MacLeod lay on the warehouse floor, body aching from sharing the combined Quickenings of Silas and Kronos with Methos. Again. As he stared up at the shattered ceiling, he could hear Methos' harsh breathing a few feet away. Duncan slowly rolled to his knees, groaning as every muscle in his body protested, and rested his head in his hands. His mind whirling and his thoughts caught up in all the revelations of the past several days, Duncan barely registered the presence of another Buzz, until he heard the soft footsteps. He raised his head - and froze. Cassandra, eyes aflame, held her sword triumphantly at Methos' neck. "Don't move, Highlander, and don't try to stop me. Methos must pay for his crimes!"

"No, Cassandra don't, please!" Duncan reached out a beseeching hand. His eyes blurred, and he could barely make out her small form. He blinked furiously, trying to clear his head.

"You can't possibly understand. You don't know what it's like, that feeling of betrayal." Cassandra's voice was gone, replaced by Richie's.

The Highlander cleared his eyes and could only stare in horror, as Richie, dressed as he had been that fatal night at the racetrack, cackled madly. Bright blue eyes gleamed with hatred as Richie raised his rapier over Methos' kneeling form. "Ooh, what's this? I think I see a demon!" Richie spat. "Well, gotta kill him, save the human race and all that." He pulled back, and swung.

"NOOO!" Duncan yelled, rushing forward, as Richie's sword cleared Methos' head by inches - and Erin poised her sword against Duncan's neck. "Now, Highlander, you know."

She turned, and neatly lopped off his head with a back swing. His last sight was of Methos, still kneeling on the floor at Erin's feet. Smiling.

He stood in the back of Darius' church, breathing in the heavy, sweet cloud of incense. The candles were lit, the Bible propped open on the altar, and the extra chairs assembled, all in readiness for Mass. Still, a nagging sense of unease pricked the back of his mind. Duncan inhaled the cloying incense again and realised what was wrong; the incense was cold, the brazier that burned it had gone out. Choked with fear, remembering the awful sight of Darius' body at the foot of the altar, Duncan hurried forward, knocking the fold out chairs aside. Panic chasing him, he burst through the last of the chairs and stumbled over Richie's headless body. "RICHIE!" Duncan screamed as he dropped to his knees beside him.

"Pity, isn't it?" A quiet, accented voice spoke behind him. "He was so young." Trembling, Duncan lifted his head as he recognised the voice.

"It can't be. You're dead." He refused to turn around. "I found you HERE, myself. Where Richie is now."

"Yes, I know," Darius' voice held an edge of laughter, "it was quite funny, to watch you all get taken in by that Light Quickening nonsense, even Methos. He should really know better by now. Did you really think one fat friar could stop the greatest general since Alexander? What better way to await the Gathering? Live on holy ground, watch the rest of you fools kill each other off, and then I emerge to challenge the last."

Duncan barely listened to Darius plan for the Prize. His brain was caught on the truth of Darius' 'Light Quickening.' "Darius, if there was no Light Quickening for you, then..."

"Yes, there was no Dark Quickening for you, either. Just the madness of your little mind." Darius laughed. "Koltec was never anything more than a clever charlatan. And no amount of Evian 'mountain spring water' would make any sort of a difference."

Duncan's eyes filled with tears as he stared at the mutilated body of the son he had failed to protect. "Forgive me, Richie." Numbly, he rose to his feet, drew his katana and turned to face his old friend and mentor. Darius rested his folded hands on the hilt of Richie's rapier, its bloodstained blade clashing angrily with his priest's robes. It wasn't until Duncan met Darius' dark, flashing eyes that he noticed the mist, tainted red, seeping up through the cracks in the stone floor, rising behind the traitor priest in a blood-red wall. And then the bells started, no longer singing in sweet, even tones, but clanging harshly and frantically, as though a madman was at the bell ropes. Duncan jerked his gaze upwards, distracted by the bells until Darius slashed through his midsection. Duncan fell to his knees, and couldn't bring his sword to bear as Darius aimed the final stroke at his unprotected neck. The red mist filled Duncan's vision as the bells continued to jangle in his ears.

Duncan fell out of bed. He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears before he realised it was the phone. Reaching up to the night stand, he picked up the receiver with one hand and turned the light on with the other, looking for the clock. Who would be calling him at three o'clock in the morning?

"Hello?"

"Mac?" Duncan dropped the phone in shock. "Mac, why'd you do it?" Richie's voice, still boyishly plaintive, sounded tinny from the floor.

With shaking hands, Duncan reached for the receiver.

"Richie?" He whispered, then suddenly angry, "Who is this? Do you think this is funny?" He slammed the phone down. It immediately rang again. Duncan stared at it as he would a poisonous snake. The phone continued to ring demandingly. He had to pick it up. If there was any chance that Richie was alive… He picked it up.

