Before the Dawn

Methos pulled the truck into the space at the side of the crowded street. He checked the message on his pager one more time. Damn. I really thought she'd do better on the new chemo regime than this... He hefted his bag from the passenger seat and jogged the rest of the way to the hospital entrance.

It was times like this Methos questioned his decision to re-enter medicine. Times when the pager beeped in the early morning hours, pulling him from Duncan's loving arms into the chill night air to rush to the side of a patient who in all probability would be dead inside a year, no matter what he did for her. Still, he'd known what he was in for when he signed on.

As he neared the small park that was next to the hospital grounds, a young boy lounging casually against a lamppost just ahead caught Methos' attention. He couldn't have been more than twelve at the most, Methos thought, small and thin with it. As Methos watched, a balding middle-aged man approached the child, and with the exchange of a few words, the pair disappeared into the shadows of the park. The interaction was over so quickly that a casual observer might have missed it, but Methos knew it for what it was.

He had seen too many streets and too many precarious lives not to know what the transaction was that had transpired before him. Hell, he'd been in the boy's position -- more than once in the course of his life. His pager sounded again and Methos looked at the message, scowling and lengthening his stride as he read the screen. He ran the rest of the way to the hospital.

***

Dawn had lightened the gloom to a vague graying around the edges of the morning. Methos was exhausted but it was the kind of exhaustion that comes with a certain sense of satisfaction tied closely to it. It had been a near thing, but they had managed to pull his patient through this latest crisis. Although he knew there would be another -- there always was. 'Remind me again why I chose a residency in oncology?' he asked the cosmos.

The cosmos chose not to answer him on this occasion and Methos stretched through his shoulders and walked out of the hospital grounds. The park jogged his memory of the boy he'd seen a few hours before. He felt bad for the kid, of course, but it wasn't like it was any of his business. With a mental shrug, Methos continued on his way.

Duncan would be getting up soon, if Methos made it home quickly he could catch the Highlander at his delicious, early morning best, before he went for his run. It wouldn't take much persuasion to get Duncan to postpone his outdoor exercise in favor of something more fulfilling of the indoor variety.

A whimpering sound intruded into his fantasies. More than anything he wanted to ignore it and go about his life but there was something that just wouldn't let him. The pathetic sound grew louder as he approached. Looking around the still-shadowed darkness of the park, Methos could just make out the shape of a child beneath the spreading branches of an old tree.

Damn. It was the same boy.

Methos spoke to him from far away at first, not wanting to startle the child. He began to croon, nonsense at first, much he would to a wounded animal. The child went quiet. Methos' eyes strained for an idea of the boy's condition as he came closer, bending low to the ground. Blood obscured the child's features, matting his hair into unruly spikes. Someone, and Methos had a fair idea whom, had beaten the crap out of the kid.

"Hey there," Methos said softly. "What happened to you?" The boy stirred and Methos reached out to touch the child's face.

"I cut myself shaving," a small hard voice hissed through swollen lips.

"Great. A smartarse," Methos said more to himself than the child. "I knew there was a reason I avoid getting involved in shit like this."

The kid struggled to sit, pushing up from the leaf-litter that lay under the tree. "Well fuck off then, nobody asked you to stick your nose in-- I'll be okay."

"Yeah right, kid. That's why your head looks like someone used you for sparring practice at Mike Tyson's gym. Stay still and let me have a look at you."

"Hey man, a look's gonna cost you -- same as a feel."

"Fortunately, I'm not in the market for either," Methos replied without heat. The kid was tough and he was thinking ahead, even though he had to be feeling like shit right now. "I'm a doctor, and you have rather a lot of blood coming from that cut on your head. Are you going to let me look at it or do you want to sit here in the cold making wisecracks?"

The boy looked at him hard, then offered his head for Methos' examination. Methos opened his bag and rummaged through; looking for some supplies that could be put to first aid use. The kid had a fairly deep laceration running through his hair at his crown but other than that the injuries were pretty superficial, mostly bruising around the face. The scalp lac had bled a great deal, but then that was what head wounds did. Methos found some Benzoin glue in the bottom of his bag to seal the wound in the absence of sutures.

"Hold still, kid, this is going to sting." Methos parted the boy's hair as gently as he could, then flushed the wound with a vial of saline and then joined the edges of the skin together with the glue.

