*********
Paris, September 6, 2002
     MacLeod awoke with his heart banging at his ribs and 
his clock alarm ringing in his ears.

     "Shit!" he gasped, sucking in breaths. He rolled 
over, grabbing his head. "Ohh, Jesus. Oh, God...."

     The nightmare fragmented in the morning light, 
leaving a rotten taste in his mouth. Ahriman had been in 
it, wearing his Kronos mask--and Methos. Ahriman had 
killed Methos with his own sword. Why hadn't Methos run? 
He always ran....

     MacLeod got out of bed to make himself coffee. He 
liked to rise early. Coffee didn't help, so he meditated 
for an hour. Meditation proved a disaster. Every sound in 
Paris seemed to assault his ears. He fixed and ate 
breakfast. It gave him heartburn. He tried Tai Chi; more 
heartburn. By nine am, he despaired of entertaining 
himself. He went to a local market to buy fruit and 
vegetables for dinner.

     It would be so easy (he told himself as he picked 
through the grapefruit) to dismiss Methos as a cynical, 
calculating son of a bitch. Those people never died. You 
could rely on it. MacLeod needed somebody to rely on. 
Darius had given him advice and forgiveness; he had died. 
Tessa had loved Mac with all of her strength and fire; 
she had died. Richie had stood loyal to him to the bloody 
end; he had died. Connor had offered him true kinship; 
he, too, had died, in the end. Joe wasn't dead, but he 
did get a little greyer each year. In a decade or two, 
MacLeod would lose him. Amanda gave him brightness and 
joy, but someday someone would take her head. She was 
smart and skilled and tough, but she wasn't strong, and 
she wasn't skilled enough to be the One. As for Kate, 
MacLeod was grateful to have his wife back. When she 
returned from Zurich, he hoped to visit London with her 
for the week. But Kate had been damaged in their 
centuries apart. Unreliability was the byword of her 
character.

     "People die, MacLeod. Immortals die," Methos had 
once told him. Surely such a man could be relied upon to 
always survive. He might be selfish. He might be cynical. 
He might disappear at the first sign of any peril, but he 
would never die. He would never take on MacLeod's 
challenges for him. He would never let himself be mocked 
and ridiculed by his friends for being only human. He 
would never have lain down on a set of train tracks, and 
tried to die. Surely, MacLeod told himself, as he paid 
for his produce and headed home, this was  another one of 
Methos' games, another unfathomable plan. Much better to 
believe that, than to believe that Methos had no plan, 
that he could be frightened and angry and confused. And 
ill.

    *God,* MacLeod thought, trudging back to the barge. 
*For years he's been telling me that he could take care 
of himself, and I've been trying to protect him, anyway. 
Now, when he really could use my help, I don't have the 
vaguest idea what to do.*

     Chopping up vegetables didn't help either.
     
     MacLeod was working on sword katas when his cell 
phone rang. Breathing heavily, he set his sword down on 
the couch, went into the kitchen, picked the phone off 
the counter and turned it on. 

     "MacLeod," he said.

     "Mac?" It was Joe. "Mac, where are you?"

     "I'm at the barge. Why? What's going on?" Mac came 
alert at the tension in Joe's voice.

     Joe sighed. "I don't have a lot of time to explain. 
Mancuso is dead."

     "Dead?! How?"

      "The usual way." Joe's sense of humour was even 
blacker than usual. "He lost his head. Turned up on the 
Left Bank near the rue Mouffetard early this morning. I 
take it from your tone that you didn't know about that."

     "I didn't kill him, if that's what you're thinking," 
MacLeod snapped.

     "Good. That simplifies things a little. Jason 
Anders, the new European section head, is still bouncing 
off the walls over the fact that Mancuso was sporting a 
Watcher tattoo. But that's not important right now. What 
is, is that Methos thinks you *did* do it, and he's 
headed your way with a sword and some serious fucking 
attitude." As Joe spoke, MacLeod felt a Buzz.

     "He's here now," he said. The silence as the Buzz 
approached was unnerving. Methos knew how to sneak.

     Joe swore. "I'll be right over." The phone went 
dead.

    "Was that Joe?" MacLeod looked up. Methos was coming 
down the steps from the upper deck, sword drawn. One 
corner of his mouth twisted in a smile. "Warning you, was 
he? Good timing."

     "Methos," MacLeod said, backing away from the phone 
and the stairway. "I just heard about Mancuso. I'm sorry. 
You must be pretty upset."

     Methos raised an eyebrow. "Upset? You kill every 
friend of mine that you meet and you think that makes me 
upset?" He reached the bottom of the steps.

     "What are you talking about?" MacLeod cursed himself 
silently for having left his katana on the couch when 
he'd gone to answer the phone. "What's got into you?"

     "Nothing." Methos tapped his head. "Nobody in here 
but us chickens today. What's the matter, Mac? You were 
all hot for me to stick around last night. Seems you and 
Joe had something to tell me. I'm just here to continue 
our little chat...about your barge."

     Dammit! How had he found out about the file? "Your 
friend Mancuso seemed worried about you," MacLeod 
equivocated. "We wanted to talk to you about it. Whoever 
killed him might be after you."

     Methos chuckled, his expression bland and innocent. 
"He'd have a much better chance against me if he hadn't 
left his sword on the couch."

     MacLeod backed towards the couch. "I didn't kill 
your friend, Methos," he insisted. "Not this one," he 
added, since he had killed at least three of Methos' old 
comrades, as far as he knew.

     "Uhhuh. Should I take the word of Duncan MacLeod of 
the Clan MacLeod about that?" Methos waggled his sword at 
MacLeod. "Or maybe...I should simply take your head!" He 
leapt at MacLeod, slashing at him. MacLeod yelped when 
the blade scored his chest. He backed up, barely catching 
hold of his katana as he flipped backwards over the 
couch. Methos' Ivanhoe bit into the top of the couch a 
second later.

    "Methos, stop it!" MacLeod gasped as he scrambled 
away from the couch towards the bulkhead. "We don't have 
to do this!"

     "Why not?" Methos wrenched his sword out of the 
couch and stalked around it. "It's what we do. Isn't that 
what you're always telling me?" He mimicked MacLeod's 
accent, "'Stop playing around, Methos. This isn't a 
game.' But it is a game, MacLeod. And you know what? It's 
so much fun, I think I'll start playing it again." When 
he struck, MacLeod got his sword up, barely in time. 
"It's better if you have your sword, though. More 
dangerous, of course, but it makes the kill sweeter."

    MacLeod shoved Methos' sword off his own and 
scrambled away. To his surprise, Methos did not follow. 
MacLeod got to the bulkhead and stood up. The Old Man 
stood near the couch, sword resting on his shoulder. His 
expression was as blank as it had been in MacLeod's 
dream. He strolled after MacLeod, as MacLeod backed 
toward the stairway to get out onto the upper deck.

     MacLeod groped for a way to stall the Old Man. 
"Methos, why are you doing this?" he panted. "I didn't 
kill Mancuso. I don't want to kill you!"

     Methos snorted. "Who says that you could? I don't 
like people who lie to me, MacLeod. I don't like it when 
they laugh at me behind my back. I do not consider them 
friends."

     "Nobody was laughing at you." MacLeod continued to 
back towards the hatchway. Methos followed him, but made 
no move to stop him.

     "Yeah, you and Joe were gonna tell me the score 
after you'd had me locked up--for my own safety, of 
course." MacLeod had to admire the way Methos could get 
to the point. "You lied to me."

     "You haven't always been honest, either, Methos," 
MacLeod snapped. He regretted the snipe as soon as he 
said it, but it was too late.

     "Since when? Might we be referring to the Horsemen, 
MacLeod? That was none of your affair, and if Cassandra 
hadn't played on your misplaced sense of chivalry with 
her little 'gift', you might have noticed that. I could 
have called her a liar. I could have said that she was 
insane. I didn't. You asked and I told you the truth--
which made her look damned good, I might add." Methos 
leveled his sword menacingly.

     "And what about Keane? I didn't see you rushing over 
to my apartment for advice about him, oh no. It would be 
much too embarrassing, admitting that you weren't any 
better than the rest of us, that you'd killed in anger, 
that you enjoyed it. You knew I was in town. I know that 
Joe told you. Oh, yeah, you were still mad at me, but you 
certainly haven't been shy about grabbing me for a shot 
of ancient wisdom before or after you found out I wasn't 
perfect. Yet, an old enemy with a legitimate grudge 
against you rides into town and, ooh, look, I don't 
exist."

     MacLeod tried to defuse the situation. "Methos, 
let's both put our swords down and talk about this. I'm 
sure we can work something out."

     Methos laughed, fierce and jagged. "This from a man 
who's gone off with the fairies at least twice in the 
seven years that I've known him." He attacked MacLeod, 
cutting down diagonally. MacLeod leapt back before he 
could be slashed open from shoulder to hip, tripped over 
the steps to the upper deck, and landed on them. As 
Methos drove in with another overhand swing, MacLeod 
rolled to one side and brought the katana up. Caught up 
by the force of his maniacal rush, Methos impaled himself 
on the point.

     Methos didn't look down at the katana buried in his 
abdomen, though it must have hurt badly. Instead, he 
lowered his sword and put it against the side of 
MacLeod's neck. MacLeod, stunned, gaped at him.

     "Checkmate," Methos said calmly. "Joe told me that 
you used this trick on your friend Consone. Did you think 
you were the first one to ever think of it? You are so 
young. I have *forgotten* more techniques than you have 
ever learned." He was already gasping for breath, as his 
body began to shut down. "It would be so easy to take 
your head, and by the time I woke up, the only thing left 
of the Perfect Immortal would be a headless body and a 
wrecked barge."

     MacLeod swallowed against the cold metal at his 
throat. Methos' eyes, though already turning glassy, were 
calm and deadly serious. He would do it. "I didn't kill 
Mancuso," MacLeod insisted.

     "I know, or you'd be dead already." Methos let the 
Ivanhoe fall away from MacLeod's neck. Shaking in agony, 
he braced his sword against a step and shoved himself off 
of MacLeod's katana. MacLeod winced at the sound and feel 
of metal scraping against bone, and the sucking noise as 
the blade came free.

     MacLeod let his sword drop. "Then, why?" he asked 
plaintively.

     "Just...making...a point," Methos panted, as the 
Ivanhoe clattered on the deck. Eyes rolling up in his 
head, he collapsed backward, landing with an ungraceful 
thump. He shivered once, twice, then lay still. Around 
his body, bright red blood appeared in a pool that slowed 
even as it spread. It was going to make one hell of a 
stain on the deck.

     Still gasping for breath, MacLeod got up off the 
steps. He went over to the body and stuck his katana 
through its heart. Picking up the Ivanhoe, he walked over 
to the phone (watching Methos the entire time), and 
called Joe.
*********
Capua, Italy, 74 BC
     The guards drag me down the filthy alleyways of the 
carceres. Disgusting creatures, these city people. They 
live piled on top of each other like ants. Give me the 
free steppes again, or the desert. I fight these things 
all the way. Always, in the first few moments after the 
arena, I am wild. I scream and kick and hack at the 
netting that smothers me. How dare they drag me out of 
the arena like a Circus beast? I am Death! 

     When the bloodlust ebbs in my head, I stop fighting 
the nets and let the guards drag me. What will come next 
is a kind of reward. I lick my lips at the thought of it. 
No palma, no praemium, no corona, no lap of honour around 
the arena for me. I am too dangerous to be allowed on the 
editor's platform to receive the palm branch, money or 
the laurel crown. Besides, my customers await.

      I glimpse a tall, red-haired Gaul as they drag me 
past the slave quarters. He has been watching them bring 
me out to the arena and back for weeks, though they keep 
me in another pen. I am getting a reputation amongst the 
other slaves. I hope it is a bad one.