"Mac, don't do this to me. I trusted you!"

"Richie, I..."

"Wasn't it enough that you came for my head before? Did you really have to kill me? What sort of champion does that make you?" Richie's voice was still pleading, but an angry note crept into it. "And then you carry on, like nothing ever happened?"

"Rich, if I could change what happened, don't you think I would?" Duncan cried in anguish. "I would give up my head, if it would bring you back!"

"Oh, very noble, MacLeod, but it wouldn't change what you did to me. How could you? How could you so casually murder your own student?"

"It wasn't murder! I... it was... an accident." Duncan's voice dropped to a whisper.

"What will it take, MacLeod? You've always been a believer in justice. When will justice be done for me?" The phone line went dead.

"Richie..." Duncan's voice broke. The confusion, anger and fear he had banished in the peace of the monastery returned full force, and tears ran down his face unchecked.

But not really empty. That was the problem. Somewhere inside, he knew, was Richie. Richie’s Quickening, Richie’s memories, all that Richie had thought and felt. Maybe what he had felt about him. It came out in dreams, didn’t it? All those dreams. Richie hated him, he knew it. And why should he not? Mac had betrayed him.

Murdered him.

The answer phone picked up, and Mac picked up something to throw at it as his own cheerful voice told the caller to leave a message at the tone. But then he thought, it might be Richie again. Or had he ever really called? Mac didn’t know for sure. He couldn’t trust his own memories, his own mind. He really was mad.

The answer phone bleeped and a familiar voice started to speak. not the one he had hoped for, but almost as good. Tisiphone.

“Good morning Highlander. Sleep well, or did the demons come out to play again?” she started to speak on the tape.

Mac picked up the receiver and said to her. “Tisiphone. No more games. When and where?”

She caught the change in his tone of voice. He wasn’t telling her to stop the games, it didn’t sound like that. He was... empty, hopeless, resigned. Like he knew. Like he finally understood what he deserved.

Perfect.

She told him where to find her, and he just said “Alright.”

As Erin hung up, she felt the delicious thrill of victory, sweeter than honey. Then she reprimanded herself. Think like that and she would end up like the ones she taught.

Besides, there was one more player to get into place.

As MacLeod was leaving for their meeting, sword in coat but no particular determination in his step, Erin again phoned Methos.

It took a while for him to answer. First thing in the morning was not his best time. Eventually, he picked up, with an irritated “Hello?”

“Adam. Your friend MacLeod. Do you know where he is right now?” she said, and then hung up as he started to ask if she’d lost him. Then she got in her car and left before MacLeod got far enough down the street to feel her.

The light on the answer phone was blinking, probably from the three increasingly worried calls he had made on the way there. Well, no need for the Highlander to hear those. Methos pressed play to let them be erased next call. And heard an interesting assortment of calls.

First was Erin, or rather Tisiphone. There was a definite difference in the way they spoke. It was something about his lover that rather worried him. But then, who among them never had trouble keeping their different identities straight?

Then was a call that made him feel sick. Damn Erin, how the hell had she managed that? Probably some trick with tapes and computers. Richie Ryan, to the life, and plaintively asking Mac why he’d killed him. Damn her, that was going too far.

But the next call on the tape was what really scared him. Not Erin’s mocking good morning, but the tone of Duncan’s voice as he picked up and answered her.

Like he was already dead.

As soon as he heard the address she gave Methos was out the door and back in his car, leaving as fast as he could drive in the empty, early morning streets. He had to get there fast, to save his friend. Because by the sound of it he wasn’t interested in saving himself.

MacLeod looked around and got out his sword. The area was run down and would probably stay quiet. So, they could get this over with without interruptions.

“I’m ready.” he said simply, bringing his sword up. No proud declaration of his name today. Not for this.

“You know why?” Tisiphone asked. “You do understand?”

“To avenge Richie.”

“And protect the living. You killed your son, you could kill anyone.”

Mac winced and nodded. “Just get on with it.”

Erin nodded too, and attacked.

She was good. No doubt about it, had she challenged MacLeod a few days ago he might even have had trouble defeating her. But a lot can change in a few days, and Mac had no intention of winning. Erin could see that, feel it in the way he was fighting, hardly defending himself.

“What? The proud Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod only amounts to this?” Tisiphone taunted, swinging at him, he blocked and dodged away, a flare of anger in the back of his brain. “A child could beat you.” Duncan swung at her more seriously. “How you ever beat young Ryan I don’t know.” Tisiphone blocked and said, and as the words brought his guilt home to him once again she twisted her sword and his katana was wrenched out of his fingers. Reflexively he dropped and rolled to try and grab it again, but Erin was there first, and as he came up her sword was at his neck.

He froze, dropped his hand back to his side. He looked up into Tisiphone’s eyes and the judgement he saw there was only what he deserved.

“Do it.” he whispered.

Erin smiled.

Right then Methos’ car came whipping around the corner and pulled up. He jumped out before it had even fully stopped, his sword in his hand.

>>Right on time. >> Thought Erin.

“Stay back, Adam. It’s over.” MacLeod yelled over to him.

“No! Erin, don’t kill him.” Methos yelled, running up and stopping just a few steps away.

“Why not?” Erin challenged.

“You don’t want to.” he said. She raised an eyebrow. He continued quickly “Because if you do I will probably have to kill you, or at the very least never see you again.”

“Then I would miss you. But not half as much as I’d miss you if he killed you. And as for my head, you can have it, but this bastard’s head is mine.”

“Erin, let him live.”

“Like he let Richie live? Why?”

“He’s a good man, he..”

“Yes, I’ve heard. I’ve heard all your reasons, but what I need is one good reason. And I don’t think you have one.” Erin replied icy calm.

Methos stood and desperately tried to think of something that hadn’t already been said.

“Come on Adam, just one reason. One good reason that I can’t refute and I let him live.” Erin said, standing there with her sword to MacLeod’s neck.

Methos stood there helplessly. She had heard all his reasons. What could he say that might work? That he loved him? Erin would just laugh, and it would be a hundred years before Mac could look him in the eye again without blushing. Not that he would have a hundred years.

He fingered the gun in his pocket. That was his last option. And even ignoring the rules, this was Erin. And she really did have a point about the boy scout.

He watched as she raised her sword, his fingers tightening around the gun as he came to his decision... then saw her reverse her sword and sheath it. She booted the Highlander in the back and he sprawled forwards on the ground.

The Highlander and the Oldest Immortal were equally confused right then. All this and she wouldn’t..? Then Erin stepped forwards and picked up MacLeod’s katana. For a moment they thought she would use that, but she instead walked over to where a lamp post was right up against the wall, and wedged the blade in the gap. She looked at the beautiful sword for a moment with regret, as MacLeod picked himself up again, then sighed and pulled back with all her immortal strength.

The sword broke. There were a few sparks and a feeling like the ghost of a quickening. Then she threw the hilt down next to the broken blade.

Mac saw what had happened and whispered no. The dull hopeless look in his eyes was replaced by real pain. His katana was shattered.

Methos blinked and collected his thoughts. Erin walked past him towards her car, totally ignoring MacLeod. As she passed Methos turned to walk with her and said dryly “Did you have to do that? It was a nice sword.”

She paused a moment to let him catch up, then replied “It was either do it in symbol or do it in true, and as I’m letting him live I really don’t want to give Amanda another reason to come after me.”

“So.. what was your one good reason?”

“You asking because you still can’t think of one?” she asked, not precisely teasing. Then she shrugged. “What good are enemies if they aren’t around to know they are beat. That and what Riddler said to Two-Face.”

“ ‘If you kill him, he wont learn nothing’? ” Methos guessed the quote she meant.

“Personally I think he wont learn anyway, but you think you see something in him.” She got to the car and calmly unlocked it and got in. “So he’s your problem now. You keep an eye on him.” She told him through the window as she put the keys in the ignition. She paused and added “And if he kills you, I will not hesitate to kill him, whatever he says. So if it was your idea, do be sure to tell me in advance.”

“Believe me I have every intention of keeping my head right where it is.”

“Good. I rather like it there myself.” she grabbed the front of his sweater, pulled him towards her, leant forwards and kissed him. “I’ll see you in another hundred years or so.” she told him when they finally stopped for breath.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Sure you will. And you’ll get married again while I’m gone. I know you, remember?” she started the engine, then looked over at MacLeod and her face went blank. “Want some free advice about your ‘friend’? Keep him on a leash, and don’t turn your back.”

Methos nodded and stepped clear of the car, privately admitting to himself she could well be right about that too. Erin just drove off. It would probably be that hundred years before they met in person again, but he thought in a month or two she would call him. He decided if she did he wouldn’t mention it to MacLeod.

He turned and walked back over to his friend. MacLeod looked wrung out and confused, just standing there with the pieces of his sword in his hands. Methos put a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on. I think we could both do with a beer.”

-THE END-

Author's notes- beccaelizabeth

Tisiphone (“avenger”) one of three pre Hellenic goddesses who enforced matriarchal rules, later known variously as the furies, the strong ones, or the kindly ones. (Anyone guessed I’m a Sandman fan yet?)