The boy hissed in pain. "Shit! You weren't kidding!" But he kept still until Methos had done.

"I rarely joke about pain." Methos pressed the wound together more firmly. "There, that should hold," Methos murmured as he finished. "That'll heal in no time. What's your name, kid?"

"What do you care?" The boy's hard blue eyes were fixed on his again, instantly suspicious.

"I don't especially, except that you might get sick of me calling you 'kid' when I buy you breakfast," Methos stood and brushed the leaves and dirt from his trousers. "You coming?"

"Nah -- just breathin' heavy," the boy quipped, looking at Methos for the expected reaction. When he got nothing but a blank stare, the child stood too and pulled his over-large clothes into place.

Methos tried to stay dispassionate as he saw the faded green and yellow bruises covering the boy's stick-thin arms but it wasn't easy. Without waiting to see if the kid followed him, Methos began to walk away.

"It's Simon," the boy offered as he strode through the park alongside Methos.

"What is?"

"My name. Geez, now who's a smartass?"

"Okay Simon, I'm Matthew Benjamin. I work at St Steven's over there."

"So where are you taking me, Doc?"

"To the men's room first—" Methos stopped when he saw the suspicion flash through the boy's face. "Not for that. Will you stop looking at me like that? I am not interested in that – not at all. You're gonna need to wash some of that blood off if people aren't going to wonder what you've been up to."

They had arrived at the public restrooms as they'd been speaking and despite Methos' reassurances Simon still looked wary.

"You don't trust me?" Methos began.

Simon shook his head.

"Good."

The boy just looked confused, stopping and staring at Methos with his head to one side like a bird about to take flight.

"You don't know me. I could be exactly what I say I am, or I could be worse than the bastard who beat you up. Until you're sure about that, you go right ahead and be suspicious. It'll keep you alive. Now I'll wait out here and you go in and clean up."

Methos waited outside the restroom, lounging impatiently against the wall. He could hear the water running and the kid moving around inside, so he knew Simon hadn't done a runner -- yet.

Eventually the boy's small face reappeared from inside the gloomy bathroom. Cleaned up, he looked no older than eleven years old. It wasn't an angelic face by any means, or even particularly attractive, but there was a sharp, quick intelligence in the boy's eyes, to which Methos found himself responding, in spite of himself.

"Come on then, I believe MacDonald's is serving something approximating breakfast about now." Methos flashed the kid a smile he hoped was reassuring and once more led the way across the park. It wasn't much of a walk to the nearest MacDonald's if Methos' memory was correct.

"I'm not telling you my life story, if that's what you're after. No sad sob stories here. This ain't Jerry Springer," Simon announced, with his chin set at a pugilistic angle.

"Thank god and I don't recall asking for any stories," Methos replied evenly. "A man's past is his own business. Don't you think?"

The kid apparently liked that idea and agreed with a smile still tinged with sadness. "Yeah."

The two were silent as they walked down the hill into the city proper. The CBD was barely waking at this hour on a weekend, in fact a few of the people they passed seemed to be stragglers from the local nightclubs still finding their way home after closing time. There was a sameness to cities all over the world at this hour -- a quiet sense of expectation as time paused before the start of the new day. 'A sameness to these places too,' Methos thought as he opened the heavy glass door to the restaurant and let the boy enter first.

Methos let the boy order what he wanted from the menu and a short time later was seated at a table opposite the kid, watching him make a huge variety of alleged breakfast foods disappear from the table. The kid sure could eat. Methos was sure he hadn't been very different at the same age but of course, he couldn't be sure.

Methos waited until there was a pause in Simon's inhalation of breakfast then asked, "So what was with the guy?"

"What guy?" came the automatic response.

Methos narrowed his eyes in the boy's direction, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing.

Simon shrugged. "I dunno -- dude gets off beatin' on kids. I did him, then he didn't feel like paying."

Methos nodded; there wasn't much he could say to that anyway. "Have you been doing this long, Simon? You're what? Eleven? Twelve?"

The calculation came back into the boy's eyes again. "How old do you want me--"

Methos silenced him with a look.

"Sorry man, I'm thirteen and a half. I tell most of 'em I'm eleven but. Johns get off on that shit -- thinkin' I'm some little kid."

