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Choice after Evil

Sandra McDonald

         Author's Notes:

         Not my characters, universe, copyright, etc, et al, ad ininitum. My story. Hope you like it! This is probably not what's going to happen post season four but it's an idea. Comments and criticism to me at sandra1012Aattbi.com. I want to especially thank Janette92 for her proofreading! YKYBWriting Highlander Fiction Too Much when you're sitting around the house, playing with your cats, and you start to wonder about the possibilities of Immortal felines… nine lives, right? But there are no cats in this story, I promise.

         Richie stumbled from the dojo in a daze. The gashes along his arms and legs stung as they healed, but the deeper wounds inside his head and heart sang with a terrible betrayal and loss that might never be made whole again. In the space of only a few seconds he'd been pushed further along on the road of final death than he'd ever gone before, at the razor's edge of a sword wielded by a man Richie respected and loved as a friend and teacher.
         The image of Duncan MacLeod dead on the floor from Joe Dawson's gunshots burned against his eyes. The smell of blood and gunpowder still stank in his nose. His heart still thumped erratically in his chest, and his hands were shaking so violently he couldn't hold the banister as he fled downstairs. He didn't know if his legs would hold him long enough for him to reach his bike, but discipline and stubbornness kept him going.
         That, and the knowledge that MacLeod would come after him and kill him if he didn't flee.
         Mac, who'd taken a Dark Quickening, who could now only be counted as a vicious and merciless enemy.
         Hard to see past the tears blinding his vision, but Richie fled as fast as he could down the stairs. His right foot slipped five steps from the bottom. He landed hard, with a solid whack to his back and head. He lay on the clean beige linoleum of the first floor hallway, stunned by this new kind of pain, and then the buzz of another Immortal very close by broke through the upside-down, churning, distressed confusion in his mind.
         His sword had fallen to the side. Richie scrambled for it, only to have it snatched up by a woman clad in black, her luminous eyes ringed by coal, her mouth turned up in a small smile he remembered as cruel and malicious.
         He'd last seen her crumpled in a bloody heap on the beach as wind flapped the multi-colored sails of rental boats pulled up to the high water mark. Dark skies, dark eyes, dark heart. In the space of only a few days, she'd ruthlessly manipulated Richie, threatened Tessa with her sword, and gone for Mac's head. That Mac hadn't taken her Quickening that night on the beach was only because Richie begged him not to.
         He'd fallen for her hard, only to have it turned back on him with a sneer. He'd showered almost obsessively for a week afterwards, to scrub away the remembered smell and memory of her against his body.
         Now she smiled at him.
         Felicia Martins.
         "You've got to be careful with this, Richie," she said, and hefted his sword.

         MacLeod remembered himself in the highlands, a medieval warrior whose life had been dirt and blood, fire and war, raging storms and savage deaths. Superstitions and fears had ruled much of his life. If he'd crouched by the body of a slain enemy and glanced up to see a giant metal beast roaring across the sky, he would have joined his clansmen in renouncing the devil. But now, four hundred years later, sitting in one of those giant metal beasts, he merely waited for the seat belt light to go off before he adjusted his seat backwards and reached for the headset in the pocket in front of him.
         The first class section was full of travelers, but MacLeod didn't feel like talking to anyone. He was on the first leg of what would be a long journey from Paris to New York to Seattle. There would be time to talk to people later, assuming he didn't let the nagging doubts and worries in his head escalate into full blown melancholy. He wasn't looking forward to his reception in Seattle. He'd left under extraordinarily bad circumstances, the shame of which still haunted him.
         Not that it was his fault. He recognized that. He couldn't be blamed for what he'd done after the Dark Quickening that had nearly destroyed his and many other lives. But at night, in the dark, alone, he sometimes had trouble convincing himself of that. He remembered Richie's face in the dojo, Joe's expression when he cut him free of the ropes, a housewife's horror in LeHavre.
         He'd talked to Joe twice on the phone since Methos had helped him fight off the Dark Quickening. Their first words had been tentative and cautious. Joe confessed to great relief at the thought Duncan was himself again. MacLeod apologized for what he'd done.
         "You couldn't help it," Dawson said, long distance, as MacLeod sat in the barge and watched the gray Seine through a porthole that badly needed washing.
         "I appreciate the chance you took," MacLeod said sincerely, "by not taking my head."
         "So you remember that."
         "I remember it all. Too clearly." MacLeod turned from the porthole and took a deep breath. "How's Richie?"
         Dawson hesitated fractionally. "I don't know. He left town."
         "Where did he go?"
         "I'm not sure."
         Dawson was a Watcher. He could find out, for heaven's sake. But MacLeod merely said, "He's still... alive, though?"
         "As far as his Watcher knows." Someone spoke in the background, and Dawson covered the phone for a minute before returning. "Look, MacLeod, I got to go. I'm glad you're back, even if you're not back here in Seattle."
         The second conversation with Dawson came some time later. MacLeod had tried to call Richie at his apartment, but there was never any answer and he didn't have an answering machine. Then, one day, the line was disconnected with no forwarding number. Messages on the dojo's machine went unreturned. Someone was checking them regularly, though, because the number of rings to pick up varied with the number of messages left. Dawson solved that mystery.
         "Richie hired a manager for the place right after you left. She's real good. Name's Holland Greer. Don't call her Holly."
         MacLeod frowned at the thought. He didn't have a great sentimental attachment to the place, but he did to some of its furnishings and his personal possessions in the loft.
         "He hired a stranger?"
         Dawson said, somewhat testily, "It wasn't as if you were here to make the decision for him, Mac."
         MacLeod took a mental step backwards. "Richie's doing well?"
         "Why don't you ask him?"
         "Because he won't answer my calls or messages."
         "He's... going through some stuff. I think he wants to talk to you, but not like this. Not on the phone."
         MacLeod fought back a sudden feeling of claustrophobia. Returning to Seattle was not a thought he felt ready to consider. "I don't know when I'll be back," he said.
         "That's your choice, then."
         "Is something wrong? Something you're not telling me?"
         A sigh traveled with the speed of sound from Seattle to Paris. "Everything's fine, MacLeod. Don't worry about it. Come back when you're ready."
         MacLeod groped for the words he wanted to say. "Joseph... it wasn't really me."
         "I know," Dawson said firmly. But he sounded tired. "Richie knows, too. No one expects it to be easy, forgetting about this."
         MacLeod didn't expect to forget. He clearly expected that one of the last images he would see when his death finally came would be that of Richie, kneeling and bleeding before him on the dojo floor. The other would be Sean Burns, right before MacLeod took his head. And there would always be Dominique, as full comprehension dawned on her face of what a horrible mistake she'd made letting him through her front door.
         Now, sitting in first class, the flight attendant bringing him a seltzer water, MacLeod reviewed his decision to leave Paris. The time had come to face what had happened at home. He knew that, deep in his heart. But his palms itched, and his tight shoulders ached with tension, and he had hours and hours of flying time to review his crimes.
         "Going to the States?" the man beside him asked.
         MacLeod looked out the window. "Going home."
         "Going home is good," the man said.
         "We'll see," MacLeod added, a quiet afterthought, and said nothing more for the rest of the flight.

         Fourteen hours later he paid a cab driver and stepped out on the sidewalk outside the dojo, eyes squinted behind sunglasses, head stuffed from dehydration, body buzzing with weariness, stomach rumbling with too much alcohol and too much airline food. It had been daylight when he left Paris, and now daylight in Seattle, but he wasn't sure if it was the same day. Trans-continental flights were like traveling in time. He was sure, however, that the white, yellow and green sign outside the building was new; that the blue linoleum and whitewashed walls in the hallway were new; and that the bright posters and bulletin boards outside the second floor dojo entrance were new.
         The dojo itself looked larger and cleaner than he remembered. A class was going on in one corner, with a dozen women and two men in bright, tight leotards jumping up, down and around green benches to the obnoxiously cheerful thump of a state-of-the-art stereo system. The music intensified his headache. A handful of men were lifting weights and ogling the women. MacLeod left his suitcase by the door and edged his way carefully to the office, caught in an odd sensation of familiarity and strangeness.
         The office had pink blinds and at least thirty potted plants growing like a miniature jungle across the sunny windowsills.
         Pink blinds was going too far.
         "Excuse me," he said to the woman leaning over the desk.
         "I'll be right with you," she said, computing a long list of numbers on the desk calculator.
         He studied her blearily. She was maybe in her thirties, with dark roots showing through a mass of wavy blonde hair pulled back by a blue plastic clip. She wore yellow shorts and a white and yellow T-shirt that proclaimed herself as part of the dojo staff. She had the hard, polished look of an athlete, and a wedding ring encircled her ring finger. She glanced up at him with two amazingly green eyes, one of which was ringed by a mass of blue and black bruises.
         She was also pre-Immortal.
         Shit, MacLeod thought.
         "You're a little late for step aerobics," she said, with a half-smile, "but I can fit you into the three o'clock yoga class."
         "I'm not here for class," he said, lowering his sunglasses. "Mrs.... ?"
         "Holland Greer," she offered, shaking his hand with a firm grip.
         "Duncan MacLeod," he offered.
         "So, what I can do for you, Mr. MacLeod? Are you looking for a membership? You can have a free week's worth of classes. Our contract is pretty reasonable, and we've got self-defense, karate, aerobics, aerobic dance, Baby and Me - "
         "Actually," he interrupted, "I own this place."
         Holland studied him with a skeptical expression. Then her eyes lit up. "*That* Duncan MacLeod! You're supposed to be in France."
         "I came back," he said testily. He couldn't decide if he liked her or not, but the pink blinds swayed him in a negative direction.
         "I see that," she said. "You look like hell. Long flight?"
         "Long enough. You're the manager Richie hired?"
         "That's me. Richie's been great. He doesn't come by as much anymore, but he really saved this place before I came along."
         "I'm sure he did," MacLeod said. Suddenly he was far too tired to deal with this bright woman, pink office blinds, bouncing women on step benches, or talk of Richie. "I'm going to go crash for awhile. Later we can talk about what you've done to the place."
         "Looks great, doesn't it? I think you'll like the profits we've been making."
         That stopped him for just a second, because even Charlie DeSalvo had never managed to turn a profit. MacLeod pushed his sunglasses back up his nose.
         "I'm going upstairs," he announced. "It was a very long flight."
         Holland folded her arms. "Okay. But you could say how nice the place looks."
         "It looks different," he allowed.
         "Different," she said, in a voice suspended between amusement and disbelief. "You could say that, too. So does your loft."
         "What did you do to my loft?" MacLeod asked in alarm.
         "I did nothing," she said. "The roof did, when it collapsed. You had some pretty bad water damage. But your friend paid for a new roof."
         "Richie paid for a new roof?"
         "No, your lady friend."
         "What lady friend?"
         Steadily she said, "Mr. MacLeod, I was hired to run the dojo, not keep track of your social calendar. I only saw her once. She arranged for a new roof and the repair of your furniture."
         MacLeod took the elevator up, his mind filled with disturbing images of damage or destruction. But aside from the newly colored ceiling, the loft looked the same. It had an empty, abandoned air to it that he couldn't blame on anyone but himself.
         "See?" Holland said beside him. "Good as new. The cleaners come in once a month to dust it out."
         "Thank you, Mrs. Greer," he said, somewhat curtly. If you'll excuse me..."
         "Sure you don't want to join in for yoga class?" she asked. "It works wonders for your biorhythms."
         Emphatically he said, "No."
         "Just checking," she said, hands up in surrender, as she backed into the elevator. From the playful light in her eyes he realized she had been kidding.
         "Mrs. Greer," he said.
         "Yes, Mr. MacLeod?"
         "What happened to your eye?"
         "Boxing class," she said. "It comes right after 'Ballet for Beginners.'"
         MacLeod winced at the thought of adolescent ballet dancers pirouetting clumsily across the dojo floor.
         "Good night, Miss Greer," he said.
         And went to bed.
         He spent the next two days adjusting from jet lag, stocking up on groceries, taking the T-bird out of the storage lot that Richie had instructed Holland Greer to put it in, and working up enough resolve to track down Dawson and Richie. He avoided Holland as much as possible. He decided he didn't dislike her, which was an improvement over earlier prospects, but he couldn't argue with the fact she'd taken the dojo into the exciting new realm of actually paying for its upkeep.
         One midnight he woke from disturbing dreams and went downstairs to search the floor for blood stains. But no trace of his fight with Richie remained. Any evidence of violence which might have remained had been obliterated by the rubber soles of women doing V-steps and grapevines.
         The next day, around noon, he went to Joe's.

