United Nations, Divided Souls

It was after midnight when Kir finally extracted herself from the team after seeing that everyone had attended to proper storage of equipment. The last 24 hours had turned into a blur of one emergency after another. She had learned to take little cat naps, fifteen minutes or so at a time. They had sustained her, but she was at the ragged edge of collapse and as she stepped into the penthouse, feeling the comforting presence of three Immortals, she was looking forward to a hug from Duncan, a shower and about 18 hours of sleep.

She dropped her pack in the hall and blearily made her way into the kitchen and stopped in surprise. Connor was pouring another of what had been apparently several double doses of scotch into two glasses, one for himself and one for Sean MacLeod - a man who had never developed the tendency or the capacity of his much older relatives for drinking large quantities of strong liquor.

"What's going on?" Kir asked reluctantly, looking around for Duncan. "Where's Mac?"

"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod has done his famous disappearing act," Connor said, his words slightly slurred. Sean just sat and stared into his glass as if it held the secrets of the universe.

"Sean?" Her query got no response. The man was pale and sweaty, and Kir suddenly noticed the blood smeared across his bare chest.

"What happened, Connor!" she finally said in her commander's voice.

That tone finally elicited an unnecessarily colorful version of the evening's debacle, while Kir sank into a chair to listen. At the end she decided to take a long swig of Connor's glass before she made her weary way to Methos' door.

"Are you planning to use that on yourself, or would that be too much to hope for?" Kir said softly from the doorway. She kept half an ear tuned to the kitchen where Connor was waxing drunkenly poetic about his clansman's psyche and upbringing, tales Sean had no doubt heard a thousand times. Sean was making no effort at listening having sunk himself into a similar stupor.

Duncan's whereabouts were unknown although Kir thought she might have a pretty good idea. Unfortunately, the middle MacLeod probably didn't want to be found and if not, she would not. And despite her words, there were some serious repairs to be made on the man sitting so lifelessly on the bed cradling the bone-handled knife in his shaking hands.

"Simplify things, wouldn't it?" Methos answered back in an equally quiet voice. The bitter edge of sarcasm and anger was oddly missing, though the irony was still there but it was as if all the energy that such darker emotions required for sustenance had bled away.

A particularly apropos analogy, Kir decided, given the dark stains on the floor in the living room.

For all his quiet passivity at the moment, however, Kir could see the signs that Methos had slipped from his rage and anger and hurt into something far less dramatic but no less soul-killing.

"Will you slip silently away from us, then, Grandfather?" she asked coming in to crouch in front of him, laying her fingers across the knife without trying to take it. "Will you step into the Dreaming as if it were real and we the shadows?"

"You sound as if that would be a bad thing," Methos said with a hint of bitterness. "What answer do you want, Kir? I slipped into madness for a bit and now I am better? There, then. You have your answer. Go stop Connor from inducing my brother into alcohol poisoning. Sean hasn't had enough practice for it, yet."

"We did not drag you from that dark hole to let you build yourself another, Methos."

"Perhaps you were right at the base, Silent Storm. It may have been better if you had left me there. At least then I could have been of some use to him still -- to any of you." Even now, with his words, the terror seemed to steal away any gains he had made. He was already a ghost. Kir closed her hands around the blade, pressing it into his flesh, enough to feel but not to cut.

"I cannot know what you have been through or what you have felt or not felt, old one, but in your loss we were all brought together, bound together. Now that you are with us once more, we have been shattered and split. We need you more than you need us, it seems. But that is how it seems," she said evenly as she felt the tension creep into the spare body. "I think you are who has been shattered, with each of us getting but a piece of you. I have gained your indifference, Connor your instinct to survive, Sean your fear and Duncan your hate. Who then gets your love, Methos? For it is there, else the rest would have no meaning."

The laugh that followed cut as sharply as the blade between their hands. "Beware of my love, Kir. It is not something any decent or worthy man or woman could possibly want. You have seen it, have you not? It has haunted Duncan 's dreams for the last three years, spilled over my hands just a bit ago with my brother's blood. I think it best it remain where it was, buried under holy ground where it can do no more harm."

Had it had form, Methos' self-loathing could not have reared up more blackly than it did before Kir at that moment. The darkness of it changed her perceptions, her interpretation of his actions, of Duncan's.

"I think you and Duncan are both great fools," she said. "And Sean too although I have always thought him the sensible one of the three of you. Perhaps there is much more worth to Connor MacLeod than I could ever appreciate. Methos, if you could change one thing since you first met Duncan, what would it be?"

"I would have pressed him harder when we first met. I was ready to die then, willing to do so and it would have been at the hands of man I admired and who had no opinion of me whatsoever," he said and rose, letting the knife slip from his hands and into hers without noticing.

"And you still hate him?"

"With everything that I am. With everything that I ever was. We are mirrors of each other, Kir. We always have been."

"Then what is he afraid of?" she asked softly. "When he sees you, what does he see but his own hatred of himself? As you do."

With pursed lips she laid the knife on the tousled blankets and slipped from the room.

She waited awhile for Mac, but eventually gave up and tried for a few hours sleep. He never came to bed, and she distracted herself during the morning in the war room, dealing with the mundane details of running the compound, but when lunch time came and went and he still hadn't appeared, she gave in to her need to know where and how he was, and started a serious search. Eventually she did find MacLeod out in the garage and equipment shed, his head stuck deep into the inner workings of one of the vans. She knew he had felt her approach, but it was several minutes before he came up for air, having pulled a component out, wiped it off carefully with a rag and dropped it into a can of cleaning fluid on the work bench. Just then Revas stepped into the room from the storage area and stopped at the sight of both Immortals, seeing the tension on both faces.

"I . . . finished the checklist and everything we're taking is set up in the storage room, Mac. We can load up any time," he said, his eyes flicking back and forth between his commander and the big, grim warrior.

"Thanks, Reve. Have you checked out the communications equipment?" Mac asked.

A small flicker of annoyance moved across the man's weathered face, but he only nodded. "Of course, MacLeod. It's what I do."

Mac smiled without humor. "Sorry. Old habits die hard. I'll finish tuning this baby up and we'll leave in the morning. Why don't you try to relax, get some sleep. It's gonna' be a long ride."

Kir's look at the mortal was tinged with anger. "You didn't tell me, Revas," she said a little too quietly.

"It's not his fault, Kir," Mac interjected. "He said he needed an equipment and weapons expert to go along and I was both qualified and available. I asked him not to say anything."

"Not necessarily your decision to make, MacLeod," came the hard response.

When he didn't bother to answer the silence between the three became unbearable and Revas, with a last guilty look at Kir, ducked out the door.

Kir had a choice. She could argue with him about leaving or she could talk to him about Methos. In a way, it was probably the same conversation. She chose talking.

"What does the knife mean, Mac?"

"The knife?"

"Stop that, Duncan. You know what I mean."

Mac had swished the part around in the cleaning fluid and was now wiping it carefully. "It represents . . . the evil in me, Kir. With it I committed a horrifying act of hate and desperation. I have carried it ever since to remind myself of how easily I can be overcome by my own dark nature. Methos even killed me with it once when he knew what I had done and how much I hated myself for it."

"And you wanted him to have symbolic control over what you perceive to be your "dark nature"?"

"Methos needs a sense of control again, and control over the damage I can do to him is probably more important than anything in his life right now. More than that, Kir. It's a weapon. He needs a weapon that he knows I will not resist. It is a . . . talisman of sorts. Against me. At least until I can truly get out of his life."

Mac bent back into the engine to reinstall the newly cleaned part as Kir laughed sharply and turned to pace the length of the garage.

"You two are so smart, so experienced, and yet you constantly trip over each other trying to interpret thoughts and actions and words, perpetually missing the mark just enough to do damage," she said.

"Are you trying to tell me Methos doesn't need to have control over his life, over me, right now?"

"No. I'm trying to tell you that Methos is wallowing in his pain, his own self-loathing, so deep that when you give him a weapon you used in hate, all he sees is the hate. Your hate."

"Oh, come on, Kir! Methos knows I don't hate him! I've done nothing to lead him to believe that! Every minute since we've found him I've been trying to tell him that I'm sorry for what he's been through. That I would do anything to make it better!" Mac threw the rag up against the workbench. "Christ! What does he want from me? My head? Well, I'm sorry, that particular item is not up for sale, primarily because not only would the Quickening probably drive him even more insane than he already is, but because what's bothering him is what's inside him, not what's inside me!"

"And if he wants you to take his head? That's where his hate is focused, you know."

"I know," Mac said quietly, leaning his hands up against the bench. "He has always had an edge of that. He's managed it for a long, long time, but this hell I managed to put him through has opened it up like a near-fatal wound that just won't close until I'm no longer around to keep it open."

"You didn't put him in that hole, Mac. And no matter how much you want to take responsibility for all the ills in the world, you didn't keep him there," Kir came up behind him and lay her head against his back. She felt him take a deep breath and turn to her. They stood for a long minute with their arms wrapped around each other.

"In my mind I know you're right, Kirin. I just wish my heart would listen."

She pulled back from him and smiled. "You need a shower," she observed, wrinkling her nose. "And you need to stay here and talk to Methos. Connor can go with Revas. Come on," she urged, tugging at his arm as he allowed himself to be led back to the apartment.

But Mac was unusually quiet after his shower and only toyed with his dinner. He was not broody, exactly, just unwilling to be drawn into anything more than casual conversation.