"Instead of the immensely mature man of the world that you are, of course," Methos threw out with a wry smile.

The kid caught on straight away and threw it right back at him with stagy bravado. "Abso-fucking-lutely. I been here coming up two years now."

"Long time."

"Yeah."

A small silence fell across the table and Methos asked into the breach. "So what will you do now?" Methos asked, after

"Umm...before or after I finish my breakfast?" Simon shot back with a smile that for the first time was completely without undertone.

"After. With your life." Methos knew he shouldn't get involved -- shouldn't care what happened to this small scrap of human flotsam he'd accidentally run across, but the truth was that he did. Bad attitude, appalling grammar and all, this child touched something inside him and he couldn't bring himself to turn away now.

Simon frowned and the openness fled from his bearing. Methos knew he'd miscalculated -- badly.

"I dunno, it's not like it's any of your fucking business anyway. I gotta go to the can," he declared suddenly and fled to the rear of the restaurant.

Damn... Methos watched him go with a fatalistic shrug. I wonder if this place has a back door.

Apparently it did, because after five minutes without any sign that Simon would return, Methos went to the men's room and found that it was empty. Fuck.

***

The boy's small face haunted Methos over the next few days. His shifts at the hospital kept him busy, as always, but in between times, Methos knew that he had Duncan worried by his constant preoccupation. He finally spilled the whole sorry tale as Duncan held him, nestled close against his chest, after they'd made love late one night.

"You tried, Methos," Duncan soothed. "That's more than most people would have done. The boy didn't want your help, or he wouldn't have run away."

"But it's not enough, Mac. He's still out there, vulnerable. Gods! I feel like such an idiot for even getting involved in the first place. Boys like that have been bending over for dirty old men since...well...since before I was a boy."

"You aren't an idiot, Methos. You are a good man who tried to help someone in trouble. It isn't your fault it didn't work out. Don't feel bad for trying." Duncan hugged him a little tighter and dropped a kiss to Methos' temple. "He touched a nerve didn't he?"

Methos gave a half-shrug. "I don't know, Mac. There was just something about him."

"So go find him. Go down there in the morning and see if he's still there. I'll come with you if you like."

Methos turned in the circle of his lover's arms. "Would you? What if we go right now? We shouldn't have much trouble finding him."

Duncan's answering smile was dazzlingly brilliant. "For you – anything."

"This really is more your sort of thing after all, boy scout," Methos quipped as he leaned in closer to capture Duncan's mouth.

"Don't think that hasn't occurred to me, Methos," MacLeod murmured as he opened his lips for the kiss.

***

The autumn night was dry and frost-flavored, lit by a scimitar of moon, as Methos dressed and waited for Duncan to appear from the bathroom. Methos was getting impatient, now that he'd decided to go riding to the rescue he wanted to be gone already. Finally. Duncan appeared from the bathroom, making jeans and a sweater look like haut couture – again.

Duncan grinned at him as he came closer. "Ready, then?"

Methos gave him a superior smirk that said ages ago...and led the way out the door.

They had a house now, in this new life they'd made together, far from the past and Seacouver -- far even from Paris and all their memories there. All that was long ago and far away... Methos' truck (because some things cross all boundaries) was parked in the front. A beige Land Rover this time. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

Methos was suddenly filled with a sense of conscious gratitude as he thought about how very different his life had been before Duncan. It was a rare pleasure to feel so safe, to always have someone there to watch his back when he needed it, and to know that he was giving exactly the same in return. Just before Methos started the car he leaned across to where Duncan sat in the seat beside him and brushed his mouth with a feathering kiss.

Duncan smiled but looked slightly puzzled. "What was that for?"

"Counting my blessings."

"Ahh..." and Duncan nodded as if he understood. Perhaps he did.

It wasn't far from their house to the park where Methos had first found the boy. They'd chosen the home, partially at least, for its proximity to the hospital, after all. They drove a few minutes through the deserted streets and then they were there. Methos parked on the side of the street and the Immortals left the truck quickly and crossed over to the park.

They passed a number of young boys, most looking too young to be out without their mothers, let alone hanging about a park offering their bodies for cash. Methos and Duncan ignored the offers and suggestions thrown out at them as they walked past. None of the boys was Simon.

