DISCLAIMER: Methos, Alexa, MacLeod, Cassandra, and Amanda are not
mine, even though I've been borrowing them more and more frequently in
the past few months...  Drusilla is of my own creation, she was
mentioned in my other stories, "Sanctuary" and "Kill or Be Killed,"
but it is not necessary to have read these to understand this story.
Q doesn't belong to me, either, and I apologize for the nearness of
this story to the Star Trek: TNG episode, "Tapestries," and the HL:TS
episodes, "To Be" and "Not To Be." Yes, yes, it is the same type of
concept, but it' been varied enough so I feel like it's my own
creation ...hehehe...

Anyway, on with the story.  (By the way, technically, this is a Star
 Trek: TNG crossover, but not enough so that I actually need to title
 it that. Q is the only Star Trek character who appears in the story,
 and I think that you can actually have no idea who he is and still
 understand the story for the most part.  The reason I used him is
 because in "Tapestries," he did something similar for Captain Picard
 as he does for Methos in this story.



"Second Chances" 
by Tiffany Baer


Methos sat beside her bed, his lithe body folded into a hard-backed
thing that was vaguely reminiscent of a chair as Alexa wheezed air in
and out of her lungs, the effort enough to make the Old Man wince each
time he heard it.  She awoke after a few minutes, her brilliant blue
eyes, their beauty unaffected by the disease and her nearness to
death, fluttering open and coming to focus on his face, its lines so
well known that she could've drawn it in her sleep.

"Adam," she whispered, her voice weaker than it had been the night
 before.  There were deep circles underneath her eyes that matched the
 ones under his own, although she had gotten a whole hell of a lot
 more sleep than he had in the past few weeks.

Methos gripped her hand, a pained expression on his face as she called
 out to him with the name that was not his own--did she love him, or
 merely the latest persona that he was presenting to the world?  He
 couldn't bear it anymore...he had to hear her lips form his real name
 at least once before she died, had to let her know the truth about
 himself so he could know if she loved him or Adam Pierson....

"Alexa, I'm not who you think I am," he said suddenly, gold-green eyes
fixed on hers so she would see that he was speaking the truth.  "I
have to tell you about me before you...," he let his voice trail off,
unable to finish the sentence.  "I have to tell you who I am."

Even though he had done this before--had explained about immortality
and his true age to at least one wife in the past, the words did not
come easily, and when he was done, he started to find that she was
weeping.

"Alexa?" he asked, alarmed, wondering if perhaps he shouldn't have
told her.

"You'll live," she said, squeezing his hand as best her small strength
would allow her.  "I'll die ...but you'll live.  I'm glad you'll
live."

"Oh, Alexa," he breathed, feeling a tear of his own slide down the
carefully sculpted lines of his face. "I'm sorry..."

"Methos," she whispered, then slipped into unconsciousness.

When she awoke again, nearly three hours later, he knew that it was
for the last time.  Alexa knew it, too, and the tears running down her
cheeks were nearly enough to send him over the brink, himself.

"Please, Adam," she begged, her eyes searching the room for him as if
she had no idea that he was sitting right beside her.  "Please, save
me...I want to live! Heal me like you heal, please...please, I don't
want to die.  You have to say yes, please save me..."

"No, Alexa, I can't..."

"Please, Adam, I know you can, you have to, please!  You can live
 forever, just let me live for a little while longer, I know you can
 help me... please..."

She begged him almost until the end, until he felt her slipping away
 from him, her pleas dying out as the life drained from her body.

"Alexa, I'm so sorry," he whispered, kissing the eyelids that had
closed for the last time.

He ran from the room, then, the wind flapping against his trench coat
 as he dashed down the white hallways, not able to stop or even pause
 for breath until he had completely left the sterilized terror of the
 hospital.  He ran even after bursting through the double doors at the
 front of the building, dashed out into the crowded streets of Geneva,
 pushing past people and speeding through alleys until he came to an
 unsteady halt in a deserted section of town, his lungs bursting in
 his chest as he struggled to catch his breath.

