put into his voice. It had been a long time since he'd had these friends with him, and no matter how he felt about the event that brought them together, the occasion was worth celebrating. He'd closed down the bar for the evening, shuttered the windows and given the band the night off. "Grab whatever you want back there, I had the beer cooler restocked. Got some of that Blue Moon ale in."

"Thanks, Joe, but I've gone off beer a bit lately." Methos' voice was muffled as he squatted down behind the bar, rummaging through shelves and cabinets. "I'm in the mood for something ... perhaps a little different ... ah!" He stood and walked back in triumph with his find.

"What the hell is that?" Joe demanded, then flapped a hand in front of his face, irritably fanning away the dust that Methos was blowing off the bottle.

"Calvados," Methos said, squinting at the dingy label. "A good brand, too. Didn't know you stocked it."

"Jesus, I'd forgotten I had that," Joe said. "A customer brought that in. Austrian guy, sales rep or something. He liked the stuff, used to get on me about stocking some, and when I didn't do it he brought a couple of bottles in himself. He'd come in every Friday and have a glass. Got most of the way through the first bottle and then one day he stopped showing up. Never saw him again. Never knew what the hell happened to him, either." Joe paused before adding bleakly, "Probably went back to Austria."

Methos had been deftly stripping off foil, loosening the crusted cork. "And even if he did there's, what, a sixty-forty chance he's still alive and well. Bright side, remember, Joe?" He poured a splash into a snifter and took a deep sniff that set him coughing. "The real stuff," he said when his breath was back. "Try some?" He offered the glass to Joe.

"No thanks, I'm sticking with my bourbon. Some kind of applejack, isn't it?"

"Apple brandy." Methos rolled a sip on his tongue and tipped his head back, savoring, considering. "Ah, yes. Reminds me of what we used to make, back in my moonshiner days."

"Yeah? And when exactly were you a moonshiner? Excuse me if I can't quite picture you with the Hatfields and McCoys." Joe's voice was skeptical, but his face looked younger for a moment, relaxing into the familiar banter.

"Oh, long, long before that lot." Methos was gazing up toward the ceiling, looking far back into himself. "Up in ... I don't know what that area would be called now, but up near the Baltic somewhere. I'm sure I had some reason for being in that miserable part of the world, not that I can recollect it just now. Hiding out, perhaps, lying low and living the simple rural life... " He tilted his head back, remembering.

"Right, you and Thoreau," Joe muttered.

"We'd gather the apples, cellar them in earth pits while we finished the harvest, and the slaughtering. Then once winter settled in there was time to crush them, and then strain the juice and run the still. That was quite a contraption, too, I remember it blew up once, punched a hole the size of soup plate in one poor fellow's chest ... " He took another sip. "Dangerous work, and if the still didn't kill you the drink would, it was damn near toxic stuff." He sipped again, smiling gently at Joe. "Not nearly as toxic as anything in that part of the planet would be now, of course."

He lifted his glass, with some formality. "So. A toast. To your retirement, Joe. Long life and health to you." He paused, then added, "And confusion to the Watchers, who clearly don't appreciate what they're losing." He took a swallow, to Joe's muttered "Hear, hear," and then glanced across the table. "Mac? You with us?"

Half hidden in the shadows, MacLeod stirred. He did not want to move, or to speak; it had been soothing, not pleasurable exactly, but painless, merely to sit, to watch the others, to let the conversation drift over his head and away. It was like being under a weight of clear water, watching those on land. But he could not stay safely, peacefully submerged; he was being pulled in, Joe was gazing at him with steady concern, calling him back. He looked over at Methos, who flicked a glance at him and away again, and bitterness shivered through him like a chill, stirring him to life. "All right, then," he said, clearing the husk from his throat. "All right. Here's to your future, Joe."

With effort, he raised his glass in salute, and drained it, tipping his head back till he was dizzy. He was well into the bottle already—not his usual Highland single malt, but Laphroaig, from the islands. Pungent, astringent, tasting of the sea. Coppery like blood. Salty like tears.

And so we'll drink the final glass
each to his joy and sorrow
and hope the numbing drink will last
til opening tomorrow.

"I wasn't ready to quit," Joe said. "Damn it, I was doing good work. I mean, I was setting up the whole training program to restaff East Europe. You know that." He glared across the table at Methos, who looked sympathetic but shook his head.

"News to me, Joe, you know I've been out of touch with the Watchers for years now. Entirely."

"Yeah, right." Joe snorted. "Don't try and bullshit me, pal, unless you think I'm dumb enough to believe it was just an accident that all the files pertaining to Adam Pierson, and all of Tim Wyatt's field notes on Methos, got 'accidentally' wiped off the database back in '03."

"Am I to understand that you're accusing me—me—of having the temerity to commit such a heinous act as destruction of Watcher records?" Methos was playing his voice up and down its range, teasing, luxuriating in a mockery of outraged innocence, and MacLeod was suddenly put in mind of a cat at play, stretching and twisting, showing its helpless belly while hiding the curved claws. "Joe, I'm shocked and appalled. Would I dream of—"

"How do they do that?" Mac spoke brusquely from the darkness.

"How does who do what?" Methos snapped, adding irritably, "For god's sake, Mac, quit drooping like that and sit forward. We haven't seen you in years, after all, let us get a look at you."

"Like that matters to you," Mac muttered. He hitched his chair forward with a quick jerk, and then thrust his face into the light, grinning savagely. "There. Happy?"

"Rapturous," Methos said politely.

"So what was your question, Mac?" Joe cut in.

"The Watchers." Mac slumped back into his chair. "What happened? How can they just push you out?"

"Easy." Joe took a deep breath. "First, they send around the goon squad. No warning, no form letter from HQ. Just—some guys show up. Take the computer. Take all the files, the papers. Books. Put 'em in the van and drive off." He drank some more. "Then, enter the debriefing team. They lay out the rules. No contact, no conversations. It's—whaddaya call it, omerta?" He folded both hands over his mouth, theatrically, and let his eyes bug out for a moment. "Silence. They give you the password to the bank account that they've put your severance pay in. Nice chunk of change, that part I can't bitch about. Oh, and they got their pet dermatologist along to take off the tattoo. And then that's it, that's the last you ever hear from them. If you're stupid enough to call up anyone you ever knew from anywhere in the whole organization, they just hang up on you. That's the rules."

"Mm. And I would guess Amy plays by the rules," Methos said gently.

"Sure thing." Joe stared into his glass. "I trained her real well."

After a pause, MacLeod turned on Methos. "Of course they never got a chance to do that to you, did they?"

Methos inclined his head, gravely.

"You cleared out before they ever got to you. Right? Disappeared."

"You know me, Mac." The tone was light as air, the smile elusive

"Why hang around to get dumped if you can be the one to do the dumping. Why—" He stopped, realizing the undercurrent of pain in his voice was audible even to Joe, who looked at him helplessly. Methos did not flinch.

"Something like that, Mac," he said. "Something like that." He watched steadily as Mac finished his glass, refilled it yet again. "It's the sensible approach, isn't it?

"Oh, absolutely. The smart thing to do. Sure. You'd never do anything that wasn't smart."

"Well, you know that's not true." Methos took a measured sip of his Calvados. "I've done a great many stupid things. As you're aware. I simply try not to make the same identical mistake over and over. One learns, one adapts, one moves on."

Joe jumped in. "What I don't understand, I still don't get how they could do something like that to me." MacLeod wondered if he was oblivious to the tension in the air, or was deliberately ignoring it. "I gave those sons of bitches my life. My life, dammit. I gave 'em everything I had in me. Except the music, and they didn't want that anyway. And they just—they just threw it away. Like it didn't matter. No goodbye, no 'hey Joe, thanks for everything,' no nothing. How can they do that? What kind of cold-hearted bastards—" He looked up to find Methos watching him with a small grin. "What the hell is so funny? You think this is funny?"

The grin widened a bit. "No, no, not the situation. You have my sympathy, Joe," Methos said, in a voice more amused than sympathetic. "No, it's just... "

"Just what?"

"Your reaction. Isn't that a little over the top? I mean, come on, Joe, for god's sake, it's the Watchers. You know them. Or you should know them, after all these years. You know how they operate. How they've kept going for this long. Not by providing false warmth and spurious fellowship to those whom they feel, for whatever reason, are no longer useful to them."

MacLeod could see Joe flinch at that, then gather himself to strike back. "And I'm telling you I've got a lot of good years left in me, a lot of good work. What the hell's this 'no longer useful to them' crap?"

Methos sighed, shifted in his chair. "I know you feel that way. But Joe—" he looked up—"if they made the decision to do this, I'm sure they had their reasons. They're not, as an organization, irrational."

"You think I can't do the job any more, huh?" Joe's voice was defiant, but Mac could see uncertainty flickering in the look he shot at Methos.

"There's plenty of jobs you can still do," Methos said patiently. "All I'm saying is, the Watchers have decided they no longer need you. And they're not going to change their mind on that. So you may as well accept it, and move on. You knew it was bound to end someday, it's not like you weren't warned."

Joe scowled. "So you're saying I should just, what, take it in stride? Those're the breaks? You think I shouldn't let it get to me?"

"Oh, you can feel as hurt as you want. That's understandable, I suppose. But—lose the rancor. I mean, you knew what you were getting into. You knew all along how it'd end."