     The guards drag me to a hut set off from the other 
buildings. Inside, there is a low bed, with chains and 
cuffs attached to the wall at its head. The guards drop 
me on the dirt floor. All of them pull knives. The leader 
grabs my sword hand and poses his blade over my face.

     "Let go, Spartacus," he warns. I open my hand 
slowly, not out of fear, but to annoy him. Another man 
takes the gladius, when the leader cuts it loose. As each 
of my limbs is freed, a guard grabs it. They fear me, and 
they do not trust me at all. Someday, I will get loose 
and I will cut all their throats, one by one. They know 
this. I see it in their sweaty faces and the way they 
grip their knives. I am the monster that haunts their 
nights.

     Once they free me from the nets, they haul me up 
onto the bed and chain my wrists to the wall. I accept 
it, until one of them comes too close while yanking my 
tunic down to cover my knees. I grab for him, yanking the 
chain tight. I miss his throat by only a finger's breadth 
as he stumbles back. I smile. He deserved it. Whose 
sensibilities did he think he was protecting? The 
customer's? Hardly. I am sure she spent my entire fight 
hoping for a glimpse of what she will be getting now. She 
is expecting a half-naked gladiator, still charged with 
bloodlust from the arena, not her husband the Flamen 
Dialis.

     My intended victim flees, glancing over his shoulder 
in terror. He is fortunate. The first time they brought 
me here, after the arena, I throttled a man before they 
could get me off him. I was so angry, and I did not yet 
know about what came afterwards. My first fight, I think, 
was supposed to be a game of cat and mouse, with me the 
mouse. I should have died. In the arena, with no time to 
heal, nowhere to run, I was as vulnerable as a Mortal. I 
got through that fight on arrogance and rage alone. I was 
Death! No one was more surprised than I, at the end, that 
I had survived, let alone won, against two armed and 
armoured men. 

     Their duties concluded, the other guards back out 
warily. The last one to go is the man who always guards 
the door while I conduct my 'business' for the ludus. As 
usual, he looks amused. Sick bastard. I think he 
volunteers for the post, just to listen to me work.

     "You enjoy this, don't you?" he asks. He always 
asks. Instead of satisfying his curiosity, I put my hands 
over my head and stretch like a great cat. I almost purr. 
I laugh at him as he leaves the hut, shaking his head.

     Of course I've enjoyed it--all five times. I will 
enjoy this time, as well--more than the killing in the 
arena. Scrambling for my life in the sand to entertain 
some fat praetor does not please me. Giving his wife the 
ride of her life afterwards--that does please me. And I 
will bet a praetor's wife is first in line today. I have 
fans in Capua.
*********
Paris, September 6, 2002
     Joe stood on the deck of the barge, flexing his 
fingers over his cane. They still ached from gripping his 
brake handle on the drive over. He shouldn't have driven 
so fast. The handles weren't as responsive as a normal 
footpedal system on a car. What if he'd had an accident? 
How would that have improved the situation?

     For the life of him, he couldn't think of much that 
would improve the 'situation' at this point--but total 
honesty might be a good start. Yeah. He'd try that. 

     He glanced apprehensively through the doorway to the 
lower deck. Methos' body sprawled a few feet away from 
the bottom of the steps. It was hard to tell from the 
deck, but since the barge and the rest of Paris were 
still intact, that hopefully meant that the Old Man's 
head was still attached to his shoulders.

     "Mac?" he called. "Everything all right down there?"

     "Yeah, hang on. I'll come up and get you." MacLeod 
called back up. He appeared a moment later, and came 
bounding up the steps.

     Shoving Methos' file under his arm, Joe put a hand 
on MacLeod's shoulder and stepped through the door. He 
clung to his cane the whole way as he crept down the 
stairway. This wasn't easy, even leaning on Mac the whole 
way. With each step, Joe missed the big elevator up to 
Mac's dojo in Seacouver. It had been much better than 
these frigging steps. Someday, he was going to fall and 
break his neck on the goddamned things.

     Joe felt a stab of relief when he saw that Methos' 
head was still fully attached to his shoulders. Once 
safely on the lower deck, Joe limped over to Methos. The 
Old Man sprawled near the base of the stairway, eyes half 
open. Someone, most likely MacLeod, had shoved a katana 
into his chest, pinning his body to the deck. He had 
another deep wound under his sternum. It pained Joe to 
see his friend lying like a pile of rags tossed onto the 
deck.

     "Just what the Hell has gotten into him?" Joe 
demanded, as MacLeod came up beside him. 

     Mac sighed. "You tell me," he replied. "Or better 
yet, ask him--" He jerked his chin at Methos' supine 
body. "--when he wakes up." When he reached over to pull 
the katana out of Methos' chest, Joe put a hand out to 
stop him.

     "Wait," he said. MacLeod stared at him, puzzled. "We 
need to talk about this," Joe said. "Or were you planning 
on just giving him back his sword and letting him stagger 
on home the way he is?"

    MacLeod's mouth dropped open. "Are you kidding? Joe, 
he's soaked in blood. He'd get arrested inside of five 
minutes. And there is no way that I'm giving him back his 
sword." He gestured angrily at the corpse. "I think he's 
done enough damage with it already."

     "You can't keep him pinned like a bug to your deck 
forever," Joe pointed out. "Mac, think about it. He's 
gonna get himself killed if he keeps this up. Don't you 
want to find out what's going on?"

     Mac folded his arms, looking stubborn. "He just 
attacked me in my own home and caused a few hundred euros 
worth of damage, which you and I both know he will never 
acknowledge, let alone pay for. And when he wakes up, 
he'll be a complete bastard just to get out explaining 
any of it. You know that, Joe."

     "Yeah," Joe sighed. "Okay. Give him a change of 
clothes when he wakes up though. A shower should improve 
his mood, considering that he's wearing the same shit he 
had on yesterday."

     MacLeod's face twisted in annoyance. "Fine," he 
said. "If that's all it takes, we'll be better off than 
we usually are with him."

     "Mac," Joe pleaded. "Give him a break. He just lost 
a good friend. It's messed him up."

     "It doesn't excuse his behavior," MacLeod grumbled.

     "Oh, yeah?" Joe held out Methos' file and shook it 
at MacLeod. "How would you feel if this were your file, 
Mac?" Mac scowled, looking stubborn. "C'mon, Mac," Joe 
snarled. "Tell me how thrilled you'd be if this were all 
about you whacking Sean Burns--or Richie."

     MacLeod turned pale. "It's not the same."

     "No. You're right. It isn't. Methos didn't kill 
anybody while he was out of his head."

     "Not as far as we know," MacLeod snapped. "He could 
have killed Mancuso, himself."

     "We don't know that for sure." 

     "He tried to kill me," MacLeod protested.

     "If he'd wanted to kill you," Joe replied savagely, 
"you'd be dead."

     A nasty silence fell between them. Mac broke it 
first.

     "I'll go get the clothes," he said wearily. "And 
make some soup. He'll need something to help him replace 
all that blood loss when he wakes up."

     "Thank you," Joe called after him, as MacLeod went 
off to the bedroom. It could have been worse. MacLeod 
could have dumped Methos in the river, sword and all.

     MacLeod came back out with the clothing. "I found 
some stuff that Methos left here a few years ago," he 
said, carefully laying out a faded green henley shirt, 
jeans, socks, boxer shorts and a towel next to a slash in 
the top of the couch.

     "Did he take that chunk out of your couch?" Joe 
asked, noting that the slash seemed new.

     "Yeah," MacLeod looked annoyed. Joe laughed.

     "The towel is a nice touch. I think he'll like 
that." Joe grasped the hilt of MacLeod's katana, which 
still protruded from Methos' chest, and glanced over at 
MacLeod. "You ready for this?"

     MacLeod squared his shoulders and shook his head. 
"No."

     "Me neither. Here goes." Joe tugged on the sword. It 
took four good yanks on the hilt to remove the sword. Joe 
nearly lost his balance as the sword came free. He felt 
like King Arthur dragging Excalibur out of a rock. As he 
stood holding the sword, trying to figure out what to do 
with it, MacLeod took it out of his hand.

     "Let's keep all the sharp, pointy objects in the 
house out of range, shall we?" he said. Joe shrugged and 
turned his attention back to Methos. As he watched, the 
body on the deck lost its grey flaccidity. It took longer 
than he had expected--there must have been a lot of 
internal damage. Methos twitched as small arcs of blue 
energy sparked over his wounds. His body arched violently 
in a crackle of energy, then flopped back down. For a few 
seconds, he lay motionless.

     Methos gasped. "Ow," MacLeod said, sounding almost 
sympathetic. Seconds passed before Methos breathed again, 
a choking, agonized sound. He blinked, then winced, 
coughing up blood. Closing his eyes tightly, he rolled 
over onto his side, and rubbed his face with his hands.

     "Agh," he complained. "Couldn't somebody have closed 
my eyes for me? I hate when they dry out."

     "I tried, but they wouldn't stay closed," MacLeod 
said. "Sorry."

      Joe stayed out of reach while Methos struggled to 
sit up, looking dazed. Blood caked the hair on the back 
of the Old Man's head. His clothes were soaked and he 
stank like meat in a slaughterhouse. He probably had 
bruises on his back, as his body tended to higher 
priorities. Joe watched him, feeling pity. He couldn't 
yet gauge the older man's mood. Methos was cagey at the 
best of times. This was not one of those times. 

     "How do you feel?" Joe said, as Methos' eyes focused 
on him. They still were glazed, but at least they now 
looked living.

     Methos scowled blearily at him. "Like I've been 
had."

     "Yeah, well, we can talk about that," Joe admitted. 
"Why don't you take a shower, first? Mac got you some 
clothes."

     "Really." Methos didn't look reassured.

     Mac frowned at him. "I'll get you some juice," he 
said, going off into the kitchen.

     "Ugh," Methos said. "Juice. He's trying to poison 
me."

     "Methos," Joe sighed. "Be nice. You did just try to 
kill him, you know."

     "'Nice' is overrated, Joe," Methos replied. Shakily, 
he got to his feet. Joe offered an arm, but the Old Man 
wouldn't take it. Instead, he leaned against the 
bulkhead, looking very pale. No wonder; he'd just bled to 
death.

     "Maybe you should try it sometime," Joe suggested. 
"Nice guys don't have to finish last, you know."

     Methos leaned his head against the bulkhead. "Oh, 
they never finish last, Joe. Not nice guys. No, they 
always finish first, right after they've sold off impious 
bastards like you and me to the arena." 

     Unsteadily, he pushed himself away from the bulkhead 
(where he left a large, brown stain) and headed for 
MacLeod's living room. Joe followed him, trying to figure 
out a benign way to bring up Mancuso's file and hopefully 
jolly Methos out of his bitter mood, too. At least the 
Old Man no longer seemed homicidal.

     "You know, you never did tell me why you decided to 
help me out with Amy in the end," Joe said. "Especially 
after I sold you out to Walker."

     Methos, who was gingerly pulling off his sodden 
coat, looked confused by the change in subject. "Didn't 
I? I'm sure I did."

     "You said it was because you were easily amused, 
Methos," Joe growled.

     "Right. There's your answer, then."

     Joe fought down the satisfying, but impractical, 
urge to slap Methos up the side 
of his head until he became cooperative. It would not, of 
course, work. He changed tactics.

     "You told me how you figured it out, but you didn't 
tell me why you went 
along with it. You didn't look too amused after you got 
shot." He'd meant to worm an explanation out of Methos a 
long time ago, but he'd never been able to get the Old 
Man drunk enough.

     "You were shot?" Mac said, coming out into the 
living room with a large glass of orange juice and a 
couple of bananas. "When?"