//She can't be dead.  She can't be dead.  Why am I surprised that
she's dead?  I knew this was going to happen from the first moment I
saw her, but why I am surprised?//

The sense of another immortal coming up behind him burst him out of
his thoughts, and he shouted, "Not now!" to the figure approaching,
sword in hand.  "Oh, God, not now..."

"Sorry, nothing personal," the man said.

The man was almost obviously inexperienced, the kind of young
head-hunting immortal who Methos could've easily beaten on any
day...any day other than today.

With the weight of Alexa's death and the guilt that he'd revealed to
 her that he would live forever while she was wasting away in a
 hospital bed, Methos never stood a chance.  His wrist was bent back
 by the weight of the other man's sword and he felt his own blade
 flying out of his grasp, heard it clanging to the concrete far behind
 him.  He fell to his knees as the other man's blade bit into the
 delicate skin of his shoulder right beside his neck, his lips forming
 the words, "Do it."

The man chuckled a bit, his features contorting into a look of
 disapproval.  "You disgust me, Methos. You know it wasn't your
 fault."

Methos stared at the man in shock, the use of his real name jolting
him back to reality.  "How can you...?"

Ignoring his questions, the man continued.  "She wasn't meant to live.
If you'd saved her with the Methuselah Stone, do you honestly believe
that things would've been the same?  That she would've been that same
Alexa?"

"At least she'd have been alive," he spat, ignoring the fact that this
 conversation wasn't possible.

"Ah, yes.  Alive," the dark-haired man said, circling the fallen
 immortal with the sword still resting lightly on his neck.  "You know
 all about being alive--about surviving --but, do you really think
 that surviving and living are the same things?"

"Alexa deserved to live," Methos told him.  "I'd have died in her
place a million times if it meant she'd have survived."

"Oh, I don't doubt that you would have, but if you had saved her--if
things had gone differently that day with the Methuselah Stone, what
do you suppose might have happened differently?"  The man smiled an
odd, laughing smile.  "What do you say we find out?"

Methos' look of confusion was lost as a brilliant flash of white light
swiftly enveloped them both, as the street and the buildings of their
surroundings disappeared beneath the strength of the glare.  Suddenly,
Methos found himself in an entirely different place, the scent of
nearby water and the biting feel of handcuffs on his wrists as he
heard a familiar voice shout, "MacLeod, now, or he dies!"

He felt the memories come flooding back into his mind with enough
 strength to banish all the air from his lungs even as he realized
 that this wasn't possible--that he couldn't possibly have traveled
 back in time to the day when he so narrowly missed capturing the
 Methuselah Stone for Alexa, that there was no way in hell that this
 was actually happening, that he actually  had another chance to save
 his love. But, somehow, he was here and it was all happening again.
 And, this time, there was no way he was leaving this bridge without
 the Methuselah Stone in his hands.

The chain of events happened just as he remembered; the weasel Daniel
Geiger putting Amanda's crystal into place, the Stone taking the form
of a brilliant ball of crystal that radiated light and purity and
caused Methos' eyes to widen, and finally, MacLeod's triggering of the
explosives that had saved all their lives.  Except, this time, Methos
would not stand idly by and watch as his hopes and dreams for Alexa
went crashing down to the unforgiving waters beneath them.  As Methos
watched, Mac was gunned down by one of Geiger's armed goons, his
muscular body crashing to the hard concrete even as Geiger, armed with
a sword in a one hand and the crystal in another, began moving towards
him.

"Amanda, don't shoot!" Methos shouted as he rushed the weasel, hands
 still handcuffed behind his back.  If Amanda were to shoot Geiger,
 the crystal would fall from his lifeless grasp and crash to the
 rapidly moving water beneath the bridge, destroying all hopes of
 Alexa's survival and forcing Methos to watch her waste away to
 nothingness...again.

He struck the man just as he was about to sever MacLeod's head from
his body, and this time, the crystals went crashing to the ground a
few meters away from them, far from the edge of the bridge and the
rushing water.  Geiger took another swing at MacLeod before a barrage
of bullets from Amanda=92s newly acquired machine gun silenced the
weasel for good, sending him over the railing and into his final
watery resting place.