         Walking across the Joe's doorstep brought back a host of memories that helped him focus away from the butterflies in his stomach. Wielding a sword against a bloodthirsty enemy was one thing, but moving past what had happened the last time he saw Dawson was another challenge entirely. The blues bar was empty. The tables, stools, and worn countertop hadn't changed. The bottles on the shelves might have, but not that he noticed. The perpetual smell of cigarettes and alcohol hung in the air, trapped in the wood, and he thought he could almost hear the echo of sad music that never stopped, only changed tunes.
         "Hey, mister," a teenager called from the stairs overhead. "We're closed."
         MacLeod said, "I'm looking for Joe Dawson."
         "Yeah, he's here."
         "Would you tell him an old friend is here to see him?"
         "What's your name, old friend?"
         Ridiculous, to have to justify himself to this snotty kid. MacLeod's gaze narrowed. "Just tell him."
         The kid snapped his gum and then disappeared. A few seconds later Joe limped out the door. He looked down at MacLeod with an expression that was fond and sad and relieved and maybe just a little apprehensive.
         "Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod," he said.
         MacLeod swallowed an odd lump in his throat. "Hello, Joseph."
         "You came back," Dawson said, starting carefully down the stairs.
         "And you're hiring minors."
         "Jimmy? My neighbor's kid. He needs some cash for school next year. How long you been in town?"
         "Three days," MacLeod answered.
         "So you've seen the dojo. Holland did a good job, huh?"
         "It's not bad."
         Dawson had reached the bottom of the stairs. They studied each other in the bar's dim light, immortal and mortal, warrior and Watcher. Dawson looked older than MacLeod remembered. He realized it wasn't so much forgiveness that had made him nervous about seeing Dawson, but instead just the acknowledgment of exactly how much of a debt he owed the man. Dawson could have killed him. Should have killed him, to keep others safe. But he'd taken a chance, set him free, and called in Methos.
         Did Dawson still see evil lurking in him? MacLeod had probed his own psyche for endless hours, searching, but the image of the spring was all that came to him.
         "It's good to see you," Dawson said, and moved to embrace him.
         "Joseph," MacLeod murmured, and held the mortal tightly to his chest for a moment.
         They released each other with smiles. "You drinking?" Dawson asked, moving behind the bar.
         "Little early," MacLeod said, easing onto a stool.
         "It's never too early," Dawson returned, and matter-of-factly poured himself a large Scotch. "So tell me what's going on."
         "No, you tell me. Things have changed."
         Dawson swallowed half his drink and then shrugged. "The more things change, the more they stay the same. Taxes are high, politicians are crooked, and the nightly news can't think up anything more important to cover than sensationalistic mayhem. And I lost my job, so don't come looking to me for information anymore."
         MacLeod stared at him. "What?"
         Dawson appeared unfazed. "I'm no longer your Watcher. Or anybody else's."
         "What happened?"
         "Gross violations of Watcher codes. Misconduct. Stuff like that." Dawson finished his drink and poured another. "It's okay, MacLeod. It's not like I needed the money. You should have seen the crowd we had in here Friday night. I've got more time to do the books, and it's frankly a relief to get some regular sleep without worrying who you're out playing with."
         MacLeod let the information settle in his brain for a moment. "This is for what happened in the dojo, isn't it?"
         "The Watchers don't exactly condone shooting your Immortal, that's true," Dawson said, with a wistful smile. "But it's not just the dojo. I should have seen it coming. I crossed the line a long time ago, helping you, helping Richie, helping Amanda - I should have been a social worker."
         "You sure you're okay with it?" MacLeod asked.
         The second Scotch wavered in mid-air. Dawson said, "I admit, it took some getting used to. I was mad as hell for awhile. But they were right. I went too far. They were my decisions, and I'm accountable for each and every one of them."
         "I'm sorry."
         "Not your fault." The second Scotch was now half-empty. Dawson squinted at him. "So tell me how you like Holland Greer."
         MacLeod gladly moved to more comfortable territory, even if it was about Holland. "She seems to know what she's doing."
         "But you don't agree."
         MacLeod allowed himself a sour grimace. "'Ballet for Beginners.' I like ballet, Joe. But not necessarily in my dojo."
         "Kind of ruins that masculine aura, huh?"
         "Ballet dancers can be masculine," MacLeod said. Maybe another topic would be more defensible. "It's not the ballet. It's . .. everything."
         "So you going to fire her?"
         "I hadn't thought about it much. I wanted to get settled back in first. See you. And see Richie."
         Dawson started fiddling behind the bar. "Did you see him?"
         "Holland doesn't know where he is. She says he comes by once in awhile, calls in, but he's getting his mail at a post office box. If she needs him, she calls you."
         "That's all true."
         "So what's the deal with the secrecy?"
         "It's not secrecy, it's privacy," Dawson said. "He decided to cut himself a break for awhile. Comes in here once in awhile, but he's working hard at setting up a life of his own that doesn't revolve around you or the dojo."
         "He's always had that," MacLeod returned, stung.
         "Come on, Mac. The kid worships you, was spending half his time managing the dojo, and the other half running from your enemies."
         MacLeod frowned. "And now?"
         "Now," Dawson allowed, "he's got other things to keep him busy."
         "Like what?"
         "Ask him yourself," Dawson said amiably. "He'll want to see you."
         "I'm not so sure of that."
         "I am. Tell me the when and the where, and I'll set it up."
         "You're not going to even give me his phone number?" MacLeod wheedled.
         "I will, if he tells me to."
         MacLeod didn't like it. He was accustomed to knowing everything that was going on, and now he felt like an outsider. Part of the price of staying in France, he knew. Dawson had hinted as much on the phone, months earlier. And Dawson hadn't followed him to France, which should have been another tip-off something was wrong.
         MacLeod sighed. "Let Richie decide on the when and where."
         Dawson nodded in approval. "So tell me everything that's been going on," he said conversationally, coming around the bar to fix atop his own stool.
         "Everything?"
         Dawson's right eyebrow went up. "I may not be your Watcher, anymore, Duncan MacLeod, but old habits die hard."

         Richie woke to find Felicia quietly caressing his face. Drowsy and content, he lay naked beside her, warmed by the sun through the windows, the linen sheets of her bed, her legs entwined with his. After a morning of rollerblading in the park they'd come back to her houseboat, and made love for first time in three years. Back then she'd been a hurricane, ravaging his youth and inexperience, inflicting pain and pleasure in dark lessons he'd never quite forgotten. This time she'd been a summer storm, capable of great force and exquisite gentleness.
         He took her hand in his, leaned forward, kissed her soft lips.
         "Are you happy?" he asked.
         Felicia's face broke open with a raw vulnerability. "Happier than I ever expected," she confessed, and they settled only inches apart on the pillow, two halves of the shape of a heart. "Are you?"
         "I'm happy," he assured her. "And I feel... "
         Felicia waited, then asked, "What?"
         Richie said gently, "I feel safe with you. I didn't think I'd ever feel that."
         Felicia didn't grow mad at the reply. She didn't instantly apologize. She didn't try and hide behind an inscrutable expression. Pride and love rose in Richie's chest at the thought of how she'd changed herself.
         "I feel safe with you, too," she said. Then her gaze flickered to the sword hung above the bed and she pushed herself into him, seeking to join all the crevices of their body, skin merging to skin. Richie realized she was trembling and wrapped his arms around her as she said, despairingly, "Oh, Richie, what have we done?"
         "What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed, holding her as tightly as he could.
         "There can be only one," she said in his ear.
         He understood. "Eventually," he said, in a wry tone of voice. "Not today. Anyway, who even knows if that's true. Someone could have made it up once, as a catchy slogan for the Immortal Justice League or something."
         She quivered against him. With laughter, not fear.
         "See?" he said, pleased. "Call me young and skeptical. I don't believe everything I read, I never order from infomercials, and I never give out my credit card number to strangers on the phone. Okay, I don't have a credit card, but if I did, I wouldn't give it out."
         Felicia pulled back and propped herself up on one elbow. She pushed wisps of her dark hair away from her flawless face. She still kept it cut short and easy. Physically she appeared fifteen years older than he did. Her tough brazenness had mellowed in the last three years, although her eyes often shielded her thoughts. She asked, "Are you hungry?"
         "Not for food," he said. "Unless you're too old and tired for twice the same day."
         Felicia's eyes narrowed, and with her old toughness said, "We'll see who gets tired, kid." She then proved to him that three hundred years built up a certain endurance.
         Later, when she was asleep against his chest, Richie stroked her back and half-slept under the canopy of silvery white stars she'd painted across her blue ceiling. She'd told him that in the New Amsterdam of her youth, on an island that would one day be known as Manhattan, she'd spent summers on the roof of her father's barn memorizing the stars. It was a time and place he'd never know. The houseboat was snug and warm, and the sound of the waves and boats and gulls outside lulled him into peacefulness. He could think of no better way to spend an afternoon. A week. A few years, maybe. Or forever. It was never going to happen - he and Felicia both knew that - but fantasizing for a moment couldn't hurt.
         Her phone rang. Felicia stirred against him and ordered, "You get it."
         Dawson was at the other end of the line. "Hey, Richie. Thought I'd find you there."
         "I'm learning lessons from my elders. Ouch," he complained, as Felicia pinched one of his private parts in retaliation. "Never mind, Joe. What's up?"
         "Mac's back in town."
         Richie didn't answer. He must have tensed, because Felicia's head rose and she gazed at him sleepily.
         "He wants to see you," Dawson continued.
         "How's he doing?" Richie asked, his throat dry.
         "Looks okay. Didn't try and kill me, if that's what you mean. We're going to have go with Adam on this, you know. If Adam says he's fine, who are we to tell?"
         Just the ones he'd tried to kill, Richie thought, but kept the bitterness to himself. He wanted very much to get past the bitterness, and helping him had been only one of Felicia's gifts.
         "What else did he say?"
         "He wants to see you. Wants to see you badly. He said it's up to you. Pick the time and place."
         "Let me think about it. I'll call you back."
         "Okay," Dawson said, and Richie was immensely glad the ex- Watcher didn't try and push him into a decision.
         He hung up the phone.
         "What's wrong?" Felicia asked.
         Richie shook his head. He padded into the bathroom. When he came out in his jeans, pulling on his shirt, Felicia was sitting up in the bed with alarm on her face and the sheet wrapped rather demurely around her body.
         "Are you running from me?" she asked.
         Richie was instantly contrite. "Not from you," he said, and sat down on the bed to hold and kiss her. "MacLeod's back in town. He wants to meet. I've got to think."
         He pulled on his sneakers. Felicia moved behind him and began massaging his back with expert fingers that melted away newly tense muscles. Richie groaned.
         "Feels good, huh?" she asked wickedly.
         "Too good," he said.
         "Don't run, Richie. It doesn't help. It never helped me."
         Richie sighed and turned to her. "I expected him to come back someday. But this is too soon."
         Felicia sat back. "How long would have been long enough?"
         "I don't know. I don't know what to say to him."
         "Tell him the truth," Felicia answered. "It's what you've always had together."
         He didn't want to run from her, the houseboat, or MacLeod. So instead he lay back with her on the bed, beneath the silvery white stars, and they listened to the lap of water on wood, the cries of seagulls, each Immortal lost in oceans of private thoughts.