     "Hey, you got me shot--Buddy," Methos retorted. 
"You're the one who pulled out the gun and escalated the 
situation. I told you it was a bad idea, and you just 
accused me of being a coward."

     "Joe got you shot?" Mac said.

     "I didn't call you a coward," Joe protested. Had he? 
It had been four years ago. Surely, Methos wasn't going 
to keep holding that against him.

     "Oh, yeah. Like not actually using the word means 
anything. You ignored me. You ignored my advice. What the 
Hell did you think it meant?" Methos was beginning to 
look pissed off with the conversation. Getting him drunk 
first would have been the better plan.

     "Waitaminute," Mac said. "Joe, you got Methos shot? 
When did this happen?" Joe winced. He'd forgotten that 
he'd never told Mac about Walker--or Amy.

     For the moment, he ignored MacLeod, concentrating on 
Methos. "Methos, stop changing the damned subject and 
answer my question! Why did you go along with it? You 
knew it was a trap."

     "Well, yeah, but you were in my car."

     Joe's mouth fell open. "What?"

     "You were in my car." Methos looked at Joe. "You 
know. My car? After I got shot and woke up? And then we 
ran out of gas...and then you *laughed* at me." Here, he 
glared at Joe. "As far as I'm concerned, it all went 
downhill from there."

     "You could have just left me behind," Joe snapped.

     "Oh, believe me, I thought of it," Methos snapped 
back.

     "HEY." Both Joe and Methos stopped bickering and 
stared at MacLeod. "What," Mac continued, with visible 
restraint, "are you two talking about?"

     "Ask Joe," Methos said, pulling the coat off 
completely and dropping it in a sodden heap on one of 
MacLeod's more expensive-looking rugs. "I think I'll take 
that shower now."

     Mac frowned down at the stain spreading on the rug. 
"Here," he said, shoving the glass of juice at Methos. 
"Drink this first. Maybe you'll be in a more reasonable 
mood after you get your blood sugar back up."

     Methos took the glass of juice, drained it and 
handed it back to MacLeod. "Okay, Mom. I took my 
medicine. Can I go play now?" Without waiting for a 
response, he turned and headed towards the bathroom, 
picking up the pile of clothes on the couch on his way. 
Joe thought that Mac might have a stroke when Methos 
lingered to admire the wedge he'd hacked out of the 
couch.

     "Christ, he's a pain in the ass," MacLeod grumbled, 
after Methos was safely in the bathroom. He picked 
Methos' coat up off the rug, staring at the huge stain it 
left in obvious dismay. Joe decided not to point out the 
stain on the wall. Mac would notice it soon enough on his 
own.

     "Well, one of the things you do when you get older 
is stop worrying about what other people think about 
you," he said.

     "Know all about that, do you, Joe?" Mac asked 
sourly.

    "Yeah, Mac, I do. When you have less time to learn 
things, sometimes you learn 'em faster."
*********
     Gods, I'm tired. I'd love to stay in the shower 
under this stream of water for hours. Unfortunately, 
MacLeod's spartan hot water tank will only allow me 20 
minutes, at best. I could fall asleep here, until the 
water turned ice cold. I close my eyes and lean my 
forehead against the tiles. 

     This day has not gone at all well. I planned it all 
so carefully on the way over to MacLeod's, and then when 
I got here, I just...lost it. What the Hell was I 
thinking? Isn't refusing to take the head of somebody who 
didn't want mine what got me into this mess in the first 
place? MacLeod may be a self-absorbed pain in the ass, 
but he doesn't want my head. Such Immortals are thin on 
the ground. I suppose what I should do now is apologise 
and pay up for the damages.

     Faintly, through the running water and steam, I hear 
Joe and MacLeod yelling at each other. Now what?

     "Why the hell didn't you just call me in London?" 
MacLeod shouts. "I could have been back in a few hours." 
What, are they still talking about that business with 
Morgan Walker? What a waste of breath.

     Joe's response is mostly inaudible--something about, 
"It was an emergency. We didn't have time." I suppose 
that's true. That's how I always figured it. I was just a 
convenient port in the storm when his daughter got 
kidnapped.

     "That's never stopped you before," MacLeod says. 
"You could have at least called me. You had the time. 
Methos is an unreliable son of a bitch at the best of 
times and yet you went running to him right after you'd 
kicked him out of your place for breaking into your 
files!" Well, thank you, Duncan MacLeod of the sheep-
loving Clan MacLeod. Isn't it fun what you hear when your 
so-called friends think you're out of earshot? Bugger the 
apology, I think--and the monetary compensation.

     Joe's answer is so quiet that I cannot hear any of 
it. Fine. Don't defend me. See if I care.

     "Don't give me that, Joe," MacLeod snarls back. "And 
just when were you planning on telling me that you had a 
daughter, or that she was in the Watchers? *He's* worthy 
of that confidence, but I'm not?" Oh, my. And here I'd 
thought that Mac had known about Amy all along. That will 
teach me to assume anything about Joe Dawson.

     Again, I can't hear Joe's answer. I'll bet it's, "It 
never came up." Joe is as close-mouthed as I can be when 
it comes to skeletons in the closet. I just have more of 
them than he does.

     "Well, I could say the same about that, couldn't I?" 
MacLeod retorts. "'It never came up.'" Yes! Right on the 
money. "And maybe I didn't want the Watchers tracking 
Kate down and harassing her. She's been through enough." 

     Oh, Kate. Dear Kate, MacLeod's mad wife of a few 
hundred years. Talk about a skeleton in the closet! Even 
I was impressed when Joe told me about her. MacLeod, of 
course, couldn't be bothered to call round and fill me 
in. Once his little crisis with that psychopath Kell was 
over, neither Joe nor I was of any more use to him. Joe 
got a message on his answering machine saying that the 
MacLeods were off on a much-delayed honeymoon, and that 
was that until the end of the summer. Joe then spent the 
next few months emailing me "informational" questions 
about my past and driving me insane with bitching about 
how MacLeod hadn't been in touch whenever I was in town. 
He also went to three outdoor Jazz concerts and four 
movies with...yours truly.

     Okay. MacLeod might have a point about the buddy 
thing, after all.

     It's got very quiet out there, of a sudden. Leaving 
the water on, I step carefully out of the shower and go 
over to the door. I put my ear to it. Now, I can hear 
both sides of the conversation.

     "It doesn't matter how you put it, Joe," MacLeod is 
saying, much more quietly than before. "He's more your 
friend than I am. He always has been. You've known him 
longer, and you've known him as a Watcher, not as an 
Immortal. If it ever came to a challenge, you'd side with 
him over me."

     "Oh, come on, Mac," Joe says, sounding defensive. 
"Methos and I fight like cats and dogs half the time. You 
and I get along a lot better." Uh uh. I don't buy it, 
Joe. Don't think MacLeod does, either.

     "No." MacLeod's got that martyred tone that he likes 
to adopt when he's been hurt and is trying to be noble 
about it. "No matter how angry you are with each other, 
no matter how long he's been on walkabout, within five 
minutes after he steps in the door, the two of you are 
back into the same routine. You're swapping company 
injokes and stories about some Watcher you both knew 
years ago. You argue about Watcher history and theory. 
You practically finish each other's thoughts. I'm left 
out in the cold."

     "Aww, Mac...." Joe says, then seems to run out of 
things to say. I can't blame him. *I'm* speechless. Isn't 
MacLeod the least bit aware that Joe has spent almost a 
quarter of a century building his life around him? Joe 
used to bore Don and me silly with endless tales about 
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Don liked to tease 
him about his 'Highlander obsession'.

     "Look at you," MacLeod rolls on. "The guy is running 
around challenging people and insulting all his friends, 
and you're trying to tell me he's just confused? The two 
of you live by some sort of shorthand code that nobody 
else can break. You've probably been like that since you 
first met." 

     Were we? Can't remember now. It's all mixed up with 
my mentoring dance with Don. Those were good years. What 
happened? Oh. Right. Kalas and MacLeod happened. Funny. 
I'd thought I was tired then. Kronos put paid to that 
delusion. Not much to show for twelve years as a Watcher. 
A few more dead friends and another bad reputation. So, 
what else is new?

     Unbidden, a memory of a very drunken night with Joe 
comes to mind. It was the spring of 1989, I think. Don 
had gone off to some conference and I'd headed over to 
Joe's apartment where we'd demolished a liter or two of 
gin between us. I'd had a good time teasing Joe about 
MacLeod, until he'd told me, very defensively, that while 
Don and I were his friends, MacLeod was his assignment, 
and that he did know the difference.

     "I mean, it's not as though Don would ditch you to 
go buddy up with Methos, if he ever met him," he'd said, 
oblivious to my reaction, which would have been damning 
if he hadn't been staring into his glass.

     "What if he didn't have to?" I'd blurted out, with 
that suicidal kind of impulse that makes drunk drivers 
lead cops on wild tractor trailer chases. Much to my 
belated relief, Joe had returned to the subject of Duncan 
MacLeod without acknowledging my question. If he 
remembered what I'd said the next morning, he never 
mentioned it. I haven't touched gin since.

     I've had enough inadvertent truths about my friends 
for one day. I'm cold. I think I'll try the shower, 
again. Then again, maybe I won't. The water's gone ice 
cold. Damn MacLeod and his miserly household appliances.

     "Methos!" Joe calls through the door. "You about 
done in there?" Guess he's had enough of the truth from 
Duncan MacLeod for one day, too.

     "Yeah, yeah," I grumble. "I'm coming." Shivering, I 
reach for the towel and start sorting through MacLeod's 
clean set of clothes.
*********
     MacLeod pulled up a comfortable chair across from 
the couch and sat down. He could already tell that this 
was going to take awhile. The only time Methos had ever 
been completely straight with him, MacLeod had regretted 
it.

     On the couch, Methos huddled under a blanket, 
drinking soup. He seemed subdued. Maybe it was because he 
wasn't occupying the entire couch with his usual sprawl. 
Joe had settled down next to him, holding his cane 
between his legs. MacLeod watched them both. He felt a 
twinge of the jealousy that had caused his fight with Joe 
while Methos had been in the shower. He ignored it. This 
wasn't the time.

     "All right, Methos," he said. "Why don't you tell us 
who your friend Mancuso really was?"

     Methos stared morosely into his soup. "I don't 
suppose it matters anymore," he muttered. "His name was 
Crixus." The name seemed oddly familiar.

     "Crixus?" Joe looked startled. "You mean, the guy 
who rode with Spartacus? His main lieutenant?"

     Methos nodded. "The one and the same."

     "Amazing," Joe looked stunned. "The guy knew 
Spartacus--the gladiator who took on the whole Roman 
Republic."

     "And lost," MacLeod pointed out. He was not as 
impressed as Joe by the association. A former friend, 
Karros, had claimed to have fought with Spartacus, and he 
had turned out to be a fanatic in the end.

     "But...that doesn't make any sense," Joe protested. 
"I mean, there's only one other Immortal in Paris besides 
you guys this weekend, and there's no way he could have 
done it." Methos choked on his soup.

     "Anybody we know?" MacLeod asked, interested.

     "Joe," Methos said sharply. Joe shot him an 
exasperated look, then turned back to MacLeod.

     "His name's Marcus Atticus," Joe said. "Right now, 
he's pretending to be a comic book artist named Mark 
Gibbon. He's the main candidate in the Watcher files for 
having been Spartacus."
*********
Capua, 74 BC
     "Tell me again why we're doing this, Marcus," 
Petronius grumbled, as he and Atticus threaded their way 
through the carceres, the warren of housing behind the 
podium. "I don't do boys."

    Atticus laughed, short and ugly. "Did that Thracian 
look like a boy to you, Petronius?"

     Petronius swatted at a fly. "No. He looked like some 
big German bastard out of a bad wine dream. All the more 
reason not to go find him in the slave pens."

