Thanks to Tritorella for the beta
Damn, but that clock's driving me crazy. I guess it's meant to sound old-fashioned and kind of homely. Instead it's just making me want to beat it to death with my leg. You'd have thought everyone would just go digital, but no, people cling on to the past that ticks.
I'd drown it out with music, but it's not long since Kate left and I can hear the footsteps around the corner already. I glance over at Old Irritating on the wall and wonder why I bother because, yeah, Duncan's bang on time like always.
"Hi, Joe." Big grin and he flops down in his chair, pony tail hanging half over the back, bag falling to the floor at his feet. "I thought Amanda might still be here."
"Nah." I haul myself up a bit straighter and return his smile. "She left about an hour ago, cleared out of the way for lunch." I make a face. "To be honest, I think it was kind of a relief for both of us. You gotta believe me, I never wanted to know that much about the shoe shops in Milan."
"You too, huh?" I get the MacLeod look of genuine sympathy. "Thought she'd got that out of her system last night when I got the run-down."
I look hopefully at the bag on the floor. "You got those things for me?" I whisper, half-conspiratorially, with an exaggerated look at the open door behind him.
His eyes grow wide and his mouth opens in a big O. "Joe, I'm sorry, you know there's been hassles at the shop and I was in such a hurry to get here and I meant to stop off on the way -"
"Yeah, yeah," I interrupt, doing my best to glare. "You old bastard, don't you know better than to try and tease an old man? Just hand 'em over."
"You're just no fun, Joe."
"And you're too predictable, Mac."
He leans down and starts rooting in the bag, finally emerging with my prize; he looks round at the door and tosses it onto my lap. A whole half-pound bag of barley sugars. You travel the world as a Watcher, you develop a taste for some weird things. "I can't believe you're still hiding this from the staff," he says. "I lost a bet that you'd have the nurses wrapped around your fingers by now."
"Well, yeah, I do." I snatch up the bag and stuff it into the top drawer by the bed. "But you know nurses, they're sticklers for the food thing. And I can't believe you took a bet of Amanda's."
He's got a look on his face like a kid caught in the cookie jar. "Yeah, well, I thought it was a good one," he mutters. "I was relying on you to come through for me, Dawson."
"Hey, you can't say I didn't try," I shrug. "I've pretty much got Kate on side, but she just won't budge on sugar."
"The red-head, right?" He's suddenly looking interested.
"Yeah. And hands off. I didn't end up in here just so you can hit on the staff."
"I wouldn't dare," he grins, rueful. "Amanda would have my balls."
"Good for her."
He looks across at me with innocent eyes. "But it wouldn't do any harm to use a little of my charm on your behalf, right?"
"Knock yourself out." And I'm this close to bursting out laughing and trying to keep control of my diaphragm, and shit, that's one hell of a big mistake because next moment it's like someone lit a fire in my spine and it just fucking hurts. And that's still got to be the understatement of the year, but I'm not feeling all that poetic right this second. Fingers on the wire, creeping along the plasticised surface to the end that can't possibly be all that far away, and despite the pain I'm still stubborn enough that I'm hoping Duncan doesn't notice. And finally, I'm pressing at the button, and the damn machine just bleeps at me. No more juice for Joe Dawson, he's hit the limit. My teeth are clenched rigid and I look over at the display. I'm cut off for nearly an hour. A fucking hour!
And there's damn all hope now that Mac hasn't seen it, and I meet his eyes as the spasms ease back down to a level I can think about tolerating, so I can unlock my muscles and breathe something like normal.
"Bad, huh?" Quiet sympathy so clear in two words, and I don't want it.
"Hey, I can live with it," I say, because that's what you've gotta say. And that closes the subject, because neither of us really wants to talk about it. It's not like I would have picked liver cancer in the first place, but I sure lucked out with the metastases to the spine. Hell, I'll be opting out of that one next time round if I get the choice.