MacLeod suddenly slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the glassware, making the others jump. "Shut up." He leaned forward, staring hard at Methos. "Just shut up."

"Hey." Joe's startlement shifted to annoyance. "I don't need you taking care of me here, Mac. It's not like I expect warm fuzzies from this guy, y'know."

"It's not about you, Joe," Methos said, gazing levelly at MacLeod as he spoke. "Is it."

Mac returned the gaze, taking in the sight of him, the unlikely assemblage of planes and angles, the spare architecture of cheekbone and jaw and nose. So familiar, and yet strange. The features were the same ones he had memorized through so many days and nights; and yet everything about him was different. Smooth as an eggshell, hard as quartz, reasonable as an equation. There was no fissure anywhere in that facade where his rage could lodge and dig in. Baffled, he turned instead on the man sitting next to Methos. On Joe. Who, suddenly, was no longer something he could take for granted, no longer a steady anchor-chain in his life, but just a man, just a mortal, sliding down toward the shadows of his own end, alone and needy. The thought terrified him, and he hastened to put things back to normal.

"I'm sorry it happened, Joe," he said roughly. "God knows I'm sorry it ended this way. A damn shame. I'm not saying he's right—" he jerked a nod toward Methos—"But maybe you do need to get past it. Get yourself back on track."

The look he got in return was vintage Joe, knife-sharp and astringent. "Yeah, well, maybe you need to take your own advice, if you're so damned smart all of a sudden. Put your money where your mouth is."

Mac opened his mouth to answer, but was too stung to find words for a moment. He heard a soft chuckle and whipped around to see Methos giving Joe the look of one marking a point scored. Suddenly he recalled a vicious quarrel they'd had, he and Methos, late one night—how many years ago?—when for some reason he'd yelled at him You think you're so fucking smart but you don't know a thing about me! Joe knows me better than you do! And instead of snapping back, Methos had paused, and considered, and finally said, You know, you're right, he does. Of course, he has to, you're his job—for me, you're just a hobby.

Joe was going on. "And you, Methos, you got something to say to MacLeod, you say it straight to him. You want to talk to me, talk to me. Quit trying to be so fucking subtle."

"I am talking to you, Joe. You need to get past this. This isn't like you. You're not dead yet, you know."

"Thanks a whole lot, pal. Why I ever thought—" He shoved himself to his feet and banged his canes against the floor, getting balanced. "I'm going to the can." He pivoted himself, hobbled toward the back of the room, pausing long enough to say, with heavy sarcasm, "Do feel free to talk amongst yourselves, gentlemen."

As soon as the door closed behind him, MacLeod turned to Methos, his voice heavy with anger. "That's a hell of a way to talk to him."

Methos gave him an appraising look. "You know, I think he's right, you're taking things quite personally. Aren't you."

"This isn't about—" Mac paused, took a breath, went on. "I'm talking about what a bastard you're being to Joe."

Methos squinted at him. "Do you really think Joe needs you to protect his fragile feelings?"

"Well, when you're stomping all over them, maybe he does!"

"'Stomping.'" Methos gave a little exhale that could have been laughter or exasperation. "Always so dramatic, MacLeod. I'm pushing him a bit, yes." He shrugged. "He'll snap out of his funk soon enough, I'm just hastening the process a little. Joe's not a moper by nature. Unlike some," he added.

"So who's making it personal now?"

Methos ignored that. "He doesn't have a great deal of time left. In case you hadn't noticed. Why allow him to waste any of it in self-pity? He's got a few things left to live for, he might as well be encouraged to turn to those instead."

"God, you're cold." Mac was looking at him with horror. "Kick him when he's down, is that it? I thought you liked Joe. Thought you respected him."

"What, do you want to wrap him up in cotton batting and tell him nursery stories? Is that what you think he wants? D'you think that's how he got to be the man he is?" Methos took a quick angry swallow of his Calvados, clapped the glass back down on the table. "You call me disrespectful. Do you think being sorry for Joe shows him any respect? You think you're doing him a kindness by pitying him?"

"He's an old man, Methos. He's been cruelly treated. I just—I don't want him to suffer more grief."

"With that attitude, you may as well nail him into a mahogany box and trundle him off to the funeral parlor right now. Only the dead are safe from grief, or hadn't you noticed? You can't protect him from that. And even if you could," Methos added, "he doesn't need your protection; he's not a child and he's not helpless. He's a grown man. He needs friends, yes." Methos leaned forward and spoke with intensity. "But patronizing him is not an act of friendship. The Watchers, at least, did him the kindness of not patronizing him. When it was over, by their lights, they let it be over. They didn't string him along, condescend to him like he was some child who couldn't be told the truth."

"Kindness." MacLeod had stuck on that word and couldn't get past it. "That's kindness? To cut him off from his life's work?"

"Amputations aren't pretty. But they can be the kindest thing. I know it, you know it, and Joe Dawson by god knows it." He paused, and then went on more slowly. "Mac—you've seen death from gangrene. Many times. You're intimately acquainted with what happens to those who refuse to give up clinging to something that's already dead. There's only one kind thing to do in such cases—hold the patient down, and cut clean. Joe knows that at least as well as either of us. Don't do him the dishonor of treating him like he doesn't."

MacLeod gave him a hard stare. "You're planning on cutting him out of your life as well. Isn't that it? All your fine talk about the kindness of amputation, and all that crap—you're just looking for an excuse to cut and run. Aren't you?"

Methos made a face that Mac knew intimately, a small complex motion of eyebrows and mouth that conveyed annoyance at the inconvenient accuracy of the remark and an intent to focus instead on Mac's loutish lack of subtlety in speaking it.

"Fine." Forestalling whatever retort Methos was preparing, Mac threw up his hands, threw out words at random. "As if it matters to me. Do what you want. You want to take off, feel free. Don't let me stand in your way, or Joe either. You go right ahead and cut as clean as you want. But me, I'll be here. You say he needs friends, you're damn right he needs friends, and it's clear you're not signing up for the job. But I am. I'll be here. When he needs me, I'll be here. So you can just piss off, if that's what you want."

He'd expected, hoped, that his tirade would spark something in the other man, some flare of passion, something to set things afire between them again. He missed it urgently, the familiar crackle and spark of that duel that was theirs alone. But Methos only looked at him with cool composure.

"Are you sure about that?" he murmured. "Sure you know what you're getting yourself into?" And before Mac could reply, Methos gestured with his head toward the far side of the room.

MacLeod turned, following the movement, and saw Joe limping back into the room. And—as he had earlier, looking at Methos—he felt the slow shock of seeing double, seeing someone who was the same, the same as ever, and yet different. It was still just Joe, of course, Joe as he had always been, and yet MacLeod could see the hunch in the shoulders—had that been there before?—and the hesitation in the gait, less jaunty and more labored. He's an old man, Methos' murmur echoed in his head. He doesn't have a lot of time left.

He stood, impulsively, and strode over, putting a gentle hand under Joe's elbow. Joe looked at him like he'd gone crazy, and pushed the hand away, not gently. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I just—"

"You think I'm some kind of a cripple?" It had been an occasional joke between them over the years, but MacLeod could tell Joe wasn't joking now.

He went red with shame, and then anger, but forced a laugh and held up his hands, palms out. "All right, all right, no harm intended. God forbid I should do you any favors." Trying to hold the anger back only made him sound petulant, he realized. And he could see Joe pick up on the hurt, could see him catch the edge of Methos' smile as he watched from the shadows, and saw Joe labor to overcome his own annoyance.

"Just don't start acting like I'm ready for the boneyard yet, OK?" Joe said. He bent his head for a moment, leaning heavily on his cane, but when he looked up again there was humor in his face. "I mean, jesus, I'd hate to think we'd got to the point where you were agreeing with the Watchers about something. That'd scare the hell out of me."

MacLeod nodded, trying to smile.

"Y'know," Joe added, "there is one favor you can do for me. A big one." He took Mac's arm, gripping hard. "Stay in touch. Don't go disappearing on me anymore. You realize I've got no way to track you any more? I'm going to need you to let me know where the hell you are. You want to disappear, save it til after they put me in the ground." He settled himself, grimacing, pulling MacLeod down into his own chair with a heavy hand on his arm. "OK? Deal?"

"Deal, Joe." He nodded, reaching up to rest his hand on Joe's, and then let go and picked up his glass. "A toast, all right?" He waited while Joe made a long reach and snagged his tumbler. "To you, Joe. To my best friend." His voice was thick, and he had to stop and clear his throat. "Don't worry, I'm not going to disappear. You won't lose me. As long as you want me around, I'll be here. That's a promise."

Only after they clinked glasses did Joe look over at Methos, sitting silently in the shadows. "Feel free to jump in on this," he invited mildly. "Or not. Up to you."

Methos stayed slouched in his chair, swirling the liquid in the glass. "I notice you're not asking me to promise not to disappear."

Joe snorted. "Yeah, I don't try to herd cats either."

"Well, as long as I'm not being expected to take oaths or anything ... " Methos slid forward, touched his glass lightly to Joe's and then MacLeod's. "I'll gladly join in praising the virtues of friendship. And to serve as witness to this touching ceremony." He gave MacLeod a mocking glance over the brim of his glass. "Don't try to back out of it now, Mac, looks like a marriage to me. Better make certain you can keep those vows."

