DISCLAIMER: Standard Disclaimers apply. Meaning: Gillian doesn't own any of the characters/concepts in the following story.
Sandra Adair sent me Dylan Thomas' 'Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night'. She must have known about my softspot for Welshmen! I confess, while I had no problems with a story, I had a very difficult time incorporating a line from the poem. That is why I only used one. Again thanks to those constant beta's - spellcheck and grammar. :o) No episode background needed, you'll soon pick up the timeline. I am putting the poem first, just for "atmosphere".
Sorry I’m posting late. Went to check out a horse yesterday…funny thing was – the horse is called Tessa’!!!
The Dying of the Light
The phone call finally came late in the afternoon, its shrill cry cutting through the heavy silence.
The voice on the other end was blunt, not even identifying itself. There was no need. "If you’re going to come, make it now," it said, then hung up without waiting for a reply.
MacLeod gripped the phone, leaving it to his ear long after the voice had been replaced by a dial tone. Eventually he returned the instrument to its cradle. With heavy soul and even heavier heart, he shrugged into his coat and left the loft.
The coat was a purely instinctive gesture. He had no need of its warmth; it was a beautiful spring day. Trees were in bud, flowers in bloom. Teenage girls had shed their winter attire, showing off assets only hinted at a mere six months ago. It was a day to enjoy. A day to give thanks for the passing of another long, cold winter. It was not a good day to die.
A sudden memory came back to him as he drove. Paris - many, many years ago. A cold, dry winter's day, almost the opposite of this one. A good day to die, at least in someone's opinion. But was there ever such a thing?
He found a parking spot easily. Visiting the sick and dying was not a preferred activity on such a brilliant day. On cloudless days in spring, people did not want to be reminded of their mortality - even when they were immortal.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
Blips and tones greeted his arrival on Floor Six, as they had on every other occasion. He was almost immune to them by now.
The woman beside the bed had been watching for him. At his arrival she rose stiffly and made her way toward him. "He doesn't have long," she informed. "A few hours at most." Tears clung to her blue eyes and she looked away, blinking.
"Thank you for calling," MacLeod replied, amazed that his voice held so steady. He looked at the woman, again searching for signs of her parentage, knowing there wouldn't be any. It was a game he played with himself - find the connection. A smile, a look, anything that reminded him of Joe. But he could never find anything.
The woman gathered her things. "I'll go now."
"Amy, you don't have to...," MacLeod began. His hand touched her elbow, only to be shrugged off immediately.
She raised her hands and halted his speech. "No. We said our good-byes long ago." Her gaze met his. "I just didn't want him to be alone."
"He won't be."
She bit her lip and nodded, exiting the room quickly with her head down.
MacLeod watched her walk down the corridor, wanting to reach out and comfort her. Wanting to reach out and be comforted. She turned the corner and was gone and he knew that any further contact with Amy Thomas would be of the purely coincidental kind.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
MacLeod turned his attention to the emaciated figure in the bed. Since the man had lapsed into unconsciousness, there was no need to attempt to hide the horror his image evoked. For those who had known Joe Dawson in his younger days, the sheer shock value of seeing him now would be hard to match. A number of descriptions came to mind: skin and bones, a mere skeleton, a shadow of his former self. They were all correct, but at the same time inadequate.
"Hi Joe." MacLeod filled the chair Joe's daughter had recently vacated, pulling it closer to the bed. He purposely didn't ask the usual 'how are you?', recalling Joe's reply the first time he had visited him here.
"How the goddamned hell do you think I am MacLeod? Tubes up my nose. Tubes up my ass and every other goddamn orifice they can think of. Why can't they just let a man die in peace?"
The memory still brought a smile and a shake of the head from the Scot. Had it only been four weeks ago?
<<BEEP. Beep.>
He looked down at the gray face, a sickly contrast to the white of the hospital sheets. Skin hung flaccid beneath the jawbone. Cheeks were sunken. The rapid decline had been absolute - robbing first his appetite, then his strength, and finally his consciousness.
"If I were you, I would refrain from asking him how he is. Apart from it being a self-explanatory question, he doesn't like it. He glares at you. He does that you know, even through his eyelids." The voice was casual, sardonic even without the bite of the words.
MacLeod turned and stared. How long since he had last seen this face? Heard that derisive banter? Twenty years?
Nothing much had changed, nothing at all in fact. The hair was still cropped short. The face still all angles and planes, as if carved from marble. The body still leaned lazily against the doorframe as it had done to probably every doorway he had encountered during his five thousand years.
"What the hell are you doing here?" MacLeod choked, looking away, his face dark.
Methos moved, his familiar languid amble. He stopped at the foot of the bed. "Still haven't managed to complete that Emily Post correspondence course I see MacLeod."
He received a grunt in response.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
Methos absently straightened a blanket. "I'm here for the same reason you are. To say good-bye," he said, voice subdued.
"You might want to try saying hello first. You haven't changed, so perhaps he'll still remember who you are," MacLeod hurled back.
The old man's head came up, his green eyes meeting MacLeod's brown ones. "Just because you and I don't lunch once a week, doesn't mean Joe and I haven't kept in contact."
That got MacLeod's attention. In all their conversations about Methos, and there had been many over the years, Joe had never mentioned that he knew where the old man was.
Perhaps that was just as well.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
"He won't make the night."
Methos snorted. "Tell me something I don't know. I used to be a doctor, remember?" He sighed, closing his eyes, clamping his jaw tight for a moment. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
MacLeod nodded his begrudging acceptance of the apology. "It's been a while," he offered after a time.
"Twenty two years," came the reply.
"Amanda...," MacLeod began.
