Minutes after Adam's outburst, Amanda and Nick removed Dr. Raynor from Daniel's makeshift sickroom leaving Mac and Joe to watch over the injured man and the one who watched him silently from the corner. Mac crouched next to Joe who had pulled a chair next to the military surplus cot on which Daniel lay. The two friends watched the corner where Methos sat hunched in a silent ball.

"I don' like this, Joe" Duncan admitted as he nervously watched Methos rock himself as he stared blindly into space.

"You and me both," Joe agreed also closely watching the oldest Immortal. "Anything that could scare the old man that bad..."

Mac nodded in agreement. He watched a minute longer then patted Joe's shoulder reassuringly as he stood. He walked slowly over to the corner where Methos sat. Duncan cautiously crouched down next to him. "Methos," he called softly. A minute passed with no answer from the ancient man. "Methos," Duncan repeated just a little louder and with slightly more force in his tone.

"I remember, MacCleod," Methos murmured quietly as he continued to rock.

"What do you remember?" Mac asked vaguely aware of Joe rising from his seat at Daniel's bedside and moving close.

"Everything," Methos answered as a tear slipped unnoticed down his face. "I remember where I was born. I remember my childhood. I remember becoming Immortal. I remember my first death. I remember everything I had forgotten, and I remember why I chose to forget."

"You chose to forget?" Joe questioned incredulously.

"I forgot because it was too painful to remember, because I promised, and because I was the last," Methos murmured in reply. "The last to remember the rebellion. The last to remember the chapa'ii. The last to remember what it was and where we hid it. I forgot so no one could find it and use it again."

"And someone did anyway," Mac surmised. "Daniel and his Air Force friends."

"Yes, it appears so" Methos breathed quietly.

"How dangerous is it?" Mac asked, but Methos didn't answer him. From the expression on his face and the distant glazed look in his eye, Mac guessed his erstwhile friend was once again immersed in his newly regained memories. "Methos," Duncan gently prodded.

Methos found he couldn't answer though as his memories held him tight once again.

He was a small boy working in silence alongside his father casting out the fishing nets that supplied their meager sustenance as the wind in the sail moved their small ship along the waters of the sea. The silence was suddenly broken from overhead as a group of giant metal birds swept down from the sky. Fire rained down on the small boat from the eyes of the metal bird. His father screamed as the fire struck his chest and he fell from their little boat. Hours later, the child Methos clung to a piece of the ship's hull staring at the body of his father floating among the debris when the monster rose from the sea. His small hands hit the creature as it pulled him beneath the waves.

He was older now, a young man instead of small boy, and the creature who had pulled him from the sea now had a name, Omaroca. She had been mother and teacher to him for many years here in the safety of her undersea abode, but Methos was determined to leave that safety now. They fought bitterly often now over his wish to return to the surface to fight the goa'uld and hers to keep him safe. He wanted to exact revenge for the deaths of his birth family. To Omaroca, humans were frail creatures with such short lifespans, and Methos was still a mere infant to her no matter that among his own kind he was nearly a man grown. Besides, she argued, any rebellion now would be doomed to fail. Humans did not have the technology to defeat the goa'uld, and she did not have the capacity to arm them sufficiently herself. It would be many human lifetimes before a rebellion against the goa'uld would have a chance at success.

Finally, they reached a compromise that would allow Methos to get his revenge and Omaroca to keep the child of her heart with her. Methos would remain with Omaroca in her watery home and continue his education so that when he left to fight the goa'uld it would be as a warrior-leader and Lady Omaroca's general. In return, she would use her skill and knowledge to give him some of the gifts to which her own species were born. He would not age and his body would heal such that he would be nearly immortal. The changes would give him the time he needed to defeat the goa'uld no matter how long it took. The pain was unimaginable as Omaroca wrought her changes to his body. There was one other change Omaroca made, but he would not know of it for years to come upon his first meeting with a goa'uld.

More than three hundred years passed before Methos stood a step behind Omaroca as she spoke to a small gathering of dissidents urging them to join with her to oust the false gods. Only minutes into the meeting he heard it. The hard clank of metal boots marching in unison. They were betrayed!

Methos snapped himself from the memories before they took him any farther. He was not ready to relive those memories. "Very," Methos finally answered MacCleod then added, "and it could not be in better hands." He knew Daniel and his Air Force friends were the ones who were meant to rediscover the chapa'ii. It was, after all, happening almost exactly as Daniel had told him it would when they had buried the Stargate in the first place.