Mac made love that night to Kir with great tenderness, moving over her and into her, touching her so gently, as though he were afraid she would break, afraid to bruise her. His kisses were feather light, tongue moving over her nipples and abdomen, lightly tickling her thighs. It was not passion, but tenderness and oddly, when she finally came, he did not, holding her to him, staying inside her until his own arousal was gone and they both slept.

....there was no weakness in her slight body, for all its sylph-like qualities as she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. Her small breasts warmed his chest, her body folding around him with the familiarity of a lover of long-standing. The beautiful eyes danced with delight as he grinned down at her, brushing away a strand of hair that tickled her forehead. The pale skin was flushed, and she laughed with no sound as she wriggled her hips against his then parted her thighs to better cradle his weight.

Her mouth sought his and he fell into the kiss, and into the touches she laid across his back and buttocks, her pelvis rising to meet his already hardened flesh. He wanted her so badly, she was familiar and a mystery all at once. He pulled at her, wanting a closeness that it seemed he could not gain for all her smiles and laughter. But she opened to him, pressed against him, body welcome and heated and tight as he eased into her then was lost...the overwhelming sense of having been made for her and she for him overpowering all else. Her arms tightened around him as he slid into her, her body rising to meet his, to hold him, soothe him, receiving what he offered without protest or demand of her own....

It confused him...even knowing he was dreaming, that he had not offered her similar pleasures. She seemed to expect nothing, ask nothing except what he offered and he pulled back even as his body surrendered to the heated desire. She stared up at him, her hands still on his shoulders and....her mouth gagged...the ragged cloth stained and filthy. Only her eyes communicated her need and love for him as she pulled him back down, coaxing him to finish what he had started.

He surrendered even in his confusion and horror, felt his body convulse into hers, spilling his seed deep with the tight sheath of flesh. He collapsed against her, trying to communicate his thanks with touches, and caresses along her arms, rising up to kiss her and planning on returning every moment of pleasure.

But the face he touched was not the girl's but Methos'. The body he still impaled was that of his friend, but neither the Methos of the past nor the one sleeping in Sean's apartment, but the skeletal, emaciated filthy barely human creature he had dragged out of the tomb in Rome. Mac jerked back in revulsion and then felt a rip of fire up his spine, twisting to see his attacker.

She stood there, angry and shaking, the hatred burning in her eyes that he had seen on Methos' face. He turned back and Methos was gone, the same smiling girl beneath him, her fingers reaching up for him and he pulled back desperately looking for his friend. When he looked back he was alone, only no longer in his room but in Rome again, standing on the pile of broken rubble that had been the Vatican.

There was no team, no one to help him as he started to dig. He pulled at the rocks and twisted metal until his hands were bloody, opening a hole in the earth and reached inside, groping, feeling and found contact with bared flesh. He was sobbing as he pulled at the body, lifting the thin figure up and out.

Only it wasn't Methos...it was the girl again, but there was another body in the hole, one he could feel. He reached again and she pushed him back and deliberately began shoving the dirt back into the hole. She stared at him and then walked away and Mac could not find the strength to open the hole again.

"Methos, I'm sorry," he murmured at the dirt, tears on his face. Skeletal hands reached for him and dragged him down and he woke again fighting them off.

"I am going to start wearing armor to bed!" Kir said catching at his flailing hands. "Enough is enough, Mac! What was it this time?"

Mac caught his breath. "That girl...that same damn girl....coming between....keeping me away from... Methos..." he said in a rush, unable to fathom where the image was coming from. What part of his psyche was dragging up that wretched, beguiling, desirable, demon child? "I don't know her...I have never seen her before...but she is...I can't stay away from her and she...why would she hate him so much?"

"Why indeed," Kir asked pulling him down beside her, trying to judge whether he was really ready to face the meaning of these dreams. Stress and exhaustion did not lend themselves to careful, introspective analysis, however, and she decided, for the moment, to let Mac decide when he was ready to understand. But she felt the tension in his body as he lay next to her, and wondered how long he would be able to avoid listening to what his heart was trying to say.

Kir woke when she sensed the empty bed, looked sleepily around the room to finally spot Mac's silhouette outlined in the moonlight from the window.

"Can't sleep?"

He turned at the sound of her voice. He was deep in shadow, but she could sense the affectionate smile that made his mouth curve and his eyes crinkle at the edges. She loved his smile. He sat on the edge of the bed, gently stroking her hair.

"You are beautiful, did you know that, Kirin Storm?"

She touched his lips. "And you are avoiding the question. What's going on behind those dark eyes, Duncan?"

He stood and moved away, crossing back to the window. "I feel like there's something I need to know, some memory or task or piece of information that's terribly important, but I can't quite reach it. And those damn dreams . . . I didn't want to disturb you again."

Ah, Kir thought to herself, he has finally reached critical mass and he will not be able to rest until he faces what he already knows, but cannot admit to himself. "Come here, my love," she called.

He sat beside her and let her untie his robe and push it away from his shoulders. "Let me help you," she said, taking his face in her hands. "Dreamwalk with me, Duncan MacLeod."

"Kir, I know you do this with your people, but . . ."

"You are my people, too, Duncan. I know you value your privacy, but I promise all I will do is be a guide, to help you see what truth your mind is avoiding, but your heart wants you to know. For that is what these dreams are, a representation of some inner conflict between mind and soul." She pulled him down beside her, waiting until he stretched out, slightly tense. She touched his temple, brushing back his hair, stroking his skin ever so lightly right at that point where the vein throbbed in a slow, steady rhythm.

"Relax, Duncan," she whispered. "Just listen and relax." She murmured words and phrases in the People's ancient tongue, soft sounds repeated in a tone and manner that was a gift both of her Cherokee and Immortal Races, and part of her training as shaman. Gradually, Mac's eyes lost focus and closed as he allowed his usually impenetrable mental barriers to fall under the gentle persuasion of this woman he trusted with his life and his heart.

. . . the tall trees lined each side of the leaf strewn walk, stretching infinitely forward and infinitely back. It was absolutely silent, even though the tree branches, still heavy with the golden foliage of fall, swayed in a gentle wind, swirling a kaleidoscope of gold and green and brown against a blue sky, there was no sound.

"You are not alone, Duncan." He turned a looked into the kind blue eyes of Sean Burns. "Not in there and not out here." Sean reached out to touch him, but when Mac looked down, it was not a hand against his chest, but a knife. He watched in horror as it slowly slid into his chest. He felt no pain, but blood oozed out and onto the blade, washing over his own initials carved into its bone handle.

Mac was frightened and started to back away, but he heard Kir's soft voice wrapping around him, cushioning him. He turned to look at her, finding only her dark eyes, sensing only the enveloping softness of her long cloak of hair.

"Listen to what he says, Duncan," she whispered. "What is your heart trying to tell you?"

"I...I don't know," Mac said/thought. "That I am not alone? I knew that. I have you and Sean and . . "

"Whose words are they, my love?" Kir's thoughts drifted into his mind.

"Sean Burns...but I killed him." The horror and grief of that unforgivable crime rolled over him, fresh and raw as though it had just happened, and weren't a two-century old wound.

He closed his eyes against that grief and felt soft hands slide over his chest, then trace across his face. He looked down and the knife was gone, and he was gazing into the shining hazel eyes of the girl from his dreams. No, it was Sean . . . MacLeod. His head spun. Sean slipped out of his hands, drifting away. Somehow Mac knew his son was in danger and he wanted to rush after him, but his feet seemed rooted to the ground.

He looked down and the earth in front of him fell away into a chasm so deep he could see no bottom. He tried to look across, but could barely see the other side where a multitude of shadowy figures could be seen, moving, changing. The vision was strangely familiar as though he had been there before.

"Who do you see, Duncan?" Kir's voice asked.

"Lots of people. I don't know . . . so many." But it was as though small bits and pieces of faces separated themselves. A cheekbone here, the back of a dark head, a tall figure in a dark coat, a lithe, elegant neck, the smooth curve of a white shoulder, a crouched figure, menacing and evil, a young child with wide, innocent green-gold eyes, an ancient old man, withered and dry.

"Too many. I can't see. I don't know any of them." For some reason this distressed him terribly and he was filled with a nameless fear. He needed to cross that chasm, to get to those people. The tall dark man in the long coat stood in the center, his face hidden by the milling crowd. Mac looked down and the chasm that separated them suddenly didn't seem so wide after all. All he had to do was step across. He stepped . . . and fell. Panic made his heart lurch and he reached out, trying to grab the other side. A firm grip seized his arm. He looked up, and the girl with the hazel eyes was straining to hold him, but their hands were slipping . . ."

"Who do you see, Duncan?" Kir's voice came again.

"The girl," he gasped.

"Who do you see, Duncan?" Kir insisted.

Mac felt himself losing strength. He could hold on no more and he knew the girl could not pull him up alone.

"You are not alone, Duncan." The voice came again...and he fell.

Mac started up, pulling away from Kir's arms, gasping in panic before Kir's gentle touch and voice calmed him.

They sat for a long time, Mac's head leaned back against Kir's shoulder. His shivered as his sweat cooled his skin in the night air and she pulled the comforter up around them both.

"Who did you see, Duncan," Kir asked the question one more time, her voice once again resonating against the deepest part of Mac's psyche.