"So where's your shadow today?" I ask, nodding towards the corridor. I've gotten the bed set up so I can look out the open door and see what's going on. There's been nobody in sight since Mac showed up.
He looks up at me, open relief at the change of subject. "Outside in his car. After three days, he's figured out I'm not planning to jump from the window and ditch him," he adds with a grin.
I roll my eyes. "They must be getting desperate." In my day, nobody that incompetent would have gotten within a mile of a field assignment. They must think it don't matter with Duncan; he knows all about them anyway and he never tries to hide. Well, apart from that one year, and I hope to God that's not gonna be repeated.
"I think they try them out on me," he says, laughing. "It hasn't been the same one for longer than a few months the last couple of years."
And, yeah, I can see some tight-assed idiot deciding it'd be a good idea to give the youngsters an easy start. Just so long as they don't take their sloppy habits to the next assignment, the one who'll kill them.
There's footsteps again in the corridor and I ignore them because it'll just be one of the nurses. And then I look at Mac and he's frozen rigid and staring at the door.
I look up just in time to see him halt in the doorway.
Oh shit.
It still hits me just as hard. Even with who I am, what I know, everything I've done. I don't notice it with MacLeod, because who ever really sees change in the people they see every day? But to look up and see him exactly the same after twenty years... Jesus.
He's grown his hair a little longer again, like when I first met him, and his clothes actually fit him for once. He's leaning against the doorpost, and Mac's staring at him like he's the Second Coming or something, but he's only watching me.
"Hi," I say, because it's been quiet in here too long, and then I stop. And it's so damn inadequate that all I've got for a one-time friend is a single word, but hell, I don't even know what to call him. He can't be Methos here, and he won't be Adam Pierson any more either.
"Hi, Joe," he says softly, and he's moving again, into the room; quick, sideways glance at Mac. "MacLeod." Then his attention's back with me again. He grabs the other visitors' chair, hauls it around to the side of the bed away from Mac, the legs dragging softly across the carpet. Angles it so he can look at me and only see Mac out of the corner of his eye.
I still don't know what the hell happened there. They were together and then they weren't, Methos gone abruptly one night. Duncan didn't want to talk about it, and there's only so much support a friend can offer before it starts to seem like prying. If he'd wanted to talk, I'd have listened, but he wanted to brood. And then a couple of months after, Amanda showed up, grieving for Nick, and they were good for one another in that strange way they always are.
And now Methos is here, stretched out with long legs sprawled wide, and I don't know whether to be glad to see him or pissed that he disappeared for all those years. God knows what it must be like for MacLeod. I look over at the Highlander, but he hasn't paid me any attention since Methos drifted in, the ghost of Christmas past.
And the clock's ticking and I'm groping in my drawer and offering away my barley sugars because I don't know what the hell else to do, and having them politely declined by both Immortals. And then MacLeod stands and casually makes his excuses, promising to be back later, and whatever I might have thought about a possible reunion between these two, silence wasn't it.
So it's just me and him.
"You've been keeping tabs on me?" Hating the weak voice that comes out, but I still don't know whether I'm really angry or not, and neutral right now just sounds like a dying old man.
"You know I have, Joe."
Yeah, I do, and that's one of those things I should be mad about, right? Haven't seen him for more than eighteen years, but he has me spied on. But then, he didn't just forget about me. It's the only thing I've got to prove that, beside the e-mails twice a year. No-reply e-mails, and I didn't even bother to check out the IP address because I knew it would be false.
"You could have at least let me reply." My words are accusing and it's there in my tone too. I guess I am pissed after all.
He just shrugs. "It was easier that way."
"Easier for you, you mean."
He doesn't deny it. "Would you have tried to find me?"
"Maybe," I acknowledge grudgingly.
"Would you have tried to talk me into coming back?"
"Yeah, I would've." And I damn well don't feel bad about it either. So, yeah, I know all his reasons for hiding out, just not those for bailing in the first place. At least he let me know he was still alive, which is more than anyone else on the planet got so far as I can tell.