"You are such a prick," Joe muttered.

And when we stumble back again
like paralytic dancers
each knows the question he must ask
and each man knows the answer.

"How can you put up with it? I mean, Singapore's a goddamned police state, right? You drop a candy wrapper on the sidewalk, you wear your hair too long, and it's into the back room with the guys with the rubber hoses."

"You're absolutely right, Joe." Methos' tone was that of an instructor marking the contribution of a attentive pupil. "It is, as you say, a police state. Surveillance everywhere. No privacy at all." He gestured freely with his glass, as if to underscore his point. "And a clean, well-lit, and very crowded place as well. No empty warehouses, no dark alleys or vacant lots or abandoned railyards suitable for swordplay. No privacy." He waved his glass again. "And—no privacy, no challenges."

"So it's safe," Mac said flatly.

"Precisely. Socially and politically repellent, to be sure, with a stomach-turning atmosphere of complacency mixed with greed, and boring beyond belief. But safe as houses. One can hide in the light as well as in the shadows—even better, maybe. It lacks that alluring film noir aesthetic, I admit, but it's very effective."

"And you like it."

Methos lifted a shoulder. "Does that matter?"

"Adam wouldn't have, Adam would've hated it."

"Adam's dead. His preferences are irrelevant. And after all, Adam was a bit of a spoiled boy, don't you think? All those years in Paris ... enough to spoil anyone. Believe me, MacLeod, I've lived in far, far worse places than Singapore. For far longer than you can imagine."

He felt just a moment's lurch of that dizzying vertigo that always came when he was reminded of the sheer depth of Methos' age—it was like the nausea of leaning over the lip of the Grand Canyon, and looking down—and as usual he breathed it out and took a firmer grip on the present, to steady himself. "But you can't like it there, it can't be what you want."

"Mac, look at me. Tell me something. Who do you think I am?"

A silence, and then MacLeod said slowly, "I have no idea."

Methos simply nodded.

Joe spoke up, a little too loudly. "So, how long do you plan to stay on there?"

"A few more years, at most. It's getting imprudent, these days, to stay in any one place very long. No matter how careful you are, it's too easy for others to trace you. But you know that, don't you." It was a statement rather than a question, and it was clearly aimed at MacLeod, who hunched up shoulders against it, pulled his brows down.

Methos watched him a moment before going on in a lighter tone. "In any event, I'll get fed up soon enough, feel the walls closing in, and then I'll move on. That much you know about me." He waited until MacLeod gave a reluctant nod. "In the meantime," he added, "the work has its points of interest."

"Y'know, ever since you wrote me about that, I've been wondering," Joe said. "You really believe that stuff? That who we are, our personalities, our intelligence, everything, it's all just a matter of genes?"

"Not everything, Joe, the percentages vary depending on what traits you're talking about. And I never said I believe it. Or disbelieve it, for that matter. I've no idea if it's true or not. It's interesting. A new angle on things."

"You don't care if it's true?" said MacLeod.

"Not particularly, no." He bristled at MacLeod's look of disgust. "Oh, come on, Mac, truth's far too changeable a thing to be getting fixated on . I remember when the 'truth' was that the world was a plate suspended on the back of four giant turtles. I don't get worked up about what's true, I just try to stick with what's interesting." He tilted his chair back at a hazardous angle, stretching. "And after all, this stuff generates testable hypotheses. Keeps me employed."

"So what 'testable hypotheses'"—Joe layered the words with irony—"are you working on now?"

"Actually, we've got a very interesting project, extrapolating from some work that's been done on the evolutionary and sociobiological explanations of the origin of altruistic behavior."

"Right," Joe said. "You want to explain that in words of three syllables or less?'

Methos thunked his chair back down on the floor, dropped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, animated. "Well, look at it this way. Researchers have always been interested in human aggression, human violence, they've been studied to a fare-thee-well. Why people do harm to each other—there's a thousand theories about that."

"You should know," MacLeod muttered.

Methos disregarded him. "But how much more interesting it is to turn the question around, and ask—why do humans get along as well as they do, for the most part? Why do they do anything for one another, let alone sacrifice themselves for each other? Why does altruistic behavior exist at all? It's so irrational, isn't it? And yet, there it is."

For just a moment, MacLeod felt he was seeing the ghost of young Adam—the eternal student whom he still dimly recalled, innocent, full of enthusiasm, spilling words out in an exuberant rush. "Neo-Darwinian theory, applied in this context, has a certain elegance—one can see that there's a long-run evolutionary logic, a survival edge given by whatever glitch in the hard-wiring produces an individual willing to sacrifice its life to ensure the survival and hence reproduction of a larger group of organisms that share that its genes. And yet—"

He paused, hunting for words, taking a quick sip of his drink. It was, MacLeod thought, like watching a hawk on the hover, aglide, in poise between updraft and gravity. "And yet, it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't explain people who'll sacrifice themselves for others wholly unrelated to them—who'll chase around to the other side of the world rescuing strangers." He quirked an eyebrow at MacLeod, and then turned to Joe again. "So there's an interesting question of how this mechanism comes to generalize beyond kin and near-kin."

"Well, altruism ... it is a good question, I'll give you that much," Joe said. "But c'mon—do you really think going the genetics route is going to give you any answers on that one?"

"Makes a nice change of scenery from the religious explanations, I can tell you that much. And as I said, it's interesting."

"Yeah, survival of the fittest. I can see how that'd appeal to you, all right."

"No, actually, that's a misunderstanding of what evolution is all about." Methos was cheerfully ignoring Joe's sarcasm. "Evolution doesn't give a toot about individuals' survival per se, merely about their odds of reproducing. Reproductive fitness, that's what counts. From a gene's perspective, after all, the only point in having all us organisms hanging around cluttering up the scenery is to reproduce, move the genes along. "

"Oh, come on, so you're saying it doesn't matter, that I managed to keep myself alive through all this shit? All that matters is that I had Amy? Which was—hell, that wasn't anything I meant to do in the first place. And now I might as well just go ahead and kick off, huh?"

Methos waved a hand. "I'm not saying that. Evolutionary theory says that. According to which, you, Joe Dawson, just like every other mortal, and every housefly and daffodil and blue whale for that matter, are simply a piece of temporary packaging that your genes use to convey themselves onward through time. They survive. You don't."

Joe stared at him. "Temporary packaging. Man, what an inspiring image that is."

Methos went on. "'Survival of the fittest'—Darwin never said that, that's a catchphrase of Spencer's that caught the public fancy. Not an accurate description of evolution." He looked at Joe, and paused for a moment. "I'll tell you what it does describe, though. It describes us. Reproductive fitness—that's a non-issue for immortals. We have no offspring, no evolutionary purpose. All we have is ourselves. Survival of the fittest individual. That's what the Game's about, isn't it?"

"Well, hey." Joe shrugged. "At least it means you got the chance to be something more than a gum wrapper for your genes."

MacLeod had been listening, thinking, and now he spoke slowly. "No. I know what it means. What that means is that we're just—just a temporary packaging for quickenings. Isn't that it? We inherit them from others, and then ... one day we pass them on."

Methos was looking over at him with surprise, and dawning delight. "You know, you can see through a brick wall in time, MacLeod."

Mac ignored him, thinking aloud. "It's like the old myth—that back at the beginning of creation, there was one great soul, and it was shattered—that the bits are each of us." He gestured impatiently. "Mortals, immortals, whatever. We're all just broken-off bits of each other. That when we die, it isn't a loss, but a—a coming back together, as part of the great soul. Reconnection."

"Mm." Methos made a face. "Or like little bits of mercury—you know how when you break them up, they seem impelled to re-cohere into one big blob?"

"And the Gathering is just the force that pulls those bits back together. It seems evil, but if it's actually reconnecting us, merging all our souls—"

Methos cut in. "It's all getting a bit too ooga-booga for me. I'll stick with researching genetics for now, thanks."

MacLeod was stung. "Don't you find some comfort in thinking that we—"

"Nope." Methos tapped his fingers crisply on his glass. "I have no desire whatsoever to be blobbily re-cohered. I'm fine with the little split-off bit that I am, and I have every intention of keeping myself that way."

"Well, it's nice to know there's someone that loves you just the way you are," Joe drawled. Then he sat forward, raising his glass. "A toast, hey? Here's to—here's to survival of the fittest," and he clinked his glass against Methos'. "May you go on being whoever the hell it is you need to be, just as long as you need to be. World'd be a more boring place without you in it, I have to admit." He grinned, tossed his drink down. "Keep on keepin' on, pal."

"Yeah," MacLeod muttered, taking a sip himself. "Like that's something we have to worry about."

"And Methos?" Joe aimed a sharp look from under his eyebrows. "God knows I'm not expecting you to hang around, but—keep in touch. You got my e-mail address, right? I want the scoop on whatever line of bullshit you come up with next. OK?"

"If I tell anyone about it, it'll be you, Joe."

"Yeah." Joe still looked suspicious. "I mean it. Like my ma used to say, don't be a stranger."

A stranger, MacLeod thought. A stranger who wore Methos' body, who looked at him with Methos' eyes, talked with his voice, but who was clearly no one he had ever touched, ever loved. Mac, tell me, who do you think I am?

And so we'll drink the final drink
that cuts the brain in sections
where answers do not signify
and there aren't any questions.