"He kept saying I was not alone."

"Who?"

Mac's mental process slowed to a standstill as memory and dream and instinct all swirled together, and his mouth formed the name. "Methos."

Kir waited, letting realization move from subconscious to conscious in Mac's mind.

"The girl, all those people, all of them were...Methos."

"Do you know what it means, Duncan?"

Mac turned, pulling Kir into his arms, resting his chin on her hair. "It means he is an enigma. That I fear all that he is that I cannot understand. It means I love him in ways I have been afraid to admit to myself."

Kir looked up with a small smile. Mac looked distant, thoughtful, slightly stunned. She kissed him on the nose. "And they said you Scots were not very bright."

"I think they were right," Mac sighed.

They lay close in each other's arms and Kir finally drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep

Mac stood watching Methos do slow curls with five pound weights, the strain in the thin body clearly showing in the closed eyes and grim set of the mouth. But eventually Methos felt his eyes on him and turned to see the Highlander at his door, coat on, pack in hand, obviously ready to leave. Their eyes met, each carefully expressionless..

"Kir tells me you have interpreted my gesture of giving you the knife in a way I had not intended." Mac smiled sadly and put his pack on the floor, leaning against the doorframe.

Methos looked away and continued his exercise. The sight of the man stirred up emotions he didn't want to feel.

Mac sighed. "Methos, as you are painfully aware, I have more character flaws than I can count, but the worst of them is that, at heart," he paused and swallowed. "At heart I am a coward."

Methos paused in his effort for a brief second, but then continued. That was not what he was expecting to hear.

"I should have said this...before...when I realized...I did not keep you tied to me out of a need to control you. I swear on everything I hold holy and dear that I did not know what was happening to you...not to that extent. Perhaps, I should have. Or maybe I didn't want to...I don't know. But I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you, to cause you this pain. And I don't hate you...I never could."

"And this absence of hate is supposed to mean what to me, MacLeod? That there was no malice in what you did...what you've done. I know...that. But you are right, damn you. You should have known. You could have if you had ever...been willing to give more than you take," Methos' voice had dropped to a whisper. "I don't have anything left to give you, Highlander. Not hate, not love, not anything. And there is nothing from you that I want. Not anymore. Including your bloody knife."

Mac shifted uncomfortably, the sense of distance between them more than the actuality. He swallowed painfully, knowing he might have lost his last chance of making things right between them without noticing. "There's no way I can atone for your three years of hell and my culpability in keeping you there. But I can pledge to you that I will find a way to release you from what I know is a hellish continuing connection to me. Sean isn't ready yet, but soon, perhaps. Or else I will find another way."

"I never want to hurt you again, Methos," Duncan whispered. "All this has made it very clear to me that I never really conquered my darker side, my cowardice, even though I thought I at least had it under control. But if I had, I would have realized what I was putting you through and done something about it. That's what the knife meant. It was my self-delusion that caused your pain. You used that knife on me once. If I can't sever this connection by the next time we meet, you have my blessing to use again it on whatever part of my anatomy gives you satisfaction, including my neck."

Methos had closed his eyes as he listened, his body still and tense. "Just don't get yourself killed, MacLeod. No matter what I do or don't feel, others do care about you still. Including Sean." He waited a response, but found none. And when he opened his eyes, MacLeod was gone and he had no idea if his words had been heard or not.

Kir watched as Mac helped Revas pack the van with enough food and supplies so they could sleep on the road on the long trip to D.C. and back. Hidden under the floorboard in the back were also automatic weapons, explosives and communications equipment.

"Mac," Kir said quietly, stopping him with a hand on his elbow, "This is not your job. You can't just hightail it out whenever you feel like it, you have other responsibilities. You are needed here."

Mac's jaw was set. "Not this time, Kir," he said softly. "I know you're the Commander, but this overrides my commitment to the Nation and even to the Community. I need to get away from here and at least this way I'll be doing something useful."

"Something foolish is more like it," she said harshly. "Dammit, Mac, you and Methos thrash around and the rest of us all get whipsawed and battered about. Don't you think you owe something to Sean? What about to me?"

He looked into her tight, concerned face and automatically reached out to place his hand against her flawless cheek. "Oh, Kir," he sighed, then put his arms around her, pulling her close. "I've done nothing but bruise and whipsaw and batter you and Sean and everyone else since the moment we found Methos, maybe even long before then. It is beyond me why any of you put up with me at all. But right now my presence here is tearing all of you apart." He gently kissed her forehead, then turned and picked up the pack he had left on the ground and tossed it to Revas, who was silently watching the exchange.

"You're not coming back, are you?" she whispered.

He paused for a second, then moved to help the mortal tie down the loose boxes and packs in the back of the van. Kir watched for a minute, then turned and left, her arms crossed tightly, her face a cold mask of anger.

As the van pulled out of the compound after a final check of supplies and fuel a tall figure stepped in front of the moving vehicle, making Revas slam on the breaks and swerve to avoid hitting him. Mac sighed and opened the window.

"Get out of the way, Connor, or we'll just run you down," Mac said evenly.

"Okay," Connor said with a smile, opened the side door and threw a pack into the back. He hopped in, rearranging some of the boxes so he could lounge comfortably. "Well?" he asked in the silence, ignoring the two cold sets of eyes on him, "are we gonna' hang out here all day?"

Mac shook his head, then nodded at a frowning Revas. "We don't have enough supplies for three," Revas whispered.

"We'll make do. Trying to pry the asshole out of there at this point would take us well into next week. Let's go," Mac responded, not caring if Connor heard him.

"But . . ."

"Come on, Reve, hit it!" Connor shouted from the back. "Let's see if we can break the land speed record between here and what's left of our ancient capitol!"

Revas was still frowning as he gunned the motor and the van pulled away into the dusk.

Dawn had long ago made its way over the horizon, but it was a gray Spring morning and clouds muted the early soft greens of new growth. Duncan was driving, even though Revas had insisted on taking the wheel for most of the trip. Finally, the two Immortals had to almost strong-arm their mortal companion to get him to lie down in the back. By now, so close to their goal and well into the neutral zone, they were all wide awake. The countryside looked peaceful, placid. You would never know a war had been fought only a few miles away. But as they passed the old Manassas Civil War battlefield evidence of the conflict became hideously apparent. Whole housing developments lay in ruins. Empty, trashed and rusted out vehicles littered the road, which had been rough the whole trip, but now sometimes required that they drive all the way off the asphalt, steering around huge cracks and craters. They saw no other vehicles until they got close to the turnoff to the old Dulles military compound. Just as a precaution, they took off on a side road. The area was marginally under Eastern Dawn control but seemed to be perpetually in dispute and they weren't here to unwittingly participate in any guerrilla actions.

The past 700 miles had been a breeze compared to the next 20 into the heart of the capital. They planned to lay low until dusk, moving through the streets when there was still enough traffic around not to arouse suspicion. In the meantime, they had to find a safe haven. It would be necessary to check to make sure the shipment was ready, then move in and out fast, heading straight back to Atlanta.

Duncan drove through the back roads of what had been Northern Virginia, eventually finding old Gallows Road, which struck him as ominous all of a sudden, leaving a chill tracing across his back. He usually only had precognitive flashes when it involved the Community, though, and he shrugged the eerie feeling off as tension and an overactive imagination. He found an old housing development and wound his way through. The road was the same as the last time he had been here almost fifty years before, but the houses all looked different. Yards were overgrown, many of the formerly elaborate homes had roofs caved in, and the forest had crept up to the edge of the road, narrowing it in some places to one lane. But the accuracy of Immortal memory proved its value once again as he unerringly found the long driveway, turned and drove through the large stand of tall oaks to a large, old brick colonial house.

Unlike its neighbors, this residence had bright spring crocus showing blue and pink in the neatly kept yard, and an entire long row of daffodils had bloomed along the path leading to the front door. It seemed incongruous for the three darkly clad men to politely tap on the door, bringing the intrusion of war and violence into such a tranquil domestic scene.

The door opened and a short, stout grandmotherly looking woman peeked out suspiciously, then broke into a wide smile and threw the door wide.

"Connor" she cried. "They didn't say you were coming! What a wonderful surprise." She opened her arms and Connor walked into them, first holding her tight, then accepting and returning her kiss, which was not grandmotherly at all.

"You look fabulous, Belle," he said, stepping back and giving her a broad warm smile. "It does my heart good to see you." He tenderly brushed back a wisp of gray hair that fell softly across her cheek.

"Humph," she said with a crooked smile. "I look seventy-three years old is what I look like. And you . . . Well come on in, gentlemen. Don't just stand there looking threatening."

She herded them in, greeting Duncan and Revas like the old friends they were, if an entire generation apart, bustling about in the kitchen and preparing a huge breakfast. Revas was silent and, evidently, not hungry, but Mac was occupied with watching Connor and Isabelle Markham together, his expression one of affectionate bemusement. Finally Isabelle sat down across from the tall, gray-eyed Scot. "It's good to have you at my table again, Connor MacLeod," she smiled in sweet remembrance.

He polished off the plate with relish, but his eyes remained on the warm green eyes that watched him. "Where on earth did you get bacon?" he asked. He hadn't seen or tasted real bacon in years. She smiled a secret, knowing smile. "Okay, you don't have to tell me. You always did have a knack for finding things no one else could." He put his hand over hers. "How are you, really?" he asked.

