Soundtrack from Le Blues Bar
Joe closed the door behind the final customers of the night, and locked out the cool winter air with them. The last time he had looked at the clock on the wall it had read two-thirty, and that was already a good half-hour ago. His thighs were screaming at him to sit down and take off his prostheses, and the worst part was that he knew the pain wouldn’t go away until hours after he did it. He rubbed his right leg furiously and tried to hide his discomfort by staying close to the door. He knew that he had failed when he heard Macleod start stacking chairs behind him.
“Get up and help me, Methos,” the Highlander muttered.
“Never mind,” Joe barked, turning around. “Sit back down and have another beer, Adam, why don’t you.”
Methos’ eyebrows rose with unconcealed amusement. “You’re giving me mixed signals, Dawson. Shall I sit down to save your pride or get up because you think I’m lazy?”
“You’re always lazy,” Joe grumbled. “It's an undeniable fact of history.”
Amanda swanned in from the ladies’ room before Methos could lob another insult his way. “Did I miss anything, boys?”
“Just the old man wearing out his welcome,” Macleod said, caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
Adam had that effect on people, Joe thought, but he couldn’t help being less charmed by it than he’d been twenty years ago. Hell, even ten years ago his bones had ached infrequently enough that he hadn’t minded the eternally youthful Adam being called “the old man". Not so in the Year of Our Lord 2023, when every day made Joe feel more ancient.
A tinkling laugh escaped Amanda’s throat, and she danced over to the stereo system. Le Blues Bar hosted live performances on Fridays and Saturdays, and Joe hadn’t bothered programming anything since Thursday. Amanda flipped through his old tracks with a small moue of discontent. She looked even prettier when she was pouting, Joe thought, a bit wistfully. Even if Amanda wasn’t really his style, any man could see how sexy she was, how fun and joyous and full of life. Somehow he resented her less for it than he did Adam, even if she was a thousand years old. The red mini-dress probably helped.
As if reading his mind, the immortal woman put on Michael Bublé’s rendition of “Sway” and twirled over to her two compatriots. To Joe’s surprise, she pulled Methos to his feet instead of Macleod, effortlessly drawing him into position. A quiet smile quirked Methos’ lips and he assumed the lead, dancing the Mambo with a grace that should not have surprised Joe, but did.
“Too many Blues in this place, Dawson,” Amanda cried out as she swished past him. The music rose in volume and tempo, and Amanda lifted her leg, just barely staying decent in the little red dress. “Time to put some life back in your blood.”
Joe grunted and finally allowed himself to collapse in a chair. “Speak for yourself.”
From across the impromptu dance-floor, Joe saw the amusement fall from Macleod's face as he caught wind of the Watcher’s unhappiness. The Scot navigated around the dancers and took a chair next to Dawson.
“Never mind, Macleod,” Joe muttered. “I’m just not my best self tonight. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“We should go home,” Macleod said. “It’s late and you need your sleep.”
“I’m not your grandfather, Mac. Or your kid. No need to tuck me into bed.”
Duncan nodded slowly. “All right, Joe.”
There was too much understanding written across the features of a face that hadn’t changed in the thirty-some years that Joe had watched it. There had been some days when he had doubted if Immortals were truly real, if they might not be a joke invented to entertain the wicked at the expense of the gullible. And though the veracity of Immortal existence had been proven to Dawson again and again, as Joe grew older and weaker he sometimes wished it was a hoax after all.
A burst of laughter from Amanda caught his attention. She had tipped her head back and was relying on Methos to hold her weight. As she came up again, she leaned into the oldest man on Earth and wrapped her arms around her neck, offering him a sultry smile.
The wry amusement that had been fixed on Methos face turned to something wary, skittish. Gently, he pushed Amanda back.
“Had a few too many beers?” Methos quipped.
“Hardly, darling! Cabernet Sauvignon is more my speed. Care to buy me one?” she purred, blinking up at him with an unmistakable invitation.
Joe held his breath and felt Macleod doing the same beside him there. He had never seen Amanda turn her attentions on Methos before, but the Watcher was suddenly astonished that it was only just happening now. There was something about Methos and Amanda that seemed right. Maybe it was because Macleod drew tricksters to him so effortlessly, as if to balance his own sober character, but the two were similar in so many ways. Mercurial. Quixotic yet self-interested. Hard to pin down.
“I’m just a poor scholar,” Methos said. The smile on his lips looked fixed. “I’m afraid Cabernet Sauvignon is out of my league.”
He slipped away from Amanda with the effortless, oiled movement of an otter, and grabbed his coat from the back of a chair.
“See…you…later,” he murmured.
The snick of the door unlocking and then clicking shut was terribly loud in the silence. Joe stared steadily at the clock on the wall—it read 3:16—while from the corner of his eye he saw Macleod staring at Amanda.
“Happy now?” the Scot demanded.
“What?” Amanda asked, eyes too wide.
“Amanda,” Macleod growled.
“What?” she repeated. “Oh, come on, Macleod, he’s a big boy. If he wasn’t interested all he had to do was say no. He didn’t have to go… screaming into the night.”
“You know how he is. We probably won’t see him now for another six months. So, thanks.”
Amanda huffed and crossed her arms while Macleod collected his coat.