He set his elbows on the tabletop and leaned into his hands, hiding his eyes. "You know what I mean. You've been there. Both of you. When it's as bad as it can get." A pause. "But this was worse."

"Tell us. Tell us about it." He thought, for a moment, that the gentle voice must be Sean's. Sean Burns, who still spoke to him sometimes, in the depths of sleep. But he looked up and realized it was Methos who had spoken.

"It'd be one thing, if—if it were just the war. I can handle that!" He flared up suddenly, straightening his back, glaring around as if he'd been mocked. "I can handle the sight of the battlefield. Men fighting, men dying."

"Of course you can." Quiet, accepting. "I know that."

Leaning forward again, mollified, he pushed his hands through his short-cropped hair, rubbing his temples. "I guess—partly, it's the kids. That's a hell of a sight, you know? Kids with Kalashnikovs. Just little kids, it takes two of them working together to hold one steady and aim it and shoot."

Joe said, "They're orphans, that's what they said on the news. They got no one but each other."

Mac nodded. "It's like wild dogs. Running in packs. They don't know anything else, that's life, to them. Their pack. And the killing—they're killers, every one of them. And they like it. They're proud of how good they are at it." He turned to Methos and, astonishingly, gave him a small crooked smile. "They killed a lot of the others in the peacekeeping force at first, the ones who just couldn't believe what they were, who tried to befriend them. It helped that I had some understanding of—that I knew where they were coming from. Sort of."

Almost imperceptibly, Methos returned the smile. "You're welcome, MacLeod."

"But it's not just the kids, that's nothing compared to—" He shook his head, hard. "I don't mean that that's nothing! It's just that—christ, it was all like that. It was all that bad." He pulled in a breath, tried to let it out slowly. The need to talk was like a live thing, fighting up through his chest, clawing at his throat, but he kept it leashed still.

Joe said, "I was surprised when I heard you'd gone over there." He spoke tentatively, watching MacLeod.

"I didn't go there to fight. I figured I was through with war. But then I was through with doing nothing, too. I couldn't just sit back and let that sort of craziness go on."

"So you went over there to set things right." If there was sarcasm in Methos' tone, it was so dry as to be imperceptible.

"I went over with the peacekeeping force. What a fucking stupid name." His mouth twisted. "Like there was any peace to keep. And we weren't supposed to actually do anything. Don't take sides, don't take up weapons, don't interfere ... I'll tell you what we did do, though, we didn't keep any peace, but we sure kept the war going."

"How so?" Methos asked.

"If we'd ... " He was almost stuttering, and his hands, on the tabletop, clenched up with the efforts of finding words that would explain. "If we'd just stayed out, if we'd all just gone about our own business, it would've been a slaughter, it would've been a bloodbath, yes. But it would've ended. One of those bastards would have ended up king of the dungheap and things would've settled down, eventually. But with us in there trying to play at being the good guys ... "

He sat for a long time in silence, trying to think of how to explain it. Methos could easily come up with a dozen elegant theories and a hundred historical analogies to make sense of it and to prove it all meant nothing, he knew. Joe could find a song, blues that would cry out the truth of it. But all he had were his memories and his fumbling words. Finally he spoke. "One day ... I saved a soldier, a prisoner, Serbian, who was about to be executed by a band of Montenegrins. Three weeks later, I saw the same man. He was in a squad that'd just executed a bunch of Montenegrin prisoners." He looked at Joe. "Should I have let him be killed the first time? It might've saved lives in the long run. Or should I have killed him the second time? He deserved it, probably. But then likely they did too."

"I know." Joe nodded, mouth twisted up. "I know."

"It was all like that. Like one of those bad dreams where everything you do goes backwards. Comes out the opposite of what you meant."

Joe was watching him with a bright hard smile. "We had to destroy the village in order to save it," he said, slowly, as if he were quoting from painful memory.

"Yeah. That's it." MacLeod wiped a hand over his face. "And of course that was all before Krsko blew. After that, of course, everything I'd thought was bad before was just ... small stuff."

"Where were you when that happened, anyway?" Joe asked.

"Down south, down near Macedonia." And now that they had come to this, to what he needed to talk about, what had been pressing up at the back of his tongue since he'd walked into the bar—now that it was upon him he was unable, for a moment, to face it, and swerved off on a tangent. "It actually took a while to find out what the hell had happened, you couldn't get any news."

"I saved a bunch of the articles about it, if you'd ever want to see them," Joe said. "Not that you probably want to, and actually I don't even know why I hung onto them, it's not like I'm going to pass 'em along to the grandkids or something. About a dime's worth of hard news, and then lots of 20-20-hindsight pompous bullshit about how after all we should have expected this, having a nuclear power plant in the middle of a war zone and all."

"I don't need to see the articles," MacLeod said. He hesitated, then went on. "I was there. As soon as I could get transport, I headed up there."

"Up there. What, you mean up to Krsko?" Joe was incredulous. "MacLeod—"

"Figured it was my chance to do something useful. After all," he added, struggling for a jaunty tone, "it's not like it was going to kill me."

Under his breath, Methos said, "The brave man dies many times before his death, the coward dies but— "

"Shut up," Joe told him, and then to MacLeod, "Well, not permanently, maybe, but jesus—"

"Yeah. It did get me a few times." His brittle nonchalance suddenly gave way, and he wrapped his arms around himself. "That's a bad death. You ever see someone die that way, of radiation poisoning?" He looked a challenge at Methos, who shook his head.

"That's one I've never witnessed, thanks very much, let alone gone through. I've seen the photos, of course. The news video. That was enough for me."

"Yeah? I'm surprised, I'd think you'd want to check it out yourself. Something new for you, in the universe. A new kind of death."

"Mac—" Joe began.

"I got to see plenty of it." He caught himself, tried to shake the bitterness from his tone, say what he had to say calmly. "After the radiation levels dropped a bit, I found a Red Cross field hospital, down southeast of Zagreb, and I stayed there to help out. They'd been set up for the war casualities, but by the time I got there it was all radiation cases."

He stopped. The pictures were starting to crowd him now, the ones that filled his nights, and he had to take a moment to push them away and find words. "The ones who were closest, who died first, it's just like they'd been burned in fire. That's something you've seen often enough, of course," he told Methos, matter-of-factly. "Third-degree burns, skin's burnt black, they lose fluid and get infected and die. Plenty of pain, but it's quick. But the ones who were further away—who lived through the first few days—" He stopped to take breath, realized his hands were shaking, wrapped them tight around his glass.

"Well, there's the vomiting first, and the diarrhea. Like cholera, you know?" and he looked over at Methos, who grimaced, nodding. "But worse. Because then your mouth swells up, and your throat, so that you can't swallow. Can't get any fluids back in. Even if there was any water safe to drink. Which there wasn't, mostly."

He paused again, staring down at his hands. "An ugly death. But pretty quick. But the ones who missed that—" he looked up, abruptly, and gave Methos a fierce grin—"the survivors, the ones who thought they'd been lucky—that was the capper on the joke, you know, that they thought they were lucky because they were still alive." He raised his glass, draining it in one quick swallow, and then refilled it with a reckless slosh from the Laphroaig bottle.

"Mac." It was Joe's voice, rough with hurt, and Joe started to reach a hand out across the table toward MacLeod. But he stopped at a look from Methos, and after a moment he nodded and sat back in his chair.

"What happened to them, MacLeod?" Methos asked him, as one might as a child to tell about its nightmare.

"The medics said it was because of the bone marrow. The radiation destroyed the bone marrow." MacLeod spoke quietly, as if here were oblivious to the others, alone with his thoughts. "I wouldn't know, I'm not a doctor. All I know is what I saw. The infections, one after another, we couldn't do a thing about them and they couldn't fight them off. The medics said that maybe, with bone marrow transplants, we could've saved some of them. Bone marrow transplants." Mac made a sound that was meant as a laugh. "We didn't have surgeons, we didn't have antibiotics, we didn't have... christ, we didn't have enough blankets! There they lay, on the floor, shaking with fever, and we didn't even have blankets to put over them!"

"So what did you do?" Again, it was Methos, speaking so gently that it hurt. Mac coughed harshly, looking down at his fists lying clenched up on the tabletop.

"We—we laid them down together, in pairs. Two by two. And then one blanket, for each pair of them. We figured they could keep each other warmer, that way." He paused. "And then too we thought that maybe—maybe there'd be some comfort for them, to not die alone."

There was silence as MacLeod slopped more whisky into his glass, took a deep burning swallow. Joe stirred, as if to speak, but Mac held out a hand to silence him.

"There's more. Something more I need to tell you." He was speaking rapidly now, not looking at either of the other men.

"It was after I'd been at the hospital a few weeks. We'd been left alone up till then—that whole area was still pretty contaminated. But one day some troops showed up. Croatian, mostly, some Slovenians. They took us—all the volunteers—into a back room. Put an armed guard on us. Then we heard gunshots. One at a time. And screams." He glanced up at Joe. "They were shooting the patients, you see. One bullet apiece, to the head. Very efficient."

"Jesus," Joe breathed. "That was Batrina, right? The massacre? That made the news. You were there?"