"Oh, I get by," she replied softly. "Mark died almost fifteen years ago and I've been running supplies to the local fighters when I can. I take my truck full of homemade jellies and quilts to the local farmer's market once a week and spend the day trading supplies and information. They never think to suspect an old lady and her quilts as a dangerous subversive," she grinned.

Connor shook his head and squeezed her hand. "I swore you were going to get yourself killed because you were so addicted to risk and excitement. I guess I just didn't factor in how very, very clever you are."

She looked across the table, not caring that Duncan and Revas were watching curiously, and stretched out her hand to touch Connor's face. "I always knew what you were intellectually, but until now I never understood in my heart. You took my breath away fifty years ago, Connor MacLeod, and you take it away still."

He captured her hand, kissing the palm delicately. "You just expressed my thoughts exactly, Isabelle," he whispered. "You were beautiful then and you are beautiful now. Time can't change that."

She pulled her hand away, her smile twisted with irony. "But age can. I'm an old lady and nobody has called me beautiful for thirty years." But Connor recaptured her hand, covering it with his own.

"Look at me, Belle." But she was determinedly studying the tabletop, so he reached out and tilted her chin up until their eyes met. "I'm over six hundred years old. I know ugliness, believe me. And I know beauty in all its many forms. So take it from an expert, lady, you are one of the great beauties of our time."

A tear escaped and slowly moistened a trail down her creased face, then she took a deep breath, pulled her hand away and started picking up empty plates to return them to the kitchen. "Did you boys get enough to eat?" she asked, her voice a little rough.

"Yes, ma'am," Duncan and Revas said in chorus, but Connor held up his plate with a winsome, pleading smile.

Revas drove through the dusk amid the congested streets of the District of Columbia. Despite the war, government continued to at least attempt to function, answering to needs of the limited principalities that still constituted the loose coalition of the three southern areas that used to be Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, the Coastal Region that used to be Florida, North and South Carolina and Georgia, plus a portion of Virginia. Texas remained independent, the west basically still in dispute, and the northern states were generally under the total domination of the Eastern Dawn. They weren't at war, exactly, officially. More like an uneasy, frequently broken truce. Eastern Dawn troops were often seen on the streets of the District, putting up posters, harassing citizens. The local police were really no better, more into personal survival than committed to any particular cause. Traveling at night was considered an act of poor judgment, if not suicide, so the streets quickly cleared after dusk.

They had hung out during the day at Isabelle's, Revas restless and nervous, Duncan trying to get some sleep and Connor spending time with Belle, talking, reminiscing. When it came time to confirm the arrival of the munitions, Revas pulled out the communications gear from the van and locked himself in a bedroom, emerging a half-hour later with an announcement that the boat would be at the wharf at dusk, as expected.

The drive through the streets of the city was eerie. The buildings and monuments intended to last as long as man's memory were nearly unrecognizable. The grounds of what had been known as the Mall were now forests. The ancient Washington Monument had broken in half under the assault of 2083, its phallic symbolism of America's superiority complex now lying in broken pieces, and the statues of the great Presidents Lincoln and Jefferson were now housed in the splendor of the open sky, gradually overgrown with the kudzu vine that had slowly overtaken the carefully tended lawns.

The regional government had no resources to attempt to maintain anything other than basic necessities of communication and commerce, constantly balancing the demands of the Cherokee Nation against the pressure of the Eastern Dawn. The city was populated with desperate people, thin, frightened and suspicious. It was a dangerous place for Immortals should they be recognized. They would inevitably become someone's bargaining chip, someone's tool. The trio made its slow way through the streets where no traffic lights controlled, only who was strongest, fastest, meanest. If you didn't have power enough for an armed escort, the big, old, heavy vehicles were best. They could sustain damage and keep moving. The battered van wove in and out, Revas working his way carefully toward the docks on Maine Street. He parked and turned to his two Immortal companions, his face tight with strain and what looked very much like fear.

For a minute, Duncan thought Revas had lost his nerve, but the man took a deep breath and his face cleared.

"Are you okay, Reve?" Duncan asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he answered with a tight smile. A small automatic weapon appeared in his hand and he fired two shots at point blank range into Duncan MacLeod's chest, throwing him against the passenger door. A look of total surprise crossed the Immortal's face, but Revas didn't have time to watch as Connor MacLeod was coming at him with a speed that defied belief. But Revas had planned for that as well, turning the weapon only a few inches and firing again. The shots threw the older MacLeod back, but he kept coming, so he fired again, and again. At last Connor MacLeod lay still and dead in the back of the van.

For a moment all Revas was aware of was his own pounding heart and the smell of burning flesh and gunpowder. The gun sagged in his numb fingers and he hugged himself, rocking back and forth, tears escaping his eyes as he moaned to himself. But he knew he had little time, and after a moment he forced himself to move, gathering the rope he had stowed underneath his seat and climbing into the back. He rolled Connor onto his stomach and yanked the arms behind him, tying them together, then looping the rope around his ankles and legs, expertly knotting the rope so that the more his captive struggled, the tighter the bonds would become. He had barely finished when he heard a gasp from the front seat, but he was ready, rising up once again, firing off another couple of rounds into Duncan's already blood-soaked chest. He opened the back of the van, pulling Connor's body out and stashing it in an alley, finally plastering tape over the man's mouth. If all went as planned, he wouldn't be gone long.

Quickly tying Duncan MacLeod's arms behind him, Revas kept his weapon in one hand as he gunned the van's motor, speeding away from the docks, moving north and east into the oldest, most destroyed portion of the city, finally pulling underneath the naked girders of a structure equivalent to the ancient Roman Coliseum, the old JFK stadium. He didn't know why it was called that, or who or what JFK was, only that this was where he was supposed to meet them. He turned off the motor, and waited in the dark silence, starting when Mac gasped once more, groaning as his Immortal healing capacity dealt with the mutilated flesh of his chest. After a minute, Mac had the breath and strength to absorb his surroundings, to test his bonds, to understand who the traitor was.

"Why?" Duncan asked breathlessly.

But there was no time. Mac's head snapped up as he felt another Immortal nearby, then the passenger door opened and he fell out, rolling into gravel and dirt, hitting the ground hard enough to knock his breath away. Even so he rolled smoothly to his feet, striking out, taking down one attacker, head butting another, kicking out at a third until someone struck him from behind hard enough to send him to his knees, blurring his vision and making his ears ring. He felt blood trickle down his neck as someone grabbed his chin and tilted his face upward.

"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," the deep voice intoned. "Well, well, well, isn't this my lucky day."

Mac blinked furiously working to clear his vision and the face in front of him gradually coalesced into that of Bar Abbas, late of Rome, Italy, chief henchman for the Eastern Dawn.

"You've done well, Revas," Abbas said with a smile. "Very well, indeed."

"Okay, Abbas," Revas said, panting with fear and emotion, "I've done my part. Where are they?"

"Why they are safe and well cared for, of course," Abbas said smoothly, still seemingly fascinated at the idea of having Duncan MacLeod as captive, watching him, studying him.

"What do you mean?" the pilot whispered.

"I mean you have succeeded, Revas. You saved their lives! You should feel enormously gratified. Do you know how many orphan children are simply sent to the work camps?"

"You said I could have them!" Revas' words were almost incomprehensible.

"And you shall, my good man, you shall. Someday." Abbas looked at him disdainfully. "You didn't really think we would just hand them over do you? This was just a first test! The one in Rome obviously didn't count since we not only didn't get either Methos or MacLeod, we lost fifteen men!" Abbas shook his head sadly. "As long as you cooperate, your precious Marie and Celeste will be cared for like my own children. You do have a good story about MacLeod's capture, of course? We need you on the inside, Revas. You are of no use to me otherwise." Abbas finally walked away from his captive, closing in on his other victim. "And if you are of no use to me, Revas, your children will certainly have no value at all. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

The muscles of Revas face trembled, his mouth working to deny, to accuse, to curse, but his heart knowing it was useless. Finally, his head jerked up and down and he backed off, climbed into the van and drove away.

Abbas turned back to his captive, his face wreathed in an almost beatific smile.

Pain wakened him, so intense for a moment he thought he would vomit, then it was gone and Methos reached for the memory of the dream that had accompanied the sudden intense discomfort. It was so vague, indistinct but he fought for it, raising his knees and clasping them to his chest as he tried to recall. He had so many nightmares, they had all started to run together but this one had been different, cleaner, sharp. He had a vague impression of MacLeod, of darkness and surprise and he shuddered, the imagery crumbling around him as the walls of the Vatican had done. Once more he panicked, stifling a moan in his throat. With a sudden burst of fear-driven energy he rose, lunging toward the french doors and shoving them open to stumble onto the balcony. He cast his eyes upward to get one full look at the night sky spread above him and felt the panic recede then closed his eyes as he gulped in great amounts of air to ease the racing of his heart.

It took time but Methos felt hung between moments of eternity as his fear receded and the normal perception of place and circumstance reasserted themselves. He leaned heavily on the railing, idly debating whether he could manage to sneak into Sean's room and liberate yet another dose of the narcotic he had developed such a fondness for. The idea passed quickly. If he were caught, Sean would, no doubt, take up another vigil at his bedside and Methos was having a harder time accepting his brother's concern than he did with the idea of becoming a drug addict.

