A Highlander story by Jacquie Groom

It was a cold, rainy January day, and the streets of Paris were gloomy and miserable.  Below street level, tired, irritable commuters steamed gently as they waited for the Metro.  One figure, slim beneath the huge overcoat, re-wrapped his long scarf round his neck as he glanced up at the overhead display.

There was an audible sigh amongst the waiting crowds as a chill wind blew down the tunnel, and the train rattled into the station.

It was full. There was no way all the people could squeeze in through the doors, but still they tried. 

Adam Pierson, sometimes known as Methos, hung back.  "After five thousand years, I suppose I can wait for the next metro," he muttered to himself, as he watched the pushing and shoving.

The train's windows had steamed up.  A passenger lifted a gloved hand to wipe away the condensation.  A face appeared at the window; a fleeting glimpse of bright hair and a handsome profile.

Methos, languor forgotten, jerked upright.  Pushing his way through the crowds, he tried to get closer to the train.  "Excusez-moi," he said apologetically.  "Laissez-moi passer !"

The train was starting to move.  Methos broke into a run.  Reaching the platform's edge, he tried to bang on the window.  But the man behind the glass did not turn round again.

The train picked up speed.  Dodging passengers, Methos tried to keep level with the window.  But he was fighting a losing battle.

And as the train disappeared into the tunnel, he slammed his hands into the wall at the end of the platform in frustration, hanging his head low. 

The tunnel was empty now; only darkness, and wind.  Methos, his overcoat blowing about him, stared into the void.  He closed his eyes.  "A-lex-an -der" he yelled, his voice breaking, sounding as if his heart were breaking too.

"Well,my friend, that was a good evening, non ?"  Maurice grasped Duncan's shoulder as they stood at the top of the steps.  "We must do it again sometime."

Duncan grinned.  "You certainly found some good wines, at your cousin's place in the south."

"I have some photos too  -" Maurice began, but Duncan shook his head, laughing.

"Not tonight," he said firmly.  "I'll see you soon, Maurice.  Take care of yourself."

"And you ! No more of these enemies who keep - how you say - popping up!"

"No more.  I promise," Duncan said, heading down the steps with a wave.  "Goodnight, Maurice."

As he approached the barge, he felt it.  That tingling, ringing, unmistakeable feeling.  Reaching inside his coat, he felt the reassuring presence of his sword. 

He moved carefully, cat-like.  Avoiding the patches of light from the street-lamps, he crept through the shadows, alert.  Watchful.  Waiting for whoever would emerge from the darkness, sword raised, to take his head.

No one did.

There was a huddled figure on the deck of the barge.  As Duncan stepped cautiously closer, the person raised it's head.  "Duncan," a chilled voice said.  "I was waiting for you."

"What were you thinking of, waiting out on deck in these temperatures !" Duncan said, as he lit the stove. 

Methos shrugged.  "It's not as if I'll catch my death of cold, is it ?" he said calmly.  Too calmly.

"What was so important that it couldn't wait ?" Duncan asked irritably, passing the older immortal a steaming cup.  "Sip it slowly !"

The oldest immortal looked up at his friend, an amused glint in his eyes.  "I have been around a while, you know."

"Then start acting like it !" Duncan exclaimed, collapsing into a chair.  "Right.  Tell me what's wrong ?"

Methos seemed to close in on himself once more.  "I just needed to - to be with someone," he said quietly.  As if the admission hurt him. 

In spite of everything, he looked very young, and very alone. "What's happened ?" Duncan asked, softly. "Is this Watcher business ? Am I likely to get a nasty surprise ?"

"No, nothing like that," Methos said, staring into the swirling, steaming liquid in his cup.  "I just thought I saw someone today.  Someone I hadn't seen in a long, long time.  But he disappeared.  Like he did last time." 

Duncan watched his friend.  There was a wistful expression on his absurdly youthful face.  But his eyes - it was his eyes that seemed to reflect the millennia he had lived through.  Ancient, ageless.  "Who was it ?" he asked quietly.

And Methos, his head bowed, swallowed hard.  "Alexander."

"Alexander ? Alexander who ?"