         Holland and a man were arguing in the office. It was nearly nine p.m., and the last aerobic class of the day had ended a short time earlier. MacLeod had come downstairs to use the dojo for a long overdue workout, and either they didn't hear the elevator - an unlikely possibility - or they were too caught up in the heat of their argument to give it any attention.
         "Why does this have to be about you?" Holland demanded. "Your job takes you away every week. My job is just as important to me."
         "Your job was supposed to just earn some extra money," the man retorted. "Not become an obsession. The kids need you at home."
         That surprised MacLeod, because he'd seen no pictures of children on Holland's desk. And as a pre-Immortal, she couldn't have children. She would be sterile.
         "The kids don't even listen to me, because you don't either, Jay. You always side with Gwen. Anything Gwen does is okay. Anything Gwen decides is okay. Why did you divorce her, if you were going to stay attached at the hip to her?"
         A slap rang through the still air. MacLeod stepped out of the shadows.
         "Everything all right?" he asked calmly.
         Holland shot him an angry glance. Her hand was pressed against her right cheek. Her husband was a tall man, mid-thirties, brown hair, expensive suit. He looked like he would know everything in the world about balancing a business ledger but not the slightest thing about cutting off a head.
         "I didn't hear you," Holland said frostily. "We're having a private discussion."
         "You must be Mr. MacLeod," Jay Greer said, turning and offering his hand.
         MacLeod ignored the hand. "I'm Duncan MacLeod. You two sounded like you were having a problem."
         Jay Greer withdrew his hand and then straightened an inch taller in silent indignation. "Holland and I were just leaving."
         "You were just leaving," Holland corrected. "I have work to do."
         Their gazes locked stonily. Holland didn't flinch away. Jay picked up his briefcase from the floor.
         "I'll see you at home," he said. His parting shot out the door was, "You can have the couch."
         Holland turned away. MacLeod watched him cross the room and leave. Then he turned, somewhat awkwardly, to Holland.
         "Don't say anything," she warned without looking at him. Her shoulders were hunched, and her voice shook with draining anger. It's none of your business."
         "It's my business if you're in trouble," he said.
         "Why?"
         "Because I don't want to see any of my employees get hurt."
         "You have two employees, MacLeod," she shot back, and turned to straighten the desk. Her hair was down, hiding most of her face. "Me and Billy. Relax the paternal attitude."
         Billy was Holland's assistant, who took care of the early opening hours for the dojo as well as some of the bookkeeping and general clean-up. MacLeod had met him twice, and was impressed with the old man's good attitude and reliability.
         "I don't feel paternal," he said, moving to the desk. He risked a joke and a lie. "Billy's old enough to be my father, and I don't like you enough to feel paternal about you."
         Her mouth turned up in a smile as she stacked a group of invoices.
         "Is that so?" she asked. "How come you don't like me?"
         "You clean the place up, revitalize the whole program, introduce new classes, triple membership, and turn a profit," he said gruffly. "Why should I like you?"
         Holland smiled full-blown now, and gave him a look of appreciation. "I was wondering if you'd noticed. A week ago, you were bouncing me out of your loft."
         "And I'll bounce you out again." Gazing at her, MacLeod had sudden images of other things he'd like to do with her, to her, her heart-shaped faces soft between his hands, her sleek body next to his. Firmly he dismissed the ideas. She was his employee, she was married, and she had problems.
         Holland moved away, as if somehow sensing his thoughts. She sat down in the swivel chair behind the manager's desk and twisted a pencil between her fingers. "I'm sorry about Jay and about bringing my personal life here. It won't happen again."
         MacLeod sat on the edge of the desk. "He doesn't like you working."
         "He doesn't like women voting," she retorted. Then she sighed. "That's not true. Jay is a very remarkable man. He's been under a great deal of pressure lately. We've been married just over a year. I guess the honeymoon is over, as they say. You ever been married?"
         "No," he said.
         "I recommend it, if you find the right person."
         He'd found the right person. Several times. MacLeod pushed those thoughts out of his head also.
         "You going to be okay?" he asked.
         "Don't worry about me."
         "I will worry about you. Especially since I don't think you got that black eye in boxing class."
         Holland touched the faded bruise around her eye. "It's my business, Mr. MacLeod."
         No use in arguing further about it. MacLeod stood and said, "I was going to work out. Are you staying late?"
         "I wanted to get these invoices done," she said. "It won't be long. You won't disturb me."
         MacLeod marveled at her cheekiness. "Actually," he said, "I was more worried about you disturbing me, Mrs. Greer."
         She shot him a smile that could have lit up a pinball machine. "Then I'll try not to disturb you, Mr. MacLeod."
         Flustered - and it was rare that any woman flustered him, aside from the eternally saucy Amanda - MacLeod retreated to the floor to begin a long series of stretches, warm-ups and kata. He had no desire to let Holland see him practicing with a sword, not yet. She'd have her turn someday at it.
         He was peripherally aware of her watching from the desk, and then of her leaving by tiptoeing around the edge of the floor. Long after she was gone, when his muscles started to ache in earnest and his breath was coming like red fire from the pit of his stomach, he stopped his kata and used a towel to sop up the sweat on his face and shoulders. He rotated slowly in the dojo, keenly aware of being alone now, and sensing in the shadows the afterimages of those who'd passed through its doors. Richie, Charlie, Amanda. Dawson. Kenny, Anne, Mako. Midori Koto. Michelle. Cullen. Immortals, mortals, the living, the dead.
         He sensed another Immortal nearby and pivoted in the half- darkness. His katana was upstairs, but two other swords hung on the wall. He edged one out of its sheath and moved to the hallway. The Immortal, whoever he or she was, was nowhere in sight.
         MacLeod followed his senses downstairs. At the door he heard a motorbike going away in the street.
         "Richie," he said, but there was no one to answer him.