“I’ll see you, Joe.”
“Yeah, sure, Macleod.”
“Come on, Amanda.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just stay here for a little while and—”
“No. Come on, Amanda.”
Macleod grasped her by the arm, offering a stiff smile to Joe on the way to the door. He yanked it all the way open, letting in the brisk January breeze. Amanda continued protesting as Macleod pulled her out the door and slammed it shut behind them.
Then Joe was alone with his aching legs, and the silence.
“Great,” Dawson muttered. “Just great.”
True to Macleod’s prediction, Methos didn’t turn up the next day, or the day after that. Amanda pouted for a week or so before departing for better climes herself, while Macleod sulked around the bar at what seemed like all hours.
“What’s the big deal anyway?” Dawson finally asked. “So, Amanda made a move. Methos is a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“He shouldn’t have to,” Macleod said. He knocked his knuckles against the bar. “Methos is our friend. My friend. Amanda’s too. Why couldn’t she just leave well enough alone?”
“Who exactly are you jealous of in this situation?”
“I’m not jealous! I’m not jealous,” Macleod repeated, lowering his voice.
“You’re pouting,” Joe said.
Macleod’s lower lip stuck out.
“See? Pouting. Look, you can’t keep a leash on Amanda, any more than you can keep one on a cat. You can’t keep one on Adam either, come to think of it. But they like you for some reason—” he ignored the Highlander’s renewed pout—"and Methos will be back. So will Amanda.”
Joe watched the Highlander nod, more depressed than agreeing, before he started pacing around the bar again. The Watcher opened his laptop and signed into the system. He hit a few keys.
“Amanda’s in Rome. Last seen at the Borghese Gallery,” he said. “Probably robbing the joint blind.”
“Yeah, probably. And Methos?”
“No sign of Adam Pierson, or “Matthew Adamson”.
“Didn’t he go back to university again?”
“Mm. Master’s degree in computer science. Most of it he can do online, so he’s really not tied down.”
“Computer science,” Macleod scoffed. “Didn’t he learn anything from the Watcher database?”
“That was close to thirty years ago, Macleod! Besides, the whole world’s going that way and you know it. The Watcher system went fully online over twenty years ago now. Methos lead the team that designed it.”
Macleod appeared bewildered and a bit wounded, and Joe felt a flash of sympathy that evaporated as soon as Macleod rolled his eyes.
“You realize that he’s put about a dozen back doors into it. How did he manage to convince your people to let him do that anyway? Don't they know he's Immortal now? And I thought he was supposed to be a researcher in ancient languages, not a computer programmer.”
“That was before they knew really knew that he was Immortal. We've recruited our own programmers since then to maintain the system. And lots of people pick up extra skills, Macleod. You should try it sometime.”
“I pick up lots of skills!” Macleod insisted, in full outrage mode.
“Yeah, yeah. All I’m saying is that the world is changing. And Methos knows how to change with it. How do you think he’s survived this long? Not by hanging on to the old ways.”
“Yeah,” the Highlander muttered. “Well, when your whole system goes up in smoke one day like a genie, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Joe didn’t have to look at the Highlander to know that he was still pouting. Pointedly, the Watcher continued clicking through the database, catching up on recent news. He navigated out of the Paris office and, as if compelled by some outside force, opened London.
Amy Thomas had filed a report one week before. Her profile picture was new, Joe noticed. His daughter had to be in her mid-fifties now. Hard to believe.
Joe sighed explosively. “Get outta here, Mac. Go for a drive or something. Clear your head. I’ll let you know when Adam gets back into town.”
“Fine. See you, Joe.”
“Later, Macleod.”
Joe clicked out of the system and watched the log vanish with a bright silver glint. He had never thought of it before, but the animation looked remarkably like someone winking.
Chapter Two: Paris Blues
Joe thought about Amy for a week before he made the call. If he was being honest with himself, there wasn't much else for him to do. Macleod had skipped town, and Joe was too old now to jump on a plane every time the Scot was feeling restless. He wasn’t always sure where the man went these days when he wasn’t in Paris. Seacouver was a bust. The town was too small, and too many people had started noticing that the Highlander never aged. Even good nutrition and Botox could only explain so much.
Just tell that to Jennifer Lopez, Joe thought ruefully.
He supposed he should set Macleod up with a younger field agent, but Mac was pretty good about giving Joe a report of his own activities every few months or so, even if he did skimp on the details, and Head Office knew better than to poke the beast. Macleod's relationship with the Watchers had not always been as amicable as it was now. It was a stalemate, but it worked for both parties.
So Dawson kept Le Blues Bar in style, booked great acts so the place didn’t get a reputation as a watering hole for old fogeys, and hired extra staff whenever the work got to be too much for him. Usually that was enough but, with all three of his closest friends out of town, Dawson had very little to keep him distracted from the knowledge that he was approaching eighty years of age. The hourglass was nearly empty, and Joe still wasn’t sure if his life’s work had been worth the hours, the years, he had given to it.
The Watcher hobbled over to the stage and pulled his Gibson Les Paul off the stand. He gave it a strum and scowled. The guitar was out of tune. Joe’s hands moved of their own volition, following the cues of his ear. The Blues should have been his life’s work, really. He wasn’t a natural academic; only after Vietnam he hadn’t had many choices. He definitely hadn’t had the kind of energy you needed to develop a full-time musical career.
