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Chapter Twenty
Regrets And Memories
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Sue was crying softly as she sat in her old bedroom. The sky blue walls were covered here and there with boy-band posters, and other posters and pictures of interest to her from when she was growing up. Outside, a gentle rain was falling, punctuated occasionally by distant thunder.

Eadgils knocked on the door, and poked his head inside. "Sue?"

She looked up and nodded, motioning to a spot beside her on the bed.

Eadgils took a seat beside the quietly crying Sue, and reached an arm around her, offering a hug.

"He, he really wasn't my Dad, was he?"

"Of course he was. Sue, when you were little, who held you when you were scared, who bandaged your wounds? Who taught you the ways of the world, protecting you all the time, wasn't it your Father?"

Sue nodded. "Yes."

"Then he was as much your father as if you had sprung from his loins."

"But, it, It was a lie. I really wasn't his daughter. She died, with her mother."

"Sue, in my life I have seen many wonders, and many mysteries. Where we come from is one I have never heard of being answered, and trust me, many of us have tried to find our origins. But there ARE powers in this world greater than ourselves. I can easily believe that we do not come without a purpose. Tell me, Girl, what would have happened to your father had Methos not acted as he did?"

"He would have been alone."

"Exactly. Even had he known your origin, do you really think he would have loved you any less?"

"I, I don't know. He might have. Especially if he knew what I was."

"Really? Do you in your heart, where you keep his memory, truly believe that?"

Sue took a deep breath then let it out again, reaching up to wipe the tears out of her eyes. Finally she said in a small voice, "No."

"Then in every way that counts, he was your Dad. He loved you, and you him. That is the secret of a family, not the genes or blood; it is the love that ties people together. Cherish your memories of your father, and the stories he told you of your mother as well, for she certainly would have loved you as well. Besides, as Adam said, you have her eyes. Who is to say that somehow, you aren't truly the child born of their love. No one knows how we come to be; perhaps some power, seeking to save you from the accident, acted in some way we can never know? It makes as much sense as anything else."

"I suppose. It is possible, as much as anything else, I mean. At least I can believe it, because even though I never met her, it would hurt to lose my mother as well."

"Then don't lose her. Keep her in your heart, along with your father. That way, they can be together, for eternity."

"Yes. Thank you Ed." Sue said, sitting up straighter finally.

"You are welcome. I'll leave you alone, for a while. I'm sure you can find me if you need me."

Eadgils got up, and walked out of the room, as a ray of sunlight came through the window, and a bird began to sing in the yard outside.

Eadgils sat in the Dojo of the Mind, his sword across his lap, and he contemplated both his current situation, and the stories he had heard that day from Adam/Methos/Death. Perhaps not Death, the man he had met today was not the person Cassandra had told him of all those years ago. Death would not have risked anything to swap out a dead baby for a live one to help a mortal for any reason. Death would never of spent time training Sue in the use of the foil. Death surely wouldn't have traveled all this way just to check on some potential Immortal, and make sure they were all right. He would have killed them long ago, and taken their head.

Based on his own experience with Darius, both before and after his 'Conversion', Eadgils could understand how the death of his Teacher could have so completely altered Death. To some extent, he wondered, was Ralas still around, inside Methos, acting as a conscience, much like he was haunting Sue's mind? On one level, he would like to believe so.

Eadgils rose at a sound behind him, and turned around, expecting to see Sue. The image of Cassandra standing before the open, uncivilized eastern European plains of millennia past surprised him. "Cassi?" he asked, hesitantly.

"Eadgils. Where is the child?"

"Last I saw her, she was in her room" he replied with a grin for his old student and lover.

"Her room?"

"Yes. She was still adjusting to what Methos told me today."

"What was that?"

"The story of how a Dr. Robert Helm came to switch the stillborn corpse for a newly found Immortal infant, to give a man who had just lost everything something to live for."

"How did he know about this, was it in a Chronicle?"

"No, Methos WAS Dr. Robert Helm before he joined the Watchers as Adam Pierson ten years ago. Quite a change from the Death we knew here." Eadgils said, sweeping a hand across the open expanse, light now by the afterglow of a recently set sun, the plants disturbed occasionally by the drifting breeze.

"I would say so. He does seem different. I understand now why Duncan asked me to spare him."

"Did you know him well, this Duncan?"

"He still lives. Duncan MacLeod can be found in Paris, or in Seacouver, depending on the season."

"I never met him. I crossed paths once with Connor, but never with Duncan. Probably for the best; despite his protests, I still think he has to be some sort of really clever Headhunter. Instead of going looking, they come to him. I have heard of too many Immortals losing their heads around him to ever feel comfortable."

"Duncan is a good man, Eadgils. He has honor, and will only fight when challenged, or to defend others. It is his reputation which draws the Headhunters to him, no deliberate act of his own. He even changes addresses fairly often, just to try and find some peace."

