PART 2: "It always comes too quickly."

Chapter 8

"Well, well, well." Kallman's cold ironic voice brought Jesse back to himself. "It seems like we have a reunion going on."

"So it would seem," Jesse answered quietly, as he gently moved Michael behind him. "You got here quickly."

"It was easier than you'd think, especially when you know what you're looking for."

"Now I know how you knew who to look for. It's all clear now. Where's your girlfriend?"

Kallman shrugged. "Out of town."

"You're not going to wait?"

Shaking his head slowly, Kallman grinned again. "Strike while the iron's hot, and you're here, eh? Her bad luck if she misses it."

"Well, that's certainly true to form."

Michael slowly reached for the sword case slung over his shoulder. The movement brought Kallman's eye toward him.

"Tell your mortal boyfriend to stay out of the way," Kallman said quickly. "I have no quarrel with him. If he follows the rules, he'll survive this."

"Don't worry about him, Craig Kallman. He'll follow the rules."

"Wait a min--" Michael started to speak, another part of him noting the sarcastic note in Jesse's voice.

"Keep out of this, Michael."

"But I can--"

Jesse turned to face Michael. "I know you can," he said softly, "but this is my fight, my challenge. You cannot interfere, do you hear? You must not interfere." Turning from Michael, he reached under his coat and drew his sword. "Watch my back. He may be lying. He may not be alone."

Biting his lip, Michael complied, stepping back out of the way. He made sure that he would be out of the way of the Quickening as well.

The two immortals faced each other with bared blades, but Craig Kallman held up a hand.

"You never told me your name."

"I know. D'you want to call off the challenge?"

"No." The answer was offhand, casual. " I was just wondering which one you were going to use, your new name or your real one."

"You're about to die, after all this time. Why don't you pick the one you want to hear?"

Kallman bared his teeth in another predatory smile. "Gods, it's been a long time."

"Not long enough," Jesse gritted out, and the battle commenced.

With the clash of metal and the flurry of movement, the battle was as brutal and ugly as Michael remembered from the other fights he'd seen and been involved in, if not more so. This battle was bringing the past back in the bright light of harsh reality, and Michael saw once again the battle with Klepper and his own battle with Duncan.

The immortal battling Jesse was filled with bloodlust and an anger that seemed to tower even higher than his bloodlust. There was a lot more to this story, to this challenge, than met the eye. The battle was bringing the past back in many forms to all of them. From his hard-won experiences, however, Michael knew that if Craig Kallman did not control his anger, Jesse was sure to win.

Sure enough, the immortal gave a wild swing and Jesse danced back, easily missing the blow and renewing his attack. Kallman saw his danger and quickly mastered his anger, turning it inward into cold bloodlust, and the battle was extended.

It seemed like the two combatants were fairly evenly matched and that they had the same kind of technique and experience. It was going on too long. Michael saw that they were starting to tire and knew that if it didn't end soon, the outcome would be determined by a slip, an accident, instead of skill. This thought was barely across Michael's mind when it happened. Craig Kallman brought the hilt of his sword down in a quick blow on Jesse's wrist. Jesse's sword clattered from suddenly nerveless fingers and he was left standing defenseless, swordless.

Kallman brought his sword tip up so that it was just beneath Jesse's chin. Jesse let his head fall back, exposing his neck. With anguish, Michael realized that the fight was over and that Jesse was going to lose. The next Quickening Michael would witness would be that of his longtime lover's. His fingers twitched, aching to grab his own sword, to jump into the fray to stop the inevitable. Jesse said not to interfere, but how could he not?

"Well, well, well," Craig Kallman snarled. "Didn't think you'd ever find yourself in this position, did you? Can you imagine how long I've been waiting for this?"

Jesse didn't answer. He merely looked at the immortal at the other end of the sword through lowered lids.

"I guess you do, though, don't you?" Kallman spit out. "You, more than anyone else, would know just exactly how long." Kallman's eyes narrowed to an icy glare. There was hatred in those depths, and death.

Jesse didn't respond, his face remaining calm, detached. It brought back a memory to Michael from another time, another place: Jesse with his head back, his throat exposed to a killing blow. Duncan's voice was just echoing in Michael's mind as Jesse suddenly exploded into action.