The night air was unseasonably cold and with a glance upward to mark the position of the moon he realized he had been working through this attack for quite some time. Unable to pinpoint the exact cause of his distress and feeling calmer he reentered his bedroom and closed the doors, shivering slightly as he once more sought his bed.

He made it not two steps when it came again only this was no nightmare but an echo, a living link that shuddered and convulsed as pain once more burned within him. He had better control though, awake and aware however caught off guard. With a will he had thought lost he snatched at that, nearly falling forward as his mind filled with the impression of a familiar face etched with sorrow, fear and regret. The image was accompanied by a wash of pain and anger and despair that he knew as well as his own.

You said...I made you promise not to get yourself killed MacLeod, he thought fiercely as he tried to hold onto that link only to have it slip away as his former friend deliberately severed the connection, leaving only the memory of painful death and equally painful rebirth.

Revas drove through the deserted streets blindly, tears coursing down his cheeks. He stopped the van when his blind meanderings found him back near the docks, sitting, thinking. A calm gradually settled over him and he methodically restarted the vehicle and drove back to the alley. It looked quiet and deserted, but he had put Connor's body behind some trash bins out of sight. He drew his weapon and opened the van door, knowing he would have to approach the Immortal with caution.

Something jerked him by the back of his shirt and out of the truck and his weapon was yanked away, then he was pressed up against the cold metal of the van, the muzzle of the gun now digging into the flesh beneath his chin. Connor MacLeod's fierce gray eyes bore into his.

"Where is he!" he hissed.

"He's gone," Revas managed to whisper. That only gained him another body slam against the side of the van and the muzzle digging more painfully into his throat.

"What did you do to him, you fucking bastard!" Connor voice was as close to hysterical as Revas had ever heard.

The pressure against his throat was so great he could hardly speak, metal cutting into skin until blood began to ooze down the sides of the weapon. "Bar Abbas," he managed to squawk. Then Connor pulled back, the hand with the gun flashed, and darkness closed in right after the explosion of pain in Revas' head.

Revas woke to nausea and a pain that was astonishing in that the force of it didn't immediately kill him. When he tried to move the world tilted dangerously and triggered the loss of whatever small amount of food had been in his stomach. He was lying on his side in the alley, trussed up thoroughly. He could hear steps and movement nearby but between the pain and the ringing in his ears he had no idea what was going on. Finally, he felt hands on his arms lift him up, but that prompted a groan as the nausea and dizziness washed over him in a whole new intense wave, generating a dry heave onto the old cobblestones and gravel.

Then he was slammed up against the wall, and Connor's hard, angry face wavered above him. "I recontacted Constantine's people and we've moved the rendezvous point, so at least that part of your little plan won't succeed. Now tell me where they took Duncan."

"I don't know," Revas gasped. Connor backhanded the mortal before he once again pushed him against the wall.

"I don't have a lot of patience right now, Revas, and you can guarantee that I will eventually wring every last tidbit of information out of you. Now we can do this the hard, painful way and then I'll kill you, or we can do this quickly, and then I'll kill you. The only difference is how agonizingly you want to die."

"Connor, please!" Revas pleaded, feeling his lip start to swell and tasting blood in his mouth. "I truly don't know where they took him. And I hadn't told them about the guns. I only gave them Duncan, that was all I promised, all they wanted! That's why I killed you first! So they wouldn't find you." Breath exploded out of him as Connor's fist drove into his stomach. Then he was dragged up against the wall again, Connor's face inches from his own.

"You only gave them Duncan?" The fist lashed out again, pain adding to pain as Revas felt the skin of his cheek split and warm blood trickle down his face. "You only gave them Duncan? Well, I guess that's okay then. I guess all is forgiven!"

Talking became more difficult as Connor MacLeod vented his rage on the mortal, leaving him in a semi-conscious huddle on the ground. Disgusted with himself and with the garbage at his feet, Connor finally heaved the inert form into the back of the van, and sped back through the dark, deserted streets, across the old Memorial Bridge and into Virginia.

Connor burst into Isabelle's living room, Revas slung over his shoulder, and stopped. Isabelle was standing a few feet away, an A-30 pointed steadily at the middle of his chest. When she saw who it was, her eyes narrowed and she stepped back, motioning for him to take Revas into the den.

When Connor dumped Revas onto the floor with a thump, Isabelle gave him a wondering, curious look, and bent to check the unconscious man's pulse. She lay aside her weapon and headed to the kitchen for towels. It was hard to tell how badly the man was hurt with all the blood.

"Where's Duncan?" she asked softly. Her heart pounded alarmingly when Connor didn't answer. She turned to face him. "Where's your kinsman?" she asked again, her heart aching at the angry grief in Connor's face.

"We were betrayed, Isabelle," Connor said.

She turned away, not wanting anyone to see the panic and fear that surged inside at the thought that the focus of the power of the Immortal Community had been taken. She wet a towel and bent over Revas, wiping away the blood on his face. "He's pretty badly beaten. I know a doctor . . ."

"Don't bother," Connor said, his voice low and hard.

"Don't bother? He's no Immortal, Connor. He was hurt trying to save your friend!"

"No he wasn't. I did it."

Suddenly Isabelle had to sit. "Not Revas, Connor. It couldn't have been. He's been with the Nation for fifteen years."

Connor squatted down beside the man, who was showing signs of regaining consciousness. "I know. And he came back for me. I don't know why he did it or what's going on here, Belle, but we've got to get the munitions and get the hell out of here. The E.D. knows something's going on, that's for sure. I got a little . . . carried away and Revas passed out before he could tell me."

"He came back for you?"

"Yeah. He shot both of us, tied me up and disappeared with Duncan. Then came back. Swore that giving them Mac was the only betrayal. Constantine is having the munitions brought here for transfer. They should be here any minute."

"Wait a minute! Here? And Revas went off to meet them in that van?" Isabelle questioned him harshly. "Dammit Connor MacLeod, I know you're not stupid so you must be so mad you're not thinking straight!"

The over 600 year-old-man looked into the wrinkled face of the 73 year-old-woman, incredulous that she would speak to him so.

"Don't you realize they must've put a tracker on the van?" The Scotsman's face went white as he recognized the ramifications of his blind rage. Just then lights shown in the driveway. Isabelle grabbed the A-30 and crouched by the window. She peeked out, then rose and threw open the door. "It's the munitions. You better move damn fast, Connor. The E.D. is bound to be here any minute."

They transferred the munitions while Isabelle used a flashlight, straining to get her round body down on the ground and look under the van for the tracker. With a small grunt of satisfaction, she found it and pulled it off. Getting to her feet took another minute, but then she ground the device under her heel.

The transfer truck pulled away with a squeal of tires just as the rhythm of a 'copter could be heard over the trees. Isabelle, moving surprisingly quickly for a stout old woman, hustled back into the house, grabbed her A-30 and a big handbag, and gestured to Connor to come inside.

"Let's go!" Connor shouted to her from the van, the noise getting closer.

"No, we have to take Revas," she shouted.

"Dammit, he's a fucking traitor. Who cares if the E.D. gets him?"

"Now, Connor!"

Muttering Gaelic curses to himself about the stubbornness of women, Connor ran inside, heaved Revas up over his shoulder and ran for the van. But the 'copter was there, lowering slowly. Gunfire whined, pinged and popped around him as he dove for the van, wincing as a shot took a chunk out of his shoulder. The 'copter lifted again under a barrage of deadly accurate fire from the doorway, and Isabelle's shorter legs sturdily carried her forward as she fired her weapon amid a hail of bullets pinging against the reinforced sides of the van. She dove into the passenger side where Connor had already opened the door, continuing her fire as Connor, who had thrown Revas unceremoniously onto the crates piled in the back, threw the van into reverse just as the hovercopter touched ground.

Isabelle was breathing heavily as she dropped the A-30 and rummaged in her handbag, ducking to avoid fire that had already splintered the heavy plastic windows.

"What?" Connor shouted over the noise, already irritated at having to risk both their lives to save the man who had betrayed his kinsman. "Forget your lipstick?"

"Not exactly," she said with a grim smile, pulling out a small black 'puter. As the 'copter rose again to come after them, she pressed a sequence of keys, looking behind them, and Connor felt the air pressure even before he heard the enormous 'whomp' of sound and saw the fireball that had been the house and the hovercraft expand and explode in his rearview mirror. "Always have an exit strategy," she said with a sigh, settling back into the seat. Connor, his eyes riveted on the rutted road and driving as fast as the old van would carry them, reached out and squeezed her hand.

They drove in near silence for a few minutes, Isabelle guiding him along dark, unmarked roads that moved them gradually west and south, through the neutral zone.

"Why did you make me go back for Revas, Belle? We could have gotten away clean!"

"Because he's one of us, Connor," she said breathlessly. "Because he came back for you and you need to know why. Because if he had died you would always have wondered if you knew the whole truth."

She had been silent for a long time when Connor looked over at her. Her face was relaxed, serene and he thought for a minute that she had fallen asleep. Then he saw the dark stain on her side and his foot left the gas pedal. With a cold, sick feeling of dread he pulled over, got out and went around, opening the passenger door, catching her as she fell limply into his arms. The slight movement made her groan and he carried her into a field of tall grass by the side of the road, laying her down ever so gently. He quickly retrieved his coat from the back, checked Revas' bonds, and returned, laying the coat over her.

"It's cold," she murmured.