"Amanda, grab the crystals!" Methos yelled to the blonde who was
 busying herself with helping MacLeod to his feet with one arm while
 she clutched the gun in the other.  "The crystals, grab them!"

Amanda abandoned MacLeod to getting up on his own devices and dashed
to where the Methuselah Stone lay, its crystals scattered in their
individual fragments on the cement from the impact of being dropped
from Geiger's grip.  It was easy enough to reassemble the stone--minus
one piece that Amanda slipped into her pocket for safekeeping--and,
then, the three immortals deserted the still-burning bridge like rats
from a sinking ship, all of them leaning on each other as if they
could not move unless grouped together and drawing on each other for
strength.

* * *

Methos had never smiled so happily, so truly, in his entire life, it
seemed.  He was beaming as Amanda placed the sealed box containing the
Methuselah Stone into the trunk of his car, her fingers caressing the
lock as if blessing the box's contents and wishing it well. With a
kind smile that was as foreign to Amanda's usually devilish features
as was the innocent grin to Methos,' she reached into her pocket and
pulled out the final piece, the piece that had been connected to a
string and worn around her neck for most of her immortal life.  With
little ceremony but a single, joyous tear that swept down her cheek,
Amanda reached out and put the necklace around the five-thousand-year
old man's neck, her manner that of an important person bestowing a
medal onto a war-hero.

"May it bring you luck," she whispered, kissing his cheek and hugging
him long and hard.

"It will," he replied, releasing her from the embrace and reaching up
to finger the smooth crystal that had the power to preserve his love
forever.

With a similar but less-emotional farewell from MacLeod, Methos
 climbed into the driver's seat of the car and inserted the key into
 the ignition, ready to speed back to Geneva and use the magic of the
 Methuselah Stone to save Alexa and ensure their fate together.

He had driven no more than a few feet when the white light surrounded
 him again, and he found himself in an entirely different room, one he
 was not familiar with and had never been in before to the best of his
 knowledge, but one that looked vaguely familiar, perhaps because of
 the items scattered about the wooden shelves and the furniture about
 the room.

It was another minute or two before he realized that this room was the
equivalent of his taste and Alexa's taste combined; the old, ancient
relics that took him back to the days they were new, a lovely, stylish
vase that Methos recognized from Alexa's Seacouver apartment, a cozy,
tasteful brown armchair that held one of Methos' books in its lap, a
mahogany desk with a Gateway 2000 and all the disks and CD-ROMS that
his Adam Pierson persona had collected over the years of being a
Watcher.  It was all hers, all within this room.  And, it meant only
one thing.  Alexa was alive, and they were living together in this
place.

"It worked," he whispered in the warm silence of the room, turning to
 admire the grand staircase that ascended from what appeared to be the
 entry hall of the house and noticing, as he did, the presence of a
 child's toy on the marble floor near the foot of the stairs.

He walked towards it, his socked feet making soft murmurs on the rich,
 velveteen carpet of the living room as he moved with his usual
 cat-like grace across the room, grinning at the sight of his favorite
 brand of beer waiting on the coffee table.  He snatched it up and
 brought the bottle to his lips, grinning as the familiar and soothing
 taste further ingrained the feeling of finally coming home in his
 mind.  It wasn't long before he was again distracted from the task at
 hand as he walked to one of the shelves resting against the
 golden-brown finish of the wooden wall and lifted a metal-framed
 picture up to the light.  It was a professionally done shot of him,
 Alexa, and a small child, her face turned up in delight at the
 efforts of the photographer, golden hair pulled back in a single
 barrette as the rest swept over her shoulders in a waterfall of
 curls.  The name came into his mind without any thought, as if
 someone had whispered it in his ear at that very moment.
 //Drusilla//

  Yes, just like him to name his child that, to give her the name of
 the first girl he could remember loving --truly loving--in all his
 five thousand years.  With the name came a rush of memories that he
 quickly suppressed, waiting, instead, for the voice to inform him of
 who this child was and why he and Alexa were taking care of her as if
 she were their own.  He smiled, his heart still leaping each time he
 realized that Alexa was alive, blessedly alive, and they had a life
 together.

