Having found out where Connor had taken off to, Duncan, after a quick few words to Rachel, headed out after his kinsman, following the trail into the night and, after a short while, seeing Connor finally ahead of him.
"I know,' Duncan answered. "I've felt the same way ever since what happened with Kell. I sometimes wonder if this isn't what Darius and Fitz often felt like at times..."
Connor looked away at the very mention of Kell's name, and walked on in silence a few minutes before answering. "Maybe a lot of us do. I know I'm not one of the old ones. Hell Duncan, I probably barely count as middle-aged..." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the patches of sky through the leaves above. "Maybe I'll go through this again. I don't know."
"Methos goes through it often enough,"Duncan said, silently damning himself for bringing up Kell after all he and Connor had gone through because of that bastard. "No one ever said immortality was easy, Connor, but it's what we've been given. We do the best we can with what we're given. You're the one who taught me that."
"Sometimes it's hard to take your own lessons." He gave a wry smile, but it did help to hear the lesson given back. As for Kell, that was a wound that only time could heal, and they both have plenty of that.
"When you were born? Fifteen... ninety-two?" Connor looked to the sky again, thinking. That's an awkward time to remember, so shortly after Heather's death.
"Not so far, I think. Edinburgh, maybe, but headed south. Trying to make myself a man of the world."
"I guess I shouldn't even use the word born, should I?" he said, sounding slightly bitter about that. He nodded at Connor's answer and, finally letting go of the older man's arm, began walking a little bit more, quietly.
"Are we?" Duncan asked, still that bitter sound in his voice. "Then where are our parents, Connor? Where are the ones who gave birth to us and why weren't we left to be raised by them?"
"I don't know. All orphans ask those questions. Not having the answers doesn't make them less human." His voice is quiet, but even as shattered as he's been, it's easy to slip into a teacher role.
"You're too smart for that. Humanity is a way of thinking, and being."
Duncan was quiet now, his thoughts elsewhere for the moment as they continued walking. He hated how he felt and he didn't want to bring up the Kell incident again but it still hurt, like an open wound.
"I told him I didn't know where he came from, but where he was going was more important. And that I loved him no matter what."
He looked away a moment, swallowing. It was hard to talk about his adopted son, without remembering Kell cut him down while he was still only a child. Connor was making an effort to follow the same advice, though, and focus on the present and future, and who he still had beside him.
"Well, everything up to the whole loving part," Duncan said quietly. He sat down on the cold, damp ground, looking out still across the loch. "You know why I keep coming back here so much?" he said quietly. "Because I keep thinking that, one of these times, one of these many long years... I'll die like I should have died four hundred years ago. I'll close my eyes and all of this will have been some infection induced dream and I'll still be lying in that damned hut, my mother crying, my father and the priest praying... I'll open my eyes, they will still love me, and then I'll die... and it will all be over."
"Connor, wait up, would you?"
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"I'm not sure I've ever asked you this, but, where were you living when I was born?"
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"Not so far, I think. Edinburgh, maybe, but headed south. Trying to make myself a man of the world."
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"You're too smart for that. Humanity is a way of thinking, and being."
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"Did you tell him the same thing you told me?"
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He looked away a moment, swallowing. It was hard to talk about his adopted son, without remembering Kell cut him down while he was still only a child. Connor was making an effort to follow the same advice, though, and focus on the present and future, and who he still had beside him.
"That's as true for you as it was for him."
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