Chapter Text
"Duncan, you look . . ." Lilith's brow furrowed with concern as she took in the sight in her doorway. "What's happened?"
"Mama . . . I killed . . . a man." His shoulders slumped forward as sobs wracked his body.
She rushed to catch him and guide him to the sofa. "There, there. Let it out."
He was gasping for breath. How would she take the news? He leaned over until his head was resting on her knee. Her fingers were cool against his temple.
"Was it . . . an accident?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "I d-didn't - I can't - I didn't -"
"It's all right. It'll be all right. You don't have to tell me now. You'll tell me when you're ready. Catch your breath."
He didn't think he'd ever be able to breathe again. How could he have been so stupid? All those illusions and he had to swing his sword at the one that was real?
How would he be able to live with this?
How would she ever be able to forgive him?
He awoke to the sound of his mother making breakfast. He needed to tell her. She'd be angry, of course.
Maybe upset enough to take his head. Methos had refused. Maybe he'd intended for the widow to have her vengeance.
That was it. He would tell her the truth and offer his blade.
At least she could be with Richie that way.
Lilith flipped hash browns onto a plate.
"How'd he sleep?"
"Fitfully. He was mumbling something . . . Something about a mistake? Unforgivable? I don't know." She sighed. "Didn't Dawson say . . . that Duncan was muttering about . . . that renegade Watcher?"
"Horton. Who's been dead for a while." Richie shook his head. "Poor guy. Adam said he's been having a rough time since that encounter with Steven Keane and that whole thing. Like he blames himself for everything."
"He takes on so much. Ever the chieftain Ian raised him to be."
"What do you think Connor would tell him?"
"Oh . . .He'd try to remind him that he can't be responsible for everyone. People make their own decisions, no matter how you try to guide them. And you can't control . . . Sometimes, bad things happen despite our best efforts."
He raked his fingers through his hair. "Four hundred years. He's been through so much. So many wars. How do you deal with it?"
She shrugged. "I take each day as it comes. That's all anyone can do. I just happen to have more experiences than most."
He nodded. "Have you called Adam?"
"Yeah. He said he'd be here as soon as he could."
"Mama? I killed a man," Duncan confessed from the doorway. "I was filled with confusion and dread. Swung my sword and now he's dead."
"What happened, Mac?" Richie asked as he reached a hand to his friend.
Duncan crossed his arms as if he'd had a sudden chill. "And now he's haunting me."
"Come sit down, son," Lilith coaxed. "Are you hungry?"
He shook his head and sank into a chair. He gripped the corner of the table as the memory of purchasing the antique as a wedding gift rushed back. "Your life together had just begun, and now I've gone and thrown it all away."
Lilith exchanged a worried glance with Richie before sitting beside the guilt-ridden man. "Duncan? What happened? Methos told me . . . He said that, since your encounter with Keane . . ."
"That I've been dealing with guilt over slaughtering the English all those years ago. Yeah. Maybe I have. But something's been after me. Making me see people I've killed. This - This demon . . . It took Richie's form."
"And you swung at it," she surmised. "And you feel bad about that?"
He buried his face in his hands. "I thought it was another illusion! But I took his head. I killed your husband. Here." He rose to retrieve his katana. "Take it."
"Duncan, I'm not taking your sword."
Confusion flashed across his face. "I killed Richard Ryan. Accident or not, I am responsible for his death. Why aren't you the least bit upset about this?"
"I . . . I don't know what you saw or . . . whose head you might have taken . . . but it couldn't have been Richard. I'm going to -" She gently lifted the blade out of his hands. "I'm going to put this away for now."
"I know. I know it's difficult for you to believe. You need time. Ask Adam. Ask Joe. They were there. Right after the Quickening. They saw the body."
Methos hadn't mentioned that, she thought.
"Duncan . . . you've had a hard time this year. Meeting your birth mother, finding out you have a sister . . . and then I get involved with your student. I know you've been uncomfortable with that."
"Yes, but I accepted it. I saw how happy you two made each other."
She turned to smile at Richard. "You eventually did." She met her son's sad face and her eyes darkened. "But there was a time, a moment - I still can't believe it - you wanted to . . . if Joe hadn't -"
His shoulders began shaking again. "The Dark Quickening. I wanted to help Coltec, not - urgh! - not take his head! And then all the evil he'd washed away from others consumed me. Ahriman must have latched onto that."