    "Just bear with me," Atticus said. "I want to check 
out something."

     "Make it quick," Petronius muttered, as they passed 
an open hut in whose shade sat four women dressed in 
highborn matron's garb, fanning themselves. "We shouldn't 
be back here."

     *Neither should they,* thought Atticus. He nodded to 
the women. They gazed coolly back at him. The stink of 
the carceres seemed less pungent in the presence of their 
perfumes. Before Atticus could think of some respectful 
and polite greeting, Petronius grabbed him and shoved him 
down the makeshift alleyway.

     "Don't waste your time on those patrician sluts," 
Petronius said, as soon as they were out of earshot of 
the hut. "At least your Nubian is an honest whore. D'you 
think they're all here to see him?"

     I think they're paying to do a lot more than 'see', 
Petronius," Atticus retorted.

     Petronius shook his head. "Lucky bastard."

     Atticus shrugged. "Maybe." Such women were 
impossibly far above his station. The only way one would 
ever sleep with him was for the same reason she'd sleep 
with a gladiator--to satisfy her taste for a bit of 
rough. Atticus had more respect for himself than that. He 
stuck to honest whores.

    They turned right down another alleyway, as the 
referee had told them. At the end, they saw a guard 
lounging on a stool outside a hut. Nearing the hut, 
Atticus felt the Buzz of another Immortal.

     As they approached, the guard opened one lazy eye. 
"You're joking," he said, when Atticus handed him the 
wooden token he'd got from the referee.

    "We only want to talk to him," Atticus said, ignoring 
the innuendo.

    "Don't they all. You'll have to wait. He's busy."

     Petronius leaned in, smiling in impersonal threat. 
"We want to see him now."

     The guard folded his arms, clearly unimpressed. 
Atticus pulled out his coinpurse and handed over two 
silver denarii. The guard fingered them, then bit each 
one.

     "Looks like you just jumped to the front of the 
line," he said. Having established that the coins were 
genuine, he stood up. He flung back the curtain and 
entered the hut. Atticus followed cautiously, Petronius 
at his back.

     As he stepped through the doorway, Atticus recoiled 
from the reek of blood and rut. Inside, in the sun-shot 
gloom, the thraex lay on a rude wooden bed. His blood and 
sweat-stained tunic was shoved up around his waist. A 
woman, naked, straddled his hips. At the sound of the 
intrusion, the woman moved to get up. Putting one hand on 
the small of her back and thrusting the other into her 
red-gold hair, the thraex pulled her back down on top of 
him, her head buried in his neck. She squeaked, but 
struggled only a little before acquiescing.

     "Get her her robe," the thraex told the guard. 
Looking bored, the guard went to a pile of matron's 
garments in the corner, picked out a long overtunic, and 
tossed it onto the woman. Then, he went back outside. The 
thraex pulled the robe over the woman's shoulders, 
covering them both. She huddled against him, too 
embarrassed, perhaps, to leave after her first impulse. 
Through it all, the thraex's gaze never left Atticus and 
Petronius.

     "What do you want?" He snarled. His Latin was clear 
and grammatical, but there was a foreign underburr, 
Gallic, or maybe Scythian.

     "We wanted to talk to you," Atticus said.

     The thraex's short, guttural laughter shook both his 
body and the woman's. He held out his hand, yanking on 
the chain that attached his wrist to the wall. Atticus 
saw the cuff on the other wrist, dull gray against the 
woman's hair.

     "Speak your mind," the thraex said. "I'm a captive 
audience."

     *Gods,* Atticus thought. *It is him, the Horseman. 
Death. What is he doing here? Is this another plot to 
destroy Rome? Are his brothers riding down here even 
now?*

     "You seem a little tall for a Thracian," he said.

     "You seem a little old and grey for a catamite," the 
thraex retorted. "The patricians in Rome must be 
desperate this year." A snort of laughter, conveniently 
muffled in the thraex's shoulder, shook the woman. "What 
do you want?"

     What did he want? What would coming here accomplish?

     "They call you Spartacus," Atticus said. "What's 
your true name?"

     The thraex lightly bit the woman's shoulder, who 
moaned and writhed against him. "Zi-mezena Methos [the 
Horseman Methos]," he growled in Thracian, with an 
unsettling smile. "Buzas Romenos."

     "Who're you calling a 'goat', slave?" Atticus 
snapped.

     "They say that you're an army deserter," Petronius 
broke in before Atticus could embarrass himself. "Is that 
true?"

      "It's as convenient a cover story as any, I 
suppose," Spartacus/Methos said calmly. "You'll have to 
ask the lanista in charge of my school about it. He's the 
one who made it up." A fly buzzed sporadically in the 
corner.

     "You're claiming that you've been unjustly sold to 
the arena?" Petronius said, looking curious. "You don't 
seem very upset about that."

     Methos cocked his head, eyes wide in mock innocence. 
"Why? Would it help?"

     "Are killing men and servicing highborn whores all 
you care about?" Petronius sneered.

     "Oh, no. I consider those to be the perks of the 
job. It's not as though I could refuse." Methos sighed as 
the woman moved against him, but continued to watch the 
two Romans through half-closed eyes.

     "I would think that a man who fought so hard in the 
arena today would care more about his freedom, Spartacus-
-or whatever you call yourself," Atticus saiid, disgusted, 
though he understood some of the other Immortal's 
coldbloodedness. Death in the arena would literally free 
zi-mezena Methos for his next life.

    "I care about nothing that you can take from me." 
Methos grinned, showing canines that had been filed down 
to points. "I am free, more than any of you Romans. And I 
will leave this place when I choose." Atticus shivered. 
He felt as though a great cat from the Circus had padded 
up to him to look him full in the face.

     "If you die in the arena," he taunted, shaking off 
his dread, "what will your freedom be worth then?"

     Methos licked his teeth. "Little boy, are you 
challenging me?"

     "My name," Atticus snarled back, "is Marcus 
Atticus."

     "Very well, Marcus Atticus. Are you challenging me?"

     "In the arena?" Petronius burst in. "Are you crazy, 
Thracian? There's no way either of us would degrade 
ourselves to satisfy your bloodlust."

     Stroking the woman's hair, Methos turned his 
unsettling gaze on Petronius. "I am what you have made 
me." Atticus did not think that he meant only Rome and 
its inhabitants. "I fought for my life today and I won't 
apologise for it. If I shed blood in your arena, it is 
because you lust to see it. Don't blame me if you do not 
like what you have invoked--or if your women like me 
better for it." He glanced back at Atticus, who was 
having difficulty concentrating on the Thracian's words 
instead of his actions. "Well, Roman? Are you here to 
challenge me?"

     "No," Atticus spoke thickly. It did not matter that 
Methos was clearly the older Immortal, and might easily 
beat him. Those were the risks of the Game. He had no 
idea what would happen if the Mortals here witnessed a 
Quickening. He did know that he wouldn't risk Petronius' 
friendship over it, even though he might be unleashing a 
great threat on Rome. And he was damned if he was going 
to watch this barbarian fuck some patrician slut 
senseless right in front of him.

    "Then we have no further business," Methos said. 
"Unless, of course, you'd like to join in. My bedmate 
seems to find your presence very exciting." The woman 
giggled, and Methos chuckled low in his throat in 
response. When he slipped a hand under the woman's robe, 
she arched her back, letting the garment slip to her 
waist.

     "Gods," Petronius burst out. "I'm not staying to 
watch this." He yanked at Atticus' tunic. "Come on, 
Marcus. Let's go." Atticus let himself be dragged back 
out into the sunlight.

     As he retreated, Atticus heard Methos say to the 
woman, "Now, where were we? Right...here, I think." The 
woman groaned. Atticus felt grateful at that moment that 
his tunic was loose. The guard laughed at them as they 
fled.

     "Hope it was as good for you as it was for him," he 
called after them.

     "Sick bastard," Petronius said, as they headed back 
out to the street. "That's all those barbarians are 
interested in--blood and women. They'll overrun us some 
day, you'll see."

     Atticus had a feeling that Petronius was right, and 
that Spartacus the Thracian Horseman was only the 
vanguard. It didn't matter. Someday, he was going to find 
something that zi-mezena Methos did care about, and take 
it away. And only then, once they'd established for good 
and all who was the Roman freeman and who was the 
barbarian slave, would Atticus take his head.
*********
Ohh, ain't no tiger; ain't no little lamb.
Suppose you tell me, mama, who do you think I think I am?
And ohh, baby. Don't you give a damn?

Paris, September 6, 2002
     The body heals, but pain stays. Your mind may forget 
as soon as the pain stops. Your body remembers it 
forever. I am going to remember those two stabs MacLeod 
gave me for a few years, I think. If it weren't for that 
bloody file, I'd have left already, gone off to Bora Bora 
or other parts warm and sunny. I need to get the thing 
back. I don't like the effect it is having on my so-
called friends, not at all. For now, they're skirting the 
subject, but that will not last. They're...hovering, 
closing in on me like a couple of overeager sheepdogs. 
Damn Crixus.

     "I don't understand why Spartacus would kill his 
oldest lieutenant," Joe says, looking puzzled. "It 
doesn't make sense." Since I didn't do it, I don't think 
I'll share my thoughts on the subject. No need to make 
matters worse.

     "That's because he's not Spartacus," I mutter into 
my soup, shivering under the blanket MacLeod grudgingly 
gave me. I don't know why I bother. Neither Joe nor Mac 
is listening to me.

     "Maybe they had a falling out," MacLeod says 
thoughtfully. "Two thousand years is a long time." 
MacLeod should almost understand that. He's had enough 
trouble keeping friendships for less than a quarter of 
that time.

     "Oh, they hated each other all right," I say. "But 
Atticus wasn't Spartacus." MacLeod gives me a suspicion 
look. *What's the Old Man trying to pull now?* he must be 
thinking. He is such an easy read.

     "I wonder when it happened?" Joe muses. "I mean, was 
it a recent falling out or--"

     That's it. "HE IS NOT SPARTACUS," I shout, startling 
myself. MacLeod and Joe stare at me in astonishment. 
"*Okay?*"

     Joe recovers first. "Then, who is?"

     I roll my eyes in exasperation. "Atticus isn't a 
Hunter. Crixus must have gone after him. He's hated 
Atticus' guts for centuries. He must have challenged 
Atticus and lost. End of story. Leave him alone." 

     I shouldn't still be so touchy about it, but what 
other people see as an inspiring legend is one of the 
worst failures of my life. I hurt. I just died. A friend 
of mine just died, and he is not coming back. Crixus was 
a pain in the ass, but then, most of my friends are. Look 
at Mac and Joe. They are trying to get me locked up and 
rehabilitated for reentry into civilised society, when 
all I want to do is crawl off into a hole somewhere and 
sleep for a few years. If my cat can understand that, why 
can't my so-called intelligent friends?

     MacLeod says slowly. "Mancuso called you 'Sir'...." 
Why, you rat bastard. You *were* eavesdropping on us. 
Still wrapped up in his speculations about Atticus, Joe 
takes several seconds to catch on. 

     "You're kidding," he says finally. "No way." He 
peers at me, then pokes me with his cane. "*You're* 
Spartacus?" I really don't want to discuss this, but if 
it means that I can weasel that damned file out of their 
hands and keep them away from Atticus, then I'll happily 
tell them any bedtime story that they like. Except for 
the one about a set of train tracks, a glowing red sword, 
and a certain incriminating file.

     I hunch down on the couch, refusing to look at 
either Joe or MacLeod. "Joe, why are you always harassing 
me for information about my past when you refuse to 
believe any of it? What's the point?"

     "Well, it's just--I mean, Spartacus is one of the 
greatest underdogs of all time...." Joe trails off, 
clearly nonplused by this revelation.