"I knocked down the guard," MacLeod said. "Got his gun. I made it back into the main room. I was going to—I wanted to kill the soldiers, every one of them. I did kill one." He laced his fingers together, stared down at his hands. "The others, they took me down—held me, got the gun away. I figured they'd likely kill me then. That would've been fine with me. Maybe that was what I wanted. But they didn't. They took me outside, to their commander."

He paused, let a long minute of silence pass before he spoke again.

"He told me—he explained. The Turkish forces were two days away. If they reached the hospital and found us still there, they'd take us hostage. It was mostly Americans in our group, and we'd be good bargaining chips to get concessions, weapons or prisoners released or something. He was very pleased with himself, that he'd gotten us first."

Again, he stopped. He'd thought through this story many times, rehearsed how he might tell it, but the words weren't there for him now.

"So we had some value to them. That's why they didn't just kill us. The patients—they had no value. There was no food for them anyway. No room on the transport. And even if they could take them out, and even if they lived through that—then it'd be the cancer. They were all going to die anyway. And he asked me if I thought—if it would be kinder to leave them there, with no food. No water. He said the Turks would just kill them anyway, when they got there."

"I gotta say he was probably right about that," Joe said. "You look at what's happened since then ... "

"He thought he was being one hell of a nice guy, actually. Wasting ammunition to give them a quick death. Wasting, that was how he put it." Another pause, a gathering of all his strength for the final hurdle. "He told me—if I was a real humanitarian, he said, if I cared about the patients—then I should—that I'd help him. Not fight him. Help to kill them."

"Jesus," Joe whispered.

"He said it'd be the kindest thing to do, but he figured—he said, I was likely just another chickenshit American, that I couldn't face reality, that I cared more about going on pretending I was one of the good guys." Mac picked up a cocktail napkin from a stack on the table, began tearing it into strips. "He wasn't a bad guy, you know?" he said abruptly. "Spoke perfect English. It turned out he'd gone to school in the States. Texas A & M. He looked like he hadn't slept in a month." He stopped, shaking away the irrelevancies. His fingers never paused in their movements, ripping one napkin after another into strips, ripping the strips into shreds. "So. He told me, I could either help out—pick up a gun and help them with what had to be done—or I could stand aside and let them do it themselves."

"So what did you do?" asked Methos, watching him.

"You know what's funny?" MacLeod could hear his own voice getting higher and higher, and he couldn't get enough breath in to bring it down. "You know what's really funny? The hell of it is—I'd thought about doing it myself. What the soldiers were doing. Thought about it in the middle of the night, when they were lying there screaming with the pain, when we'd run out of drugs again and there wasn't even any clean water to give them. I thought about it. Giving them a quick death. I pictured how I would do it." He looked pleadingly at Methos. "I thought the whole thing through!"

"Of course you did." Methos' voice was easy, matter-of-fact. "It'd be strange if you hadn't."

"But I hadn't done it. I couldn't get it clear in my mind, if that was the best thing to do. I was afraid that maybe it was just because—I was so tired, and so sick of hearing them scream." He gathered the torn shreds of napkin into a little pile, pushed it into the middle of the table. "Sometimes ... sometimes, in the middle of the night, I hated them, all of 'em." He turned to Joe. "You understand why I couldn't do it?"

"It's OK, man—"

"Maybe he was right, that I just didn't have the guts." He looked over at Methos. "You probably would've done it." Belatedly, it struck him how offensive that must have sounded, how much like an insult, when he wasn't certain he'd meant it that way, exactly.

Methos appeared to have taken no offense. "Hard to say. One thing I do know, I'd never have been within a thousand miles of it all in the first place."

MacLeod tried to laugh, a little deformed sound in the stillness of the bar. "True."

He reached out for the bottle, filled his glass to the very brim, emptied it in one long swallow before he spoke again. "So." He coughed suddenly, as the alcohol burned in his chest, and it took a minute to get his breath back.

"So ... ?" Methos was watching him with calm interest. That calmness steadied him, and he leaned gratefully into it, lowering his head, taking a deep breath.

"So. I helped them." From the corner of his eye, he could see Joe make some sharp movement, but he couldn't let himself look up, couldn't meet Joe's eyes. "It didn't take very long. I was surprised how quick it was. They—some of the patients had been trying to run away. Not that they could run; crawl away, maybe. But when they saw me, with a gun—some of them thought I was going to protect them. Until they saw what I was doing. And then—it was like they just gave up. So it went quickly."

"Oh, jesus, MacLeod." Joe's voice was hushed, almost reverent.

"When it was done, they tied us up and put us on trucks and headed for the border. I got away that night. Got killed three times before I made it back to the neutral zone. All I could think, the whole way ... I kept thinking I'd made a mistake. I went over it and over it in my head, and I couldn't see what I could have done differently. I still can't see what I could have done that would have ended up better. But I couldn't—I'd been doing nothing, ever since I arrived, nothing that helped, and I had to do something. I just couldn't stand there and keep doing nothing." He sank forward slowly, like he'd run out of air, and buried his face in his arms on the table.

Silence, and then he heard the hitch and scrape of Joe's chair moving, and felt the warmth of Joe's hand on his back. "Hey. Mac. You did the best you could, man. You were trying to do the right thing."

"That's not good enough." He shook his head, grinding his forehead into the tabletop.

"Maybe it's gotta be good enough. I don't know if what you did was right or wrong. Doesn't matter now. You did what you thought was best."

"Of course he did," Methos said. "You were proceeding with the best intentions in the world, weren't you, MacLeod?" Mac pulled his arms tighter around his head, muffling but not blocking out Methos' voice. "Good intentions. Well-known and long-renowned paving material for the road to hell. You can hear that a cliche thousand times and never really get it, until you walk that road, all the way to the end."

MacLeod raised his head, looked at him numbly. "And now I'm in hell."

"Well, you certainly were, back there. Now?" He reached out, topped up Mac's glass. "Now you're in Joe's bar. The only hell in here is the one you bring in with you." Methos looked over at Joe, smiling. "And Joe knows all about good intentions, don't you, Joe? Good intentions, after all, on the part of your government, are what bought you these," and he leaned over and gently rapped on Joe's knee, still smiling. "No good intentions allowed here, right? Not in this bar, none at all." Joe stared back at him, at a loss for words.

Methos turned back to MacLeod. "Hell indeed, MacLeod. Now turn the page, and let it go. You need to start considering your next step." He was, abruptly, very serious. "You need to take some thought. Take care you don't set your feet right back on that path again." Then, seeing the set of MacLeod's face, he shrugged. "Unless you like hell, of course. Tastes differ. Some people make extended tours of the region. If that's what you need, don't let me stand in your way."

"I'm not going back there, if that's what you mean."

Methos glanced over at Joe, looked back at him. "That's not what I mean."

"I'm not going anywhere. Not for now." He crossed his legs, shifting in his chair, aligning himself with Joe. "I'm going to stay here for a while."

"Here. In Seacouver. You're determined on this?" Methos sounded more tired than surprised.

MacLeod put his chin up.

"Not a smart move, Mac. The Watchers aren't the only ones who know you have ties here."

"That's right," MacLeod said softly. "I have ties. I have a home here. Don't try and take that away from me as well."

"Home." Methos was looking at him with no small incredulity.

Joe cut in. "Damn right you have a home here. And we're glad you're back home safe, my friend."

Methos transferred his stare to Joe. "You shouldn't encourage this. You know better, even if MacLeod's temporarily lost a clue."

Joe twisted his chair around with a jerk, turning his back toward Methos, and raised his glass. "Welcome home, Mac. Here's to your return. You deserve a better welcome than than this—" he gave a quick glare back over his shoulder— "but hell, heroes don't always get what they deserve."

"But I'm no hero," MacLeod said, staring down at his glass as if he were afraid to drink from it. "Nothing that I did helped anyone. All I did was harm."

Joe leaned forward, speaking as compellingly as he could. "Mac. You can't know that now. You couldn't know back then how things'd turn out, and you can't know now what's different because you went there. That's not something you can ever know for sure. All you can do is try."

MacLeod said nothing, and Joe made another effort. "Look, don't you think I know how it feels? Mac, I lost my legs, damn near lost my life, lost my buddies—for what? For less than nothing. You think we left Vietnam better off for having been there? You think it's easy for me to see any fucking kind of an upside to what we did there? Some of the things we did ... "

He stopped, and sat very still for a moment, face closed down. When he spoke again, his voice sounded tired. "Well, shit. You know what I mean. It was years before I could live with myself, thinking about all that. But I finally realized—hell, it took years before I could finally admit it—but y'know, most of us went in there trying to do the right thing. Even that slimy bastard MacNamara. Even me, shit-for-brains kid that I was."

"Joe—"

"It isn't having things turn out good that make you a hero. That's out of your control. It's that you made the effort. Unlike our amazingly wise friend over here—" he jabbed a thumb at Methos— "I think making the effort matters. And y'know ... the whole thing ended up being so royally fucked to a fare-thee-well that it's hard for me to even say this, but man, we were doing what we thought was best."

"You were indeed," Methos murmured.

Joe gave him a hard unfriendly look. "You saying something? You got anything to add to that?"

Methos was unperturbed. "You've made my point for me, Joe. More eloquently than I could have. Thank you."

MacLeod heard none of the jangling, head bowed, fighting with sudden tears. He knew what it cost Joe to look back into that part of his past; he knew what it must cost him to try to see anything good in it. Knowing that Joe would pay that cost, simply to try to keep him from despair, made him want to put his head down on the table and weep. Instead, he took a breath and looked up, to find Joe watching him.