Connor sat beside her and pulled the woman into his lap, lending what warmth he could. He stroked the fine gray hair away from her face, swallowing his tears, internally cursing Revas, cursing the Eastern Dawn, cursing the war, cursing his own helplessness and stupidity.

"Connor?" she whispered.

"Yes, my beautiful, Belle."

"Oh, I'm so glad. I never thought I'd see you again. But . . . I never stopped loving you." Her voice was fading. "I'm just so . . . cold. Hold me," she whispered.

Connor MacLeod held her until her breath stopped, until her body began to grow cool, until his tears stopped and had dried, leaving a salty residue on his cheeks as he grieved, for himself, for Duncan, for all the people he had loved and lost.

Mac slowly became aware of sounds first, of motors, of street noise. Then of physical sensation, movement in a vehicle, sitting on a hard cold surface. He kept his eyes closed, tensing, testing. He was bound so tightly at the wrists and ankles that the metal cut into his flesh, and there was something wrapped around his throat. Not metal, more like plastic. His chest ached where flesh had shredded from the two barrages of bullets Revas had poured into him. His head hurt and his ears were ringing from the guard's last blow that had rendered him unconscious, but all those were fading irritations. He could feel Bar Abbas close by and could sense others, two guards and a driver. He'd have to wait then, for another opportunity. And he had to stay alive. Because he had felt Methos. Had sensed a quick flash of awareness each time his heart started after the two times Revas shot him. That was unacceptable. He would do whatever it took to keep Methos from suffering that agonizing feedback again. He had promised.

He opened his eyes to find Abbas sitting directly across from him, legs crossed, lounging back against the side of the van. The interior was obviously for carrying prisoners, with two metal benches fixed to each side, a small reinforced window in the back door and another between the space and the driver's compartment. One guard was evidently sitting up front with the driver, the other sitting next to Abbas, watching Mac warily.

"I thought so. You'd been out too long, even if Fred here did get a little over enthusiastic and practically cave in your thick skull," Abbas said with a smile as he witnessed the Scot open his eyes. "You can't escape, MacLeod. I welcome you to try but it would be futile and painful. Your shackles are too tight for you to force your hands out and there's always your new neck accessory."

Mac swallowed, feeling the gentle touch of . . . something circling his throat.

"We do try to stay up to date with the latest technology," he said blandly. "If you struggle or make any move I don't approve of," he slipped his hand into the pocket of his safari-style jacket, pulling out a small, black control mechanism and pressing a button.

Mac's chin jerked up as the circle around his neck tightened, cutting off air, tightening more, cutting off circulation. Mac felt panic rising, automatically straining for breath, choking, struggling but too tightly bound to reach the cause of his agony. Abbas just watched impassively until Mac's vision started to fade and his ears filled with a whining, roaring sound. Then it stopped. Mac collapsed forward to the floor of the van, pulling in great heaving gasps of air, coughing, afraid he was going to throw up. Hands grabbed his arms and hauled him back up onto the bench where he lay back, swallowing and pulling in suddenly delicious, cool oxygen.

"A nasty little device, no?" Abbas asked pleasantly. "And I don't even have to be careful with you so the I've removed the safety cutoff. It will just keep going, getting tighter and tighter, perhaps even severing your head, although I've never tried that. It would be an interesting experiment, don't you think?"

Mac felt a desperate need to wipe away the sweat trickling down his temples, off his forehead and stinging his eyes but the shackles kept his hands bound at his waist. Oh well, it was probably the least of the discomforts the next phase of his life would bring, he thought. But he had to keep them from killing him. Taking his head would at least have the advantage of being permanent and would only cause one last bad moment for Methos. But just killing him - that could be endlessly agonizing for them both.

"Go ahead, Abbas," Mac urged with an ugly smile. "Give it a shot. See how long it takes."

Abbas cocked his head at his captive. "You think to get out of this that easily, Highlander?" He hit the button again, and again Mac convulsed in agony until he was just on the edge of passing out, then it was released.

"Finish it, damn you!" Mac choked.

Abbas sat back calmly. "Why are you so eager for death, MacLeod? You know I'm not going to take your head, at least for awhile."

Mac didn't answer, still breathing hard after the latest assault.

"Get some sleep, my friend," Abbas said after a moment of observation. "We have a long ride ahead and the roads between here and there are not one of the Eastern Dawn's more significant accomplishments."

Sean was about as close to angry as he ever got with his brother. He had found him, as expected, in the workout room, again...against doctor's orders, against Sean's warnings and his own best judgment. There was something obsessive about the way his brother had been working to get his strength back. That Methos and his father had talked, however, briefly, Sean knew. But Methos would not divulge anything about the short conversation he had shared before Duncan left to head to DC with Revas, and apparently Connor, who was missing. That confirmation had come the following night from some independent radio operator named Isabelle.

Connor was, no doubt, having a marvelous time on yet another adventure. What his father's state of mind might be, Sean could only guess at and pray Duncan would keep his head straight and not let the guilt that had been riding him for the last couple of weeks impair his judgment. There was nothing Sean could do for his father 's pain at the moment, but his brother....

Not for the first time did Sean realize how often he, the child, had managed to become the adult to his parents. Harm and damage of such an arrangement were long gone and in truth, Sean recalled that his intervention in such a fashion had not occurred during his childhood. But, much, much later, when his father seemed unwilling to let go of Sean's childhood long after Sean had and Adam had seemingly slipped into the role of younger, not older brother...at times. He had let go of the child much sooner than Duncan, accepting Sean as an equal, a companion...a friend. There were times, Sean knew, that Methos still saw the boy he had helped raise...but the two, child and man, could exist side by side in Methos' eyes.

Maybe because there was nothing of Methos' own childhood he could remember, it was easier for him to let go of Sean's.

Right now he was behaving like a child, a stubborn, recalcitrant, wounded child. He exhausted himself daily although his push to regain his muscle and control was working. Already Sean could see those muscles returning under the translucent skin, the veins in sharp relief against the pale flesh, blue and swollen from the exertions and demands for oxygen and blood Methos was placing upon them. The hollows of his cheeks had filled out and he looked not quite so skeletal but still so very thin. A wraith compared to the slender, graceful man of Sean's memory.

This was his second session of the day...the first having begun at dawn. He had retreated then to his room to work on the translation of the book Sean had rescued from his tomb, struggling over the text with an effort Sean had never observed in Methos before. Methos, whose commands of language, living or dead, exceeded anyone else's on the planet. Yet now he fought for the words as he fought for his strength...

Immortals can't have strokes...but Methos acted like he had at times...as if something vital had been ripped from him during his imprisonment.

"Adam?" Sean spoke evenly, tone neutral as he watched the older immortal strain for the last set of God only knew how many repetitions with the weights. Sweat stained the pale skin, drenched the thin T-shirt as well as the loose sweat pants. The muscles were trembling from fatigue and Methos' breathing was harsh from strain. When his brother made no response, Sean came into the room and lay his hands over the bar to keep his brother from lifting it again. "Enough," he said sharply.

Methos paused, breathing deeply. "Your opinion wasn't requested, Dr. MacLeod."

"And it wasn't offered, brother. That wasn't a recommendation, that was an order."

Sean knelt as Methos sat up, wiping away the sweat dripping down his face with the already damp sleeve of his shirt. "Duncan isn't even here, Adam. Is there such a rush to force him to fight you when you don't even know when you'll see him again?"

Methos didn't speak for a long time. Instead he let his long, thin, graceful hands dangle between his knees, studying the floor. When he finally spoke, he reached out to touch Sean's shoulder. Sean was momentarily puzzled at the gesture since it felt more like the man was offering comfort than seeking it. "I may need my strength soon, brother." The fingers closed their grip. "Duncan died last night. Twice."

Sean forced himself to breathe slowly, regularly, to think calmly. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't I feel it?" he demanded quietly.

"The first time I thought it was another dream," Methos answered. "The second time was only a few minutes later. Each time the impression was very brief, as though Mac were aware that I might sense him, and didn't want me to." Methos shrugged. "It might be nothing, Sean. A small skirmish. No one's taken his head. All of us would certainly have felt that. And there's nothing we can do right now except wait to hear."

Sean rose and crossed to the window. Shit. This was his worst fear. But no reason to panic. Not yet. Connor was with him. And Revas. And he was Duncan MacLeod, after all. Sean closed his eyes, reaching out across that tenuous connection formed through the Community, but he hadn't his father's experience and power yet. He wasn't the Community's conduit. Of course, if he had taken his father up on his request to take on a part of that burden, he might have been able . . . But that bit of self-recrimination sounded too much like his dad. Once again he forced himself into calm. If Methos could be calm, when sanity was barely within his grasp, Sean could certainly manage it. All the same, his palms and the middle of his back were suddenly slick with sweat. He could hear Methos behind him, once again beginning his exercise repetitions.

Mac did actually sleep fitfully for awhile in the jolting vehicle, his body's exhaustion taking over from his mental turmoil. He could tell that it was close to dawn when they finally hauled him out of the van. He stumbled, walking awkwardly with the shackles limiting his steps so severely they had to lift him out of the back of the van to familiar surroundings; downtown Philadelphia off the main quadrangle. The historic old brick buildings had long ago been replaced by massive gray structures that had transformed the historic area into a government center with all the ambiance of a prison. There was not a soul to be seen in the pre-dawn darkness. Even so, he was quickly shuttled into a side entrance and down a freight elevator, stepping off into a large fully equipped laboratory. The sight of all that glass and metal combined with the sickening wave of presence of another Immortal sent a cold chill of fearsome anticipation down Mac's spine.