     "Only because of that stupid movie from the '50's, 
Joe." Goddamnit, Dawson, let it go. This is not one of my 
better memories.

     "Well, it's not just that!" Joe splutters. 
"Spartacus is...Spartacus! The gladiatorial slave who 
took on Rome and beat her armies for three solid years."

     "I know that, Joe. I was there. Remember?" Boy, was 
I ever....

     "Are you telling me that you didn't *like* that 
movie?" Joe demands. MacLeod laughs out loud at Joe's 
outrage. I ignore him.

     "Joe, it's fiction," I say tightly. "It's not even 
based on history. It is based on a socialist novel by 
Howard Fast about the legend of Spartacus. Kirk Douglas 
in those daft little shorts and that chainmail scarf, all 
sweaty tan and rippling muscles--he wasn't *me*. That 
slave girl who supposedly bore Spartacus' child and 
escaped to parts unknown didn't exist. There is no way 
that she could have. Even if I could have fathered a 
child, I still was not capable of having a non-abusive, 
Hell, non-lethal relationship with a woman, at that 
point. I was still used to skinning them alive on the 
first date."

     "You didn't!" Joe interrupts indignantly, though 
MacLeod looks as if he believes it. Figures.

     To be honest, I don't remember if I ever did or not. 
It was so long ago. I close my eyes. Some days (today, 
for example), I can hear Kronos laughing, feel one of 
Silas' great bear hugs if I sit quietly and wait for it. 
We all have limits, even us monsters. Kronos would never 
have turned on a brother. Silas would never have seen an 
animal suffer, no matter how small or vile. Caspian would 
have never left the Horsemen. Me? I would never torment 
or kill a creature that couldn't fight back. Cassandra 
would call me the worst monster who ever lived, but what 
about Dresden or Hiroshima? What about the ovens at 
Auschwitz? Every one of the ten thousand whom I killed 
had some chance of killing me. I was always within 
striking distance when they died. Could Hitler say that? 
Could Stalin? I may be a bloody-faced barbarian, but it 
was the heirs of Rome who created the atom bomb.

   "Maybe that was Caspian's specialty," I admit finally, 
opening my eyes. "Although I won't say that I've never 
done it." I give Joe a pleading look. "All I am saying is 
that I wasn't this great, Hollywood underdog hero, okay? 
How many times do I have to tell you that I'm just a guy 
before you'll start to believe it?" 

     Look at me. I look more like a wet rat than a 
timeless hero. When I became Spartacus, I was still a 
Horseman. Granted, I was a confused and lost Horseman. 
But I was still more than arrogant enough to feel that 
Rome needed taking down a peg and that I was just the man 
to do it. Who knows? I might have pulled it off, too, if 
those bloody Germans hadn't insisted on running off with 
Crixus and getting slaughtered by the thousands. 

     By the time I went into that final battle, I had 
thoroughly exhausted any bloodlust or love of war that I 
had ever had. I just wanted it all to end. Three thousand 
years seemed like more than enough time on this earth. I 
sent two centurions to their Maker before they took me 
down and I was very surprised when I woke up later. I 
suppose that I must have been so hacked up that they 
didn't recognize my body. I am sure that they looked. 
Crassus certainly wanted my head on a spear for his 
victory procession.

     "Why didn't you just get your men out of Italy, 
then?" MacLeod says, with a hard look. "Did it amuse you 
to lead seventy thousand men to their deaths?"

     I roll my eyes and sit back against the couch. 
"Haven't you been listening to me? They wouldn't let me. 
They hated Rome. They wanted revenge." You'd think that 
after Mac's personal guerrilla war against the English, 
following Culloden, that he'd understand. Three hundred 
years ago, he might have. But I think that MacLeod has 
long since shed his wild clan ways. He is now the perfect 
21st century humanitarian. That kind don't understand 
anything.

     "But...what about Paul Karros?" Joe asks. "He used 
to claim to have fought with Spartacus. You never said 
anything about meeting him."

     "Well, if I did, I don't remember it," I reply 
acidly. "I had seventy thousand men under me. If Crixus 
hadn't been a ringleader, I probably would never have met 
him, either. I've found a handful of men in the 
Chronicles who fought with me (or claimed to have, 
anyway), but Crixus was the only one whom I knew 
personally. And I didn't trust even him with my real 
name."

     "So, what did you do then, after they crushed the 
rebellion?" Joe asked.

     Haven't a clue, really. Crixus found me after the 
battle. He came looking for my body to give it decent 
funeral rites. I don't remember much for the first few 
decades after that. Eventually, I hooked up with Julius 
Caesar in Egypt. Now, there was a man who could plan a 
raid. I smile fondly.

     "Got drunk," I say.

     "That's it?" MacLeod says incredulously. "You got 
drunk?"

     I think about it a bit more. "Got very, very drunk," 
I say. Heaven knows I needed it, after I saw all those 
crosses on the Appian Way.

     That son of a bitch Crassus, he was a real piece of 
work. Thank God the Parthians got the bastard in the end. 
My only regret was that they beat me to him. My head 
hurts. Maybe I should just forget the file and go to Bora 
Bora now. I think about buying tickets, taking care of 
the cat, getting to the airport, the plane trip.... Is 
there any way that I could just lie low in my apartment 
for a month or two? Probably not. Joe knows where I live, 
and he knows I'm in town.

     "How did you end up being a gladiator, anyway?" 
MacLeod asks snidely. "I thought you were still riding 
with Kronos in 73 BC."

     "Waitaminute," Joe says. "You told me that you were 
in Rome in 74 BC. You said you had a bet riding on Titus 
Marconus when he got whacked by that jerk Aedilius."

     "Never heard of either one of them," MacLeod says.

     "They were before your time," I tell him sweetly. 
"Yeah, Joe, I had a bet on Marconus. I still think that 
sniveling little weasel Aedilius cheated. Anyway, it 
doesn't matter now. I caught up with the little git a few 
days later and relieved him of both my money and his 
head. Problem was, his backers showed up while I was 
recovering from his Quickening. Next thing I knew I'd 
been sold off to the arena. I understand they made a tidy 
sum off of me."

     Joe gapes at me. "You never told me that. You just 
went on and on about vomitoriums and crap like that."

     Oh, boy. That conversation was years ago. For a 
Mortal, Joe has one long memory. "I didn't have time, 
Joe. Mac walked in right then, saying that Amanda had 
been kidnapped. Then, you got kidnapped. At what point 
was I supposed to continue the conversation?"

     "And you met Crixus in the arena?" MacLeod asks, 
getting to the point, he thinks. That's right, Mac. Let's 
stay far away from discussing that file.

     "I didn't 'meet' anybody in the arena," I retort. "I 
just killed them." I met Crixus during our escape. He got 
word to me that he and a couple of other gladiators were 
planning a jailbreak. He thought my...participation might 
help their chances. He was right. I sent him back the 
plan that got us out of there. About seventy of us 
escaped. It was supposed to be two hundred, even though I 
told them not to get their hopes up. After we got out to 
Mt. Vesuvius, they started looking to me for the next 
plan.

     "So, was Atticus one of your men?" Joe asked.

     Oh, how I laugh. "I'm sorry," I say, wiping my eyes. 
"That was just--you have no idea how funny that sounded. 
No. Atticus was not one of my men. He'd be insulted at 
the mere suggestion that he could have been. And he'd be 
pretty insulted if he found out that somebody thought he 
had been Spartacus. I would advise you not to try and 
approach him about it. Atticus was a veteran of the Roman 
Army, not a gladiator. We, um, met while I was doing my 
other job for the ludus."

     "Which was?" MacLeod prompted.

     I smile slyly. "Giving the patrician matrons of 
Capua a walk on the wild side, you might say." In the 
resulting silence, I drain my soup. I'm starting to 
shiver again, and black stars swarm the edges of my 
vision. I need rest and sleep, or I'll be a sitting duck 
if Atticus does decide to come after me.

     "You're kidding," Joe says.

     I shake my head. "Nope."

     "They really did that?"

     I nod. "Yep."

     "*You* really did that?"

     "It's not as though I had any choice, Joe." I slouch 
down on the couch, remembering some of the more inventive 
ladies that I 'met' in that job. "Not that I minded." 
Thank Heaven I'm so tired, or I might embarrass myself.

     "Jesus Christ," MacLeod says.

     I snort. "It was a few years before his time, 
actually. Atticus was pretty humiliated by the encounter, 
although I think that the intention was to humiliate me--
and my companion of the hour." I grin in a most 
unsettling manner. "But you can't humiliate a man who 
knows that he's a god. I wonder sometimes if Atticus 
realised that I was a few tiles shy of a full mosaic back 
then. Not that it matters now. He never did forgive me 
for sparing his life."
*********
     Atticus noticed little of the convention. His mind 
was on his fight with Crixus, and the consequences. All 
day, passersby had been discussing the power outage that 
Crixus' Quickening had caused in the con building the 
night before (not that they knew the reason). With every 
comment and speculation heard in passing, Atticus felt 
the tension in his head coiling ever tighter. Crixus' 
Quickening had been old and powerful on its release. 
There was no way that Spartacus could miss the news of 
the results. He had to know what had happened by now. The 
back of Atticus' neck itched, as he waited for the 
Immortal signature that would signal Spartacus' arrival. 
He didn't expect the man to charge in, sword first. 
Spartacus was more than capable of strolling in with the 
kids lining up for autographs to issue his inevitable 
challenge.

     *You bastard,* he thought. *Don't you dare come 
after me, here. This is my world, not yours.* He didn't 
know that for sure, of course. For all he knew, Spartacus 
could be a comic book fan. He knew nothing about the 
man's current life. He didn't even know where to find 
Spartacus.

     As the day drew out and no Immortal appeared, 
Atticus tried to tell himself that Spartacus had seen 
through his lieutenant's plan, that he wouldn't blindly 
avenge Crixus' death. Atticus had broken thirteen hundred 
years of habit when he had finally agreed to a treaty 
with Spartacus. It seemed too much to expect that the 
barbarian might still want peace, after eight hundred 
years of uneasy truce and the death of an old friend. 
Damn Crixus. Atticus sincerely hoped that he was burning 
in Hell.

     The tattoo Atticus had found on Crixus' wrist 
worried him. He had been stalked before by Mortals with 
such tattoos, and Spartacus had worn one during the last 
renegotiation of their treaty, through Darius, 15 years 
before. Who were these people? Were they allies of 
Spartacus, or some Mortal organisation that the barbarian 
had infiltrated? He would have to watch out for them. 
Spartacus might not come at him directly.

     "Mark? Are you okay?" Mark looked up to see Jerry 
standing right in front of him.

     "Sure," he said. "Just fine." *My life used to be so 
uncomplicated. Why the Hell did I come to Paris? What was 
I thinking?*

     Jerry came round the table and sat down next to 
Atticus. "You've been signing autographs like a zombie 
for the past three hours. Maybe you should take a break. 
Go take a walk, clear your head."

     "I'm fine Jer. Really." Mark forced himself to 
smile. *I don't want to take a walk. That's what got me 
in trouble last time.* The last thing he could afford to 
do right now was isolate himself. Once he got himself 
alone, Spartacus was bound to come after him. Atticus had 
been kidding himself, thinking that he could coexist with 
a barbarian. The man had always been mad and 
unpredictable, and his followers were worse.

     "Look, is there something I can do? You're in your 
own little world today," Jerry said, looking exasperated 
but sounding worried.

