Work Text:
October 23, 1999
Methos hadn't realized the day's significance at first. Their morning had begun just as any other morning, when Methos felt the gentle brush of lips against his forehead. It was Duncan's way of letting him know that he was going for a run or to work out, and usually Methos just rolled over and went back to sleep. He felt warm and content, yet he couldn't seem to drift off again as easily as he usually did. He dozed for just a few minutes more, then woke up again and decided to get moving. He showered and dressed, drank some coffee, and went out to attend to some chores at the bookstore.
When he returned to the barge several hours later, he was in a good mood. Why shouldn't he be in a good mood, he mused. He had what he wanted -- Duncan MacLeod as his lover -- and they were safe for the time being. All the rest of his concerns about a relationship with another Immortal would keep until they had to be dealt with. Certainly not today.
Methos smiled when he felt Duncan's presence as he strolled up the gangplank. He paused before going below to take in the warm sunshine and light breeze. The fall was beautiful in Paris; the heat and humidity of summer had finally given way, but the winter's first chill had not yet arrived. Perhaps if Duncan didn't have anything planned for the day, they might take advantage of it.
When he entered the barge, Duncan was seated on the sofa, a metal box opened in front of him on the low table. Duncan blinked and looked up as he entered, almost as if he hadn't felt Methos' approach. His eyes were dark and serious.
"Hey, Mac," Methos said. "What's going on?" he asked casually.
Duncan shook his head, as if shaking off his reverie. "Nothing," he answered. "Just going through some old things." Methos could tell he was attempting to keep his voice level, but it crept into the low register that characterized disguised emotion -- usually distress. He played along, though, and tried not to look concerned.
Methos sat down next to Duncan, who was shuffling items around the table. When he saw the photos, Methos sifted through his memories of Duncan's chronicles and suddenly remembered the day's significance, his heart dropping a bit lower in his chest. Strewn everywhere were pictures of Tessa and Richie and Duncan. Most were pictures of two of the three of them, the other person obviously the photographer, though there were a few of all three of them outdoors, probably taken by passersby in Paris or Seacouver. There were a few of Richie alone, and a sheaf of pictures of Tessa.
Duncan's quiet sadness reached out and touched Methos deep inside, in a well-shielded place few people managed to reach. Alexa had affected him like that, he recalled, feeling a twinge of pain from his own loss. He remembered every date associated with Alexa, and he should have known that Duncan would remember the anniversary. It might have been six years, but the loss was still painful. He bristled at his own lack of forethought. If he'd remembered, he could have distracted Duncan ahead of time somehow. Perhaps. Okay, probably not, but it would have been worth the effort just to try.
Methos' gaze swept Duncan's face, but Duncan didn't seem to notice, the dark eyes serious and distracted. The memory of losing Tessa would have been painful enough, but connected as it was to the beginning of Richie's too-short Immortal life.... And it would have been painful enough if fate and chance had stolen Tessa and Richie away, but Methos knew Duncan too well. He knew that Duncan would always hold himself responsible for Richie's death, and in a deep, secret place he didn't visit often, he blamed himself for Tessa's death, too. Methos' heart sank again as he looked at the pictures. He hadn't remembered, hadn't been prepared for Duncan's reaction.
He picked up one of the pictures of Tessa and Richie and studied it for a moment. "Where was this taken?" he asked quietly. They were standing outdoors, their arms around each other, smiling. Tessa looked relaxed and happy, Richie enthusiastic and very young.
Duncan appeared to be surprised by the question. He cleared his throat before answering, "Versailles. We took Richie to see the palace." His lips quirked a bit. "Richie thought it was tacky."
Methos chuckled. "I think I'm with him there. Versailles is tacky."
Duncan shrugged. "Tessa was trying to teach him a bit about art." He smiled at the memory. "She persuaded him it would be a good way to meet girls."
"A wise woman. The way to a teenaged boy's head is through his -- "
Duncan finally laughed. "Some facts of life are eternal, I guess."
"Yeah, they are," Methos replied. He sank back into the sofa, reaching a hand out to stroke Duncan's back with a light, gentle touch. Duncan turned and smiled at him before turning back to the pictures.
Methos returned the smile, then let his eyes wander among the photos. "That's a great picture," he said, picking up a black and white photo of Tessa. She was outdoors, leaning against a low wooden fence, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt with a turtleneck underneath. "You took that, didn't you?" he asked.
Duncan smiled. "How'd you know?"