"If you say so, Cassi, I will believe you. You said you knew him as a child, so perhaps you are not the best judge; but he seems to be friends of friends of Sue, so he may not be bad after all. Who knows, if Methos, the Pale Rider himself can change from being a sociopathic killer, to a man worthy of friendship and trust, then anything is possible."

"I don't know yet that Methos, or Adam is worthy of the trust others place in him, but from what I have seen, I think I am willing to give him a chance. I hadn't considered it at the time when I was standing over him with an Ax in Bordeaux a few years ago, but he could have killed me in Seacouver, or let Silas kill me in Bordeaux, yet both times he acted to save my life. He even told me I should not blame myself for having thought I felt something for him, he even reminded me of the Stockholm syndrome, where prisoners come to associate with their captors. It was like he wanted to help me heal my wounds. And as I stood over him, he himself made no plea for his life; he just knelt at my feet, awaiting my judgment and sentence. It was after I had returned home to Glenfinnan that I was able to reflect on things more rationally, and I realized he may have WANTED me to kill him. I realized that by letting him keep his head, I may have been punishing him even more."

"I don't claim to understand, but I do think you are different yourself from the woman I knew three thousand years ago. She was cold, and haughty. She hid herself behind a shield of self importance, and she almost never laughed or smiled. I have seen you do both. The Cassandra I knew would have killed Methos for making a joke at her expense at dinner last night, but you, you almost played along."

"I think I have changed. I hope I have. A life lived for vengeance is not a life lived at all. Duncan told me that once, after Bordeaux."

"Great wisdom for one so young," Eadgils said, giving Cassandra a hug.

"It is so good to find you again, Larar."

"No one has called me Teacher in the old tongue for thousands of years, Cassi."

"You should teach it to your student."

"Sue can not be my student, Cassi. I am dead."

"You seem pretty active for a ghost." Cassandra said smiling up at him.

"But that is all I may be. That or a demon, possessing this poor young girl's body."

"You're not a demon," came Sue's voice from behind them on the hill, as she walked through the soft grass, climbing to join them at the top of the gentle slope they realized they had been standing on for some unknown time.

"How do you know what I am? Methos's story showed what happened the last time, insanity and death. Why that hasn't happened to you yet, I have no idea, but my fear is that it is only a matter of time."

"What you are Eadgils, is my friend, and my teacher. De bent Eadgils, Larar duen mi."

Eadgils stood in shock as Cassandra giggled at the ancient title falling casually from Sue's lips.

"I guess you don't have to teach her the old tongue after all," Cassandra said.

Sue looked at Cassandra and asked her, "What language is that, anyhow? It sounds like German, but it isn't."

"It had no name. It was a mixture of many different languages, some of which later evolved to Latin, Greek, even German, English, and French have echoes of it today." Cassandra replied.

"How do I know how to speak it? I never even heard it before Cassandra called you 'Larar'," Sue asked, diverting the subject slightly.

Eadgils tried to explain, "I'm not sure. It could be because the information, like everything else I know or remember, is actually inside your head, you just need to figure out how to access it. I know when I'm awake, I know things only you could have known, almost like an echo of you from the back of my mind. When you're awake, it's more like I'm just watching a movie or something. I know what's going on; I can see and hear everything you do, but I can't do anything. I've even tried to shout at you at times, but you never seem to hear me."

"I never shout at you. I don't seem to be able to even think when you are awake. For me it is like I just wake up, remembering what you did as though I was the one who did it, but I wasn't really there at the time at all. Does that make any sense?" Sue asked in confusion.

Eadgils looked to Cassandra then back to Sue. "Not to me. Cassi, do you have any ideas?"

Cassandra looked over at both Sue and Eadgils, then slowly shook her head. "I've never heard of an intermingling of minds and souls like this before. About the closest similarity I have ever heard of would be a Possession, although I never personally encountered one of those. I do know this though, when I first met Sue, she had the Quickening of a newly awakened Immortal. When I felt Eadgils yesterday, the Quickening was significantly stronger. That's another development I've never heard of before. I leaned long ago the basics of sensing, focusing, and shaping my Quickening, I taught the basics of those skills to Eadgils even as I figured them out myself back then. But I have never been able to suppress or hide it, and that would be a useful skill, if I had any idea how such a feat could be accomplished.

Cassandra shrugged and went on, "Since your Quickening seems to change, you are either doing so subconsciously, or you are truly two separate people in a single body somehow. If that is the case, one explanation could lead from the fact that this is Sue's actual body. Perhaps since her memories are native to it, Eadgils can read them, but since Eadgils's memories are not native to the body, they are only slowly seeping into the shared brain for Sue to access. As for why Eadgils can view Sue's waking hours, but Sue can only remember them, I am not sure. I would almost expect it to be the other way around, and it makes no sense to me. Then again, I don't even understand how I can be here, wherever this is. I'm not a Dreamwalker, yet somehow I have ended up here twice now."

"So neither one of you have any answers. Great!" Sue grumped, sitting on the mat in the Dojo, and laying her Katana across her lap.

