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Two months, it had been, since Connor’s death. Two months of feeling utterly untethered, utterly disconnected from the world and what was in it, his last root to his home and identity severed.
Two months of the black cloud of grief and despair that seemed to follow him everywhere he went, and of bitterness and anger toward his kinsman for doing this to him.
Two months of guilt, for feeling that way about his closest family, his dearest friend.
He’d gone back to Scotland, gone to bury Connor, and stayed for a little while. His home hadn’t felt quite like home in a long time, though, and without Connor in the world anymore it had just saddened him. It had been nothing but a reminder of all he’d lost, and that grieved him too. What was he supposed to do when his home wasn’t his home anymore? When being there made him feel only the ache of his losses?
He’d returned to France after that, for a little while, but that had borne its own unwelcome memories. Traveling back to Washington hadn’t been much better, but retreating to his cabin had served to. . . to steady him a little, at least, if not actually make things better. It was easier here to let the worst of it wash over him, at least for the moment. Easier to understand that, maybe, there was a bit of light somewhere in the future. This place had provided precisely that kind of sanctuary to him in the past.
It was still almost impossible to truly believe things would get better.
He went through the motions anyway. He did maintenance on the cabin, on the little pier. He went canoeing and hiking. He meditated and went through martial forms, every day. If nothing else, he felt a touch more peaceful while he was moving. The storm in his skull and ribcage quieted then, a little.
He returned from a circuit of the island, one day, to the sensation of immortal presence.
His first vague, weary, uncontrolled thought was that it had to be Connor, or Richie. They were the only other immortals who’d know to find him here.
But of course, that was impossible.
He bowed his head as he walked, not looking, not yet. He was safe here from headhunters, and he didn’t think he would have cared much even if that hadn’t been the case.
He finally looked up as he approached the front steps of the cabin, slowing and coming to an eventual stop a few paces away. Methos sat there, elbows resting on his knees as he gazed at Mac with an assessing sort of expression. Arrayed behind him on the porch was a small assortment of cartons and paper bags full of food, mostly fruit and vegetables from what he could see, probably from the little farmer’s market along the nearest road.
“Methos,” he said quietly, and then stood in uncertain silence for a minute. He’d been up here a couple of weeks now, and had no intention of leaving any time soon. He hadn’t been expecting company, or any sort of social interaction, and he wasn’t sure. . . how. How to properly be a person right now.
He slowly closed the rest of the distance to the steps, climbing the first couple and turning to sit next to the old man. Methos, for his part, reached over into his collection of produce and set a container of some of the most beautiful strawberries Macleod had ever seen between them, selecting one and nibbling on it idly.
Macleod took one automatically as well, rolling it in his fingers for a minute before biting off the end of it, not really tasting it at all. “How did you find me?” he asked quietly.
Methos just looked at him sidelong, the corner of his mouth quirking in a crooked smile.
“Joe,” Macleod guessed.
Methos lifted one shoulder in a silent shrug.
Macleod finished the strawberry, absently reaching for a second one. “Are you going to say anything?”
Methos straightened, idly tossing the papery leaves of his own strawberry off the steps. “Do you want me to?” he asked.
Macleod didn’t have an answer for that.
They slowly finished the strawberries in silence, and Methos replaced the empty carton with one of equally glowing blueberries as they watched the sun drift toward the west.
“How do you do it?” Macleod heard himself ask distantly, after what must have been almost an hour of sitting in silence.
Methos glanced at him inquisitively.
He let out a short sigh. “How do. . . five thousand years, Methos, you must’ve been through. . . you must’ve lost. . .”
Methos gave a sigh of his own. “Horrifying things. Hundreds of people I loved very much.” He agreed quietly.
Macleod bowed his head, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “How do you keep going after that? How do you see a way forward? How do you not just. . .” He made a helpless gesture and raked a hand through his hair “How can you even stand to get up in the morning after pain like that?”
Methos was quiet for a minute. He reached down and plucked a single berry from the carton between them, holding it up before his eyes and rolling it slowly between his fingers.
“Because here,” he finally said softly “There are blueberries.”
Macleod swallowed, watching him, watching the berry he held until he tossed it into his mouth.
“Here there are olive trees,” Methos went on, just as softly, but with more intent, more strength behind the words “Here there is punk music, and motorcycles, and fireworks and songbirds and games of chess.”