"The look on her face. That wasn't something she'd have given to anyone else." The pose certainly wasn't blatantly sexual -- to the contrary, it was understated and subtle. Perhaps it was the knowing smile, the gleam in her eye, the tilt of her head? Methos wasn't sure, but he did know, without ever having met Tessa, that nobody but Duncan MacLeod could have drawn that expression from her.
Duncan's eyes were still fixed on the photo. "We were hiking somewhere in Utah on that trip. She'd mostly been taking pictures of things that she might want to use as ideas for sculpture, but she looked so beautiful that morning, I had to take a picture of her." He paused a moment, remembering. "She scolded me for wasting her film."
"Not a waste. It's a beautiful picture, something only you could have taken." An impulse struck, and Methos spoke without thinking. "Do you have a camera here?"
Duncan looked at him as if the question was a strange one. "Why?"
"Because...." Watching Duncan look at pictures of Tessa reminded him that he didn't have any photographs of Alexa, and he regretted it profoundly. It had occurred to him after her death that Alexa had never mentioned wanting to take pictures on their travels, knowing that she wouldn't live long enough for the memories to fade from her mind. Methos had been too busy seeing the world through Alexa's eyes to even think about looking through a camera's lens.
By the time he thought about wanting a picture, she was too sick, and it would have been cruel to ask that of her. He had waited too long, and now his memory of her was already fading; sometimes he had difficulty picturing her face, her smile.
But they were Immortal, and he wouldn't lose Duncan like he'd lost Alexa. No, his internal voice of pessimism whispered, there won't be any long illness -- one night he just won't come home. With a determined effort, he shoved the thought aside -- one of them depressed was enough for one day. No matter what the future might hold, he wanted a picture of Duncan, something he could look at now when Duncan wasn't around. And he wanted to take the picture, to be the one to imprint the memory himself.
But all of that seemed far too complicated. "Because it's a nice day out, one of the last nice days we'll have in Paris before the century's out. We may want to remember it in a few hundred years." The sentimentality sounded fake even as he heard the words come out of his mouth.
But it wasn't the sentiment that caught Duncan's attention. "A few hundred years, huh?" Duncan smiled at him. Methos nearly blushed as he realized what he'd said. It had just slipped out, but he liked the sound of it; it wasn't sentiment, it was optimism, a welcome contrast to his thoughts just moments before. He smiled at the idea that in a few hundred years they would be alive, and together, and just might have a sudden urge to remember Paris in the waning days of the twentieth century. Duncan rose from the sofa and beckoned him to follow. "Maybe. Let's go see," he said, referring to the camera.
Methos smiled and considered the task of distracting Duncan underway. He followed him out onto the deck and then back to the wheelhouse before they went below again, into a tiny room that had been Richie's cabin when he had lived with Tessa and Duncan during their winter together in Paris. Duncan had turned it into a workspace when he returned alone after Tessa's death, relegating Richie to the couch during his unscheduled visits. It was a wide, shallow space, almost wholly consumed by a long workbench, which had cabinets underneath. It just barely held them both.
Duncan flipped a switch, illuminating the tiny space. He poked around in the rafters before pulling down a black camera case and blowing off the dust. Both men coughed.
"Yeesh," Duncan said. "Sorry about that." He placed the case on the workbench before opening it. "Well, at least the case kept the dust off the camera." Methos looked over his shoulder. It was a Nikon, circa the early 1980's, a classic, high-quality camera.
Duncan stared down at it. "Wow, I'd forgotten about this camera. I didn't know she'd kept it."
"Tessa?"
"Yeah," he said softly. "I bought this for her when she was still in art school. She complained it was too extravagant." Methos couldn't see Duncan's face, but imagined that his eyes were clouded over with memory. Duncan was quiet for a moment, then he turned and handed the camera to Methos. "It's a good camera, it should still work okay."
Methos smiled. "Good," he said. "What do you say we get out of here? Stop and buy some film, then find an appropriate site for documenting the end of the twentieth century?"
"Okay," Duncan nodded, managing a wan smile. Then he pulled the cord on the light bulb, plunging the tiny room into darkness before he pushed open the hatch and led the way above deck.