         The next day, Dawson called to say that Richie wanted to meet him in the warehouse MacLeod owned on the east side. "Midnight tonight." Dawson said. In what sounded like an afterthought he added, "He said to bring your sword."
         They both understood Richie's unspoken challenge.
         MacLeod couldn't keep his mind focused all day. He wandered around the dojo, restless and lost in thought, until Holland told him he was disturbing people. He contemplated several sharp words about that, but kept them to himself. They'd talked about his resuming a karate or self-defense class, but nothing had been arranged and he was too irritable to discuss it. He went for a five mile run in the park, came back, watched television, tried to read. At eleven thirty he brought himself and his sword to the warehouse.
         Richie was already there, sitting on a pile of crates, turning his sword over and over again so that it caught glints from the sparse overhead lighting. He wore jeans and boots and a maroon sweatshirt that kept out the night chill. He must have sensed MacLeod's approach, but he didn't look up until MacLeod was a dozen feet away.
         "Richie," MacLeod said, searching the younger man's face for any trace of welcome or forgiveness. But there was no emotion at all, just the firm impassive set of Richie's eyes and jaw.
         "Fight me," Richie said.
         "Why?"
         "Because," Richie said, jumping down to the ground, his sword up.
         MacLeod parried the first blow easily. He wasn't sure how far the fight would go. Did Richie expect him to go for his head? Did Richie want MacLeod's? Maybe he was provoking, to see how if the evil had been truly exorcised. Maybe he had more in mind.
         Whatever Richie's intentions, he was serious about his efforts. He didn't pull his thrusts or blows. He was eerily calm about it, with no hint of underlying rage or bitterness. Just the methodical, accurate and powerful moves of a fighter who, it seemed, had been learning new tricks while MacLeod was gone.
         He dashed forward to cut across MacLeod's left thigh. MacLeod clenched his jaw against the sudden pain, and retaliated with a move that Richie barely deflected. Without word, without surrender, they danced forward and backward and in circles around the warehouse floor, swords clashing with deadly rings and arcs of power.
         "Why are we doing this?" MacLeod asked, as sweat pooled down the back of his sweater, as his hand grew slippery on his katana.
         "Why not?" Richie asked. He'd grown flushed with the effort of battle, but showed excellent stamina. He slipped under MacLeod's parry to land a sharp jab in his side, but didn't follow it through with a pierce that would have incapacitated MacLeod for at least a few seconds.
         "You're holding back," MacLeod chided him, hating to fall back in the role of teacher, but unable to stop himself.
         "So are you," Richie shot back. "Come on, Mac, you're better than this."
         "So are you," MacLeod answered, and in growing anger landed a slice across Richie's arm that welled up instantly.
         Riche caught him with a cut across his shoulder.
         Blood spilled, they stepped back for a moment, warily circling each other, as their injuries healed.
         "You're supposed to mock me," Richie said, his eyes now glinting with something hard and dangerous. "Maybe take a bow or two."
         Only then did MacLeod realize they were re-enacting the battle that had taken place so many months before. "That wasn't me, Richie," he protested.
         "Looked like you," Richie grunted out, and swung with a blow that MacLeod caught only inches from his face. Their swords and arms locked together, straining mightily. "Had your name and face."
         "I never want to take your head," MacLeod said.
         "Actions speak louder than words," Richie shot back.
         MacLeod broke Richie's hold with a kick at his feet. Richie legs went out from under him and he stumbled backwards. MacLeod jabbed his knee on his stomach and pinned him on the floor. The razor-fine edge of his blade went to the soft skin of Richie's throat.
         "What do you want, Richie?" he demanded.
         Richie's face was white, his eyes wide, his breathing ragged. "I want my friend back," he gasped. "I want Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, not some impostor."
         MacLeod pulled himself to his feet. Richie stayed on the floor until MacLeod helped him up and held him to his chest for a brief but sincere moment. Then MacLeod tousled Richie's hair in a gesture they both knew, and tentative smiles turned into pleased grins and relieved sighs.
         "Welcome back," Richie said. "Good to see you."
         "I wondered about that," MacLeod joked.
         "I didn't," Joe Dawson's voice boasted from the doorway. "I knew you two would work it out."
         At the same time they turned to see Dawson, the buzz of another Immortal came into both men's minds. Richie relaxed the moment he saw the dark-clad woman at Dawson's side, but MacLeod readied himself for another fight.
         "Felicia," he said. "What are you doing here?"
         "Keeping Dawson company," she returned, with the New York accent he remembered giving inflection to her low voice.
         "Mac, relax," Richie said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "She's cool."
         "I think you're forgetting a lot," MacLeod told him, without taking his eyes off Felicia. She gazed at him calmly, with no move to the sword she must be carrying.
         "I think there's a lot you need to know," Richie said. "Felicia's here with me."
         This time MacLeod did take his eyes off her, to see if Richie were joking.
         "Now that you've finished getting this out of your systems," Dawson proposed, "what do you see we retire with a nightcap at Joe's?"
         Felicia caught Richie's gaze, and something unspoken passed between them. "How about you and me, Joe?" she asked, taking his elbow. "Be my date."
         Dawson managed a half-bow. "Your wish is my command."
         Only then did MacLeod realize Dawson had been heavily drinking. Felicia took him away. Richie sheathed his sword, and then motioned for MacLeod to take a walk along the waterfront.
         The piers and paths through marsh grass were not made for walking, nor were they entirely safe at this hour. But the two Immortals walked with their hidden swords and considerable advantages without fear, the water smelling salty and oily on a strong breeze. Buoys chimed in the distance, far from shore and sight.
         "I'm sorry," MacLeod said. "You don't know how sorry I am."
         Richie took a deep breath. "Did you mean to do it? Did you know what you were doing?"
         MacLeod gazed at the point where the sky and sea met in a barely distinguishable line. "I knew what was going on, but it seemed logical and reasonable to me. It seemed like something I wanted to do. Only a tiny part of me, way deep inside, kept screaming it was wrong, the whole thing was wrong."
         "Dawson saved my life," Richie said.
         "I know. I apologized to him, as well."
         "Don't. It wasn't you, remember?"
         "But I'll always remember it as me," MacLeod admitted, and then fought down a shiver that wasn't entirely brought on by the cold.
         Richie shot him a glance and asked, somewhat hesitantly, "Will you tell me what happened when you left here?"
         It was not an easy request. MacLeod had told most of it to Dawson, who had the Watcher reports anyway. Telling Richie was harder. But he gave him as full and painful a recounting as he could, except for the one part he couldn't bring himself to face. Dominique Davis, laying in bed with tears in her eyes as MacLeod dressed himself in the morning light. At the end of the tale they were sitting on a dock, feet dangling above the incoming tide.
         They sat in silence for awhile, and then MacLeod stirred to say, "About Felicia... "
         "Don't worry about her," Richie said confidently.
         "Is she the reason you moved, cut off your phone, hired Holland for the dojo? Is she isolating you?"
         "No. She's not doing anything to me. See, she was at the dojo that night we fought. When I left you and Joe, I was pretty shaken up. I managed to fall down the stairs and there she was, all of a sudden, holding my sword and telling me I ought to be careful. She could have taken my head then and there, and I wouldn't have been able to stop her. But she didn't. She gave me back my sword, got me to my bike, and sent me off into the night.
         "Two days later she comes around my apartment with a story about how she's reformed, how she's given up her bad ways, you name it. Like a Dear Ann Landers column. Okay, so I'm young, but I'm not entirely stupid. I tell her I'm not buying it. She says she wants to make reparations for what she did. I tell her to get out of my life. Meanwhile, Dawson says you're on a boat to who knows where, I've got the dojo falling apart on my hands, and I don't know what the hell is going on anymore. So I hire Holland - who, as you know, needs to learn a lot about cutting off heads - and split town.
         "I'm riding my bike north, I don't know where, just trying to run away from everything. I talk to Holland, she tells me the roof caved in, and where's the money to fix it? The next time I talk to her, she says Felicia paid for it. To make up for that forged Coronelli map of hers that you lost ten thousand bucks on."
         MacLeod said, "Holland told me she didn't know the name of the woman who paid for the roof."
         "She didn't. But she described Felicia pretty good. So why is Felicia paying for the roof, if she's not sincere? I don't know, I don't care, I just keep going. The next thing I know, I'm living in Valdez, Alaska, which could qualify as the end of the earth, trust me. I'm climbing mountains, hiking through forests, living with the Eskimos. Eating fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The whole Duncan MacLeod Communing with Nature deal, beacause I'm trying to figure out exactly how I feel about you nearly taking my head. Then I pick up this Immortal on my tail, name's Danny Dieppa, this psycho whacked-out nutcase whose idea of "There can be only one" involves hand grenades, Uzi's, dynamite, tanks, you name it. I'm thinking this guy's teacher must have been Rambo, Arnold, somebody with a serious hardware fetish. No honor whatsoever. His m.o. is to kill an Immortal any way possible and then take the head."
         Richie fell silent. MacLeod glanced over at him, noting the younger man's troubled expression in the darkness. "What happened?"
         "He got me," Richie said. His voice became flatter, harder. "Suckered me right into a fish plant, of all places. Blew the floor out with explosives. I'm in the wreckage, just about every bone in my body broken, impaled to the floor by about a dozen metal rods. The worst agony of my life. The place is burning down, I'm dying, Dieppa's coming down on me with a hatchet, and then Felicia's there. She'd gone through Holland's phone records to track me down. Saved my goddamned life."
         Fortuitous timing, MacLeod thought. Very fortuitous.
         Richie shook himself, as if waking from a bad dream. "She takes his Quickening, and gets me free. I'm out of it for awhile, and the next thing I know we're in her truck, coming back here, my bike strapped to the back. We talked for four hundred miles straight. She's telling me that running isn't going to help me, and I'm thinking that I shouldn't be listening to this woman who would have killed you and Tessa and me if we'd let her.
         "But you know what, Mac? She's changed. She said that you changed her, when you left her on the beach and didn't take her head. Pissed her off, first of all, but then shook her up real bad. She spent two years trying to figure out what the hell she's been doing for her three hundred years. Got some help. Got her head screwed on right. And now she's different."
         MacLeod carefully chose his next words. He didn't want to risk alienating Richie after what they'd just been through. "Are you sure she's not tricking you?"
         Richie actually laughed. "I've thought about that about a million times. I didn't want to like her again and I didn't want to believe her, but here I am. When push comes to shove, she saved my life. Trust me, Mac, I don't want to get hurt again."
         MacLeod stared at the water. "I don't want you to get hurt, either."
         "If Felicia's tricking me now," Richie said, "then she's the best actress in the world, and the worst Immortal. She's passed up the opportunity to take my head fifty times already. Give her a chance, and let me worry about the rest."
         It sounded like a good plan, yet deep in his heart, MacLeod wasn't convinced that Felicia wasn't somehow setting Richie up in an elaborate trap of some sort. But the first light of dawn was tinting the eastern sky, and they were both tired from what had proven to be a long, tiring, extraordinary night of reconciliation. MacLeod would think about what Richie had said and work on the problem later.
         "Come on," MacLeod said, "let's go get breakfast. You're buying."
         "I'm buying?" Richie asked, getting up stiffly against the protest of his muscles. "How come I'm buying?"
         MacLeod threw his arm around Richie's neck. "To welcome me home, of course."

         Holland Greer called in sick for two days straight. On the third day she came in with a split lip. MacLeod, sitting at the manager's desk, rose from his chair with a scowl. "Did your husband do that?"
         "Nothing happened," Holland said, shedding her umbrella in the corner. It wasn't like her to track water across the dojo. Outside, gentle rain fell from the overcast sky. "Leave me alone."
         "You don't have to put up with it," MacLeod said.
         "I'll put up with what I want to!" she shot back, and her voice brought a few glances their way from the Saturday morning crowd working on weights and the treadmills.
         MacLeod closed the door. He tried to think of a tact to work with Holland, stubborn as she was. It wasn't as if he hadn't known other women in his four hundred years who were victims of domestic abuse. Holland - bright, cheerful, educated, strong - didn't look like anyone who would fall into that self-destructive pattern, but looks deceived. There was no such thing as a stereotypical abused wife.
         "I don't want to see you hurt," he said softly.
         Holland's words came out brittle and sharp. "Then don't look."
         "I'll talk to your husband."
         Her eyes blazed with new anger. "And you think that will help? You think you can go to Jay, do some male bonding, trade some buddy-buddy words, and fix him right up? Or maybe you can threaten him, tell him you're going to beat him up, pull some macho male strut that'll make him think twice about hitting the little lady? What makes you think you can fix someone, MacLeod?"
         "I don't think I can," he said, taken aback. "But I want to try. I want to help."
         "You can help," Holland said clearly and precisely, "by staying out of it. You understand?"
         MacLeod left her without answering. What a stubborn, pigheaded, exasperating woman she was. He decided if she wanted to let her husband beat her, then fine. But the decision didn't sit well in his chest. A few evenings later, while the club was still only half-full, he brought up the general subject to Dawson, who was drinking only mineral water.
         "Too much alcohol lately," he admitted. "I'm gaining weight."
         MacLeod nearly smiled at the image of Joe Dawson, preening before a mirror to decide if his paunch was growing bigger. Instead, he shook the ice cubes in his glass. "I don't know why people in bad situations don't take steps to fix them. I mean, I do know why, but it's exasperating."
         Dawson shrugged. "People generally find it more satisfying to wallow in their current problems then fix them and risk new ones."
         "That's an optimistic viewpoint," MacLeod said. "I thought you were supposed to be a people person."
         "From now on, I'm just the bartender," Dawson said. "Call me Isaac."
         "Isaac who?"
         "Don't you ever watch "Love Boat?" reruns"
         "Love Boat?"
         "You miss a lot of popular culture, MacLeod, you know that?"
         "I don't mind," MacLeod said. "Popular culture keeps changing anyway. Trust me."
         Two Immortals came in. MacLeod relaxed when he saw it was Richie and Felicia, although he couldn't suppress a pang of dislike at seeing Felicia. She had dressed down for the evening, in conservative jeans and a cropped sweater. The wild eyecolor was gone. She looked almost normal, the way she'd looked when she'd tricked her way into the antique store.
         "Hey," Richie said, as they pulled up stools. He was careful to sit between MacLeod and Felicia.
         "MacLeod," Felicia acknowledged him.
         "Felicia," he said.
         "What'll it be, guys?"
         Two beers came up swiftly for the younger Immortals. Dawson said, "We're talking about how come people don't deal with their problems."
         "Because they don't know they have them," Richie proposed.
         "Because it's easier for them not to," MacLeod said.
         Dawson shook his head. "Because they like self-pity too much."
         "What's this 'they' business?" Felicia asked. "Since when do 'they' have problems and we don't?"
         MacLeod warmed up to the argument, even if he didn't warm up to her. "Okay, then why don't 'we' deal with our problems?"
         "We do," Richie said, downing some of his beer. "With very sharp weapons and a big light show, if you haven't noticed."
         Felicia leaned forward on the bar. "Everyone deals with problems, MacLeod, even if the way of dealing with it is not to do anything at all. Passive acceptance of the crap life throws at you is a choice in and of itself."
         They debated the issue through two more rounds of drinks, but censored any talk of Immortals out of the conversation as the bar began to fill with more patrons. MacLeod didn't agree with everything Felicia said, but she made a few interesting points. Richie apparently deemed the situation safe enough to excuse himself to go to the bathroom. When he came back the blues band Joe had hired for the evening was starting up, and Felicia rose.
         "See you guys later," she said, cautiously amiable, and kissed Richie goodbye.
         "She doesn't like the blues," Dawson said to MacLeod.
         Richie walked her out and then came back a little flushed.
         "She ditch you for the evening?" MacLeod couldn't help saying.
         "She's got a meeting to go to."
         "What kind of meeting at ten o'clock at night?" Dawson asked.
         "Ask her," Richie said, sitting down.
         "I'm not asking her," Dawson said. "I don't even look at her cross- eyed."
         Richie shook his head. "You guys are unforgiving."
         "Not unforgiving," MacLeod said, finishing his drink. "Just cautious."
         "Like I should be cautious about you?" Richie asked, a trifle sharply.
         MacLeod didn't answer.
         "Sorry," Richie offered, and he sounded sincere. "I didn't mean it."
         "Yes you did," MacLeod said. After a moment he offered a concession of his own. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not being fair."
         The next day Richie came over for a two hour practice session. The easy companionability that they'd shared before the Dark Quickening had returned for the most part, although MacLeod thought Richie was a little too cautious with his thrusts. Richie surprised him with a maneuver he must have picked up from someone else.
         "Felicia," Richie supplied, at MacLeod's upturned eyebrows. "We practice a lot."
         They traded easy blows, back and forth, in a familiar rhythm. MacLeod hazarded, "Are you two going to make a future out of this?"
         Richie shook his head. "Probably not. We talk about it. There are disadvantages."
         "Why don't you bring her to dinner tonight?" MacLeod asked. "We'll get a movie or something."
         Richie stopped. He studied MacLeod to see if he were serious, and then smiled.
         "Thanks, Mac. I think she'd like that."