On the plus side, he had managed to release an album a few years back, and Le Blues Bar had a name for drawing talent. Even if it was too late to rise to the top himself, the Gibson still talked to him as it had when he was young, and age flavoured the Blues in a way even the loss of his legs hadn’t.
Joe played “Paris Blues” from the Doors. He'd only just heard it a few months back. Recorded in the sixties, the track had been lost for fifty years and only remastered and released in 2022. It was a real Blues number, mellow and smooth. So here was Jim Morrison, forever twenty-seven and singing about being old and far from home. Joe squeezed out the chords and thought about home. He’d lived in Paris on and off for decades, spoke French almost as well as a native, but it still wasn’t home. Only trouble was, there was no home now. He’d followed Immortals all around the globe and lost any chance of staying grounded. But maybe it had happened long before that, when he'd left his legs behind in east Asia. Maybe he had lost more than just flesh and bone out there.
Some days, he couldn't help feeling that he had drifted through his own life like a ghost.
He thought of his daughter again. He hadn’t tried as hard as he should have, but Amy was a grown woman. He had never felt welcome by her, had never felt confident enough to build a relationship with her.
Now it was nearly too late. He thought of her picture again. Grey in her dark hair and lines on her face, but still the prettiest girl he had ever seen.
It was the sweet ache in his heart that convinced him to scroll through his phone and find her number.
The band was launching into their first track of the night, Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind”, and Joe was looking forward to hearing the hot pipes on the lead singer. She'd really blown him away in the audition tape, and he hoped that she was just as good live. He leaned on the bar and started listening to the instrumental intro, which was doing some very promising things with the rhythm.
At around the twenty-second mark, he saw Amanda slip into the club. Dawson sighed. He wouldn’t be getting much listening done now.
“Joe, darling,” Amanda purred. She didn’t bother waiting for him to answer before offering air kisses. Joe, still an American at heart, failed to reciprocate.
“Amanda,” he grunted, pinning her with a wary eye.
Amanda grinned and popped down on a seat next to him, crossing one leather-clad leg over the other and cocking a slate-grey, thousand-dollar, Jimmy Choe pump like a pistol.
“Have you heard from Adam?”
“Straight to the point, huh.”
“Can’t fool you.” She reached behind the bar and drew out a bottle of the good stuff. “I need a shot glass,” she shouted over the singer (What a voice, Joe thought wistfully), crooking a finger at the bartender.
“Get me one, too,” Joe said.
“I knew you’d see things my way,” Amanda said.
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
This he said with the weary resignation typical of such late joiners but, if Amanda noticed at all, she didn’t seem burdened by it.
“Amen to that.” She held out her glass in an imaginary toast, then tipped it all back in one shot.
Joe studied the always-young looking woman, watched as her eyes were scanned the crowd and the door with the fleet movements of a pro.
“He’s not back.”
She frowned and poured another drink. “Any idea where he might be?”
“Why do you care so much? You were never that close.”
“Close enough. But maybe I wanted to be closer.”
“That much was obvious, but why?”
Amanda shrugged. “Duncan’s a dear, and I love him, but he can be a real drag too, you know? Adam’s fun. We get along well. Why not?”
“Maybe that wasn’t a good enough reason for him. You have a few things in common, I’ll grant you, but you haven’t been paying attention if you think that Adam’s interested in flings. If there’s one thing he takes seriously, it’s love.”
“Seems like a funny attitude for a man who’s been married dozens of times.”
Joe shrugged. “That tells me something right there. He bothers to get married at all, for one thing. For another, he could have been married hundreds of times, never mind a few dozen. It means something more to him than just a bit of fun. Maybe it was different when he was your age.”
Amanda laughed. “From what I’ve heard, when he was my age, he didn’t do much asking.”
Joe frowned into his glass. “No, I guess not.”
Amanda huffed. “What, too soon? It’s just a joke, Joe.”
“Yeah, not a joke I’d try out with Adam.”
She tipped a bit more into the glass and swirled it around, looking into the far distance in a way that reminded Joe that this woman was far older than Macleod, and only a fifth of Methos’ own age. Like Adam’s perpetual careless slouch, her flippant attitude made it so easy to forget who she really was. And much like Adam, she probably planned it that way.
“Well, how about Duncan?”
“I’ve got a report from a couple a days ago that says he’s in London.”
“Ooh, London,” Amanda gushed. “I think I’ll take a little trip.”
She stood up as if she planned to hop on a plane right then, brushing imaginary dirt from the buttery leather of her trousers.
“Hey, wait a second,” Joe called over the music, seeing Amanda about to disappear. “If you’re going to London, can you take something for me?” He reached behind the bar, fumbling under the cash register.
“To one of your Watcher buddies?” she sneered. “I don’t think so, Dawson.”
“Not exactly. I mean, she is, but it’s a gift, not Watcher business.”
“She?” Amanda’s eyes glittered. “Still keeping your hand in, Joe? I approve.”
Joe blushed fiercely. “It’s not like that. She’s, ah, family. Look, can you just take this? It’s a birthday gift.”