Dancing back a few steps, Jesse whirled, pivoting on one heel, his hand disappearing into his coat. When he faced Kallman again, it was with a long, wicked-looking dagger in his hand and a killing expression on his face. It had all been a ruse to lull the immortal into a false sense of security. Without a heartbeat of hesitation, Jesse swept the immortal's sword to the side with his arm and buried the dagger hilt-deep into Craig Kallman's gut. The immortal's face went slack with shock.

Just as Jesse struck, Duncan's words from so long ago echoed in Michael's mind:

"If you ever do that to me again, Methos, I will kill you. I promise you that. I will kill you."

Michael gasped as everything came clear. "Oh, my god!"

It was an involuntary outburst, but Jesse heard it. Thinking that Michael was under attack, Jesse yanked the dagger out of Kallman and twisted, diving for his sword. He came up on one knee, facing in Michael's direction, sword in one hand, bloody dagger in the other, to find his lover staring at him, mouth and eyes wide with shock.

"What?" Jesse cried.

Michael shook his head. Sudden movement made him look up. "Kallman!" he exclaimed.

Jesse turned to see Kallman disappearing down the alley. He launched himself after the wounded immortal but it was too late. His wound hidden under his coat and no doubt healing quickly, Kallman darted into a square that had people moving around it. Just coming to the edge of the square, Jesse saw Kallman enter another alley that he knew led to another square with even more people. He was gone.

Jesse went back to find Michael in the exact same spot. "Michael, what was it? What happened?"

Michael shook his head abruptly, trying to pull himself together. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm sorry I made you lose him. You almost had him."

Jesse sighed. "It's not good that he's still around. He's been hunting for me for a long time and he knows who I am and where I am. I know who he is, too," he continued grimly, "and I know that he won't stop hunting me until one of us is dead."

"Who is he?"

Jesse looked at Michael for a moment before answering. "Just someone else after my Quickening. What else is new?"

Catching sight of the bloody dagger in Jesse's hand, Michael said: "We gotta get out of here."

Putting his sword back in his coat, Jesse nodded his agreement. He wiped the dagger blade off and tucked it away as they quickly left the scene.

There were a thousand questions filling Michael's head, but it was not the time to ask them. Jesse was jumpy and nervous about losing Kallman and still tense with bloodlust unrelieved by a Quickening.

At the hotel, Michael helped Jesse out of his clothes and into the shower. He got in with him and started to wash down Jesse's well-muscled, sculpted body. Over the past 15 years, Michael had gotten to know every inch of that body intimately, but, suddenly, it was all brand new to him. 5,000 years old! It was incomprehensible, and he had almost lost him tonight! Unbidden the picture of Jesse with his head back, his neck exposed to a killing stroke, came back to Michael. He thrust it away, washing it away with soap and water.

Slowly, with great care, Michael washed Jesse everywhere, needing to get to know him all over again, this perennially young body with age-old knowledge and experience.

Jesse watched as Michael ministered to him. Every so often, Jesse would reach for Michael, but Michael stopped him, needing to do this. Finally, as the flowing water washed away the lather, Michael caressed the sharp lines and planes of Jesse's face, then the chiseled pecs and abs. He brushed across wet nipples, stroking them to turgid hardness. Jesse gasped at the sudden surge of pleasure.

This time, when Jesse reached for him, Michael didn't stop him. Michael's eyes closed with pleasure as Jesse's hands found his own nipples and then intertwined his fingers into his hair to bring him close for a kiss. Naked underneath the hot, pounding spray, the two men made love, renewing life and love, assuring each other of the reality of the presence of each other, and allowing Michael to get to know Jesse again as Methos, the ancient, 5,000-year-old legend.

It was quite a bit later when, in bed, in each other's arms,  they fell asleep.

Michael woke much later to find calm hazel eyes watching him steadily. He smiled sleepily.

"What?"

Jesse just shook his head. "I just can't believe you sometimes, that's all."

"What do you mean, you can't believe me?"