         When they arrived for dinner at seven, Felicia looked slightly nervous. MacLeod didn't admit to it, but he wasn't very comfortable with her in his loft. Richie studiously ignored them both until the tension began to ease over salad, soup, and then three excellent steaks. The movie Richie and Felicia brought was a foreign film, obviously selected for MacLeod's interest. Richie fell asleep halfway through. MacLeod, who'd seen the movie but was too polite to say so, moved to clear the table of dishes. After a moment, Felicia disengaged herself from Richie's side, carefully spread a blanket over him, and then moved to help MacLeod.
         "It's okay," he said.
         "I want to," Felicia insisted.
         They moved quietly around the small kitchen area as Richie continued to sleep on the sofa. "It's a nice place you have," Felicia said as they loaded the dishwasher. "You like this better than the old place?"
         "It's different."
         "I'm sorry about Tessa."
         "Funny," he said, without malice, "since you once tried to kill her."
         Felicia wiped her hands on a dishtowel and studied him in the dim light. "I'm sorry about that, too. I'm sorry for that whole thing."
         "You were very convincing."
         "It's a way of survival," Felicia said. "You understand that part, at least."
         MacLeod closed the dishwasher. "I understand survival, Felicia. I understand the rules of the Game. We were just more necks to you. Did you know then what Richie would become?"
         "I thought he might be pre-Immortal," she confessed. "I've only run into one other in my life."
         "After you'd taken care of me, you would have killed him."
         "I understand you would have killed him a few months ago, if it weren't for Joe Dawson," Felicia retorted. "Look, MacLeod, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I was wrong in a lot of what I did. But I either let it consume me, continue on the same path, or make a new life for myself. So here I am, trying really hard, and Richie's doing all he can to help me."
         "About that - " MacLeod started, then stopped. He cleared his throat. She was the only one he could think who might be able to answer the question that had nagged at him since his return, but it was difficult to ask her advice.
         "What?"
         "How do you do it? How do you put it behind you?"
         Felicia took his question seriously. "You acknowledge it, you turn it over, you take a hard look at yourself, you make amends wherever possible."
         MacLeod gave her a blank look.
         Felicia grabbed hold of the open wine bottle they'd removed from the dinner table. "Let's kill this solder," she proposed.
         They retired downstairs, to the dojo, and sat out on the wide hardwood floor with the bottle between them. Felicia told him she'd been born in New Amsterdam in the year 1650, to an extended family of poor Dutch farmers. As the oldest daughter, she'd been the recipient of her father's drunken incest from the age of seven years old on, and had fled the farm when she was twelve. She fell in with a trapper who made a fortune selling furs and women to soldiers and colonists. By the time she was thirty, she'd married and outlived three violent, abusive husbands who found their ends in tavern brawls.
         "I didn't kill any of them," she said, somewhat defensively.
         When she did die, of a raging venereal infection picked up in a Boston whorehouse, she found herself clawing out of an open pauper's grave. She'd stumbled in a daze from the graveyard, and into the path of a coach driven by a rich woman and her husband, both Immortals, who spent months cleaning her up, straightening her out, and teaching her what being Immortal meant.
         "Rebecca was really nice," Felicia said, with something like wistful nostalgia. "She was my age, but kind of like a mother. Only thing was, she was real stupid about guys. Her husband was sneaking into my room every night."
         "Rebecca? Red hair? Several hundred years old?"
         "You know her? I always meant to look her up, but I didn't think she'd want to see me."
         MacLeod swallowed a deep gulp of wine to blot out the irony of Rebecca having mentored both Amanda and Felicia. Now that he looked for the similarity - no. Better not to think of it. "Why not?"
         "Because I took her husband as my first Quickening," Felicia said darkly. "Bastard came to my room once too often."
         "Rebecca's dead now." MacLeod gave her the bottle.
         "Oh," Felicia said, and downed a hearty swig of the wine.
         They sat in silence for a few moments, remembering Rebecca, and then Felicia said, "I left Boston, went to London, fell in with this guy who forged maps. Turns out I was pretty good at it. Did that for awhile, took more heads, went to France. Reinvented myself as a French Immortal in need of a mentor. Took more heads. Settled on my great strategy of killing wives and adopted children as a way of undermining confidence from a guy. When the heat got too bad, I skipped back to New Amsterdam, which they changed to New York City, and would hide out for a few decades. Then back to France, Spain, Italy, wherever. Always taking heads."
         MacLeod had mellowed with the wine. "It's what we do."
         "I liked it too much, MacLeod. I slaughtered innocent people so I could get just one more Quickening. It was like an addiction to me. Every time I took a head, I thought it would help me forget my father, my brothers, my uncles, my husbands, whoever. All the bastards. But it never worked."
         "And then?"
         "And then, you let me live. No one had ever done that. When I woke up on that beach it was dawn, and I was covered with my own blood, and I realized just how sick and twisted the whole thing had become. Trust me, the old Felicia Martins would have gone back to your antique store just to prove how tough she was. The new one went to ground. I spent two years in therapy, lying about dates and times and places, but working on the real problems. Now I'm trying to put it behind me and make amends."
         "You said that before."
         "It's an important step. Number nine."
         "The ninth step?" MacLeod asked. Then, suddenly, everything clicked in his mind. He stared at her incredulously. "You're doing a twelve step program? Where? Immortals Anonymous?"
         She poked his leg. "Laugh if you want to, MacLeod, but violence is an addiction like anything else. You get hooked on it, you need it, you can't do without out. Tell me you haven't seen Immortals you liked get sucked into it. Were they all Dark Quickenings? My ass if they were. You were the first one in about a thousand years. What about those who just get drawn into the darkness of it all?"
         "Not everyone does," he said.
         "And those who do, sometimes they find a way back," Felicia said triumphantly. "They don't take a dip into a holy spring, they work on the problem at hand."
         MacLeod looked at her squarely. "What's this 'they' business?" he asked.
         Felicia smiled. Then she let her smile fade, and said, "What's really troubling you, MacLeod? It's not me. It's not what happened with Dawson and Richie, because you guys have gotten past that."
         MacLeod took the bottle from her and shook his head. "Just memories."
         "What kind of memories?"
         Slowly he said, "There was a... woman in LeHavre. The wife of the captain of the ship I crossed over on. I wanted revenge on him. So I beat him, stole his bags, went to his house. Charmed my way in. Plied her with wine. Told her lies about her husband. Made her laugh. And then I... took her to bed."
         Felicia said, "Did you force her?"
         He was sitting with a woman who'd been raped by her own father, and dozens of other men in the seventeenth century slums she'd survived through. MacLeod closed his eyes. "I don't know," he said.
         "Yes you do, MacLeod."
         The elevator ground to life, saving MacLeod from an answer. Richie came down, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and peered at them groggily from the haze of half-sleep. "What's going on?"
         "We're talking about you," Felicia said roughly.
         "Good," Richie yawned. "As long as you're not going after each other's heads."
         Felicia took Richie back to his place, leaving MacLeod to think about the things she'd said. Dominique swirled her way through his nightmares that night, weeping and lost, and for several nights afterward. In one dream she haunted the farms of Felicia's youth, and in another she and her husband both came to the dojo to settle the score. Wednesday night the nightmares kept him tossing all night, and he slept until nearly noon the next day. When he finally made it downstairs to the dojo, Holland was on the phone and circling ads in the morning newspaper. Two suitcases sat in the corner of the office, and her ring finger was bare.
         "You left him," MacLeod said.
         Holland paused between phone calls. "Yes," she said steadily. "It's still none of your business."
         "You need a place to stay?"
         "Maybe. Maybe I like calling the classifieds all day for fun."
         "You don't have to be sarcastic."
         "Yes I do," she said. "It's a way of coping." Then she sighed, and rubbed the palms of her hands against her eyes. "Sorry. It was a long night."
         "You okay?"
         "I will be, one day."
         "You can crash with me until you find a place. I can take the sofa."
         Holland shook her head. "You're my employer. It wouldn't be appropriate."
         "Let me be the judge of that," MacLeod said. Then he sensed another Immortal, and turned to the open doorway. Billy was sweeping the floor, and in the corner, a half-dozen mothers and toddlers were doing a play workshop with one of Holland's aerobic instructors.
         "What's the matter?" Holland asked. "You've got a look on your face."
         "What look?" he asked automatically.
         "Indigestion."
         "Trust me, it's not indigestion."
         Holland rose from her chair and came around the desk to study him more closely. "No, it's not. It looks like a ghost walked over your grave."
         The Immortal must have stopped in the hall to read the bulletin board. Now he came into the dojo - a short man, late twenties, short black hair, thick nose. He looked like he was of Latin descent, probably Italian. He wore a coat too heavy for the spring weather, and a smile that spoke of malicious mischief.
         He crossed the dojo to the office.
         "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. What do you want?"
         "Not you, my friend," the Immortal said. "I was looking for another one. Red hair, smart ass? Thinks he's tough?"
         "Why?" MacLeod asked.
         The Immortal laughed. "Why do you think? We've got some unfinished business to take care of." He turned his attention to Holland, and favored her with a leer. "My, my, you're just full of potential, aren't you? Anyone explain the facts of long life to you yet, my dear?"
         "I think you should leave," Holland said.
         "Maybe Felicia's around instead," the Immortal said. "I could talk over old times with her. She taught me the tricks of the trade, you know."
         "The lady said leave," MacLeod growled.
         "Hey, we don't need a scene here." The Immortal let his coat fall open. He had two guns strapped in holsters, and a wicked looking hunting knife in a sheath. His glittering eyes fixed on MacLeod. "If I wanted to, I could take you out of here and you'd go peacefully. Just so the little kiddies don't get hurt."
         Holland reached for the phone. "I'm calling the police."
         "No," MacLeod said, grasping her arm. "He's leaving."
         "Yeah, that's me. Gone with the wind. Just tell the Whiz Kid that Danny Dieppa's looking for him, okay?"
         MacLeod couldn't stop the flare of recognition that crossed his face.
         "Heard of me, huh?" Dieppa grinned. He'd had extensive dental work before his first death, and gold glinted from several teeth.
         "I heard you were dead."
         "Yeah, that's probably what Felicia told him. She's such a kidder, you know?"
         Dieppa took a bow and then backed his way out of the dojo.
         Holland let out a shaky breath. "What was that all about?"
         "None of your business," MacLeod said, not unkindly, and went upstairs to his loft. He immediately called Richie, but there was no answer at his apartment. He called the houseboat, but Felicia wasn't home either. He called Dawson, who already sounded like he'd been hitting the bottle.
         "No, I haven't seen them, neither one."
         "Joe, are you drinking this early?"
         "Is it early? I hadn't noticed. Lighten up, MacLeod. I'm drinking Scotch, you should be proud of me."
         MacLeod was in no mood to deal with Dawson. Thirty minutes later he tried Richie's apartment again. No answer. Another half hour passed, and then Richie picked up on the fifth ring.
         "Richie! It's about time."
         "What's wrong, Mac?"
         "A visitor came to the dojo a little while ago, looking for you and Felicia. He said you two had unfinished business. He said his name was Danny Dieppa."
         Richie immediately protested, "That's impossible. Felicia took his head."
         "You saw her kill him?"
         "Well... no. I was unconscious, or dead, whatever. I had poles through my chest, Mac, there were other things on my mind."
         "Well, whoever this Immortal is, he seems to know Felicia."
         "I'll talk to her."
         "You need to do more than talk, Richie, if this is the same guy. It means Felicia lied to you. If she was his teacher, they're probably in league together - "
         "Mac, stop!" Richie interrupted. "Give me some time to work on this. I'll find Felicia and we'll get it straightened out."
         "Don't be so blind that you can't see a trap, Richie."
         "I'll keep your worthy advice in mind, Mac," Richie said angrily, and hung up.
         MacLeod slammed down the receiver in anger and worry. It was too easy to imagine Richie trapped in Felicia's machinations again. She'd put on a good show, but her true colors were showing again. He wanted to find Danny Dieppa, but knew nothing about him. Dawson might have been able to help, but Dawson was no longer a Watcher.
         "Well, that was an interesting one-sided conversation," Holland said shakily from behind him, and MacLeod whirled.
         "What are you doing here?" he practically shouted at her, to where she stood in the stairway door. "How did you get in?"
         Holland clutched the key in her hand with whitened fingers. "I still had the copy Richie gave me."
         "You weren't supposed to hear anything. Just stay out of it. Isn't that your famous refrain? It's none of your business."
         "There's a difference between my marital problems and murder, MacLeod. Who killed someone? Is Richie in trouble?"
         "Leave," MacLeod said. "Just go."
         Holland stood staring at him.
         "Go!" he told her.
         Stung, she turned and fled.
         MacLeod buried his head in his hands. Then he grabbed his jacket, and sword, and went to go find Felicia.