Only about fifty-five birthdays. Joe heard the pleading note in his own voice, and Amanda must have too. She eyed the blue velvet box nestled in his outstretched hand.
“Jewellery? Joe, you shouldn’t have.”
Dawson groaned. “Please make sure it gets there in one piece. Remember I told you where Macleod is.”
Amanda’s hand snapped closed over the box. She tugged it from Joe’s grasp before he could change his mind.
“Consider it done.”
“Here, I’ll give you the address.” He grabbed a block of Le Blues Bar stationery and scribbled Amy’s address down, along with her name.
“Amy Thomas,” Amanda read. “Doesn’t ring any bells. But don’t think I won’t find out.”
“I’m sure you will. But not today.”
Still Joe found himself hoping that she would know about his daughter someday. If Amy approved, he would tell the world.
Amanda sashayed out soon after. True to form, she'd made him miss the whole song.
Amy sent him a text around the same time that Methos did. Joe got the message from the Immortal first, a terse “Finishing my thesis. Will drop by soon.” that left Joe smiling all day. It was terribly funny to think that a man who might have used stone implements now spent his days writing programs in Python. Funny, and amazing. It was things like that that reminded Joe of why he had taken an interest in Immortals all those years ago.
The novelty sustained Joe until around lunchtime, when the next text came. The bar owner had just hired a new chef, and he was testing specials before they went on the menu. Joe kept a laminated paper menu in addition to the stylish website and online menu that Adam had whipped up for him a few years back. They had gone online completely during the pandemic, doing mostly takeout, but Joe appreciated the physical menu too much to do away with it entirely.
He remembered Methos in the office of Le Blues Bar. Paris was in full lockdown, and Methos had been spending most of his time hanging around in the office, for want of anything else to do. He'd been tinkering with the website's design and shaking his head over some private joke as they listened to Covid 19 news on the radio.
“What’s so funny?” Joe had asked through his paper medical mask. The Immortal had assured him that he couldn't pass on any diseases by coughing or breathing, and while the Chronicles mostly backed that up, Joe wasn't taking any chances.
“Get your daily plague report,” Methos said in an exaggerated London newsboy accent.
Joe snorted. “The times they are a changin.’”
“Kronos must be rolling in his grave.” Methos leaned back in the office chair and put his feet up while he laughed in a rueful kind of way that didn’t quite hide a wisp of nostalgia. Joe was just glad that Macleod wasn’t around to hear it.
“I thought this was just his kind of thing.”
“Exactly. He’d be furious he missed it. You should have seen him during the Black Death.”
Joe sneaked a glance at Methos from the corner of his eye. According to Macleod, Methos claimed not to have seen Kronos since the early Iron Age.
“You're just going to drop this on me now, Pierson?" he asked sharply. "Meet up for drinks much then?”
Methos shrugged and dropped his feet back to the floor with an abrupt thump of the computer chair.
“You know me, Joe. I know how to keep myself busy.”
"Right," Dawson grunted. "Next you'll tell me you saw him dancing a Swing during the Spanish Flu."
"It was the Foxtrot."
Joe had decided to let it drop. There was no point digging into something that might just make him miserable. Still he couldn’t help feeling a secret thrill that Methos had confided something in him that he would probably never tell Macleod. Even if he did think that Methos had been dropping a bomb just because he was bored and stir-crazy. It might not even be true.
Now Joe stared at the glowing website, the menu that they had decided on together, and the “Music” section with its video clips from some of the best Blues performers in Europe. Sometimes Joe even got some of the American guys into the club. He still had contacts and would send out invitations whenever he could afford to. There was something about the way a guitar or a set of keys from Missouri or Tennessee would crawl into your gut and make a home there. Nothing else compared.
He’d had the Detroit Blues Band in too, just before Covid started. Man, those guys had been smooth. Half of the European music scene had been crammed into Le Blues Bar that night to hear them.
Dawson clicked through the video history and found Tears From My Eyes. Those first few notes were like new butter and old silk. He pushed a forkful of Fettuccine Alfredo into his mouth and closed his eyes, savouring the explosion of taste across his tongue and the plangent guitar chords ringing in his head.
God, it was so good to be alive. As much as there were nights when he felt like going to sleep and never waking up again, there were days like this too, when he understood completely why a man might want to live forever.
His Samsung buzzed on the table next to him, and a text popped up.
“Hi Dad. Thanks for the necklace. It’s beautiful.”
Dad.
Joe grasped the phone in a shaking hand and let the music wash over him.
The cool Paris winter underwent the slow change to the wet Paris spring, and rain hit the roof of Le Blues Bar in a steady rhythm while Joe idly considered taking a nap. The bar didn’t open for another couple of hours, but it was Saturday, and likely to be a long night. Dawson had just levered himself to his feet with a gusty sigh and started towards the staircase that led to his private apartment when he heard the jiggle of the lock. Slowly, the front door opened. Joe tensed instinctively, then relaxed. He had that new security system now. Anyone entering during the day had to have the code or they would trigger the alarm.
“Hey, Joe.”
He wasn’t really surprised to see Methos slide inside. Same old Adam, except that with longer hair and a different set of clothes he looked about ten years younger than the last time. He could have passed for twenty, easily.
“Hey kid,” Joe grunted, heavy on the irony, “You look different. Got any big plans?”