"So. Here's to you, Mac." Joe picked up both their bottles, attempted a two-handed pour into both their glasses, ending with a flourish and a splatter. "To a guy who should've gotten a hero's welcome, but didn't, and isn't going to. From another guy who never got one either."

The two drained their glasses, thumped them back down on the table; and then, almost as an afterthought, Joe turned on Methos. "You going to join us on this one?"

"Ought I to?" Methos blinked at him. "I never was a hero of any kind, and certainly never deserved a hero's welcome anywhere. But then you heroes always need an audience, don't you? To stand on the sidelines and applaud." He reached over and gathered up the small heap of shredded napkins. "Or to watch the parade—" he tossed the bits into the air— "and fling confetti." The scraps fluttered to the tabletop and lay there, wilting into the little puddles of spilled liquor and damp.

"So, my heroic friends." Methos picked up his glass, twirled the stem in his fingers. "Here's to heroes everywhere, and to the triumph of good intentions. As long as you know where the road you're on is headed, you shouldn't mind when you get there." He drained his glass, gave each man a brisk nod and reached for the bottles. "Another round?"

I broke my heart the other day.
It will mend again tomorrow.
If I'd been drunk when I was born
I'd be ignorant of sorrow.

"No, I'm tellin' you, it was on PBS. They'd just started doing some excavations, before the war, just off the main drag, whattaya call it . . "

"The Mese, and I read the excavation report, and I'm aware of what they found. Those were not residences. That's pure conjecture, and, as it happens, wrong."

"But the guy says that they—"

"Joe, who are you going to believe? Giesman is doubtless doing his best with what evidence he has, but he wasn't there. I was, and I can assure you—"

"Yeah, but on the program, they showed how the buildings were divvied up into sleeping quarters and the public spaces, and—"

MacLeod could tell that Joe had reached the state of drunkenness where, unwilling to defer to Methos' more intimate knowledge of the domestic architecture of Byzantine Constantinople, he had taken to simply repeating his own points more and more loudly. MacLeod had, himself, reached the state of drunkenness where the words flowed over his mind like oil and took long moments to sink in. He gave up trying to follow the argument and instead looked at Methos, watching the exasperated affection on his face as he argued with Joe, the quick ease of his gestures, the lithe drape of his body over the chair.

To see Methos again, just to look at him—it roiled him, waking memories that his befuzzed reason had no power against, tired as he was, exhausted; and drunk, and shaky in the backwash of strong emotion. He'd kept those memories hidden away, mostly, while he'd been gone; hoarding them, scarce rations in a hungry time.

Methos suddenly halted, in mid-expostulation, and reached down into his bag, pulling out a notebook and pencil. MacLeod watched as he sketched the floorplan of a house he'd lived in 800 years earlier. Watched that hand whispering pencil over paper; the same knowing skill, the same sure authority, with which those fingers had once moved over his skin. He could feel those hands now, trailing fire through his flesh, and he closed his eyes for a moment to hold the memory in. It had warmed him, at times, that memory, at those moments when he'd lain huddled in the dark, amidst cold and death, and tried to give himself comfort.

But there was no comfort here for him, and no warmth from the man who was turned half away from him, busily sketching, pausing at times to aim edged sentences at Joe. Ignoring him.

He looked down at Methos' drawing, the floorplan of a simple home, and he was hit by a sudden jolt of memory ... pictures shimmering behind his eyes, focusing ... a pioneer homestead, struck by prairie fire, burned to the foundation. Somewhere in the west, in the lost years after Little Deer. He remembered ... there were bodies, charred bodies of horses and humans and cattle, lying where the fire had caught them, blackened to the bone. They were cool to the touch, and yet smoke still rose from them in wisps, as if even in death their flesh remembered the flames.

He picked up a book of matches from the ashtray, and fumbled a match loose from the packet. Striking it alight, he held it up and moved his forefinger back and forth through the flame, quickly at first and then more and more slowly, until at last he paused and held his finger steady in the fire, wincing at the burn, and then pulled it back and watched the crackle of healing. In a moment, the skin was smooth and whole again, as if nothing had ever happened to it, nothing at all.

The match had burned down and gone out against his fingers. He dropped the charred stub and looked over again at Methos. But Methos was paying him no mind.

It had always been wildfire between them, he thought. Never a tame hearth-glow, burning steadily to warm the heart or the home, but a conflagration, consuming him, and then flaring out. Stupid of him, to have forgotten that, to have come looking to Methos for comfort.

He picked up the matchbook again, lit another match, and again moved his finger to hover in the fire, watching with detachment as the skin turned red and began to blacken.

"Mac. Hey." It was Joe's voice, urgent and yet strangely reluctant. "Cut it out, Mac."

He looked up, not at Joe, but at Methos, who was apparently absorbed in his drawing, ornamenting his house plan with doodles of nymphs and satyrs. "Do you want me to stop?"

Methos looked around at him, his face neutral. "It's up to you." He wrinkled his nose a bit, catching the smell of burning. "A silly kind of game, I always thought. But it's your business."

Mac nodded and kept nodding, watching his own fingers as they ripped the cardboard cover off of the matchbook and then spraddled the matches out in all directions, porcupine-like. "I had hoped... " He paused, setting the ruined matchbook down on the tabletop and staring at it for a moment before he started again. "I had hoped you might consider some part of my life to be your business. I thought that maybe—"

Joe wavered, trying to stand. "I need to go check on some stuff in the back room, guys. Be back in a—"

Mac's hand clamped on his arm, yanked him down. "No. Stay here. You're my friend, there's nothing I have to say that you can't hear as well." He looked over at Methos, whose face had gone blank and absent. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he let his pride fall away, like a man casting off armor. Handing his dignity over, a free-will offering, hoping Methos would know the value of the gift. Part of him knew he was being a fool, but he was as far past sense as he was past pride.

"I'm moving back into the loft for a while. Joe kept it for me, all these years," and he realized belatedly he was still gripping Joe's arm, hard. He released it, giving it a quick pat of apology and thanks, and went on, never taking his eyes from Methos' face. "I had hoped you might stay there with me, at least for a little while. I know—" he held up his hand forestallingly— "I know you'll be going back to Singapore soon enough. But I'd be glad of your company for a while." That sounded idiotically weak to him, but all he could think of to add was, "Please."

"Good god." Methos spoke lightly, dismissively. "How much have you had to drink? Well, never fear, you're safe with us, we won't hold you to any reckless offers you might make in this condition—"

"I'm not joking!"

"All right, then," Methos snapped. "I'm not joking either. We've had this all out, and I'm not doing it again." He took a breath, let it out loudly, and went on in a quieter tone. "You can't swim in the same river twice, MacLeod. You know that. Things can't go back to what they were before."

"Fine! I'm not asking—I'm not expecting that you would—" He fumbled for words for a moment, then gave up. "I ... don't want to be alone just now."

Methos stared at him. "Alone? You're not alone," and he gave a meaningful look over at Joe, who had poured and drained another stiff shot of bourbon and was staring into his empty glass, looking as if he wished himself elsewhere. "I've never known you to be alone, except when you choose it. If it comes to that, this city's full of people who'd fall all over themselves to give you anything you wanted. Take your pick."

"It's not a matter of—" He broke off. He couldn't say what he needed to, not in front of Joe. Perhaps not at all.

"MacLeod. It's true that I haven't always been the best friend to you." Methos sounded tired. "I have not always been fully honest with you. I have not always acted as you would have wished, or in ways congruent with your values. I have at times been outrageously rude to you. I have even, as you may recall, shot you in the back. But there is one insult I have never inflicted on you, and never shall. I've never pretended to give you something that I don't have to give. Don't ask me to do that now, because I can't. And I won't."

"OK, fine. That's fine. I understand completely. You don't want to be around me any more. I got it. God forbid I should try to make you do something you don't want to do."

"Want? MacLeod, how hard do you have to work to be this blind? Do you think Singapore's what I want? Do you really for a moment believe I wouldn't rather—" He stopped suddenly, pressing his lips shut, every muscle in his face tightly closed; but MacLeod could see in his eyes, for just a moment, an aching depth of honest grief, honest hunger.

Then Methos looked away, and the moment passed. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. "You think simply grabbing for what you want is some kind of answer? That's no answer, that's where the difficulties start."

"This doesn't make any sense, Methos. If you really want to be here with me I don't see why—"

"MacLeod. Do you know the story of the South Indian monkey trap?"

"Oh hell, you're gonna hit me with another fucking allegory, aren't you." And then, catching Methos' glare, "No," he said heavily. "No, I don't know the story of the South Indian monkey trap. Do enlighten me."

"All right, pay attention. Here's how it works. Take one coconut. Drill a hole in it just big enough for a monkey to get its paw through, but no larger. Empty the coconut and fill it with rice. Tie it to a stake. Then hide, and wait. Soon, along comes a monkey." Methos sat forward, and suddenly, unexpectedly, transformed himself into a small stealthy primate. "Sees the coconut, works its paw through the hole, grabs a handful of rice." He mimed a stealthy reach, a grab. "But then—" he opened his eyes wide, staring down at his balled fist in mock surprise— "once its hand is full, you see, it can't pull it back out of the hole. Can't get away. So there the monkey sits."