Jesse shrugged. "That you stay. I can't understand why you stay with all the--" his voice trailed off.

Michael smiled slowly, watching Jesse's face. Michael was not sure why, but whenever he smiled like that, Jesse's face always lit up with joy, and it did so again. What Michael did not realize was that when he smiled like that, his face was transformed from somber seriousness, to one of youthful trust, open and accepting of everything. "I guess I love you," Michael said, "and I can't help myself. But what I want to know is why you never told me."

"Why I never told you what?"

"Why you never told me that you are Methos."

Jesse/Methos drew back from Michael, his face suddenly growing cold and still. "What d'you mean?"

Michael did not let that expression faze him "That you are Methos. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Who told you that I was Methos? And why did you believe them?"

"It was Duncan, and I believe him because, well, he's Duncan."

Jesse fell back onto the pillows, not able to argue with that. "When did he tell you this?"

"After our fight in the dojo."

"That was 15 years ago!"

"I know, but I just realized it last night. Remember after the fight, when he had you on the end of his sword?" Jesse nodded. "He called you Methos. I even asked you why he called you Methos, but you never answered. All those years reading about Methos, I never made the connection, I never remembered until you were standing the same way last night, at the end of an immortal's sword, and it all came back." He frowned. "That's how I made you lose Kallman."

Jesse shook his head. "Damn!"

"Why, Jesse?"

"Michael, I can't let anyone know who I am. You saw Kallman last night. He's been hunting me for several thousand years, and he's still coming after me. Can you imagine how many people would be coming after me if they knew who I really was? It's a matter of survival."

"I know why everyone else can't know. What I want to know is why I couldn't know. I'm not after your Quickening. I'm after something else," he finished, caressing Jesse's chest suggestively.

Jesse smiled briefly and took Michael's hand. Then he looked away, shrugging. "I didn't know how you'd take it. I'm so old, and you were so fascinated with the legend, with the myth. I didn't know if I could live up to it."

Michael smiled slowly. "You don't know me very well, then. I love you. I always have. Methos or Jesse, or even Adam Pierson, it's the man in front of me that I'm in love with. It would be very hard for a myth to live up to the way you made love to me last night."

Getting up on one elbow, Jesse leaned close to Michael, staring at him, his eyes growing dark with intensity. He brushed his fingers down Michael's cheek. "You've always been so accepting of me, no matter what, no matter when. I can't understand--"

"No need to question it. Just accept it, Methos." Michael said the name slowly, softly, letting the word move around in his mouth before releasing it. Jesse's face tightened. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I will be very careful with that name. I almost lost you last night. You think I'd do anything to risk losing you? I can't stand the thought of a world without you. I'd rather die first."

Jesse gathered Michael into his arms. "Don't speak of it," he said hoarsely. "Don't speak of it. It comes too quickly. It always comes too quickly."

So Michael didn't speak of it anymore, and they held each other until they fell asleep again.

They flew directly to New York from Paris. It seemed like a decision had been made once Michael found out about Methos.

Duncan merely shook Michael's hand as they left, murmuring: "Finally!"

Once in New York, Methos and Michael went out to the end of Long Island to Montauk Point. Methos pointed out that despite the overdevelopment of the Point, certain things were still held sacrosanct out there, the delicate ecology, for example. The residents had fought hard and continuously to make sure that the fragile beauty of the Point, its beaches and marine life remained intact. Also, the beautiful Lighthouse that had protected the Point for over 300 years was itself protected from the ever-encroaching sea. The Light stood its guard, tall and beautiful, over the ocean, the fog and the eternal sea breezes.

The entire area took Michael's breath away. He was a land-locked native and even with all the traveling he had done, the depth of the sky and the breadth of the sea at this point in the world were unimaginable in his experience so far.

They rented a vehicle that whizzed them through town and out to an area that had more vegetation than most.

Methos pointed to the top of a tree-covered hill. "That's mine."

"The whole hill?"

"At least the top of it. The house up there--you can't see it from here--was the only thing I owned. Then I started buying up parcels of land until I owned the entire woods at the top."

"It must be worth a fortune!"

"It is, but I bought it so no one could build on it."

"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?"