Macleod didn’t entirely understand what he was saying yet, what he meant, but the words and tone wove a spell that he didn’t dare interrupt or break.
“Here there are thunderstorms, and bad horror movies, and all the millions of works of literature humanity has produced. Horses and sailboats and gothic architecture. Here we have the sun and stars and moon, Duncan.”
He rose slowly to his feet, moving loose-limbed down the steps until he stood at their base, face turned into the sunlight.
Macleod was beginning to understand what he was saying, but his understanding felt distant, tentative and fragile.
“And that’s it?” he said quietly, despairing of any true comprehension.
Methos turned to look at him, one eye luminous sage-green in the sunlight, the other shadowed to near-black. He gave a terribly sad little smile.
“We all have our things to live for,” he said, his words low and almost rhythmic “A person. An ideology. A faith. A place. We cannot help but tie ourselves to what we know, what we love.”
He tilted his head back, taking a deep breath “But everything changes, everything fades, everything shifts. The things you live for never keep their shape. Sometimes it changes until it’s unrecognizable. Sometimes you change, or are forced to change, until it’s no longer important to who you’ve become. Sometimes you lose it entirely, one way or another, and then what do you do? What are you supposed to live for, when all that was important to you is gone?”
He took another deep breath, closing his eyes.
“To live that way, though,” He went on, quietly enough that it was hard to hear him over the sound of soft breeze and gentle lapping water “To live that way, sometimes you don’t realize how much more there is. How important all of it is.” Macleod could see him smiling “That you can live for everything, and for nothing at all. Nothing but yourself.”
He laughed then, startling in a way that sent an thread of energy through Macleod’s heart and mind, a faint unexpected jolt that made him sit up straight.
“I have wanted to die before, Macleod. To give up. Oh, I have. But imagine what I would have missed! The art, the music, the discoveries! I never would have seen the Himalayas, or the Grand Canyon, or perhaps even the ocean. Never would have watched Japanese theater, learned to waltz, walked the Silk Road or the Roman highways or the deer trails of the Pacific Northwest.”
He lifted both hands to gesture around at the island, at the forest beyond it, and when after a moment he wheeled around, he was grinning. “I would never have seen what we can do now, what we’re capable of. We can travel hundreds of miles in a day, Macleod! We can cure things that once killed thousands of people! We eradicated smallpox ! We can talk to someone on the other side of the world instantly, write them a letter that they’ll receive in a second! We can fly! ”
He gestured broadly at the sky, laughing again. “We’ve been to the moon! How incredible is that? The moon! And where do you think we’ll go next? We are mapping the cosmos, learning more every single day! This is the age of discovery, Macleod, I can’t even begin to keep up!”
He climbed the stairs again, collapsing back to where he’d been sitting and picking up another blueberry to eat.
“I can’t begin to keep up, and it’s wonderful. I will never, ever run out of things to live for. Not if I live a million years, because the world is so incredibly, unbelievably full! ”
He took another long, deep breath, and unconsciously Macleod mimicked him, filling his lungs with the scent of lake water and pine and fresh, clean air.
“You make a choice, Macleod,” Methos went on more softly “You choose to look at the world, and to love it for its own sake, and for yours. To love everything, to step outside in the morning and see what is wonderful, what is mysterious, what is intriguing. You fill your heart with everything there is, and one day. . .”
He reached down to pluck another blueberry from the carton, staring at it with a smile “One day, you realize you didn’t wake up thinking about giving up. You realize you thought about fishing, or poetry, or making scones, or that one really neat lizard you saw once.” He grinned at the faint scoff Macleod gave, but didn’t stop speaking “And eventually, somewhere down the line, you realize you didn’t think about giving up at all that day. You realize the losses don’t hurt as badly, because you have filled in the spaces around them with all that you love. That you have gained so much just by living, and you don’t want to give up anymore because god, look at what you’d be missing.”
He held the blueberry out to Macleod, and all unthinking Macleod reached out and took it from him. Methos smiled.
“You live five thousand years by choosing it, Duncan,” he said softly, his voice low and warm “You choose it every day.” He reached down for another blueberry, holding it up in a strange, funny sort of toast “You choose it, because-”
Macleod didn’t need any prompt to finish the sentence, as he ate the blueberry Methos had handed him, and for the first time in what felt like a long while he could truly taste the sweetness of it.
“Because here,” he murmured “There are blueberries.”