He paused at a wheezy laugh from Joe, who, overborne by his last slug of bourbon, had begun flickering out, a candle burning low. He had opened his eyes long enough to watch Methos' pantomime, then let them drift shut again.

"The hunters, of course, have been watching," Methos continued. "They come out of hiding. The monkey can see them coming. It tries harder and harder to escape." Methos let an instant of pure animal panic cross his face, and jerked frantically with his arm, as if struggling against restraint. "And all the time, it could get away in an instant, if—if—it just opened its hand—" slowly, he unclenched his fist— "and let go."

He pulled his hand back, free, and held it up to MacLeod, palm out. Empty. "So tell me—what's the trap, MacLeod?"

Mac only looked at him.

"Not the coconut. Not the rice in the coconut. The trap's in the monkey's mind." He reached over and rapped a knuckle against MacLeod's skull. "Right? The monkey wants the rice, no question about that. But what the monkey needs—is to let the rice go. And the trap?" He stared hard at MacLeod. "The trap is that the monkey believes what it wants is what matters."

There was a long silence while MacLeod digested this, a silence broken only by a faint whispery snore from Joe, whose head had drooped down onto his chest.

"OK. But I'm not talking about what I want, Methos. I'm talking about what I need."

Methos slumped back in his chair. "And what would that be?" He sounded weary.

"Just—I need some help getting through this. I need someone who can help me make sense of it all. Or maybe—someone who can help me forget it for a while. I don't know. Something like that." He looked up at Methos, attempted a smile.

"You know, perhaps I'm being dense, but there's something I don't understand. Just what is it you're finding so extraordinarily painful in all this?" Some energy came back into his voice. "I mean, you've seen this kind of thing before. Forgive me for pointing it out, but you have in your time killed plenty of mortals for all kinds of reasons. Hate, justice. Mercy. What exactly has got you so unstrung this time?"

The chill in the words stung him and steadied him, and he cleared his throat, bitter and grateful at once. "You're damn right it's nothing new. That's the whole problem, right there." His glass was low again, and he picked up the bottle, looked at it, set it down again. "You know what I kept thinking about, the whole time I was over there? I kept remembering Culloden. Culloden, and what came afterwards."

"The killing, you mean—"

"The slaughter, the burning, the evictions, the rapes, the hatred. Ethnic cleansing," he spat. "They talk about that like that's something new. We were ethnically cleansed two hundred and fifty years ago, we just didn't have a nice phrase for it. We called it murder, and slaughter."

"Different words, same old song." Methos nodded.

"So tell me, Methos. Is it just a delusion, that anything ever changes for the better? Progress—is that just another one of those things I'm an idiot for wanting to believe?"

Methos appeared to be giving the question serious consideration. "Progress. Hm. Well, we do seem to have gotten rid of smallpox, that's a change for the better, I suppose. And slavery in the old-fashioned sense is pretty much out of favor. But—progress?" He shrugged. "They still have smallpox sitting around in vials; one accident and it's loose again. Slavery? I don't think it makes a great deal of difference to a child laborer in Manila that she's not, legally speaking, chattel."

"So nothing changes."

"Nothing changes. Everything changes."

MacLeod rubbed the back of his neck. "Stop talking like Yoda, will you? My head hurts."

"Shouldn't drink so much, MacLeod." And then, "I know. I know you want answers." Methos picked up his notebook and pen, used his sleeve to wipe a dry spot on the tabletop, and set the notebook down. "Look at it this way. Nothing ever happens exactly the same way twice." He carefully drew a small precise circle, a line that looped back, around, up, closed on itself; and then, without pausing, he began looping the line backward again, drawing an identical circle, almost but not quite tracing over the first. "Though it may feel like you're seeing the same thing over and over... ." and he kept the pen moving, with calligraphic precision, inscribing a tightly spiraling sequence of loops, each fractionally ahead of the last, "... it's never exactly the same. If it helps you to see the difference as progress... ." circle after circle, each a mirror of the one before, each just a millimeter closer to the far margin of the page, "... .then you go right ahead and see it that way." Finishing with a flourish, he tore the page out, admired it for a moment, and then handed it over to MacLeod. "There, the optimist's schematic of history. For you, no charge."

MacLeod looked at it blankly, folded it into his shirt pocket. His mind was elsewhere. "So—all right, I'm not going to argue, we could sit here for a week and argue about whether things are better because you just see them that way. That's not the issue anyway, that's not what's really ... " He stopped, pulling his brows together, trying to encompass what was paining him.

Methos looked at him and sighed. "You don't appear to be any easier in your mind, Mac, and I've damn near emptied out my evening's allotment of bullshit." He reached over to grab Joe's scarf from a chair, and, rolling it into a ball, used it to pillow Joe's head, which was slowly sliding to one side. Joe stirred, mumbled, "Sure thing," and sagged back into a doze.

MacLeod spoke slowly, feeling his way. "OK. Watching all of that happen, all over again, that was bad enough. But I'll tell you, what really scared the hell out of me was what I started feeling when I was over there. I felt the same way I did back then. Back after Culloden. I just wanted to kill them all. Anyone in a uniform, didn't matter who they were, what they'd actually done." He covered his face with his hands. "And I thought I was past that! I thought I'd changed, at least that much!" He pushed his hands back through his hair, violently, and looked over at Methos, who was watching him with a small rueful smile.

"You have changed, you know. Whatever you felt, this time you didn't do what you did before." Methos nodded at him. "That's progress. Take it from me."

"I killed." He spoke forcefully, amazed that Methos didn't seem to be getting it. "I thought I was doing it for the right reasons, I thought it was the best thing to do. But how the hell can I trust myself?" He traced a finger through the puddles on the tabletop, stirring the damp shreds of napkin. "I know I have evil in me, I know I can't ever get rid of it. But after all that with ... with the demon, and with Richie ... I thought I'd figured it out. I can't avoid killing, I know that, but I thought, if I did it for the right reasons ... I was trying so hard to do the right—"

"—to do the right thing," Methos chimed in with him, speaking in unison, and he gave a short humorless laugh. "I know."

"So—I'm not expecting, if you don't want—" He stopped, then went on, "Just teach me. How to live through this. It just hurts so fucking much. If every time I try to do good, I end up just doing harm ... It's like everything's backwards."

Methos sighed, and slouched deeper in his chair. "Do you remember how it was, after your first death? When you came back? Everything you'd been was gone, everything you thought you had was lost to you. The world turned upside down. You remember how much that hurt?" MacLeod nodded. "Same thing, Mac, it's the same thing. Growing pains. And you lived through that. Alone. You remember?"

"I lived through that because I had someone to teach me! That's all I'm asking, Methos."

Methos shook his head slowly. "No. You're older now. This you have to do on your own. And in any case there's nothing I can teach you. You've already learned. There it sits, in your belly—" he pointed at MacLeod's midsection—"all you've learned, like a great lump of stone, and you're the only one who can digest it." He paused, took a breath, let it out, and for a moment Mac thought he was done talking. But then he went on, as if against his will. "I'll tell you one thing. That stone will nourish you. Not now, not soon. Someday. Someday, it will nourish you when nothing and no one else can."

Methos tilted his head, regarding him. "That's the only bit of teaching left that I can give you, and it's not something you could understand now anyway. Even if you were sober. There's a chance you'll live long enough to figure it out. Though I'm not," he added, "making any guarantees."

MacLeod wanted to tell him you're wrong but he was already working too hard trying to hang onto Methos' words, to put them away someplace safe where he could study them later.

"You'll understand it, in time, in your own way. And one thing I do guarantee you—" Methos flicked a quick glance over at Joe—"soon enough, you'll have plenty to keep you occupied. You certainly won't have time to gloom about all this."

Mac sat very still. "You think I'm doing the wrong thing again."

Methos sighed. "I think you're acting with the best intentions in the world." Looked up at him with a small crooked smile. "And you are scaling down the grandiosity. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that you thought you were saving all humanity. Right? You remember how that one turned out? Now you've learned you can't save the Balkans. Give it long enough, and you'll learn you can't even save yourself."

"I can't do things the way you do, Methos. I can't change who I am. Not to please you, not for anything. I can't, and I won't."

"I know that." Was that laughter? "God, do I know that. Credit me with some motherwit, MacLeod. All that can change you is time. Enough time to finish growing up. That's all you really need."

And suddenly, it was the final insult. "Growing up! That's the act of a grown-up, is it?" He kept his voice low and tight, and spoke fast, stumbling on his words. "You're telling me I should just walk away from Joe. Let him die alone. That's what you'd do, right? That's what I should be aiming toward. Not to care, when my friends are suffering. Just walk away."

"I'm not telling you that." Methos sounded as if his temper, too, had finally cracked. "I'm saying that you're doing this for the wrong reasons, and if you go ahead with this because it's what a good man would do, a good friend—or if you're doing it because you feel sorry for Joe, or you're trying to do penance for those poor bastards you shot in Croatia—"

At that MacLeod came out of his chair, scowling. He caught himself, remembering Joe, just before his fist smashed down on the table, and slowly settled back into his seat. Methos watched him without a flicker of movement.

"No matter what you do, this—" he nodded over at Joe— "is not something that's going to have a happy ending. But if you do this for the wrong reasons—it will end badly."