Cassandra looked down as she realized she was now holding her own blade casually in her right hand, and Eadgils was holding his as well as he stood beside her on the mat. She looked around at the dojo which had reappeared as suddenly and unnoticeably as it had vanished when Sue showed up. "Does this happen often?" she asked Eadgils.

"More than you even notice, around here. I tend not to pay attention anymore, myself."

Cassandra looked again at her blade, then at Eadgils's, and grinned. "So, mein Larar, shall we spar?"

Eadgils nodded slowly. "It has been a long time."

Eadgils and Cassandra took up positions on the mat well away from where Sue sat watching them, and began to fight.

Cassandra noted that she did not seem to tire, that when she was cut, she did not bleed, but that it did hurt. Especially when Eadgils suddenly stepped in and moved in a way which seemed impossible, and his heavy blade sliced swiftly through her neck, in what she was positive was a terminal blow. Yet aside from the pain throughout her neck, there was no apparent damage. "That was, interesting." Cassandra said.

"Yes. You should have seen me the first time Sue did that to me here, when I was training her in handling the katana instead of a foil. It was the second time I expected everything to be over, and nothing happened. But it simplified training. She didn't have to pull her blows, and I could train her reflexes until she took the swings without hesitation. The girl is good, and she tends to 'kill' me more often than I do her anymore."

"How long - how long did you spend training her?"

"Only night before you fought her the other day, but time is different here. I don't know if you have noticed it yet or not, but we could stay here fighting for hundreds of hours, and never tire. While I've only had two nights to work with her here, if it was in the real world, it would have been several years of lessons. I think I have spent more time sparring with her here than I did with you those first hundred years."

Cassandra looked speculatively at the girl sitting on the mat, the katana cradled in her lap, then nodded. "She fought well when I tested her. I was shocked; I expected an easy victory so I could show the upstart child just how much she needed my help; instead I awoke on the floor, killed by a blow I hadn't expected, from a blade I had barely had a chance to see."

"I taught her that trick," Eadgils affirmed.

"It was not the only one she used in that fight. As I said, I was shocked by her skills. I was almost more shocked to see Methos's moves from her. But if you had long enough here to train her, added to what her 'Adam' showed her before she first died, it makes sense that I underestimated her. My ego is no longer quite as bruised."

"You should work with her though, I am sure there are things she could learn from you I would never know to teach her. Would you mind?" Eadgils asked.

Cassandra looked at Sue, who looked back at her silently from her seat on the floor.

"I would not mind, but would she learn, that is the question. The child told me in no uncertain terms she didn't need me as a Teacher."

Sue finally spoke from her position on the floor. "I'm sorry, Cassandra. I already apologized to Eadgils last night for how I had behaved towards him the night before we met. I think my bad mood carried over to you as well. I had been feeling more than a bit out of control with my life at the time, and I was rude at best. Please, forgive me for my attitude towards you. If you are willing to help teach me, I am more than willing to learn."

Cassandra looked thoughtfully at the girl seated at her feet, then looked back at Eadgils, and finally nodded. "Ok. Stand up, and let me take your measure again. I will see what I can teach you of fighting. Then, if we still have time, we will start on seeing what, if anything I can show you of using your own mind."

As Sue stood up and faced Cassandra, Eadgils grinned and slipped back into the shadows of the Dojo of the Mind, where he could watch his two students meet one another in combat, his first and his last.

Sue sat before the campfire on the plains, listening to the voice of Cassandra speaking softly in her ears, and tried to visualize her Quickening as a field spreading out from her body. Eadgils had slipped away sometime after Cassandra had tired of sparring endlessly with Sue, stating that it was time to teach her other things. Things more difficult than merely hacking and slashing with a metal blade.

Sue was having little luck with sensing her Quickening though, and as she tried it occurred to her that perhaps this was not a lesson which could be learned here. She had not felt Cassandra's approach here, nor had she ever felt Eadgils's. "Cassandra?" she asked finally.

"I told you to be still, Child. You will never be able to feel your field if you keep interrupting instead of meditating."

"I am sorry, Larar. But I had a question. Can you feel your Quickening here?"

Cassandra was silent for a long time, only the crackling of the fire and the stirring of the soft winds disturbing the night. Finally she spoke in a soft voice, "No. I can't."

"Then perhaps I am not such a total failure after all," Sue said, sitting up and looking across the flames at the woman seated there. "This might not be something I can learn, here. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"It was not necessarily a waste, Child. Perhaps in the daytime, when you are moving around in the real world, you can try to apply these techniques I have tried to teach you this evening. It may be that this time we have spent fruitlessly will instead have been little more than an investment. You seem to understand the principles, it is the applications you fail at, and if that's because this realm causes you to fail, then you may well have learned what I tried to teach, if you applied it in the waking world."

Sue nodded, and was about to answer when a distant alarm bell began to jangle.

Cassandra looked around in surprise, asking, "Do you hear that sound? It sounds familiar."

Sue nodded, and said "I think I know what it is, this has happened before now." Even as the fire faded, letting the darkness close in while the distant bell grew louder and louder.

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