"She's Alexa's child," an amused, almost taunting baritone said
 directly into his ear.  Methos spun around, knowing who he would find
 standing there but hoping he was wrong.  But, there he was--the same
 man who had challenged him in that other lifetime, who had somehow
 let him change the events of time to let him rescue Alexa from the
 icy grip of death.  "You," he said, taking in the features of the man
 who seemed able to appear out of thin air.

"Q, actually, but at least you're at the right end of the alphabet."

Methos' brows furrowed together in a look of confusion.

"Never mind," Q said, scratching the back of his head with his index
 finger and continuing with his narrative. "Drusilla is Alexa's
 daughter.  After you saved her with the Methuselah Stone, you
 naturally told her all about your immortality and who you were, then
 you explained to her exactly what the Stone had done to her."  He
 chuckled slightly, an interesting sound coming from the strange man.
 "I'll bet you never thought Alexa might be capable of outliving you,
 did you?"

When Methos didn't reply, Q continued.  "You two were married, of
course, prepared to live out your eternal days with each other, seeing
the world and living in the very lap of luxury.  But, after a few
months of that, Alexa wanted to settle down, have a family...and, you
had to break it to her that a family was impossible and that you could
never father a child.  So sad...  But, she found a way."

Methos back up a step, shaking his head.  "No. She couldn't have."

"Ah, but she did.  Alexa was beautiful when she was sick, yes, but
*healthy*...  Let's just say it wasn't hard for her to find a mortal
man willing to, ah, assist her in her cause, and so her hopes at
starting a family were realized.  You were upset at first, naturally,
but after dear little Dru was born, you forgot all about how she came
to be and focused on just being her Daddy."

"Bloody hell," he said, sitting down hard in the overstuffed armchair
that rested in the center of the room.

"A little too much for you, eh, Old Man?  But, hey, as you said, at
least she's alive."

The sound of the front door whishing open distracted Methos' attention
for a moment as the sound of a small girl giggling and Alexa's
familiar alto announced their arrival.  When he looked back, Q was
gone. Deciding to ponder the man's disappearance later, Methos stood
up from the chair and rushed towards the two, his arms wrapping around
his wife's small frame even as he felt Drusilla clinging to his legs
shouting, "Daddy!  Daddy!"

Alexa smiled beneath his embrace and said, 'I brought you something."

He inhaled deeply the sweet scent of her hair and absent-mindedly
asked her what it was, his whole body tingling from her nearness and
the touch of her skin.

The mischievous whisper in his ear was so pleasurable that he had to
 resist scooping her up into his arms and hugging her until she
 screamed.  "I'll show you tonight after Dru's in bed."

 The suggestive lilt to her voice was subtle enough to go over the
 child's head, but its importance was not lost on Methos.  How could
 that annoying man have possibly thought that something bad would come
 out of Alexa's survival?

* * *

"Methos!  Alexa!  Come in, I was just making dinner."

The oldest living immortal grinned at the Highland Boy Scout, the
 aroma of cooking vegetables, beef, and spices reminded him of how
 long it had been since he'd last eaten on the plane.  Seacouver was
 just as it had been so long ago when he and Alexa set out for their
 tour of the world, the same smells, the same people, and the same
 Duncan MacLeod.  Methos removed Alexa's coat from her shoulders with
 the ease of much practice, savoring the sweet smell of her perfume as
 he strode to the coat rack, half his mind noticing the woman's blouse
 that rested on the back of one of MacLeod's chairs.

The sound of someone moving around in the bathroom combined with the
 heavy feel to the air that meant someone had recently showered
 twisted his lips into a knowing smile.

"Got company, MacLeod?" he asked suggestively, lifting the blouse into
 the air and enjoying the blush that crept into the Highlander's
 cheeks.

"Uh, yes," he replied, crossing the room in a few steps to pull the
 cloth from Methos' grasp and hide it under one of the couch cushions.
 "She's just staying here while she's in town."