"Alexander of Macedonia.  Alexander the Great.  My Alexander," Methos said, his voice breaking.  "Over two thousand years, and it seems like yesterday."

Duncan was leaning forwards, suddenly alert and interested.  "Are you saying Alexander the Great was an immortal ?"

Methos nodded.  "Oh yes, he was.  To his eternal tragedy."

"What was so tragical about it ? I mean, I know the history, but why was it any worse for him than for the rest of us ?"

He sighed, and leant back in the chair.  "I could say it was because of his constant questioning about his parentage.  Or because he couldn't leave a son to succeed him.  But the real reason was more basic.  It was because he was immortal, and Hephaestion wasn't.  Sometimes, Duncan, things are that simple."

He laughed.  "You know, I've always felt sorry for Alexander's first teacher, Leonidas.  He's gone down in history as the one who stunted Alexander's growth, by denying him proper food and clothing.  If he'd been older when he first died, perhaps he would have been taller."

"When did you meet him ?" Duncan asked, curious.  His own four hundred years of history seemed insignificant compared to Methos' great age.  And yet the immortal looked so - normal.  It was hard to reconcile the two images.

"D'you really want to know ? I mean, I can talk about Alexander all night, but I don't want to send you to sleep ..."

"Talk away," Duncan said.  "The  night is young."

"He was eighteen when I first met him.  He'd left Macedonia in anger, after being insulted at his father's wedding. He took his mother and his friends into exile in Epirus."  He shook his head, remembering.  "He rode up to the house like a fury.  There was always an intensity, a fire within him.  I can still remember standing there, on a ridge, watching their party approach.  And then I felt the buzz.  Unmistakeable."

"I never did find out how he first died.  He'd been in combat since he was young; leading Macedonian troops, acting as Regent for his father.  But this had been earlier -I was the first immortal he met."

"How did he cope ?"

Methos smiled.  "Things were different then.  The gods - they were closer, somehow.  When Alexander realised what had happened to him, he took it simply as a gift from the Gods.  A symbol of his deification.  I tried to explain - about the Game, the rules -  but it was not important to him.

I don't think I could ever explain the magic Alexander had.  He drew people to him, inspired them, made them more than they previously were, made them capable of anything.  Once you were touched by those liquid grey eyes, you could not draw away.  I know I couldn't. Hephaestion was more handsome - boy, was Hephaestion handsome !  And Ptolomy was stronger.  But Alexander -"  Methos shook his head, smiling sadly at Duncan.  "You had to be there, I suppose.  Anyway,  I became one of his group of friends - I was quite good with a sword, back then  - they soon accepted me.  And when he went back to Macedonia, I went too."

 "After his father was killed, he became king.  And he set out to conquer the world.  We started at Troy.  Alexander and Hephaestion left wreathes on the tombs of Achilles and Patroclus.  It was the most public avowal of their love, but anyone who was near them was aware of it.  They were like two halves of one person.  Not that they were always in harmony, or even together.  Hephaestion had his work to do - he was a brilliant general.  But it was his love that sustained Alexander, kept him whole.  And eventually tore him apart."

Methos seemed to sink into himself; Duncan did not like to intrude on the older man's thoughts.  "We talked," he said eventually.  "Talked for hours, under the stars.  Alexander did not sleep much.  He talked about this gift of immortality, and what it entailed.  But what bothered him most was Hephaestion.  He needed to know if he would be immortal too.  If the gods had granted him this gift, would they not give it to 'the other Alexander'."  He rubbed his eyes.  "I didn't know what to say.  I had sensed pre-immortals once or twice, but I did not know if those feelings were infallible.  Hephaestion - I sensed nothing special about him.  But who was I to say what Alexander's Gods would or would  not do ?   Perhaps I should have prepared him more - said something..."

"Hephaestion died, I presume," Duncan said, after Methos had fallen quiet once more.

The older immortal nodded.  "He fell ill.  A fever.  But he was young, and strong, and he seemed to be getting better.  We were at the games when word came that he had worsened.  Alexander sped to his side like a mad thing, but it was too late.  He was dead."