He was escorted into an office off the main lab where a small man in a white laboratory coat turned from his datavoice terminal. "Ah, MacLeod," he said, all smiles. "It's been so very long, my friend." Kiem Sun came to him and put his arms around him, hugging him hard. He stepped back, holding Mac by the shoulders. "You look good! A little the worse for wear and you really should do something about your wardrobe," he laughed gaily, plucking at the bloody tatters of his shirt.

"I heard you were the Eastern Dawn's Doctor Frankenstein, Kiem Sun," Mac said coldly. "Why are you here, Sun? You know they hate us. They will tolerate you as long as you're useful, then you will become fodder for whatever suicidal purposes they devise."

"You're wrong, Mac," Kiem Sun said, shaking his head sadly. "They know I am trying to find the key to what makes us Immortal. And I'm using what we can do to develop new drugs that we would never dare experiment with on humans . . ."

"We are human," Mac said quietly. "That's what they seem to forget. Maybe you've forgotten as well."

"Oh, Mac," he replied shaking his head. "You never could see the possibilities, always blinded by the limitations of your imagination. Think of all the diseases I could cure, all the possible advances we could make! The Eastern Dawn just wants an orderly society where people are not afraid to go out on the streets after dark, where there is no crime, where all people are treated equally according to the benefits they bring to society."

"I'm not going to get into this with you, Kiem Sun. This argument is as old as man and it's been played out time and time again. Man does best, Immortals do best, when they are free to make their own choices. But we had these discussions 200 years ago, and ended up in the same place."

"No, Duncan," Sun replied as his eyes turned hard and cold. "I did not end up in the same place. You destroyed over a century's worth of work and research because you judged my results and my philosophy unworthy. Well, I've done a great deal of research since then, and I'd love to get your impressions." He waved a hand peremptorily at Abbas. "Take him to his cell, then bring him into the observation room after lunch," he instructed. "That will give me time to prepare a proper welcome for our illustrious guest."

His "cell" turned out to be a room the size of a large closet, an odiferous toilet in one corner and a drain in the floor. Iron rings were mounted in the wall to hold his shackles. After they left him alone, Mac worked at the shackles for awhile, but they were so tight around his wrists that, without literally crushing his hands into pulp, he would never get them through. All his efforts got him were blood-soaked sleeves which caused Abbas some amusement several hours later when they hauled him to his feet once again to take him back through the all-too-sterile laboratory into a room with a large window on one side, microphones and cameras mounted on the ceilings and walls, and one long metal gurney.

One guard stood on one side of the room holding the control mechanism to the restraining collar while the other took off his shackles. Mac stood very still as the bonds were removed, steeling himself. This was going to be ugly, and a risk, but it was one he had to take.

As the guard motioned for him to take off his shirt, Mac reached up to pull at it, then lashed out, taking out the guard with one backhanded blow, instantly feeling the collar tighten. He dove for the other guard, grabbing for the control just as his knees hit the floor, fingers instinctively grabbing for his throat. The next couple of minutes were a red haze of agony, finally fading to black.

His first huge gasp of air with the return of his wildly thumping heart into action was accompanied by the expected flash of Methos' awareness, but Mac was ready this time, clamping down, cutting it off, pushing it away. The only sense he got from the Oldest Immortal was a rush of anger and frustration. But if Mac played it right, it would be the last time it would happen. At least until he could find a way to sever the connection permanently.

Abbas was leaning up against the wall, his arms crossed, while Kiem Sun was hovering over him, checking his pulse. "You seem inordinately eager to die, MacLeod," Abbas observed. "Especially when you know escape is impossible and permanent death, at least for the moment, unlikely. If you're not careful, you will get your wish, and then some."

Mac was silent, his eyes dark and glittering. But he swallowed the dryness of his mouth when he realized they had stripped him of his shirt and had him tied down to a cold, steel examination table. Sun had a small hypogun in his hand. "I told you I had continued my research, Duncan. Something still in the experimental stage, at least for mortals, is a unique compound that has the same result as sodium pentathol, but is much more effective, breaking down resistance more quickly, leaving the subject also open to suggestion and complete behavior control." Sun beamed with pride at his achievements. "Unfortunately, it is ultimately and rather painfully fatal in the dosages required to sustain the effect for any significant period. Of course that's not a problem for our kind, but the effect wears off when the subject dies so I've really been quite frustrated because I think behavior modification of Immortals is the key to the Eastern Dawn's victory. So . . . you seem like the ideal subject, Duncan, don't you agree?" He pushed the hypogun against Mac's shoulder and pressed.

Mac flinched as he felt a warm sting spread out from his shoulder then felt his body bathe itself in sweat as the warmth spread and his limbs grew heavy, his mind sluggish. Kiem Sun checked his pulse at his neck and smiled. "Feeling okay, Duncan?" he asked solicitously.

"Fine, Sun," Mac said, making himself smile casually, "Did you give me something?"

Sun frowned slightly. The flush in his subject's skin, the sweat breaking out on his body, the dilation of his eyes, were all indicators that the drug was taking hold. Why would MacLeod bother to deny that?

"Tell me, Duncan, how is Methos these days?" Sun asked.

Mac took a deep breath as an answer came all too readily to his lips. He clamped down on that urge. "Methos?" he whispered. "Haven't seen him in . . . a . . . while." The need to say more was urgent, demanding. His head started to pound.

"Now, Duncan, you're not telling me the truth. Where is Methos?"

"Meth . . . who?" Mac desperately sought a defense against this painful desire to answer the question, gradually pulling deeper into himself. The effort generated more pain in his head and sharp jolts of electric agony were starting to run along his hands and feet. His instinct was to jerk and clench, but Mac fell back on deep meditations and the physical control he had fought for over several centuries, relaxing against the tension and pain.

"Did I forget to tell you, Mac? Resistance can prove to be very uncomfortable," Kiem Sun said, studying him carefully.

"Sorry, Sun," Mac managed a distant smile, "I don't think your little potion works."

Sun stepped away, whispering to Abbas. Mac's every sense seemed heightened, making the cold steel at his back feel freezing and hard, the smallest noise painfully loud, and he could hear the conversation as though they were whispering in his ear.

"I gave him the maximum dose. He should be babbling by now, eager to tell me every secret in his life," Sun said.

"Maybe this stuff doesn't work like you thought."

"Of course it works! I've tested it on dozens of Immortals. No one with his power, of course, but it shouldn't make that much difference. But maybe I need a higher dose." Sun started to step away, but Abbas' meaty hand stopped him.

"Wait a minute, Sun. He's been doing everything he can to get us to kill him since the moment he was captured. Think about it. If a higher dose kills him more quickly, you may be giving him what he wants."

"But why?"

"The Community, you idiot. That's what he's trying to protect."

"But what . . . Somehow his death may weaken the links? You think?"

"That's easily enough prevented, I assume. There's plenty we can do without killing him."

"Something's definitely gone wrong," Modo reported to the group assembled in what they sometimes euphemistically called the "war room" - actually just a large conference room with a series of maps and datavoice terminals along the walls. "Just got a message from the guerrilla cell in Richmond. Isabelle's house is gone."

"What do you mean it's gone?" Hawk of Moons asked. "She's one of the best we have. As far as I know completely unsuspected as one of ours."

"Well, the message said the place was leveled, like a bomb went off. No signs of life and no bodies." The small man answered, consulting his notes.

Methos stood at a window, arms crossed looking out. It was hard to tell whether he was even listening.

"It's been almost eighteen hours since they were supposed to rendezvous with Constantine's people," Kir murmured, crossing over to the map of the eastern seaboard. Given the condition of the roads and assuming they encountered some trouble and them headed back in this direction, if we don't hear from them in the next couple of hours, we'll have to assume they were captured." She turned back to the room, her face grim. "That would fit with Methos' report of Duncan's getting killed a couple of times."

Her words were interrupted with the electronic bleeping of the main datavoice console.

"Hawk" The Nation's leader answered.

"They're here!" came a somewhat garbled shout of Eddie Two-Horses. There was yelling and slamming going on in the background.

"Who's here, Eddie?" Hawk asked, trying to project calm amidst what was apparently chaos.

"Jesus!" came the voice, obviously responding to something other than Hawk, then there was sudden silence.

"Eddie!" Hawk leaned into the terminal as though by getting closer to it he could better understand what was going on and where.

"It's Connor. He's on his way up to you," Eddie was slightly breathless.

"Did they get the weapons?" Hawk asked as smiles broke out in the room.

"Yeah, yeah. It looks like they're all here," Eddie replied, but his voice sounded strained.

"What's wrong, Eddie?" Hawk asked patiently, but just then the door slammed open with a crash and a body came flying in, landing on the conference table, knocking the data terminal and a host of papers onto the floor and sliding off limply onto the other side in a shuddering heap.

Kir and Sean moved to his side in an instant, turning him over and barely recognizing Revas, their pilot, the hero of a hundred actions. His face was a bloody, swollen mass, both eyes barely visible. He was doubled up, every breath a wheezing, wet effort.

"What the . . .?" Sean quickly felt for broken ribs, encountering several along one side.

"What happened, Revas?" Kir asked, leaning her head close to hear any reply.