Keeping his eyes on the road, Methos shrugged. "Some of my history is here, and not just my history with Jacqueline. There are things here that tell how old I am, and I didn't want you to know."

"You were afraid to let me know. You thought I'd leave you."

Methos didn't respond. Michael remained quiet as well. Finally glancing over, Methos caught Michael giving him an odd look.

"What is it?"

"Well, I just can't imagine you going out and buying something as permanent as a house. My mind just can't wrap itself around it."

"I didn't buy the house," Methos said with a grin. "It was given to me as a safe spot, a refuge, if you will, when people are coming after me."

"Who gave it to you?"

Methos looked briefly at Michael then turned his attention back to the road. "You did," he answered softly.

Michael looked away, feeling uncomfortable, knowing that Methos meant Jacqueline. He didn't know what to say. He still couldn't reconcile himself to the fact that almost 100 years ago, he used to be a woman named Jacqueline. He couldn't understand anything about her except for her love for Methos.

Jacqueline had been Methos's lover. She was in love with him and she could not refuse him anything. That was something else with which Michael could identify. He was in love with Methos, and, like Jacqueline, could refuse him nothing.

They stopped in front of a house from another time.

It was made of wood and was probably horribly expensive to maintain, especially in this salt-air environment. The inside was as old-fashioned as the outside, with furniture and decorations Michael had never seen outside of books. If nothing before gave Michael the sense that Methos was older than the hills, this house certainly did.

They spoke softly, reverently, as if they were in a shrine. Perhaps they were. Methos had obviously maintained this place exactly as it had been when Jacqueline was alive and it showed how important Jacqueline had been to him. It gave Michael a rare insight into the psyche of the world's oldest living immortal.

"So she left all this to you when she died?" Michael asked Methos.

"Yes. She told me that she wanted me to have a place I would run to,instead of from,and she wanted that place to be her place."

"ThatI understand! It's a beautiful place."

Methos smiled at Michael's polite tone. "You don't like it."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. It's just not my style."

"Of course not." Methos ran a finger along the line of Michael's jaw. "You are so very young," he whispered.

"Methos! I'm almost fifty!"

Methos smiled again, his face filling with so much--love, patience, sorrow, joy. It broke Michael's heart.

"You're so young," Methos said again. "Come, let me show you why we're here."

In the bedroom, Methos took a wooden box down from a shelf in the closet. The box was perhaps a 12" x 12" square and about 8" deep. It was made with deep, dark mahogany wood that shone with the care that had been obviously lavished on it over the years.

They sat on the bed and Methos opened the box to an amazing sight. The box was filled with portraits, all representations of people on all different kinds of media.

"What are these?"

"These are people I've--known over the years."

Michael stared at Methos, his mouth agape at the simple, matter-of-fact tone. "What?"

"At least, the ones I could get portraits of." He started going through the box. "Some, I never had a chance to get a picture. Others, well, it was before that time."

Eyes wide, and with an intense feeling of unreality, Michael watched as Methos took portrait after portrait out of the box.

Some were very old, others obviously quite modern. There were hand-carved bas-reliefs of faces in wood and ivory, tiny painted portraits barely three inches high, and enameled cameos of men and women, all their names lost to time. There were sturdy1/4-plate ferrotypes and rare silver daguerreotypes, their subjects seated stiff and still, staring wide-eyed into the camera and into history. And there were full-color photographs spanning many decades. Methos murmured a few names. Among them was Alexa: somber, pale, looking off into the distance with a sunrise glinting off the smile in her eyes. Carefully, Methos dug a rarity out of the box: two photographs of the same woman. He presented them to Michael with a single word: "Jacqueline."

Michael looked at the two pictures. There was one of Jacqueline in profile as a young woman and one of Methos and Jacqueline, who was old by then, walking together by the Montauk Lighthouse in animated conversation. Methos looked exactly the same.

"An old friend of Jacqueline's took this one of us and gave it to me after she died," he said quietly. "If I have several portraits of someone, I usually pick out only one to keep. I kept two of her because this one was so representative of our relationship. See, I'm talking and she's listening avidly. It could have easily been the other way around, her talking, me listening. That was the nature of what we had together in her later life." He shrugged. "So I saved it." After a brief pause he said: "Maybe I'll toss it one day."

