He was sitting across from me, perfectly groomed and perfectly urbane.

Dinner had gone smoothly, despite it being the first time we’d seen each other since Bordeaux, and despite all that lay unsaid between us along with the remains of our shared dessert. He even gave me that look, inviting and questioning both, and anyone could see he was hoping and wondering whether I’d be going back with him to the barge.

Ordinarily I would have wanted to, without hesitation. I’ve wanted Duncan since I first saw him as a boy of thirteen. Sometimes I see that boy when I lie with him. Perhaps that is why I like to lie with him. I can control the boy that still lives in that beautiful man’s body.

I had a teacher once who had been a prostitute in a seaport before her first death. Even after my days as Methos’ slave in the Horseman’s camp, she could say things about men to make me blush, but she did teach me a phrase I use to this day. It was running through my mind in her language and in her accents as I looked at MacLeod.

"There’s one to make your tides rise."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. I’m sorry." I hadn’t meant to, but I had spoken aloud in a tongue he did not know.

"Penny for your thoughts."

His expression was earnest, maybe, as if inviting me to start saying the unsaid. "It will cost you far more than that," I answered.

"How much more?"

"It will cost you in honesty, Duncan."

He only raised his eyebrows, and I took it for the open door they implied. "You said Methos was your friend. Was he a friend, or an umm-friend?"

"I don’t quite take your meaning." He was suddenly formal.

I was surprised at my nervousness. I had worked out the answer weeks ago, but I needed to hear it from him. "It’s from a joke I heard."

"You don’t tell jokes."

He was right. I don’t seem to have a sense of humor, but what is considered funny is helpful to know in any culture, so I pay attention. I didn’t want to lose my meaning in failed humor, and asked instead, "Was he more than a friend?"

Duncan’s eyes darkened, and his jaw grew tight. "You’re asking if we were lovers."

I nodded, and he stared at me for a long moment before signaling for the bill. Even then he didn’t answer, and I was left in the silence to remember chasing the Horsemen across Europe mere months ago, sharing Duncan’s bed. It had taken him days to touch me with anything like lust, and even then he was uncharacteristically reticent, trailing his fingers over my familiar body as if the curve of a breast were a new thing.

At that moment, in his silence, I knew for certain it had indeed been a while then, a while since he’d lain with a woman.

He’d been sleeping with Methos.

Duncan wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I had worked it out, but did not want to believe it. His non-answer ran through me like… like Methos’ dagger killing me for disobedience. I let him pay the bill and escort me in silent punctilious courtesy out onto the street. He turned away from the course that would lead us to the barge, and instead steered me toward my hotel.

The walk cooled the heat of my anger back to a more familiar ice. When we were a few yards from the doorman I stopped and turned him toward me. Keeping the ice from my voice, I asked, "Is that why you wanted him to live?"

He nodded, the tension in his jaw highlighted by the stray beam from a window. Too much became clear. He loved him, loved the same tender façade Methos had once shown to me, so long ago.

"Have you heard from him?"

"No." There was pain in his eyes. My response to that pain was mixed with relief.

"I doubt he’s dead, Duncan. He is a survivor."

I chose the word carefully, for the word survivor reflected every unforgivable thing Duncan had learned about Methos. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. A lover exposed so that everything you thought you knew was shown to be wrong -- a lover then vanished -- is as bad a lover dead. Perhaps worse. Mere death lets you keep your illusions.

"Come up with me and stay the night." Before he could object I added, "Just stay, and sleep with me, for my sake. Please."

The explanation was the kind of lie that rests on a misunderstanding of the truth, but he nodded and we started up the stairs for my room. My tides had ebbed with the thought of Methos turning his soft, betraying gaze on Duncan, but that would change, and I would have him. I prepared myself to offer the traditional comfort to the widower.