~~~~
Duncan suggested the Luxembourg Gardens, and with a slightly ironic smile, Methos agreed. The park was vastly different than it had been on their last visit here; no longer deserted and chilly, the gardens were pleasantly warm and dotted with people. No Stephen Keane, no ambitious police inspectors, just Parisians and visitors alike enjoying the sun's warmth and the cool breeze across the fountains. Pensioners, students from the nearby Sorbonne, Latin Quarter locals, mothers with young children, people lucky enough to have picked the nicest week of the year to visit Paris -- all were scattered about, feeding the ducks, playing with balls, or flying kites.
Turning his face into the sun's warmth, Methos couldn't help feeling lucky, and happy. It might be the park where that unhappy confrontation had taken place, yet they were worlds away. It had been nothing short of a miracle that allowed them to put the past away and find their way back to each other. So much pain, so much loss...for both of them. Methos had lost Don and Alexa, two of the small number of people he'd allowed to become important to him. Duncan had lost Tessa, Darius, Richie...so many others in such a short time. And they'd both lost Adam Pierson, too: Methos had lost the easy safety of Adam's life, and Duncan had lost his illusions about his friend -- or more accurately, had his illusions violently shattered. It said much about the character of Duncan MacLeod that he'd been able to accept Methos back into his life as fully as he had, not just as a friend, but as a lover. Methos had been wrong when he'd thought that Duncan could never forgive what he'd been, what he'd done. Duncan had come even farther -- he'd put aside the need to condemn or forgive, and had learned to accept the darkness in others as well as himself.
He looked over at the man. Duncan already looked better than he had on the barge, his hair mussed by the breeze.
"I've always liked this place," Duncan said. "If you ever find yourself longing for a little bit of Italy, here it is, right in the middle of Paris." He gestured toward the Palace, which bordered the park at one end.
"Yeah, all because Marie de Medici loved the style," Methos noted. "It's not just Italy...Holland and Spain, too. The inside's decorated with Rubens and Delacroix."
"Never been inside," Duncan said, looking over at the enormous building. "Well, only once, and I wasn't exactly taking the time to look at the artwork." Methos glanced over at him, curious. "They used it as a prison during the Revolution."
"Leave it to you to stick around in a country where they were lopping people's heads off for sport." Methos shook his head. "You wouldn't have found me within a thousand miles during that insanity."
"It wasn't exactly intentional. A friend was in trouble." Duncan paused at a bench and sat.
"So, what happened?" Methos asked, hoping for a happy ending. He didn't want Duncan to have any more reason to remember lost friends today.
"Everything worked out," Duncan smiled, "and after that I stayed out of France until it was over." He looked back at the building. "They used to keep the condemned there to wait their turn at the guillotine. Now the French Senate meets inside, a symbol of democracy in action." Duncan's gaze turned serious, reflective. "Why do you think it is that you see the same thing anywhere you go? Instead of razing buildings that are part of a shameful era of history, they get turned into something else. I heard the Czech jail where Vaclav Havel wrote his plays is a youth hostel now. They give tours to the island where Nelson Mandela broke rocks."
Methos shrugged. "The irrepressible human need to turn something evil into something good?"
"Or maybe just the need to remember what happened, so it won't be repeated," Duncan mused.
"Maybe...though it seems humanity needs to learn some lessons over and over again."
"So do we," Duncan replied quietly.
Methos couldn't disagree, although he hadn't intended to distinguish Immortals from the rest of humanity.
They strolled on for a few minutes longer, then sat on a wide stone bench. As Methos started to play with the camera, Duncan teased him gently, apparently shaking off some of his melancholia. Methos looked over at Duncan, who sat back with his eyes closed, relaxing and enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. He was dressed casually, in a dark T-shirt and jeans. His hair had grown out over the past year, the unruly locks curling around his neck. One eye opened; Duncan caught him staring and smiled.
Methos smiled in return, but offered no excuses. He continued fiddling with the camera, affixing a longer lens.
Duncan winced. "Do we really have to do this?"
"Oh, as if you don't like having your picture taken, Fabio."
Duncan punched his shoulder halfheartedly, barely suppressing a smile. "It's not exactly the smartest thing for Immortals to do, you know."
This time it was Methos who barely restrained a laugh. "Now you're worried? This from a man who hangs out around crazed revolutionaries with guillotines?" he quipped.
"Maybe now I have more to live for."
Duncan's eyes held his own for a long moment, then Methos blinked, swallowing the lump in his throat. He answered, "We'll destroy the negatives, okay?"
"Okay," Duncan finally conceded, breaking their gaze so Methos could return to fiddling with F-stops and shutter speeds.
When he was satisfied, he stood. "Let's walk," he suggested. Duncan nodded amicably and rose, walking beside Methos.