“Just starting my career. No point in getting a Master’s if I have to disappear in five years.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”
“I’m defending my thesis at the end of this term. I need to set things up here.”
“You planning to stay in Paris, then?”
Methos shrugged and slid onto a bar stool. He spun around with airy delight, further de-aging himself by a couple of years. Joe regarded the spectacle with renewed disbelief. This person was quite literally older than written history.
Spinning around a bar stool in Paris at 3pm.
“The joys of computer work. I can do it from anywhere in the world. I thought I’d set up here for a couple of years.”
Until I die.
The thought came to Dawson unplanned, bleak, and undeniable. Methos would wait until Joe died and then he would go somewhere else. He would keep moving, pacing the world that probably bore his footsteps on every inch of its surface. Joe thought of the song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and a chuckle escaped him. If anyone ruled the world, it was Methos.
Squatter’s rights.
“Care to share with the class?” Methos drawled.
“Nothing. Did you happen to see Amanda again?” Needled by the reminder of his own mortality, Joe couldn’t help needling Methos back.
The Immortal grimaced. “Not if I can help it.”
Joe’s eyebrows went up. “Not that I don’t get it, but…I don’t get it. You’re friends. If she’s not your type, just tell her, and you both move on.”
“It’s not the first time she made a move, Joe. I need to her to know that it isn’t going to happen.” Methos looked down at his hands, frowning.
“If you’re worried about Macleod, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. It’s not like they’re exclusive.”
“I’m not. Worried about Macleod.”
Joe’s investigative instincts went online. There was more to this story than he knew.
“What is it, then?”
Methos shrugged with credible adolescent disgruntlement and migrated over to the stage. Joe’s own equipment was still there, his Gibson along with an acoustic and a bass. A full-size Yahama keyboard, a couple of amps and a simple drum kit with a large bass drum finished the set. Methos stepped up on stage and ran a light hand over the Yamaha. Joe tensed, just holding back on telling him to be careful.
Yeah, this is a guy who handles thousand-year-old artifacts on the regular. Hell, this guy is an artifact.
Joe’s Watcher-trained patience was rewarded when Adam flipped the keyboard on and unceremoniously began to play. His hands moved competently across the keys. There was ease and familiarity there, Joe could hear, but the effect was also conservative. It loosened up as he played, and Joe thought that he had heard the same thing before from musicians who hadn’t performed in a while but still had a good ear to guide them.
“Where’s that from?” Joe asked. “Sounds a bit familiar, but—”
“Forgetting your modern classics, Joe? It’s Hendrix. Hey, Joe," he purred, mock-flirtatious.
Joe scoffed. "That's not a piano track."
"Sorry. My guitar's a bit rusty."
"You mean you don't know it."
Adam shrugged, unabashed. "Close enough."
He launched into a rough imitation of the rhythm of the song, banging on the keys with more force and energy as his hands loosened up. Joe decided to help him, picking up the Gibson and adding some of Hendrix' classic stylings. They fell together nicely, in the way that experienced musicians could without asking questions. Methos played the melody on the keys, staying mostly instrumental, humming along a bit.
“Not much of a singer, are we?” Joe slagged him.
The Immortal shot him a mocking glare and started singing. His voice was a bit rough, but relentlessly on-tune.
"Hey, Joe, Where you goin' with that gun in your hand?
Hey Joe, I said where you going with that gun in your hand?"
"Getting a bit personal now, aren't you?" Joe said.
Methos laughed, and his hands fell away from the keyboard. Joe couldn’t repress his own smile.
“You never told me you played, Adam.”
“There are a lot of things I never told you, Joe.”
Methos caught his gaze and held it, and Joe was quite certain that Methos wanted to say something.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like “Adam” didn’t play, but Matthew does. Strictly hobby level, but he had a garage band in high school.”
“Huh. Is that how it is.”
“That’s how it is.”
“How do you do it, Methos?” Joe asked soberly. “How can you just…bury parts of yourself? Music is vital to who I am. I can’t imagine just stopping for thirty years because the person I’m “supposed to be” doesn’t play. And don’t give me any “I can do it again later” crap. You guys never know if you’re going to have a later. The things that we love, like music, are what make life worth living.”
“You’re right, Joe. But there are just so many things to love. To do. I don’t mind setting one aside for a few years to try something else. There are only so many hours in the day, after all.”
“So for Adam is was history and languages,” Joe said, “And for Matthew it’s computers.”
“I’ve had my eye on computers for a while. Before Adam. But this is the first time I’ve really focused on it. Anyway, it’s nice to add something new to one life and develop it in the next. It builds a connection between my experiences. Like a chain.”
“You like music, maybe even love it, but it’s not your only love.”
“For Ben Adams it was medicine. For the Methos that Cassandra knew, it was strategy and war.”
“But a doctor and a, I don’t know what you want to call it—raider? Those are completely different things. One dedicated to life, one to death.”
“Both are hallmarks of an immortal existence.”
“That’s a cop-out and we both know it.”
Methos shrugged. “Even still.”
Joe was unsure how to express his confusion and outrage, and he saw Methos retreating now, going back into his shell. It would be ten years before Joe another honest word out of the man if he let him go now.