"Yes. I know. Joe told me. I'm sorry." The comment was genuine. Despite their verbal sparring, Methos had truly liked Amanda. Her passing had spun him off into a morbid recollection that lasted for days. "I hope you got the bastard."
MacLeod nodded slowly. "Yeah. I did."
<<BEEP. Beep.>
The minutes stretched by with agonizing slowness.
"How have you been?" ventured Methos, realizing it was his turn to take a stab at conversation.
MacLeod shrugged. "I'm alive."
"That much is obvious," Methos muttered, head down, eyes still entertained by the plain, gray hospital issue blanket.
"That's all you need to know, isn't it? I can't see how my life can be any of your concern. It hasn't been for the past twenty-two years. Why should it be now?"
<<BEEP. Beep.>
Methos stared at him open mouthed, surprised at the hostility the Scot's voice carried. "It was a question, MacLeod. A polite one. A means of making polite conversation."
"You and I don't have polite conversations. Not any more. Not since Cassandra."
Methos pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Ahh, so that's what this is all about. Cassandra." He chuckled humourlessly. "I seem to recall the last time we met..."
"The last time we met was at the end of each other's sword with a headless body between us. Her headless body," MacLeod spat. "A memory I'm sure we both can recall with clarity."
"It had to be done, MacLeod."
"IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE DONE! You chose to do it"
Methos looked at him, eyes blazing. "You seem to forget. She challenged me! She hunted me down. I simply gave her a shot at what she wanted most. My head. What was I supposed to do? Hand it to her on a silver platter?. Just kneel before her and say 'whack away, sweetheart'?."
"You could have walked away!" cried MacLeod
"So could she!"
<<BEEP. Beep.>
The two immortals stared away from each other, jaws set, eyes angry. Like two boys in a schoolyard brawl, neither willing to give, despite seeing the others side of the argument.
"I wonder, MacLeod, if you would be having this conversation if it had been my headless body at your feet instead of hers?" Methos asked finally.
MacLeod half turned, but didn't reply, not sure exactly what the answer would be.
Methos sighed. "It's always difficult, choosing between friends. Deciding who you want to live and who you want to die. It's always so much easier when one of them is an unknown."
MacLeod nodded, but maintained his silence.
"And that is why I had to leave," Methos explained softly. He continued again after a few moments silence. "I knew that one day, MacLeod, it would come down to you and me. Joe knew it too. After being friends, do you still think you can take my head? Because I will not hesitate to take yours."
The Scot raised his eyes and met the old man's unwavering gaze for a moment, then looked away. After a while he spoke. "We didn't come here to fight. We came here to say good-bye. Let's just do that. Then you and I...." The rest remained unspoken.
Methos shrugged, and nodded.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
The shadows and the silence lengthened, the sunny afternoon slipping away quietly. MacLeod watched it with a heavy heart, his soul full of rage at the dying of the light. He knew Joe would not live to see the sun rise again. He wondered if he would.
"He is mortal, MacLeod. This is what they do - they are born, they live and they die. They succumb to illness, or accident or just plain old age. You had to know this day was coming," Methos chided gently when he caught the Highlander's face.
"But he could have fought this. He should have fought this. He's only 76," MacLeod snarled. "They offered him treatment and the stubborn fool refused it. Said he didn't want to stick around and be a burden to anyone."
Methos sighed. "It is a very wise man who knows when to accept the end." He absently traced the outline of a floor tile with the toe of his shoe. "Do you think it has been easy for him, all these years? Growing older every day, watching you stay the same. Knowing that you'll stay the same even after he is gone. I should imagine that it's agony on any good day. And it would be downright torture when you're terminal. Damn it, MacLeod, your ending will be quick. Do you deny him the same?"
MacLeod looked up, analyzing the sentence for signs of a threat, despite knowing that it wasn't meant that way. "I just wanted him to fight it!" The voice was fraught with emotion. "I don't want him to just give up!"
"You don't want him to leave you alone, isn't that what you really mean? And he isn't giving up. He's just choosing his own way to go," Methos retorted. "After all he has given you, can you not allow him that? Does a son not let a father die with dignity?"
<<BEEP. Beep.>
They lapsed into silence once more. The hush broken only once, when Methos pulled another chair to the opposite side of the bed from MacLeod.
At 12:34 a.m. the breathing changed, becoming shallow and faster. MacLeod's face tensed, his eyes moving up to meet Methos'.
The old man nodded gently. "He really doesn't have much longer."
MacLeod reached out, taking Joe's hand in his. He swallowed the ball of emotion rising in him
<<BEEP. Beep.>
Monitors raced, tone and pitch varied, screaming to a listening world that change was imminent.
"How quietly they go," murmured Methos, more to himself than to MacLeod. "I envy him his serenity." He rolled his head back, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling.
<<BEEP. Beep.>
"Do you believe in heaven?" MacLeod questioned suddenly.
Methos jerked upright, the question catching him off guard. He frowned, contemplating his answer. Finally, he released his held breath slowly and met MacLeod's questioning gaze. "I don't think it really matters what I believe," he said softly.
Joe shuddered.
MacLeod gripped the hand tighter, hopelessly willing his strength, and life, and vitality into the emptying shell.
"Safe journey Joe." With that simple good bye, Methos rose from the chair, turning away from the bed and covering the distance to the door in two strides. He halted, one elbow propped against the frame, the hand burying itself in his hair.
The man in the bed trembled again, then stilled. Joe Dawson drew a low, ragged, last mortal breath.
MacLeod felt life slip from the body. "Be at peace, my friend."
<<_________________>>
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinking sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.