         Richie's heart was thumping with anticipated betrayal as he grabbed his helmet and went out the door. MacLeod had to be wrong. There was no way that Danny Dieppa was still walking the earth, because Felicia had killed him. She'd told him so. She wouldn't have lied. Not about that.
         Unless Mac was right.
         Unless Felicia had been tricking him all along.
         He took the stairs down three flights and jumped on his motorbike, which he kept locked in a side alley. He was supposed to meet Felicia for an early dinner at five o'clock, at one of their favorite restaurants on the pier, but she'd mentioned something about visiting a friend down in the Heights. He thought if he found her telephone book, he could track down the friend.
         He kicked up the stand and started the ignition. He gave it gas, shot forward accordingly, and then felt the whole bike rise up from under him. Somehow it was over him, crashing dizzily through the sky, and he was on the ground, incredible agony shooting up his legs and groin, flames licking at his clothes and skin. He rolled, came up against the now crumpled remains of the bike, rolled the other way. His own screams filled the helmet as redness stole up his chest. Then, mercifully, someone was dumping a blanket on top of him, smothering the fire. Then doing more - trapping him, blinding him, choking him, and he fought a losing battle against both his unseen opponent and consciousness.
         He went to a blackness that might have been death, knowing that rigging his motorbike was a stunt worthy of Danny Dieppa's unscrupulous tactics, and frantic with the fear he might never awaken to see Mac or Felicia again.