"Doing a little hunting, is she?"

MacLeod nodded, noticing Methos' gaze drifting towards the unfamiliar
 sword that rested on the coffee table and hoping it would be possible
 to change the subject.  "So, where's Drusilla?"

Alexa, who hated being ignored when talk turned to
"immortal-business," cut in with the response.  "We left her with my
aunt in Paris.  Adam and I needed a little break from the parenting
world."

//Adam,// Methos thought, wondering if she would ever get used to it
enough to call him by his real name.

"You!" an all-too familiar voice from across the room vocalized, its
chords enough to spin all three around. "Methos," Cassandra spat,
dashing forwards for her sword as the stunned immortal backed up
hastily, his limbs frozen into inactivity by shock.

"Cassandra, what are you doing?" Mac demanded from where he stood, the
 prospect of two of his closest friends dismembering each other in his
 living room not an appealing idea.

"Who's this?" Methos asked Duncan, blatantly refusing to pull out his
sword and allow this to escalate any further than it already had.

"Draw your sword!" she commanded, pausing briefly as MacLeod jumped in
 front of her path, Alexa right beside him.

"You don't know me," he said, the defense sounding weak even in his
own ears.

She leaned forward, struggling as MacLeod grabbed her to stop her from
attacking Methos.  "Do you think that I could *ever* forget you?"

Alexa, her usual calm manner disturbed by this display of hatred
 towards her husband, glanced helplessly from MacLeod to Methos and
 back again.  "He's done nothing to you, leave him alone!" she cried,
 backing away from Cassandra to stand next to Methos.

"You may think him a saint, but believe me, he is far from it!"  Her
 accusing gaze turned to MacLeod. "He rode with Kronos, Duncan.  He
 rode into hundreds of villages and slaughtered women and children,
 captured some, raped thousands...  He destroyed my people and raped
 me over and over again until I contemplated suicide.  He was one of
 the Horsemen."

MacLeod's thick, Scottish brows came together in confusion, his eyes
focusing on Methos as he spoke to Cassandra, his grip still solid and
preventing her from moving even as his mind struggled to cope with
this shock.  It couldn't be...could it?

"That's impossible," he said, eyes locked with Methos' as he waited
for the Old Man to confirm his denial--to assure him that, of course,
it wasn't true...but, no such assurance came.

"Is what she said true?" he demanded quietly, releasing Cassandra and
taking a large step towards Methos and Alexa.

"It can't be true," Alexa cut in, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
 "It's impossible!"

"Is it true, Methos?"  His voice was nothing more than a whisper, and
Methos realized that there was no way he was going to escape from this
situation easily.

"The times were different, then, MacLeod.  *I* was different.  The
whole bloody *world* was different, okay?"

"No," Alexa murmured, having known him for long enough to realize what
this evasion of the question meant.  "No, you couldn't be...you
couldn't have..."

The response was low and husky, emerging with such pain and guilt that
it didn't even sound like Methos speaking.  "But, I did."

"Now, you see, he deserves to die!" Cassandra exclaimed, her silky
brown hair shuddering on her shoulders as she shook with rage and
hatred.

She lunged at Methos, and he didn't move, let himself be run through
with her blade because he wasn't even looking at her, wasn't even
paying attention to her presence in the room.  He was staring at
Alexa, who had taken several steps back from him, her face a mixture
of horror and a strange kind of denial as she realized that the man
she had married--the man who tickled her in bed in the morning, who
read stories to Drusilla when she herself was too tired to, who
sometimes surprised her with breakfast in bed, who had saved her life
at the risk of his own and had sworn to stay with her for the rest of
his life--was a mass murderer and a rapist, the kind of person that
her mother had always warned her of, the kind of man who didn't
deserve happiness or love or the joys of being a parent.  The kind of
man who deserved to die.

Methos sunk to the floor as the cold metal seared through his flesh,
as red droplets of blood exploded from the wound in his chest and
quickly soaked the beige fabric of his sweater.  "Alexa," he
whispered, but she had turned away from him, her back to him as she
sobbed into one fist.