     Atticus stared at Jerry wistfully. He'd been taking 
the kid for granted, just as he had once taken Petronius 
for granted. Even though he had known Petronius was 
Mortal, had seen him age over two decades, he had never 
thought about losing the tough old centurion until that 
day in Picenum when Spartacus had smashed the Consul 
Publicola's two legions. One moment, they had been 
fighting back to back, the next, Atticus had felt a cold 
wind where his friend should have been. Turning, he had 
searched frantically for a glimpse of Petronius in the 
mass of screaming, panicked, blood-spattered men. 
Petronius had disappeared, cut down somewhere in their 
midst. Atticus never saw him again.

     Atticus had found maybe a double handful of good 
friends in the two thousand years since Spartacus' 
revolt--most of them Mortals. He'd cut Petronius' life 
short by dragging him into his vendetta against 
Spartacus. They would have been called up anyway, he'd 
told himself afterwards. The revolt had caught Rome with 
her best legions outside of Italy. The consuls had 
desperately needed men like Atticus and Petronius. 
Atticus was sure that Petronius would have survived, 
though, if Atticus hadn't been so obsessed with 
destroying Spartacus. It was his fault that they hadn't 
avoided the worst of the fighting. As much as he had 
hated Spartacus, in his heart he'd known all along whom 
he should blame for Petronius' death.

     What if Spartacus didn't come at him directly? What 
if he came after Jerry? More likely, what if one of 
Spartacus' fanatical friends came after Jerry? *I didn't 
want this to happen,* Atticus thought. *I don't want to 
fight him anymore. I thought I could prevent it.* Maybe 
that wasn't possible. Maybe, in the end, it was Atticus 
or Spartacus, Roman or barbarian, with the world not big 
enough to keep them apart.

     If Spartacus or his followers came after him here, 
Atticus wouldn't hesitate. The treaty was broken. Blood 
had been spilled. If Spartacus chose to fight, Atticus 
would be ready for him.

     Atticus smiled fondly at Jerry. "Don't worry about 
me, Jer. I'll be fine. Maybe I will take that walk." He 
scrawled a "Be Back in an Hour" sign on a sheet of paper, 
stood up, and left the auditorium. Jerry looked 
unconvinced but let him go. Good. Atticus didn't know 
what Spartacus intended to do. He did know that when it 
came to a final showdown between Roman and barbarian, 
Jerry Merrick would not be caught in the middle. This 
time, whatever happened, Marcus Atticus was not going to 
let his friends get hurt.
*********
Picenum, Italy, 72 BC
     We've won again. We won't win forever, but this day 
we have won. Seruus Uictor. I ride slowly through the 
bloody field, past slaves cutting the throats of 
centurions and fighting over the best armour and weapons. 
One thing you can say about my army, we have made do. The 
men shout, giggle and swear. The women work silently, 
smiling. They remind me of the women from Caspian's tent, 
those who survived longer than a month. The seruae, 
ancillae and familiae who join my army have no place else 
to go. They will never desert.

     I'm still shaking from the last cavalry charge that 
I led hanging half off my horse in my impatience to 
strike men down and screaming like a madman. We drove the 
disintegrating second legion onto the lances and swords 
of my infantry. In the first horrible moment of the 
clash, I thought my men would break, but with the first 
legion already shattered, the second had no chance. The 
rest was just mop up. People fear the Roman Army because 
usually it can prevail, even with bad leadership. 
Usually, but not today. Not against me.

     I ride past a pile of bodies, where the Romans made 
a last stand while their general fled. A wounded man 
calls to me as I pass by. Only gradually does it sink in 
what he wants. I've gone several lengths before I realise 
it. I turn the horse around. Tired as he is, he obeys me 
without protest. He's a good horse. I won't be letting 
the Romans get him back.

     I approach the man, who gazes at me from the ground-
-no, not at me, at my waterskin."Aqua, aqua,," he moans. 
He's one of the lightly-armed auxiliaries. Only chainmail 
for him, and it didn't hold up. He has a gash in his 
belly just under his cuirass. If the slice on his thigh 
and the infection from his mangled shield arm don't kill 
him, that hole in his belly surely will. I could leave 
him there. Now that he's got my attention, I won't. I 
have been where he is before, and nobody gave me water. 
Maybe, if I help this poor sod, the gods will send me 
somebody with a little compassion the next time that I'm 
down.

     Dismounting, I approach him with caution. A gladius 
lies near his right hand, but he makes no move towards 
it. I crouch next to him, then unhook my waterskin.

    "Not been your best day, has it, poor sod?" I say, 
getting under his shoulder and lifting him up. He sucks 
frantically at the waterskin. As he's slowly bleeding to 
death, he must be very thirsty. I notice greying hair 
under the blood. Rome is desperate, sending old men and 
children against us, while she pulls her best legions 
back from the provinces. It has made my men cocky. They 
won't be so cocky once we're surrounded, but it will be 
too late, then.

     I almost don't notice when he reaches for the 
gladius. Startled, I drop him and scramble back. He 
scrabbles for the sword, even as I reach for my own. 

    "Non...non," he begs. "Sis...." It's not until he 
lifts the sword across his thighs and tries to point it 
at himself, that I understand. I approach again, very 
cautiously, kneel down, and grasp the gladius over his 
fingers. I pull the hilt up and back until the point 
rests on the tunic under his cuirass. He nods, his eyes 
clouded with pain. "Sis...." Please.

     I shove the gladius down and in, fast and hard. His 
body flops in agony under my grip. He gasps once, twice, 
still fighting in spite of himself, then he goes still. 
As I watch, his eyes glaze over. I wait for a moment or 
two, but he doesn't move anymore. He's done.

     A good death. That's the best you can hope for in 
this world, and the thing you're least likely to get. 
Wiping my hands on my tunic, I stand up and turn back to 
my horse. I remount and ride back up the hill to my tent. 
Once there, I dismount, then unsaddle my horse, rub him 
down, and feed him. One of my men would undoubtedly 
volunteer to do this for me, but I learned long before I 
joined the Horsemen that your horse eats and rests before 
you do. When I'm done, I let a man lead him away, then 
enter the tent.

     A man brings a pitcher of water into the tent. He 
pours some of it into a basin, before mixing me a large 
cup of wine. When he starts to help me unbuckle my 
armour, I wave him off. If it's a woman, and I can 
anticipate some bedsport, that's one thing, but only a 
man who's gone soft from easy living would need a 
manservant to undress him. I compromise by letting him 
bring me food and water, refusing the rest. I'm sure it 
makes me look stronger in his eyes. Certainly, I've 
impressed my entire army by wearing only my traditional 
armour of wrist bands, boots and a leather cuirass over 
my tunic. My brothers used to marvel at my recklessness, 
until they got used to my ways. Life is nothing without a 
little risk.

     I am astonished to see these former slaves fight for 
the privilege to wait on me hand and foot. Me! A nomad 
who has wandered plain and desert for months, even years, 
on end, relying on nothing but his wits, his sword, and a 
good horse. I used to have to train slaves with fear and 
beatings. These men do far more for me without the least 
prompting, simply because they think I've freed them. 
I'll remember that, after this is all gone.

     Crixus was the worst of them. He built me up to 
impossible heights, that one. In the end, even I couldn't 
satisfy his lust for Roman blood. I've not seen him since 
he ran out on me with most of our Germans. I was almost 
glad when the Romans took him down at Apulia. Maybe that 
will teach him some real loyalty. I hope his first death 
hasn't been his last, but battle is uncertain. He could 
easily have lost his head by now. 

     I scoop up water from the basin to wash the blood 
from my face. Before the battle, I marked my face with 
the traditional stripe down the right side, over my eye, 
in my own blood instead of blue paint. Though I no longer 
see the dead with that eye, I do it for luck. When I was 
Death I never lost.

     I stare at this reflection of a wild-haired 
barbarian in the water. How Kronos would laugh at me now 
to see me. Oh, Brother, you seem further than Olympus 
today. I have been trapped in Italy for three years, 
playing first the mercenary, then the gladiator, now the 
rebel leader. My heart had been dead for so long that 
when it came back to life after we escaped to Vesuvius, 
it was like reviving a dead limb. I felt agony at first, 
desperately wishing that I could go back to being Death. 
But afterwards--oh, how long it's been! I feel as though 
I've spent a thousand years in a cocoon. Now I'm free I 
want to spread my wings and fly! 

     A man enters the tent. "Sir," he says. "We have 
prisoners."

     I straighten. "How many?"

     "Nearly three hundred, Sir," he replies. I can see 
his anger, barely reined in. He wants them dead. I'm sure 
that all of my men want them dead.

     "We will hold games," I say, struck by an idea. 
"Gladiators fighting in pairs, in honour of Crixus and 
our comrades who died at Apulia. Let their blood honour 
our comrades' memory." That auxiliary that I killed was 
lucky. He didn't die in shame, the way these survivors 
will.

     Both the messenger and my manservant of the day look 
fiercely pleased. Once again, I give them what they want.

     I hear shouting outside, then an Immortal presence. 
Pushing aside the curtain to the tent, I stand in the 
doorway. Some of my men are dragging a centurion past the 
tent. Eyes wild, his helmet, shield and gladius lost, 
he's fighting them, cursing. He is the Immortal.

     "Stop it!" I call sharply to my men. "Bring that man 
here." Startled, they all look up. The prisoner almost 
breaks free, but my men catch him again and haul him up 
to me.

     "What are you doing with this man?" I say. I've had 
to personally rein in the men of my army before. 
Indiscriminate carnage is good policy for a small group 
like the Horsemen. For us, trying to fight our way out of 
Italy, it is disastrous. We've been delayed by carnage 
too long already.

     "He's one of the prisoners, Sir," says a man who's 
been my daily manservant before, a compact Sicilian with 
a sharp temper. "Tough bastard. No matter what we do to 
him, he won't die."

     I draw my sword. "Bring him into my tent. I want to 
talk to him." They hesitate. I laugh. "You've tied him so 
he can barely move. I'm armed. What can he do?" I step 
aside and hold open the curtain. Reluctantly, they bring 
him in, cheated of their plaything. Never mind. They will 
find many more.

     They force him to kneel in the center of the tent, 
not far from the now blood-stained basin, then leave. I 
watch him. He stubbornly ignores me, staring straight 
ahead. I've seen him before, but I don't recall where. I 
try to remember every Immortal I've met, so that I can be 
prepared for any challenge. After so many years, though, 
it's difficult. I've met many of our kind and killed 
almost as many. The few survivors should stick in my 
memory, but it is the many dead that I tend to remember.

     "We've met," I tell my prisoner. "Recently, more or 
less." He doesn't acknowledge me, but I see his jaw 
tighten. He remembers me.

     A Roman...a Roman.... Where--Oh. Little wonder that 
I didn't recall him immediately. I was distracted at the 
time, and I have been many places in the past few years 
that I'd rather remember than that sewer of a ludus in 
Capua. He'd seen me before that, too, of that I'm sure. 
It could have been that time we Horsemen came down with a 
group of Gauls and burned Rome. He might be that old.

     "You had a friend with you last time we met," I say. 
"What happened to him?" His face is blank, but he starts 
to shake. "Dead, is he?" No answer. "Here?" He doesn't 
respond, but I know. The man is dead.

     I circle him. "Marcus Atticus," I say slowly. "That 
was your name. Didn't much like my getting a highborn 
piece that wouldn't look at you twice in the street, as I 
recall. She told me that she paid well for the 
privilege." Again, no answer. Not much sport here.

     I place my sword on the back of his neck. He doesn't 
flinch. "I could kill you right now," I say. "I should 
kill you. My men would call me a god, once they saw the 
Quickening." I giggle at this. "It's what we do. It's 
what *I* do best. I have probably killed more people than 
anyone you will ever meet." I raise my sword. Atticus 
only raises his chin, to make it a cleaner kill. I stop.