Tick, tick, tick, and I'm starting to wish I had something to throw. Only I wouldn't anyway, because that would be an invitation to some serious pain. And he sits there and looks at me, and I sit here and look at him. It's funny how two decades can change the way you see somebody and it's hard to find the friend I drank with in this stranger by my bed.
He leans forwards and pulls both hands across his head, leaving bangs straying lopsided when he lifts his face again. "I'm sorry, Joe. I didn't plan on staying away so long." And suddenly he's just Adam again, whatever the hell he's calling himself these days.
"You must've had your reasons," I concede. "You always do."
He shakes his head, smiling sadly. "It's a poor excuse, Joe."
"Well, you better take it," I say with a grin, "'Cos it's the only one you got."
He squints his eyes and one side of his mouth twists upwards. "You want to offer me those barley sugars again now?"
I gently toss him the packet, which I've left on the bed. Careless, but hey, I got bigger things on my mind. "You better leave some for me," I growl unconvincingly. "I gotta get 'em specially ordered and delivered, you know."
"MacLeod shopping services?"
"Something like that. So, you been keeping out of trouble?"
"Out of trouble, out of the Game." He pauses briefly, more serious again. "It's good, Joe."
"Yeah." It must be nice to catch a break from maniacs wanting to decapitate you. Sometimes, even now, it's hard to envy them. Though when the pain's really bad, I'd take their deal in a second. "Where've you been?"
He stops sucking for a moment to smile.
"Well, it was worth a try," I grumble half-heartedly. "Here, give me one of those things. May as well eat a few before the nurses hunt them down." He passes the bag over, and I take some out, leaving him with the rest.
"The people I asked about you," he says carefully. "None of them said anything about Amy."
And that still hurts, even though I long since learned to live with it. "We do see each other sometimes," I say quietly. "She's still with the Watchers, doing research." I don't say that I only see her by accident. She doesn't come looking for me and I don't go where I'm not wanted. I think he sees what I don't say.
"I'm sorry." It's the second time in ten minutes he's said that, which has to be some kind of miracle.
"Not your fault," I say with a forced shrug. And that pushes up the pain level that bit more, a warning and I freeze, muscles braced against it. Clock check - less than twenty minutes of that hour gone.
There's that look on his face that most people would say wasn't anything, but I know as guilt. "I couldn't come back. The longer I stayed away, the harder it got to try to explain."
Oh, but he can make the effort now. I never wanted the damn explanation, sure as hell wouldn't have been so stupid as to expect one. "Well, there's no danger of that, is there, M-" I cut myself off just in time, but I'm getting pissed again now. "I'll die conveniently soon and you get to go away feeling good about yourself 'cos you bothered to show up."
Bang. That one got him. His lips thin. "It's not like that, Joe."
"No? Turned up here on a whim, huh? Same way you just stroll in and out of people's lives all the time?"
"I wanted to see you."
"Cut it a bit fine, didn't you?"
All that sincere appeal wiped out in an instant, eyes narrowing. Damn, it feels good to pay back some of what he's done to me. "Looks like I probably did." He shakes his head, hauls himself out of the chair and in seconds he's gone. Just as sudden as he showed up.
I slump back against the pillows and my back's giving me some major hell again, and yeah, I know that some of the mood's probably down to the pain. But it's a shitty thing to have him turn up now out of some kind of fucking obligation. Jesus, he didn't even give me a name. Probably didn't trust me not to tell Mac. So now he can just wander back to whatever hole he's been hiding in.
Except he can't, not so easily. Mac's Watcher was right outside, would have seen him walk in, and they'll just love to know that Adam Pierson's surfaced again. He had to have known, damn him - that Watcher wouldn't even try to stay out of sight. He got himself noticed again, and he did it to see me, not MacLeod.
And now I feel like crap, and I want him back here, but it's too late. And maybe he'll be back in a day or two and maybe he's gone for good.