"Goodbye, Methos," he heard her say as the world turned black around
him and he saw the vague image of Cassandra's blade raising above her
head.

* * *

"Not a very cheerful future, is it?" Q said, his lithe body laid out
on a comfy arm chair, his fingers surrounding a clear glass full of
what appeared to be red wine.

Methos glanced down at his chest and realized that the hole where
Cassandra's blade had gone through had disappeared, as had the blood.
He looked around and discovered that they were inside what looked like
a luxurious hotel room, complete with a spectacular view out over the
city... whatever city it might be, that is.

"Cassandra didn't kill you, by the way," Q continued, sipping from the
 glass and popping a piece of chocolate into his mouth.  "MacLeod
 stopped her at the last instant and knocked her out.  When you woke
 up, Alexa was gone, of course, and Cassandra was making a racket from
 where MacLeod had locked her in the bathroom.  And, you, being the
 eloquent person that you are, managed to explain to MacLeod exactly
 how many people you had killed and how much you enjoyed it.  He
 kicked you out of his house and you left for Paris that night, hoping
 that Alexa had returned home after witnessing that revealing scene.

"Unfortunately, though, Alexa had fled with Drusilla to some remote
 section of Europe.  Search as you might, you never could find her
 again.  Kronos killed Cassandra some days later, but, luckily,
 MacLeod was there to defeat the maniac before he made good on his
 threats to get the Horsemen back together again. However, MacLeod
 still refuses to speak to you and has vowed to kill you on sight the
 next time you come near him."

"No, this can't be happening," Methos groaned, covering his head with
his hands.  "We were so happy..."

"Even if she'd never found out about your past, how long do you think
she'd have stayed with you?  A year, maybe two?  Alexa loved you when
she was dying because you were the only man who would come near her,
the only man who loved her when she would be leaving this earth so
soon.  But, now that she's young and beautiful and healthy, she can
have anyone she wants, *be* anyone she wants.  Living with you, she
has no chance of a normal life.  There will always be immortals
stepping up to face you, trying to kill you, putting Drusilla in
danger.  Even if Cassandra had never stepped back into your life, it
wouldn't have lasted long.  You two loved each other as much and as
hard as was ever possible during the one year that she lived.

"So, here's the choice.  Would you rather love her and be loved by her
as much as possible for one year, or have eternity to remember that
look she gave you as she realized who you really were...forever to
wonder where she is and what she's doing, who she's doing it with?"

"But, at least she's *alive!*" he shouted, hearing his voice ringing
 off the walls of the small room. "She's alive, dammit, and even if I
 never get to see her again, at least I know that she's all right,
 that she will live!"

"Oh, come now, Methos, you've been alive for five thousand years, you
know how it works.  Do you really think she'll have a chance to be
happy when everyone she knows--even her daughter--will die in front of
her eyes while she stays young?  It was a horrible curse for you to
have to watch as she wasted away in that hospital bed, as you watched
the woman you loved die slowly without being able to do anything about
it. Would you so easily wish that curse on her?"

He turned away from Q, shaking his head at the truth in the words and
 wishing fervently that there was some other way.

"There is no other way," Q said gently, his usually taunting voice
 soft and ringing with truth.  "She was never meant to live."

"I know," he said, wincing at the hot touch of tears on his face.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the tears not to come with all the
mental power he had amassed over five thousand years.  When he opened
his eyes, the hotel room was gone, and so was Q.  He looked around the
familiar surroundings of Alexa's hospital room in Geneva, saw her
lying in the bed, blue eyes wide open and glistening with tears, her
beauty not defeated even in this near death.

"Alexa," he said, moving swiftly to her side and gripping onto one of
her small, bony hands as she sobbed quietly.

"Adam," she whispered, her voice not strong enough to carry the word
 very far.  "Will you be all right when... when I leave?"

He nodded, bringing her hand up to his cheek and holding it there as
 the cried together.  "Yes, Alexa. I'll be fine."


~finis~