"I saw him hanging around here the other night," Methos said, scanning for signs of movement among the overhanging trees.

Duncan opened his mouth to comment but Methos hushed him with a raised hand. There was something...something not right. A sense, an odor... some thing in the air that pricked and teased at Methos' senses. He broke into a jog and beckoned for Duncan to follow him.

There! In the deepest gloom between two huge old trees, a shiver of movement that caught his eye. As Methos flew over the soft ground on silent feet, hearing Duncan hard behind him, he could see the details becoming clearer. The pale fleshy globes of a man's naked backside materialized out of the darkness. In front of him, kneeling on one knee, was a small figure. The john was so lost in his pleasure that he didn't even notice when he was no longer alone. He had one hand tangled in the child's hair, holding the boy's head still as he rammed his penis down the boy's gagging throat. In the fist of the other hand, on the side closest to Methos, the man held a long bladed knife pressed hard to the child's neck.

"That's a very big knife for such small prey," Methos drawled with lazy menace.

The man started and threw the boy away from him, tossing him into the leaf-litter at the base of the trees. He hurriedly pulled his sweatpants back into place. All the while the john held the knife out towards Methos, waving it threateningly.

The man was middle-aged, fifty or so, and hard-looking with it, Methos thought. It was the sort of face you saw in soup kitchens or scrounging work around the docks -- used to being knocked about by life and passing the grief on down the line. But there was fear in the flint gray eyes and that, at least, Methos could work with.

"Duncan!" Methos called out calmly. "Will you take Simon back to the car for me? I'll be done here in a minute." With a movement almost too quick to be seen, Methos produced his long-bladed dagger from the small of his back and held it out easily in front of him.

"He your boy, is he?" the other man sneered. "You oughta keep him on a shorter leash. Kid tried to bite me."

"Was that before or after you pulled a knife on him?" Methos asked calmly, advancing slowly on the man.

"Kid's a whore -- what d'you care?" The man was circling now, clearly trying to work Methos around into the light.

Methos had heard enough. He lunged at the man, slashing the dagger down across the forearm that held the knife. "You beat the shit out of him last time too, didn't you?" Methos asked in a mild tone that belied the death in his heart. "Get off on that, do you? Beating up on some little kid?" The knife slid smoothly through the man's flesh and Methos felt his blood race at the familiar sensation.

His opponent hissed his pain but made no other comment. They were still circling and Methos was sick of it -- sick of the games. He wanted to be out of this stupid battle with this idiotic sleaze-bag. This all reeked of the past somehow and he was damned if he was letting the past come back to haunt him again. Methos lunged at the other man, engaging the fight for real at last.

The john never stood a chance. Methos was a lightning-fast streak of old wounds and long-suppressed anger. Before the boy's attacker could come near Methos with his switchblade, the ancient Immortal had cut him so many times about the chest and shoulders that the man's skin was glossy with blood. Methos was everywhere and merciless.

Methos had his opponent flat on his back with the dagger to the man's throat before he even thought about it. He caught himself just in time, as the blade pressed a vermilion streak along the man's skin. He wanted, so much, to destroy this piece of filth, to rid the world of it and avenge every child that this poor excuse for a human being had ever hurt. But no matter how much Death rattled his chains, Methos would not let him be unleashed.

"No!" Methos said as he hauled himself back. "You get to live with what you've done. You're getting off lightly, remember that!" Methos was ready to walk away and go back to Duncan and his life, but there was something not quite convinced in the other man's eyes -- as if the lesson had not truly sunk in.

Methos pressed a knee into the man's gut, still holding his blade one-handed to the other man's throat. Dark blood flowed freely from the deep lacerations Methos had inflicted. Without really thinking about it Methos leaned to one side and grasped a handful of dirt and leaves. He spread the mess over the bleeding wounds and rubbed it in thoroughly, setting the bastard up for the sort of lasting infection that might take a very long -- very painful -- time to heal.

"I think it's going to take you rather a longtime to forget tonight," Methos hissed as he rose from the fallen man. "You're lucky to be alive -- remember that. And remember me next time you feel the urge to go after some little boy – you never know where I'll show up next."

Methos turned away and ran through the trees in the brightening dawn to find Duncan again.

**The End**

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