He left my barley sugars on the chair.
The clock's still ticking in the silence, but those hands aren't going anywhere as I watch them, and this is one of those times it hits me that this is me, a dying old man who can't ever get enough morphine.
There's footsteps outside again, familiar; he must have been watching, waiting for Methos to leave, and sometimes I just got to thank a God I don't believe in for Duncan MacLeod. He flops back into his chair, eyes dark and painful.
"I'm sorry."
And that's got me stumped, because I can't work out why he should be apologizing to me. "What the hell for?"
"None of it was your fault, Joe. You lost a friend because we messed up."
Well, yeah, I guess you could look at it that way if you wanted to do the guilt thing. And, hell, what a party today is turning out to be all round. "It's not your fault either, Mac." So here's a role reversal for the records, a dying man trying to comfort an Immortal. "You can't know the future. Nobody knows if these things will work out."
He smiles without humour. "It should have been obvious to an idiot, Joe. We're both way too old to change."
"What's there to change? You were good together, Mac."
"But we can't live the same way." And there it is, just that simple after all these years of not talking about it. Methos always did tend to drag drama behind him, and confessions in his wake fit right in.
"No compromise, huh?"
"No."
I know the problem, thought about it years before when he vanished. Methos, the perpetual chameleon and the Highlander, carrying his name before him like a standard, a symbol of everything he is and what he stands for. Yeah, this was one of the biggies on my list of what could have gone wrong, driven him away. He loved Mac, I know he did, but that's just not enough. Never is.
And now it's my turn to say, "I'm sorry," and it seems ridiculous because the pain from the ending of that relationship was mostly over years before. Yet here it is again, back to bite us both on the ass.
I guess Mac sees it too, because he gives me a quick flash of teeth. "Sometimes I wonder how I got to be this age and still be such a fool."
"Hell, we make a matching pair, Mac." And the funny thing is, we do. We always did.
He changes the subject, then, starts telling me about some silly exploit of Amanda's. She's not the user she once was, that girl, but that never stopped her getting into trouble in the oddest ways. And I'm only half-listening really, because I'm fighting down the whimper that's hanging out somewhere in my throat, and it's good to have him here, just let a friend's voice talk to me through the worst of it.
He's off pitch, though, since he showed up like that. He's just making conversation, and I'm not surprised when he says he's going to leave. Usually he'd stay most of the afternoon, but I've got a feeling he wants Amanda right now, not an old man. He turns to go with a parting smile.
"Hey, Mac." He stops, looks back. "Do me a favour, huh?"
"Sure, Joe. Just name it." And he means it too, which is almost scary.
I grin. "Stop that damn clock on your way out?"
"Your wish is my command." He gives an exaggerated bow, right down to his toes, then reaches up and stops the pendulum. "See you, Joe."
"Bye, Mac."
Footsteps leaving. A few muffled voices from down the hall. Time passing, tickless. It's quiet here, and sometimes I just want the noise.
I twist slowly to check my watch without jarring my spine. Still six minutes before my next dose. Fuck, fuck! No visitors now, no need to hide it and the pain has me frozen rigid and wanting to scream out all my rage and I'm wishing all this and more on those fucking senators who kicked out the Voluntary Euthanasia bill last term. Shit, shit, I just want it to stop!
Minutes, eternities, not much difference so far as I can tell, and the relief when that machine beeps almost eases the pain even before I can press that button and send liquid disassociation into my vein. It doesn't stop the pain, no, just puts it in a box where it's not so intimate a part of me. Somewhere I can almost forget about it for a while.
And now I can think again, I wonder what to do.
Music. I start to reach for the control by my bed, but I can't stand the way the radio hosts won't keep their traps shut, and most of my CDs are blues. I don't listen much since I stopped being able to play.
The hospice ain't so bad. Better than dying in an actual hospital, no peace at night. Kate will be round to check on me again soon, ask what I want to eat later.
Mac will be back tomorrow. He always is.
The end