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The familiar tingling of the Buzz woke her from her dreamless sleep. After so many centuries her hand found the sword she kept under the pillows easily, the cool feel of the hilt was comforting and a stabiliser. There was another Immortal in her apartment - an uninvited Immortal. James was, to her knowledge, still in London and had no reason to have returned early, and he knew to call so that she didn't try to take his head.
"Some days you just shouldn't get out of bed."
Barefoot, she stood warily in the doorway to the bedroom, and glared at her intruder.
Sprawled out on the couch, Methos looked like he was right at home. "Nice negligee," he drawled. She noticed that he'd already had time to raid her refrigerator and pilfer a beer.
Samantha scowled. "Make yourself at home," she told him rolling her eyes, and stalking back into her room to find a dressing gown. She didn't drop the sword straight away, although she doubted Methos came to fight. He never fought unless it was inevitable.
It ruined his cynical facade.
"What are you doing here?" she asked when she returned to the living room. "And if you were going to help yourself to my beers, you could have done me the decency of getting one out for me while you were at it," she added, her scowl returning.
He raised an eyebrow. "You don't drink beer."
"That's hardly the point." She sat on the second couch, folding her legs beneath her and watching his face very carefully. Her sword she left leaning against the armrest. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Methos took another swig of beer, and lazily looked around the room. "I thought you'd been without my company for far too long, Dr. Morgan."
Samantha rolled her eyes. "And that's not at all pompous of you, is it?" she replied tartly. He might have been the oldest Immortal, but he could be a cynical bastard, and pain in the ass when he wanted to be. She might not have had the years behind her that he did, but she was hardly a child, and she certainly didn't need people keeping tabs on her. "Has MacLeod 'nobled' you to death, making you flee from Paris? Again?."
She figured it was high time for his turn to scowl, but all that appeared on his face was that infuriating smirk. "I don't flee," he told her pointedly.
The look she gave him spoke of only disbelief.
"Okay, so maybe I try to disappear for a while," he corrected, "but I most certainly do not flee."
"Just keep telling yourself that, old friend," she told him. "And one day maybe I'll believe you."
This time he did scowl. "And it's not like you can talk, hiding away in all those hospitals and on holy ground."
"That's called working," she pointed out. Of course, he was right, in a rather roundabout way, and she knew he was going to press the matter further, but she was not in the mood for hours of verbal sparring. "So are you sure there's nothing wrong?" she asked. "It's not like we make regular dinner dates. Or late night visits. Or even centenary visits now."
"Are you finished?"
She smiled blithely. "Oh, of course not. I could go on all night. I wonder where I picked up that particular habit from?"
Methos rolled his eyes. "Oh, do shut up, Samantha. I didn't come here to have my ears talked off."
Sitting back with some small satisfaction, she returned to watching him. Intently. For all his casual, sprawled out facade, he was tense. There was something wrong, something bothering him, and it had to be serious for him to end up sitting across from her in her apartment in the middle of Cardiff. They'd both had plenty of time to perfect the art of staring other people down, but she was going to get answers out of him.
One beer down, and he migrated from the couch to the kitchen, returning minutes later with a second (and a third unopened) and a bottle of water for her.
If it hadn't been after one in the morning, and she didn't have to be at work in five hours, she might have laughed. Instead she drummed her fingers silently on the upholstery.
"Do you ever wonder what it's all for?"
His question came out of the blue, and was not at all what she was expecting. It wasn't that he couldn't be deep, but it wasn't as common as most people would have thought. She'd had more conversations with him over the last few centuries that were no deeper than current world events. For so long he'd played the part of mild-mannered Watcher, Adam Pierson, and even after he'd shed that last disguise, he'd retained the same conversational quirks. She certainly wasn't the first person he'd ever go to when he wanted to have a deep conversation.
Breaking the seal on her bottled water, Samantha felt the condensation on the bottle run off her fingers and onto the satin of her dressing gown. "Immortality?"
He nodded his head, taking another swig of beer.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, I've wondered about it. But it never makes me feel any good," she admitted. "After all this time, it just doesn't matter anymore. What matters is what's happening now, what's going to happen in the future. Just like anyone else, I have to remember that every day is as important as every day before it, and after it." Lifting the bottle to her lips and feeling the cool liquid slide down the back of throat, she felt more awake than she had previously. "What brought this all on?"
Long minutes stretched out, and she shifted in her seat, waiting for an answer.
Eventually it came. "I've seen so many people die."
She tried to force a smile, but it died before it was even born. "We all have." She rolled her eyes at the look he gave her. "We all loose people, Methos. And it never gets easy. You're always quick to remind me of that."
"Yeah, well." He was on to bottle three, and she wondered whether she ought to get up and get him his fourth and fifth bottles, just in case. "It's Joe."
Samantha blinked once, in surprise. "Your Watcher friend?"
He looked at her, pointedly. "My friend, yes."
"He's not-?"
"No." Methos shook his head. "Not yet. But watching them age... It's like death, prolonged."
She raised an eyebrow. "They're all dying, from the moment they're born. It takes us back to the 'is it worth it?' question, Methos." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "Which also begs another question: what the hell are you doing here?"
He scowled. "You ask far too many questions."
She shrugged. "What can I say, I'm inquisitive by nature. But you shouldn't be here. Not that I don't like the company, but you should be back there."
"And miss the free beer?"
"Oh, for Christ's sake," she said, exasperated. She sat back. "You can be such an ass."
On the mantel, the clock chimed on the hour, cutting through the air.
Sam groaned.
Standing, she pointed a finger at him. "You can have the couch," she told him. "I'm going back to bed. Some of us have actual work to do in the morning. We'll continue this in the morning," she added, as she started towards the bedroom. "If you're still here."
Four hours later, she woke to an empty apartment, and an empty fridge.