“You know, Adam, now that I’m getting older—getting old—I’ve started to realize just what’s important in this life. I don’t have much time left to make the connections that I failed to when I was young, or re-build the bridges that I’ve burned, but I’m trying. Why doesn’t it seem to matter to you?
“You mean Amy.”
Amanda and her big mouth.
“Yes, I mean Amy, damn it. And I mean you. And Macleod. And all the people who matter. Because in the end, it all comes down to people.”
“Does it?” Methos asked mildly.
“How can you live for thousands of years and not know that?”
“Why is it that you care about forging a relationship with Amy now?”
Joe stared. “Because she’s my daughter.”
“She’s always been your daughter. You didn’t try too hard before. Why now, Joe?” He didn’t wait for Joe to answer. Methos insisted, “Because she’s your legacy. You see yourself close to the end and you want to leave behind something of yourself. The only immortality you’re capable of.”
Joe felt the breath leave him in a rush. “Well, tell me what you really think, Methos,” he said when he could speak again.
Methos held up a placating hand. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Joe. I’m only telling you that, in my experience, this is usually why mortals decide to have children, when it is a decision. Why they value them even when it isn’t.”
Methos ran his hands over the Yamaha again and slowly smiled.
“It is not why immortals have children.”
Joe cast a sharper eye on Methos. The ancient was watching him with the kind of preternatural calm displayed only by a man who has lobbed a well-time bomb into the field of battle, and is now waiting to see if it will detonate.
“You want to tell me what you mean by that, Methos?”
“You heard me, Joe.”
“Immortals can’t have children. We know that. We have been watching for over a thousand years. That is a fact,” Dawson insisted. He heard his voice rising in volume and taking on a hysterical note that he felt powerless to stop.
Methos was still calm. “So where do you suppose little immortals come from? The planet Zeist?”
“I don’t know, but it isn’t from having a few too many beers with your lady friend!”
There was a wild rage struggling to break free from Joe. Of all the things for Methos to drop on him now, in his last years, just as he was struggling to make his peace, it had to be this.
The bastard. The bastard, Joe thought. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to hold back furious tears.
“So, what, you’re gonna tell me that immortals are having babies and no one noticed? The stork delivers them to ye old mortal foster family?” Dawson demanded, vicious with sarcasm. “And if immortals can have kids, why are you all foundlings? No, I don’t believe it. Macleod wouldn’t keep something like this from me!”
Methos leaned back on the keyboard bench. He crossed his long legs in front of him.
“Macleod doesn’t know. Most immortals don’t know. Only women old enough to have conceived—and that rarely happens for those under a thousand years. Those who do conceive go to ground almost at once. From what I have seen, it is an exceedingly powerful instinct that forces the mother to conceal her offspring. Given the exceptionally aggressive nature of Immortal men, there appears to be good reason for it.”
“But you know about it.”
“I’ve been around for a long time. And I have a way with secrets.” A tiny smirk quirked Methos’ lips.
“No kidding,” Joe snorted. “But I’m still not buying it.”
“What’s not to buy?”
“For one thing, buddy, how are you the only one who knows? For another thing, why are you telling me this if it is true?”
“I’m not the only one who knows. Some of the women appear to forget after--or perhaps they merely wish to appear so-- but I knew at least one who retained full memory of giving birth. Of concealing the infant after and staying close by to keep watch and give guidance to her child when the time came.”
Joe longed to walk away. Stay quiet. Don’t give Methos what he so obviously expected. This is the Kronos thing all over again. He wants to you take the bait. Just don’t ask. But there was a chill running down the Watcher’s spine, and he thought that he already knew what Methos would say.
“Who was that?” he whispered.
“Rebecca.”
“And her child?” Joe insisted when Methos fell silent. The bastard sat there answering the greatest mystery of them all, and it was still just like pulling teeth.
“Amanda.”
“Of course. And I suppose Rebecca just told you? The biggest secret on earth and she spilled it over afternoon tea?”
“Joe, we didn’t have tea in Europe in the 9th century.”
Dawson ground his jaws together. “Come on, man.”
Methos sobered. “No, Joe. She didn’t tell me at all. But I spent a long summer with her around the year 819 and at the end of it I found her fleeing in the night, crawling through a window, and failing to respond to her name. She was like a wild thing, and she ran through the countryside like a wild thing. There aren’t many others who might have tracked her, but I could.
“Past midnight I found her digging a tunnel into the dirt, stuffing bugs, and small animals into her mouth with such speed and hunger that I thought she must have gone mad. I struggled with her, but she seemed to have supernatural strength, and I finally let her go. Then she buried herself in the earth and slept there like a bear in winter. Her heart rate lowered to almost nothing. Her eyes were closed to the world, but when I tried to move her, she woke to fight me off again.
Finally, I left her.”
“And then?” Joe breathed. He couldn’t believe that he’d been caught by the tale. Just when he thought all of Methos’ tricks and charms had lost their power, like a fisherman who had run out of hooks, he came back with more.
“She stayed there for months. I would check on her from time to time. Her body was buried, even her face concealed in the tunnel that she had made, though the air flowed freely enough that she never died. I would look in on her, and she was always sleeping, but I thought that something was changing, for the space in the tunnel seemed to be constricting. Finally, after more than a year, perhaps a year and a half, I found her waking. She dug herself out again and lay upon the Earth. And that was when I knew.”