Michael wasn't convinced. "You were in love with her," he said softly.

Methos stared at the photos in Michael's hand, his mouth tightening briefly. "Perhaps."

Michael gave them back to Methos and Methos put them carefully away. There were so many questions that Michael wanted to ask, but couldn't, not right then. He wanted to know so much about all those people in the box. Who were all those men and women? What did they mean to Methos? Whatever happened to them, and when? Michael wondered if he would get the opportunity to ask.

Surprisingly, Michael did get to ask his questions, but he had to have the patience to ask them a few at a time over several years.

After that first visit, Methos and Michael found their way back to Montauk to visit the house on the hill at least once a year, sometimes several times a year. Each time they went back, Michael took the box down and asked Methos questions about one or two of the people in there. On a rare occasion, Duncan would join them for a beach vacation of quiet and relaxation. There were no other immortals around.

There was a tragedy the year Methos first took Michael to Montauk. Jesse Williams, mild-mannered Watcher, "died" in a terrible car accident in Eastern Europe. The car burned completely and there was nothing left of the driver, the only person in the car. Fortunately, there was a witness, someone who knew Jesse's car and was able to report the whole thing to the authorities.

There were few mourners. Jesse Williams was a young man, but he was a loner. He had kept to himself and had few friends.

Methos and Michael, however, continued to travel. It was during the year that Jesse Williams "died" that Methos finally told Michael that the challenge of Craig Kallman had not a random thing, that he was being hunted by both Craig Kallman and Margaret Pierce and that he had told Duncan this during their Paris visit. Much of their traveling after that was to avoid the two immortals. Methos had hoped that the fact of Jesse's "death" would throw them off the trial, but he was pragmatic enough to know that if it did, it would only be a temporary lull in the hunt.

Craig Kallman had seen Jesse Williams, knew that Jesse was Methos, and so knew that Jesse Williams had not really died in that car accident.

"How does Kallman knowthat you're Methos?" Michael wanted to know. They were locked in their cabin on a sleeper train going east from California to New York. It was late and they were already in their double bunk. Everything was quiet around them, except for the incessant sound of the train moving across the country-side. The never-ending sound, coupled with the mournful sound of the train whistle as it sped through town after town, made Michael restless.

"It's a long story, Michael, and really not worth going into."

"Why? Why can't I know?"

Methos sighed. "It was a very long time ago and I don't like thinking about that time."

"How long ago are we talking about?"

Methos sighed again. "About forty-five hundred years, give or take."

Michael was stunned into silence. He could not process the thought of such ancient beings walking the earth. Trying to imagine one, Methos, was almost impossible, imagining more was incomprehensible.

"Are you saying that Kallman is as old as you?"

"Kalfur."

"What?"

"His name was Kalfur then, and, no, he's not quite as old as I am, but he's only about 500 years younger, give or take."

Michael shook his head. For a mortal with an expected life span of ninety or  hundred years, the difference between 5000 and 4500 years seemed miniscule.

"Come on, Methos," he finally said. "You have to tell me."

Methos settled back into the pillows, his hands tucked behind his head and his eyes on the ceiling of the cabin. Michael propped himself up on an elbow so he could watch Methos's face as he told the story. As much of the story would come from his eyes and his expression as from his words, and Michael wanted all of it.

Michael could already tell that this was going to be a difficult story. Some of them, like a wager on a Roman sword fight, were easy. Others, like the Four Horsemen or this one, were much harder to bring out into the light for examination.

"It was during Egypt's Old Kingdom period," Methos began, "when the king Seneferu ruled. You would call him a Pharaoh. It was a time of great prosperity and great builders. Seneferu was known as 'The Good King' and was the first king of the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty. During his 24-year reign, he built not one, but three pyramids to his own honor. The first was built at Meidum and was started by his father Huni, the last king of the Third Dynasty. Then Seneferu built a pyramid at the sacred place at Dahshur. This one would have been magnificent but for structural cracks that appeared during construction and forced him to sharply reduce the angle. It has become known as the 'Bent' Pyramid."

