This was written for the SLASH ADVENT CALENDAR 2004.  It’s not real slashy, but is not something that children would enjoy.  So I guess it is PG-13.

 

BORN ON

 

“I think you should do something to celebrate Mac’s birthday this year?”  Joe asked.

 

Methos seemed deep in thought; probably not, as it appeared, fascinated by the pattern of the rising bubbles in his glass but pondering some unsolvable conundrum from someplace in his past. 

 

“Duncan MacLeod.  Your lover.  Big guy.  Birthday?   Winter solstice?  Party? Beer?”  Joe spoke the words individually, followed by pauses.  None of the words seemed to register with Methos, so Joe reached over and pulled the glass he seemed so interested in away from him.  Methos grabbed at the glass but Joe was too fast.

 

“Now that I have your attention, I’ll ask again . . .”

 

“I heard you the first time.”  Methos mumbled.  “That was what I was thinking about, when do we celebrate it?”

 

“Winter Solstice.  This year it is December 21^st.”

 

“So you think we should celebrate it December 21^st.”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“It’s not that simple, Joe.  Winter solstice is a sun date.  It changes.  Last year it was December 22^nd.”

 

“Because this year is a leap year?”

 

“Partially.  But it stays the 21^st next year and in 2006 moves back to the 22^nd”

 

“And 2006 ain’t a leap year.  So we’ll celebrate it at mid-night right in between the days.”

 

“As you would say Joe, it ain’t that easy.  Ever hear of the Julian calendar?”

 

“Vaguely, and I am sure you are going to enlighten me with the details.”

 

“Our friends the Greeks were not much on term limits.  So when someone they favored was nearing the end of their term the Greeks would play with the calendar.  Add a day there, a month here, name the month after some winning general, pretty soon no one ever knew what day it was.”

 

“Happened to me once when I was knocked out playing football,” Joe reminisced.

 

“Anyway, Julius Caesar set out to standardize the calendar.  He did a pretty damn good job of it, calculating that the year was exactly 365¼ days long.”

 

“So that’s where leap year came from?  Good idea.”

 

“Well it was good, but not quite good enough.  The first years the calendar was in use they had leap years every three years.”  Joe was beginning to fall into his ‘this is far too much information mode’ but Methos was not about to stop.

 

“Furthermore it takes the earth 365.2422 solar days to revolve around the sun so  Julie’s original calculation was off by one day every 128 years, but it took people a while to notice it.”

 

“By people, you mean you?”

 

“Not really.  I’d realized that from living with the Egyptians.  They really had messed up their calendar even though they had a pretty accurate idea of the length of a year.  Considering they didn’t have zeroes or the decimal point.

 

“People who planted by the astronomical calendar were fine, if you used the Julian calendar, which was endorsed by the Catholic church, your spring plantings would freeze three out of four years.”

 

“And exactly what does this have to do with MacLeod’s birthday?”

 

“Well in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar and brought the sky and the calendar together.  He dropped ten days from the calendar to bring the seasons back in line.”

 

“Mac wasn’t born until 1592, so there shouldn’t be a problem.  Solstice was either the 21^st or the 22^nd – we can live with that.”

 

“Except . . .”

 

“Tell me, please.”  The scowl and tone of voice Joe used made it clear that he could care less what Methos had to add to this already too extended conversation.  Yet, Methos was not about to stop.

 

“If he were born in France or Italy there would have been no problem.  However England, and by extension Scotland, which was embracing Protestantism refused to adopt the papal calendar.”

 

“So for the sake of religion they allowed their farmers to have their crops freeze – and as you would say, by extension their people to go hungry.”

 

“Pretty close, Joe.”  Methos gave one of his famous grins.  “However, I am pondering the MacLeods.  They were Jacobites, devout Catholics, perhaps they secretly used the pope’s calendar.  Maybe that is why they told Mac he was born on the winter solstice, because they didn’t want to reveal that they were using the Catholic calendar.”

 

“And if they weren’t what day would be his birthday.”

 

“December 31^st – Julian calendar.”

 

“Well, that does it.  Surely he would have known if his birthday was New Year’s Eve.”

 

“Not exactly.”

 

“Why not exactly.”

 

“Under the Julian calendar, as modified by the Council of Trent, the new year didn’t begin until the vernal equinox, sometime in March.”

 

“Jesus Christ.”

 

Joe dumped Methos’s now flat glass of beer into the bar sink and went to the tap and drew him another.  Methos took a sip and spat it out with disgust.

 

“Budweiser.  You know I don’t drink Budweiser.  Why did you serve me this?”

 

“Because right now it’s the only thing in this place, besides me, that has a ‘born on’ date.”

 

McJude

November 14, 2004