“She was pregnant."
“Yes. Pregnant and ready to give birth. I wanted to help her into position, but there seemed to be a great ease to it, not like the agonies of mortal women. The infant slid from her almost effortlessly. She clutched the child and tended to it with instinct rather than awareness, giving it milk, and after some time gnawing off the cord with her own teeth. I stayed with her through that final night of madness, cleaning the dirt from her and helping in any way I could, although she warned me away from the infant.
By morning, she seemed to be coming back to herself, regaining awareness. She never questioned the child in her arms. She seemed to know without being told that this was her child.
The first thing she said to me was that I was not to know.
“You should not have followed me. You were not to know.”
“But this is my child, too,” I said.
“Yes, and that is why you were not to know.”
Joe’s hand trembled and he reached out to grasp the neck of the Gibson. He felt the power of the instrument and imagined playing on it, something strong and wild. Maybe Cross Road Blues. He wondered if Robert Johnson had felt this way, taking what riches the Devil offered.
I didn’t ask for this, Dawson thought. But it was too late to hand back what he had taken.
“You’re Amanda’s father.”
“Oh yes,” Methos breathed.
“That’s why you wouldn’t—”
“Well, Joe, would you take Amy up on the offer?”
Dawson narrowed his eyes. “Let’s keep it civil, shall we.”
“Just so.”
He loosened his grip on the neck of the Gibson and regarded the infuriatingly young face of the oldest creature on Earth. Methos looked back at him with the cool immutability of a Pharoah’s mask.
“So why do Immortals have children, then?”
Methos slowly stood. He dusted his hands across his jeans. “For the same reason that the birds and the bees do it, Joe. Instinct. Pure animal instinct. You don’t need a legacy if you plan to live forever.”
“But you don’t live forever. Not really. Even the old ones die eventually. Even you’ll die someday,” Joe said. He meant it to hurt and was satisfied with he saw a brief flash of unease in Methos’ hazel eyes.
“Not for a long time,” the ancient said. He climbed down from the stage and started across the bar, heading for the door.
“So, if she was your daughter why didn’t you raise her? Why didn’t Rebecca? I still don’t get it. Why are all Immortals foundlings?”
“Just like you said, Joe. Immortality is no guarantee of living forever. It’s safer for our children not to stay with us.”
“How could you just give her up, man?” Joe demanded. “You were there when she was born. How could you?”
Methos paused by the door. “How could you?”
He slipped out before Joe answered, leaving Dawson staring at the door and wondering if he had just swallowed the biggest cock and bull story since The War of the Worlds.
And if it was true, what was he supposed to do with it?
Methos disappeared for the rest of the spring. The next time that Joe heard from him was a postcard in the mail with a picture of “Matthew’s” university on the front and a hand-written message on the back: “Got my Master’s! Wish you were here.” There was a lot to unpack there, and Joe found himself chuckling for a few days while contemplating the irony of a 5000-year-old guy with a computer science degree sending a paper postcard.
Just for laughs, he had a postcard of his own mocked up at a print shop, with a picture of Le Blues Bar on the front. He wrote “Wish you were here too!” on it and sent it to Methos’ apartment. It was almost enough to make him forget how mad he was at Adam.
While he waited for an answer, the days grew longer and warmer and summer came at last. He took to sitting on the patio outside of the bar for much of the day, pretending to work on Watcher files, but mostly trying out chords on his Gibson, stringing them together in the hope of a song coming out the other end. Even just sitting in one place, he was usually covered in sweat after an hour. Paris summers had always been known for their humidity, and they were a lot warmer now than they had been twenty years ago, or even ten.
Joe thought of the way that the world was changing and felt a sense of mixed relief that he was too old to be expected to solve it. Sure, the Earth was probably going to catch on fire in the next hundred years, but it was always damp and cool under the ground.
Headquarters called him a few times in July, asking him why he hadn’t answered their recent emails and wondering why he was so far behind in his reports. Joe pretended to have a recent bout with the flu and promised to catch up soon, but it was still days before he dared to open up the database.
“What the hell is the matter with me?” Joe muttered. “Methos is full of shit anyway. There’s no way…”
He wouldn’t find the answers in the Chronicles, but the ethical dilemma of holding back potentially paradigm-shifting information was undeniably changing his relationship with the database, his supervisors, and the organization as a whole. From the moment that he woke up until the time he went to bed, Dawson ruminated. Around breakfast-time he would decide to call Headquarters, organize a major meeting, and reveal a truth far more significant than the secret identity of Methos, world’s oldest pain in the ass. Then, by the time he polished off his heart-healthy scrambled eggs and finished his mid-morning coffee, he would swing the other way entirely. Eventually he would decide to sleep on it, only for the cycle to repeat the next day.
Joe tried to convince himself that because Macleod was out of town these days that Methos was just spinning his wheels, looking for laughs at anyone's expense. That had to be it.
Then Dawson thought of Macleod’s assertion that the Watcher database Methos had programmed would one day go up in smoke. He could just see Methos somewhere right now, grinning his trickster smile and ready to press the delete button, especially if Joe tried to file a report about Methos' tall tale online. But he couldn’t see it going any better back in the old analog world. If Joe called Headquarters, if he tried telling the regional authority this story, he would be the laughingstock of the Watchers.