He watched as Methos' hands continued to manipulate the camera, taking experimental shots of the park and passersby. "You're good with that."
Methos smiled. "I learned from the best."
"Wait, don't tell me...Louis Daguerre. George Eastman?" Duncan offered, well-accustomed to Methos' claimed brushes with the rich and famous of ages past.
"No, Tim O'Sullivan."
Duncan paused a moment, searching his memory. "The Civil War photographer? Really?"
"Yeah," Methos replied, his voice carefully neutral. "He traveled west after the war, to Nevada and Utah. I met him there."
"I guess I didn't realize you were in the States then."
"On and off."
Duncan didn't pursue his questioning further, and Methos was glad. Another time, perhaps, Methos could tell Duncan about some of the things he'd seen on his travels with Tim -- the miserable life of the mine workers in the Comstock and the toll of the industrial revolution on the land and its people. On some other day, maybe he could tell Duncan about Tim himself, about how he took his pictures with heavy, wet-plate negatives and developed them in a horse-drawn wagon. About how Tim had died far too young.
Another day, maybe, but not today, not when he was supposed to be distracting Duncan from his own sadness.
Instead, he directed Duncan over to a low wall and made a great fuss over how he was standing. When Methos had positioned his subject at the best angle for capturing the light, he stepped away, then checked the settings on the camera. He knew the kind of picture he wanted, and he optimized the camera for it.
When he was ready, he looked up at Duncan and caught his breath. His neutral expression had been replaced with a look that took Methos' breath away; it was just a smile, yet it was so much more than a smile. It was a smile for him and only for him. He was so distracted he almost missed the shot, but managed to click the shutter while their eyes held.
"Let's go home."
~~~~
A few hours later, while Duncan dozed in the warm light of the late afternoon sun, Methos pulled on a pair of jeans. Taking the bags of supplies they'd purchased that morning along with the film, he went into the barge's tiny storage cabin and created a makeshift darkroom.
For some reason he didn't understand, his heart was pounding wildly as the pictures developed. Only one photograph really interested him, and his breath caught as it came into focus. Carefully completing the process, he removed it from the wash and hung it up to dry.
The photograph was perfect. He'd used a wide aperture and fast exposure. As a result, Duncan, in the foreground, was sharp, clear and beautiful against a blurred background. Tim and his colleagues would have said his picture had a shallow depth of field. Not usually a good thing for news photographers, but for him....
Duncan, looking at the camera, looking at him. Sensation flooded his body, and it was a moment before he recognized it: happiness, warmth, belonging. His heart slowed as he studied the picture and the beautiful man in it, thinking about him, about them. A very shallow depth of field, he thought. In the picture, and in his life. Like the objects in the background of the photograph, the rest of his life had blurred out of focus since Duncan MacLeod had wandered into his flat and his heart. Nothing had been the same since.
It reminded him again of Tessa, of how this day had begun, and he knew that he and Duncan had something else they needed to do that afternoon.
~~~~
"Are you sure you don't mind?"
"Of course I don't mind. It was my idea, wasn't it?"
It was nearly sunset as the two men walked uphill toward the Montmarte cemetery. Just before the gates, Methos paused and purchased two bunches of flowers. Into one he tucked a photograph before handing the flowers to Duncan.
"What's this?" he asked, removing the photo.
"Something of you to leave with her, Mac."
Duncan looked at him, a mix of surprise and gratitude crossing his face. "Methos...." he said, moving closer than he usually did in public. "Thank you. That's.... Thank you." Duncan reached for Methos' shoulder and pulled him into a quick embrace, ignoring what anyone who passed by might think.
"Careful, you'll squish the flowers."
Duncan laughed. "Methos...."
"Why don't I wait here, and you go visit Tessa, then I'll go with you to Richie's, okay?"
Duncan nodded, somber again. "Okay." He tucked the photo back into the paper wrapped around the flowers.
As Duncan was turning away, a thought entered Methos' mind, and it escaped through his lips before he'd had a chance to think about it. "You know, some cultures think that if you take someone's picture, you steal their soul."
Duncan stopped and turned back. "It's too late for me," Duncan said softly. Methos looked up, not understanding. "Someone already owns mine." With a gentle smile, he turned and walked toward Tessa's grave.
Methos watched him go. Unlike a figure in a photograph, Duncan didn't grow blurry as he moved away. In fact, he was the only thing that Methos could see.