"Well, now you're surprising the hell out of me, Methos. I always figured you cared about the ends, not the means. Why should you give a shit about my reasons?"

"You don't see where this will end up? You don't see that—" He picked up the Calvados, and, disregarding his fine glass snifter, took a slug directly from the bottle, and set it back down with a thump, wiping his mouth. "All right. A prediction. Cross the gypsy's palm with silver. There'll come a night, sooner rather than later, when you'll be lying there in your bed, three a.m., staring at the ceiling. Feeling trapped. And you will be trapped. And in your heart of hearts—unreasonable though you'll know it to be—you'll be blaming Joe for it. And just for a little while there— hating him for it." A pause. "Almost as much, perhaps, as I've hated you at times."

It was like taking a hard thrust in a swordfight, like feeling steel slice through the soft guts—the tearing pain, and the need to not let the other know you were wounded. To strike back. "That's you, not me," and he was no longer keeping his voice low. "I'm not like you, and I'm not going to be!"

Unexpectedly, Joe broke in, startling them both. "Hey, guys. Everything OK over there?" Mac's voice had woken him, and he roused up in his chair, blinking around. "You doin' all right? You two're the best friends I got left. Let's just be nice, OK?" His voice sounded more southern than usual, and he looked around with a drowsy loose grin, aglow with liquor and a desire to make peace.

"Everything's fine, Joe." Methos gave him a sphinx's smile.

"Time for another round? Believe I'm up for one more." He groped for his bottle of bourbon, and sloshed some more into the glass.

"One more round, to be sure," Methos said. "And another toast. And then that should be it for me, I've a plane to catch tomorrow morning."

He clinked his glass against Joe's, carefully, so as not to upset Joe's unsteady grip, and then reached over and nudged Mac's glass toward his hand, where it sat slack on the tabletop. "Joining us?"

MacLeod picked his glass up, unwillingly, and flinched as Methos touched it gently with his own. "To growing up," Methos said. "May you have enough time to finish doing it. And to getting your hand out of the damned coconut; may you someday learn how to let go."

At that, Mac looked up at him with something close to hate. "I won't." And instead of drinking he jerked his arm back, tossing the liquor over his left shoulder to splash on the floor behind him.

And so we'll drink the final toast
that never can be spoken:
Here's to the heart that is wise enough
to know when it's better off broken.

"You're sure you've got his arm now, Mac? Then let's—no no, this way, back into the office. That's right, Joe, come on, we're—christ, watch the chair, MacLeod, my god, you're in no better shape than he is—Joe, come on, we're going to get you settled, you need to lie down—Mac, can you please hold up your end here? One foot in front of the other, that's the ticket—"

Between the two of them Joe shuffled, mumbling, "Guys ... hey, guys ... " as he was walked back into the office and helped onto the sofa. Once they had him settled, Mac stood back, slumping against the doorframe, and let Methos take charge of the complexities of removing Joe's prostheses and hunting up blankets.

"Wait here," Methos directed him, when Joe was covered and snoring. "I'm just going to turn out the lights and make sure everything's shut down." The words rippled through Mac's brain and ebbed away, no more regarded than the distant sounds of Methos moving around in the bar, shifting chairs, clattering empty bottles. He was frozen by the sight of Joe lying still on the couch, his pallor, the way the wrinkled skin had sunk in around the eye sockets.

Bodies on cots, in rows, in piles, old men, sunken-faced, pallid.

Sleeping so deeply ... god, was he breathing?

Splatter on the pillows, red and grey ...

Suddenly he was suffocating, choking, battling the heavy exit door as hard as he'd ever battled an enemy. It opened, finally, with a screech, and he staggered out into the alley, into darkness and drizzling rain and a chill gusty wind.

He only made it a few steps down the alley before he hunched over, clutching himself, grabbing for the wall, and threw up. It seemed to go on for a long time, as he stood bent over with his hands grinding into the bricks, feet planted in oily puddles, shuddering and racked with nausea. The wind swirled around him, soaking him with the fine cold mist of rain.

When he was empty, gasping and spitting, he staggered back, and tried to make his way down the alley to the street. Methos was suddenly there beside him.

"Stop a minute," Methos told him. "Breathe." MacLeod leaned back against the damp bricks, shivering violently.

"You're really not in very good shape, are you. I'd better walk you home."

"No." MacLeod ground the word out past teeth clamped together to keep from chattering. He pushed away from the wall and willed his body to find its balance. Methos reached out a hand to steady him, and he struck at it wildly. "The hell with that. I don't want you anywhere near my place."

Methos withdrew, pushing his hands deep in his coat pockets, and nodded once. "Fair enough."

"I wish to god I'd never met you."

Methos tilted his head, regarding him with what seemed a purely scientific curiosity. "D'you mean that?"

"I don't know." He slammed one hand against the brick wall, as hard as he could, feeling the gratifying pain shoot up his arm. "Maybe I should say yes, that'd make me more like you, wouldn't it."

Methos said nothing.

"I wouldn't want to be like you. Not for anything in the world."

"Don't worry, Mac." The deep voice was kind. "You won't be. You couldn't."

"You hear what I'm saying? Not even to live five thousand years."

"Don't worry," Methos repeated. "You won't."

They stood in silence, while Mac struggled with the zipper on his jacket, groped in his pockets for gloves and a stocking cap. Finally armored against the cold, he looked up to find Methos watching him.

"I don't want you walking home alone like this. It's not safe."

"Fuck safe." He turned and launched himself down the street, feeling the rain-mist swirl dizzyingly around him. If he could make it to that lamppost ... and from there to the next one ... A gust of wind shoved him sideways, and he staggered before taking a fresh grip on the ground with his feet and pushing forward. He had almost reached the lamppost when he heard a voice calling behind him.

"MacLeod. Wait up."

He made a final lunge and grabbed onto the cold metal of the pole, feeling anger surge through him—and then, even stronger than the anger, relief. A relief so painful, that he wept with the sweetness of it, and the shame. He rubbed his face hard against his rough sleeve, shoving away tears, as he heard Methos' footsteps come up close behind him. Felt Methos' hand on his shoulder. He half turned, letting his weight come away from the lamppost and rest against that hand.

"So," he said roughly. His throat was still raw from the vomiting. "You're gonna push it, huh?" He could not help adding, silently, please, nor hating himself for it.

A pause, and he sensed Methos examining him, prayed that he'd take the wetness on his face for rain. "No," Methos finally said, matter-of-factly. "I was just going to get you a cab. You're in no shape for walking."

He was leant back against the cold support of the lamppost, and clung to it, shivering, as Methos moved away. For long minutes he stood there, like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a spar, until he heard a sharp whistle, and then the sound of a car pulling close and stopping.

He couldn't even find the strength to struggle, as he was pulled away from the pole, walked to the curb, neatly folded into the taxi. As he sank into the stupid comfort of the seat cushions, he could hear Methos instructing the cab driver, giving him the address, telling him to make sure his passenger got indoors safely, and then the rustle of money being passed over. He did not open his eyes, even when he could sense Methos leaning in the door, when he felt Methos' hand on his shoulder.

"Well, MacLeod—"

MacLeod pushed the hand away. "Goodbye."

"Till later," Methos corrected him. "Till next time."

He slumped down further in the seat, keeping his eyes clenched shut. "There's not going to be a next time. Not for us."

"Oh, there'll always be another time. Assuming we both stay alive, there's pretty much bound to be. Isn't there?" His voice dropped below a whisper, so low Mac wasn't sure if he was hearing or imagining. "The only real goodbye between us will come with swords."

A moment of stillness, and the wind sent a spray of chilly damp in through the open door. It set him shivering again, and he heard a rustle of cloth and then felt the warmth of Methos' hand on his cheek, for just a moment, fingers stroking the wetness from his face. "Say goodbye to Joe for me."

MacLeod turned his head away. "Tell him yourself."

A pause. "All right. Fair enough." He waited, eyes clenched shut, for more words to fall on him. But there were no more words; just, after a moment, the jarring thud of the door slamming, and a quick rap of knuckles on the roof, a little salute, and then the car jerked into movement, heading off down the alley and turning onto the main street with an impatient squeak of tires.

MacLeod settled into the seat. The car, he thought, seemed to be bouncing more than it should. It threatened the precarious stability of his stomach, and made him wonder, for just a moment, if this could be it, right now, the Big One that Seacouver had been promised for years. He felt no alarm at the prospect; that would fit just right, he thought, the solid ground falling away from beneath him, the earth shaken to pieces. He could handle that. But the driver seemed unconcerned, and he finally realized it was just him, just the liquor and the fatigue and his own shakiness. He slid his hands inside his coat, warming them, gently holding himself steady, and his fingers encountered something in his shirt pocket that crackled. A piece of paper. Methos' drawing.

He almost pulled it out, for a moment, but then he thought that looking at it in the juddering cab would seasick him for sure, and instead he let himself picture it, the calm procession of loops marching orderly across the paper, letting it displace all the pictures of chaos and death. Never the same, always the same ... He leaned back, arms wrapped around himself, breathing in, breathing out, and he thought about the convergence of circles, the way that lines loop back on themselves with time. Just ... with enough time, he thought. God knows what might converge again, in time. And he finally let his eyes close and sleep take him, as the cab carried him forward, into his future, into his past.

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