"I know that one! I've seen pictures of it."

"I've seen the real thing. It was more impressive 4500 years ago than it is now."

Michael refused to be put off by Methos's cynical tone. "Go on," he urged.

"At that time, Seneferu was building his third pyramid, also at Dahshur, and it would be the first true pyramid. It was a great one, and history would prove that it would be outshone only by the monument of his son and successor, Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid at Giza."

Methos then went on to tell Michael about his travels, his capture and subsequent slavery. He told of Na'bir, the beautiful Egyptian noblewoman, powerful, cruel, and immortal, and of Kalfur, the great military commander, tortured by Na'bir and finally killed by her.

Together, Methos and Na'bir waited for Kalfur to wake up to his immortality. While they waited, Na'bir regaled Methos with stories of Egypt and of its "good king" Seneferu and his great monuments.

"Wasn't there something wrong with the first one he built at Dahshar?"

The question asked calmly, with just the barest trace of irony, was enough to send Na'bir into a cold rage. The only thing that prevented retaliation was a gasp from Kalfur as he started to revive. The new immortal awoke to pain, confusion and insanity.

Na'bir, of course, told Kalfur that she was the one who had brought him back to life, that he was now immortal and that he would never grow old, get sick or die. She also told him that she was the keeper of his immortality and that she held the same power over Methos.

The two immortals, new and old, immediately entered into a new sort of slavery to Na'bir.

They quickly found out that Na'bir had many other appetites besides the one that required that she torture helpless human beings. She used Methos and Kalfur to satisfy them, sometimes each alone, sometimes the two of them with her. Sometimes she merely watched them, demanding that they do certain things to each other to raise her own appetite or to stoke her own fire.

She did not give the two men much time alone, afraid that they would conspire against her. In the few moments they find themselves alone without her, Methos told Kalfur what he could, explaining what they were, what had happened to him, and about the Game. He answered what questions he could, but could not tell Kalfur where their kind came from.

"Nobody seems to know. I don't think anyone ever did, or will."

What Methos did not know was that Na'bir was discounting everything Methos was telling Kalfur. As proof, she claimed that Methos was such a compliant slave because he knew that she could kill him.

Kalfur believed her because he still held contempt for Methos from the time before Na'bir killed him. He had thought then that Methos was a coward, and he saw nothing now that would lead him to a different conclusion.

Methos tried to tell him otherwise, insisting to Kalfur that their slavery was not part of the Game, that Na'bir was not supposed to enslave them this way just because they were immortal. She had broken the rules by picking him out for torture because he was pre-immortal and killing him before his time.

"Fortunately for you, since you are a soldier, you are one with the sword, so the Game should pose no problem for you, once you are out of here," Methos assured him.

Kalfur tossed all of it away. By then he had became the favorite of Na'bir. He was sent for twice as much as Methos, to Methos's great relief, and, almost against his own will, Kalfur fell in love with Na'bir.

Methos withdrew from Kalfur as soon as he realized how Kalfur felt. It is a dangerous thing when a slave falls in love with his master. It had almost happened to Methos once, in another part of the world in another lifetime. From that he learned that if you give so much to your master, you are forever lost.

He redoubled his efforts to escape, keeping his emotions as much under wraps as possible. It was a miserable life, being a sex slave to an unpredictably cruel mistress, and it was made worse by her equally cruel pet slave, but Methos did it, and allowed them to do whatever they liked with him. He knew that there were worse lives he could be living, and beyond that, even the worst life was better than its alternative, which was death.

The air in the tiny train cabin was thick with ancient pain and humiliation as Methos fell silent. Michael waited for a long time before he spoke.

"So, what happened?"

Methos waited even longer before he answered. "It took me over a decade to get away from the Egyptians. I disappeared into the delta on horrible night and I turned my back on the whole thing. I didn't go back to that part of the world for hundreds of years, not until Rome conquered Egypt. I went with the Roman troops." He paused. "I don't know why. To see all the changes, I guess."

"What happened to Na'bir & Kalfur?"

Methos shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Methos?"

Methos scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed.