THE ELIZABETH SERIES

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

TO THE MANOR BORNE

by JoLayne

RATING: PG

CHARACTERS: Methos, Amanda, Duncan, Amy, OCs Elizabeth, Nick, various others

SUMMARY: On the way back to New York, Methos and Elizabeth continue to talk while Duncan, Amanda, and Nick focus their attention on the list of Crusaders who are still alive.

DISCLAIMER: All characters and concepts you recognize from Highlander: The Series are owned by Panzer/Davis, and maybe Greg Widen. Just using them for fun, no profit is expected or pursued.

~~~~~

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

The walls, that were already close, started closing in on Elizabeth as she rubbed the shampoo lather into her hair and face in the comfort station shower stall. The stall was only four feet square, and the little changing area just outside the shower wasn't much bigger. There was a door in that area that emptied into the women's bathroom, which was also small, having only three stalls and one sink, which is where Amy had told her she would be waiting. Elizabeth was ready to call for her to come help her, she felt dizzy, her heart was racing, she could feel her body sweating (even though she had moved the water temperature more to the right than the left), and now she had shampoo in her eyes, making them sting more than her tears had.

Elizabeth leaned against the shower wall to rub her eyes and couldn't help feeling that she had made a complete and utter fool of herself in front of Methos. She told him she had loved him, still did, and Methos' only reaction had been to exit the turnpike for a comfort station so she could clean herself up. That seemed to be the only thing on his mind: get the blood off her. The blood that covered her was her own, as well as that of the five men and two women that she had shot, one at point blank range. Methos had brought up the horsemen so forcefully, and accused her of never forgiving him for his past, which she had no part of, even though she was holding the essence of one of his victims. Elizabeth could only think that for Methos, seeing her in that condition, with the blood of her 'victory' on her... had obviously opened up a wound that should have healed long ago. She could think of no way to make it better for him. She told him all she could when they were talking and had not received any admission of guilt, or of his being sorry for making the wrong assumption, or anything. There had been a time when they could tell each other anything, that they wouldn't hesitate to say they were sorry, when one wouldn't hesitate to make things easier for the other. Those days were gone, lost with the swing of a blade. She had taken a blade to his neck. The reasons why were just excuses. She should have been stronger. She should have fought Pyrius. She should have told Methos what was going on with her head. She hadn't. She had failed him. That's why, in the car, he had been unable to give her any indication that he thought differently about her. That's why she knew she would never be truly happy again.

As Elizabeth dipped her head and face under the shower spray again to clean off the lather and try to wash out her eyes, she had to grip the wall from the dizziness that wouldn't be shaken. Her hands were blurry in front of her eyes, she was shaking so hard. She tried to call for Amy, but couldn't make a sound. Her chest felt like it was going to explode. The last time she felt like this, she had been in Dr. Bradford's office and his voice, advice, and patience helped her get through it. She remembered his voice quietly, calmly instructing her to calm down. She realized now that his was the voice she had heard while in the hands of the kidnappers. She tried to allow his voice in to talk to her now, as she drew her knees up and put her head down as far as she could, which was hard to do since she was gasping for breath.

~~~~~

"Benji," Amy moaned, collapsing against the pay phone shelf with relief at having finally gotten through to her kids. "I'm so glad you're there. Is everything all right?"

"Amy?" he asked sleepily. "Where the hell have you been?"

"It's a long story, Benji, but I'm going to fill you in on most of it when I get home, which hopefully, if there aren't any more stops, will be in a couple of hours. Are the kids all right?"

"They're fine. How about Joe?"

"He's fine."

"I've been scared to death, Amy. First you, then Guy, then Joe. I couldn't get a hold of anyone."

Amy was going to explain that they had all been taken, but didn't want to scare him more until she got home and could head off any difficult questions she'd have to sidestep. Before she could answer his worry, she heard muffled voices on the line. Horrified that in some way they had found out where her and Guy's children were, she screamed into the phone, "Benji! Are you there? What's happening?!"

The sweetest sound she ever heard came over the line. Joey's groggy voice asked, "Mom? Is that really you?"

"Sweetie, yes," she answered, and started to tear up just from hearing his voice. The three days she had been away from her kids had been a lifetime. "I love you, tell Katie I love her, and I'll be home soon. I just had to call to hear your voice and tell you that Dad and Grampa and I are all right. I love you, Joey."

"Mom, where are you? Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you when I get there. I'm fine. I'm safe, and I'm with friends and on my way back there. I just wanted to tell you that."

"You're finally coming home?" Joey asked. "Mom, where were you?"

"I promise I'll tell you everything when I get home. Just, go back to sleep, make sure Katie's fine, and mind Benji, all right? Can you do that for me?"

"I've been doing that all along, Mom. Where's Dad? Is he with you? Did he find you? Where's Grampa?"

She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see a somewhat harried looking Methos standing there. "Where's Liz?"

"She taking a shower."

"It's been almost thirty minutes."

"And?"

"Liz can take a shower, do her hair, put on makeup, and dress in ten minutes. I've seen it."

"Good," she told him, then told Joey, "Yes, Joey, Dad found me, so did Grampa. I talked to them, and they're coming home too, but they have to do something first, but they're fine. Don't worry."

Methos tapped her shoulder again when she turned away from him to talk to Joey. She turned back to him, and he said, "What's taking her so long?"

"I don't know. She had a lot to clean off. Why don't you go find out what's keeping her, I'm busy."

"Where are the showers?"

Amy pointed toward the ladies' bathroom and told Joey, "We're all fine, honey. I'm on my way home."

She watched Methos walk straight to the ladies' room and not even pause at the door before barging in. Joey asked, "What happened to Dad? Did you see him? Is he mad? What's he doing?"

"Joey, I can't get into that now, I have to go. We're driving back to New York City and the sooner we get going here, the sooner I'll be home. I can't wait to tell you everything," she told her son, but knew she couldn't tell him a fourth of what had happened to take her away from her family for so long. It did her a world of good to hear his voice and know they were all right, but she couldn't stay on the line longer or she'd make things worse. Joey could worry with the best of them. If she didn't answer his questions, he could panic or something.

A woman groused as she walked out of the bathroom, and Amy could imagine what was going on with a man in there. She'd have to run interference, if nothing else. Methos had looked either worried or mad, neither of which would make for a calm Elizabeth, considering the state she had been in when Amy left her. "Joey, I love you, kiss Katie for me, and I'll see you in a couple of hours. All right?"

"Okay. Be careful, Mom, and I'm not kissing Kate."

"Okay, fine." Amy chuckled. You can't ask for everything. "I'll see you in a few. Good night, sweetheart. Love you."

"Love you too, Mom. Come home quick."

"I will." Amy didn't want to hang up, but she knew that what she had said, the sooner they get going, the sooner she'd be home was right, besides she wanted to fend off any catastrophes in the bathroom. "Love you," she said again when she hung up and ran to the bathroom.

Just as she walked in, she saw Methos hunched over the knob of one of the shower doors and when he open the door. A woman shrieked, and Methos stepped back as the door was slammed in his face. "Sorry," he called to whoever was inside.

Amy knew that Elizabeth had taken the other shower. She leaned against the sink and shook her head at him when he turned around embarrassed.

"You picked the lock on a woman's shower?"

"I thought it would be Liz's."

"That makes a difference?"

"She's... yeah." He said, shrugging.

Methos put something back in his wallet, to which Amy had to ask, "You carry a lock-pick in your wallet?"

"Doesn't everyone?" He pointed to the other shower door, and asked, "She's in there? Can you check to see that she's all right, now that you're here?"

"Sure," she told him. He certainly was a man dancing through life to his own off-beat drummer. "Unless you want to, of course."

"Nah. I'm still hungry. I'm going to get something to eat. You want anything?" When she shook her head, he said, "Tell Liz I'll get her some Doritoes. She still likes those, doesn't she?"

"I have no idea."

"She has to. I've seen her go through a bag a week. She's too skinny, don't you think? She should eat more."

Amy chuckled. Night and day. It's a wonder what a talk will do, she thought as she watched Methos fidget as if he didn't know what to do with himself. He left without another word, in a hurry as if he had an important errand. Methos' new-found hesitation, which she had never seen in him before, could be the product of confusion, judging by how mad he had been with Elizabeth, the airing of buried grievances against each other had to have him rethinking everything he had believed until now.

After the years of watching Daniel Gordon, and listening to her father talk about the oldest man, Amy felt that she knew him pretty well. He was stubborn, funny, a little quirky, had his routines, but loved thoroughly, whether it be a beer, his child, or his wife. Amy was so glad that they had finally begun to at least clear the air and try to find their way back to each other. It had to happen. She knew both of them, didn't quite know the chain of events at Bethany Stone Manor, as Elizabeth and even Duncan had been quite tight-lipped about it over Christmas and since, but Amy was positive that they loved each other. There was no possible way Elizabeth wanted to hurt Methos, much less kill him. She had to have been acting under the influence of the paranormal, whatever that may have been. As soon as she had seen her kids, knew that Guy and her dad were all right, and the Crusaders were toast, Amy would do everything in her power to make sure those two made their way back to each other.

The door to the shower that Elizabeth occupied opened, and a shaky and weary Elizabeth stepped out with the Walmart bags and a towel wrapped around her. Her hair was dripping wet, with water falling down her face. She asked, "Is anyone else here?"

"There's a woman in that shower," Amy replied. "She might be quite mad."

Elizabeth set the bags on the floor by the sink and grabbed another towel from a shelf in the changing area. She stood in the middle of the bathroom as the humidity and heat from the shower rushed into the chilly room. She started roughly rubbing her head with the towel. When the towel around her slipped to the floor, Elizabeth didn't seem embarrassed. Amy was mortified by how skinny she was. Once, years ago when they had lived across the hall from each other in New York, they had belonged to a health club, and had partaken of nude saunas with other woman friends. It was their friend Calista's idea to do so during their weekly get-together at the club when they could all be there at the same time. Calista had even snuck in a bottle of wine for them to share, even though the eagle eyed manager would admonish her about the dangers of alcohol and heat. Initially hesitant about nudity in front of her friends, Amy came to feel stupid when she was the only one covered up with a towel. When that towel had finally come off, it was liberating. Elizabeth had taken to nudity right away. Right now, she was almost skin and bones and so pale. Amy had a hunch that the reason for her skin tone wasn't just because it was winter.

The woman in the other shower walked out fully dressed, but the humidity of the shower stall made her hair wild and frizzy and her clothes a bit droopy. "Did you see that guy? The nerve of some ass holes. Can't he read? This is the women's bathroom. He must have been drunk." When she spotted Elizabeth, who pulled the towel up around her, she grimaced at her. Shaking her head, the woman vacated the room with her shoulder bag.

"What guy?" Elizabeth asked as she knelt down to look through the Walmart bags.

Before Amy could tell her of the male intruder, Elizabeth gasped. "What?" Amy asked, rushing to her, thinking maybe one of the bottles broke and she was cut or something.

"Look at all this stuff he bought," Elizabeth said as she spread open the tops of the plastic bags. "I just grabbed the shampoo and conditioner because they were on top. I didn't see all the goodies. He bought chocolate." Elizabeth pulled out a box of bon bons and instantly opened it and popped one in her mouth.

Amy craned her neck to look at everything as Elizabeth handed her the box of chocolate. From what she could see, Methos had bought a lot. Hand lotion, face cream. For Methos to remember what a woman might appreciate, then make the gesture, Amy was impressed. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah," Elizabeth uttered as she pulled out a pair of jeans and held them up to her, then checked the size. "I don't know if I should be flattered he thinks I'm so small or disappointed when I can't get them zipped up," she said before putting a leg in them.

"Oh, who are you kidding? I'll bet they're too big for you. You've lost a lot of weight."

When Elizabeth pulled them up and zipped them with no problem, Amy could see the surprise on her face. "Depression, it seems, is wonderful for the figure," she commented.

"He's a good judge of size," Amy said as she sifted through a bag. Having seen the box for a blow dryer in one, she wanted to see what else he had bought.

When Amy saw a bra, she handed it to Elizabeth, who ripped off the tag and put it on. Elizabeth fluffed the cups and said, "Obviously he thinks I have bigger boobs."

"Lots of goodies in there, and I hope you like Doritoes."

"There's Doritoes in there?" Elizabeth asked with more excitement than Amy had heard in her voice in a good long while, even though she had to still have remnants of chocolate in her mouth.

"No, but Methos said he was going to buy some."

That got a smile from Elizabeth, and Amy got out of the way as Elizabeth sat on the floor and took out each and every purchase Methos had made from the bags. When she pulled out a bottle of Tuscany perfume, Elizabeth sprayed it on her neck and then her wrists. She held one wrist to her nose and continued to sniff. Amy spotted a drop of blood still on her cheek, and went to wet a corner of one of the towels. She bent down to wipe it off Elizabeth and wondered again about all that had happened to her in that other room. Amy had no idea how Elizabeth could get through each day; between everything she heard in the car, and everything she had seen and heard from the source about what had happened at various times in her life.

As she cleaned off the blood, Amy could tell that she had either been crying or was deathly tired. Either one wasn't good. If Amy had blood on her face and hands, had shot people, had been tortured... she wouldn't be as put together as Elizabeth seemed to be just now. As she thought of all the years and the string of things that had happened to Elizabeth, Amy softly said, "I'll bet you're still affected by things that happened before dad was born, and may remember them like yesterday. And Methos..... I didn't realize everything about him... a horsemen? Dad told me about it, and I tried to digest it all, but you said pillaging, raping, killing. I can't imagine."

"You don't have to," Elizabeth said calmly, but took a deep breath afterward. "He's not that man anymore." She pulled the maroon sweater from the bag, yanked the tag off, and pulled it over her head. "Over time, you choose who you are, how you're going to act. Don't ever think that man who loved to be thought of as 'Death' at one time is still inside him."

Elizabeth got up and opened the hand lotion, the face cream, the makeup, and applied each herself. As if she had come to some conclusion, Elizabeth said, "Methos once loved me, I know that. That's... what gets me through my day. I told him once, when I thought I would die, that just being loved by him was enough for me. I was able to go on, as long as I have, because of it. If he doesn't anymore, I can deal with it. I have to."

Elizabeth took the blow dryer out of the box, found a plug by the mirror, and dried her hair with the brush that Methos had also bought for her. During the process, Amy watched her and she looked so forlorn. This was so odd, and so wrong. All the time she had known Elizabeth, she had jumped into each new romance with both feet and loved her man as much as any woman could, until he did something to screw it up, such as Eliot having affairs. With Methos, Elizabeth had never been happier; Amy had seen that. No matter what happened, Elizabeth usually found the strength to fight for what she wanted. There was no way on earth anyone, not even Elizabeth, could convince Amy that she didn't want Methos in her life and bed anymore.

"Are you insane?" Amy asked, which got Elizabeth's attention. She shut off the dryer and gave her a wounded look. That might have been the wrong thing to say since she was seeing a psychologist and it could be touchy. But then again, Amy didn't like that kind of talk from her. "When did you become so defeatist? Methos loves you or he wouldn't be here. Not past tense. Quit using the word in the past tense. Love is powerful, and I do believe eternal. Go talk to him and fix this. You both need it, and God knows, Claire does, too."

Elizabeth bent her head, turning her eyes away from Amy. "I'm scared."

"Why, honey?"

"What if he doesn't anymore? I don't want to fight with him again, and I don't want to be disappointed. I can't be rejected again."

"Look at him. If I can see it, I don't know why you can't."

"See what?"

"He loves you, you dolt."

"Back to the stupid talk in reference to me," Elizabeth said with a touch of anger.

What had disrupted their cruise was an argument with Liz about calling her stupid, and Amy had been, and still was, sorry about that. "I know my saying that got us into a fight before, but this time... Elizabeth, you're being stupid. I can see he loves you."

"You can? Well, you don't have guilt clouding your eyesight, I guess."

"I know, you get dressed, get all this stuff together," Amy said as she hurriedly packed everything up and put the coat over Elizabeth's shoulders. "You and Methos need to talk, alone. Go."

"We need to get back to New York."

"Yes. Alone. Go."

"What about you?"

"This place is swarming with truckers. I'll hitch a ride with one going in that direction. I'll be fine. You two go and talk, and be honest, and get back to Claire."

"Now who's the idiot? I'm not leaving you here in the middle of nowhere or letting you 'hitch a ride'. Besides, anything we have to say to each other, you can hear. You're my best friend, my sister." Elizabeth suddenly hugged Amy, and she was happy to return it. "I'm so happy you're safe, Guy's safe, Joe's safe, and I have you back in my life. You're serious about quitting your job, right?"

"Definitely." Holding Liz again made Amy feel complete. With bright and funny kids, a sexy husband, a healthy father, all that had been missing in her life was the love of her friend. She hadn't realized until that moment how much she had missed her.

Elizabeth released the hug and breathed deeply. "I'm not sure he'll say anything anyway. I probably shouldn't have said what I did."

"You told him you still love him and are sorry about what you did. He will."

"His pride wouldn't allow it even if he did still have feelings for me."

"Those 'feelings' are love, Liz. You two are the most stubborn people I know," Amy said with frustration. "except Katie Rose when I feed her vegetables. Go."

"I'm not leaving without you."

"You're not. I admit that was a stupid suggestion. Can you imagine? Me in a semi? With Large Marge or something?"

Elizabeth took a minute, then laughed out loud when she realized that Amy had to have remembered their going to see Pee Wee's Big Adventure one night when Eliot was 'working late' and Amy's date had stood her up. Amy shrugged, "Might be fun, but I've had enough excitement for a while. Let's go. You look fine, Methos bought food, and our kids are waiting about two hours down the road."

~~~~~

Methos sucked on a strip of beef jerky, then gnawed a piece off the strip. He checked his watch. With how long they'd been in there, Methos could have called the hospital, talked to Claire, and probably made travel arrangements for the three of them to get as far away from the Crusaders as they could. Bora Bora was beautiful this time of year... His mind wandered back to the days when he had first occupied a hut on the beach, then built a home with his own two hands, then decades later bought a state-of-the-art (for the 50's) house that was considered a mansion. Why he sold it, he'll never know; he would loved to have brought Elizabeth there.

Just when Methos realized he was now thinking of Elizabeth as his wife, life partner, not the one who almost killed him or had ruined everything, he was jarred back to the present seeing Elizabeth and Amy depart the comfort station with the bulging Walmart bags. Ask and you shall receive? he mused. He hadn't realized how much he had needed to see her, to know she was all right. Elizabeth looked good. With just a quick glance, he couldn't detect any traces of the trauma her mind and body had gone through. It seemed that the clothes he bought her fit; even the waist coat that he had no idea of sizing fit her like a glove. When she opened the door and sank into the front seat, he caught a whiff of the perfume that was so familiar. He closed his eyes as she and Amy settled into their seats and he could imagine himself back in California, back before they had to leave because of that Montgomery asshole, when it was only the three of them with occasional visits from horse owners and Dallas, and his freaky wife. The great house they lived in, the healthy, tall, green trees that were like a barrier between them and the outside world... those were the days.

"Should we be off?" Elizabeth asked softly.

Methos opened his eyes to see the red painted concrete wall of the comfort station with a silver air tank to fill tires. Certainly not paradise, as California had been, in its own special way. It's not the location that makes one feel on top of the world, it was who you were with. He looked at Elizabeth, with her newly blown dry hair, looking more healthy than the last time he saw it, as she shuffled the bags into the back seat to Amy. "No," he said. He got out of the car and reached into the back seat and took hold of the handles of the plastic bags.

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth asked.

"Whoa, there's nice stuff in there," Amy added. She lifted one of the bags. "Here's her old clothes to be thrown."

When he grabbed all the bags, he got more questions from the women. "Just trust me," Methos huffed, as usual not liking to be second-guessed about logical issues he was taking care of. He walked to the dumpster that he had already staked out to get rid of the evidence: not only of Elizabeth's soiled clothes but all traces of their purchases. He knew that they'd probably have to tell someone where they'd been, and he had formulated a plan. For once, the truth was better than fiction. He would tell any interested parties that he and Elizabeth had been kidnapped, and that was why they had disappeared. Under those circumstances it wouldn't look right for them to have stopped at a discount store for a shopping spree. Any interested party just might ask why those things needed to be bought.

On the way back to the car after chucking the offending evidence in the dumpster, Methos fully expected the third degree from them. What he got instead was Elizabeth saying, "I suppose if we're going straight to the hospital, the doctors would look twice at any Walmart bags we carry in."

"That's right," he told her as he put the car in reverse. He had to wait for an old man driving a motor home to get out of his way and looked Elizabeth over again. "You look nice," he told her lightly.

"Thanks to you. I feel better."

Methos smiled and reached down to the bag at her feet and pulled out a bag of cool ranch Doritoes. The chuckle and the fact that she ripped the bag open quickly made him certain he had chosen correctly. He handed a bag of Fritoes to Amy, along with a bottle of Coke. She took them, then said, "Thanks, but I'm going to take a nap. You two just talk as if I'm not even here." That said, she laid herself down on the back seat and soon shut her eyes.

Elizabeth had taken the bottle of Diet Coke out of the bag and took a big swallow. "Are you okay to drive? I feel a bit refreshed. I can drive while you nap if you like."

"I'm fine." The old man had finally gotten the motor home far enough ahead that with a little tricky maneuver of the car in reverse, Methos was able to get out of the parking space and speed down the ramp to the turnpike. He snatched a chip from her bag, then she offered him the whole thing. "No thanks, you like those, I don't much care for them." He went back to chewing on his stick of beef jerky, then offered her one.

"No thanks."

Those were the last words spoken for a while in the car. Methos had a talk radio station on, in case there was some sort of news about what had happened back at the warehouse. He knew it was unlikely. The Watchers took care of messes with very capable hands and had a lifetime of experience in doing just that, but one never knew. The drive-time news from New York hadn't mentioned it. If Methos was so inclined, he might try to put it all behind him and think out of sight, out of mind, and get on with his life. He should think about Claire's face when he walked into her room and how her kisses would feel. Instead, the cold embrace of the chair he'd been strapped to filled his senses. He could even smell the electricity that hung in the air after Brynn's quickening.

He stole a glance at Elizabeth, who had polished off the bag of chips and the Diet Coke was almost gone. She looked deep in thought as well, and he wondered what memory she was churning over in her mind.

Comedy group started their hour on the radio, and a few times he and Elizabeth chuckled over a joke, concept, or quip made by one character to the other. One of the exchanges made Methos laugh out loud, glad to move his mind from the events of the last day. Elizabeth only half-smiled. She had her hands on her legs, and her fingers were furiously tapping lightly against her jeans. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She shrugged and looked out the side window. "Things."

"There's a lot to think about." He looked back to see that Amy was either asleep or a really good actress. "I want to get one thing straight, to clear the air, so to speak."

"Hm?" she asked dreamily. Now that they'd had a chance to talk a bit, he didn't take her hesitant response as an indication of boredom on her part, which may have been his inclination a couple of days ago. Now he knew that she was steeling herself against what she thought would surely be a sarcastic observation, and that realization made him feel even worse than he already did. He took hold of her hand. She jerked her head around to look at him and he could feel the tension in her still shaky hand. She hadn't been tapping her fingers because of boredom, she was shaking like a leaf. "Are you cold?"

"No," she replied abruptly. "Actually, I'm getting warm with this coat on."

Her hand relaxed in his, and he continued to hold it. Her hand was ice cold, but soon became warmed from his touch. Soon, she was holding his hand tighter. "You wanted to say something? Or did you just want to ask if you can turn the heat down?"

"I'm sorry I left Delphi," he said before he had any opportunity to talk himself out of it. He nodded, as if glad he said it, and added, "I'm sorry I left you."

The only sound was the prattle of the radio duo and it felt as if all the air had left the car as he waited for her reaction. He glanced back at Amy, who was still laying quietly with her eyes closed. After his eyes darted back to the road to check the progress of his speeding against the car in front of him, he looked back to Elizabeth, wondering why she hadn't replied. Her head was lowered, and she wiped her cheeks.

"Thank you." Elizabeth smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "I guess I might have known you were, but you've never said it. It's nice to hear. A relief. Thank you."

He decided then and there to no longer take anything for granted with her, and to make a point not to allow any thoughts about their relationship to linger unuttered. That only lead to piling on more unanswered responses, which lead to trouble. If there was a way to make their marriage work, for them to find their way back to where they were on the ship, he had to try. He was pleased about feeling certain that was what he wanted.

"For the last time, Methos. I'm dreadfully sorry about what happened in Kent."

"I know. I know that now. Don't worry about it."

"Really?"

"Yes," he said definitely.

During their initial talk, before she was able to clean herself up, she had asked him if he thought she had suddenly flipped a switch and no longer loved him. He was floored to realize that was exactly what he must have thought. He had become so certain that she must have been lying to him all along about the depth of her love and that she really wanted him dead. In order to be certain he was clear on what happened, how it happened, and to make sure that it would never happen again, Methos had to get her to tell him all she remembered about their time in Bethany Stone Manor.

He had loved that house and stables and pond, everything about the place for so long. For almost a thousand years. He had spent many years there long ago with people he truly cared for. King Alfred, Rebecca, Amanda, he remembered the thrill of being at the pulse of power. A good-natured suggestion to the king suddenly became the law of the land. The king was one of the better people Methos had ever met, and Alfred had loved that house as much as Methos had. He had such good memories there, and had only wanted to share them with his wife and daughter, just as he wanted to share all the good things in his life. Not just tales, but show them. If they could see it, they could know the happiness he had known.

He remembered when they first arrived after he purchased it on the internet, Elizabeth and Claire seemed to be drawn to the house, stables, and land. But something must have been horribly wrong from the start, and he didn't see it. He knew that Elizabeth had started acting strange not long after they moved in, finding little things to complain about, airing her dislike of being away from friends, and in her words, 'civilization.' At the time he had thought it was just that she wanted to be back on the ship. He hadn't gone the distance to talk about it with her, because being on the ship entailed being with Amy and Guy, who she had a falling out with. Life on the ship wasn't the same anymore anyway, and because of how much he wanted to live in that place of remembered happiness with his family, Methos guessed that he didn't investigate her qualms about it too deeply because he didn't want her to tell him she wanted to move.

When a commercial came on, the jingle dragged Methos from his long, silent study of the past, and he realized that they were still holding hands. "What happened?" he got enough courage to ask, or lost enough pride to ask, Methos didn't know which, and didn't care. He wanted the answer from her.

"When?"

As if she could read his mind, he mused, then thought there was a time ....then wondered if the connection they had once shared had been irreparably damaged. "At the manor."

"You really want to know?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't."

"Yeah, you haven't."

"I am now." He gave her hand a squeeze to gently prod her into telling him what he needed to hear, which was the reason she had taken a sword to his head. He needed to know all the nuances, all the outside forces she had been dealing with, how they came to her and not him, who had more of a connection to the place than she ever could, how it all missed Claire. He shivered when he thought of all that could have happened to Claire there, but thankfully didn't.

"I don't know what to tell you," Elizabeth said with a deep sigh. "It's all so much."

"Start from the beginning. See where it leads. We have about an hour and a half until we get to New York, and with traffic... just start talking."

~~~~~

Duncan drove slowly down the street looking for the address for Henry Mankowitz that Nick had printed from the Watcher database. Amanda was counting off the house numbers as they edged closer and Nick was rubbing his left upper arm, the spot where he had been shot just a few days before. Duncan certainly knew what it felt like to get shot, but he no longer had any concept of what lingering pain of the body felt like. His heart had been broken enough to know emotional pain, but physical pain was now a mystery to him.

"415," Amanda said. "The house on the end."

Duncan went past the house when he noted there was a red sun roofed Saturn in the driveway. It was a modest house on a modest block in a somewhat good area. They thought that it might be a dead end since any member of the Crusaders, especially if they're rounding up another batch of immortals to behead, would more than likely not be at home. It made no mention in the bio if Mankowitz was married or not, so the car didn't signal if it belonged to him or someone else.

Taking the corner and parking down another street, Duncan pulled the van to a stop and turned it off. Amanda asked, "So, we're going in there with guns blazing, or what's the plan?"

"Sounds good to me," Nick trumpeted from the back seat.

"You both aren't very good at this, are you?" Duncan inquired with a bit of frustration. He had no idea why Warren had offered to fly to Boston with Thomas to see Paul Durrant, Thomas' friend whose name appeared on a list of what they assume were flagged Immortals. Duncan would have felt better with Warren as his backup, having gone through many battles together not to mention a few major wars. He'd even appreciate having Liam with him, just not Amanda, who was more adept at breaking into high-security buildings or an injured Watcher, whose history Duncan knew nothing about. Hell, he wished he had Joe now, and felt bad about their argument back at the warehouse.

"What do you mean?" Nick asked. "Mankowitz is one of them. Let's take him out."

Before Nick could open the side sliding door of the van, Duncan grabbed his arm. Nick groused from pain, to which Duncan offered, "Sorry." He jerked his hand back truly sorry for having caused the man pain. He'd need him to be in tip-top shape. "I think the best course of action is to go up there and just talk. What if he's not home? What if he has kids, and the kids and babysitter are there?"

Nick retorted, "They'd be in school. You're not losing your nerve, are you?"

Duncan guffawed. "Me?"

Amanda giggled and shook her head. "Him? Give me a break. If it's talk you want, I think I should do the talking."

"You? Why you?"

"If you're right, if there's a woman or kids there, don't you think they'd be more likely to spill their guts about where the louse is to a woman rather than a strange man?" Amanda smiled when Duncan didn't have a retort, and she kissed him quickly before opening her door and saying, "I'll be right back, fellas. Watch my back in case he is home."

"You watch your neck," Duncan warned her before she shut the door. When she was around the corner, he got out of the van himself and made sure he had a handgun tucked in the back of his pants under his coat. "You stay here," he told Nick.

"Why?"

"Just because, all right?!" Duncan was sick of the back-talk from amateurs. Neither of them had experience in hand-to-hand combat or gunplay. Well, Amanda might, but he was fairly certain little Nick Hartford from the Valley of the Sun didn't. Before Nick could argue, Duncan shut the door and walked to the corner, to see Amanda in front of the Mankowitz house looking like she was lost . He chuckled and looked on with admiration at her; she certainly knew what she was doing.

~~~~~

"But," Methos interrupted Elizabeth to ask, "when did you start feeling 'different'?"

"I don't know. It was bit by bit. It wasn't like I was hit by a bolt of lightening or anything." As she tried to gather her thoughts for him, so happy he had asked and wanting to tell him exactly how it all happened. Now that she finally had an opportunity to though, it was all a jumble. She berated herself for not writing it all down before, as she had often thought to do, but then again, that might go over as well as the Pyrius journal she had written for Methos back in the day. She tried to remember when she knew for sure that things were off in that house. She was certain that it wasn't long after they moved in. From the beginning she had told him that the house was cold, dirty, and needed a lot of work, none of which had to do with Pyrius' possession of the house or why she had done the most horrendous deed of her life.

"Oh," she suddenly remembered. "Remember when you were setting up your office? The study? You were going to start writing something? You had the laptop connected?"

"Yeah. That was the second day, or third. I can't remember. When did the cable line get installed? It cost me a fortune to get the guy out so fast, but it was worth it."

Worth it. As if he spent much time in that study anyway... She told him, "That's when it started."

"What happened?"

He asked that as if it was incredible that something as normal as setting up his computer, books, and paper and pens could have called upon the forces of the paranormal, but that's what happened. She forged ahead to tell him, "You were on the other side of the room, and I think you had the internet connected."

"Yeah, so?"

"I saw writing on the screen. Writing that blended into other writing, and it seemed like there was blood dripping from the letters."

"What?!"

His trumpeting response combined with a sharp swerve of the car made Amy jerk up in the back seat. Elizabeth hung onto the door and clenched his hand. He took his hand away and held onto the steering wheel with both hands until the car was steady again.

Methos glared at her, and all she could do was shrug. "That's what happened. I know it sounds farfetched, but it happened."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You expected me to tell you there was blood dripping from your computer? I don't think I was thinking clearly enough to know it would be best to tell you about it. I was surprised myself. When I turned away, and looked at it again, the blood wasn't there."

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Amy asked as she rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"Liz saw blood on my laptop at the manor."

Amy grimaced at her, which made Elizabeth turn back to looking out the side window. The retelling of what happened in the manor, she knew, would only make her look like an idiot. She began to lose her nerve about relating any more since that had gone over so well. However, before she could stop herself, not realizing she was speaking out loud, she had said, "Well, you think that's something. When I looked outside at that tree you and Claire loved so much, I saw a dead monk hanging from a rope around his neck."

"You've got to be joking," Methos said, his eyes concentrated straight ahead.

"I wish I was. Especially since I found out after seeing it more times, that the monk was Pyrius."

"Pyrius was a monk, and he was hanged on willow oak tree?" Methos asked with a 'oh come on' tone of voice.

"He wasn't hung, he hung himself."

Amy situated herself in the back so she could see them, her arm leaning on the seat back. "You said that Pyrius was in a lot of religious places."

"When did she say that?"

"During her dark quickening."

Elizabeth looked to Methos, who was shaking his head. "He was. Communes, monasteries, cults, retreats. He lived in Bethany Stone Manor as a monk. He built that furniture in that bedroom, slept there himself, and tried to kill himself to rid the forces of evil from his mind. But it didn't work."

"How do you know all that?" Methos asked guardedly. She knew that it was paining him to be talking about Pyrius so plainly.

"He told me."

That brought silence from both of them, and Elizabeth felt like turning the radio back on.

"When did he do that?"

"After you left."

"After you almost took my head," he challenged.

"Yes. After you knocked me out with the vase and left the manor. That's when I started not only hearing Pyrius, but seeing him clearly."

"Back up," Methos said almost as an exhale of breath, as if he didn't really want her to, but had to ask her to, in order to make sense of the nonsense. "You saw him?"

"I heard him first. I didn't know it was him. I heard a voice, a male's voice, telling me to leave that place. When I didn't, he started telling me other things."

"Why did he want you to leave? Seems to me," Methos said, "Pyrius would have been slap happy to have you there."

"Methos, you don't seem to understand Pyrius."

"No, I'll bet I never did and never will."

"Pyrius spent his life trying to find redemption. He didn't like having the thought of you and what you did inside him. His hatred for you, that voice in his head, dictated everything he did in his life. He wanted to have a life. He wanted to live." Not knowing if she should continue with that train of thought that had, after all only been a whisper in the back of her mind, she softly said, "I saw what he did to you and Naomi."

Methos' jaw actually dropped. "Naomi," he breathed that name from the past.

"Pyrius could have beheaded you right there and then, after he had killed you. You were just laying on the bed, there was nothing or no one to stop him from taking your head, except his own conscience."

"He didn't want to stoop to my level, is that what you mean?"

"Methos, Pyrius had just killed an innocent woman, Naomi. He had killed you, which made him feel a bit better after what you did to his mother. He didn't want to kill. He didn't want to live with hate. He just-"

"Oh, he was a good guy who I did wrong."

"No. He was weak and was sucked in by hate. You're the good guy, Methos. You rose above it all. He didn't. Pyrius tried, many times. But he failed when he allowed hatred to overcome him. He didn't want me in that house, and certainly didn't want you there. Why do you think his presence was in that house? He had found something there that was good. He found a bit of peace there when it was a monastery."

Methos sighed deeply really trying to take it all in. Elizabeth could see the wheels turning in his head. She could imagine all he was mulling over and awaited the questions or accusations that he might explode with. Instead, he asked, "Then why did he leave it? Why didn't he just stay there and leave me the hell alone?"

"The monks thought him evil. He revived when they were burying him." Elizabeth was surprised she had such a quick answer. All the months of doing nothing but thinking had obviously brought her to some conclusions. "I think Pyrius left the manor physically, he had to after the monks reacted to his revival. But he stayed emotionally. When he died, when I killed him, that might have been where he went."

"I thought he was right there with you and your dark quickening," Amy asked.

"Don't ask me to understand life and death and souls and quickenings, Amy," Elizabeth said. "That might be his department." She pointed to a silent Methos.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Methos didn't demean her suggestion for Pyrius' motives, "There's no answer. I've never been beheaded, two recent close calls aside. I don't know what happens to souls and quickenings and thoughts after death. Don't ever want to know."

"Well, that's my best guess. His soul went to his paradise, which I think for him was Bethany Stone Manor." Liz chuckled. "You did have something in common with him, Methos. You both loved that place." Because Methos didn't seem to have taken that as jovially as she had intended, she felt a bit shaky again and wished she was still holding his hand. Try as she might, she couldn't make herself reach out and take it. She told him, "Pyrius didn't want us interfering with his afterlife, as I had with his life. After it looked like we were staying, he started to feel the evil again and wanted you dead. He talked to me, made me do things." With a sudden burst of courage, she took hold of his hand. When he looked at her, she said, "I made a choice at one point, Methos. I cut off my own hand instead of taking your head in the stables."

"What?!" Amy asked appalled.

"You didn't cut it off," Methos corrected her. "But almost did."

Methos took a deep breath and did a little shake of his head, but he kept holding Elizabeth's hand, for which she was glad. Amy flopped back in the seat and Elizabeth looked back at her. She was also slowly shaking her head and looking down. "I had to choose. They were forcing me to do something," Elizabeth told them both, searching for any indication from either of them that she hadn't been crazy and wasn't now. "They were quite loud."

"Who's they?"

"Pyrius and Logan."

"You saw Logan, too?"

"Eventually."

"Anyone else?"

"After Duncan got there, I saw a whole bunch of people. I think I now know what Richie looked like, sounded like. He loved Duncan."

Methos slowed down the car, and Elizabeth thought he was going to stop. He might stop the car and make her leave it. She knew what she was saying sounded so far out there the men with the white coats might come to take her away forever, but it was the truth. It was what she had seen, heard, and did. "Ask Duncan if you don't believe me," she told him. "Or have you?"

Methos hadn't stopped the car, but had reduced their speed and was following the speed limit with the other cars making it seem like they were walking. Maybe he just wanted to concentrate on what she had been telling him instead of speeding and run the risk of getting them into an accident. "I haven't talked to Mac about much since I found out you two slept together."

"You did?" Amy again popped her head up front.

"Only after you slept with Amanda," Elizabeth challenged with more bite than she had expected to. She thought she had accepted that they were long-time lovers and that this time was a one night deal, but it still hurt.

"You did?" Amy demanded of Methos.

"Where have you been?" he bristled, obviously wanting Amy to go away.

Amy didn't go away. She slapped them both on the shoulders and moaned, "How could you?"

"It just happened," both Methos and Elizabeth said, then looked at each other. Elizabeth thought it best they didn't investigate the reasons behind their sleeping with other people, friends, people they both wanted to remain in their lives. It had been hard to be with Amanda, having a mental picture of her and Methos together between the sheets, but she had made peace with her about it. Just because Amanda was the immortal who had Claire in her care when Claire was injured wasn't a reason to place blame on her either. Elizabeth needed Amanda as a friend, and knew the same thing could have happened with Claire in her own care. It was just the luck of the draw, the roll of the dice, that it hadn't happened before. However, Amanda sleeping with Methos, many times over the years, was another matter that Elizabeth didn't like to think about too much.

"When did you first see him?" Methos asked so softly she may not have heard him right.

"Who? Duncan? You introduced us."

"No, you git!" he spat out. Elizabeth took that to mean that he was as reluctant to investigate her sleeping with Duncan as she had been with Amanda and him. "Pyrius. You said you saw him. When did that first happen?"

"When I saw his face as he swung from the tree. It was at a distance, because I was upstairs looking out the window, and you were on your way out to the stables, as usual."

"You saw him hanging from the willow tree, which doesn't have very strong branches, mind you, while I was walking by?"

Elizabeth chuckled from remembering the sight of Methos and the monks. "You walked right through him, Methos."

"I did not."

"You did, too. Pyrius was hanging there, the monks came and cut him down from the tree and went to work digging a hole, and you walked right through the whole ceremony."

"I didn't by chance happen to kick Pyrius in the ass, did I?" Methos optimistically asked.

Elizabeth smiled and squeezed his hand, still resting in hers. "No. It was jarring though. Just when you walked by, Pyrius sat up and the monks shrieked and scattered like cockroaches when you turn a light on."

"So, you only saw him from a distance?"

"Oh, no. Later, as time went on, I started to see him in the house."

"Why did you never tell me?"

"I didn't know it was odd, Methos." She played with his fingers and was glad that he wasn't taking his hand back. "Hindsight is 20/20. I know now, and knew when we were at Amy's that it was appalling that I let it go on in silence. At the time..." Elizabeth searched for a reason for her compliance and silence in the matter, but couldn't come up with one. "Maybe I was under a spell or something. I don't know. I mean, my God, my child was in that house. It wasn't until you took her to school that I thought, good, she's gone, away from here, away from the danger that I had to have known was coming. It was around that time that I started to see Pyrius in the same room with me. With us."

"He was at the table while we were having dinner?"

"While having sex."

Methos pulled his hand away and gripped the wheel. "I won't even begin to try to make sense of that. You've told me a lot that I just have to take on faith, luv. I don't know if... We had a lot of sex there, didn't we?"

Elizabeth smiled back at him and said, "Yeah, probably more than in our entire married life. You must have been under some kind of spell, too."

Methos started to go faster again, and he said, "Maybe I was, just didn't know it."

Elizabeth thought about that, and how amorous her husband had been during those days. "You had a long history with Bethany Stone? Did it entail a lot of sex? Is that why you were so happy there?"

Since he was silent, and didn't answer, she wondered if he and Amanda had shared a lot of fun on the straw of the stables. When Amanda arrived, after Duncan had been taken over by the house, Elizabeth had been too out of it to know what Amanda's feelings for the place were. Elizabeth wanted to pry for more information from Methos, but then again, thought it best to just let it lie. If not Amanda, Methos had to have partaken of many orgies, one time flings, and maybe a long-standing love affair with a certain wife of their friend, along with drink and debauchery.

~~~~~

Amanda wished she had freshened up in case she had to use her feminine wiles to extract information from whomever was inside the Mankowitz house. She knew exactly what Henry looked like, so if he by chance answered the door, maybe as he was getting ready for work, she would know exactly who she was talking to and make like she was a Watcher. Although she didn't have the tell-tale blue upside down W on her wrist in case he got inquisitive enough to check for identification, she could work around that with fast talk and a pleasant smile.

As she approached the front door of the house, she decided it needed either new siding or a paint job. Being a Crusader certainly didn't afford one luxury, now did it? The booming of rock music made her wonder what sort of man this Mankowitz fellow was. He looked about mid-50's in the picture, more of a country music fan than heavy metal. Odds were, Mankowitz wasn't the one playing the music, though she had been surprised before.

She rang the bell and waited, looking at the holes in the screen door. Why one left a screen door on in the winter was beyond her. Chances were good that Mankowitz didn't do a lot of handyman things around the house.

The front door opened, and it was dark inside the house. She peeked forward and asked, "Hello?" not seeing anyone.

For an instant, she wondered if Mankowitz had heard of the failed mission in Shiloh and perhaps also knew what she herself looked like. Amanda was ready to run for the hills when a teenager rubbing his eyes came into view, from tiredness or the sun, she didn't know.

"What do you want?" She had obviously woken him up or he had just smoked a joint. From the look of him, he should be in school.

"Is this the Mankowitz residence?" she asked pleasantly. She smiled when she saw his black t-shirt with a splotch of reds, yellows, blues, and purples in some sort of grizzly anime pattern; she didn't know off hand what it was supposed to depict. The writing was clear enough though, and she lied, "The Chopper Blades. Great band."

The teenager's eyes suddenly weren't as heavy as they were before. She didn't know whether it was because of what she looked like or the Chopper Blades were his favorite band. Either way, Amanda was pleased to get his attention. She tried to see inside the house, to see if anyone else was home, but no dice.

"What do you want?" the teen asked again, but this time in a more favorable voice.

"Is your father home?"

"No," the teen said with a chuckle. "What do you want him for anyway? He's a piece of shit."

"Heavens," Amanda said surprised, but in total agreement with him.

The kid continued, "He walked out on mom and I three months ago. You're not one of his girls, are you?"

"Oh, heavens no," Amanda reacted as if he had asked if she mud wrestled for a living. "I'm a co-worker, but from out of town, and I have to talk to him about... work. You wouldn't happen to know where he works, do you?"

"You're an insurance salesman?"

Amanda looked at him at a loss, but quickly clued in to the thought that Watchers probably didn't tell their family what they really did. "I'm district manager, and I have to talk over... some... recent..." Amanda searched for insurance buzz words. "Policy changes to our residential and vocational... indemnity... procedures... and... holdings." To shake off that failure, she immediately asked, "This was the only address I was given, must have been a mistake to give his home address and not the office. Could you tell me where the office is located?"

"Downtown," the kid said with a shrug.

"Is there anyone else at home who might have more specific information."

"No, mom's at work too, but she'll be home in a bit. You could ask her." The song ended and the kid paused, as if expecting a windfall of money or something. When another song on the CD started up, the kid bounced his head to the drum beat and smiled wide. "Great song!" He reached to his left and soon the music was cranked up even higher.

"Yeah, really phat!"

He looked at her with a strange expression, and she guessed that the term was far out of date. "Do you know where downtown his office is?"

"No, but you might want to ask her," he said with what appeared to be bitterness as he pointed to Amanda's right shoulder.

After spinning around, she didn't see anyone. "Oh? Who? Where?"

"Lorraine," he spewed. "She lives behind that red house." He pointed across the street. "Dad started boinking her about a year ago. She might know." The kid laughed. "But she might not tell you, or she might even attack you! Dad's got a lot of girlfriends."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Mankowitz," she said because she never got his name.

"Hey, no problem." The teenager cranked the music louder and bopped his head to the music again. "Oh!" he said before Amanda left. "If you see dad, tell him he owes two months child support. I need a new X Box."

"Will do." Amanda smiled sweetly and walked back down the pathway, almost slipping on a patch of ice. Immediately she remembered being in the alleyway with Claire, and thoughts of her condition filled her. She spotted Duncan loitering at the end of the block, and suddenly glowed from within, she knew that he loved her, and they were well on their way back to marital bliss. Stubborn Scot. Why he was mad at her in the first place was almost beyond her. Sure, she missed Christmas Eve, but she couldn't help it, and it wasn't like she enjoyed being away from him.

As they met at the end of the block, she told him, "One thing I'm always grateful for in being immortal is that I don't have children."

"Mankowitz wasn't home?" Duncan took her arm and escorted her back to the van.

Amanda took the opportunity to nestle next to him and was ecstatic when he put his arm around her. It was almost like old times. If they could get this messy Crusader business done with, ditch the Watcher in the van, and get to someplace romantic, she was convinced that life would again be a pleasurable experience.

Nick opened the side door of the van as they approached it, far to fast for Amanda's taste as she savored the time alone with her husband, just holding him, feeling him hold her, just being. Together.

"There's like fifteen offices in Philly for Watcher activity. Did you find out which one Mankowitz works?"

"No, but I found out where he spends his nights," Amanda said with pride at having gotten at least some information on the cad they could use. "At least some nights by the sound of it. Mr. Mankowitz is a horn dog according to his son."

Nick screwed up his face in a grimace and looked at Mankowitz's picture. "Him? To each his own, I guess."

"Has a lot of girlfriends, that picture must not do him justice, or he's one hell of a sweet talker."

"Watchers' stamina sometimes amazes me," Duncan said as he leaned against the van in thought. "Mankowitz is a field Watcher, right? How does he have time to watch one of us, be a member of a secret society in a secret organization, have a family, and have affairs?"

"Greedy horn dogs find the time, honey," Amanda said.

Nick showed them a piece of paper and said, "He's watching an immortal by the name of Lorraine Dominica."

"Lorraine," Amanda reacted. "That's one of his girlfriends." She looked to Duncan. "Well, that makes his date planner a bit more convenient. He's boinking his assignment."

Duncan jerked his head in surprise at her. She shrugged. "It's a fine word. Silly, but descriptive. She lives on the next street."

"Why don't we mosey over to see if she's home?" Duncan offered, to which Amanda nodded and followed in step with him. When she heard the door of the van slam, she turned to see Nick a few paces behind them.

~~~~~

As they neared New York City, their talk quieted, and Methos was glad to have traffic on his mind instead of the invisible forces that had tormented Elizabeth in a place that always held a soft space in his heart. It seemed like driving from southern New Jersey to the outskirts of Manhattan had taken less time that going fifteen blocks in the city. Methos joined in with the honks from other drivers when a garbage truck decided to park in the middle of the street.

Amy said from the back, "I told you that taking side streets was a bad idea. It's rush hour, for Gods sake!"

Methos took a deep breath after he realized he had been getting tighter and tighter with frustration over the past couple of blocks. "I know you want to get back to your kids as much as I want to get back to Claire, but unless this car has wings and flying capabilities, I'm just going to honk, all right?" He leaned on the horn and just then, a miracle happened. The garbage truck started up and cars started moving. When he got to the corner, he took it fast to get away from the tight streets and jammed up traffic. Bad move. He had entered a one way street the wrong way. There was a wall of cars coming toward them from a just turned green light, so Methos gunned it and expertly drove between an oncoming cab and the stoplight post to turn the corner.

"No way! Don't you know where you are?" Elizabeth screamed as she continued to clutch the dash and her door. "This is another one way!"

Zigzagging past oncoming cars, heedless of middle fingers, honks, and cat calls, Methos finally got them onto a wide, one way street, going in the correct direction. The women were panting from fright and glaring at him. "Have to make things interesting..." he offered as he looked straight ahead, a bit embarrassed. He was really shook up and needed to see Claire now. The things Elizabeth had told him, he'd have to digest later. Right now, all he wanted to do was find the Sheraton Manhattan to drop off Amy and get to Roosevelt Hospital as soon as humanly possible.

When he pulled up to the curb of the hotel, Amy squeezed Elizabeth's shoulder and said, "I'll call the hospital later, or you call me after you see her. Maybe I'll bring the kids up to see her later if that's all right."

"That would be great. Kiss the kids for me," Elizabeth said.

It didn't take long for Amy to vacate the car and run into the hotel. Methos checked the traffic situation quickly and pulled back into traffic. When they were almost there, Elizabeth asked, "How are you doing?"

A bit jarred, he gaped at her, hands still tight on the steering wheel, and finally admitted, "I'm nervous. Sorry about the obstacle course. Maybe I should take a driving class. Never had one."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Thank you for listening to me. Means a lot to me."

"I need to know how it happened." Shifting gears, Methos told her, "Now, when we get there, we were kidnapped. We have to tell them that. Just be fuzzy on the details. We were so overwhelmed and surprised and nervous, and hell, scared and drugged, that we don't know much about what happened or where we were taken. They wanted money. The hospital knows I'm loaded, so they should believe us if anyone asks questions."

"What about Claire's questions? We can't tell her we were kidnapped. She has to know we're all safe."

"We are. Now."

"But look at it from her side. She was attacked, she's in pain, she hasn't been able to see us, she spent the other night, with strangers, then we're not there at all." Elizabeth sighed and looked as if she would cry. He could tell she was starting to shake again. "I just want to hold her and tell her how much I love her."

"How are you doing?" he asked as he took hold of her hand.

She looked at the hand hold in surprise, then a smile came to her face, brightening it a bit. "I'm just fine as long as you're open to letting me in. We need each other now. The three of us have to stick together."

"Like glue." Methos gave her hand a squeeze and came to a stop in front of the hospital. He didn't even turn off the Mazda before he opened the door, jumped out, joined Elizabeth on the sidewalk, and ran into the hospital.

~~~~~

As soon as Duncan turned the corner of the street where Amanda indicated the Mankowitz kid said Lorraine lived, Duncan felt an immortal presence. When he and Amanda slowed their pace, Nick crashed into them from behind. His nose had been stuck in the pile of papers he had brought with him.

"Oh, sorry," he jerked up in surprise and backed off.

"No such thing as a surprise attack when it's another immortal involved," Amanda commented as she whirled around to see if the buzz was coming from the street.

Duncan looked to the second house from the corner, a dump considering an immortal lived there, and saw the curtain of a small window on the left side of the house move. "She's home," Duncan announced and made his way to the front door. He didn't have his sword, but he had a gun. If necessary, he could shoot her if she got the least bit frisky about them kidnaping her lover. He had cautioned the others on the walk over that they wanted Mankowitz alive. A dead witness wasn't at all useful. Nick could download and print all the information he wanted, but if Duncan could get his hands on a member of the group, he could learn more about the extent of the Crusaders organization and agenda.

They didn't even have to ring the bell when they reached the house. An immortal who had to be Lorraine yanked open the front door and brandished an excalibur. "What do you want?"

"To talk." Duncan knew he could easily overpower the petite, long-haired, blond immortal, who looked about as dangerous as a kitten. The sword was over half her height. He pulled open the door, stepped inside, and relieved her of it.

Amanda followed quickly and commented, "Did we wake you?" as she scrutinized Lorraine's silk robe. "Or disturb you? Where is that little weasel?"

Lorraine lost her bravado along with her sword and cowered against the far wall. "What do you want? I don't want to fight."

"Good. I have better things to do today as well," Duncan said as he walked through the house. Lorraine obviously didn't like that and hollered for him to get the hell out.

The house was small and extremely modest for someone who had to have lived a couple of lifetimes by now. It didn't take long to walk through the living room, kitchen, past the bathroom and a door that probably lead to the basement. He knew that she had been on the left side of the house, and figured that was where he'd find the bedroom. When he got closer to the closed door he heard a scuffle inside.

He listened for a moment with his ear to the doorway, thinking whoever was in there might have a gun, but then he heard what sounded like a lamp crashing to the floor. Duncan used the opportunity the diversion from inside caused to open the door and cautiously look inside. He saw a half-dressed plump man setting the lamp back upright by the curtained window. He had jumped when the door opened. This had to be Harry Mankowitz. Duncan walked in and said, "You let your woman answer the door to strangers?"

"I only watch and record," he shakily said. He pulled his unzipped pants up and demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"

"You tell me." Duncan heard hasty footsteps in the hall behind him, and soon Amanda, Nick, then Lorraine poured into the bedroom. Lorraine immediately went to Mankowitz and put her short arms around his ample waist. Beauty and the Beast was what came to Duncan's mind.

"She said they just want to talk," Lorraine told Mankowitz.

Amanda stepped forward. "We'll do more than that, though, if you don't tell us what we need to know."

"What... what is that?" Mankowitz stammered.

Nick stepped behind Duncan and whispered, "I think he recognizes you."

Lorraine looked at Mankowitz. "You do?"

"Ah, no. Never saw him before in my life."

"In the flesh, maybe," Duncan challenged. "But I have a sneaking suspicion you've seen my picture. Maybe a printout from your boss?"

"Who are you?" Lorraine demanded.

"Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

That response got a rise of Mankowitz' eyebrow, and confusion from Lorraine. "Please to meet you," she said in a huff. "Now get out of my house."

"And such a nice house it is," Amanda needled. "What did it cost you? A buck, fifty?"

"I've had enough of you people. Get out!"

Duncan edged closer to Mankowitz and declared, "He's coming with us."

"Me? Why? No. I'm not going anywhere."

"Why don't you go home to your truant kid?" Amanda offered.

Lorraine screamed, "Get out! Now!"

"Lady, we're not going anywhere until he tells us everything he knows and who's all involved," Nick said, moving forward with purpose. A toss of his hand made her flop onto the bed.

"You'll be interested in what he has to say," Duncan told her as she expertly flipped back off the bed to stand near the night stand on the other side of the room.

"I know everything about Harry. What could you possibly tell me that I don't already know?"

Nick shoved a piece of paper at her, she backed off as he came closer, making her jostle the other lamp. She caught it with her hands behind her and stared at the picture. She squinted as she looked at it, then snatched the paper from Nick. "This is you," she told Mankowitz.

"I have no idea who these people are."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Amanda sweetly sang.

"They didn't come for me, they came for you. What did you do?"

"Plenty. You should stay far away from him and everyone he knows." Duncan looked around the room and said, "Maybe you should leave this palace and take a long vacation. It will save your head."

Lorraine gasped. "My head?" She confronted Mankowitz across the bed from her, who looked like if he could disappear into the wall it would make his day. "You said you'd protect my head."

"Ah," Duncan laughed. "That must mean she's not on the list and never will be. Are you helping him collect the names of immortals for them to go after?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Harry's a watcher. He doesn't go after anyone."

"Wrong." Amanda shook her head sadly at Lorraine. "You are such a blind fool. Not only is he as ugly as a pug, but he's obviously been lying to you. Let me fill you in on what's happened in the last 24 hours. It will be extremely enlightening."

Mankowitz actually started whimpering as Amanda sat Lorraine down and filled her in, and Duncan kept a close eye on him. To help Amanda in her dissertation, Nick continued to show Lorraine papers he had printed. One even had a map of the Shiloh area and an X over where the warehouse was located. "Shiloh," Lorraine softly moaned. "You've mentioned Shiloh. You had to take that trip last week, and you said you were going to Shiloh."

Over the course of Amanda's monologue, Mankowitz edged closer and closer to the door. Duncan finally thought he might bolt so stepped into his way. Mankowitz looked up at him scared and stepped back.

"You son of a bitch!" Lorraine boomed at her lover. "You're really a part of this?"

"No, Lorraine, I swear. These people are making up lies."

"What the hell do you see in him?" Amanda asked her.

"He would protect my head. Watchers do that. He said if I make him happy, I'll live."

Nick scowled. "Just when I thought you couldn't be any more of a shithead..."

"You lied to me!" Lorraine repeated and stood up in anger.

"Darling!" he replied in a squeal. "I never lied to you."

"You're still doing it! Don't do that!"

Before anyone in the room knew what happened, a gun shot rang out and Mankowitz sank to the floor. A large red stain flowed down from the hole in his chest as he moaned, "Darling..."

Duncan whirled around to see gun smoke coming from a revolver in Lorraine's hand. She had to have had one hidden in her night stand. "What did you do that for?" Duncan moaned and went to Mankowitz.

"You son of a bitch!" Lorraine cried out as she dropped the gun.

Duncan lowered his head in frustration. "We need to know everything he knows."

"He doesn't know much anymore," Amanda quipped. "If he ever did. What did you see in him?"

Lorraine slowly sat down on the bed as Nick said, "I think we'd better get out of here. The neighborhood's probably used to gunfire, but it wouldn't do to have cops asking questions."

Duncan stood up agreeing. Their work here was done. He asked Lorraine, "Will you be all right?"

"No."

"Maybe you want to come with us," he offered.

Amanda asked, "Why?"

"I'm getting dressed and leaving myself. I need my teacher," Lorraine said as she started to weep.

"Do you need a lift?" Duncan asked again. Amanda cast a look at him as if to say he was being too good a Samaritan. He shrugged. The woman was alone and in a spot of trouble now.

Lorraine walked to the closet and sifted through clothes. She was in a state, but they couldn't stick around long.

"Watch your head," Duncan advised as he ushered Amanda to the door.

"I always have," he heard Lorraine sob as they left.

By the time they returned to the van, sirens were coming closer. He started the van and slowly drove down the street to avoid making a scene. Two cop cars passed them, but didn't look twice at them. Damn her for killing Mankowitz. They could have found out more. Then thinking about it more, Duncan didn't think they could have gotten anything out of him. Although, it was amazing what fright did to one's tongue. Well, what was done was done. One down, countless more to go.

Continued