"Ahriman?"
"Ahriman. A great evil."
She clasped his hands in hers. "How do you know this . . . this evil didn't show you something that - something that would make you feel - How do you know this Ahriman didn't just want to break you? Weaken your spirit?"
"He did. He made me kill Richie."
"No . . . no," she insisted soothingly. "Duncan, after the wedding, what do you remember? Tell me everything you've done since you left the estate after the reception."
His brow furrowed. "In the morning, I drove back to Paris. It was, uh, a normal day. Did some shopping. Talked to Adam. Or tried to, anyway."
"Are things still . . . tense between the two of you?"
He finally met her eyes. "You know how things are. He's told you."
"Yes, I know what he's told me. I want to know how you are."
He gave a noncommittal shrug and shook his head. "I don't know. There are things in his past that I can't reconcile with the man he is now."
"We all have things in our past that we're not proud of. Isn't that why Keane came after you?"
"He judged me like I've judged others."
"And you managed to let each other go. To let go of the anger and old grudges."
"Yes. Look, Methos and I - I think we'll be friends again. Someday. But it'll never be like it was before."
"All relationships change over time." She rose suddenly. "That'll be Methos."
The two younger Immortals tensed a second later.
In the foyer, Methos asked, "Has he told you anything?"
"Not much that makes sense," Richard murmured.
"He seems - and I can't believe I'm going to say this - like he's suffered a head injury." Lilith was as confused by her own words as they were hearing them.
"Yeah, well . . . with everything that's gone on the last couple of years . . . Maybe that fight with Byron affected him more than I realised."
"Byron. George?"
"You knew him?"
"Briefly. I had - It was a weird time in my life. We spent a month -"
"I don't think I want to hear this," Richard whispered.
"And I don't want to say it," she hissed back. "Weird time, yes. Anyway, what happened?"
"Oh," the old guy huffed. "You know how George was always hungry for more. Made him sort of self-destructive?"
"Yeah. Made him destroy others, too. He was always looking for that greater high."
"Yeah, well, in searching for that, he took some potentially great musicians with him. Except they couldn't come back from where he led them. Maybe they would've gone down that path without him . . ."
"But he didn't need to be a siren's song."
"So Duncan felt a need to stop him. When he went to Joe's afterward, there was something different . . . I told myself it was just the guilt of a good man."
Richard crossed his arms. "He mentioned a demon."
Methos's eyebrows shot up.
"A great evil that made him kill me."
"What did he say when he saw you?"
"Nothing. He hasn't acknowledged me, really. I think he thinks I'm a ghost or an illusion. Like Horton."
"Horton? The Watcher? Excuse me, Hunter. Dawson told me about that."
Lilith nodded. "I locked the blades away while he slept and he handed over his own. When did you see him last?"
"At the wedding, but we didn't really talk. Why?"
"He said you and Dawson were there. That you both saw . . . Richie's . . . body."
He took half a step back. "All right. Let me talk to him."
"He's in the kitchen."
Richard placed an arm around his wife's shoulders as they walked to a sofa.
Duncan looked up as his friend joined him at the table. "Methos. Er, Adam. Come to put me out of my misery?"
"Your mother's worried about you," he began cautiously.
"Of course she is. But she should worry about herself. She didn't take the news well."
"What news?"
"Oh, not you, too! I killed Richie! I deserve to be punished!"
"Not this again. Do I need to take you back to that spring? Cleanse you of these delusions? What exactly happened? Tell me as if I wasn't there."
"I -" He took a breath to collect himself. "I went to the racetrack."
"Which racetrack?"
"An abandoned one. I don't remember what it was called."
"Why don't we go there? You can show Lilith and . . ."
"Sh-show her? You want me to show my mother where I killed her husband?!"
"She won't accept what you've told her, right? If you show her, she'll have to."
"Where did you and Dawson take him?"
"Wh- No. We're going to the racetrack. After that . . . We'll figure it out from there. Why don't you go shower, put some fresh clothes on. I'll tell her the plan."
He nodded. He liked this idea. If he showed Lilith, if she realised what he'd done, she'd have no choice, no way to escape the reality of it. She could take whatever actions she felt were appropriate.
As he felt the hot water stream down his face, some sense of clarity returned. He would simply explain to Lilith that all those images made him confused and dizzy and he hadn't realised Richie had approached and -
'How did I not notice another Immortal had walked up behind me?'