         Another Immortal was in the dojo. MacLeod felt him or her on his way up the stairs, just as he passed a hastily scribbled sign that said the evening's classes were canceled, and the dojo closed until further notice. He didn't care about the classes. From the doorway he called out, "Richie?"
         "No, it's Felicia," she said from the office doorway.
         He strode across the floor angrily. "Where's Richie?"
         "How should I know?"
         "Because you set him up with Danny Dieppa. Danny came by here today, looking for you. Said you were his teacher."
         "You sure you want to discuss this now?" Felicia asked icily.
         "I want to discuss it with Richie," MacLeod shot back. "I want to know what the hell's going on. If you've tricked him again, I'll take your head myself, I swear."
         "I didn't do anything to Richie, and Danny Dieppa is dead."
         "So you say! You don't have any witnesses, do you? Richie was too busy dying to see any Quickenings. What did you do? Set him up from the very beginning? Tell Dieppa where he was, so you could heroically rescue him at the last minute?"
         "I didn't set Richie up."
         "You wanted him dead before. You would have killed him!"
         Eyes blazing, Felicia spat out, "And you raped a housewife, MacLeod. So you tell me which one of us was worse!"
         "I didn't rape Dominique!" he yelled.
         "Are you sure?" Felicia snapped. "Did she say no at any time? Did she try and get you to stop, but you wouldn't? Think hard, MacLeod."
         A small sound made him turn his head. Only then did he realize Holland was in the corner of the office, paralyzed where she stood, her face stark white. She'd backed into her plants on the windowsill, and dirt lay on the floor at her feet and on her white sneakers.
         "What are you doing here?" he asked, in what he thought was a normal tone of voice.
         "I'm quitting. I came back for my stuff." Holland looked from Felicia to MacLeod and back again. "What kind of people are you, anyway? Murderers? Rapists? Are you insane?"
         "No," Felicia said, turning to her, her next words like a very carefully wielded hammer. "We're Immortal. We live forever, until someone takes our heads. We fight and we survive and we kill, because we have to. And you're one of us, but you don't know it yet."
         Leaving Holland suitably speechless, Felicia turned back to MacLeod. "You listen to me, you stupid Scot. I took Danny Dieppa's head. He was my student once, but it didn't last because I couldn't even go to sleep without worrying about him coming after me with one of his crazy, vicious schemes. Yeah, Felicia Martins met her match in a monster, but I was never as bad as he became. I didn't set Richie up then, and I'm not setting him up now. I don't know who came here today, but if he's done anything to Richie I'll take his head off with a scalpel, inch by inch, to make the bastard pay."
         "Is that part of the new and improved Felicia?" MacLeod taunted.
         "It's a promise," Felicia returned.
         He stared at her. Tried to fathom lies from her face, but she was more sincere and more intense than anyone he could remember.
         "Then I'll help you," MacLeod said.
         Tension went out of Felicia's shoulders with a heartfelt sigh. "Richie was supposed to meet me for dinner two hours ago. It's not like him to not show up."
         "He knew about the Immortal claiming to be Dieppa," MacLeod said. "He was going to go look for you, I think."
         The phone rang. MacLeod scooped it up. "Yes?"
         A slurred voice said, "MacLeod, it's Joe. Joe Dawson."
         "What is it?" MacLeod asked. "Did you find something out?"
         "No. I need your help."
         "What's the matter?"
         "I'm in jail."
         "Jail?" MacLeod exclaimed. Suddenly the sounds behind Joe - people, printers, iron clangs - became clearer and sharper. "Why are you in jail?"
         "They say I was drinking and driving. But I know I wasn't. And you know me well enough to know I'd never get behind the wheel of a car drunk."
         "Joe, you sound drunk now."
         "That's a terrible thing to say, Duncan MacLeod," Dawson replied indignantly, the words slurring together. "You're supposed to be my friend, right? You're my case. I got fired for you. Yeah, I got fired because the great MacLeod couldn't handle just another Quickening - "
         MacLeod put the phone to his chest and counted to five so that the furious red growing in his vision would have time to abate. Felicia looked at him inquiringly, and Holland stared at them both with the same incredulity on her face.
         "Is it Richie?" Felicia asked.
         "It's Dawson. He's drunk, and he's in jail."
         "Leave him," Felicia said. "We've got more important things to worry about."
         "He's ranting about Quickenings in a room full of people."
         "They're all in the drunk tank."
         "They're surrounded by police who would be very interested in leads on the curious number of decapitated bodies in this city," MacLeod said firmly. He pulled the phone back up. "Joe, stay put. Someone will be there to pick you up soon."
         He hung up and looked at Holland.
         "No way," she said. "I'm leaving. I'm leaving here, and I'm never looking back."
         "You like Joe," MacLeod said. "He needs our help. He needs someone to go down there, take him home, and throw him in bed until he sobers up. I'll give you the money."
         "No."
         "He's not one of us," Felicia put in. "He's a normal guy. If one of us goes, and Richie really is in trouble - hurt, kidnapped, taken prisoner - then Richie's going to suffer. Could you help us out here?"
         Holland shook her head, although she seemed less certain. "How do I know you haven't hurt Richie yourselves? You talk about people chopping off heads, you got people coming here with guns - you're into drugs, aren't you? All of you. Drug smugglers. I read the papers."
         "Mrs. Greer... Holland," MacLeod said. "Please. Bail Joe out, and we'll explain everything. This is just a really bad time, right now."
         "No," Holland said. "You explain it now. Because if I leave here, knowing what I know, and go to a police station, I'm going to want to do a lot more than bail out Joe Dawson."
         The phone interrupted the debate again. "Yes?" MacLeod said when he picked up, half expecting Dawson again.
         "Still looking for the whore Felicia," a man's voice said. "Except this time, you can tell her I've got her boy toy hanging by his thumbs, begging for mercy."
         At MacLeod's sudden gesture, Felicia snatched up the extra receiver in the corner. "Who is this?" she demanded.
         "It would have been Danny boy, but you took care of him, didn't you?" the voice sneered.
         A cautious look stole over Felicia's expression. "Giovanni?"
         "The same. You win what's behind door number two. One baby Immortal, ripe for the picking. Weren't you the one who taught Danny to go for the jugular? Rip out your enemy's support, make them so devastated they couldn't think straight? Come on home, Felicia, I miss you."
         "Where are you?" she growled.
         "Old Sieger airfield. And bring the big guy with the hair, will you? That way I can keep my eye on both of you. After I take your Quickening, I'll take his."
         "Old Sieger airfield," Felicia said testily. "I'll be there. You leave Richie alone."
         "Too late," Giovanni said merrily, and hung up.
         Felicia turned to MacLeod. "You heard the man."
         Both Immortals looked to Holland.
         "What are you going to do to me?" she asked.
         MacLeod tried to keep his voice from rising in anger. "We're not going to do anything to you. Go bail out Joe, will you? We'll work it all out in the morning."
         "If we're still alive," Felicia said nastily.
         "How do you know I won't tell the police or the newspapers?"
         MacLeod said, "Holland, you know Richie. You know me. You know Joe. Give us a chance to explain everything, when the world isn't crashing in on us, and then decide what you want to do. We're not going to hurt you, okay? We've got more immediate concerns."
         "Let's go," Felicia said, heading for the door. To Holland she tossed, "Honey, you do what you have to do."
         MacLeod followed her.
         Holland didn't try to stop them.
         They took the Thunderbird and roared east, towards Sieger Airfield. The ride would take at least twenty minutes. Felicia sat tensely in the front seat, her eyes staring out the windshield, her face fixed with anger.
         "Who's Giovanni?" MacLeod asked.
         "Danny's old student," she said tightly.
         "Why does he want revenge on you?"
         "Because of Danny, probably. They were real close. A pair of Siamese sick bastards."
         MacLeod risked a glance at her. "I'm sorry I accused you."
         "I would have accused me too," Felicia answered bitterly. "Why should a person be allowed to change? Why should there even be such a thing as forgiveness, or trust, or new starts?"
         "You're starting anew. Richie forgave you. That all counts for something."
         "Not if Giovanni has killed Richie. I swear, if that's what we find, I don't know what I'll do." She was quiet for a mile, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and then she said, "So this is what it's like to have your past thrown into your face. What goes around, comes around."
         To distract her, to distract himself, MacLeod said, "Tell me what kind of fighter Giovanni is."
         "A good one. He likes dirty tricks, like Danny did, but mostly he goes after your neck while you're looking at him. Sadistic son of a bitch. Worked in Nazi death camps for fun."
         That left them in silence for several miles until Felicia said, "About the housewife."
         MacLeod's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Yes?"
         "Whatever happened, only you and she know. And you don't sound so sure. If you think you were wrong, admit it and make amends."
         "I don't think that's a good idea at all."
         "You've got to do it, if you're going to put it to rest. You don't have to go to her. She never has to hear your name again. But you do something for her."
         "How do you make amends for something like that?"
         "I don't know. Try. Maybe the trying is part of it."
         MacLeod didn't answer.
         The dilapidated hangar Giovanni had appropriated had been vacated for at least a decade, when the airfield had shut down. Weather, vandals, or vagrants had knocked out most of the windows, and spray paint marked the metal walls. Garbage - crushed cans, stray paper, discarded plastic - had blown up against the building. Giovanni had obviously put some effort into his trap, because exterior and interior lights blazed forth across the broken runway like a beacon, drawing them in.
         There was no need for stealth, no chance to surprise Giovanni. MacLeod parked some distance away, just in case. As they circled warily to the hangar doors they felt the buzz of a third Immortal, but not a fourth. Which probably meant Richie was dead.
         They walked in with swords drawn.
         Giovanni stood inside, just a few feet away, leaning lazily against the wall. His sword was at his side, but not up for fighting yet. He said, cheerfully, "So nice of you to come. We like visitors. Don't we, Richie?"
         MacLeod's eyes went to the horrific sight hanging halfway down the hangar. For a moment, his eyes refused to pass along the information to his newly numb brain. Beside him, Felicia drew in a sharp hiss of breath.
         "Your lessons, Felicia," Giovanni said. "Something to think about, something to infuriate you, something to make your blood boil. But remember, anger can make you sloppy."
         Felicia whirled on him with a snarl. "I'm going to rip you to pieces."
         "Don't be so hasty!" Giovanni chided. "There's more. In about three minutes an incendiary device is going to go off at the top of that chain. You want to get to your boy before he become a Roman candle, MacLeod. Just my little insurance that you won't be tempted to get involved."
         Felicia swung down on him with a howl of outrage.
         MacLeod very clearly saw where his responsibility lay. He swung up a ladder half-peeling from the wall and wall and scampered up as fast as he could on its creaking rungs. Once on the catwalk, fifty feet up, he realized the rusty metal was far more treacherous than it looked. He pushed himself forward with the image of it collapsing at any moment beneath his boots. Down below, Felicia and Giovanni seemed match in skill if not strength, but Felicia's fury was putting her at a predictable disadvantage.
         MacLeod reached the portable winch that Giovanni had hauled up and strapped to the catwalk. A one-inch thick steel chain, shiny new, ran down to where Richie hung by his manacled wrists thirty feet above the floor. He was still dead. His shirt, shoes and socks had disappeared, and his trousers were charred and scorched. Multiple stab wounds in his chest, stomach and back betrayed how Giovanni must have tortured him. A knotted gag in Richie's mouth meant the torture had been for fun, not necessarily information.
         Felicia wasn't the only who could barely see through rage.
         MacLeod clamped down on his emotions, compartmentalized them for later use. He had more than enough to think about without gruesome imaginations of what hell Richie had endured. Giovanni's crowning touch had been to soak the winch, chain, and Richie in gasoline. The fumes made MacLeod's eyes tear. Giovanni's comment made more sense now. One misplaced spark, and Richie would become a fireball.
         Giovanni's 'incendiary device' was a bomb in a neat black package, fixed to the winch's side. No convenient digital timer told MacLeod how much time he had left, but he suspected it was less than half the time he'd started with. He didn't dare turn on the winch for fear of an electrical spark, he couldn't find a way into the bomb case, and he didn't know if he'd been able to deactivate the bomb even if he gained entrance.
         Felicia cried out below in agony, but MacLeod couldn't spare the time to check on her. He found the emergency release for the spooled chain, hit it, realized it was jammed. He climbed down until he was hanging by his knees, wrapped the chain in his hands, and heaved. Once, twice, three times. Without warning the tension surrendered, and the chain unspooled wildly. Richie's corpse went crashing to the concrete below.
         Pausing only to lift his head, MacLeod dropped from his awkward position. He knew he might crack open his skull, but risked it anyway. Twisting in mid-fall, he landed on his feet. Both of his ankles shattered, along with his left tibia. The momentum of his fall kept him crumpling forward, banging his right elbow against the concrete, slamming his head with a solid thump. Agony spiraled up both legs to the base of his spine and then up through his brain like a harpoon. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. But he dragged himself up on his good arm, and inched forward to where Richie lay broken and lifeless.
         Felicia and Giovanni were still fighting. MacLeod dizzily tried to focus on the battle the sound of their swords clashing disappeared into a whoosh of fire that flared up on the catwalk and then blew into an explosion of screeching metal and collapsing beams.
         He had no time to drag Richie to safety, and wouldn't have had the strength if he tried. Instead he flung himself over the cold body, protecting it from a shower of flame. The catwalk came careening down, and with a deafening roar it smashed onto the floor only a few feet away from MacLeod's head.
         Half the lights had gone in the explosion, and the other half now flickered erratically as MacLeod pulled himself up. His coat was smoldering. He peeled it off, and used it and his bare hands to stomp out flames threatening to get too close. Nothing in the hangar was built to burn, though, and after the initial gasoline film was gone, the fire quickly died. Acrid smoke still hung in the air, though, nearly blinding him, coating his throat with an awful taste.
         He staggered to his knees in time to see that Giovanni had beaten Felicia to the ground. She was bleeding profusely from horrible wounds on both shoulders and her stomach. How she was managing to stay conscious was a mystery. Giovanni raised his sword to lop off her head but a shadow behind him broke free of other darkness and yelled, "No!"
         Holland must have followed them. She had an ancient pistol clutched between her two shaking hands and she brought it to bear on Giovanni's chest.
         MacLeod managed to get up to his healing ankles, but they gave way beneath his weight. He would never be able to stop what was coming, but yelled, "Holland, no!"
         She didn't even look his way as she said to Giovanni, "Drop your sword. Now!"
         He turned to her with a lecherous grin. "Join us," he said, and moved towards her.
         Holland fired.
         The bullet didn't stop him.
         She fired again.
         Giovanni ran his sword through her chest.
         Then turned and found that his moment of distraction had cost him the time Felicia needed to regain her strength. She rose up, her body still profusely bleeding, and with a scream stabbed him in the heart.
         Giovanni fell. Felicia swayed badly, but kept her stance. A horrible gurgling ripped from Holland's mouth as blood boiled up from the hole in her chest. She clawed frantically at the ground, then heaved with a convulsive shudder and died.
         For what felt like a long time, MacLeod knelt in exhausted shock as the adrenaline in his system flushed away and his body healed itself. Felicia came to him, clutching her side, and gazed at Richie's lifeless body. The hangar lay in shambles around them.
         "He still has his head," MacLeod murmured, as a comfort.
         Felicia nodded, although the empty, drained look on her face didn't ease. "Take care of him for me, will you, MacLeod?"
         "Where are you going?" he scowled.
         "I'm not going, I'm staying. To finish this, when Giovanni wakes up."
         MacLeod struggled to his feet. This time, he stayed up. "He just nearly killed you. Leave him. Save it for another day."
         She shook her head. "And let him do this again? To Richie? To anyone else close to me?"
         "Then let me do it. I have a score to settle with him now, too."
         "You don't give up, do you? Forget it. This is my battle. Take Richie somewhere safe. Plus, you've got her on your hands."
         Felicia gestured to Holland. Already the song of her Immortality was easing its way into MacLeod's mind. He gazed at her stirring body, but couldn't even begin to contemplate what to do with her. Giovanni was still dead, but his injury had been simple and he'd probably revive soon. There was no telling how long Richie would remain as he was - his injuries had been much more severe, from both Giovanni's torture and the thirty-foot drop to the floor.
         MacLeod went to Holland and helped her sit up. "What's that noise?" she complained, sounding disoriented and confused. She put her hands over her ears, then shook her head.
         "It's not a noise," MacLeod said. "You're just sensing the rest of us. Do you remember what happened?"
         Holland peered at the rip in her sweater and the wet blood surrounding it. "I thought I... died."
         "You did," MacLeod said. "But now you're alive. We've got to get out of here. I need you to help me with Richie."
         Felicia was still too busy mending to be of much help, and needed to keep an eye on Giovanni. She did fish through the man's pockets to find the keys to Richie's manacles. MacLeod and Holland carried Richie to the back seat of the Thunderbird and covered him with a blanket. MacLeod returned to retrieve Richie's sword from where Giovanni had stashed it against the wall, and to gaze at the Italian's crumpled form.
         He looked at Felicia.
         She shook her head. "It's all been said. Go, MacLeod. Tell Richie... he knows."
         Dirty, bloody, defiant, she stood in the wreckage with her sword and no visible fear, ready to take Giovanni on again. He realized he'd vastly underestimated her not just once, but twice.
         "I'll see you at the dojo when you're done," he said to her now.
         Felicia didn't answer.