That would be his legacy.
“Shit,” he cursed quietly. “Shit!”
“Dad?”
He heard the voice of a grown woman speaking with the uncertainty of a child. Joe looked up and saw Amy leaning against the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the little patio. She was a bit heavier than the last time he had seen her, and there was a lot more grey in her hair, but she was smiling. She had never really smiled at him before.
“Hi there, pretty girl,” Joe said roughly. “Come on inside.”
Amy laughed and eased the fence open. Her well-made navy trousers rippled as she walked, and her long grey coat flapped in the breeze. The white summer light made her pale skin shine all over.
“So what brings you by?” he asked.
“You, of course.” She smiled with an openness that he had never seen before and reached down to grasp his hands where they sat on the patio table.
“All this for a birthday present?" Joe quipped, "I should have tried years ago.”
“Not for a birthday present. But yes,” she said softly, “you should have.”
“I didn’t…think that’s what you wanted.”
“Sometimes we won’t know what we want, Joe. Until it’s almost too late.”
Joe laughed to hold back the tears that were trying to crawl out of his eyes. “Keep calling me dad. I like that.”
“All right—Dad. Were you playing?” She pointed to the Gibson.
“A bit here and there, you know.”
“I bought your album a few years back. It was fantastic.”
“I didn’t know it was in stores over in England. I only had a few hundred copies made of the CD.”
She shook her head, and her hair blew back in the breeze while a beam of sunlight painted it white-gold.
“I bought it on iTunes.”
“Right, right. Adam—I mean, Benjamin Adams put it online. He’s into computers these days.”
“So I’ve heard. Anyway, tell him thank you for me the next time you see him. I listen to it all the time. It makes me feel closer to you.”
She looked down bashfully, giving him a chance to admire her openly, taking in every part of her with a parent’s painful love. The ache was back in his chest, the one that had led him to her, and he thought that what Methos had said couldn’t possibly be the truth.
There’s no way that Methos was Amanda’s father, Joe thought. How could he stand to give her up again every time he saw her, if he was.
“Yeah, I’ll tell him if I see him. How about I play something for you now?”
She clapped her hands in a way that was half-show, half-delight, and Joe grinned as he picked reached over to pick up the Gibson.
He thought he might play some Armstrong, happy blues for a happy man.
“I see trees of green. Red roses too.
I see them bloom for me and you.
And I think to myself:
What a wonderful world.
And I think to myself…what a wonderful world.”
Epilogue
It was autumn when Macleod returned to Paris. He slipped into Le Blues Bar one morning when Joe was just starting to pour his coffee. The weather was still warm, and Joe thought he might take his cup and saucer onto the patio, although he hadn’t quite made up his mind.
As usual, the click of the door made him look up, and there was the Highlander. Macleod was slightly changed from last time, with his cropped hair a bit longer, and the beginnings of a glossy black beard darkening his cheeks.
“Hey, Mac! How it’s going?” Joe called out.
The Highlander regarded him with clear surprise. “I didn’t think you would be this happy to see me.”
Joe offered a crooked smile. “And why not? Isn’t it a beautiful autumn day in Paris, and my friend is back in town, head firmly attached?”
“I guess it is.” Macleod’s face eased into a little smile, and he looked almost shy, young again in a way that seemed more genuine than Methos’ perpetual double-act.
“Come on. I’ll get you a coffee, and you can join me outside.”
They settled onto the patio, where the burnished autumn sunlight glinted in Macleod’s brown eyes, turning them to warm gold, and a café a few doors over had La Vie en Rose playing from the loudspeaker. Joe felt good, relaxed, taking in the world and not too worried about leaving it. There was only more thing he still hadn’t made up his mind about, but he thought that he might pretty soon.
“So did you figure it all out?” Dawson asked.
“Figure what out?”
“Whatever had you so worked up last time.”
“I suppose. Change is hard for me, Joe. But I’ve decided that if Amanda and Methos want to try to make it work…I won’t stand in their way.”
Joe watched the Highlander and saw the sincerity on Duncan’s face, a solemn mien that hinted at long nights of soul-searching. There was a lot more to the story than what Mac was saying, but Joe let him have his secrets. Lord knew Joe had enough of his own.
“Yeah, I don’t think that will be an issue, Mac. Adam was here a while back. He definitely isn’t interested.”
“Amanda can be pretty persistent.”
“Trust me.”
There must have been something in his voice, something too sure to dismiss, because he saw Macleod slowly relax.
“I always trust you, Joe.”
Dawson laughed hoarsely. That hadn’t always been true, and they both knew it, but it was all water under the Seine now.
Joe made his choice.
“Is that so? Well, then, Mac. Let me tell you a story.”
"Hm. Is it a true story?”
“You know, I’m still not sure. How about you listen, and you can tell me if you think it is.”
The Highlander tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting the light wash over him.
“All right, Dawson. Lay on.”
Joe cleared his throat and began: “Once upon a time, somewhere around the year 819 AD in the country of France, there lived a woman named Rebecca. She was two thousand years old, and she didn’t know it, but she was going to have a baby…”