     I can do this. I have done this. I ought to do this. 
This man could hunt me long after all of these Mortals 
and their petty empire are dust. But I don't have to do 
this. I don't need to kill Atticus. As I gaze down on 
him, this new idea fires my imagination. This is a new 
option. I can spare this man's life. It will be messy. It 
will cause problems that killing him would solve before 
they've begun. I will certainly regret it, but whatever 
comes of it, I won't be bored. I came to Rome because I 
was tired of the Horsemen, tired of being the strongest 
and most feared creature in the known world--Death 
Incarnate. I want life.

     "No." I lower my sword. "Parco te interficere--I 
spare you." He breaks then, glaring up at me in disbelief 
and hate. "I'll send you back to Rome, to tell them what 
happened here," I say. "If it helps, I would have spared 
your friend, too." I go to the basin and lay the sword 
across it. I stare at my reflection in the blood-stained 
water--the blurred streak of blood across one eye, the 
wild hair--and don't recognise myself.

     "You don't understand why I'm doing it, do you?" I 
say, half to my reflection, half to the man behind me. 
"Is mercy so hard for you? Do you think it's difficult to 
become a Roman? It's not." I turn, raising the gladius. 
He pales, glancing at my face, then the sword, then my 
face again. He doesn't know what to think. 

     I grab a hank of my hair and saw it off with the 
gladius, close to the skull. I do it again, on the other 
side of my head. I continue until my hair is as short as 
any Roman Army recruit's. Casting the clumps of hair into 
the basin behind me, I smile at my enemy.

     "See how easy it is to become a Roman," I say.
*********
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don't come, you get a tan
From standing in the English rain.

Seacouver, June 14, 1998
     Been sitting here every day, watching the trains go 
by. Not sure why. Just woke up one day and noticed my 
situation: living in a hotel, on the run, no more 
friends, no more life back in Paris. All gone.

     It wasn't cowardice, I swear. I saw Richie's sword 
glow. I saw it! Red as the fires of Hell. MacLeod was 
gone, Joe crying on my shoulder. Nobody saw it but me. Of 
course they didn't. It wasn't *real*. I never lied to 
MacLeod. I've never seen a demon--ghosts, phantoms, 
delusions and hallucinations, yes! But not a demon. I'm 
dangerous like this. Can't go near Joe anymore. Have to 
stay far, far away. Like I should have stayed away from 
Crixus.

     I'm so drunk. Can't walk, let alone run. Too bad. 
Running's good for my head. My head needs it today. Got a 
rotation, now: scotch, whiskey, rum, tequila, liquors, 
beer and wine. Today is.... Look at the bottle, Old Man. 
Today is tequila.

     I slap myself--still numb. A punch, a pinch--still 
numb. Had a small part of me clear, at first, at the very 
top of my head. That went under days ago. Whatever 
happens to me next is completely in the hands of the 
gods. If they exist. Six thousand crosses, just to teach 
me a lesson? Seventy thousand men dead in battle to 
punish me for killing ten thousand just for fun? If gods 
exist, then they are cruel bastards. Jealous. No. No, 
demons, no gods. Welcome back, Brother....

     I'd be Death again if he'd have me back. He's too 
small, anyway, outgrown armour. Gonna have a hangover 
from Hell, but not if I stay drunk. I'll drink 'til the 
DTs hit. Pink elephants and spiders under my skin. I 
can't wait!

     They should have let Crassus take my head. Safer, 
that way.

     I'm rocking back and forth, singing to myself. How I 
ended up in the Seacouver trainyard is beyond me. So 
tired. Should go back to the car and sleep. Got no ID. 
Don't want anybody to know me anymore.

     "You don't look well, Brother." I look up. Why can't 
I see someone I want to see, like Alexa? Alexa, love. Oh, 
you died too soon....

     "Kronos," I say. He looks like he did when we first 
met--wild. I knew wolves more used to humans than Kronos.

     He crouches in front of me, looks me in the face. 
"What are you doing to yourself, Brother? This won't get 
you what you want."

     I nod, over and over. "Yeah it will." I slur.

     He takes my face in his hands. "What do you want, 
Brother?"

    I smile. "Wanna die. Gonna die today."

    He looks sad. "Why?" he asks.

     "'Cause I'm drunk enough today." I turn my face 
away.

     He shakes his head. "Do you even understand what's 
happening to you?"

     I giggle. "Me drunk. You dead. Me dead soon, too." I 
hold up the bottle, mostly upright. "Drink?" He pushes 
the bottle away. Ungrateful bastard. 

     "Can't you feel it?" he raises his head, sniffing 
the oily trainyard wind. "Six billion of them, who knows 
how many thousands of us, closing in around you, caging 
you in plastic and glass. All the forests are being cut 
down, the deserts and tundras drilled and polluted with 
oil, prairies and grasslands ploughed under for highways 
and farms and cattle. No escape, no sanctuary, no 
freedom. And worse, how many of them even notice anymore? 
How many of them boast that there are no more frontiers, 
that they've conquered everything? They've been in cages 
so long, they think it's natural. They don't *want* to be 
free--and they don't want you to be free, either, 
Brother."

    I laugh, hard. "Yeah, so let's kill 'em all. Right, 
Kronos? Sure. That works." I'm too drunk to have a 
conversation with Kronos, even if he is just a pink 
elephant.

     He grins. His face paint writhes. "You have to 
admit, Brother, my solution had a certain elegance to it, 
a wonderful simplicity. And whatever you may say about 
the Black Death, killing half the population of the world 
with plague did solve some of the Mortals' problems. But 
you're right." He sits down next to me. "It couldn't have 
worked. They wouldn't have learned a thing. We would only 
have postponed the inevitable."

     "Lovely," I say, pulling my jacket closer about me. 
"Why am I talking to you? You're not real." 

     "Not real?" Kronos' voice deepens. "Or not Kronos?" 
His eyes glow red.

     I grimace skeptically, then drain the bottle. "Oh, 
sure. Right," I say. "Must be farther gone than I 
thought. Got Mac's delusions of grandeur now."

     "Ah, MacLeod. He's been busy, being the Champion. Do 
you know what the Champion is?" Kronos asks.

     "He's supposed to save the world," I recite dully. 
"To prevent it from falling into a thousand years of 
darkness."

     "That," Kronos says impatiently, "is what MacLeod 
knows. I want to know what you know about the Champion."

     "Nothing," I say blankly. "None of it's real."

     "That's not what MacLeod believes," Kronos purrs. 
"Nor what your friend Joe believes, nor what that poor 
lad Richie believed, now is it? How can you be sure?"

     "It's not real," I growl back. "No demons. No 
Champions. Good men do evil. Evil men do good. Nobody's 
pure. Everybody's damned."

     "Are you sure?" Kronos puts an arm around my 
shoulder. "What if you're the back-up plan, Brother?"

     I snort bitterly. "I'm a drunk in a trainyard, 
talking to myself. I'm nothing." I thought I was 
something special, once. I was wrong. These five thousand 
years have been a fluke.

     "That's the beauty of back-up plans, isn't it?" 
Kronos says. "They always come from the people you least 
expect. That's what made your plans so remarkable, 
Methos. You were a genius at anticipating all the 
variables."

     I stare at him in disbelief. "You think this is a 
*plan*?" I begin rocking again. "Turning into a drunk, 
abandoning my friends, homeless--that's my plan?" I punch 
myself in the face, barely feeling it. "Is this part of 
the plan?" I hit myself again. "Is this?"

     Kronos slips behind me and wraps his arms around me, 
immobilising me. "Shh, Brother. It's all right. Let me 
in. Let me take you home where your friends can take care 
of you."

     "Let me go," I growl.
     
     "You're not well, Brother," Kronos whispers in my 
ear. "And your friends still need you. Let me take you 
home."

     "Let me go now!" I struggle against him. The bottle 
shatters on concrete.

     "There are things to be done, Brother," Kronos sings 
in my ear. "And only you can do them. You need help. Let 
me take you back."

     I stop fighting him. "Go away," I say, tired. 
"You're not my brother. You're a pink elephant. My 
brother is dead." I'm such a bastard. My brothers died, 
and I never mourned them. I start to cry. It doesn't last 
long.

     Kronos lets go of me, and withdraws. "Madness and 
persecution, Brother. Don't think I'll let you end it all 
here just because the road ahead is long and hard."

     "Bugger your road. I'm outta here." I scramble to my 
feet and stagger out to the train tracks. Today, I'm just 
drunk enough to do this. A train will do the trick. No 
more dreams, no more bloodlust, no more need for control. 
Nothing at all. The peace of the grave. Everyone finally 
safe from me, from Death. If you were waiting for me, 
Alexa, I'd've gone sooner.

     "Don't do it, Methos," Kronos calls after me. He 
laughs. "People might miss you, old friend."

     "I doubt that, Brother," I say. He doesn't reply. I 
lie down on the tracks, arms spread, neck on the rail. I 
close my eyes, hum a little tune, and fall asleep.

     The ceiling is white. That's my first coherent 
thought. I can't move. That's my second coherent thought. 
Don't panic. That's my third. Douglas Adams would be so 
proud.

     "Where's my towel?" I ask the ceiling.

     "If you struggle," a voice says. "They'll only put 
you back under."

     "Kronos?" I say weakly. He stands next to the bed, 
smiling. It's not the cruel expression that I expected. I 
look down. I'm in five point restraints. Oh, perfect. 
This is bad.

     My head feels thick, some sort of sedation. "What 
happened?" I say, desperate enough to wheedle information 
from a figment of my own imagination.

     He leans on one of the bed's metal railings. "You 
didn't die."

     I giggle, feeling ill. "No. Really? This isn't Hell, 
then?"

     "You've been here a week," he continues. "As you can 
see, you haven't been in your right mind. Try to look on 
the bright side: they are taking you off the Suicide 
Watch today, and the hospital can't afford TV monitors of 
their rooms. So, you and I have a few moments to talk--
alone."

     I close my eyes, breathing as deeply as I can, 
silently reciting a half-remembered Buddhist mantra. It 
doesn't help. When I open my eyes, Kronos is still there.

     "Why?" I say. My head is clearing, but not fast 
enough. Must be time for my  medication.

     "Because whoever I am, I didn't want you to die," he 
replies, with infuriating vagueness.

    "You've put me in hospital!" I rasp. As the drug 
recedes, it's harder to fight my panic. I cannot afford 
to panic.

     "Perhaps," he continues over my outburst, "I'm your 
guardian angel." I laugh. "You think that's funny, 
Brother? Haven't you ever wondered how you came to live 
so long, with the risks you take? You would need a 
heavenly host on continuous watch. This isn't your first 
attempt to get yourself killed, you know, not even your 
first this decade. Of course, I could be an 
hallucination, some shadow creature from your 
unconscious."

     "I prefer that option, I think," I snarl. "At least 
then, I can figure out how to shut you up!" I yank on the 
restraints, trying to reach his throat.

     Kronos smiles. "I thought you might. It makes you 
feel most in control of the  situation." More gently than 
anything I have ever seen him do, he puts his hands on 
either side of my head and kisses my brow. "Good luck, 
brother. Don't forget that you'll need to go through Hell 
first to get to where you're going, so don't lose your 
way."

    I stare at him in horror. "You're leaving? Just like 
that?" I struggle against the straps and cuffs holding me 
to the bed. "What am I supposed to do now?!"

     "You'll think of something, Brother." Kronos smiles 
infuriatingly. "You were always good at jailbreaks, and 
nobody can do cute like you. You'll think of something, 
if you calm down long enough."

     "Kronos, no. Don't leave. I take it back...." He 
walks out the opening door, passing through a nurse as 
she enters the room with a medication tray. Forcing 
myself to stop fighting the restraints, I relax back onto 
the bed. This woman is the first key to my getting out of 
here. I have to impress her--somehow.

    "Hello," she says, smiling cautiously. I hope I 
didn't give her that black eye. "How are you feeling 
today?"