         Holland rode with MacLeod in silence, her fingers pulling at her sweater convulsively. MacLeod knew he need to explain several things to her, but felt too tired to even try. Back at the loft, they carried Richie in the blanket to the bed. The wounds in his chest had healed, but his skull had broken in the fall and was still in pieces beneath MacLeod's probing fingers.
         "Is he going to stay dead?" Holland asked in awe.
         "No," MacLeod said. "Not for long. None of us will, as long as we still have our heads."
         "That stuff before - it wasn't lies."
         "It was all the truth."
         "My God," she breathed. She wondered around the dark loft, her face lit with horror and awe. "This is impossible."
         MacLeod climbed onto the bed and slumped against the headboard. "It's very possible," he said. "There's a great deal you need to know, Mrs. Greer."
         "Don't you think you could call me Holland by now?" she turned to say.
         "You never told me to call you Holland," he protested weakly.
         "Of course I did." She wandered some more, her hands around her neck. "People are going to really want to behead me?"
         "Yes."
         "Why?"
         "Because there can be only one," MacLeod said. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but can we do this in the morning?"
         She came to him, her eyes shining. "It won't be real in the morning. It's like a dream."
         "Sometimes it's like a nightmare," MacLeod said.
         But she persisted in her questions, and MacLeod answered in the calm, measured way he had with Richie and others before him. He was bone tired, it was true, but he was also worried about Felicia going against Giovanni. He didn't expect her to win. Telling Richie would be very hard. Something else nagged at MacLeod, but he had no idea what.
         He closed his eyes for just a moment to rest, then woke with Holland shaking his shoulder. "I hear that noise again - " she said.
         MacLeod sat up instantly. "It's okay," he said, and turned to watch Richie's chest give a spastic heave.
         Richie breathed, let out a hoarse gasp, bolted upright in confusion. MacLeod expected that. He made no attempt to touch him. "Richie!" he snapped. "You're all right! You're safe!"
         Richie jumped out of the bed and into an defensive pose. Covered with blood and dirt, reeking of gasoline, dressed only in the burned jeans, he seemed wild and unpredictable.
         "It's okay," MacLeod said, rising slowly. "You're home."
         For a moment, MacLeod didn't think Richie was going to believe him. Then slowly, carefully, Richie lowered his hands and took a look around. Recognition seeped slowly across his face. "Mac," he breathed.
         "Yeah," MacLeod answered. "Welcome back."
         Richie wrapped his arms around his chest, shivering. He stared at Holland for a long moment, then back to MacLeod. By the look in his eyes, he was remembering very clearly what had happened. "Where is he?" he asked, voice shaking.
         "Fighting Felicia."
         "We have to save her," Richie said immediately. "Mac, the guy's a bastard, he'll take her down, we can't let her just go alone against him - "
         MacLeod moved to him and put his hands on his shoulders. "It was Felicia's choice, Richie."
         "He'll do to her what he did to - " Richie blurted, then stopped with an embarrassed look at Holland. MacLeod understood. Healing the physical injuries Giovanni had inflicted was a job for Richie's Immortal body. Healing the other injuries would take a little bit more time.
         "Richie, she wanted to do it. She wanted you to be safe, and then she'd take care of Giovanni." MacLeod couldn't tell if his words were getting through. Holland's presence wasn't helping. "Come on," he said, and steered Richie to the bathroom. "You need a hot shower and some new clothes."
         Twenty minutes later Richie was sitting on the sofa in a pair of borrowed sweat pants and sweatshirt, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, eyes dark with remembered pain. "My bike's trashed," he said, looking at no one in particular. "He rigged it with some kind of bomb."
         "You can get a new one," MacLeod soothed from beside him. Holland sat quietly in another chair, her knees drawn to her chest, watching them in rapt silence.
         Richie shook his head. "Not the same."
         That was still trauma talking. MacLeod said nothing, but put his hand out and rubbed Richie's back for a few seconds.
         "The thing is," Richie said, "he never even cared about me. I mean, I was just a thing. For knife practice. For... playing with. He told me so."
         MacLeod could have gladly cut out Giovanni's heart.
         Richie closed his eyes as he remembered aloud, "It got really bad, and I shot off my mouth. I asked him if he was doing it because I'd slept with Felicia, and he hadn't. And he said, 'That's as good a reason as any.'"
         He looked at MacLeod, stricken. MacLeod remembered with a sinking lead weight in his stomach how he'd said those very same words before he nearly chopped Richie's head off.
         "It's never over," Richie said, with clear and absolute conviction. "Your Dark Quickening, him, Danny Dieppa. The evil doesn't go away, it just changes shapes. We can't do anything about it."
         "We can choose to fight it," MacLeod said. "We can choose not to run."
         Richie studied his coffee cup. "That sounds like something Felicia would say."
         It was nearly midnight, and she hadn't returned. MacLeod easily guessed what that meant. Despite his weariness, he stayed up with Richie through the night, keeping vigil, as Holland slept in her chair. Richie talked a little about what Giovanni had done to him, a little more about things Felicia had said or done, but sat for long stretches staring at nothing MacLeod could see. He finally dozed off near dawn, out of sheer exhaustion. MacLeod didn't remember falling asleep, but Holland woke him up when the sun was streaming through the windows.
         "That noise, again," she insisted.
         Richie came awake on the couch beside MacLeod. MacLeod sat up, working a kink out of his neck, and followed the buzz of an approaching Immortal to his door. He opened it with sword in hand.
         "Well, that's a fine welcome," Felicia groused. Her skin was bloody, her face filthy, her clothes beyond salvage. She had two large paper bags from McDonald's in her hands and a devilish grin on her face. "Breakfast, anyone?"

         Halfway through a rather unhealthy sausage McMuffin, MacLeod suddenly realized what it was he'd forgotten.
         "Shit," was his exact word, as he scrambled from his chair.
         "What is it?" Richie asked, alarmed.
         "Joe," MacLeod said, and left Felicia and Holland behind to explain Dawson's predicament. Forty five minutes later MacLeod was at the police station, waiting impatiently and somewhat nervously. No one appeared to connect him with whatever ramblings Dawson might have unwisely made during the night, and he considered that a very good omen. Dawson was brought out looking hungover, grungy, and extremely withdrawn. He mumbled something to MacLeod as he signed for his personal possessions.
         "What?"
         "I said," Dawson repeated, "let's get the hell out of here."
         "We're not going anywhere," MacLeod said resolutely.
         Dawson grimaced. "Is this another Duncan MacLeod speech I hear coming on? Because you can just spare me now."
         MacLeod bristled. "No, you get to sit through the whole thing. That's the price you pay for me putting up your bail."
         "I've paid enough of a price!" Dawson shot back, drawing attention from the officers on duty and the station personnel arriving for work.
         MacLeod waited until Dawson was seated beside him in the Thunderbird before he put the key in the ignition and let it sit there. "Just so you know," MacLeod said, staring straight ahead, "Richie was kidnapped yesterday, tortured, nearly killed. Felicia and I were nearly killed. Holland Greer died her mortal death and is sitting in my loft wondering what to make of it all. And in the middle of all that, you're in jail on a drunk driving charge. So you fell to the bottom of the list of things to do, Dawson."
         "As I expected," Dawson replied sarcastically. "Immortals are always your highest priority. The rest of us can just die and go the ground while you march through eternity."
         "What the hell is wrong with you? When did you turn into this giant pit of self pity?"
         "When you weren't here, MacLeod."
         "Is that it? You're mad because I stayed in France?"
         Dawson turned to him and said, "I don't care where you stayed. I don't care what you do. I used to, but they took that job away from me because I got too goddamned involved."
         "So that's your problem? You regret getting involved? Well, don't. Because if you hadn't gotten involved, Richie would be dead. No, I take that back, Richie wouldn't have even been in danger of me cutting off his head, because I'd still be imprisoned underground in a cell where no one was ever going to find me. Or the Hunters would have taken both our heads, months ago, like they took Darius."
         Dawson's jaw was set in stubborn denial. "That's not the point. The point is that I was a Watcher, and I was very good at it. You didn't notice me for a dozen years. And now I'm nothing."
         MacLeod gazed at him in astonishment. "You're nothing? Since when was Watching your only role in life? Since when did you stop being a musician, a businessman, a scholar? They took that one thing away from you, and now you're nothing?"
         Dawson's face twisted in helplessness. "Of course not. But it...feels that way."
         MacLeod let that lay out in the open for a few seconds. "Joseph," he said slowly, shaking his head, "you astound me. You don't need alcohol for this. You don't need to ignore it, or bury it, or make it go away. This is a major change in your life. It's going to hurt. But you have friends to help you. Friends like me."
         "You have your own problems," Dawson grumbled.
         "That's nothing new. It doesn't change the fact you can come to me for help."
         "I don't want help," Dawson said defiantly, although his eyes told a different story. "I just want it to be fixed. I just want....to be a part of it again. I know I'm never going to be Immortal, and if I could I don't know that I even would - but don't you know why people become Watchers, MacLeod?"
         "Not really. No. Why?"
         "Because every Immortal carries the seed of something great. Call it a Quickening, call it whatever, but you all have it and we don't. You carry with you the history of our race, but nobody knows to where. You're the biggest mystery on earth. And every Watcher dreams of being the one to solve it, to finally figure out what it all means. You're like celebrities, and everyone wants a part of you. You're like... gods."
         "We're not gods," MacLeod said swiftly and darkly. "We're too cruel and too fallible."
         Dawson shrugged. His anger and bitterness had fled, leaving behind a haggard face in need of a shave and tired eyes that needed sleep. Softly he said, "Maybe gods are supposed to be cruel and fallible."
         "I'll never believe that," MacLeod answered.
         "I might," Dawson said. He yawned and glanced over with sheepishness and affection. "So, can I go home now? Is the speech over?"
         "I don't know. You going to keep doing stupid stuff?"
         "Not intentionally."
         MacLeod turned the ignition switch. "That's all I ask," he said.

         A week later, having sorted out details and arrangements and promises, Holland and Felicia were ready to go. They stood in the parking lot above Felicia's rented houseboat, Felicia's truck packed with the belongings they were taking with them. Felicia had it in her mind to head towards Phoenix, where she had more amends to make. Holland was going with her to learn how to survive.
         "I could teach you sword work here," MacLeod told her.
         Holland grinned. "It's sort of like learning to drive with your dad in the car. Not a good idea."
         "I'm not your father," MacLeod said.
         "Good thing," she answered, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, "old man."
         "I'll miss you," Dawson told her, as he received his own kiss. "I'll miss what you did with the dojo. Now that you're going, MacLeod's probably going to decorate the entire place in brown again."
         "Since when did you become an interior decorator?" MacLeod asked.
         "It's my new career field," Dawson said, with a gleam in his eyes. "You should see the plans I've got for your loft."
         "No plans at all," MacLeod retorted. "You're not going near it."
         Richie was sitting on the hood of Felicia's truck. He looked healthy and well in the spring sunshine, although it had been a very rough week. MacLeod was proud of the way he was dealing with both his experience at Giovanni's hands and Felicia's impending departure, although he'd made sure Richie knew that it was okay to not cope well, too. No one was perfect.
         Whatever goodbye Richie and Felicia had made between them lingered in the way he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. "Be good, you," he said gently.
         "Be good, you too," Felicia returned, and kissed him.
         The kiss drew out for a few seconds, enough for MacLeod to become acutely aware of Holland standing next to him with a bright look on her face. He cleared his throat.
         "See you, MacLeod," Felicia said, turning to him, her cheeks pink. "Watch out for Junior, here."
         "Take care, Felicia," he said.
         She studied him closely, as if she couldn't decide whether or not to say what she was thinking. "About the other thing... about making amends... "
         "I know," he said. Dominique's face flashed across his vision. "I'm going to try."
         The women drove off with waves and honks of the horn.
         "Well," Richie said philosophically, his hands in his pockets, "they're not exactly Thelma and Louise, and if they go over a cliff they'll live anyway, so I guess things will be fine."
         Dawson smiled but MacLeod didn't make the connection. "Is this another television show we're talking about?"
         "Not a television show, a movie," Richie said The three men started to stroll along the waterfront, the air fresh and clean in their faces, the day open with possibilities.
         "I told you, MacLeod," Dawson said, "you just don't keep up with popular culture these days."
         "With friends like you two," MacLeod said. "I don't need to."
         He was quiet for a moment.
         "So who are Thelma and Louise?"

         Author's Notes:

         I was never a big fan of Felicia Martins from "Free Fall" but I thought she'd be a great person to try and redeem. Although the story started out to be just about Duncan's "choices after evil,' I soon realized everyone involved with ED had to make choices about how they would let it affect them. As for Joe, I don't truly believe he would make the mistake of drinking and driving, but he's in a lot of hidden pain about the Watchers that Duncan hasn't noticed. The twelve step meetings Felicia goes to are Incest Survivor groups. Those interested in joining Immortals Anonymous should know that the meetings are held every fifty years, in church halls, and you have to check your sword at the door.
         And because Felicia nearly sounded like this once or twice: (Yelling after Robin Hood) "I'm going to cut your heart out with a spoon!" "Why a spoon, cousin?"
         "Because it will hurt more, you twit!"