"I've never seen such grief in all my years.  I hope I never do again."  He closed his eyes, his face pale.  "Alexander would not leave the body.  And then -"

He paused, staring out through the porthole to the nightsky beyond.  "Then he came to me, handed me his sword, and asked me to take his head.  He wanted to die with his lover.  His eyes - those beautiful, expressive eyes - were lifeless.  It was as if all his dreams had died too - he just could not go on without him."

"What did you do ?" Duncan asked quietly.

"I couldn't do it !" Methos said sadly,stretching out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.  "He was my friend.  I loved him.  I loved Hephaestion too."  He sighed.  "I couldn't stand it.  It seemed as if my immortality was an insult to Hephaestion's memory.  So, while Alexander was burying his grief in preparing the most elaborate funeral, I slipped away."

"I wandered - who knows where I went.  Time had little meaning to me; the world did not seem in a hurry, and I just let it take me along.  It was easier to disappear, in those days.

I can't remember when or where I heard that Alexander was dead.  I couldn't believe it, to start with.  I presumed someone had taken his head; battles were ferocious, even then.  But then I heard it had not been so simple.  There was talk of poison, of illness.  And then they told me of his funeral, of how life-like his body had been, in the magnificent sarcophagus they had made for him.   And I was sure, then, that he had simply not wanted to live.  There were ways ..."

Duncan, irresistibly drawn into the story, could not help but think of Nefertiri, the Egyptian handmaiden he had beheaded a couple of years previously. She, too, had spent many centuries entombed.

"I kept an eye on the Ptolemaic dynasty for many years," Methos continued.  "Watching Alexander's tomb." He sighed.  "I saw the sarcophagus being melted own for currency.  I saw Augustus leave his standard there in homage.  And still I waited.  Perhaps I waited too long.  For when I finally dared to open the tomb, he was gone."  Raking his fingers through his hair, he got up and paced around.  "Today, at the Bercy metro station, of all places, I thought I saw him.  And then I lost him.  Again."

"What are you going to do about it ?"

Methos shrugged.  "What can I do ? I've searched for him for two thousand years.  If I live, I'll search two thousand more.  I became a watcher because of him, searching endlessly, unsuccessfully for him through the files.  I've caught sight of him twice, maybe three times.  And," he gave a wry smile. "Even that might have just been my imagination working overtime."

"It wasn't your fault," Duncan said quietly.  "You couldn't have changed anything, even if you had been there."

"I know," Methos said, looking Duncan straight in the eyes.  "I know.  But I should have been there.  For them both. And I have another reason now.  To tell him I understand."

"Because I wouldn't take your head, when you offered it to me ?"

"You catch on quickly, MacLeod," Methos said, looking him straight in the eyes, approvingly.  "I know what it feels like, to offer the greatest gift you have, and have it rebuffed.  But I also know I was right, and that you were right."

"We wouldn't be friends, wouldn't be having this conversation, if I hadn't been," Duncan said quietly.

The oldest immortal paused.  "Alexander loved deeply, and needed love from those who surrounded him.  I suppose he took my - rejection - as a rejection of love.  It ended our friendship."  He sighed, and seemed to collapse, his head resting in his hands.  "I suppose, what it comes down to it that I want to know he's all right.  That he forgave me.  And found the peace, and love,  he needed." 

He looked deep into Duncan's eyes, finding in them the understanding and companionship he needed.  Then he grinned, looking suddenly like the student most mortals took him for.  "It's late. I'll leave you in peace," he said.

"There's the couch - you could stay - " Duncan suggested,.  "It's cold out there."

But Methos shook his head.  "Thanks anyway."

He stood on the Quai des Tournelles, staring up at the stars.  Not  so different from those he had watched, centuries ago, with Hephaestion, and Ptolomy and - and Alexander. A faint breeze blew round him, swirling up his coat-tails, moving the rubbish that had accumulated on the quayside.  The wind seemed to whisper, calling to him through the millennia.  If only he could catch what it was saying !

He walked through the cold, clear Parisian night, a faint smile on his thin lips, listening to the whispers on the wind.

The end