     I put as much 'cute' as I can into a hurt, little 
boy smile. "Confused," I admit, with a catch in my voice. 
"I seem to have lost some time...." 
*********
September 6, 2002    
     MacLeod is talking, but it's hard to focus on his 
words--even harder to care about the tone. I'm so tired.

     "Atticus hates you because you spared his life?" He 
says incredulously. "He killed your wife and your friend 
Crixus' entire family!" He flushes at my sharp look, 
having just admitted to eavesdropping on my conversation 
with Crixus. Instead of backing off, he ploughs on. "He 
killed Crixus, and you still won't challenge him?" He 
shakes his head in amazement. "I don't understand you, 
Methos."

     "On that, we agree," I reply sarcastically.

     "Is that why you've been so jittery the past few 
months, because you knew he was coming to Paris?" Joe 
asks. Why do my friends have to be so perceptive? Why 
can't they all be dumb and easily led?

     "Something like that," I say, trying to mask my 
unease. The boys in that comic book shop I visit have 
been all a-twitter about Atticus' coming here. 
Apparently, he didn't make the final decision to come 
until last week. It violates our agreement, of course, 
but I can see why he decided to give it a go. I would 
have.

     "You buy *comic* books?" MacLeod says. Joe gives him 
an impatient look. I grab the opening.

     "Is there something wrong with comic books?" I ask 
innocently. This kind of conversation I can handle in my 
sleep. That is fortunate, as I'm having trouble keeping 
my eyes open.

     "Well, they're not exactly high literature, are 
they?" MacLeod says.

     "So, what? It's not as though I'm lacking in 
intellectual stimulation. On average, I read five 
languages in any given day that I work on my thesis. As 
for high literature, have you read Moby Dick? Ulysses? 
Lady Chatterley's Lover? The Maltese Falcon?"

     MacLeod squirms under my sarcasm. "I've read the 
last two," he says defensively.

     "Ah. Those I can see," I muse. "Well, two out of 
four isn't bad, I suppose. Do you realise how popular 
that industry is? Did you know that Joe has one of the 
original Batman comics? Not the first one, of course. 
He'd never dare take it out. Still, he has a couple of 
Golden Age comics. When he is in an especially good mood, 
he lets me read them."

     Joe snorts. "Getting back on track, here," he says, 
looking exasperated. "What are you gonna do about this 
guy Atticus?"

     "Me?" I shrug. "Nothing."

     "Why not?" MacLeod exclaims irritably. "He's hunting 
you."

     I grimace. "No, he's not. Crixus was hunting him. 
He's just here doing his job, which is selling his comic 
books." If I keep telling myself that, maybe I'll believe 
it.

     "How can you be sure?" Joe demands. Joe, please. I'm 
tired. Let me crawl back into my hole. Apartment. 
Whatever.

    "Aside from the fact that he doesn't know where to 
start looking?" I point out. "Atticus won't come after 
me. A good friend of his set up our initial truce. We 
renewed it in front of him most recently in 1987. Atticus 
won't go against that."

     "Maybe you could get the friend to arrange another 
truce," Joe suggests.

     Oh, how I wish. "I can't. He's dead."

     "Who was he?" MacLeod asks, curious.

     Should I tell him? He won't like it. "Darius," I 
say.
 
     MacLeod stares at me in shock. "They were friends? 
How...why? Why would he get involved in your feud?"

     I look at the floor, feeling sad and drained. I've 
never, no matter how angry I've been with him, wanted to 
tell Mac this. I don't know if he'll forgive me for it.

     "If I tell you, will you promise to leave Atticus 
alone?" I say, begging a little.

     "Methos, stop playing games and tell us!" Joe snaps. 
He's losing his temper with me.

     I raise my head and meet MacLeod's eyes. "You won't 
like it."

     "Tell us anyway," MacLeod says, looking steadily 
back at me.

     I sigh. "Atticus didn't kill my wife, or Crixus' 
family. He'd run afoul of a crooked senator, shortly 
before he located me in Gaul. The senator had Atticus 
murdered, so Atticus had to lie low for a few months and 
establish a new identity. Meanwhile, he sent a friend of 
his after me, a general who had two legions under his 
command...."

     "Darius," MacLeod whispers, looking sick. I feel so 
sorry for him. I wish I could have avoided this, but I 
can't have him going after Atticus.

     I nod. "I told you you wouldn't like it. Now, will 
you leave him alone?"

     MacLeod looks away. He has known about Darius' dark 
past for a long time, but always on an intellectual 
level. Unlike me, Darius, in his perpetual monk's robes, 
always looked the part of the saint. MacLeod has never 
met one of Darius' victims before, so it's been easy to 
intellectualise what Darius did. He cannot comprehend 
that Darius might have been like me once, might have done 
evil and enjoyed it. I suppose it never occurred to Mac 
that I might once have suffered at Darius' hands.

     Movement beyond MacLeod's shoulder distracts me. 
Even though the porthole in the bulkhead must be ten feet 
above the waterline, someone is peering through it. It's 
Kronos. When he sees me, he waves. Seeing him, I suppress 
an hysterical giggle.

     I stand up, pushing my soup cup into MacLeod's 
hands. "I have to go," I say. "I haven't been home in 
hours, and I need sleep." If I am having visions of dead 
Horsemen floating outside Mac's portholes, then I need to 
get to someplace very, very quiet and just breathe for a 
few days. The only other alternative is to get drunk, and 
that ended badly the last time I tried it.

     "Wait." Joe grabs my arm. MacLeod looks surprised. I 
think he was about to let me walk out. "We haven't 
finished talking about this." Joe says. 

    I stare at him. "You have got to be kidding. We've 
been doing nothing but talk for the past hour." Don't do 
this to me, Joe.

     "No. You've been snowing us for the past hour, Old 
Man." As I reluctantly sit back down, Joe pulls out  a 
file--no, *the* file--and hands it to me. When I open it 
and see my mug shot, the room tilts. I do not remember 
having this picture taken.

     "What is this?" I say, furiously treading water 
inside my head. In the sudden heat of the room, I smell 
dead men.

     "Your friend Crixus brought it over from Seacouver," 
Joe says, through fog. Of course he did. That had been my 
biggest fear about Atticus' coming to Paris--not Atticus 
but Crixus. Atticus only wanted to kill me. Crixus.... 

     This is even worse than I thought. For at least the 
third time in the past 24 hours, I think that it's just 
as well that Crixus is already dead. How did he find this 
thing? I always dreaded that another Watcher would find 
it and recognise me. Why did it have to be Crixus? Did he 
know about my hospital stay all along? Did he visit me 
while I was out of my head that first week? That would 
explain the bossy attitude this time round. My adventure 
with trains must have reminded him of when I ran 
shrieking down the Appian Way two millennia ago, trying 
to drag my dead men down from their crosses. He'd seen me 
at my most vulnerable then. Damned if the bastard hadn't 
taken advantage of it, too. By the time my head had 
cleared, Crassus had bought his urn, Crixus had got me 
married off to wife number 26 and Darius was marching my 
way with an army. I wish I could say that I loved my 
wife, but I don't remember her well enough to know. I do 
know that she didn't love me. She did try to sell me out 
to Darius, after all.

     "Methos?" I blink. How long have I been sitting 
here? Joe has a hand on my shoulder. He leans forward, 
peering at me in concern. "Are you okay?"

     "Sure." I chuckle, as if Joe has handed me an old 
speeding ticket. "I'd forgotten all about this. Just a 
little misunderstanding with the Seacouver Police. I got 
too drunk one night and ended up in a fight with them. 
Since I didn't have any ID on me, they clapped me in 
hospital for a few weeks."

     "'Little misunderstanding', my ass," Joe retorts. 
"They were seriously considering just letting you spend 
the night in the drunk tank, since they couldn't prove 
that you were doing anything worse than being drunk and 
stupid. Then, you tried to put your head through a two-
way glass window during your psych evaluation. *That's* 
what got you committed."

     "Oh," I say, nonplused. I don't remember doing that, 
either. "Must've been the DTs," I say lamely. "I'd been 
drunk for a few days." 

     "You know, that's exactly the same look that you 
gave me when I caught you hacking into my files a week 
after you escaped from there," Joe says.

     Feeling lightheaded, I hang an arm over the back of 
the couch, turning my body until I am face to face with 
Joe. "Are you calling me a liar, Joe Dawson?" I say, very 
quietly.

     "Yes," he replies. His voice echoes in the room.

     "Stop it," MacLeod says, before either of us can 
push it further. I look away first.

     "Just tell us what Ahriman did to you," Joe pleads. 
I'm sorry Joe. I will never tell you that. Not ever. How 
can I tell you what he did when I am not even sure 
myself? What do I do, admit that I've spent half of my 
'out-of-town' trips these past few years lying in bed in 
Paris, staring at the ceiling? Should I admit that I have 
spent weeks on end in my apartment doing nothing more 
strenuous than watching videos and feeding the cat? I 
don't think so.

      "Nothing," I say, my tone false and light. "Look, 
I'm sorry that I left like that after Richie died. I 
panicked, okay? I had to get away for awhile, that's 
all."

     "Methos, look at me." I do. Joe looks me in the eye 
for a long time. Then, he slumps in apparent defeat, 
which I don't believe for a nanosecond.

     "Yeah, sure," he concedes. "That must have been it." 
That's my cue to leave, before he comes up with some new 
strategy.

     "I really need to get home," I say, standing up 
again. Surreptitiously, I stick the file under my arm, 
intending to take it with me. It is way past this old 
Immortal's bedtime. I can hear Kronos singing 'Danny Boy' 
outside the porthole. I hope I'll be fit to drive.

     "Your coat is still in the laundry," MacLeod points 
out. "It won't be dry for at least an hour."

     "That's okay," I reply cheerily, because it sure 
beats screaming. "My car's down the street. Shouldn't 
attract too much notice with a sword for that short a 
distance." I stop on a thought and stare at MacLeod. "You 
are giving me back my sword, aren't you?"

     Looking resigned, MacLeod gets up and goes into his 
kitchen to retrieve the sword. As he comes back out, I 
notice that Joe looks unhappy but doesn't interfere. Nor 
does he say anything about the file. As I take the sword 
from MacLeod, I cannot resist baiting him one last time, 
pulling the Ivanhoe halfway out of its sheath right in 
front of him.

     "Just checking for damage," I assure MacLeod, 
noticing his shudder. "I see you cleaned it. Thanks." I 
move up the stairs to the outside hatch, escape at last. 
"Sorry about the mess," I call over my shoulder as I 
leave. "Just give me a bill at some point and I'll pay 
it."

     Kronos joins me as I walk down the gangplank, 
floating up from the waterline. "Did you have a nice 
chat?" he says.

     "What the Hell do you want?" I snap, keeping my 
voice low. "You're dead. Bugger off!" Thank Heaven that 
the quay is deserted at this time of the evening, and 
that MacLeod keeps his portholes closed on the quay side 
to shut out the smells and noise from the shore.

     "Brother, I'm hurt," Kronos says, looking nothing of 
the kind. "Surely you noticed the signs that I was coming 
back. Or were you hoping that it wouldn't happen this 
time?" I had noticed, as it turns out, but the beauty of 
chronic depression is that it increases exponentially 
one's ability to do denial.

     Take today, for example.... "I'm going home," I 
declare. "I am going to take a nap. When I wake up, you 
will have returned to whatever dysfunctional part of my 
brain you came from and I won't see you again for at 
least another fifty years."

     He stays over the water as I hurry towards my car. 
"You're always leaving me, Brother," he calls after me. 
"What does that say about our friendship?"

     "That it is over!" I hiss over my shoulder. "I 
hope," I mutter to myself, much less confidently.
*********