"I happened," a familiar voice came from the door.

They all turned to see Connor MacLeod, shirt full of bullet holes and soaked in blood, his gray eyes cold and hard and old. The man could practically kill with that look alone.

"We need to get Revas to the infirmary, now," Sean whispered. But his blood slowed in his veins at his clansman's terrible face.

"No!" Connor said, his voice deadly soft. "Let the son-of-a-bitch lie there and choke on his own blood."

"Stop it, Connor!" Hawk of Moons said firmly, moving to stand face-to-face with a man who had fought and beaten some of the most evil men in the history of the world. "This is Revas! He's put his life on the line for all of us over and over again."

"Hawk of Moons is right, Connor," Kir said, rising from the floor. "There's nothing he could have done to deserve this!"

"He killed me. Killed Duncan. And handed him over to Bar Abbas," Connor whispered to a room gone deathly silent but for Revas' strained breathing. With a long, blood-stained finger, the Scotsman pointed to the pilot. "There's your traitor, Silent Storm."

"Don't make me do this," Kir hissed, standing in the corner of the small office, arms crossed and her body rigid with tension.

Her brother set his jaw. "You have no choice. You are his commanding officer. This is as much a military issue as it is a personal one. There is no one else who can interrogate him and know if he is speaking the truth. You have that gift. I do not."

"I won't be able to get anything out of him before I rip his heart out with my bare hands," Kir snarled and Hawk of Moons felt his hopes fade. He had never seen his sister so out of control was the only description he could think of. Gone was the calm and serene influence of his childhood, the elegance and restraint and gentleness. Kir's face was tight, her dark eyes narrowed and glittering with an anger and a hatred he had never seen mar her face before. She stared balefully at the prisoner in the room next to theirs - his observations of them blocked by the cracked but still serviceable two-way mirror.

Revas looked worse now than he had when Connor MacLeod had thrown him across the war room conference table. Six hours with the medical staff had seen to the broken bones and the worst of his injuries but he looked like what he was -- a battered prisoner, terrified and hopeless.

They knew most of the whys, added to what they had managed to get out of Connor before they had the Scot hauled away under escort to cool off before he broke Revas' jaw leaving the man incapable of speech. What they need now was every detail Revas could recall of the contacts, the times, how he had been approached and when. The man had been hysterical at the idea that it might be Connor or Sean who questioned him, or God forbid, Methos and that had Hawk as confused as anything. When it came to it Revas said he would talk to Kir and no one else.

But right now his sister was hardly less dangerous than Connor to Revas' continued health.

"Then you dig way down into your heart, Silent Storm, and you find whatever compassion or vengeance or strength that it takes to do your job," Hawk said in a low voice, his eyes locking with hers. "You remember that this man has children that the Eastern Dawn holds as securely as they now hold MacLeod. You remember that our only clue to finding him may be in this man's possession, even if he doesn't know it. And you recall who you are. You were not made an Elder by virtue of your Immortality, Kirin. You are an Elder because you are meant to lead and you have gifts because you are wise enough to use them well."

"And because I am all those things, I should be able to put aside the fact that he gave Duncan to Abbas that he sacrificed the man I love to save his children - children who may well be dead already?. That he sacrificed MacLeod, after all he has done after the aid he and his friends, his people, have given to this nation when they did not have to?"

Her voice was harsh, but there were tears on her cheeks, angry ones.

"And you want me to do it with a smile?" she added sarcastically. "What do I get for it, Hawk? When he tells me where they took Duncan, do I get to slit his throat?"

She snarled the words out and Hawk of Moons merely waited until her anger shifted over to what he had been expecting. The tears came faster, the graceful hands fluttering to wipe them away as soon as they fell. And when the sob came he was there to hold her.

Having surrendered both tears and fears into her adopted brother's arms, Kir tried to center herself to wipe out the anger she felt and replace it with calm, to still her own instincts and need for vengeance at her once friend's betrayal with the dispassionate attitude of her military training.

She understood Connor's reaction completely and was glad that someone, if not her, had managed to extract, if not a pound of flesh, then some approximate level of pain to the man who had caused pain to so many others.

Then the anger was set aside, the personal concerns. She knew why Revas had betrayed them. That much at least she could have compassion for if not the rest. She glanced at Sean who had come at her request both to assess Revas mental state and to see if he could shed any additional light onto the answers they might yet get from Revas.

Feeling more mentally prepared she checked her attire, settled her braid and told Sean and Hawk she was ready. She was initially encouraged that Revas did not flinch when she entered but that first positive sign soon faltered under frustration as she had him go over the story again and again and in reality got no more than Connor had under torture. The bargaining chip Bar Abbas held over Revas' head was too precious to him. head no real fear that the Nation would kill him and knowing now that his children were known hostages, he even had vague hopes that there might be a rescue mounted regardless of his final sentence. The problem with being the good guys, Kir decided, was a lack of real leverage. And the idea that the E.D. might harm or kill his children was a pretty good lever to use to keep Revas tight-lipped.

After two hours she finally called a break, needing to look at something else beside the pitiful wreck of a man she had been interrogating.

She emerged wearily, Hawk's anger and frustration nearly equal to her own. "Nothing. We have nothing we can use." Hawk said but offered his sister a cup of tea, needing somewhere to put his own energy.

"I can hate him but I can also understand," Kir said sipping at the cup. "I doubt.." and she stopped herself for a moment then went resolutely on. "His girls may not even be alive, " she finished, peering through the glass. A guard had brought Revas something to drink and he lifted the cup with shaky hands. "Where's Sean?"

"We got a call...Methos," Hawk said then stilled her alarm. "I think he is fine. Sean said he would be back quickly."

She nodded. relieved. "I don't know how much more point there is to this, brother. Short of using the same tactics Connor used, I am not sure we'll get much more out of him."

Hawk thought about it for a moment then sighed his agreement and called for a guard detail to escort the prisoner back to his temporary cell. When there was knock on the door, Kir pulled it open, expecting a guard detail and startled to see Sean, Methos hovering behind him.

"Sean? Methos...you shouldn't be here," she said, trying to gentle her words.

"Where else should I be, Kirin?" Methos said, pushing past his brother to meet Hawk's confused gaze. "I understand Revas is being...unhelpful."

"He isn't going to talk, Methos. And torture is not a viable alternative," Hawk said, understanding better than his sister where the eldest of Immortals thoughts might be heading.

"No? Pity." Methos said casually. "Well there are other way...other methods. Methods I think Kir is familiar with if reluctant to use."

Kir went white, not misunderstanding a word.

"What kind of methods?" Hawk asked cautiously.

"Unapproved ones," Methos snapped back and then regained some control. "Two minutes," he grated out. "I won't kill him. You can watch but you cannot interfere."

"What are you going to do?" Sean asked, disliking the passionless timbre to his brother's voice.

"Whatever it takes, little brother. Duncan is shutting me out, deliberately. They've killed him again. He knows I can feel it and he's shutting me out." The words barely seemed to make it past those thin lips. "The mortal is our only key, right now. And I will question him."

"Adam, he's already terrified. I don't think . . ." but Sean's voice trailed off as it was clear the Oldest Immortal was ignoring him, staring at Kir and Hawk of Moons, awaiting their response.

Kir's eyes met the oddly dulled hazel one's, her stomach churning. She had no doubt Methos could do what he said...but that he would do such a thing went against everything she had ever been taught. Those Gifts that Voice that had been traded over the ages from soul to soul, it had its price. Mac had never been willing to pay it, nor had Kir.

Methos apparently was.

It she had harbored any residual doubts about what Methos felt for the Highlander they were banished in that one feelingless gaze.

"Let him," she whispered, and he nodded, as if hers was the only permission he needed.

"What are you going to do?" Sean demanded again, blocking him.

But his brother only pushed past him. The guard on the door allowed him in at Kir's nod and she and Sean and Hawk moved to observe the encounter.

Revas was on his feet and backing away the moment Methos entered the room and the door was locked behind him. They could not hear what was said, although Methos just observed the mortal for a long moment without moving.

The command to sit was easy enough to follow and on the second utterance Revas seemed to jerk, his gaze fixed on Methos with all the terror of a bird caught by a snake's gaze and still Methos did not move.

Hawk tensed, watching the interchange as Methos finally did move, sitting on the edge of the table with his back to the mirror.

Twenty seconds to go and Revas suddenly doubled over, though Methos had not touched him. The man's lips were moving, telling Methos something and the ancient Immortal seemed satisfied with the answers and moved away. As the door opened they could hear Revas sobbing brokenly.

"He doesn't know much," Methos said softly. "But the vehicle he saw had old New York plates. My guess is they took Mac north but probably not far. Revas only had a day or so to set this up and Abbas still has his children. The nearest Eastern Dawn depot north of DC is where?"

"Philadelphia," Sean said.

"Territory we couldn't get close to without an army," Kir said bitterly.

"We'll find a way. He will tell you whatever you want now, Hawk," Methos added. "At least about how he got around the communications safeguards and how he was approached. Best you or some other mortal question him. He is terrified of Immortals."

"Terri-?" Kir started. "Why? Immortals have never done anything to him or his family!"

"Because we are monsters," Methos said. "Abnormal freaks, the eaters of children and rapists of the innocent. You need to spend more time studying up on the cultures of other peoples, Kir." 

Part 5 Continued